Preach the Word: Rebuke!

2 Timothy 4:1–2 (NKJV)

1 I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom: 2 Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.

For the last few weeks, our congregation in Coeur d’Alene has been meditating on Paul’s charge to Timothy to “Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season.” Last week we began looking at the series of imperatives that Paul gives to explain his charge. Paul writes, “Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.” This morning I would like us to consider what it means to “rebuke.”

The Greek word behind “rebuke” is epitimao and, in the Greek OT, is typically reserved for God’s word of power standing against any and every obstacle. Stauffer notes in the Theological Dictionary of the NT:

God’s rebuke shakes heaven (Job 26:11) and moves the earth and the sea (2 Βασ‌. 22:16; ψ 17:15; 103:7). He [rebukes] the Red Sea and it dries up to let the people of God pass over (ψ 105:9; cf. Is. 50:2 Σ). His Word of command whips up the storm so that men cry to heaven in their distress; His Word of rebuke stills it again so that the waves subside and the cries of distress cease (ψ 106:29)… But for the most part God’s reproof is directed against men, against the high and mighty until horse and rider are bemused (ψ 75:6; 118:21), against the enemies of God and His people whose raging is like that of the sea (Is. 17:13 Ἀ; ψ 9:5; 79:16), but also against the apostate people itself, so that it wastes and perishes.

To rebuke, therefore, is to deliver a sharp warning that the attitude or action being taken is in clear opposition to God’s word. So when Peter declares that Jesus shall by no means suffer on the cross, Jesus rebukes Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan!” (Mk 8:33) When James and John, the sons of thunder, want fire to fall on a Samaritan village for its rejection of Jesus, Jesus rebukes them, “You do not know what manner of spirit you are of” (Lk 9:55). A rebuke is a short, verbal thrashing. It is a divine wake-up call.

What this means, therefore, is that the minister of the Gospel must be prepared to speak bluntly about attitudes and actions that are diametrically opposed to the Word of God and the Gospel of Christ. As I emphasized for my flock last week, it is not the minister’s calling to tell smarmy stories that make people feel good about themselves, it is his duty to speak the Word of God to the people of God – and this often means confronting sinful attitudes and actions.

·      If you have no interest in understanding and obeying the Word of God, then the Spirit of God is not in you.

·      If you think you can thrive spiritually while marginalizing the

importance of your local church, you are likely going to hell.

·      If you think God is pleased with your bitterness and resentment just because you have justified it to yourself, you are deceived.

·      If you prize happiness more than holiness, then you are serving your own lusts not the Lord of glory.

·      If you sit in judgment over your homosexual cousin while routinely indulging your lust for pornography, you may not know Jesus Christ.

·      If you are more interested in stockpiling cash than helping the poor, you are an idolater.

·      If you refuse to heed correction and to receive rebuke, God will break you and bring your plans to naught.

Do any of these things strike close to home? Then give heed, listen to the prompting of the Spirit, and repent. Turn from your sin, seek the Lord’s forgiveness through the shed blood of His Son Jesus, and cry out for the enabling power of the Spirit to free you from these attitudes and actions and to restore you to fellowship with God and with His people.

So reminded of our sin and that there is only one sacrifice, Jesus the Christ, whose shed blood can cover the guilt of our sin, let us confess our sin, beseeching God’s forgiveness. And as we confess, let us kneel together as we are able. We will have a time of silent confession followed by the corporate confession found in your bulletin.

Preach the Word: Convince!

2 Timothy 4:1–2 (NKJV)

1 I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom: 2 Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.

What exactly does it mean that Timothy is, in Paul’s words, to “Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season”? Thankfully, Paul gave Timothy some guidance and direction, guidance and direction that can help ministers of the Gospel today understand their task. Paul continues, “Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.” So let us consider each of these commands, beginning today with what it means to “convince.”

The Greek word behind “convince” is elencho and means “to show someone his sin and to summon him to repentance” (TDNT). The ESV translates it as “reprove” in this case and that captures the sense. Paul uses the word elsewhere in the pastoral epistles:

·      1 Tim 5:20 – He commands Timothy, “Those [elders] who are sinning [reprove] in the presence of all, that the rest also may fear.”

·      Titus 1:9 – Paul notes that elders are to “be able, by sound doctrine, both to exhort and [to reprove] those who contradict.”

·      Titus 2:15 – Paul commands Titus, “Speak these things, exhort, and [reprove] with all authority. Let no one despise you.”

To reprove, therefore, involves two components. First, the preacher must identify what is erroneous or sinful – he is the “reprove” those who are sinning, to “reprove” those who contradict, and to “reprove” with all authority. Second, the preacher must summon the offender to repentance. “Let no one despise you,” Paul commands, since the preacher is to speak the very words of God to the one sinning.

What this means is that the minister of the Gospel must be prepared to deal with the sins of his people. It is not the job of the preacher to tell smarmy stories that make God’s people feel good about themselves; it is not the minister’s responsibility to make people feel comfortable; his responsibility is to speak the Word of God into the lives of God’s people so that their sins are exposed and they grow in holiness and in the fear and love of God.

If this is the duty of ministers of the Gospel, if ministers are “to show someone his sin and to summon him to repentance” then what corresponding duty does this require of those who are reproved? What is your responsibility? Your duty is to listen and to give heed. Your duty is not to harden your neck and resent correction, but to cultivate a spirit that longs for reproof.

So reminded this morning that preaching the Word involves exposing sin and summoning God’s people to repentance, let us acknowledge our sin: preachers often fail to speak clearly about the sin that so easily entangles us and Christians often bristle when our sin is exposed and confronted. Rather than humble ourselves before the Word of God, we are tempted to say, “What will they think of me if I say that?” or “Who do you think you are to confront me?” And so reminded of our sin and that there is only one sacrifice, Jesus the Christ, whose shed blood can cover the guilt of our sin, let us confess our sin, beseeching God’s forgiveness. And as we confess, let us kneel together as we are able. We will have a time of silent confession followed by the corporate confession found in your bulletin.

Preaching Coram Deo

2 Timothy 4:1–2 (NKJV)

1 I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom: 2 Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.

Last week we considered Paul’s charge to Timothy, Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. For the next few weeks I would like us to consider other portions of Paul’s exhortation that we grow in our love for the Word and become ever more humble before our God.

So this morning let us consider why Paul charges Timothy to preach the word. The answer? Timothy will answer to God. Paul writes, I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom… Why must Timothy be careful to preach the word in season and out of season? Because God is going to demand an accounting from Timothy for how he executed his responsibility. Did he preach the word faithfully? Did he encourage the fainthearted, rebuke the hardened, convince the doubtful, exhort the sinful?

Paul’s words remind us that we all live Coram Deo – we all live before the face of God. Consequently, we shall give an answer for every rash word that we have spoken, for every wicked action we have committed, and for every sinful thought we have entertained. It is appointed unto men to die once and after this to face the judgment. We shall answer for the foul words we spoke to that other driver; we shall answer for our cowardice in the face of opposition; we shall answer for our use of porn, our indifference to our spouse, our waste of our employer’s time. While such judgment will not result in the condemnation of those who are in Christ, neither will such judgment be a warm and fuzzy encounter with our best bud; it will rather be a sober evaluation before our Lord and Master.

Consequently, Paul charges Timothy to remember that this evaluation is coming and not to take it lightly. As Paul writes to the Corinthians, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad” (2 Cor 5:10). This reminder was to fill Timothy and us with a due sense of reverence and diligence.

I want to take a moment to thank you all for your continued prayers for me and for my family as we await the results of the biopsy taken on one of the enlarged lymph nodes in my neck. Lord willing, we will receive the results the middle of this next week. The mere possibility that this may be some form of terminal cancer has reminded me vividly of the shortness of life, of how dependent we all are, each and every moment, on the sustaining hand of our Creator and Preserver, and of how critical it is that we be prepared to stand before Him cleansed by the shed blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, robed in His righteousness, and adorned with good works by the power of His Spirit.

So reminded this morning that we shall all appear before our God and His Christ, let us remember that on this Lord’s Day we also appear before Him to hear His voice. And having heard His voice rebuking our complacency and our sinfulness, let us confess our sin in Christ’s name, beseeching His forgiveness. And as we confess, let us kneel together as we are able. We will have a time of silent confession followed by the corporate confession found in your bulletin.