Dennis Tuuri

# CLEANED SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Sermon scripture is Joshua 3:1-7. Joshua 3:1-7. Please stand for the command word of our creator and redeemer. Joshua 3:1-7.

And Joshua rose early in the morning, and they removed from Shittim and came to Jordan. He and all the children of Israel and lodged there before they passed over. And it came to pass after 3 days that the officers went through the host. And they commanded the people, saying, “When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, and the priests, the Levites bearing it, Then you shall remove from your place and go after it.

Yet there shall be a space between you and it about 2,000 cubits by measure. Come not near unto it that you may know the way by which you must go for you have not passed this way heretofore.” Joshua said unto the people, “Sanctify yourselves for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you.” And Joshua spake unto the priests saying, “Take up the ark of the covenant and pass over before the people.” And he took the ark of the covenant and went before the people.

And the Lord said unto Joshua, “This day will I begin to magnify thee in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee.”

This time the younger children may be dismissed to go down to their Sabbath schools. Their parents desire that. And the rest of you may be seated.

Our topic today is the deacons and the seven deadly sins. We will be ordaining Doug Garrett into the office of deacon as part of this afternoon’s formal worship service.

And I thought it would be good to talk about this a little bit in relationship to what we’ve been preaching about for the last 6 months or more. We treat deacons a little differently at RCC than perhaps some of the churches you’ve attended in the past. I think it’s fair to say than the churches that I used to attend, there were such things as termed deacons and elders. In other words, they were deacons for a couple of years at a time, sort of rotated about amongst the men who usually came out to the work days of the church and who were kind of it was kind of their turn to be a deacon for a while and we don’t treat things quite that way.

We hopefully have tried to reform our understanding of church offices to meet the biblical pattern. So when we ordain a person to special church office, be it a deacon or elder, the idea is that is a lifetime calling. That’s the normative rule for those office bearers. We try to use a whole Bible approach to determine what this office of deacon is all about since the New Testament really gives us very little by way of specific instruction.

The instruction of the office, but it makes it very clear that there are two sets of officers, the elders and deacons. And yet, for the function of the deacon, you’re sort of left up in the air except by a few inferences here and there. So we’ve taken a whole Bible approach and I thought it’d be good to look at a portion of the Old Testament dealing with one of the officers. We talked about this before. The Hebrew word was sharim or shar in the singular.

And it’s my belief that this is very important that for reformation construction to happen in our nation, in our communities, it will have to involve the reformation, the reconstruction of the office of the diaconate or the deacon. We’ll see that as we go through the text this morning, this afternoon, that the office of the deacon, the Old Testament office of the sharim, the administrative office bearer in the church and state is a very important position.

And without it, we’re not prepared for warfare, for spiritual warfare, nor for the victory that God has in mind for us.

So let’s turn to the Old Testament to Joshua 3 and look at this office, the administrative offices of the church. We in this text are at the place where the people are about to cross over the Jordan River into the promised land. And there’s some things that happen just before this which we’ll look at in a couple of minutes.

But what’s going on here is in verse one, Joshua gets up and it’s the end of three days. In verse two, after the three days have passed. We’ll talk about that in just a second. The officers then go through the host. And so we have the administrative officers of the church. As I said, the term there officers in verse two in the Hebrew is the sharim. And they going to talk a little bit about this office bearer and what his particular function was in the old covenant economy.

And I’ve listed on your outline there kind of an overview of the office of the sharim with little remarks here and there.

Now, first we want to look back at Joshua 1 because that’s the specific place where this incident we’re reading about the conclusion of now began. In Joshua 1:10, if you just turn back a couple of pages in your Bibles, we read that Joshua commanded the officers of the people, saying, “Pass through the host and command the people, saying, ‘Prepare you victuals, for within 3 days you shall pass over the Jordan, and go to possess the land which the Lord your God giveth you to possess it.’”

So Joshua in the first chapter in verse 10, he has been told by God to be strong, be courageous, wherever his foot touches, that’s their property in the promised land, to go forward in victory.

And Joshua then commands the officers, the sharim, the administrative officers of the people here of Israel to go to the people and tell them to make preparations because in three days we’re passing over. And so at the end of that 3 days, we read what we just read from Joshua 3, that the officers then go through the people of Israel commanding them to follow the ark at a distance.

Now it is important to note here that some people have taken this word sharim and these administrative office bearers and have ascribed to them the role of scribes, somebody that just keeps records. This is not apparently the case however because in 2 Chronicles 26:11 and 2 Chronicles 34:13 scribes and officers are differentiated. They’re not the same office. They’re differentiated there.

Rather we see a well-developed, well-sketched out picture of what these people were by looking through those verses that I’ve printed on your outline. In Exodus 5 is the first use of the term and there these men are referred to as foremen who oversaw the work of the Israelites in the land of Egypt. They oversaw the brick production specifically. They weren’t scribes. They were the actual foremen overseeing this specific work, administering that work.

In Numbers 11 there’s an occasion where people are grumbling over the lack of food or meat that they want to eat. And Moses wants to have help administering the people. And God tells Moses to take men who are known to be elders and officers—elders remember in the Old Testament frequently that term is the whole pool of men who were all tracking as it were and were being elders over family units and extended households. So take these men who are known to be elders and officers, or who are probably foremen in the land of Egypt and I’ll take 70 of those fellows and they will administer the body in the wilderness along with you and share the burden.

So Moses does that. He picks them. Remember that’s the instance where God takes the spirit that was upon Moses and puts it upon those men specifically for the task of administering the people in the wilderness.

This account is mentioned again in Deuteronomy 1. Remember in Deuteronomy 1, you’ve got two things combined. You have the selection of the heads of tens, fifties, hundreds, and thousands. Can you still hear me? Okay. No. In Deuteronomy 1, there are two things that come together. You’ve got the selection of the heads of tens, fifties, hundreds, and thousands in the book of Exodus. You’ve got the selection of the 70 administrators from Numbers 11. They’re brought together in Deuteronomy 1.

And God says to Moses that Moses, or Moses says rather, “I took your heads and made them heads. I made heads of tens, fifties, hundreds, and thousands and officers.” So he’s talking about administrators and judges being two separate offices. And those are the two that God provided for the people in the wilderness. And so now we’ve got a delineation of two specific offices here for the people in Deuteronomy 1.

Deuteronomy 1 is important too for noting the qualifications of these special office bearers. The qualifications listed are they must be wise. They must be men who are discerning, who have understanding, and they must be experienced. They must be what I came up with several years ago was pre-existent functioning. A better term is just these men should be known—known to be leaders among you. They should be known and experienced.

The word wise in the Old Testament frequently kind of throws us. The wise man in the Old Testament is the one who had precise knowledge and was gifted by the Holy Spirit to do precise detail work. For instance, on the construction of the tabernacle or the temple. Wisdom was a spirit of exactness and a precision of detail that resulted from fear of God and trying to do things to the very best we can and also resulted from adhering to God’s word and then the spirit is given that you might work precisely and in detailed fashion. That’s the spirit of wisdom.

The theological word book of the Old Testament calls it skillful. This wise man is skillful in various kinds of technical work for instance as artisans, goldsmiths etc. This prudence comes from his fear of God and from the conformance to the word of God in all matters.

So deacons or rather officers in the Old Testament administrative officers, the sharim, as well as the judges had to be men of wisdom, exactness, and precision. But they also had to be men of understanding. And that term means essentially to be able to differentiate between right and wrong, between good and evil.

They must be men of understanding.

Going on then in Deuteronomy 16, we are told that when they went into the land to possess it, that they would have in that land judges and officers. And these men would judge the people in the promised land with righteous judgment. So you had two perpetual officers in the Old Testament economy. One were the sharim and the other was the judges, the heads of the tens, fifties, hundreds, thousands.

And so you have two offices again there at place in Deuteronomy 20. References again made to the sharim here. When people go into battle, the priest comes out first to the people and assures them of God’s presence. And then the officers, the sharim, come through and tell them if any man’s fearful, stay home. If you’re newly married, haven’t had a year’s exclusion with your wife, stay home. If you just bought a field and haven’t enjoyed the fruit of it, stay home.

And then the officers select captains in the army. So they administer the people of God in the field, as it were, and prepare them for battle. Similar to what we just read about here, the sharim were preparing the people in the book of Joshua for crossing over the Jordan and then to follow up into victory into the promised land.

In Deuteronomy 31, the song Moses song of covenant witness, the sharim, the administrative officers are seen as representative of all Israel along with the elders. So when God witnesses against the representatives of the people for good or bad, this day the land will witness against you. The people are represented by two people, the elders and the sharim officers.

Again, this two-fold distinction in Joshua 23 1 Chronicles 23. These men again represent the people along with elders, judges and heads.

So what we have in this specific office is men who would administer and exert authority in administering the people of God. This is correlated to the New Testament office of deacon.

In Acts 6, we have a similar occurrence to Numbers 11 where the 70 were chosen. A food problem, etc. We have men who are chosen to administer the huge church, probably 20 to 25,000 believers at that point in time in the opening chapters of the book of Acts. To administer such a large group is beyond the apostles’ capability to attend to. That would call them away from their study of the word of God in prayer and the seven are selected—the first deacons, the first administrative officers of the body.

It’s interesting that of course in Philippians 1:1, deacons are referred to explicitly. When Paul writes to the Philippian church, he says, “Greeting to the church at Philippi along with the bishops and deacons.” Just as in the Old Testament, in every town you’d go into, there would be judges and officers. So here we have bishops and deacons, two sets of church officers.

1 Timothy 3, obviously two sets of qualifications. First, for those who desire the office of a bishop, an elder, a pastor. And then secondly, those who are called to the office of the deacon, the administrative officer of the church.

In 1 Peter 4:10 and 11, we read the following: “As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. And if any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God. If any man minister, serve, same word as deacon, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ.”

So in 1 Peter 4:10 and 11 again two sets of gifting are said, are talked about. The gifting of speaking the oracles of God, preaching the word of God as it were and ministering or serving in an administrative sense to oversee the congregation and those I that is I believe a implied reference to the diaconate.

Now you remember it’s kind of interesting in relationship to how the special calling of the deacons first happened in Act 6. It was to administer the benevolences specifically of the early church.

And it’s interesting if we think about this requirement from the book of Micah that is repeated throughout the scriptures that what God requires of men are to do justice to love mercy and to walk humbly with God. Well to do justice the special office that in a very fuller sense is given to that as a vocational calling are the elders, both in church and state who judge the heads of tens, fifties, hundreds and thousands.

And the ones who are called in a special sense to love loving kindness and administer it are the deacons. And see you have those same two functions performed. And then the third qualification to walk humbly before God is the necessary component or element that must be involved in the exercise of both office, the elder and the deacons.

So we have in Joshua 3, the administrative officers of the church and the old Testament, the administrative officers going among the people and doing something very specific in verse 3. They commanded the people. They commanded the people.

Now certainly the administrative officers as well as the ruling officers, both the judges and the officers in the old covenant and elders and deacons in the new covenant must walk humbly before God as we just said and before men in what they in their exercise of their calling. We’re very familiar with the gospel passages that talk about how the Gentiles lorded over people. “It shall not be so among you. You shall lead. You shall rule as it were by serving, not by lording it over.”

Now, that’s a very important point and it’s one which we are aware of on a regular basis in this country because of the overgovernment that’s accomplished on the part of the civil magistrate. This corrective in the gospels against overgovernment and abusive use of power is needful particularly as I said in terms of the civil magistrate or governor.

However, if overgovernment is the modus operandi of the civil government in America today in 1990, it seems to me also to be worthy of consideration that undergovernment is the modus operandi in all too many churches and families. The civil state has overgoverned and as a result, the church and families undergo. The lack of church courts combined with the presence of a doctrine of cheap grace and evangelical churches and no accountability. These things are marks of all too many churches and they’re also the mark of the undergovernment of the church and of the family.

Now, we don’t want overgovernment in churches along the model of the civil government in America. And so it’s good to keep the corrective of the Gentile abuse of power in mind. But I’m I think that a greater danger exists as well or at least as equally strong a danger particularly in reconstructionist circles and churches. And that danger is a radical autonomous mindset that seems to reject almost any authority in church or state.

While this may be understandable in light of the present historical situation in America, this is an unbiblical notion.

Note the use of this term for what the administrative officers under God did to fulfill their calling in Joshua 3. They commanded the people. The term command is a very strong term. It’s used in the Old Testament of the Ten Commandments themselves. It’s used of the instructions of a father to his child. It’s used of instructions or commands that God gives to us in various places.

Again, to quote the theological word book of the Old Testament, this term reflects a firmly structured society in which people were responsible to their right to rule by God’s command. They were responsible to their right to rule by God’s command in a highly and firmly structured society.

We see this not just in the Old Testament. We see many references that show us the same reality in the New Testament.

In 1 Corinthians 16:16, Paul says that you submit yourselves unto such and to everyone that helpeth with us and labor. Hebrews 13:7, “Remember them which have the rule over you, who has spoken unto you the word of God, whose faith follow considering the end of their conversation.” Hebrews 13:17, “Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves, for they watch over your souls, as they that must give account. Do this that they might do it with joy and not with grief, for that is unprofitable for you.”

It’s profitable for the people of God to recognize the real authority of officers in the church and the state and in the family, one might add, as well. And those officers are of a dual nature, one judicial, the other administrative or executive.

1 Thessalonians 5:12, “We beseech you, brethren, to know them which labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you.” Now, these things have a wider reference than simply the special offices. But if it’s true of a wider reference, how much more true of the special officers that God has called to exercise authority within their proper realm or sphere?

1 Peter 5:5 is a very telling verse. We read there in the context of age and maturity: “Likewise, you younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility. For God resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the humble.”

You see, we’re supposed to have a submissive mindset of humility one to another as we are called to account, exhorted, encouraged to recognize the way of God and to walk in it. That only comes about as having a proper understanding of ourselves in relationship to God. It is pride, the root of the seven deadly sins that causes people not to accept counsel, instruction, not to be humble one toward another and certainly also then to reject the counsel, encouragement, exhortation of church office bearers in the old covenant and in the new.

God resists the proud and he giveth grace to the humble.

Frequently the very things that we may chafe against when talked about from another individual in the church, be he a church officer or be he a friend or be he simply a concerned member of the body who has seen something in our life that may need correction. Frequently the very thing that we chafe against by way of exhortation from other people is God’s ministration of grace to us that we might be profited thereby and might move on to maturity.

The administrative officers in the old covenant and in Joshua 3 gave commands exercise real although limited authority. The command was to follow God’s covenant law and grace. They commanded the people saying, “When do you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God and the priests, the Levites bearing it, then ye shall remove from your place and go after it. Yet there shall be a space between you and it about 2,000 cubits by measure.

Come not near unto it, that you may know the way by which you must go for ye have not passed this way hitherto.”

Picture here is that they’re going to cross the Jordan. They’re going to go into the promised land. The priests are going to carry the ark of the covenant very explicitly called the ark of the covenant here before the people. The officers command the people with their authority given to them by way of special office to follow that ark and to follow those priests as they carry that ark but at a distance.

Why at a distance? So that you may be able to see it okay out there ahead of you. Not get too close and you can’t see the thing. You stay at a distance, you follow the ark, you’re going to go through the Jordan and into the promised land.

Matthew Henry commenting on this text says that we see in this how every Israelite might know both what to do and what to depend on. They might depend on the ark to lead them. That is upon God himself of whose presence the ark was an instituted sign and token. It is called here the ark of the covenant of the Lord their God. What greater encouragement could they have than this, that the Lord was their God, a God in covenant with them? Here was the ark of the covenant. If God be ours, we need not fear any evil. He was nigh to them, present with them, went before them. What could come amiss to those who were thus guided and to those who were thus guarded?

Formerly the ark was carried in the midst of the camp, but now it went before the people to search out a resting place for them. And Matthew Henry comments there in Numbers 10:33 where the ark is going to search out a resting place for them. And as it were to give them livery and season of the promised land and put them in possession of it.

In the ark the tables of the law were, and over it the mercy seat. For the divine law and grace reigning in the heart are the surest pledges of God’s presence and favor. And those that would be led to the heavenly Canaan must take the law of God for their guide. “If thou will enter into life, keep the commandments,” and they must have the great propitiation of Jesus Christ in their eye, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.

They might depend upon the priests and Levites who were appointed for that purpose to carry the ark before them. The work of ministers is to hold forth the word of life and to take care of the administration of those ordinances, which are the tokens of God’s presence and the instruments of his power and grace. And herein they must go before the people of God in their way to heaven. The people also must follow the ark. “Remove from your place and go after it.” As those that are resolved never to forsake it. Wherever God’s ordinances are, there we must be.

If they move, we must remove and go after them as those that are entirely satisfied in his guidance. Then it will lead in the best way to the best end. And therefore, “Lord, I will follow thee whethersoever thou goest.” Thus must be all their care to attend the motions of the ark, and follow it with an implicit faith. Thus must we walk after the rule of the word and the direction of the spirit in everything.

So shall peace be upon us, as it now was upon the Israel of God. They must follow the priests far as they carried the ark, but no further. So we must follow our ministers only as they follow Christ.

So we have here the administrative officers in the book of Joshua commanding the people with real authority to lead, or rather to follow the lead of the priests and the Levites who put God’s law, God’s grace and presence before them. So the administrative officers commanded the people to walk in obedience to that law and grace and God’s presence.

To what purpose? The purpose of all this is to victory. Joshua in verse 5 says to the people, “Sanctify yourselves for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you.” Wonders. Again quoting from the theological word book of the Old Testament, either cosmic wonders or historical achievements on behalf of Israel is what is here referenced to.

The miracle carries with it the clear sense of God’s care within it. This is the purpose of the miraculous, to demonstrate God’s great love and care for his people. The Psalms tell us that God performs marvels of love to minister grace and loving kindness to his people. So God was going to do miracles for them, miraculous things and wonders to demonstrate his love, his care, his protection, and his victory to the people.

The crossing of the Jordan was a demonstration of his love and care. And of his people’s victory which was to accompany them wherever they put their feet. Remember this all follows Joshua 1 promising God’s clear victory to them as they marched forward in obedience to him.

Again quoting from Matthew Henry: “And now we may suppose that prayer of Moses was used where the ark set forward from Numbers 10:35 that prayer is ‘Rise up Lord and let thy enemies be scattered.’ Magistrates are here instructed to stir up ministers to their work and to make use of their authority for the furtherance of religion. Ministers must likewise learn to go before in the way of God and not to shrink nor draw back when dangers are before them. They must expect to be most struck at being at the head. But they know whom they have trusted.”

The administrative officers then with real authority commanded the people to be bound to God’s word and to follow it. And the purpose of this was to lead God’s people into victory. But there’s an ultimate purpose beyond the victory of the people that’s talked about as well. And that’s when we read through to verse 7.

Verse 7, God says to Joshua, “This day will I begin to magnify thee in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee.” The word for magnify means to increase. The increase of a person’s authority. It signifies something being made great in size or importance.

Joshua obviously here is a type of Jesus Christ who leads his people into victory across the Jordan and into the victory of the promised land. Joshua is going to be magnified through all this. But ultimately what all this points to the work of our Savior Jesus Christ, the three days on this side of the Jordan and then the resurrection as they go through it. Jesus’s three days in the grave, his victory as he goes forth leading his people. He is the ark.

Ultimately, all of this points to the magnification of Jesus Christ. Micah 5:4 we read that “Jesus shall stand and feed in the strength of the Lord and the majesty of the name of the Lord his God and they shall abide for now shall he be great unto the ends of the earth.” Those are the times in which we live. Jesus is being made great unto the ends of the earth.

Now America, the civil magistrate, seeks to make itself great and the civil state great. This is the same word used in Daniel 11:36 and 37 of antichrist. Speaking of antichrist, Daniel said, “The king shall do according to his will, and he shall exalt himself and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvelous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished. For that is determined will be done. Neither shall he regard the God of his father others, nor the desire of women, nor regard any god, for he shall magnify himself above all.”

Well, that’s precisely where we’re at today. The civil state seeks to magnify itself, its authority, its reign, its kingdom above all else. But Ezekiel 38:23 reminds us that history is a process of God magnifying himself. “Thus will I magnify myself, God says, and sanctify myself, and I will be known in the eyes of many nations, and they shall know that I am the Lord.”

The administrative officers are given to the church that she might be encouraged, exhorted, yea, even commanded to follow God’s word as put forth by the Levites and priests to the end that they would be victorious and that Jesus Christ might be glorified in all of this.

Well, what does this all have to do with today with what we’re going to do this afternoon and the ordination of a deacon. We’re installing a deacon, an administrative officer of the church.

He will have, as the other office bearers in the church do have, real invested authority, limited, of course, by God to the proper calling, restricted, as it were, by God’s word, but nonetheless, real authority to encourage and exhort the flock to follow the law word in all of their lives.

What battle are we facing? What river Jordan are we crossing? What warfare do we wage? We’ve been discussing for 6 months or more now the seven deadly sins. The seven deadly sins is an arbitrary device, but it’s a very useful one and has helped us categorize the many sins lined out in the scripture that are indeed deadly to God’s people in a culture and that we are as a result to understand and our need to war against both in ourselves and in our culture.

We’re reminded in the New Testament, we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers. And our wrestling more often than not is the wrestling against personal sin. The results of that sin in our families and in our institutions and in our cultures.

Anybody who has sat through the 26 sermons to date on the seven deadly sins and has not been brought to a sense of personal conviction, probably failed at the first sin, the sin of pride. It is pride that causes us not to properly evaluate ourselves, that leads us, as we said earlier, to reject counsel or leaves us seeing no need for anyone to attempt to counsel us.

Pride blinds one to one’s own faults and leads him to reject all other authorities, civil and ecclesiastical in his life.

We’ve talked about the effects of pride by looking at the seven deadly sins. We’ve looked at pride, the exultation of oneself and the resultant debasement of God and his word and the advice and counsel of godly men. We’ve looked at envy, desire to destroy those things that we can’t have based again in our pride and our self-seeking.

We’ve looked at anger, a denial of God’s justice, and a denial of God’s love. Whether it’s flash point anger that rises up against for instance Balaam’s donkey that was really administration of grace to Balaam. These things are often ministrations of grace to us that we strike out against or rather it’s long slow anger and violation of God’s command not to let anger not to let the sun go down on our anger. In any event, anger is usually the denial of God’s love or the denial of God’s justice.

We’ve looked at sloth, depression, its relationship to our failure to have a heart to what God has called us to do and what God has called us to be as a result of that to let the hands go slack to have no fight in the belly the jobs that God has given us to do and again not hear counsel from people. “The sluggard is more wise in his eyes than seven with a good answer” and that leads to a depression and a withdrawal from the task that God has given us to do. These are deadly sins.

We’ve looked at the exultation of the gold of the temple material aspects that is greed seeing ultimate value in the material as opposed to one who resides hides behind the gold of the temple as it were. The one who resides in the throne room from which all value comes forth and is indicative of God’s great value. We’ve looked at the glutton who sees ultimate value in his own belly and his own food and what’s placed on the altar instead of Jesus Christ who sanctifies all things.

And we’re beginning to think through lust, the exultation of the body, the pleasures of the body, apart again from what it is designed to teach us of God and his will and the great relationship of Jesus Christ to the Bride.

I have attempted in these series of sermons to place the word of God before you as regards these areas of our sin in our personal lives and as I said in the lives of our communities and our institutions and our callings. I’ve put the ark God’s grace, God’s law, Jesus Christ out in front of you.

The part of the deacons, the administrative office bearers of the New Testament is to call men and women in the body of Christ to forsake sin, to follow after the word of God, to follow after the word as it tells us to wage war against pride, envy, covetousness, anger, sloth, lust, greed, and gluttony.

The part of the deacons is to encourage, exalt, even command, yes, men and women to forsake sin, and to not hold back from following the word of God, wherever it leads us. And as a result of that, calling people to promote righteousness in every area of life.

When the deacons of Reformation Covenant Church see pride, they are called upon. It is part of their calling and command of God to them to encourage people to leave their pride behind and to seek humility. When they see envy and covetousness, they are to exhort, encourage, and as I said, if need be, command the church to apply the word of God and be content.

When they see anger, they’re to bring the scriptures to bear and encourage trust in God’s love and justice. And when they see sloth and depression, they are to command the slothful to work to encourage them to walk in obedience to the law of God, which is to say that which leads them forward to doing the next thing.

When they see greed and overemphasis upon money and quick riches, they are to warn men of this sin which is deadly, and to encourage and exhort them to place ultimate value in God as all of us are to do. But certainly that’s part of their calling as church officers.

This thing with instant riches, I was listening to the radio this week, KXL, I believe. New prize, put a bumper sticker on your car, instant riches, and you say your number over the radio or something, you call in and you win instant riches. And of course, most of what they give you is more lottery tickets, right? The lotteries. And of course, the attempt to achieve instant riches.

I’d like to just point out a few verses here about instant riches. Proverbs 20:21 says, “An inheritance that’s gotten quickly at the beginning, the end of it shall not be blessed.” Proverbs 23:4, “Labor not to be rich, cease from thine own wisdom.” Proverbs 28:20, “A faithful man shall abound with blessings, but he that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent.”

The deacons, the church office bearers, are to be wise men who understand the word of God as it relates to these things. And when they see us slipping in any of these areas, they are supposed to, we should want them to encourage and exhort us to faithfulness and righteousness. There are tremendous sins out there that are just pulling at us. As I was pulled at this week with this ad from KXL about instant riches.

When they see gluttony or the beginnings of lust, they’re to call the church and the members of the church to follow God’s word, which is law and grace.

We either in all of our actions in life, personally, recreationally, vocationally, promote either righteousness or unrighteousness. We either follow that ark along or we leave it for a time to go do our pursuits of recreation, vocation, avocation, whatever it is. The job of the elders are to place the word of God in front of you. And part of the calling of deacons are to encourage, to administer the church and in so administering them encourage and exhort them to walk after that word and to faithfully move ahead.

You should expect on occasion to be encouraged and exhorted by the deacons in this church to cleave to God to his law and to the ministration of grace that comes about as the proper functioning of the church officers as they complete their calling.

The church officers of the Old Testament the sharim were along with the elders were called to represent the people before Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal before the two mounts of blessing and curse. So remember that they’re there to assist you as you move to blessing.

All of this is to the end that we all might conquer the seven deadly sins as the nation of Israel moved on to conquer the seven Canaanite nations. The end result of all this is that Jesus might be magnified, that his kingdom might be manifest increasingly on earth and that God’s will might be done on earth as it is in heaven.

The result of all this is the proper functioning of the body of Christ of moving ahead awaiting to see God’s wonders of works as he leads us into victory.

And a small example and I hope that Ken doesn’t mind me using it now. A small example of the results of this and the blessing of a person’s life. I got a letter from Ken Kajkowski in Montana a couple of months ago and Ken talks about various things. I’ll read just a portion of this letter. He says, “On the homeschool front in Montana, things are going well for now. My wife and I also have a new future homeschooler, a baby boy, Thad, now 2 and 1/2 months old. Now he’s probably now about 6 months old. Yes. And I owe you, Reverend Hardgrove, and the Canoys for helping to convince me among other postmillennialists to think positively about God’s earth and his kingdom here which will eventually triumph like the yeast in the dough Jesus spoke of.

Before then I was cynical while bringing children into a world of hatred evil and the terrible persecution of Christians to come as I saw it. But even if things do become difficult I trust in God’s sovereignty and Christ’s tremendous victories which still continue.”

Here’s a member of the body of Christ who is encouraged by an elder from this church an elder from another church and a deacon from this church encouraged, told to prepare for the battle, but recognize that Jesus Christ is victorious, that we march ahead, and the children are a blessing from God.

And the result of that encouragement was the establishment of an increasing household, a magnification of the household of Kajkowski as it were. And as they raised that child in faithfulness to follow the ark of God, God’s law, God’s grace, the increasing manifestation of the kingdom of Jesus Christ, that he might be glorified in all that we do.

That’s the purpose of ordaining deacons, elders, and church officers in local churches.

Let’s pray. Almighty God, we thank you for your great love for us. We thank you, Father, for the institution of the church along with the family and state that all these things would reflect your order, your law, your grace, and the presence of Jesus Christ. Help us in this church to be diligent to seek you out. Help me Lord God to be diligent to set before the people your scriptures and help them be diligent to make sure that they study these scriptures to make sure these things are so.

Help us all to encourage and exhort each other to follow after that law word to walk behind it and not to go away from it. We pray Lord God for the deacons in this church that they would be sensitive patient but firm in assisting and exhorting and encouraging people to walk after the word of God. God, take what’s been put forth in front of them and to follow along to victory.

Help us, Lord God, to be wise in all these things. Help us, Father, to do all things for your glory and not for the glory of ourselves. And help us to serve one another in love. We ask it in Jesus precious name. And for the magnification of his name throughout all the earth. Amen.

At this point, we’ll move to the actual ordination service of Doug Garrett. It is good and proper to have a two-fold witness as it were to the calling of Doug and his qualifications for office. So at this point in time and hopefully you’ll be able to hear him, I’d ask Dave H. to come forward and give a congregational affirmation of the calling of Deacon Garrett.

It’s a real privilege. Is it on now? I guess it is. It’s a real privilege to be able to stand before you today. Away closer. Is that better? For the third time, it is a real privilege to stand before you to say a few things about Doug and his family.

We’ve known the Garretts for about oh about 7 years. A good family, good people. I was thinking about a lot of things this week to say. You know how you mull things over in your mind and you want to say the right thing. You don’t want to sound goofy or you don’t want to sound too trite or whatever. But I was I was thinking about three verses and I’m just going to read them. Make just a couple of comments.

I’m going to be brief. I know it’s warm. Doug wants to get this over, I’m sure. The first verse is in Second Timothy 2. I should have had these marked more. I’m sorry. 2 Timothy 2.