14 verses here. Starting with verse
1, it says, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, according
to the promise of life, which is in Christ Jesus. To Timothy, my dearly beloved
son, grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ
Jesus our Lord. I thank God whom I serve from
my forefathers with pure conscience that without ceasing I have remembrance
of thee in my prayers night and day. greatly designed to seething,
being mindful of thy tears, that I may be filled with joy, when
I call to remembrance that unfeigned faith, now that word unfeigned
faith there means that the word unfeigned means unhypocritical,
genuine, okay? Unfeigned is something that's
not hypocritical. When I call to remembrance the
unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother
Lois and thy mother Eunice, and then persuaded that in thee also. So what Paul's saying here is
he said that Timothy's grandmother was a believer, and then Timothy's
mother became a believer, and now Timothy himself was a believer.
Wherefore, I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of
God which is in thee by the putting on of hands. Timothy had been
called to be a pastor, preacher, And Paul here is, and again,
this is the second letter to Timothy. Paul has already written
the first letter of Timothy to Timothy, exhorting him in the
work of the ministry and giving him some admonitions and some
things as far as it pertains to the gospel ministry. And so
here he's saying to stir up the gift of God, which is in thee,
by the putting on of hands. For God hath not given us the
spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of sound mind."
Now, Brethren, I want to just pause there. God has not given
us the spirit of fear. He's telling Timothy, and especially
whenever we're talking about the Apostle Paul, who's seen
a lot of tribulation and turmoil, You know, the Bible tells us
how he was, you know, lost out at sea for several days, and
how he was beat, and how he was whipped, and how he was tortured,
and all the things that he was undergoing, been put in prison,
and all those things. And he's telling Timothy that,
you know, these things are gonna happen to all of us, you know.
This is gonna come up. There's gonna be times that you're
gonna suffer persecution. But he said, we are not given
the spirit of fear. Another thing that Timothy had
to contend with is that Timothy was a younger man. And there
were some who was saying that Timothy, they weren't paying
attention to Timothy, so to speak, because of his age. But yet it
had been confirmed that Timothy had been called into this ministry
by God, and therefore he was encouraging Timothy, and he's
done this in other places, But he has encouraged Timothy, don't
let your age be a hindrance. You preach the word with all
confidence. And these elder men who are coming
at you, and I would imagine he was specifically meaning the
Judaizers, who were learned men from Jerusalem that might be
giving him the little once-over about being a young man and not
knowledgeable. But yet Paul had much confidence in what the Lord
had done in him. And so he's telling me, we don't have a spirit
of fear, but of power and of love and
of sound mind. God has given us the ability
to preach with power. He has given us the ability to
preach in love, to preach with a sound mind. Now, brethren,
these are divine things that God does. These aren't things
that, again, we went back to what we were talking about earlier
before we started all this stuff this morning. Seminaries can't
give you that. Seminaries can tell you how to
do book reports and write letters and theses and, you know, they
can tell you how to find the books of the Bible and they can
tell you what theologians have said throughout the ages, but
they cannot impart to you the gift of preaching. No matter
how far you go in your biblical academics and seminaries, they
cannot import to you the gift and the calling of God in preaching. And the divine power and ability
and understanding and delivery and however, whatever is entailed
in the man of God that preaches, that God has called and gifted
to do such things, Seminaries and men can't teach you that.
Someone can't just decide one day I'm going to be a preacher
and I'm going to go off to school and get my degree and come back
and I'm going to pastor a church somewhere. That's not the way
things work. God calls men, and most of the
time, he calls men that are of the lowest esteem, of the lowest
ability, those who no one would even think, you know, look all
through scriptures, the twelve that he chose to follow him that
became the apostles. Almost every one of them were
fishermen, or some kind of a tradesman, that didn't have any kind of
knowledge, any kind of degree. Matter of fact, there were some
men, whenever they heard them preach and everything like this
and all, how'd these men understand these? They're just fishermen.
How do they know this kind of junk? And so, most of the time,
God takes the baser things, and uses those baser things to put
it not this world who thinks that it's because of men's ability
and knowledge and wisdom that we understand to do things. And
Paul here is encouraging Timothy that God has not given us a spirit
of fear so we can be bold in proclaiming this gospel. And
we can do this in power and of love and of sound mind. And brother,
I can tell you, just from my experience as a pastor and as
the Lord has grown me and in pastoral things, I can tell you
whenever you preach in power, as the Spirit gives you the ability
to do it, if you don't have love to go along with that, you can
put off a lot of people. The Holy Spirit has to give you
a love to preach to the people in such a way that whenever they
hear that, they hear that as food and not you on some sort
of a soapbox beating everybody's heads up. They can tell whether
or not what you're doing is out of love for them and love for
the Lord, love for the gospel. And again, this is a divine thing
that can only be given to us. If I stand here and preach and
I say anything of truth, if there be any power in the preaching
that I have that doesn't come from me, that comes from God. And if He doesn't give me love
in the way that I present that and preach this and everything,
I think most of us know what I might be talking about here,
and if not, I'll try to clarify. There's a lot of times I've been
to churches where preachers, they just try to find whatever
little nitpicky thing that they can pick on, and then they start
formulating their sermons to get everybody straightened in
the congregation, you know? And they just preach from their
soapbox, and a lot of times, most of the time, people realize
that they're not doing that out of love, they're doing that out
of spite, they're doing that out of trying to be some sort
of authoritarian. But brethren, if we preach the
gospel of Jesus Christ, and we can't preach that in love, You
know, the spirit is probably not with us whenever we're doing
that. We're just speaking from the
cuff and speaking from our own wisdom. But he's telling Timothy,
for God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of
love and of sound mind. He says, be not thou therefore,
in light of what I just said, be thou therefore not ashamed
of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me, his prisoner. but
be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the
power of God." He says, don't worry about the fallout of what's
going to happen. If it comes down to being afflicted
because of your gospel that you're preaching, let you be afflicted. We're not given over to fear,
but we're given power to preach the message, to continue in preaching
that message, Don't be ashamed of it. Keep doing that no matter what.
The Lord will have his purpose in all of it. And then verse
9 and 10, of course, we're very familiar with these because I
quote them quite often. But he says this gospel that
he's talking to Timothy to preach, and I would like to encourage
from my vantage point, because I use these two verses right
here quite often, to uphold the doctrine of eternal justification,
the doctrine of eternal election, the doctrine of saved from the
foundation of the world. And here, Paul is using these
verses, giving him these verses, and he's doing it in light of
telling him, don't be ashamed of this message. Don't be ashamed
to teach this. You know, sometimes I come around
brethren disagree on eternal justification, who disagree on
eternal election, eternal salvation, and some of them believe that
it all comes in time at some point and everything. Or they
may believe in means, that salvation comes through means, through
the preaching of the gospel, or the believing, or the repenting,
or some even believe in baptism, that whenever you are baptized,
God washes away your sins in the baptistry waters and everything. But whenever we bring these two
verses right here, it's very plain and clear. It says, who
has saved us and called us with the holy calling, not according
to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which
was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. So the
saving, the calling is all part of God's purpose and grace. And
that was all given to us in Christ Jesus, so I will say that this
is eternal election. This is the eternal Bible union.
This here is the eternal giving of the people of God to Christ,
calling us His people, loving us with an everlasting
love. But in verse 10 we see, but is now, in this time, See,
that's what I was talking about before the foundation of the
world. That was before time. But what's going on in time,
Timothy? But it's now made manifest. What's
being now made manifest? The fact that God has saved us
and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but
according to His purpose and grace that was given to us in
Christ Jesus. That's what's being made manifest
or being brought to light in time. but is now made manifest
by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ who hath abolished
death. How did he abolish death? How
did Christ Jesus abolish death? By dying and rising from the
dead. He abolished death because he
himself died in our place and rose again and we have the promise
that we too will not see death. That doesn't mean that we're
not gonna die. You realize there's a difference in what I just said?
We will not see death, but we will die. It's appointed unto
man who wants to die, right? We're gonna physically die, but
that death is not a death like those who are outside of Christ.
We go to sleep, we wake up in the arms of Christ. We have eternal
life. Whenever they die, they will
come to eternal death. It says, but now is made manifest
who have abolished death and have brought life and immortality
to life through the gospel. So the preaching of the gospel
is to declare, to bring forth life and immortality to the child
of grace. It's to bring it forth, to tell
them about it, to teach them about it, to declare it unto
them. Okay, it's not to cause it to
happen, but it's to show that it has happened. Verse 11 though,
and these are kind of the verses I wanted to look at. Whereunto
I am appointed a preacher, and an apostle, and a teacher of
the Gentiles. For the witch cause I also suffer
these things, nevertheless I am not ashamed. For I know whom
I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able to keep that
which I have committed unto him against that day. Hold fast the
form of sound words which thou hast heard of me, in faith and
love which is in Christ Jesus, that good thing which was committed
unto thee, keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us. Now, brethren,
I wanted to look here at Paul, his, Verse 12, he says that he
is not ashamed of this gospel that he is preaching, that he
is holding forth, that he has taken to the Gentiles. He can
declare this salvation to the Gentiles as much as he could
to the Jew. This gospel is for the Jew and
for the Gentile alike, because the elect of God is found in
every nation, language, tribe, and tongue. And so Paul was confident
that this gospel that had been entrusted to him by God to deliver
to the Gentiles, that he had, through the ministry, had brought
forth Timothy, Timothy had come and been called by God, gifted
by God, put in place of pastoral leadership by God, and in doing
so, Paul entreated him, you also, carry on with this same gospel
that I've passed on to you. And if you remember, in Galatians,
Paul said this gospel that he was preaching to the Galatian
churches, that this gospel wasn't something that he came up with
on his own, and it wasn't something that he went and got from the
religious leaders, but it was taught by Jesus himself. Paul
himself was taught what to preach, the doctrine of Jesus Christ.
He was taught by Christ the doctrine of Christ. So Paul got the message
firsthand from the lips of Jesus Christ himself. Therefore, with
authority as an apostle, Paul could go out and tell this gospel,
and those whom God calls, he could tell those men, this gospel
that's entrusted to you, this gospel is the gospel of Christ,
and this is the gospel that you need to preach, and continue
in, and don't be moving on to other things and other gospels.
Notice what he says here. Hold fast the form of sound words
which thou hast heard of me. He's telling Timothy, listen,
don't deviate from the things that I've told you because what
I've told you came from the lips of Jesus. The things that I've
told you is the doctrine that Christ has told the church to
continue to preach. It's the truth and the gospel
that the church is the pillar and the ground of. He has placed
this within the church for the church to not only keep and to
declare, and to rejoice and to worship around, but also to contend
for. And the church is also there
to uphold and throughout every century be the light of this
gospel to all generations. And brethren, listen, I truly
believe that God divinely keeps His doctrine and His ordinances
preserved throughout the ages through His gathered assemblies.
Whenever they come together, there is a God has promised that. He said, where two or three are
gathered in my name, there I will be in your midst. He said, you
know, go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in
the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching
them all things whatsoever I have commanded thee, and lo, I am
with thee always until the end of the age. Listen, He is with
us whenever we come together. There is a special thing about
coming together as a gathered assembly. The Lord's presence
comes here among us. Now, we can't see it, but a lot
of times we can feel it whenever we know that the Spirit is here,
whenever truth is coming, whenever the Lord is teaching us and the
Lord is encouraging us and lifting our hearts up to what we're here.
Whenever He brings us to worship and rejoice in the Lord Jesus
Christ, I couldn't help Yesterday, whenever Brother JC was preaching
on the Lord Jesus and all of the beauty of who Christ was,
the Lord just filled my heart with what Christ is and who He
is and what He has done for us. And I don't cry very often, but
it brought tears to my eyes. Why is that? Because I believe
that through that the Lord divinely was meeting with us and had given
Him a word for the brethren, sheep food, you know. We want
sheep food. We don't want goat food. We want
some sheep food. And I believe that this is one
of the things that Paul was talking about here to Timothy. He says,
hold fast this form of sound words. Don't deviate from that.
Matter of fact, if you look back in the first letter to Timothy, look back at 1 Timothy chapter
1. This was the first letter that
Paul wrote to Timothy. And look, Paul's saying some
of the same things to Timothy as he was in this first letter.
He says, 1 Timothy 1, and look at verse 3, he says, As I besought
thee to abide still at Ephesus when I went into Macedonia, that
thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine. Okay, so he instructed Timothy,
don't teach any other doctrine than what I've given to you.
He says, neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies
which minister questions rather than godly edifying which is
in faith, so do. Okay, so he's telling them, listen,
don't teach any other doctrine and he said, don't get wrapped
up in fables. You know, you hear a lot of preachers
today and they talk about a lot of Shep, we called them growing
up Shep stories, old Shep stories. You know, they give you a bunch
of these, heartfelt, emotional stirrings in their stories to
get you stirred up and everything. And then old fables, just wives'
tales, you know, fables. He says, don't get wrapped up
in those things. He said, don't get wrapped up in endless genealogies. Now, at the time, all the Jews
were trying to prove their credence by their lineage, whether or
not they were Levites or what. And they were getting into all
this genealogy stuff prove who they were and to say that they
were still pure and all this kind of stuff. He said, don't
get involved in all this, okay? Y'all are Gentile church. These
are Gentile churches we're talking about. There's no need to getting
all bent up in genealogies. I believe there's some other
stuff to be said about some of that stuff, but he said, which
minister questions rather than godly edifying, which is in the
faith. And we ought to take heed of that. There's a lot of stuff
that can be harbored on in churches and people can go to bat and
talk about and everything like that. But if we get on the stuff
that isn't part of the doctrine of Christ, and we're just kind
of speculating in some things, you know. A good example, you
know, we looked, Brother Raines brought up something yesterday.
He said that he thought that the Apostle Paul was the one
who wrote Hebrews. And I would agree with him. I'm
gonna agree with him. I think that Paul wrote Hebrews.
But here's the thing, there's a lot of people that divide over
that. We don't have any, Paul didn't write anything in Hebrews
like he does in all of his other letters, but this is from the
Apostle Paul. So we don't know, it's not given
to us in the Scripture, so because of that, it shouldn't be something
that we divide over. And that's kind of what Paul
was telling him. Let's not minister to questions
that are futile or dumb questions. so to speak. These are things
that doesn't pertain to the gospel. These aren't the things that
pertain to the doctrine that Christ has given us, so let's not get
wrapped up in this. He said, rather than godly edifying,
which is in faith, we're to edify one another. And the way that
we edify one another is not talking about what we can do, or what
you should do, or what others out there are doing, but the
way that we edify and build each other up is by talking about
what Christ has done. See, I'm edified whenever I hear
preaching on the finished work of Jesus Christ. Those are the
things that edify us and build us up. And he says, now the end
of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart and a good
conscience and of faith unfeigned from which some, having swerved,
have turned aside unto vain jangling. vain jangling and just empty
talk. Talking about, you know, other
things outside of the scripture, okay? Desiring to be teachers
of the law and understanding neither what they say nor whatever
they affirm. So, Paul here was telling them
that he wanted to continue to follow the doctrine that was
given to him. Now back in our passage here, he says, hold fast
the form and doctrine of sound words, which thou hast heard
of me in faith and love, which is in Christ. Now Paul just said
that on the heels of verse nine, where he says that God has saved
us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our
words, but according to his purpose and grace that he has given us
in Christ Jesus before the world began. That, brethren, is the
foundation I brought that up yesterday in my message about
eternal justification and eternal election. One of the reasons
I rejoice in those doctrines is because it takes the salvation
of God out of the hands of man. It's impossible for man to be
saved if God has not done something for him. And for us to preach
means or to preach any kind of timely salvation that is in a
response to a condition then we have now taken the gospel
and turned it upside down because the gospel that was bringing
life and immortality to life is the gospel of a salvation
that was given to us before the foundation of the world. But
that right there is the foundation of why Paul in verse 12 was able
to say, I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able
to keep that which I've committed. unto him against that day. So,
a lot of things might be asked, you know. Number one, who is
it that he believed? Well, the context here is Christ
Jesus. I know whom I have believed upon. I've believed upon the Lord Jesus
Christ. I'm believing that he is my salvation. I'm believing that he fulfilled
the law on my behalf. I believe that he took the curse
of the law, my condemnation upon himself, and that he was crucified
in my stead, that he died in my place. The wrath of God was
poured out upon him in my place. I believe that he was reconciled,
or brought back to life, resurrected, not reconciled, resurrected,
brought back to life, and that because he is brought back to
life, then we too will be brought back to life. So all of the gospel
that Paul saw and preached and taught, all was believed because
he knew what Christ had taught him. This salvation is completely
outside of you and it is by the sheer promise and grace of God
Almighty. God who cannot lie has promised
to give it to all of his people and therefore it will come. And
so he says, I know whom I have believed. He's not a liar. And
he wasn't slack. He wasn't a failure in the work
that he came to do. And he says, I am persuaded that
he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him. What
is it that Paul committed unto him? That's a pretty good question
to ask. Paul uses that phrase quite often. Matter of fact,
he said it down just a little bit further, I believe, if I'm
not mistaken. Verse 14, he told Timothy, that
good things which was committed unto thee by the Holy Ghost. I think it was back in the first
letter that he wrote to Timothy that he spoke about something
being committed. Verse 11, chapter one, according
to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed
to my trust. So the gospel was committed to
Paul, but what is it that Paul committed to Christ? His service. I can see that. Paul committed the ministry,
the service and the ministry of the gospel. To Christ, I'm
committing this to you because I know that you're the one that
has the power to bring about everything that you have done,
to bring life and immortality to life through the gospel, to
encourage the saints, to keep the brethren, to encourage. I think it could definitely mean
that. I think it could also mean that he is committed unto him
also the whole salvation of his soul. He's committed all of his
salvation to Christ. I am fully persuaded that he
is able to keep that which I've committed my whole life, my soul,
my eternity, my law keeping, my deserved wrath, that he's
able to keep that. He's able to keep me. See, Paul, whenever he learned
of that eternal salvation, when Paul learned of the gospel of
Jesus Christ, there was no fear. See, the Bible tells us that
the love of God and the understanding of the gospel and those things,
it drives out fear. We had some discussion yesterday
after the services were over and me and two or three other
preachers were sitting around some discussion came up about
some things that I viewed a little bit different than a couple of
them, and everything, and we were sitting there talking about
that. I have full respect for all the men that were in there,
I love all them brethren, and I've gleaned a lot of things
from some of those brothers. One of the men, two of the men
that was there, I don't know very well and haven't been around
them very often, but some of the men that were there, I know
very well, and love them and respect them, and like I said,
I've learned some things through the ministry of Christ in them,
and everything, but there were some things that we were talking
about that I was very persuaded about. And because of this view
of eternal salvation, I had every confidence in what I had to say,
and I was able to speak boldly, and didn't have any fear of rejection,
because I know those brothers loved the truth as well. And
whenever we sit and talk, we talk and we use the scripture.
And if we still don't agree at the end of the day, we go away
looking at the scripture. Well, I'm gonna have to just
look into that and see what the spirit brings me to. The other brother
didn't get up, come over and dot me in the eye and say, don't
come back to anywhere I'm at anymore or anything like that.
But there's something about the gospel that whenever we have
been persuaded of its truth, by the Holy Spirit again, Paul
made that clear, by the Spirit of God. Whenever we are persuaded
of these things, and God has promised these things, we have
every ground to be not fearful, stand boldly. And sometimes,
as he says, we may have to stand like they did back in this first
century, when they were being persecuted not only by the Romans,
but also by the Jewish leaders. that persecution might come to
us one of these days, in this country. And whenever we stand
up, listen, this isn't a godly country, this isn't a godly nation.
No matter what we want to claim it to be, America is not a nation
that is founded on the true gospel of Jesus Christ, even in its
very beginnings. The gospel that it was founded
upon was semi-Pelagian at its best, but it was not the true
gospel of Jesus Christ. And listen, the true believers
in the gospel were persecuted in those colonial days before
we were ever a country, and even after we were a country, they
were persecuted. And listen, the days may come
whenever we stand and whenever we preach the things that we
preach about salvation, especially as it pertains to men not having
a hand in that salvation and that God chooses those whom he
will save and he gives him that love and that grace. Listen,
brother, listen, we preach that. God does love us. Man, that was
the thing that I've appreciated about J.C.' 's message is just
the fact that God loves us and he has given us Christ and Christ
is the compassionate Christ and he is loving towards us. But
brother, listen, the offense of the cross still is gonna stand.
that God saves whom he will save, and that salvation is effectual.
It will be given to whomever it will be given to, and those
who it's given to, they will believe, and they will be kept,
and that fear will be driven out by the power of God. And so Paul here is encouraging
Timothy to hold fast to these things. Now, if we hold fast
to a false gospel, Now there may be a lot of people that may
stand firm for false gospel. Read the Fox's Book of Martyrs.
It's filled with people who have wrong doctrine who were killed
for their faith in that wrong gospel. But brother, listen, whenever
you know the truth, it's hard to be deviated from that. Now
I'm not saying that that's impossible. Listen, if somebody told me You
either deny what you believe right now, or we're going to
take you out there and chop your head off. And they go to start
doing it. I pray that the Lord will give
me strength and take away the fear and let me stand firm and
everything. But I know in my flesh I'm a
weakling. I may bubble just to get out
of being hurt for a while. I probably recant that recant,
but who knows? I pray that the Lord will give
me that. But see, again, the Lord has to give us that. He
has to give us that spirit of, take away that spirit of fear,
and give us the spirit of courage in the face of those things.
Brethren, the days are coming that this might be very true,
and what Paul is teaching to Timothy is very true to us, and
I wanted to just bring this up today, not only to tell you all
about some pastoral things so that you know that. And it's
always good to preach on these things, some of these instructional
pastoral writings that Paul did to Timothy and some of these
men. And I think because we as a church, we need to know what
the Bible says about the things of the church, the gospel ministry,
the pastor, the deacons, the women's roles, the men's roles,
all these things. We need to know what the Bible
teaches about those things. And I don't teach on those real
often, because the Lord just seems to keep me concentrated
on preaching the gospel and everything. But oftentimes these things need
to be taught, especially for newer Christians, that they might
be taught and instructed. Because Jesus did say to teach
them all things whatsoever I have commanded thee. So we are to
teach these things that have been commanded. And one of the
things, and I would say probably the most primary thing, is that
we continue in the faith that was delivered down once to the
saints by the Lord Jesus Christ. And those apostles took that
as the foundation of the church. And as it began to move and spread
and made disciples throughout all the region, and other brethren
began to believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ, and they were gathering
into churches, they laid the foundation of the gospel. And
that truth is what we are to hold today. I believe that the
doctrine that me and Brother Larry preach and teach is the
ancient doctrine that Paul preached, and that the apostles taught,
and all those of that first century taught, and that we are holding
down the same things that they are. And because of that, like
I said, the Lord has blessed his churches throughout the years.
That doesn't guarantee that any particular church is going to
continue and last forever. We see that there were churches
in that early church age that the Lord told them, you know,
there's some things that's gonna happen if you don't repent, and
I will remove my candlestick from you. That means I will remove
the light, I will remove the gospel. And people turn their
ears to what their itching ears want to hear, and they begin
to preach and listen to false gospels and things that Christ
didn't teach, And then the Bible says that whenever that does
that, that he writes Ichabod over the door of the meeting.
And that word means the glory of God has departed, the glory
is no longer here. And churches disintegrate, they
go away. Unfortunately, brethren, we see
that often. And I've seen that in churches
that I've known and loved and had brethren that was in there
who has went away from the gospel and got sidetracked on secondary
things and began to do things in the way men do it and the
wisdom of man teaches it. And in doing so, the Lord has
taken the lampstand out and that church has withered away and
became no more a lighthouse of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And
so I pray that the Lord would encourage us like he did through
Paul to Timothy to stand firm in the faith and in the doctrine.
That's why we I believe doctrine is important. The teaching of
Christ is important. That's why I try to teach my
kids the importance of understanding these doctrines and knowing these
doctrines. Not that I think I can save them.
Only Christ can save them. If you're here today, only Christ
can save you. If he hasn't saved you, there's
nothing the preacher or the church can do. But we still keep these
doctrines and we teach these doctrines. and we hold them as
Christ has delivered them to us. Has anybody got any comments
or anything that you'd like to add to that? How about we sing
page 149 in the Old School Hymnal of Clothes? 149. Here's the page I was telling
you about. I know I have a... I know not why God's wondrous
grace to me He hath made known, Nor why unworthy Christ in love
redeemed me for His own. But I know whom I have believed
and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I've committed
unto Him against that day. I know not how this saving faith
to me He did impart Nor how believing in His word brought peace within
my heart I know not how the Spirit moves convincing men of sin,
revealing Jesus through the Word, creating faith in Him. I know not what of good or ill
may be reserved for me, Of weary ways or golden days before His
face I see. I know not when my Lord may come
at night or noonday fair. nor if I walk the veil with Him
or meet Him in the air. But I know whom I have believed
and I'm persuaded that He is able to keep that which I've
committed. Father, we thank you today for
your love and your grace and the mercy that you've given us
in Christ. We thank you for the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ
and father, we pray that you would keep us faithful to these
things. Lord, we pray that you would
help us to Christ Jesus and what he has
done on our behalf. Lord, we pray for all the churches
that you have around this world, that you would strengthen them.
This morning, even as those are standing and preaching today,
Lord, we pray that the power of God might be among them, that
there might be encouragement, that there might be worship to
Christ. Lord, we just are grateful for
all that you do and all that you are amongst us. And Father,
we just pray that you'd be with us as we leave today. You might
keep us safe until we meet again. And Lord, we just are thankful
again for the salvation that we've had. And through the Lord
Jesus Christ, it's in his name that we pray.