You know, it’s tough to even let somebody be equal with us.  I won’t get off down this sidetrack too far, but, you know, we’re sitting here and we see the perversion of our nation today in America.  We see all these self‑interest groups that are emerging.  All this perverted sexuality and, you know, we see all of these self‑interest groups, whatever they might be.  The women’s movement has been the most destructive of all.  The reason our children live in anarchy today is because the mothers aren’t in the homes; they’re out feeding their own flesh and covetousness, wanting to live a better lifestyle than raise godly children.  Amen?  And to see what God has done here in our midst—I was talking to some preachers the other day.  They looked at me like I was a liar.  I told them—I said, “Most of our women don’t work.”  “In Northern Virginia?”  “Most of our women don’t work.  Many of them did but they saw out of Titus what a godly woman was supposed to do, and the elderly women teaching the younger women to love their husbands and love their children and that they’re to raise them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.  And they’re home.”  They can’t believe—they’re like looking at a Martian.  “And our kids don’t date.  And in the high 90 percentile, the majority of our young people marry as virgins.  And we’ve got probably a 1 percent divorce rate”—one percentage point; single digits, is what I’m looking for.  What we take for granted here is the fruit of the Spirit that Galatians speaks—and by our fruit we will be known, praise God.  And what we want to be known as, as a people, are a people who have taken on Christlikeness.  We’ve learned of Him, His meek and lowly spirit—a people who are willing every day to take up the cross and crucify the self‑man and say, “It’s not about me.”  Amen?  Seekers first of the kingdom of God and seeing His righteousness established in the earth.  Laying up treasures in heaven where moth and rust will not corrupt.  So, it takes this daily choice.  And we’re not ignorant of the fact of what our natural man is and that that’s in us that needs to constantly be purged and purified.

So, I was thinking today, as I was just meditating.  I thought, let’s take a couple of godly men—look at their lives; watch how God worked in them.  And primarily, from the perspective tonight, I want you to look at it from that end times mentality.  What should a twenty‑first century, godly, preacher look like, and how do they get there?  Well, the Scripture is clear, first of all.  Turn over to 1 Timothy for just a moment, and we’ll take a look here in the epistle of 1 Timothy, Chapter 3 gives the qualifications of a bishop.  It says, “If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work.  A bishop then must be blameless”—blameless.  I can’t get into all of this.  We’ve taught on it many times in the past, and I’m confident with the foundation of the knowledge you have that we don’t have to go deep into this.

Today, much like in the day of Paul’s time, people want to hear great orators.  Paul rebuked the Corinthians for the schism that came into the church because of the eloquent Apollos who came and was able to speak with authority and with clarity and with insight, with revelation, a great dynamic preacher of which Paul was not.  Apollos was probably in the upper echelon of orators in that generation.  Great men of the past, like Whitefield and them, that the multitudes would come, and able to just mesmerize the people with their ability.  We called them during the early days of Pentecost “pulpiteers.”  Men who could make an audience laugh at one moment and cry the next, had them in the palm of their hands.  Paul, speaking from his perspective said, “I haven’t come in the wisdom of words but in the power of the Spirit.”  Amen?