We're looking in 1 Timothy chapter
four. Begin reading there in verse
seven. We've looked at some of these verses, but we'll read
there to start with. But refuse profane and old wives'
fables, and exercise thyself rather unto godliness. For bodily
exercise profiteth little, but godliness is profitable unto
all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that
which is to come. This is a faithful saying and
worthy of all acceptation. For therefore we both labor and
suffer reproach because we trust in the living God, who is the
Savior of all men, specially or specifically of those that
believe. These things command and teach. Let no man despise thy youth,
but be thou an example of the believers in word, in conversation,
in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity. Till I come, give
attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. Neglect not the
gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy and the
laying on of the hands of the presbytery. Meditate upon these
things. Give thyself wholly to them,
that thy profiting may appear to all. Take heed unto thyself
and unto the doctrine. Continue in them, for in doing
this thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee. Now, we had mentioned a little
bit about this matter of exercising ourself unto godliness. for it
is profitable in all things. Having promise of the life that
now is and that which is to come, and he contrasts that with bodily
exercise. Nothing wrong with bodily exercise,
people ought to exercise. And sedentary lifestyles are
that which lead to all sorts of problems. But that sort of
exercise cannot do anything at all for the spirit of a man. Can't do anything at all for
the ongoing of life eternal because all bodily exercise is going
to end at the grave as far as it's going to go. It's not going
to be of any profit whatsoever beyond that. And so we do not
mean to say, nor did Paul mean to say that bodily exercise was
of no use because it has a use but he says Exercising oneself
unto godliness is profitable in all things. It's profitable
both now in this life in which we live as well as the preparation
for that which is to come. And so it is that he says this
is a faithful saying worthy of all acceptation. We receive these
things and we recognize that this life is a vapor. The psalmist said we live our
lives as a tale that is told. We think of our life as a tale
that's being told. But the scripture says it's one
that's already told. It's as good as done. I mean,
it's over in a moment. Of course, young men can't really
grasp that. I used to look around myself
and see all the old people. And now I am one. And it doesn't
seem like that anything changed. I used to, as a kid, think, well,
you know, when you got older, you really, you had all these
wise thoughts and you were just, you know, you had everything
figured out and you knew all the answers and whatnot. And
the older that I get, the more I realize, the less I know. And
what little knowledge I have gained because I still find myself
stumbling on the same stumbling stones. You know, you'd think
that if a man stubbed his toe on something every day that pretty
soon he would learn to avoid that, but somehow or other, We
keep doing the same things over and over. And only the Lord is
able to deliver us from it. And these things come into our
lives, these troubles, struggles, trials, that are personal. I mean, we have, there are external
problems that we have. All men have them. There's not
a man on the earth that doesn't have some sort of problem or
trouble from time to time. It's just the natural course
of things, a part of the curse of sin that's upon this world. But there are internal struggles
that the children of God have that are not necessarily, the
men of the world don't necessarily have these struggles. You know,
the man who's without Christ, he has no struggle with seeking
to worship Christ. He doesn't have any thought toward
that. He doesn't look at the weakness of his worship. He figures
it's all right. I mean, if he does anything at
all. I mean, he figures, well, you know, if I get to feeling
like I need to worship, I'll just go to church. And I worship,
a lot of people just, they say, well, we need to go to church
every week because we want to worship God. But the child of
God, he's concerned that he doesn't worship the Lord at all. He's
concerned that his worship is weak. He's concerned that his
worship is not fit for the kingdom of God. Now, religious men look
at their righteousness and the deeds that they do and they say,
well, you know, we're doing pretty good. But the child of God looks
at his righteousness and he repents of it. Now that's hard for a
man in the flesh to understand. What do you mean? How can you
repent of righteousness? Well, we ought to repent of our
righteousness because the scripture says it's filthy rags inside
of God. I mean, that's the best you can
do. Is that which is not pleasing unto the Lord? What is man that
thou art mindful of him? I remember in Bildad's discourse
to Job, he said, you know, how much less, he said, the sun and
the moon, he says, they're not pure before God, how much less
a man who's a worm. I mean, you know, that kind of
puts man in his place. That's not a popular message
today, because we want to, you know, the message of today is
we want to lift men up and make them feel good about their self.
Well, that's not my goal, because it's not the goal of the scripture.
The goal of the scripture is not to cause you to feel good
about yourself. The goal of the scripture, the
purpose of the written word of God is to cause you to see what
you are by nature. That's why the Lord gave the
law. Now the Pharisees, the religious men, they thought the Lord gave
the law so they could ride herd on God's people. That they could
look at themselves and say, look at what we've done. And that
they could stratify society by having the law keepers and those
that weren't. But the Lord gave men the law
to show them that they were sinners. And every time you look at the
law, if it doesn't cause you to say, to hang your head in
shame and you haven't read the law right. You know, when you
see it and you say, well, I've done it. Remember the rich young
ruler? He said, Lord, I've kept all
this from my youth. How can I go beyond that? Well,
the Lord said, well, you hadn't even done that. He said, you
missed the whole point. May the Lord teach us. you know,
such things as we need to know, and that we might know and understand
that godliness is profitable in all things, but godliness
is that which the Lord alone can work in us and has established
for us. Therefore, Paul says, we both
labor and suffer reproach because we trust in the living God. Now,
how do we labor and suffer reproach? Well, of course, he's speaking
about the fact that he was setting forth the word of God
under much persecution, outward persecution. But remember this,
that the persecution of God's people is constant, whether it
be from outside or whether it be from inside, because we have,
as we sang there a moment ago, We have within us an old sinful
flesh that rises up daily and abuses us and tells us that we're
no good, that we can't possibly be received by the Lord. And
if it were up to us, see the flesh wants you to think that
you can do something. And so it tells you you're not
doing it. But the Spirit of God doesn't point us to our flesh
to improve it. The Spirit of God points us to
Christ that we might know how far we are from the perfection
that He demands. And He gives us a desire to go
that way. Now that might seem quite strange
to the natural man. It does seem strange to him because
he's thinking, you know, in these terms of, I can improve myself
before God, but only as the Lord works in us. And he does work
in us. We both labor and suffer reproach
because we trust in the living God. The man who will live godly
in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. Because men, the natural man,
he will scoff at that. And he thinks that you're a fool,
that you don't enter into the lifestyle that he has. We live
in a society which is increasingly outwardly. Now understand this,
society and the natural men have never been friends to the gospel. But there have been times when
it is, we've lived in times when the Lord has subdued the outward
wickedness of men in some measure so that a lot of this reproach
is not being opened. But we're in a period of time,
I believe, which marks out the judgment of God upon us when
the restraints of men are being more openly removed. In our society,
I mean, I would have never believed in my lifetime that society in
general, what would be openly acceptable would have degraded
so far from where it was when I was a child. And when I was
a child, believe me, I mean, society's never been holy, it's
never been embracing the things of God, but it has, our society
in general has, to some measure, had some regard to the word of
God. That's gone. I mean, there's none. I mean,
even in the halls of Congress, these people that are supposed
to be our leaders, and many of them claim to be conservative
and have conservative values and things like that. But yet,
even they don't get it. You know, I mean, they don't
understand. I mean, the place that we have
fallen from, and, you know, I hesitate to mix society and put it in
any terms that, where we would equate what the scripture would
be speaking about, say in the book of the Revelation when he
writes the letters to the churches and he says to one of the churches,
remember from whence thou hast fallen and repent. Now, I don't think he's writing
to our society, and I don't believe he's writing to the people of
God, but I believe there is an application of that. And we have,
as a nation, just departed from the things of God. And I believe,
as time goes on, that we are going to know more about what
it is to suffer reproach in an outward form. And in a measure,
I believe that's a good thing. We were talking about that yesterday.
And I remember reading a book one time about a work that was
being done by the Lord in Korea before the war broke out. Korean War before the separation
between the North and the South, when Korea was all one thing,
and they had a great revival in Korea, and a lot of people
came to confess Christ. And of course, any time there
is a gathering in of the wheat, there's gonna be a gathering
in of the tares at the same time. And the Lord must separate the
tares from the wheat. And so when the Chinese communists
took over North Korea and the persecution against Christians
began openly to be manifested, there was a great winnowing of
the church. And one of the fellows that was
involved in this revival, he said the best thing that ever
happened to the church in Korea was when That persecution came
because it caused those who were the children of God to stand
up and testify of that which they believed and to stand for
those things. And many of them were put to
death, put in prisons and those sort of things. Many fell by
the wayside. And the Lord will indeed shake
those things that can be shaken so that those things which cannot
will remain. We both labor and suffer reproach
because we trust in the living God. May we be a people who do
trust in the living God. We have no confidence in the
flesh. Now if you're looking at this next election that comes
up, as all these radio commentators and stuff are, that this is,
we're gonna get everything straightened out, you're barking up the wrong
tree. Because it doesn't make any difference
who gets in the White House, the cancer that is eating at
our nation will remain. And our trust is not in these
politicians because they can't change a thing. Because they
can't change the hearts of men. And it's only as God pleases
to change men's hearts that things will change. You know, you cannot
change the perspective that men have about abortion through laws. You cannot prevent those things
through laws. It's only as God changes the
hearts of men. Now, do I believe there needs
to be laws concerning those things? Well, sure there do. As much
as I do if a man can pull out a gun and shoot somebody, there
needs to be a law against that. There is a law against that.
But these laws, they don't make people righteous. They don't
cause people to do things. It's only as God changes men's
hearts. And that's the thing. Paul said the weapons of our
warfare are not carnal. See, the weapons of our warfare
are not in putting up protests and doing all of these outward
things. He says the weapons of our warfare are mighty through
God to the casting down of imaginations, through the declaration of the
truth of God to this world in which we live. Now, is that going
to be gladly received? No. It wasn't gladly received
in Paul's day. But those in whom the Lord is
pleased to work, He'll draw unto Himself and He'll cause them
to hear. And it'll be a savor of life to some and a savor of
death to others. And God's people will indeed
suffer reproach for the cause of Christ because they trust
in the living God and not in the hands of men. Who is the
Savior of all men? And we talked about that some. I mean, Christ is the only Savior.
There's not another. He's the only name under heaven
given among men whereby we must be saved. But He is the Savior
of those who believe. It's one thing as we speak of
Christ being the only Savior, but it's another thing when we
speak about Christ being the Savior of those that believe.
Because you see, He is the Savior. He bled for them. He paid the
price for them. He prayed for them. He said, Father, I pray for them
which thou hast given me out of the world. Thine they were,
and thou hast given them to me. And so the Lord does indeed specifically
save those who believe, because He calls them by name. And they
believe because His work is performed in them. He said, These things
command and teach. What things? All those things
that have gone before. He said, Let no man despise thy
youth. Now Timothy, compared to Paul,
was a young man. Paul spoke of him as his son
in the faith. So he obviously was younger than
Paul was. But youth does not mean that
a person can have no spiritual understanding. The Lord can give
a young man as much spiritual understanding as he might give
an old man. And he says, let no man despise
our youth. And that is, don't give anybody
reason, is basically what he's saying. Don't give anybody reason
to despise your youth. You know, you've got to be more
on, if you're a young man, who is going to be declaring the
truth of God before men, you've got to be more so on your P's
and Q's than an old man because you already have a propensity
to do stupid things. It's like a person told me one
time, you don't really get a brain until you get to be about 25.
And then your brain starts to grow and you go. So Paul's telling Timothy, you
know, have regard to your youth. But he said, don't let that be
an impediment to declaring the truth, but set an example. And this is true whether you're
90 years old or you're 15 years old. We are to labor to be an
example unto others, are we not? To walk in the measure of those
things that Christ has taught us. And we need to be mindful
of them. And most especially, he says, speaking this to Timothy
as a young man, he says, you've got to be more careful of this. Don't give men reason to speak
evil against the gospel. Even as Peter writes over here,
when he tells God's people, he says, don't give men occasion.
You know, he says, we don't want to, if we get arrested, He said,
let's don't get arrested because we broke the law. He said, let's
be arrested because we were obedient to Christ. And so there's a big
difference. There's no shame in going to
jail for the cause of Christ. There is shame in going to jail
because you broke some law of man. And so we're to avoid that
insofar as we possibly are able. Let no man despise thy youth,
but be thou an example. of the believers in word, in
conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.
In Word, as he's going on to say to Timothy that he had the
gift of the ministry of the Word, of teaching the Word, and so
that's what he's saying, be an example to the believers in Word. That is, set forth the Word of
God before men, not as your opinion necessarily, but as it is the
Word of God. I mean, you know, the Word of
God, I mean, all men speak from the Word of God with a measure
of their opinion, because that's the only understanding we've
got, is what we've got. And the Lord gives us that. And
we don't always have a right understanding of things, but
nonetheless, we declare the Word of God as the Word of God, not
as though we are the final say on it. I can be wrong about these
things, have been, continue to be, and will continue to be in
the future about some things, but I'm going to declare this
to you as the Word of God. This is not wrong. I may be wrong
in my understanding of it, but this is not wrong. Everything
here is correct, and so we ought to be a believer. He said, be
a example in word and conversation. Now, we think of conversation
as being talking to one another, which that is conversation. But
the conversation that he's speaking about here has to do more with
the outward deportment of one's life, how you converse in the
world, how you go about your life. And so, as he speaks to
all believers, I mean, we're to be concerned about how our
life is in the world, are we not? I mean, we're not to pattern
ourselves after the ungodly and to walk in the same paths that
they do and act like they do. And thinking about the thing
of conversation, as it means to speech. And going back to
this business about what I'm talking about, about the coarsening
of our society and the speech, you know, words just a few years
ago, nobody would have thought of saying these things openly. They're just in common conversation
now. I mean, it sends chills up and
down my spine to hear the language that is spoken. Now, when I was
growing up, men used to, men have always spoken in coarse
language and that sort of thing. But one thing that was pretty
common is that men, if a woman came into their presence of where
they were, you know, they would, I'd say, uh-uh, y'all be quiet,
you know, careful how you speak. Not anymore, because the women
are talking the same way the men are. I mean, you can't tell
any difference between them. Now, that's the way of the world. We're not of the world, dear
brethren. There's a difference between God's people and the
world. In our conversation, how we speak
has to reflect that. Using the name of the Lord. There's
the phrase, oh my God. Nothing wrong with that. It's
in the scripture. Somebody might call out to God
in that fashion, but it's not an expression that ought to be
used every day. It most certainly ought not to
come from the lips of God's people in a expression of any sort.
Maybe in prayer you may speak such a thing, but there's no
place for that in conversation. And surely not to use the name
of the Lord Jesus Christ as an expletive. I mean, I hate that. And it's become so common that
people, most people in the world, they have no regard. They don't
even think about it. They just say it just as if it
was just some common phrase to be said. I mean, that's the name
which is above every name. The name before whom every knee
shall bow and every toe shall confess. And we're not to speak
it in an offhanded way. In fact, you can't even find
anywhere in the scripture when men ever addressed the Lord Jesus
by his name, Jesus. The devils did. But God's people,
the disciples said, Lord. They said, Rabbi, Master. They did not speak of him just
by, as you would say, Frank or Joe or whatever. And so it is
that our conversation in that fashion is not to be like that.
He says, in charity, that is in love. We're to be an example. We're to be people of love. You
know, you can't love somebody apart from the grace of God giving
you the grace to do so. But you can endeavor to love
somebody. You can act in love even when
you don't feel loving. And that's what we're to do.
You see, we are to love one another with pure hearts, fervently.
And that is forbearing one another. Now, you don't have to, if you're
forbearing one another, that has a connotation to it that
there's a reason you have to bear along with somebody, because
it ain't easy. You know, it's not easy to love
everybody, even people that you do really love most of the time. It's not always easy to love
them, is it? But yet we're commanded to do
so, and we have to forbear with one another. May the Lord give
us grace that we might act in love even when we don't feel
that way of love towards someone. He says in spirit, that is in
the depths of our soul, those things that excite us and move
us. in spirit. See, when we come together and
we sing songs unto the Lord, we sing songs unto the Lord as
the Spirit moves us. It's in our spirit. In other
words, we're not just going through a motion. We're not just picking
up a book and reading some words and those things are in one ear
and out the other, but we sing with the heart as unto the Lord. That's in spirit. You know, let
the Spirit of Christ be in us. In faith, believe in God. Now, no man, we speak about this,
when the Lord said, you know, if you had faith as grain of
mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, be thou removed,
cast into the sea, and it'd be none. And a lot of people think,
well, you know, we need to really work on this and get to where
we've got that kind of faith that we can say to the mountain,
move and it'll move. That wasn't what he was teaching
them. He was teaching them if you had faith. But you don't
have faith. He says you're not people of
faith. How often did he say to his disciples, oh, ye of little
faith. I mean, basically when he said
little faith, he wasn't talking about that they had some faith. What he means is they don't have
any faith. Because faith is the gift of
God. And we cannot have faith apart from the grace of God.
But we ought to act in faith or we're not believing God. And
by the grace of God, we believe, as Brother Al pointed out, the
man said, Lord, I believe. I mean, that's our, we do believe,
do we not? I mean, if we said today, do
you believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God? I mean, we
would confess, yes, we believe. But yet, we know we don't believe. I mean, you know, apart from
the grace of God, we wouldn't believe. I mean, our faith is
paltry. It's nothing. Men say, well,
the Lord, He's gonna see your faith, and He's gonna be happy.
No. The Lord sees your faith, and
He says, man, they don't have any. But you see, He's gracious,
and He's kind, and He gives us faith. And He's pleased with
what He sees. Peter, do you love me? What did Peter think about himself?
No, Lord, I don't love you. I'm not manifesting love, but
I want to love you. Lord, please don't ask me if
I love you because I can't say that I love you because I know
what I've done. Peter, do you love me? Oh, Lord,
I don't love you as I should. And I've sinned against thee. I've denied thee before men.
Peter, do you love me? Lord, thou knowest all things.
He said, feed my sheep. Because you see, he brought Peter
where he wanted him to be. He brought Peter to that place
where he knew he couldn't do anything. He couldn't even love
the Lord. I believe if the Lord had asked
Peter, well, in fact, in essence, he did say, did he not, before
his denial, I mean, when he said, Lord, though all men depart from
me, I won't, because, Lord, I love you. I'm strong, and I'll stand
with you. Wasn't the Lord, was Peter ready
to feed the sheep? Not at all. Peter couldn't feed
the sheep. Why? Because Peter thought he
could feed the sheep. See, as long as a man thinks
he can feed the sheep, he can't feed the sheep. But when the
Lord is pleased to show a man that he needs him, and that it's
not his faith, but it's the faith of Christ, that is that which
upholds us. Be thou such a man, he says to
Timothy, in faith. Trust the Lord. I mean, when somebody says, have
faith, all you do is trust the Lord, is it not? That he might
give you faith. Oh, that he might. And he will. He'll give faith to his people.
Impurity. Be not spotted with the things
of the world. Now, you know, this is a two-edged
sword, and Paul speaks about it to the Colossians. And we have to always be on guard
that we do not think that by not doing something or by doing
something that we somehow or other make ourselves pleasing
in the sight of God. But we're not to adopt the ways
of the world. I mean, we're to look at the
things of the world, and the Lord said, as using the world,
but not abusing it. In other words, we're not those
that love the world, we're those that love His truth. Let's walk
according to that. Be not afraid to walk in those
things that the Lord has convinced you of, convicted you of. Don't adopt the ways of the world
because it's more convenient. but walk in the light that he's
given you. Impurity. Well, we're gonna have
to stop there. We've run out of time. I don't
want to keep you till you go to sleep. But may the Lord work these things
in us. I mean, you know, if there's
one thing that I could ever impart to the Lord's people, it is that
all of our strength is in the Lord. I mean, we don't have any
of ourselves. And the Lord is able to work
in us as He sees fit, as He brings us to that place. And He does
bring us to that place to trust Him. And it's not an easy journey. You know, it doesn't get easier.
There again, when I was a kid, I thought it got easier to believe
the Lord as you got older. But no, it doesn't get easier,
it gets harder. Because you're more prone to
Look at your life. You take an old man that's never
cast his care on the Lord. He doesn't need the Lord. Well,
he's lived 80 years or whatever it is and he hadn't needed the
Lord up to this point. Why does he need Him now? And
he'll die in that condition apart from the grace of God opening
his eyes to see himself in need of a Savior. Old age doesn't
cause him to do it. I used to think, man, you know
when people get old. Because I'd look around and,
you know, I'd see older people and I just thought because they
was old, they was going to church, you know, that they was interested
in the things of God. I never thought about the fact
that there was a multitude out there that didn't have any thought
of whatever of the Lord. I just thought that the older
you got and the closer you got to the grave, you got to thinking
about those things. No, men don't think about that. Men think everything's going
to happen just like it's always happened. And they just figure,
you know, they'll ride it out. They'll be whatever. But only
by the grace of God can a man come to a place of trusting the
Lord, seeking the Lord. And by the mercy of God, having
faith that Jesus Christ is the Savior of sinners, calling upon
his name and finding his mercy. May the Lord show us