Please open your Bibles to 1
Timothy again, chapter three. I want to thank the worship team. I got to know them a little bit. They do look pretty cool. But
they honor the Lord. And I so appreciate that. It's such a gift. Also the privilege
to be able to just be amongst such fine people and fine preachers. It's always very humbling. Walked out of the green room.
I had a pretty rough night last night again, and I thought, I
feel like I'm going to pass out. And I walked through the back,
Vodibacham sitting in a chair bent over with a big ice pack
on his eye, and I thought, man, we're getting old. We are really getting old. Someone
asked me how I felt, and I said, well, imagine five days in a
stagnant swamp wrestling with Vodibacham. That's how I have felt. 1 Timothy 3, verse 14. I am writing these
things to you, hoping to come to you before long, but in case
I am delayed, I write so that you will know how one ought to
conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of
the living God, the pillar in support of the truth. By common
confession, great is the mystery of godliness. He who was revealed
in the flesh was vindicated in the spirit seen by angels, proclaimed
among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory. But the spirit explicitly says
that in latter times, some will fall away from the faith, paying
attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons. By means
of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with
a branding iron. Men who forbid marriage and advocate
abstaining from foods which God has created to be gratefully
shared in by those who believe and know the truth. For everything
created by God is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received
with gratitude. For it is sanctified by means
of the word of God and prayer. In pointing out these things
to the brethren, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus,
constantly nourished on the words of faith and of the sound doctrine
which you have been following. Let's go to the Lord in prayer.
Father, thank you. Thank you so much for everything
that you are and everything that you have done for us. Thank you for your word, without
which, Lord, we would not have much of an
anchor. Lord, please help us to understand
this text and to apply it to our lives for your glory and
our good, the good of your church. In Jesus' name, amen. I want to just summarize what
was said in my last sermon, verses 14 and 15. First of all, again, I want to
plead, especially with the young believers here, that you must
become a vital member of a local church. You must. It is not an option in Scripture.
You will never be in the center of God's will unless you put
yourself in a local church with biblical elders who are seeking
to follow sola scriptura, who are simple men simply seeking
to obey God in what is written. We see In verse 15, one of the
most, I think, amazing passages for the local church, one of
the most amazing passages with regard to our need of the day,
and it says this. In verse 14, I am writing these
things to you, hoping to come to you before long, but in case
I am delayed, I write so that you will know how one ought to
conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of
the living God. It is his church, his household. And the only way we can know
how to conduct ourselves or to manage as ministers, as stewards,
the bride of Christ is through what is written. And I just want
to say this to you. I don't care how offensive it
is to you. May I have grace, but may the
zeal of the Lord also push me into saying this. If you go beyond what is written
and follow your own cleverness, I can only say to you that your
arrogance is overwhelming and I fear for your soul. Do you not know that you will
stand before God on that great day? Do you not realize that
in all of us, something will burn and only that which is according
to what is written will last? On that day, zeal will not matter. The amount of effort you put
forth, you just put forth effort into your own arrogance unless
you are submitting as a minister of Christ to what is written.
And my dear brother, listen to me. Is there not enough written
in the Scriptures to keep us busy all day long so that we
do not occupy ourselves in futile and stupid things that are nothing
more than the vain, vanity, foolishness of men? God never asked for your
cleverness. He never wanted your inventions. You are a steward, and as a steward,
you are called upon to do simply this, obey the directions that
have been left to you, not through some ecstatic vision, but through
what is written. Not through some wild prompting
in your heart, but through what is written. That's what this
text is about. Now, Having gone through that,
we come to verse 16. By common confession, great is
the mystery of godliness. ESV has it, great indeed, we
confess, is the mystery of godliness. The New English translation,
we all agree. That body of genuine Christians throughout history
confess this, that there is a mystery And that mystery is great above
all other mysteries. It is the one thing that captivates
the heart of a man and will not let him go. Now, what is a mystery? As Dr. D.A. Carson set forth
the other day, a mystery is a truth that was previously hidden but
has now been revealed. It's interesting that in the
Qumran documents and also in Jewish apocalyptic writings that
we see that they believed that the mystery was the secret plan
of God that would be revealed in the last days. And some of
them through the coming of the Messiah. And Paul says that time
has come. That great mystery has been given
to the church. And it has been given to us,
the greatest of all truth, the greatest of all mysteries, far
beyond anything that can be seen or spied or discovered in the
universe. The greatest thing has been given
to us. And when Paul says this, he says, by common confession,
great is this mystery of godliness. It's a difficult passage. Is
he talking about great is the mystery of our religion? That's
a great possibility. This thing called Christianity,
there is one great mystery that should captivate our heart and
take first place always. But he could also be saying that
this great mystery leads us to true piety, to true conformity
to the heart and the will of God. The will
of God. Now, what is that? He sets it
forth. He who was revealed in the flesh,
was vindicated in the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among
the nations, believed on in glory, taken up in the world in glory. Believed on in the world, taken
up in glory. Many people believe that Paul
is borrowing here from a Christian hymn. It is possible, but because
it's in this book, I know that it is inspired and it is true. Now, scholars look at this and
sometimes they divide it into two stanzas. Each stanza has
three lines. The first stanza, he was revealed
in the flesh, was vindicated in the spirit, seen by angels.
The second stanza would be proclaimed among the nations, believed on
in the world, and taken up in glory. Now, let's just look at
these briefly, even though, let me assure you, the greatest minds that have
ever been, whether human or angelic, could never comprehend all the
glory, the beauty, the power found in this hymn. The greatest
voice among men, angels, seraphs, even if they could grasp this,
could not communicate fully the beauty of it. I am convinced
that the gospel of Jesus Christ, which is this mystery, is so
great that only the fullness of its greatness can be comprehended
by God Himself. And that it is our task, the
moment we are born again, the moment we believe we have eternal
life, and this is eternal life, to know Him. So the moment we
believe, we start a pursuit, a chase. A wild search that will go on
throughout all eternity. Sometimes students and people
will talk to me about the second coming and the book of Revelation
as though it was the greatest of all truths. I like to tell
them this. I said, you'll understand everything
about the second coming on the day it happens. But you will be an eternity of
eternities in heaven, and you still will not have reached the
foothills of the Everest of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I am a farm boy. I am not greatly
educated, nor am I well-cultured. You can take me out of the farm,
but you can't take the farm out of me. When I was in school, and my
school was a rather poor school, they were trying to give us a
class called Art Appreciation. And what our professor told us
was, you have to develop a mind that can appreciate beauty. And later on, you know, at times,
after I left our cattle ranch and I learned that there were
other things other than meat, my wife would make me eat all
sorts of strange things. And she said, you have to develop
a palate to appreciate finer things. I believe that we are born again
quite uncultured. And I believe that it is the
task of the preacher to cultivate the mind of the flock and to
give them a palate so that they learn to reject the slop, the
common, and they learn to appreciate what is truly beauty. That they
learn to taste and see that the Lord is good. And that is the
purpose of the preacher in that he spends long hours every day
locked in a room alone with God and the Word that he may pull
forth at least something of the great infinite truth locked in
this book about God and teach the people so that the people
can appreciate, appreciate that which is true. And that's why
I'm so burdened for what calls itself Christianity in America,
because many of the pastors are entertaining people with fodder,
with the carnal, and in some cases, even with the demonic. Here, in these words, is life,
beauty, the manifestation of the glory of God, He who was
revealed in the flesh. You see, you can't understand
how powerful this phrase is unless you understand who He was prior
to His incarnation and what it meant for the Son of God to take
upon Himself a body in the likeness of human flesh and then to wade
through this world for the sake of His bride. I was preaching last week in
California and I had to preach on Ephesians 2. One, we were
dead in our trespasses and sins. And the only way I could communicate
what that text is really saying is this. Imagine yourself as
a dead and rotting corpse, laying at the bottom of a cesspool. A cesspool that was created by
the refuse and the rot flowing out of your own body. So here
you are dead in your trespasses and sins in the realm of all
your transgressions. In the realm of all your transgressions
and sins. And in the incarnation, the Son
of God comes and wades that cesspool. And then on Calvary, he dives
in headfirst after his bride. He takes her in his arms, as
filthy as she is, and he pulls her out of that cesspool. And
he cleanses her with his blood. And he puts his mouth on her
mouth and breathes life into her. You see, there is enough
power in just this, to propel a regenerated heart into an eternity
of piety. He was vindicated in the Spirit.
What does that mean? Well, in a sense, during his
ministry, he was vindicated in the Spirit, in that the Spirit
was with him. Doing marvelous works no man
has ever done. Vindicating him the works that
I do, he says. If you don't believe me, look
at the works. But primarily the idea here is
the resurrection. And we see that, don't we? Listen
to Romans 1.4. He was declared the Son of God
with power by the resurrection from the dead. It doesn't mean
he became the Son of God, but he was declared to be, he was
proven to be. If you're waiting for God to
open up the sky to speak to you with regard to the validity of
Christ and his death, then you'll wait in vain. God's already spoken.
He raised him from the dead. And that's the only evidence
he's ever going to give you. And it is enough. Romans 4, 25,
he was raised because of our justification. Now, many people
will look at this and they get kind of confused and they say,
well, the death is the important thing, but here it skips that.
No, it doesn't. You see, you're not raised from
the dead unless you're actually dead. And then the word vindication
is so very, very important. You see, the raising of Christ
from the dead by the Spirit of God is the great evidence that
His death had meaning. And what was that meaning? It
all comes down to this. Every time I present the gospel,
I begin with this. The greatest problem in all the
world is if God is just, He cannot forgive you. That is the great
dilemma of Scripture. All of Scripture is geared toward
answering this one question, if God is just, how can he forgive
wicked men and still be just? And the answer is found in the
death of his son on Calvary, where he bore the sin of his
people. He bore his bride's sin. And then all the wrath of God
against her was poured out on him. And through his suffering and
death, the offended justice of God was satisfied and wrath was
appeased. If that's not in your gospel,
you don't preach the gospel. You do not preach the gospel.
He was seen by angels. What is the meaning of that?
Well, we know that angels were there at his birth. We know that
angels comforted him before, during Gethsemane. We know he
could have called legions of angels to come down and help
him. We know that angels announced his resurrection. But I think
this goes much farther than this. It's talking about the universal
or cosmic significance of Christ's work. What stupid men ignore
and cannot appreciate the highest created beings in the universe
stretch forth their neck to constantly gaze upon. This to them is the wonder of
wonders. Then he goes to the next stanza,
proclaimed among the nations. It's the gospel's global proclamation.
You know, Paul, even in Paul's time, he told Festus, this wasn't
done in a corner. And then he goes on and he says
this, believed on in the world, the power of the gospel, the
power of the gospel to advance God's redemptive plan of the
ages. God is not losing. You see, you've got to be very,
very careful that you do not judge everything from the microcosm
in which you live. If I go to almost every country
in the world, Christianity is a minority. But if you add up all the people who know Christ,
scattered throughout all the world, I can assure you that
Christ's enterprise is the biggest thing on this planet. I am not
discouraged. He rolls on and rolls on triumphantly. He does. And this gospel is powerful. I know, brethren, I know that
if I shed all of Saul's armor, And I stand before the world,
or a tribe, or the Bedouins in the Middle East, and I have nothing
in my hand except the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
I know if I preach long enough, someone's coming out of there
converted. And then finally, it says, taken
up in glory, Christ's present triumphal reign through the gospel.
He ends in glory. It all ends in glory. It all
ends in glory. If you've read the Scriptures
correctly as a man of God, there should be times in your life,
brethren, where your wife will catch you in your office or seated
outside on a chair. She takes one look at you and
she knows she's lost you. You're gazing. You're looking. You're waiting. You're longing for the glory
that will appear when He appears. Sometimes you cannot preach too
much on heaven. You can preach about heaven wrongly. But brothers, you need to have
constantly before you. This is not a losing venture.
This is a glorious cause, the greatest thing that has ever
been done. And we're a part of it. And it's wonderful. And it's
all rolled up in the gospel of Jesus Christ. You know, sometimes I've gone
places to preach and the preacher will say, what are you going
to preach on? and the gospel. And he said, well, this isn't
an evangelistic meeting. I've even had people say, well,
we know that. Really? Well, there's your problem. Let's go on to verse 1 of chapter
4. But the Spirit explicitly says
that in latter times some will fall away from the faith, paying
attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons." Now,
what is going on here? First of all, Paul says the Spirit
explicitly says, you and I can be guided by the Spirit, we can
be prompted, but you and I, this type of language does not belong
to us. But as an apostle, Paul could say this, The Spirit was
explicitly saying, retos means expressedly, or very specifically,
the Spirit was saying. Also, the word saying, lego,
is in present tense. The idea is that the Spirit was
warning Paul over and over and over and over. About what? That in the latter times, something
horrible was going to happen. Now, when did the latter times
begin? They did not begin with some
revival in the 50s. The latter times began with the
coming, the death, the resurrection, the ascension and exaltation
of the Messiah. And how long would these latter
days last until he returns? So throughout the entire age
of the church, if we could say it that way, there is a constant
and continuous danger of apostasy. Now, what is apostasy? Aphistimi
means to remove oneself, to depart, to desert, to revolt. Now, in the context of Christianity,
it is to depart from the faith or to stand... Now, listen to
this. to stand aloof from the primary
or central doctrines of the faith. Now, in this context, It is specifically
directed toward our relationship with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Remember, chapter 4 wasn't chapter 4 when Paul wrote it. It just
simply followed his presentation in verse 16 of the gospel. It is falling away from the gospel
of Jesus Christ. Now, before we go on to talk
about true apostasy, I want to be very careful here because
when We can be in error about some things and without having
committed apostasy. And yet at the same time, knowing
my own heart, something about the human heart, from the reading
of the Scriptures, I do know that there can be types and kinds
and degrees of apostasy in our hearts. There can be a doctrinal
apostasy. You know, we talk about the Great
Reformation, and brothers, I study the reformers and everything,
but be very, very careful. The reformers didn't see themselves
as reformed. They just wanted to be biblical.
And I would really appreciate it if we would use the term biblical
to define ourselves rather than just using the word reformed. I honestly did not mean to do
that. Whatever happened to the word
biblical? I just want to be biblical, you see. Now, so you can depart
from doctrine, but there's ethical departures also, and we seem
to forget that, especially the young reformed movement and all
these characters. It's like they think that having
come to understand sovereign grace, they can now live a life
of basic antinomianism or flaunting all their liberties and care
not whether they offend another brother. They're little boys
playing marbles with diamonds is what they are. Then there
can be a devotional apostasy. There really can. Sometimes I
have to ask myself, Paul, how much time do you spend worshiping,
praying just for communion's sake to delight in the Lord? And then there can be a practical
apostasy. I was with a group of men and
it was a meeting, it was several meetings, and it was all about
the Reformation. And finally, I just felt like
out of love, I needed to speak. And I said, you men are not reformed. How dare you say that? I said,
well, because it's true. You're not Reformed. You have
one doctrine of the Reformation. You all have come to believe
in the sovereignty of God and salvation. Congratulations. I
applaud that, but that is not what the Reformation was about.
The Reformation was about knowing the Scriptures and conforming
every aspect of our life to the Scriptures. Do you see that? So there can be a practical one.
Or I may go into your church and before I preach, I walk into
the library and I see all kinds of books. I mean, I see the old
guys who are really good. I see Flavel. I see Edwards. I see Calvin. I see all the newer
guys. I see Sproul and MacArthur and
everything else. And yet when I go in your church,
nothing that is in those books is actually being practiced.
The gospel presentation, well, I would think you were just run-of-the-mill
evangelical, especially when you give the call to men to be
saved. So you can see, you can have it all in your head.
But if it doesn't work itself out in the practical, it really
doesn't matter that much. Now, he says, what will be the
origin of this apostasy? He says, deceitful spirits, planos. The word actually at the beginning
came to mean a wanderer or a vagabond, really. And then from that, it
came to mean something of a deceiver or a seducer or an imposter,
someone who kind of walked around from town to town, posing to
be something he's not, deceiving people, lying to people. Paul
may have been using this with regard to all those traveling
teachers that were causing him so much trouble. Now, he says,
doctrines of demons. This is doctrines of the devil's
agents because the devil's never referred to as a demon. But they
are agents of the devil. And we know all about this, don't
we? Look at 1 Peter 5, 8. Be sober. Be of sober spirit. Be on the alert. Your adversary,
the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone
to devour. Now, I've heard people say, he's
a roaring lion. Really, I've heard this. He's
a roaring lion, and lions that roared, it meant they didn't
have any teeth, and so he's really scary, but he really can't do
that much damage. That's one of the stupidest things
I've ever heard in my life. I have personally seen the damage
he has done in the last 33 years to brothers who started the race
with me and are no longer there. And I fear what He could do to
me. I am always asking the Lord this. Increase the fear of the Lord
in me. Increase the fear of sin in me. And a healthy fear of this devil. I have had men attack me with
such viciousness that it was terrifying. It's like Do you realize that
without God's protective care, in one second, the devil could
destroy everything about you, ruin your reputation, absolutely
destroy you? Have you ever looked down his
mouth? It's terrifying. How does he devour? John 8, 44.
He was a murderer from the beginning. and does not stand in the truth
because there is no truth in him. And whenever he speaks a
lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father
of lies. He lies. He's a liar. He is exceptional. He is brilliant
in his evil. Absolutely brilliant. And the only thing that stands
between the destructive power of his lies and the bride of
Christ is the spouse of Christ, the
king. That's why you don't never want
to run very far from him. Now, the means. or instruments
of apostasy. Look at verse 2, by means of
the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with
a branding iron. You need to understand something.
I don't want to exalt my place or exalt the place of a preacher,
but I want to tell you something. As God uses men to advance his
kingdom through the proclamation of the truth, so the devil uses
men to advance his cause against the kingdom of Christ. Now, I
want you to notice something from the book of Acts, that whenever
the kingdom is advancing, it's because the word of God is being
proclaimed. You want to advance the kingdom? Proclaim, proclaim,
proclaim the truth. But you need to understand that
there are two lines on this battlefield, and one line has men of truth.
They are men of truth, not by their own virtue or merit, but
the election, the sovereignty, the grace of God. They are men
of truth and they must stand with the truth and stop playing
games like little boys and devote themselves to know the truth
and to proclaim it. And then on this side, there
is another line. And they are proclaimers. of
lies, frivolity, maybe even good things, but not the best things
of God. Now, it says that they're liars
because they do not speak the truth. Now, what does that mean? They
do not speak according to what is written, and therefore, they
prove that they have no dawn. Young man, when you get up in
the pulpit, no one needs to hear from your heart. They need to
hear from God's Word. If you go on the mission field,
let me share with you something. Someone called me years ago and
said, I want to come to the mission field. And I said, why? I just
want to give my life away. I said, young man, no one here
in Peru needs your life. They need the Word of God proclaimed
to them. Liars. They are liars because
they do not speak according to what is written. They are hypocritical
because they pretend to have a spirituality that is from God,
but in actuality, at best, their spirituality is carnal or natural. And at worst, it's demonic. Now,
again, how do you know if one's spirituality is from God? Because it conforms to what is
written. It conforms to what is written. Then it says, seared
in their own conscience as with a branding iron. I believe this
can manifest itself in two different ways. First of all, they know
they're lying. They know they're lying, but
their conscience is so seared that they no longer believe in
God or they no longer fear Him. Now, this idea of a conscience
seared with a branding iron, when I was on our on our farm. When I was a little boy, we used
to dehorn cattle by taking these big cutters and just cutting
off the horn. And it was dangerous for the
cattle because blood would spurt and then there was chance of
infection and everything else, and it hurt. But later on, what
we did is new technology. When a calf was born, we'd bring
it in after a certain amount of months, and we had this iron,
electric iron with a hole in it. And you would lay it on the
nub of that horn, and you would go down and go down, and it would
hurt at first. And then all of a sudden, the
animal would get still. Because what are you doing? You're burning
that horn off, but you're also burning every one of those nerves
so they no longer feel anything. That's what it means. Now, they
know they're lying, but there's another way, I think. They actually
believe they're doing the right thing. Well, how did they get
to this point? They looked at Scripture, and
particularly, they looked at the gospel and found little delight
in it, little power in it, little usefulness of it for their ministries. And therefore, God turned them
over, and the best word I can use here is to frivolity, to
vanity. And churches throughout America
that are called evangelical, and that's why that term means
absolutely nothing today. Churches all throughout America,
evangelical churches, are filled with this kind of frivolity. Now, I want us to look at verses
3 through 5. 3 through 5 totally catch me off
guard. In light of verses 1 and 2, I
just do not expect 3 through 5. And someone says, why? Well,
if you look at verses 1 and 2, I mean, he is using language
that's not used anywhere else in the Scriptures. He said, the
Spirit explicitly says. That's like, hey, listen, this
is important. And then he goes on and he talks
about deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons. And he talks about
men filled with hypocrisy who are liars and are literally seared
in their own conscience. And you begin to think, surely,
verse 3 is going to talk about the revelation of the Antichrist. I mean, something big is coming
in verse 3. But what do we get? Men who forbid
marriage. and advocate abstaining from
foods. And then we look at that, especially
as Americans, and go, well, we have no fear of apostasy. We
all marry, and I've looked at most of you. You definitely don't
abstain from food. You need to abstain a little
bit more, actually, to be biblical. I didn't want you to think that
I was getting too nice. So what does this have to do? I mean, how do you put these
two things together? They don't make sense. But if
you sit there long enough and look at it, you see, wow, I am
so in danger of apostasy. The church is so filled, or not
the church, but the expression of Christianity in America is
so filled with apostasy. What is this saying? I mean,
what does it really, really mean? What he's saying is this. Anytime
you put anything in front of the gospel of Jesus Christ, anytime
you place something higher, you give more emphasis to something
other than the gospel of Jesus Christ, you are committing apostasy. at least to some degree, to some
kind. Let me give you an example. There
are churches that can set above the
gospel a certain type of morality or legalism. They're all about
rules. Then there, you know, I homeschool,
and I love homeschoolers and homeschool movements, but sometimes
I've gone in to do conferences, and honestly, it looks more like
a Pride and Prejudice movie than it does Christianity. It's all
about the way you dress, and it's all about the way you talk,
and it's all about doing calligraphy, and it's all... What? No. I had a pastor who called me
one time and he said, I want you to come preach in my church because I
think we got a lot of lost people in the membership. And I said,
well, maybe I ought to preach to you if you've got a lot of
lost people in the membership. And I said, what do you mean?
He said, man, my church has got a lot of homeschoolers. And I
go, brother, I homeschool. You homeschool. So what are you
saying? He goes, I got people in my church
that if you ask them to stand up and give their testimony,
they'll say five years ago I found homeschooling. What's happening
there? The gospel is being put down
and something else is being given importance. What do you talk
about most? Preacher, what do you preach about most? I've been
accused sometimes of only having one sermon. All I ever do is
go to Romans 3 and teach on propitiation. I said, yeah, and I've read hundreds,
maybe thousands of Spurgeon sermons, and if he took some obscure text
anywhere in the Bible, he made it back to propitiation. As a
matter of fact, in my study of all the great preachers down
through the centuries, their great emphasis was the gospel
of Jesus Christ, the blood that was shed. They couldn't get away
from it because it captivated them. So if they talked about
marriage, they talked about the cross. We can degrade and we can take legalism and
we can put it above the gospel. At the same time, and this is
more prevalent, we can take antinomianism, our freedoms, and put them above
the gospel. The reason I can't enter into
some of the freedoms of my younger brothers is because of the gospel. As a matter of fact, look what
Titus 2, 11 and 12 says, For the grace of God has appeared,
bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness
and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly
in the present age. Paul said in Galatians 5.13,
for you were called to freedom, brethren, but do not turn your
freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love,
serve one another. Blessed is the man who meditates
upon the law of God. Every time it seems I talk about
commands or I talk about my delight in the law of God, people, I
mean, people in the church will say to me things like, well,
you know, the law is just oppressive. And this is what I always ask
them. Just which law is oppressing
you? Is it the one that says you shall not take your neighbor's
wife? Is that the one oppressing you? Then you got some serious
problems. Is it the one that says you shall
not bear false witness against your neighbor? Is that the one
that oppresses you and makes you feel like you have no freedom? No, we are not saved by the law
or ability to keep commands. No, no, no. We're saved through
believing. And even that believing is a
gift from God. And yet those of us with a regenerate
heart, we delight in the law of the Lord. And it is the law
of God, the commands of God, that enable us to know how to
express love towards God. Another way is to trivialize
the gospel. with material prosperity and self-realization. A lot of pastors today call themselves
life coaches. I applaud that. I want them to
stop using the word pastor because they're not. It's like when someone told me
a while back, aren't you kind of angry that all these churches
are taking Baptist off their, you know, signs and stuff? And I said, no, I'm glad they're
not Baptist. Self-realization? Prosperity? Brothers, I literally have to
restrain myself when I hear somebody say Jehovah-Jarrah, the Lord
will provide, and then point to their Mercedes. The Lord will provide what? A
ram, an offering, a sacrifice on that mount He has provided,
Christ. Another way in which the gospel,
we're having this flip-flop and this apostasy, is we deny the
gospel by diminishing the uniqueness of Christ. Brothers, that is
going to be the battle of our lives as we grow older. You are
going to see. It's already happening. You're
going to see it. You're going to see Maybe even
the great majority of evangelicals are going to deny the uniqueness
of Christ. They're going to say, Christ
is my Savior. But they're not going to say
He is the Savior. They're going to say things like,
who am I to judge? I can't judge others and what others believe.
No, but for me, Jesus is my Savior. That's apostasy. Listen, I could
become the most popular preacher in America tomorrow. I could
be on every liberal talk show, news program, and everything.
All I have to do is change. the definite article to an indefinite
article. I have to stop saying Jesus is
the Savior and start saying He is a Savior, and everyone will
applaud me. You see, Christians were persecuted
in the first centuries for being atheists. Did you know that?
Because there was the land before them, there was the Roman Empire
with thousands upon thousands of gods. And everyone was okay
with everyone else's gods. They traded gods like we would
trade baseball cards when we were little kids. They affirmed
one another. And then here comes the Christian,
all your gods are vanity. They are not gods. And furthermore,
Caesar isn't Lord. Jesus is. Do you see that? We are going to see, I believe,
a massive wave of apostasy. And here's what's going to happen.
When preachers like me, will not give in on the day they throw
my old body in jail, the great majority of evangelicals will
stand up and say, amen. We're tired of that preacher's
hatred and intolerance. Don't you ever give in to that.
You give in to that, my friend, you are not Christian. You are
not Christian at all. Then another way, And this may
hit some of you. When a church, and when I say
church, I mean a local body of believers, when a church uses
anything other than the gospel as a drawing card for the church,
they're close to apostasy. Let me give you an example. I
go to websites. I look up a church, I see a website.
What's amazing to me, I see this photograph. It's so
common of just a bunch of spectacularly beautiful people. I mean, they're
beautiful, and they're all smiling, and they're maybe hugging one
another. And you hear things like an accepting
serving, kind community invites you to join them or something
like that. My first question is, I want to go to my pastor
sometimes and ask him this question, how did they get all the beautiful
people because our people are kind of ugly? I mean, really? I mean, where
did they get all these beautiful people? And then the gospel is found
on page 16 of the website, a watered-down, powerless version of what is
written. Their drawing card is them. And
you say, well, Brother Paul, what did Jesus say? You know,
they would know we are Christians by our love. The apostles didn't
walk around hugging one another as they walked into town. So don't take that text out of
context. I was with Brother Conrad, he
may not even remember this, we were in Romania together years
and years ago. And he was preaching to our missionaries
and he said this. He said, do you want to know
how the Apostle Paul started a church? He took a big billboard
out and he wrote upon it the most scandalous thing he could
possibly write, we preach Christ crucified. And it was in that
scandalous message that the power of God was manifested in the
regeneration and redemption of men. Don't try to put a pretty worldly
face on your church. Don't develop this idea that
the cults frequently use. that we're going to soft-sell
the gospel, put the demands somewhere way in the back, or the scandalous
content somewhere in the back, and gradually we'll move the
people toward that. That's deception. Congratulations, you've just
become much like these people described in verses 1 and 2.
We preach Christ. We preach Christ crucified. Now, in 56 seconds, what is the
cure for this? Look at verse six. Young Timothy,
in pointing out these things to the brethren, you will be
a good servant of Christ Jesus. What is our job? Just like a
ship's captain at the pulpit. You keep that boat in the right
direction. And what is that direction? Headed
straight for the gospel of Jesus Christ. Everything about your church
is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Your proclamation begins with
the gospel of Jesus Christ in living colors, in living colors. The gospel, the gospel. Nothing
greater has ever been given to a creature. Nothing greater has
ever been done by God. And is your palate so unrefined
spiritually that you desire other things? Is your church's palate
so unrefined because of your preaching that you have to entertain
them or get them occupied in your vision so that they have some purpose? I really get sick and tired of
men with all their visions. Pastor, the only vision you need
is Christ crucified and raised from the dead. And then you simply
obey him. You obey him and allow that obedience
and the grace of God to take you where Christ wants you to
go. Stop building your own kingdom.
Preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. Do only what is written. Let's pray.