First Timothy chapter four, beginning
at verse seven. First Timothy chapter four and
verse seven. The apostle Paul wrote here,
he says in verse seven, but refuse profane and old, refuse profane
and old wise fables and exercise thyself rather unto godliness.
He says, for bodily exercise profiteth little. In other words,
it's nothing to it. But godliness. And always remember
that godliness has been defined up in chapter three in verse
16. Great is the mystery of godliness.
And all that it said there is wrapped up in the person and
work of Christ. That's godliness. following God,
fellowship with God and with one another based upon the merits
of Christ's righteousness alone. His righteousness imputed, empowered,
and enlivened by the Holy Spirit according to truth. Walking that
way, and that's what he says. Bodily exercises profiteth little.
but godliness is profitable unto all things, having the promise
of the life that now is. In other words, salvation is
not something we have to wait for, or we have to work for. Salvation is not our personal
goal in that sense. Salvation is a reality for us
right now. And so that's the life that now
is. and of that which is to come.
Now that's final glory. And it's called salvation. That's
the future aspect of our salvation. We're going to be glorified with
him. And so he says, this is a faithful saying and worthy
of all acceptation. Now this, you know, it's funny
how some commentators will do. There's an argument when he says,
this is a faithful saying worthy of all acceptance. Is he talking
about what he said before or what he says after? And they'll
argue about stuff like that. Well, why? He's talking about
all of it. And he says, a faithful saying
means it's a true saying. This is truth. Worthy of all
acceptation means that it's worthy to be accepted and believed by
all true children of God. There should be no arguments
here. No debates, no division. And so he says in verse 10, for
therefore we both labor and suffer reproach, I'll come to that in
just a moment, because we trust in the living God, who is the
savior of all men, especially of those that believe. Now what's
he talking about there? I want to talk a little bit about
universalism and why it's so bad. I've been preparing a message
on that, just on that subject. All right, and verse 11, he says,
these things command and teach, let no man despise thy youth.
Timothy was probably around 38 to 40 years old at this time.
But be thou an example of the believers in word, in conversation,
in charity, and spirit, in faith and purity. Now I titled the
lesson Remember These Things, it comes from another verse,
but what he's talking about is put them in remembrance of all
these things. So let's go back up to verse
seven of 1 Timothy chapter four. He says, but refuse profane and
old wives' fables and exercise thyself rather unto godliness.
When we think of profane or profanity, we think about somebody saying
curse words. And that is profane, it's profanity.
But the idea here, it's described, as I put in your lesson, all
that is unholy, all that is worldly, and all that is opposed to the truth of God in Christ.
All of those things. And so anything, anything that
a person would say that would misrepresent or deny the true
and living God is profanity. And really it's worse than just
saying cuss words, you know, I mean that's bad enough. But
it's worse because it denies the glory of God. And so he mentions
profanity, he mentions fables. Fables refers to human concoctions. In other words, this is a human,
something man has come up with that he thinks teaches good.
You know, we talk about growing up we heard Aesop's fables and
there was a moral and some of those were good, you know, I
mean, moral lessons and human morality. But when it comes to
telling the things of God, teaching the things of God, teaching the
things of Christ and salvation, if man interjects his own ideas,
that's fables. That's a lie. It's what it really
is. It's a myth. And it doesn't apply to the doctrine.
You know, Paul said, we preach Christ crucified not with wisdom
of words, not with wisdom of man's words. So, you know, you'll
hear a lot of people come back and they'll say, well, here's
the way I think it is. Well, we don't care how you think
it is. We want to hear what God says
it is. Because anything else is a fable.
And the term old wives tales, you've heard that term. Old wives,
that's a way of referring to a person who's ignorant, in the
dark. It's just talk, and they're untaught. There's no validity, there's
no productive truth in it at all. Old wives' tales. So all of these, profanity, false
doctrine, fables, old wives' tales, promoted by those who
are ignorant and unlearned in the word of God. You remember
what Paul tells Timothy over in 2 Timothy, I think it is,
in the second letter, when he says, verse 15 of chapter two,
He says, study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman
that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of
truth. And right after that, verse 16,
he said, but shun profane and vain babblings. Now that's the
kind of thing he's talking about in our text, where they will
increase unto more ungodliness. And so when you go back to verse
seven, he says, And verse seven, exercise thyself rather unto
godliness. So what we're talking about here
is godliness, as it is defined in the scripture, has to do with
faith in Christ, repentance of dead works, and persevering in
the faith, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our
faith. Walking according to his word. And anything else is ungodly. Now, understand now, ungodliness
can appear righteous unto men. You need to understand that.
Because a lot of people relegate ungodliness only to the immoral,
perverted world, which we see a lot of in this world. You can't turn on the news anymore
without seeing it in technicolor. And it's right out there. But
we need to understand that some of those religions that fight
the openly immoral are just as profane and immoral themselves
when it comes to understanding who God is, what he does, and
how he saves sinners, and who Christ is, all of that. And that's
the problem that Paul's dealing with in these epistles. John
2. We need to understand that this
is written to religious people. And a lot of it's written to
those who claim to be Christians, but who deny the doctrine of
Christ, the truth. So understand that. Now he says
in verse 8 of chapter 4, he says, for bodily exercise profiteth
little. Now he's not talking about exercising
for health. going to the gym or walking and
stuff like that. He's talking about religion.
And what he's saying is that what you do bodily, I mean whether
you jump a pew or fall on the floor or raise your hand, that
doesn't mean a thing. What means something is what
Christ said to the woman at the well. He said, Remember he told her, she said,
we worship over here, that was a Samaritan woman, they had a
temple up there, and you worship in Jerusalem. And he told her,
he said, well you don't know what you worship. He said, God is spirit, and he
desires those who worship him in spirit and in truth. So whether
you kneel down to pray or you stand up to pray or you raise
your hands or go through motions or whatever, it profits little,
if anything. And of course, if you're not
praying to the living God, we're gonna see here, if you're not
praying to the living God, it means absolutely nothing. In
the book of Jeremiah, there's a scene where Jeremiah the prophet
is admonishing the people for their worship, which was without
truth. And they were standing and looking
at the temple with their hands raised. And he represents God
just like Isaiah did. He said, I'm tired of your exercises. I'm tired of what you're doing.
I want to spew it out of my mouth, vomit it up. That's what God
says. And in the scene in Jeremiah,
they're looking toward the temple, they're raising their hands,
but they're backing away. That was a vision that God gave
him. And the point is, is that the more religious they got without
truth, the farther away from God they were getting. Not closer
to God, but far away from him. I love that passage in Philippians
3 in verse 3 where it talks about we are the circumcision which
worship God in spirit and glory in Christ Jesus and have no confidence
in the flesh. So this bodily exercise doesn't
mean anything. People do this for show. But
he says, but godliness is profitable unto all things. And we've talked
about godliness. Living and walking by faith in
Christ, by the gospel and sound doctrine. I put in here, it profits
unto all things pertaining to salvation and final glory in
heaven. It may not make you rich in money,
but it'll make you rich in grace. Because in Christ we have all
things, don't we? And so he says, having the promise.
It's profitable unto all things. Look at it. Having promise of
the life that now is and of that which is to come. In other words,
all these things, we're not working to gain salvation. If you look
back in Isaiah chapter 46, this will give you an idea. You know,
most people, And even some who will say they have an assurance
of salvation, they live their lives and they preach their messages
as if we're trying to attain righteousness in order to be
right with God, in order to get into heaven, as they will say.
But that's not what God's people are doing. Look at Isaiah 46,
the last two verses. Verse 12, Isaiah 46, he says,
hearken unto me, you stout-hearted, that's a self-righteous person,
proud, self-righteous, that are far from righteousness. It's
like those in Romans 10, they don't know the righteousness
of God, they think they are. Look at what he says in verse
13. I bring near my righteousness. Now what is my right? That's
the righteousness of God. I bring it near. It's not far
off. It shall not be far off and my
salvation shall not tarry. In other words, it's not something
you have to work for and wait on. But he says I will place
salvation in Zion for Israel my glory. That's Christ. See
that? So salvation is not something
we attain by our exercises, our works. It's something that is
freely given to us, all conditioned on Christ, having been made the
righteousness of God in him. And then he goes into verse nine
of 1 Timothy four, this is a faithful saint and worthy of all acceptation. This is a true saint. Am I, aren't
you glad? It's a true say. See, Paul is
not talking about a pipe dream. He's not talking about the horizon.
He's talking about something that we have right now within
our hearts, our minds, our souls, evidenced by the fact that we
plead Christ's blood and righteousness alone. He's my only hope. He's my assurance. We talked
about that out of 1 John. I'm gonna talk about it a little
bit more today. Verse 10, for therefore, we both labor and
suffer reproach. Now that's why we work. Labor. Remember Christ told them don't
labor for the meat that perishes? We work, we fight. We're in a warfare. We struggle. We struggle within ourselves.
Sometimes we struggle with each other. We struggle with the world,
the flesh, the devil. But be of good cheer, Christ
said, I've overcome the world. The devil has been put down. His accusations can't stick.
Who shall anything to the charge of God's elect? It's God that
justifies. Who can condemn us? It's Christ
that does. Do we deserve condemnation? Yeah, based on our works, we
deserve it. But we don't have it because
grace is not about what we deserve. It's about what we're freely
given. We struggle with the world. So
the therefore, encompasses everything that he's been saying about the
grace of God in Christ and what true godliness is. Therefore
we both labor and suffer reproach. You remember what the reproach
of Christ in Hebrews 13. Why did the world hate the Lord? It wasn't because he fed 5,000.
It wasn't because he healed the sick. It was because he told
them they were lost. except your righteousness exceed
the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees. You'll by
no way enter the kingdom of heaven. That's why they hate him. He
said that in John 18, when he told the disciples, he said marvel
not if the world hated me before. He said if I had not come and
spoken to them, they would have no cloak for their sin. In other
words, their sin was cloaked under religion. But it was false
religion, so much so that they did indeed appear righteous unto
men. And Christ came and said, now wait a minute, what you're
looking to and depending upon is evil. He's shown a light on
their works. And that's what the Holy Spirit
does for us when he convicts us of sin. He shines a light
on us that we didn't see before. We get eyes to see and ears to
hear. And then we see the reality of what we are. and what we deserve. But the moment we speak of Christ
to religious people and tell them the truth, there comes that
reproach. But remember, it's the reproach
of Christ. It's a reproach that identifies
us with Christ. Now that doesn't mean we're going
out trying to pick a fight with people or be mean to people. Mark and I were talking about
how if somebody comes and asks you a question, And says, what
do you think of this? I can tell you what God says
about it. And that's what I think. That's what I believe. Now he
says in verse 10, for therefore we both labor and suffer reproach
because we trust in the living God. We don't trust a dead God. People who are seeking salvation
by their works, by their decisions, by their performances, are seeking
salvation from a dead God. Is that too harsh? That's the
truth. Paul said in the book of Romans,
chapter 9, he said, Israel sought after righteousness, but they
didn't attain it. Why? Because they sought it by
works of the law and not by faith, not by looking to Christ. And
they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about
to establish a righteousness of their own, have not submitted
themselves to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end
of the law for righteousness to everyone that believe it."
Now that's the state of things. But then he goes on, he says,
because we trust in the living God, who is the Savior of all
men, especially those that believe. Now how do you interpret that
verse? Well, you know as well as I do that most people turn
to what I call universalism. And that's not right. And it
comes forth, you know, in this idea that God loves you and he's
trying to save you, he's trying to save everybody. There are
people who think everybody's going to be saved in the end.
I even heard a preacher say that he had a friend who thought the
devil was going to be saved in the end. And the guy asked him, he said,
well, what scriptures do you use to prove that? He didn't
have any. He said, that's just what I think, he said. Profane,
babbling, old wives tales. Universalism is bad for several
reasons. And like I said, I'm not going
to preach the message I've been working on for that. Why is it
so bad? Wouldn't you love to go out and
tell everybody without exception that God loves you and Christ
died for you and you'll be okay? I know this, if God loves you
and Christ died for you, you're gonna be saved. You mark it down. That's what this book teaches. If he's the propitiation for
your sins and somebody says, well, you must accept it. Well,
the problem with that is the Bible tells us that by nature
we will not accept it. There has to be a work of grace
upon the sinner before he or she will accept it. And that's
regeneration, conversion, the new birth. So why is universalism
so bad? Because it misrepresents the
God of this book who says, I'll be merciful to whom I will, I'll
be gracious to whom I will. And he chose a people before
the foundation of the world and gave them to Christ. And he sent
Christ to die for their sins. Christ's death for our sins is
a satisfaction, not a general amnesty. Christ's death on the cross guarantees
the salvation of his sheep. He said, I lay down my life for
the sheep. The sheep will hear my voice
and they'll come to me. He said, other sheep I had that
are not of this fold, the Jewish fold. He said, them also I must
bring. He said, glorify thou me with
the glory which we had before the world began. And that glory
is seen in the fact that he giveth salvation to all whom the Lord
gave to him. All that the Father gave to me
shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise
cast out. This is the will of him that sent me, that of all
which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but raise it up
again at the last day. Who can lay anything to the charge
of God's elect? God that justifies. Who can condemn
us? It's Christ that died. Who shall
separate us from the love of God in Christ? Nothing, read
it, Romans eight. Universalism denies that. Universalism
denies the state of the sinner. It says that there's some good
in man that if he can find a preacher who's eloquent enough, he can
fan that spark and get a decision out of him. That's not biblical.
A believer is a miracle of God's grace and power. Universalism puts salvation conditioned
on sinners and not on Christ. And universalism puts all the
responsibility of being preserved under glory upon ourselves and
not upon Christ. The Bible says Christ is able
to save to the uttermost them that come to God by him. So he's
not saying that Christ is the savior of all men, especially
in the sense of eternal salvation. And then he adds this, especially
those that believe. Now what does that mean? In other
words, if you're not a believer, God's gonna save you, but he
especially saves the ones that believe. No, that's not what
he's saying. He's talking about God is ultimately
the deliverer of all men temporarily and temporally. That's what he's
talking about. And Paul is dealing with that subject in this First
Timothy. Listen, an unbeliever, a person
who goes through life as an unbeliever and dies in unbelief, I'll guarantee
you in that person's lifetime, if they live to be, let's say
70 to 80, There'd been many times that
they could have been killed before that age, but they were delivered. And who delivered them? God does.
Who delivers us? Especially those that believe.
That's what he's talking about. Now, some he doesn't deliver.
Some are cut down in their youth, believer and unbeliever. But
that's the whole thing. This certainly includes believers,
his children, but most especially those whom God saves in an eternal
sense. That's the only way you could
interpret that and remain true to the Bible. Because if he delivers
all people without exception, I would say let's close the book
and go home. All right, why preach the gospel?
Why upset people? God, you know, in Romans chapter
nine, he talks about how he perseveres the four, what do they call it?
What is that? The word's gone out of my head.
I'll turn it over there. Sometimes I have a senior moment.
I admit it. No use denying it. The forbearance
of God had popped into my head. He forbears. You know, there's
a song that says, the good, they die young. Well, that's not true. But the idea there is that if
you're mean and ungodly, then you'll live an old age. Well,
that's not necessarily true. But sometimes we wonder about
people who are enemies of God, but who live ripe old ages. Why
didn't God just cut them down? He's forbearing. He's the deliverer
of all men, especially those that believe. I often think about
Methuselah, 969 years old. The Bible doesn't say anything
about Methuselah being a believer. The only thing we know about
him is his name and his age. And you know what his name means,
flood's coming. That's what it means. It just says Methuselah
lived to be 969 years and he died, boom. What a biography. So I don't know. But the thing
about it is, whatever life a person lives in length on this earth,
it's God who forbears with them and he perseveres with us to
bring us to glory, the believers. And so, the point I put in here,
the point Paul makes here is that God is the ultimate deliverer
of all men, even those who perish eternally in unbelief, in a temporal
sense, and he most certainly cares for and protects and preserves
his children unto eternal life. Let's go to verse 11, I'll hurry.
These things command and teach. And that's where I got the title
from when he talks about, and he says this later on, remember
these things. These are what you command and
teach. Let no man despise thy youth. As I said, Timothy was
probably around 38 to 40 years old. And he says, but be thou an example
of the believers. And that's what we all should
strive to be, be an example of a worshiper, of one who loves
the brethren, a forgiver. Follow Christ, that's what he's
talking about. And he says, He says, in word,
that's doctrine. In conversation, that's our conduct. In charity, that's love. It would
include taking sides with brethren against the world. In spirit
refers to our attitude, our disposition. In faith, that's talking about
faithfulness, perseverance in the faith. Continue in Christ,
look to Christ, rest in Christ. And then in purity, he means
our motives. Pure, unmixed motives and spiritual
charity for the glory of God in Christ and not for any ill-gotten
gain or greed or anything like that. Okay.