Randy Bell | 7 Steps: Loving the World to Share the Good News Part 2

The Bible teaches that all Christians are called to be teachers and share the Good News with others.

The primary role of prophecy is divine preaching, and it's rare for individuals to receive specific prophecies.

Older women are specifically called to be teachers and disciples of younger women, teaching them to live a practical Christian life.

Women are called to serve, teach children, and younger women, and to do good works, but are not permitted to have authority over men.

Thank you. Now, look at even further. Acts 2.17, when talking about the creation of the church and then when God empowers the church in Acts, the prophetic word says, it shall come to pass in the last days, I will pour out of my spirit upon all flesh, your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. Now, remember, before you get into being Pentecostal here in the Baptist church, remember that word prophecy is more clearly rendered in American English as preach, being preachers. Now, does it also cover saying future things? Yes, it does. But if you think about it, go to the time of Acts and the disciples. Do we have any record of James the Apostle giving any prophecy? Can't find it. Is there any prophecy that Peter gave? I don't think I can find any if you go through the apostles there's no prophecy none who gave prophecy? Jesus did clearly in the scripture was there prophecies in Acts? yes, there's a small amount of prophecy in Acts the bulk of prophecy comes from the Old Testament prophets who received huge visions of Christ's coming the fulfillment happened with the church and the outpouring of the spirit fulfilling the prophecies that were being spoken of and even for the further time when Christ comes back. The bulk of prophecies were done before. The prophets of the church are calling people to repent and follow Jesus. In other words, divine preaching. And there can be some prophecy, but it's very rare today. And it was very rare in the time of the apostles. We kind of get the wrong idea that some major thing happened. It wasn't that often, even with the apostles, that there was that anymore, because Jesus did it all. He kept speaking most of the prophecy. So when we talk about that he's pouring out, he's talking about pouring out for his people to open their mouths, proclaim the good news of Jesus, and be driven to see that that's the fulfillment of prophecy, because he's coming back for judgment. Does that make sense? Now, I'm not condemning anybody. I'm just trying to make sure you understand what it's saying here. The point is, you're called to teach the nations that Jesus Christ is coming back in judgment. And that's the key to understanding the whole point here. And that's why it's important to see here that the calling is for men and women, servants and handmaidens, not just men, both groups here. 2 Timothy 2 goes on to say, you therefore my son be strong in the grace that is in christ jesus and the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses the teaching that paul gave he says make sure you heard them and plus other people who taught commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also the word men here is anthropos it's the general word for mankind it's not just talking about males. This is saying teach and commit the teachings that I just told you and isn't that what Matthew 28 said? Go make disciples, teaching them to observe everything I've already commanded you. He's saying find people that are faithful enough who will come week by week to church and be trained in the truth so they can become teachers of the next generation. This is what he's talking about. Literally, find those to be faithful people who you'll be able to teach others also so that it can go on. It's the reinvention of the teaching so that it continues through the generations until He comes back. Teaching is the bulk of the message of the church. He calls all His Christians to be teachers because that is the whole goal for the generations, to know the truth of God. Does that make sense? And therefore, He's calling all His servants to do this work of the teaching. Now he's real specific then on what to do with it. Titus 2 says, older ladies, older women. Here's what I want you to do. You are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, backbiters. Not given to wine, which means don't be an alcoholic, don't be addicted. Teachers of good things. Notice that term, teachers of good things. Notice right in there, the call is very clear. And your maturity become teachers of good things. Now, here's the key. Most ladies won't admit they're older. Ladies are more tender with that. When I'm at work and I have to do a thing where we have to put in people's name, address, and their birthdays, I have never had a man complain about giving me their birth dates in the year they were born. Only women make it. I don't want to say that. Why do I have to say that? So just want to add that for free. But the point is, what I'm saying here is older women are the ones who are called to be very clearly teachers. Notice that. Teachers. You're expected by the age to be a teacher. Notice that. It's not by a special calling. It's by time. As you get to that point, you're expected to become the teacher. See what I'm saying? Again, the natural process is you should be a teacher at this point. Be a teacher. And it says that they admonish... Who do they teach? They admonish the young women to live practical Christian life by how they act with their husband and their children and so forth. Literal teaching of how to live out Christianity in the community and in the home. Absolute understanding, the application is their focus of teaching. They are to disciple the younger ladies. Hear what it's saying? The pastor is not supposed to be discipling the younger ladies. He not supposed to be discipling He supposed to allow the spiritual grandmothers to take the responsibility for the younger ladies and disciple them in the faith That what it says right You get it? This is why we're so weak. We don't do it. Now, further, Paul explains in 1 Timothy, he says, ladies are to be teaching children, younger women, and to do the thing of serving. The way it's worded, it says, and it's proper for women, professing godliness with good works. The automatic thing is works and teaching. Two things. In other words, he doesn't want you to be a teacher if you're not doing the works that match it. I mean, that's just normal. So he spells it out. And I think the reason he spells it out, you know, back in that day, women were really oppressed by the culture. Even Israel wouldn't let the ladies go to their synagogues. They had to sit outside or whatever. They'd never let them be a part of it. The church broke those barriers and said, forget it. God has called ladies and men to serve God. So they spell out specifically that the ladies, what they can do and how they'll be helpful to do this. And that's why he spells it out, I think, so clearly for ladies. He goes on to say in verse 12, I do not permit a woman to teach or have authority over a man. Now, the teaching limit is for children and other ladies. That's the point. You take that responsibility. It's clearly stated here. Now that's plenty. Think about that. To raise up a child in the kingdom of God and to teach younger ladies how to walk with God is a major job. If you can do all that, praise God. I can't do all that work, in fact. I have to do another function because I can't do all that. This is why it's such a calling for ladies and spelled out the importance here is overwhelming. Can you imagine if we have faithful women who continued to teach what would our nation be like if we actually followed this through. Instead, our culture is so slaughtered, the family and so forth, it's destroyed and falling further apart and even redefining it so it's not really a family anymore. Now two guys can be family and whatever is going on. It's all this mumbo-jumbo stuff because it's slaughtered. But if we had held the reins there and the parents were teaching their children and the older ladies were teaching the wives how to be what it was and it was solid, that wouldn't have fallen apart. It couldn't have. It would have been held strong because of the truth. See, we are not becoming teachers like God has called us to inside the church. Now, further, Deuteronomy 6 has already spelled this out, but I just want to remind you so you understand that when I say to children, God already laid this out so the Jewish Christians here never even thought about re-saying it so hard because it was already clearly a part of their understanding. Deuteronomy 6 says, And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children. Notice that word diligently is there again. It is your job to teach your children, not the churches. Not the churches. Not the school. It is your job as parents to diligently teach your children the commands of God. the church gets people for an hour or less mostly sometimes two at our church we stretched it because we knew it was important and the kids do not learn enough you understand the statistics are clear that over 80% of the kids that grow up in church stop going to church by the time they go to college we are losing the whole bulk of the kids because they are not being diligently taught the truth or come to Jesus through it And they're literally leaving and never coming back. It's incredibly horrible what we're seeing in America. That's the facts. So we have to do something about it. Well, the thing I don't think we do is right here. The parents, first of all, do not diligently train their children. They might talk a little bit about it here or there or let the Sunday school teacher do it for them or ask them what they learned in Sunday school this week. But you've got to see, that's not diligence. In the education at the public school, they diligently teach our children evolution. They diligently do it. Inch by inch, year by year, they beat it into their heads. They diligently teach evolution. We don't inch by inch diligently teach creation. See what I'm saying? We're not diligent. We don't even match diligence. There's not even a comparison of diligence. And so the only place we can save it, the church can't do it. The home has to be the place. If you don't do it there, it will never be accomplished. Now, it says, and it even tells you how. It says you should talk of them when you sit in your house. When you're just relaxing, be a part of your conversation, you're teaching. When you walk by the way, when you take a walk or travel, you use the time to teach. You find a way to teach. When you lie down at night before you go into bed, you find a way to teach. Bible stories or whatever. When you rise up in the morning, you find that one of the first things you can do is to teach. You find that it has to be ingrained into you that you've got to get the teaching to the children from every point all day long or it'll never happen. That's the key. I know. But anyway, first, so you really got to see the importance here of doing this. and it says you shall bind them as a sign on your hand and you shall be as a frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorpost of your house and on your gates. In other words, the pictures you put on your walls. What are you telling your kids with the pictures? That's why we pick Jesus' stuff and put it on our walls, man. I don't know if they ever saw it, but they couldn't miss it. It was all over the place. The words of God and whatever because we want it everywhere. Posters and whatever because it has to be taught in every inch you can with all your might, with diligence, to train them in truth. Otherwise, you're going to lose them to eternal damnation in hell. And I just want to keep emphasizing that for you, not for them, for you. You must see that as a motivation. Remember our steps. Remember, John's levels are four, remember? Infant, child, young man, and father. And the real points are, God's will at the first step is to free you from the practice of sin. It has to be thorough and complete. The second thing is to then develop righteousness in you so that you know what's right to do to replace the sin you threw out. That comes by character development. Thirdly then you become an active worker of righteousness or good which is called being a servant to all And fourthly then leadership is reaching back and training others in the truth That is really the four levels that God expects you to head to. Now, that's the concepts. Let me just quick give you a couple examples of how I want you to look at this. Let's take, for example, then, the first level. Since the first level, God's will for a new Christian is to get out of sin, what would be the natural thing were to teach new Christians? Teach them prophecy? Huh? Yeah. We have to work on right and wrong. Why would you fight against the will of God? If you know that God's will for that early Christian is not to know how many angels can stand on the head of a pen, but instead to get free from sin, you need to make sure they understand what sin is all the way through it and how to get rid of it and then what to replace it with. That's the will of God. You would naturally, as a teacher, then begin that process and cooperate with God. But we randomly teach stuff everywhere in the church. We even read the Bible like people wouldn't even read a novel. Remember, we had talked about this before. Can you imagine somebody buying a brand new novel, going home, opening to page 413 and reading the sentence, closing it up, next day coming back and opening up and read page 12, one paragraph, closing it up, going back the next day and go to the end of the book and read the last line, close it up, what would they get out of that book when they're done? They wouldn't even understand what the book was telling them. Yet that's what we do with the Bible. We do this all day long. We've so slaughtered the Bible. When you hear these funny stories about kids giving stories about the Bible, they talk about Moses built an ark, and then he went over and walked on water, and you know why they're saying it, because we taught them that. We've told them such a mess, they don't even know what they're talking about in the Bible, because they mixed all the stories into one, because that's how we taught it to them. we have to make sure diligently we make it clear. The early Christian, the new Christian, has to be fed the proper food. God even tells us what the food is for a new believer. Hebrews 6 says, The foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God is the primary teaching you give them. Secondly, the doctrine of baptisms. Thirdly, laying on of hands. Then, resurrection of the dead. And finally, the concern of eternal judgment for all men. That is the milk that's to be taught. Therefore, you teach them milk. And that doesn't sound like milk to us, to talk about eternal damnation and hell, but that is what milk is, because you have to put the fear of God in their soul so that they will have a motivation to do what's right. That's the same with children when you think about it. I don't go through a psychological teaching to my two-year-old, I spanked them. I'll teach them later. Right now they don't get it. And I can't explain it to them even if I tried. So you just whip them until they get the point is, it's not worth it to keep doing this because I'm going to keep getting spanked. That's what God's saying. Put the fear of God in them so they know the consequence is not going to be good. So I don't want... And then later you can help explain it when they're old enough to get it. See? And God's doing the same thing. It's normal. And that's what He's saying. Teach them the basics. Make sure they understand what it means for the resurrection of the dead. You're going to face God one day. And when you do that, you're going to have to answer for everything you say, do, and act in your life. Therefore, at Judgment Day, when others will be cast into hell, I want you to be told, welcome into my heaven. Come and join me. So you tell them the facts with all this information for the very reason that they can get it later. But take the action. Does that make sense? And so you follow. And He already tells us what the milk is. That's what's so exciting here. We don't have to try to figure it out. It's told to us. So here is basically an overview, and that's just one example of the different steps. Obviously, I don't have time to go through all the issues, but I haven't thought out of what we try to do here, and this is kind of what we do here in the levels to try to get you to where you belong. Basic training, we have... I don't know if you remember when you did the Firm Foundations Bible study. Do you remember that? That was laying down the foundations from creation to Christ so that it made sense that sin was a problem, Salvation was an important thing, and it was needed, and how it was done, and why it was so important to follow through and completely follow Jesus through the whole concept. It was a full Bible study of firm foundations. That's exactly why. Secondly, we keep talking about the teaching of hell's best kept secret, because it talks about judgment, repentance, the very solid things you have to know to make sure you're going to heaven. Those two things we've incorporated here and continue to use on a regular basis for that very reason. That's the foundation for any new believer. Secondly, once you get past those foundations, character training is very essential if you're ever going to make it in the kingdom of God. Now, one of the things that's the most powerful for me I learned was called the Basic Life Seminar. A guy named Bill Gothard changed my life back when I was just 20, 21 years old. I went to a conference in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Traveled from Michigan. and I had no clue. The guy talked and talked and talked for 30 hours we were there. When I got done, my mouth was on the ground. I had been to church all my life. I didn't even know what he was talking about. I never heard any of it. None of it. I was so astounded at what he taught and how real it was. Everything had been disconnected from life before. He made everything a practical application to walk with Jesus. And I had never heard it. He absolutely derailed me and changed my whole life. From that point on, I started to understand the concepts that they have to apply to life and how to get there so I can actually walk with Jesus and receive His blessing. I didn't even know what it was before that. We just went to church, blah, blah, heard a little sermon, went home and did our life like everybody else did. Suddenly, He gripped my life and changed my direction. Those are the foundations of all the teachings that I give you here. Then the 49 commands of Christ are through the Gospel of Jesus. You can find 49 commands Jesus gives to His disciples. You say, oh, that's too much to learn. I send my kids to school and they had to learn 26 alphabet letters. And then they had to figure out putting them together and make thousands of words. And that wasn't too hard for them to do that, but it's too hard for us to learn 49 commands of Jesus. See, it's not. We literally have become slothful and lazy in the things of God. And if you don't get there in that laziness, you find no victory in your life. But finding the very alphabets of the Bible the commands of Jesus and establishing them in this way you become mighty in spirit mature in the faith workers of godliness. It's simple. So we make sure we put this in. So you've heard about the 49 commands. You've heard about the character. I keep giving you pamphlets to take home and study to encourage you because this is exactly what you have to be. And also remember, and advanced seminars just continue to the basic seminars. but more of the same application. And I teach that here. The spiritual gifts I've talked about. That comes out of what I call advanced seminar. Lastly, the five purposes of God. How many times have I talked about the five purposes of God here? Over and over again. Because those are the direction of life that you get from maturing and doing the obedient steps necessary to follow God. Now, ministry training. What's next? Well, that's the point where we fall apart. If you're called to do something of God, Even to work at a gas station, you have to have training. When I went to QVC to work, they gave me like two weeks of training before they even let me go on the telephone and talk to people. I mean, they expected me to learn, and they gave me a notebook this thick just to talk to people on the telephone. I mean, most of you could talk on the phone, right? It wouldn't be that complicated, but it's more to it. And they expected me to comprehend that whole huge notebook and get on that phone and help people within just a short period of time. God expects you to get a whole notebook of information, get it in your head, and help people. He expects you to be trained and learn and get it down so that you can be valuable for His namesake. That means you can't be lazy, but you actually grab a hold of what He's calling you to do and do it. If you think you should be helping children, you need to learn how to do it, find out everything you can until you can actually do it and then get busy and do it. But the training is rejected by most people. Ah, it's too much hassle. I'm busy. I just come and hear a sermon and go home. I don't want to get carried away with all this Christian stuff and get busy. But that's exactly what God says He wants from you. And then obviously the leadership, even for becoming a pastor or a leader of the church, expects training. Lots of training before you trust anybody to be a leader of the church, right? Titus 2 ladies are expected to be trained, it says, and train young ones. And the basic idea is simply this, being a teacher, a life coach, spiritual life coach, doesn't mean a preacher, or a Sunday school class, or just a mentor, a counselor. There's many ways you can fulfill this action and do the will of God. Am I making sense? And the thing that scares me is it says He expects us to be there. just not you know and that one other thought here when it talked about teaching older men it said that these older men because you know you think about grumpy old men guys get a little weaker and sicker and frustrated they get grumpy well he says they teach older guys i think of this for as it coming to father's day older guys one of the things are supposed to be is sober that's not talking about booze it's talking about a term called circumspect is another word translated well What that actually means is being heedful of potential consequences. Understanding actions bring consequence. Understanding the consequences come when you do a certain step. It's great for if you understand like playing the game chess. You make a move, what happens? You're going to have a consequence from your opponent who's going to come back at you. Every step you take, there is a consequence. What he's trying to say is by the time you're an older guy, you need to understand that everything that comes out of your mouth when you're grumpy and mad is going to bring a consequence back at you. Everything you teach and illustrate is going to bring a consequence back at you. You need to guard yourself in those days because you need to be sober in the fact that your life is going to be shortly done with and everything's got a consequence of what you're doing. Make every action count. What does our guys in America want to do when they're 65? They don't want to take any more action. They want to retire and do nothing but have fun. See, that's not being sober or circumspect at all. It's being, I quit. I'm not doing anything anymore. That's exactly contradictory to the Bible. Not quit, but become a mentor and a teacher is what you're after. See, God wants you very clearly to do that. So even the men, and the idea is being, you ever heard of a cagey lawyer? They always use it as a negative, but really it's not negative. It's the idea of understanding, being careful and cautious, knowing everything is going to bring an action to what you're doing or a reaction. And so you need to see that sober is a very important part of this. So the end is three questions I've got for you, and I'll leave you alone. Number one, does God's will supersede your likes and desires, even to the place that you want or are willing to become a teacher? number two does the fear of eternal damnation of your family your neighbors and the entire world weigh upon you enough to take action by trying to teach truth to them does it force you to want to become a teacher to them thirdly are you willing to be trained so that you can help children or young adults or mature adults enter into heaven for eternity if you think you're not trained enough are you willing to be trained so that you can take that action? Will you see that the will of God is eventually you're a teacher? See, that's life-changing. When you understand every day that you don't become a teacher, that you're resisting the will of God, there's something wrong. Whew! Hope I stomped on you. Let's pray. Father, thank You for allowing me the chance to share Your truth with those who would listen. I pray that You'd grip their hearts enough to see that the one issue here is that God, you expect us to become teachers. That is your expectation. That is your will for us before we die. And I pray that you don't wait and let us drag it out and make you wait until the last day we're alive before we become teachers. But that we bend down quickly to understand your will is to turn us into spiritual teachers. I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Thank you.

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