The Grands Letter

Dear Grands,

2 Timothy 4:2-3, “…preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction.

3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires…”

Someone recently asked me if I were related to Dr. Robert Jeffress, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. I responded with my usual quip, “We might be related, if he could only learn to properly spell his name.”

The good doctor and I have never met, yet I faithfully follow his weekly ministry on television. We agree on most

things, like the inerrancy of the Scriptures and the basic theology that they contain and teach. We both endeavor to “preach the Word,” as Paul enjoins Timothy to do.

But preachers differ in personality, and personalities have a lot to do with the delivery of the Messages. The same is true of each of us in witnessing. You’ve heard the expression, “It takes all kinds.” So it does. When I was a pastor, my delivery was different than when I was an evangelist, but the Message was always the same. To be more specific, I was even more of a “revivalist” than I was an “evangelist.” I discovered early on that churches needed to get right with the LORD before they could reach the lost with the Gospel. When the Church got revived, lost people began to be saved.

Being “ready in season and out of season” means being morally and spiritually prepared to share the Word, as well as being intellectually prepared to reason well and respond lovingly, as the situation demands. To “reprove” is to expose sin and error in someone’s life. To “rebuke” is to sternly warn of God’s coming judgment and Hell to follow.

To “exhort” is to urge with encouragement and “great patience and instruction.”

Why all of this? Because there is a time coming –a time that may already be here—when people will not listen to sound instruction, from thee pulpit or the pew. Rather, they will swarm around those who say what they want to hear. Someone recently told me of a teaching heard in church –a doctrine with which the hearer did not agree. It was an unsound doctrine, a teaching that has subtly displaced Scriptural Truth. We must be alert! Only the Scriptures are the Word of God, and only the Scriptures are totally without error. We must live in the Word if we are to discern God’s Truth from man’s error. God bless you abundantly, as you remain faithful to Him!

Heartily in Christ Jesus,

(Dado III)

Gene L. Jeffries, Th.D.

Springdale, Arkansas 72764

United States of America

“We never know that God is all we need

until He becomes all that we have.”