Apostles closing out this letter to Timothy, this second letter. Timothy, as he's put in a position of leadership in the church at Ephesus. And that church at Ephesus is something, you know, the book of Ephesus, I know we've gone through most of these books of the Bible, the New Testament anyway, and When you look at the problems that they had, every church here on earth has problems, we know that.

Problems, and you know why they have problems? Because there's people in it. I'm in it, you know, you're in it. But some problems are more serious than others. Some problems sort of the Lord uses to expose false professors. And that's one thing I know about us.

We don't want to be found among that number, those who are false professors. We don't have to sit on the edge of our seats, shaking in our boots, worrying if we are. That's what false religion basically does at some point in time. And in false religion, those who have an assurance or a confidence of salvation, it's mainly based on self-righteousness and not on the grace of God.

So when we go through these epistles, let's take them to heart. Even though he's talking to a pastor here, he's got good words for all of us. So understand that. But here's what he says. He says, Timothy, I charge thee. That's a commandment. Paul's saying this is the force of a commandment. God doesn't make suggestions. He gives commands. And he says, I charge thee, Timothy. And this is given in light of the most, what I've got here, the most serious event mankind will ever have to face, and that's the final judgment. You know, we always say, I use this just about every time I preach a funeral or close to it, that the four words that we all have to face equally is we all have to, we all have a life to live.

Now for some, it's shorter than others. For Alex, he was 47. For Methuselah, he was 962. But what could be said about Alex because of his profession of faith what he said he believed was much, much more profound and important and good than anything could have ever been said, especially in the Bible now, what's revealed about Methuselah in 962 years.

We know about Methuselah because we know what his name was, and his name literally means something like a flood is coming. So he was kind of like an embodiment of a prophecy. The flood's coming. The next thing is said about Methuselah is he lived 962 years and he died.

That's it. Well, I said more about Alex when he died. And I've said more about other believers when they died. And what I've talked about mostly is their savior. Jesus Christ, which is what they all would want. But that's the thing about, we all have a life to live, we all have a judgment to face.

Now, believers facing the judgment is not the same as an unbeliever. Because we don't have to face the judgment in order to determine where we're going to go. Heaven or hell, whatever. because technically we have already been judged for all our sins. And that took place on the cross when Christ died as our surety, our substitute, and our redeemer. We've already been judged for all our sins. There will not be an accounting of our sins at the judgment.

Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? it's God that justifies, that is risen again and seated at the right hand of the Father ever living to make intercession for us. So that's already been done but we will appear so that it will be declared God will declare these are my people these are my children this is my family and it will be declared Actually, the judgment of unbelievers will not be a determining thing, it's already determined but it'll be declared before the universe that they are not God's family, that they are lost and will perish but we have a judgment to face and thank God, now listen to me, now thank God every one of us that God revealed that standard of judgment to us before we got there. We won't be surprised like those he said, depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

Because we know what the standard of judgment is, it's the righteousness of Christ. God hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained and he hath given him assurance unto all men and they raised him from the dead. And then we all, we have a life to live, we have a death to die, we have a judgment to face, and we have an eternity to spend. So it will be declared and made manifest at this judgment before the whole universe, the reality of sin and righteousness, the reality of lost and saved, the reality of guilty and justified.

And it's all related to how we stand before God with Christ. We stand before God with Christ. And all who stand before God in Christ, washed in his blood and clothed in his righteousness, will be saved, shall be saved. And so, when he says, I charge thee, we're in 1 Timothy 4, or 2 Timothy 4. I charge thee therefore before God.

Say, this is the issue. we ought to be concerned with how our reputation is before men and women. We don't throw that to the wayside but the most that we're concerned with is our standing, our state, and our reputation before God and it says, and the Lord Jesus Christ because it's through Christ that the Godhead expresses Himself to us, Father, Son, and Spirit, and we see the fullness of the Godhead in Christ, and it says, who shall judge the quick and the dead?

The quick, that's the living. And the dead, that's the dead. What he's talking about is the difference between the new birth, born again by the Spirit, live in the Spirit, and those who are still naturally dead and who will die the second death. And so he's gonna judge between the quick and the dead.

And that's why we wanna search the scriptures to understand what that new birth is all about. It's believing in Christ, repenting of dead works and persevering in the faith. That's what the new birth is. you've been born again you'll believe in Christ as he's presented and defined and distinguished and identified in the Word of God and you will repent of your dead works all sins sins in general but the thing that men and women need to know by revelation is the sinfulness of their best efforts to keep them saved, to save themselves. Salvation's not by word, and I'm gonna deal with that in the message at 11. The first evidence that we have, well, we have evidence in Adam and Eve, but we also have it in Cain and Abel, and I'm gonna deal with that this morning in that message.

And so, that's what people, that's what I didn't understand before I heard and believed the gospel, that my best efforts to earn God's favor or to turn away his wrath were wicked and evil in the sight of God. Why? Because they're self-righteous. They deny his glory. God says salvation is not by works, but by grace through the work of Christ. And if I try to take some of that on myself, it's what the Bible says, trying to get glory for myself. The Bible said we talked about why God won't share his glory. He's not gonna do it. He doesn't need to. God's the creator. We're the creature. Where do we get off trying to take glory from the creator? God's the savior. If we're saved, we're the saved. Where do we get off trying to take glory from the savior?

And somebody says, well, I don't like the way God does that. Well, you argue with him. You know, I told, I think I told you last week, I used to read that poem. This was before I would even say, it said, your arms are too short to box with God. What did he ask Job when Job questioned his wisdom and his providence? He said, where were you when I put the earth in space? Where were you when I put Leviathan in the sea?

Understand that. So he says he's going to judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom. That's the second coming. When Christ comes back again, it's all gonna be over. And now here's what he says to do. Look at verse two. Preach the word. Preach the word of God, Timothy. What am I gonna do, Lord, in light of this judgment and your second coming?

Let's sit down and get all these charts out and try to figure out when it's gonna be. No, he didn't say that. I don't know if you all ever saw this, but there was an old theologian who had a whole book of charts and numbers trying to figure out pretty much when the second coming would come. He didn't have an exact date, but there was another guy out in California who had two exact dates. In fact, he wrote a book on one of them. and had to retract it.

That's not what we're to do. I don't know when he's coming back. I just know that he is, and I'm to live every day as if it's right now, in the next second. He may come back before we finish today. But we don't know. But we're to live our lives thinking that it could be any minute now. So what do we do?

Timothy, preach the word. Preach the gospel. That's what people need. They need to hear the good news of how God saves sinners through Jesus Christ. And preach the word of God as we have at the Bible. And we preach all of it in light of the gospel. A true minister, a true evangelist, They preach God's word alone. They don't try to add to it, and they don't try to take away from it. And I love this. I put this in the lesson.

Turn over to 2 Corinthians 5.21. You know, this is a verse that's been under controversy for a long time now. 2 Corinthians 5. A lot of men who used to preach it right have changed. They've strayed from it.

And they don't like the doctrine of imputation, which is so important to understanding substitution and how God could just, how could God punish Jesus Christ for our sins when he himself was not a sinner? How could God be just to do that? Well, there's only one way. It's by laying the charge, the account, the reckoning of our sin debt to Christ and Christ accepting it, which that happened before the foundation of the world, the surety. On the same token, how could, that's by imputation, how could God accept me in his holy presence, a sinner. How could he do that and still be just and do so? Well, there's only one way.

He has to impute to me a righteousness that I didn't produce and to prove that I didn't produce it, I couldn't produce it. I could try today, I could start and say, I'm gonna keep it today. Well, what about my past sins? But the fact of it is, you know and I know, I couldn't start keeping it perfectly today. See, the only way that God can do that is taking the perfection of Christ, the righteousness of Christ, and imputing it to our account.

Now, that's the ground of salvation, but that's not all that salvation is. I try to tell some of these fellas who've strayed away from that, nobody's saying that's the only thing salvation is. Salvation is, it is a legal matter, forensic matter. But it's also a spiritual matter.

And those whom God chose from the beginning, whom Christ redeemed on the cross, to whom, whose sins were imputed to Christ, and whose righteousness was imputed to them, they shall be born again. the gospel and they'll have new life and they'll believe in Christ. But look here at 2nd Corinthians chapter 5 where he says he's talking about the salvation as it should be presented and he says in verse 18, that all things are of God, that's all things spiritual, all things providential, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation. Now he says to wit, that means namely. In other words, he's given us the ministry of reconciliation. Now here's what that ministry of reconciliation is. Do you know what reconciliation is? That's peace between two parties who are at odds. God has already been reconciled to us. It's what he's gonna say here, verse 19. To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, and that's talking about his people now, not everybody without exception. How do you know that?

Not imputing their trespasses unto them. He didn't charge them with their sin. If God doesn't charge you with your sin, he cannot, he cannot send you to hell. He'd be unjust to do so. And if he doesn't charge them to you, where does he charge them? To his son. So he says, he says, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and have committed unto us the word of reconciliation, that's the gospel.

Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. Now God's been reconciled to us in Christ, but we fell in Adam. into a state of sin and depravity and rebellion. And so at some point in time, if God has been reconciled to us, he's going to reconcile us to him. And up until that point, the book of Colossians says we were enemies in our minds by wicked works. And so the preaching of the gospel is that God has been reconciled to his people, now we beseech you, you be reconciled to him. Believe the gospel. Now we know that's a gift from God, but that's not our business, that's God's business. I can't give you faith to believe, I can't give you a new heart, can't even give myself one, but God can. And I know if he does, you'll come willingly. And so he says, and here's the ground of it. For he hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. That's the ground of it. So look at it there.

We'll go back to 2nd Timothy 4. So he says in verse 2, preach the word, be instant, in season, out of season, be ready at any time. Reprove, rebuke, that's correct, and explain, exhort, preach with all long-suffering patience and doctrine. not false doctrine, right doctrine. Remember Paul talked about that in first and second Timothy all the way through. John spoke of it, the doctrine of Christ. Paul spoke of it in Romans and other places. He says in verse three, for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine. Are we living in that day? They won't endure sound.

I was listening to a fellow on computer the other day, somebody sent it to me. And he was talking about, he says this, and it sounds good at the surface, but you delve into it a little bit. He says, we don't trust a doctrine, we trust a person. And I know a lot of people like to hear that. Well, we do trust a person. We trust Christ. We don't trust his doctrine apart from Christ, but we don't trust Christ without doctrine. How are you gonna know who Christ is?

I had a friend of mine tell me something similar to that, and I said, well, let's just set up a scenario here, I told him. Let's say I just came off the banana boat from the Bahamas or somewhere, and I'd never seen a Bible, never heard of Christianity, never heard of Jesus Christ, and you're gonna witness to me. What are you gonna say? I asked him.

He said, well, I tell you, he's the son of God. Well, that's the doctrine of his deity, isn't it? Tell you he's the son of man. That's the doctrine of his humanity. I tell you that he's the Messiah, the Savior. You see, you can't tell anybody about him without doctrine, not right doctrine. You go up to, who are those guys? They're always in the neighborhood. Well, them too, Mormons too.

Yeah, Jehovah's Witness is what I think of, because they claim that Jesus is not God. So if they tell you about Christ, they're gonna tell you about a false one. Is your Jesus God? No, no. They said that he, I heard one of them say one time that he worked himself up to God. No. That's bad doctrine. That's a false Christ. So see what I'm saying? So he says, for the time will come when they will not endure sound, the Mormons are just about as bad as what you're talking about though, aren't they? Endure sound doctrine.

But after their own lust shall they heap to themselves teachers having itching ears. Now he's talking about the people who want to hear these teachers having itching ears. You know where you go to an itching ear? You got to scratch it. And so what he's talking about here is people who will tell them what they want to hear, not what they need to hear. And so in verse four, he says, and they shall turn away their ears from the truth and be turned unto fables.

And that's so sad. Lord, keep us from that. That's what Paul's telling Timothy. Don't get involved in those things. Avoid them like the plague. They're deadly. They're deadly from their speakers and they're deadly to their hearers. It's all false doctrine. And when you tell them the truth, they'll turn their ways. It goes back to John 3, verse 19 and 20, when he says, the light has come into the world, and men love darkness and hate the light. Because it tells them what they don't want to hear. It tells them their deeds, which they're so proud of, are evil. This was a big part of the Pharisees' problem.

They'd spent their lives serving the Lord, they'd say. And then they found out from Jesus of Nazareth, a carpenter's son, and this band of followers that he had who were, they were not schooled in seminary, but they found out from that, heard them say that they didn't know God. That they misrepresented God. that they were hypocrites. That's what he told them. And they hate the light.

And they turned unto fables. Well, verse five, he says, but watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, they were coming. I've often told people, I said, you don't have to go out and look for them, they'll come. It comes with the territory. Do the work of an evangelist. An evangelist is considered somebody who traveled and preached the gospel. Make full proof of thy ministry, which is that one who spreads the good news of the gospel, of God's grace in Christ, and in preaching that gospel, even in spite of all the opposition that comes, all the persecution from the world, the flesh, and the devil, gives evidence of being in the service of the true and living God, a true servant of Christ. And that's what it means to make full evidence, proof of the ministry. Okay? All right.