Sermon Tone Analysis

“I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling.”

[1]

Males receive bad press in this present day.

Social engineers, many thoroughly indoctrinated in feminist philosophies, appear determined to ensure that little boys will be feminised while little girls are trained to believe that they can act like men.

It is as though culture is being wussified.

To ensure that boys are docile and compliant to the demands of primarily female educators, we diagnose them as suffering from a bevy of strange new alphabetical maladies—ADHD, ADD and DCD, all of which are NUTS.

Having saddled our boys with a chronic condition identified by a scary sounding name—an affliction that has only recently been invented—we medicate our sons into hebetude.

Then, we cluck our tongues because as result of their drug-induced stupor they aren’t able to think as clearly or as quickly as the unmedicated girls we compel them to compete against.

Then, after the boys grow to be young adults, the young women mourn that there are no men able to match their abilities.

All the while, politicians create new ministries to promote women while doing all within their power to ensure that men continue to be complacent and compliant.

If that isn’t confusing enough, now little boys who think they are little girls, and little girls that wish they were little boys, are enabled through politics to be whatever they decide they are.

We see news reports on an increasingly regular basis informing us that six –year-old girls identify as boys, receiving government mandated support to use boys’ wash rooms; and fourteen-year-old boys identify as girls, demanding and receiving governmental support to play on female sports teams.

Somehow, I don’t think this was what Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan had in mind in the early days of feminism.

Are you sufficiently confused yet?

Our neighbours to the south are redefining combat roles so that G.I. Jane need no longer be merely the title of a B-rated movie—she can actually join the combat team!

Even my beloved Marine Corps is being compelled to reassess combat roles so women can now be traumatised and suffer with PTSD.

I’m no prophet, but I am prepared to state without equivocation that the outcome of this particular social experiment will be a blast of cold water to feminist thought, leading to disastrous consequences.

Soon, the nation will discover what the Israelis and Russians discovered years ago, compelling them to withdraw women from front-line combat roles.

Unfortunately, an egalitarian emphasis has infiltrated most of the churches of the Master.

For the most part, the concept of complementarity is foreign to contemporary church life.

Contemporary church goers have embraced a lifestyle that assigns greatness to power and transforms positions of service into platforms for personal advancement as power brokers.

Thus, women’s demand for a place at the table has taken on a strange, new meaning within the evangelical Zion.

Today, women demand increasingly prominent roles in directing the affairs of the churches.

What should be especially disturbing about this transition is that as women assert themselves as leaders in the roles assigned by the Master among the churches, men retreat from participation in the services of the assemblies.

As has been said on several prior occasions, as women usurp authority among the churches, men attend the services disguised as empty pews.

Men are to be leaders, both in their families and within the congregations of our Lord.

The leadership men are to exercise within the churches is not as some might imagine; men are not to control matters as though they had power—men are to provide spiritual leadership through leading in prayer.

If prayer is lacking among the people of God, no leadership will be exercised.

Everything else being equal, the power of a congregation will be determined by the vitality of the prayer life of the assembly; and the vigor of the prayer life of the assembly will be determined by the involvement of the men in this essential activity.

The text for our study today is one verse—a verse easily overlooked in the rush to address the more extended statement concerning the role of women among the churches.

However, we dishonour God and the Word that He has given if we fail to consider what He has said concerning the ministry of men within the assembly.

Paul answers the question that is seldom asked, “What’s a man to do?”

*A UNIVERSAL EXPECTATION* — “I desire then that in every place the men should pray.”

The Apostle expresses his personal desire, but the word chosen speaks more strongly than expressing a mere desire.

Paul chooses a word that expresses an authoritative apostolic command based upon a strong theological basis; he is pointing back to what has already been written previously.

Unfortunately, because preachers can only deal with a small portion of what is said at any given time, and because we tend to forget what has gone before, it is common that the messages can appear disjointed, unconnected and even uncohesive.

Therefore, in order to understand the urgency imposed by Paul’s imperative, recall that in the previous messages in this series we saw that the “supplications, prayers, intercessions and thanksgivings” that are to be offered up for all people were in the context of evangelism.

Christ Jesus presented His life as a sacrifice because of mankind’s desperate need to be redeemed.

[2] He “gave His life as a ransom for all”; and the Apostle was “appointed a preacher and an apostle” and also “a teacher of the Gentiles” [see 1 TIMOTHY 2:1-7].

There is no break in the Apostle’s thought pattern.

The postpositive conjunction that is translated in our text by “then,” indicates that the Apostle is continuing with the argument commenced earlier.

Here is the principle that must be emphasised: /EVERY MEMBER OF THE CONGREGATION IS TO BE ENGAGED IN EVANGELISM/.

The corollary is that /MEN ARE TO TAKE THE LEAD IN EVANGELISTIC PRAYER/.

By way of review, let me iterate what has gone before in previous messages.

Congregations are commanded to be marked by prayer offered for all people—and especially for those who govern in the nation, in the provinces and in the communities.

The reason for such prayer is because we want all people to be saved.

Therefore, we seek peaceful conditions in our land that permit us to evangelise.

Let’s admit a worrisome truth: if we are not evangelising, we are disobedient to the will of the Master.

If, as a congregation, we are not telling our communities of the love of God in Christ the Lord, we are disobedient to the call of the Master.

Make this command still more personal.

If I as an individual am not telling my neighbours, my colleagues, my friends and my family of the salvation offered in Christ the Lord, I am disobedient.

Therefore, we pray for those who lead so that we will have opportunity to evangelise without interdiction.

By implication, having redeemed us, Christ left us here for a purpose.

To be certain, we are to “adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour” [TITUS 2:10].

Because we are in the earth, we have been left “to the praise of His glory” [EPHESIANS 1:12-14; PHILIPPIANS 1:9-11].

We live in anticipation of His return, knowing that He will be glorified as His salvation is revealed in us.

However, what is too often ignored among the churches of this day is that we are to tell others of His salvation.

We are convinced that “God our Saviour … desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” [1 TIMOTHY 2:3b.

4].

The evidence that this is the desire of our Master is witnessed in this truth, to which all professing Christians give assent.

“There is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time” [1 TIMOTHY 2:5, 6].

Reviewing recent statistics that have been generated about evangelism by churches across North America, I grow deeply concerned.

When it requires over forty-nine professing Christians to see one person saved, something is dreadfully wrong.

Individuals who are saved are commanded to be baptised after coming to faith in the Son of God.

Thus, if we allow that each baptism among baptistic churches represents one person saved, we can estimate how effective the churches are in fulfilling the Great Commission.

Almost all denominations in North America are registering declining memberships.

Worse still is the fact that even though membership is declining, baptisms are declining even faster.

[3] What this indicates is that we are becoming practical atheists—we neither believe the Word when it tells us that Jesus is God, nor are we pastors training our people either to pray for the lost or to witness of Christ’s great salvation.

Statistics for other groups may be more dismal than these, with some indicating that it requires more than one hundred professing Christians to see one addition to a congregation!

Think of the universal nature of this apostolic injunction.

When the Apostle says, “I desire that in every place the men should pray,” it is apparent that wherever the Gospel is preached, prayer is expected.

Moreover, the men are expected to take the lead in this praying.

The statement as presented seemingly recalls something that is recorded in Malachi’s prophecy.

“From the rising of the sun to its setting my name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense will be offered to my name, and a pure offering.

For my name will be great among the nations, says the LORD of hosts” [MALACHI 1:11].

This universal concept of prayer marking the life of the churches is witnessed in many of Paul’s writings.

In the first Corinthian letter, he wrote, “To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours” [1 CORINTHIANS 1:2].

Clearly, the Apostle expected that wherever saints are gathered, they will call upon the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Combine that thought with the knowledge that wherever we who believe are found, we will spread the knowledge of His salvation.

“Thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere” [2 CORINTHIANS 2:14].

Worshipping and walking with the Master, Christians will either draw others to Christ or repel them.

We Christians do impact those to whom we witness.

“We are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life.

Who is sufficient for these things” [2 CORINTHIANS 2:15, 16]?

Who, indeed, is sufficient for these things?

Consider one final passage in thinking of the universal requirement for prayer wherever Christ is worshipped.

“Not only has the word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia, but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere, so that we need not say anything” [1 THESSALONIANS 1:8].

The church gathered seeks the face of God and He answers by sending them out into the world to fulfil His holy will.

Truthfully, the greatest example of evangelistic praying must be that of Christ Himself.

Isaiah writes of Messiah’s praying:

“I will divide him a portion with the many,

and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,

because he poured out his soul to death

and was numbered with the transgressors;

yet he bore the sin of many,

and makes intercession for the transgressors.”

[ISAIAH 53:12]

According to Isaiah, Messiah “makes intercession for the transgressors.”

On the Cross, the Master prayed for those tormenting Him, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” [LUKE 23:34].

Surely, you and I are included in these prayers.

If we are redeemed, then we know the efficacy of His prayers.

Armed with this example of evangelistic prayer, each Christian should be identified as a pray-er—one who pleads for the lost, not neglecting those who are considered great.