Key Scriptures: Ephesians 4 NKJV
11 And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers,
12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ,
13 till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ;
14 that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting,
15 but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—
16 from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.
The success of God’s plan hinges on the Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Pastor and Teacher equipping saints to work the ministry.
What is the work of the ministry? The work of the ministry is nothing less than the evangelization of every soul on planet earth.
Evangelism is a race against time.
Sinners are being born every day and if we are not ever vigilant and consistently diligent in our work, we will get behind the power curve and begin to lose the race to win souls in the time we have been allotted.
You only have one life, not two or three. There is a set amount of time each of us have been given to fulfill our part in God’s plan. We must be busy about our Father’s business and work while we have time.
We will never reach that proverbial ‘last house on the road’ unless we reach every house on the planet in our generation. The work of God is not cumulative in the sense that when we have preached the gospel to one community we can mark it off our list and then go on to the next.
We must not only reach each community but also establish the
The church must be birthed in every location in each generation so as to reach the lost and disciple the saint to carry on and advance the
Without continued evangelism as the number one priority of every saint, God’s plan will suffer and souls will be lost to eternity.
We cannot afford to become detoured from the clear marching orders given us in the great commission of Matthew 28. The devil is a master tempter who offers enticements, especially to the saint and to the church, hoping to get them off track and slow the progress of world evangelism in every generation.
In Luke 10 Jesus gave His disciples power over unclean spirits and to heal sickness and disease. He sent them out by twos and they had great success. Upon their return they were rejoicing that the devils were subject to them in His name.
Jesus listened and confirmed the power and authority they had in doing His work. However, not wanting His disciples to become distracted, detoured or derailed from God’s purpose, Jesus corrected them by telling them to not rejoice in the fact that they had power or authority over devils but rather they should be focused on the names which are being written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. Jesus continued instructing His followers to give themselves for others.
We can ill afford to embrace a ‘monk-atarium’ spiritual philosophy. Monk-atarium is better known to some as a monastery. A place where people isolate themselves with others who are also pursuing some higher plane of spiritual knowledge and experience aimed only at their own benefit. This is lunacy … unless one believes that it’s all about self, or getting rid of self, whichever approach it’s still a monkatarium as far as I’m concerned.
You see, evangelism … salvation of souls … is where it’s at. It’s all about others and how we can deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Him to become fishers of men. God reaches through people to people and there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that is converted than over the 99 who are already right with God.
What is it that most often distracts the saint from the work of God? Enticements! Normally enticements that in some way benefit the individual who is in pursuit of the enticement. “It’s all about me’ee!”
Enticements are things which God made for man but the devil uses to tempt people away from God’s purpose. Just like the devil used the stone, bread, worship, power, position and destiny to tempt Jesus.
Enticements don’t have to be intrinsically evil … they can be good and still not be God. They can even be godly but nonetheless distractions, detours and/or derailments of life.
I have categorized enticements under 5 common labels:
Five Common Enticements
1. Love
2. Sex
3. Money
4. Power
5. Position
All of these can be God or can be used to take you away from God.
Just for a moment, lets look at a bible story in the book of:
Leviticus 10
1 ¶ And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer, and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the LORD, which he commanded them not.
2 And there went out fire from the LORD, and devoured them, and they died before the LORD.
What determines if it is ‘Strange Fire’ or ‘Holy Fire’?
There are many potential scenarios but allow me to give the two main determinate factors. Whether the fire is considered strange fire or not primarily depends on:
1. Who offers the fire before the congregation …
2. Where the fire comes from
* Not their place but Aaron’s place –they were priests of the house but not the high priest – the senior priest – whose duty it was to offer this fire and he had given no instruction or direction but Nadab and Abihu took it upon themselves to rush in and do this seemingly spiritual thing which was not their place to do.
> Nadab means – liberal or generous
> Abihu means – He (God) is my Father
Note: So, here are two called and ordained priests who are good and generous children of God disciplined for doing something which was just not their place to do. They were responsible for some things just not everything … took too much upon themselves.
Strange Fire = Common Fire
* This fire they offered was not the fire from the altar of burnt offering which fire came down from heaven, but rather fire which had no connection to salvation and the forgiveness of sins. It was exciting fire, not salvation fire.
Note: This fire was just as hot, just as bright and just as productive and, it was offered in a very exciting manner – by two men instead of one as God had commanded, but what was most noticeable was that it had no connection with the Brazen Altar … it had no connection with the salvation of God’s people. Therefore it was too common and too strange to God’s purposes and God would not allow it to take the place of His Holy Fire for His Holy Purposes. This fire could not masquerade as God’s fire. There was no salvation but rather self exaltation in this fire.
One comment I heard today: “Would either of them have done this if they had been alone?” Perhaps we often attempt to gather others with us to stray from the senior priest of the house and his offering of Holy Fire in God’s order to pursue the salvation of sinners instead of the exaltation of saints.
John Gill’s Expositor: Leviticus 10:1 Commentary
This they did of their own mind, and not by order. It does not appear that they had any command to offer incense at all at present, this belonged to Aaron, and not to them as yet; but without any instruction and direction they rushed into the holy place with their censers, and offered incense, even both of them, when only one priest was to offer at a time, when it was to be offered, and this they also did with strange fire. This may be an emblem of dissembled love, when a man performs religious duties, prays to God, or praises him without any cordial affection to him, or obeys commands not from love, but selfish views; or of an ignorant, false, and misguided zeal, a zeal not according to knowledge, superstitious and hypocritical; or of false and strange doctrines, such as are not of God, nor agree with the voice of Christ, and are foreign to the Scriptures; or of human ordinances, and the inventions of men, and of everything that man brings of his own, in order to obtain eternal life and salvation.
So, what is the work of the ministry? Souls, not saints!
