GRACE BAPTIST CHURCH

NEEDED: MEN WITH A MESSAGE
Six Characteristics of a Gospel Preacher
Revelation 10:8-11

Don Fortner

In this tenth chapter of Revelation, John saw the Lord Jesus as a mighty angel, standing upon the earth and the sea, with a little book open in his hand, by which he rules the world in sovereign majesty. Now he receives a command to take the little book. So John goes to the Lord Jesus and asks him to give him the book. Then he is told, "Take it, and eat it up; and it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey." The meaning of the picture is just this: In order for John to speak as a prophet in the name of God, he must first understand and digest the message he is sent to declare; he must experience for himself what he preaches to others. He writes in verse ten, "I took the little book out of the angel's hand, and ate it up; and it was in my mouth sweet as honey: and as soon as I had eaten it, my belly was bitter." To his spiritual palate, the message he received was sweet, because it was the will of God. But to his carnal nature, the message he received was bitter, because the flesh is always contrary to the Spirit. And it was bitter to his belly, because the message he received was a message of final judgment. Yet, John was assured that the message he had received from God would be heard. In verse eleven, the Angel says, "Thou must prophesy again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings."

That is the general meaning of these verses. The "little book" is the book of God's eternal decrees regarding all things. And John was given a vision and revelation of things, which must come to pass. And it was his responsibility to declare what God revealed to him. But there is a message in the text for us today.

Every true Gospel preacher is a man sent from God with a message he must declare.

This is the title of my sermon to you tonight: NEEDED: MEN WITH A MESSAGE. The church today, as perhaps never before, needs men, men with a message from God himself, a message burning in their souls that must be delivered. We have plenty of preachers. We do not need more preachers! But we are desperately in need of men with a message from God burning in their souls!

The church today needs some men, real men, who are bold for the glory of God and courageous in the cause of Christ. Whenever God is pleased to do great things for his church, he always raises up great men through whom he is pleased to work. In the eyes of the unbelieving, those men may seem a little too rough, too uncouth, too straight-forward. Men usually are! Moses, Elijah and John the Baptist were not mice. They were men. Martin Luther, John Calvin and John Bunyan were not timid rabbits. They were men, men filled with the Spirit of God. They were bold men, ruggedly honest and intensely zealous, because they were jealous for the truth of God and the glory of God. Oh, may God give us such men today!

We need men who are free of fear and cowardice, who feel themselves expendable in the cause of Christ, who cannot be frightened with threats of death because they have already died to the allurements of the world. These men will serve God and the souls of men from motives too high to be understood by the religious entertainers of our day, who will do anything to please the crowd and get their money. Such men of God will be free from the pressures that control the weaklings who now occupy most of the pulpits in this land. They will not be forced to compromise by the pressure of circumstances, or compelled to do unconscientable things to please their audiences. Their only compulsion will be the love of Christ, the glory of God, and the truth of the gospel.

This kind of boldness and freedom is necessary if we are to have prophets in our pulpits, instead of puppets. Men who serve God do not make decisions based upon fear. They take no course of action out of a desire to please men. They perform no services for financial gain. They do not employ any method that is designed merely to get results. They do not allow themselves to be influenced by the love of publicity or the desire for reputation. They do not serve self. They serve God.

Most of what goes on in our churches today is done out of nothing but fear. We are afraid of losing our crowds, so we keep them entertained with programs, movies, concerts, ball games, clowns, movie stars, and gimmics of every kind imaginable. Preachers are afraid of losing their jobs, so they keep their ear to the ground and preach whatever the bulk of the people want to hear. They are inspired by fear. Whatever the people want them to do, they do. What ever the people want them to preach, they preach. And they go about their work with a trumped up zeal and show of godliness that impresses the people they are so anxious to impress. These modern prophets of deceit are called and motivated by men and money, nothing more. They do not know the voice of the eternal God.

The true prophet of God neither seeks nor follows public opinion. He seeks the will of God, and follows the direction of the Holy Spirit. He knows the burden of the Word of the Lord that crushed the hearts of the Old Testament prophets; and he must deliver it regardless of cost or consequence. He has no personal interest to protect, no ambition to pursue, and nothing to lose. He has already given everything over to Christ. Therefore he fears no man. He is completely careless about his standing among men. If they follow him, well and good. If they reject him, he loses nothing that he holds dear. Whether he is accepted or rejected by men, he is unmoved. He will go on proclaiming the truth of God. He is not a politician. He is a preacher!

If the church of Christ is to accomplish anything in this day for the glory of God, she must once again have some real men to fill her pulpits. We must repudiate the weaklings who dare not speak out for God. We must seek by earnest prayer some men who are made of the stuff that made the prophets and martyrs of old. God will hear the cries of his church today, just as he heard the cries of Israel in Egypt. He will revive again! He will send pastors after his heart to feed his people with knowledge and understanding (Jer. 3:15). He will send men once again to stand in the gap and boldly declare the truth of God for the glory of Christ. I know that he will answer our prayers, if we call upon him with earnest hearts. This is God's way among men. When God sends men filled with his Spirit, through their labor in preaching the gospel of Christ, he will call his elect from the four corners of the earth and send that long awaited revival which we so desperately need and (I hope) want. And when God sends such men, you can be sure of this: They will be men with a message from God to the hearts and souls of men. It would be well to paint signs and hang them over every pulpit in the land, which read, "NEEDED: MEN WITH A MESSAGE!"

I want to take these four verses, Revelation 10:8-11, as a picture of the kind of men God uses. Here are six characteristics of those men who are sent of God to preach the gospel of Christ.

I.THAT MAN WHO IS CALLED OF GOD TO PREACH THE GOSPEL KNOWS THE LORD JESUS CHRIST.

When the voice spoke to John, he knew the voice. He was commanded to go to One whom he knew, "the Angel which standeth upon the sea and upon the earth." No man can speak for Christ who does not know Christ. I cannot introduce you to a person I have never met. But I have absolutely no trouble introducing you to someone I know. If I know a man, I can describe him to you with such clarity that, the first time you see him, you will know him too. I fear that the reason so many have difficulty telling others about Christ is that they have never known Christ themselves. I fear that the reason so many preachers are so uncomfortable preaching Christ is that they do not know Christ. A man never gets tired of talking about someone he loves. A person never feels uncomfortable about telling others of someone he loves.

This is the first thing I see in the text: John knew the Lord Jesus. He was personally acquainted with the Son of God. He had seen the Lord in his glory (Rev. 10:1-2;Isa.6:1-8). He did not simply know about Christ. He knew Christ himself. That man who is called of God to preach the gospel knows Christ (John 17:2). Preaching, at its best, is simply telling men and women about Christ, the Savior...

II. THAT MAN WHO IS CALLED OF GOD TO PREACH THE GOSPEL HAS A COMMISSION FROM GOD.

I do not know that I can explain it, but that man who is called of God to preach the gospel does have a distinct mandate from God to preach the gospel. God gives him a message which he must declare. And God gives him the ability and the opportunity to declare that message (Jer. 1:8-9).

It was God himself who told John to take the book, eat it and proclaim its message. No man can preach the gospel in the power of God the Holy Spirit to the hearts of men who is not sent of God (Rom. 10:15).

III. THAT MAN WHO IS CALLED OF GOD TO PREACH THE GOSPEL SEEKS A MESSAGE FROM GOD HIMSELF.

John went directly to Christ and said, "give me the little book." If the preacher would preach with purpose for the good of men's souls and the glory of God, he must seek his message at the throne of grace. Old John Trapp said, "Three things make a preacher: reading, prayer and temptation. He that would understand God's riddles must plough with this heifer." The Spirit of God and the message of God is not given to any but those who deligently seek it at the throne of grace.

It is the responsibility of every gospel preacher to give himself with untiring deligence to the labor of seeking and declaring the message of God (I Tim. 4:12-16; II Tim. 4:1-5).

IV. THAT MAN WHO IS SENT OF GOD TO PREACH THE GOSPEL FIRST EXPERIENCES IN HIS OWN SOUL WHAT HE PREACHES TO OTHERS.

The Lord commanded John to take the little book, "and eat it up." By reading, prayer and meditation, the preacher must devour the Holy Scriptures, so that like a ready scribe he may instruct the ignorant in the things of God. Every man who ever preached to the hearts of men, preached from the inner experiences of his own heart. The gospel preacher gets a message from the heart of God, digests it in his own heart, and delivers it in the power of the Holy Spirit to the hearts of men.

To his spiritual palate the Word of God was as sweet as honey. Nothing is sweeter and more precious to the renewed heart than the Word of God (Ps. 19:10; 119:103; Jer. 15:16).

Martin Luther said, "I could not live even in Paradise without the Word of God. But with the Word, I could live even in hell itself."

C. AND JOHN TASTED, BY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE, THE BITTERNESS OF THE MESSAGE HE HAD TO PREACH.

The gospel of Christ is never pleasing to the flesh. And the message God sends his servants to declare is never appealing to the flesh.

1. The message of God is a message of repentance. And repentance is a painfully bitter experience.
2. The gospel demands submission to Christ as Lord. And submission is contrary to the flesh.
3. The message we are sent to preach demands faith in a Substitute. And faith is opposed to the flesh.

That man who does not know the bitterness of gospel repentance, the humiliation of submitting to the dominion of Christ, and the pain of self-denying faith in his own soul can never preach the gospel to the hearts of men. It takes a wounded heart to reach wounded hearts. It takes a pierced heart to pierce hearts. And it takes a broken heart to break hearts.

V. But there is another thing to be seen in the bitterness John felt. And this is my fifth point. THAT MAN WHO IS CALLED 0F GOD TO PREACH THE GOSPEL KNOWS THE SERIOUS, ETERNAL CONSEQUENCES OF HIS MESSAGE.

John's bitterness was in part due to the fact that he knew the message he had to deliver was to many a message of eternal ruin. He was about to announce the final woe of God's judgment upon the earth. And his heart broke within him as he saw both the dark days that lie ahead for God's church and as he saw the multitudes perishing. The Word of God brought bitterness to his belly, because he knew that the preaching of the Word would bring the great persecution described in chapter eleven. And, like John, every man who is called of God to preach the gospel knows full well what the results of his preaching will be.

A. THE FAITHFUL PREACHING OF THE GOSPEL ALWAYS BRINGS BITTER PERSECUTION FROM AN UNBELIEVING WORLD.

You who hear the gospel are blessed of God. This is God's means of salvation. But if you hear this message and yet believe not, it would be infinitely better for you if you had never been born. The hottest place in hell is reserved for those who wilfully reject the gospel of Christ (Matt. 11:20-30).

To preach the gospel of Christ is to get the ill will of the world. But to faithfully preach Christ and him crucified is to magnify the triune God and do eternal good to the souls of men. Let the world sneer. Let the world rise up in arms. If Christ is honored and he is pleased to use the likes of this useless vessel for the salvation of his elect, nothing else matters!

Regardless of cost or consequence, whether men will hear or whether they will forbear, in season and out of season, the man who is called of God will deliver the message of God. He fears nothing but God. He seeks nothing but the honor of his God. Therefore he cannot be induced by terror or by bribery to trim, alter, or change his message.

*