Written by: April J. Buchanan
A man under the text never reaches its end, and he is never completely satisfied, as there seems always to be something more lying beneath the surface. Some men preach the text. Some men preach themselves. Some men preach for men. Few men are instruments by which the Spirit works to proclaim the Word and set them as examples of its power.
The words of John MacArthur echo in my ears as I write this. He once joked that his wife had an impossible standard for him, that she expected him to live out everything he preached.
Though the men God has set before His people who are faithful are few, it is not that such men are rare jewels. No. They are few in comparison to the many false teachers and biblically unqualified people who stand in pulpits. No woman is qualified for this office. Only certain men are. Even this is a comparison that illustrates our meaning here. In every church there may be many saints, but among them few are biblically qualified to preach the Word.
Yet all are under the Word, and that example is to be demonstrated in the pulpit.
While we are in our Bibles every day, we must take care that we do not merely go into them and explore their riches, but that we are under the Word, desiring it to work in us, increasing in knowledge and love, with truth adorned by such grace as is first wrought within.
If we seek a word, something to fix us, something superficial, we may find it. It has been said well that this is like putting Band-Aids on bullet wounds.
If we seek Christ and His truth wrought within us, then there we find that gracious, powerful, deep, abiding, prevailing, sustaining, and preserving work that is not mere doctrine, but the powerful working of God within.
Do our lives testify to the glorious grace of God? Many are the words, boasting, claims, knowledge, and spirituality of men.
Few are those whose words and lives testify alike to the work of God within. One man boasts of his personal relationship with Jesus, all God is doing for him, his health and prosperity, his personal experiences, and how you can have that too. Another man boasts that he is not like such men and that his faith is tethered to church history and a biblical foundation. One says, look at my love and my good deeds and all my possessions, because God loves me so much and I do so much for Him. Another says, look at all my knowledge and my rebukes of abuses and excesses in the church that are falsely claimed to be of God.
If we heard in our ears the rebuke of Christ, “I have this against you” or “I have these things against you,” might we not be less quick to praise ourselves and more ready to respond in repentance, genuine repentance, holding to that which is good and casting off all those things He has against us? Might we examine ourselves first, continually, and faithfully by the Word of God so that we may hear Him? He has not left us without His Word. We cannot say, “If He had only written us a letter.” Would we be so foolish?
May we set our ears, our hearts, and our minds to the text and our eyes upon our Lord, crying out that He may hear us and that we may hear Him in His Word. May we submit ourselves to His voice, His commands, His warnings, His admonition, and His consolations.
Jesus does not say that good works are bad or that knowledge is bad. He commends the churches in Revelation for such things. Do we consider where we may need to repent? We may call fellow pilgrims, fellow slaves of Christ, and fellow saints to repent, and that may be good. We may expose the errors, heresies, and false teachings which God hates and which Jesus commends us to expose. We may expose those who speak many words but whose works are inconsistent. We may be puffed up in thinking that we, wherever we stand, are not like them. If they repent, it is to the glory of God and for the sake of their own souls. But what if we do not set ourselves before the text and hear where it calls us to repent?
Dear saint, let us hear the Word of the Lord and submit ourselves to it. There is enough distraction in the visible church today, and enough blasphemy and wicked things done in the name of God, to puff ourselves up and busy ourselves with right rebukes and warnings while failing to see where we may need to hear our Lord say, “Repent.”
May it be a grace to us that we should think likewise and consider our own souls as well.
Grace to you all.
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