A couple of years ago, I began praying for God to raise up 1,000 special kind of preachers, men who can build and lead special kind of churches. Sound, strong, fruitful churches are what the world desperately needs, as the church is the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Timothy 3:15), but we won’t have such churches without the right men. It has been said, truly, that “everything rises and falls on leadership.” Let me describe them as I see them in Scripture: They are God-called men; biblically-qualified men; Christ-centered men of good Christian character and testimony; well-trained men (in the Bible and in other issues facing the churches); studious men; men who are committed to God’s Word rather than human tradition; wise, humble men who can work with a team of men as we see in Acts 13; men of faith; courageous men who fear God more than man and are not intimidated by any old boy’s network or preacher’s association; men who are willing to walk alone if necessary for the truth’s sake; men of serious spiritual wisdom and discernment; men of passion for the truth, who esteem God’s precepts concerning all things to be right and hate every false way (Ps. 119:128); men of large vision and zeal for gospel preaching and world missions and church planting; men who reprove and rebuke sin and error in a plain way; men who are ready and willing to exercise biblical discipline when necessary and will not draw back because of its difficulties; men who are hard workers; men who hate religious pragmatism for the evil thing that it is in God’s sight (e.g., making decisions about the ministry based on what “works” to produce a desired goal as opposed to making decisions based strictly on Bible truth). These are not mythical men. I know men like this. These are the type of preachers that are described in the Pastoral Epistles, and they are, therefore, the type of men that God wants for His churches today. Only God can make such men, but since He has instructed us to pray for laborers for the harvest, surely these are the type of laborers we are to pray for. “Therefore said he unto them, The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest” (Luke 10:2). And since Christ has commanded that we pray this, surely God is ready to answer if we will be passionate about it. (Friday Church News Notes, November 2, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, [email protected], 866-295-4143) Comments are closed.
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