Let's look again to 1 Timothy
chapter 1. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ
by the commandment of God our Savior, and Lord Jesus Christ,
which is our hope, unto Timothy, my own son in the faith, grace,
mercy, and peace, from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord. 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. Neither give heed to fables and
endless genealogies which minister questions rather than godly edifying
which is in faith, so do. Now the end of the commandment
is charity or love out of a pure heart and of a good conscience
and a faith unfeigned from which some having swerved have turned
aside into vain jangling desiring to be teachers of the law understanding
neither what they say nor whereof they affirm. But we know that
the law is good if a man use it lawfully, knowing this, that
the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and
disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners. for unholy and
profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for
manslayers, for whoremongers, for them that defile themselves
with mankind, for men-stealers, for liars, for perjured persons,
and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine,
according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God which was
committed to my trust. And I thank Christ Jesus, our
Lord, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful,
putting me into the ministry, who was before a blasphemer and
a persecutor and injurious, but I obtained mercy because I did
it ignorantly in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord was
exceeding abundant with faith and love, which is in Christ
Jesus. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation.
that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom
I am chief. Albeit for this cause, I obtain
mercy that in me first, Jesus Christ might show forth all longsuffering
for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life
everlasting. Now unto the King, eternal, immortal,
invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory forever and
ever. This charge I commit unto thee,
son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before
on thee, that thou by them mightest war a good warfare, holding faith
and a good conscience, which some, having put away concerning
faith, have made shipwrecked, of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander,
whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme. In the outline of this chapter
that I gave us last Wednesday, I said that the chapter has two
main divisions. The first division, the salutation
in verses 1 and 2. And then the second division
of this chapter from verse 3 on to the end. And this division
is divided into three parts. A, the command to teach only
sound doctrine. B, the commandment to observe
Paul as a pattern, and C, the command to wage successful warfare. That outline is not mine, I borrowed
it from someone else. We looked last time at the command
to teach only sound doctrine. You notice in verse one, verse
three, the apostle said, I besought thee to abide at Ephesus, that
thou mightest charge some, and I would remind us again of some,
not everyone in the church at Ephesus was strained from the
truth, had swerved from the gospel, but some had. And we saw how
that Paul in Acts chapter 20, when he met with the elders from
this church, that he told them that this would take place, that
some would come in and some even of them selves would rise up. And so he left Timothy there
at Ephesus that he would charge some that they teach no other
doctrine. And we see in verse number 11,
the doctrine, the sound words that was to be taught. And it is the glorious gospel
of the blessed God. Now tonight, I want to look at
the remainder of this chapter, the two parts that are left,
the command to observe Paul as a pattern, and then the command
to wage a successful warfare. First, the command to observe
Paul as a pattern. Notice he begins this section.
It begins in verse 12 and goes through verse 17. He begins this section thanking
Christ Jesus, our Lord, and he concludes it praising God Almighty. He begins, and I thank Christ
Jesus, our Lord, and then he concludes, now unto the King
eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and
glory forever and ever. Amen. I want to look at these
verses one by one. Verse 12. And I thank Christ
Jesus, our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful,
putting me into the ministry. We notice that Paul gives all
the glory to the Lord Jesus Christ. He thanked Him for putting Him
into the ministry. Now the ministry calls for these
three things. It calls for other things, but
for these three things for sure. The ministry of preaching the
gospel, being a gospel preacher. The ministry calls for faithfulness. That's number one. It is required
of a steward that he be found faithful. And those men that
God puts into the ministry, they must be faithful. And then it
requires also courage. Because a man who is preaching
the gospel is going to meet with some people who do not agree
with what he preaches and what the Lord has revealed to him.
He must have courage. And then he must have zeal. He
must be zealous in the things of the Lord. And Paul, he manifested,
or we see manifested in his life, in his ministry, these three
things especially. He was faithful, he had a zeal,
and he certainly had courage. And he tells us that it was Christ
who enabled him. It wasn't like Paul was gifted
naturally. He had some natural gifts, no
doubt, that God used, but God, He says, enabled him. I thank
Christ Jesus, our Lord, who hath enabled me. Without His enabling
grace, without His enabling power, Paul would be as weak as water,
just like you and just like me. But the zeal and the courage
and the faithfulness that was demonstrated in his life was
because the Lord Jesus Christ enabled him. He suffered, we know from the
scriptures. He suffered at the hands of many,
but yet he gives all glory to Christ as the one who enabled
him. How could he suffer the things
that he suffered? being stoned, being beaten with
rods, being shipwrecked, being left in the deep. And all of
these things came upon him because he was put into the ministry,
because he was a preacher of the gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ. How could he do these things?
Christ enabled him. Christ enabled him. Now, when
we read verse 12, we must be careful with one word. And it
is that word counted, counted. Who hath enabled me for that
he counted me faithful. It'd be easy to read this verse
of scripture and to understand it like some people do. And that
is that the Lord Jesus Christ saw that Paul was going to be
faithful, that he was going to be zealous and he was going to
be filled with courage. And so the Lord put him into
the ministry. But that's not what he is saying
here. When he says the Lord counted him, the Lord gifted him with
the ministry to be faithful and to be zealous and to have the
courage that he had. Christ made him so by his grace. Just like he says in 1 Corinthians
7, about something else, but the same thing is true. He obtained
mercy of the Lord to be faithful. That's what he says. And the
context there is talking about being a celibate, not being married.
But the same thing is true in every phase of his life. He obtained
mercy of the Lord to be faithful. And the reason a man is faithful
is because of the mercy of the Lord. That's the only reason.
We were born again, or we come to a knowledge of the Lord Jesus
Christ by mercy, don't we? But you know, mercy is something
we need all along the way. Our Christian experience begins
with the mercy of God, and it continues by the mercy of God. There's never a day, and thank
God in Lamentations, we read that His mercies are new every
morning, every morning. Now, verse 13, he says, Who was
before a blasphemer, a persecutor, and injurious? But I obtained
mercy because I did it ignorantly. I want you to notice the word
before. Before. Who was before? He talks about his life before. before he came to know the Lord
Jesus Christ. Before he was saved by the grace
of God. All of us tonight who are saved,
we have a before. We have a before, and much of
what was before, we would like to forget. And we certainly would
not like to stand up like Paul does here and confess what kind
of a person he was. He tells us three things about
himself. And it's interesting as you think
about this. In the letter of Philippians,
when he's talking about the futility of any righteousness that he
might earn, he said, and he's talking about himself, touching
the righteousness which is of the law blameless. That's the
way Paul saw himself. That's the way other religious
leaders saw Paul or Saul of Tarsus at that time. He was blameless. He was blameless. That's before. That's before. The grace of God. And as he says in Romans chapter
7, he was alive once without the law. But when the commandment
came, sin revived and I died. Yes. That was before. He was before a blasphemer. What does this mean, a blasphemer?
Well, he spoke evil of Christ. He spoke evil of the Lord Jesus
Christ because he was convinced that he was an imposter. He was
convinced that he was not the Son of God, that he was a great
imposter. And so he spoke evil of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And he was also a persecutor.
And we read some of how he persecuted believers. And you know, to persecute
a believer was to persecute Christ. That's what the Lord told him
that day on the road to Damascus, wasn't it? Saul, Saul, why persecutest
thou me? When he touched the members of
the Lord Jesus Christ, his mystical body, other believers, he was
persecuting Christ. In Romans chapter, Acts chapter
nine and verse one, we read Saul, yet breathing out threatening
and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord. That was Saul of
Tarsus. He was a persecutor. Not only
a blasphemer, but he was a persecutor. And then he confessed in Acts
22 when he's giving his testimony, I persecuted this way. What way? Jesus Christ, the only way. That's
what the believers were first called in the book of Acts, isn't
it? Those of the way. And the way
is Christ. He said, I persecuted this way
unto death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women. But, as we say, that was before. That was before Christ called
him. He was injurious also, which
means that he was doing everything in his power to destroy what
we would call Christianity. That was Saul of Tarsus. He was
a blasphemer. He was a persecutor. He was an
injurious, but notice he obtained mercy. He obtained mercy, but
I obtained mercy. Now, the point I would want all
of us to see here on this verse of scripture is this. It was
while he was still a blasphemer. It was while he was still a persecutor. It was while he was still injurious
that he obtained mercy. He didn't clean up his life.
He didn't turn over a new leaf and stop being a persecutor and
stop being a blasphemer. And then God had mercy upon him. No, God's mercy reached him while
he was in his sins. How many times do people under
the sound of the gospel think, well, I need to do this, I need
to do that. No, you need to trust in Christ. You need to run to Christ. You
need to turn from your sins and trust in Christ. You don't need
to join the church. You don't need to be baptized.
You don't need to turn over a new leaf. No, the first thing, you
need to obtain mercy. You need to seek mercy. Be merciful
to me, the sinner. Paul describes his state and
condition here before. And we would just say this, Saul
of Tarsus was like every other lost person. He was a poor, blind,
ignorant bigot. He was an unbeliever. Now who's
going to help a person like that? Well, I think Paul wrote the
letter of Hebrews later, but he gives this qualification in
chapter 5 and verse 2 of a high priest. He said, a high priest
must be someone who can have compassion on the ignorant. Well, that's who he was. That's
who he was. He said, I did it in ignorance.
Now, ignorance of the law is not an excuse. You know, you
could be driving down the road, and you're driving 40 miles an
hour, and a policeman's red lights come on, or blue lights, and
pulls you over, and he said, you know how fast you were going?
Yes, I was going 40 miles an hour. Well, the speed limit is
30 miles. Oh, I didn't know that. Does
that excuse you? Of course not. And Paul is not
pleading his ignorance as an excuse for his sinfulness. He's just stating the fact that
he was ignorant. He was an ignorant, lost, blind
sinner. And Christ had compassion on
the ignorant and on them that are out of the way. This is what
our great high priest did for Saul. That's what he did for
you if you're saved. That's what he did for me. Verse 14, And the grace of our
Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ
Jesus. The grace of God exceeding abundant. Remember in Romans chapter 5
he wrote where sin abounded, it just abounded. Where sin abounded,
grace did much more abound. That's a wonderful word, isn't
it? Grace, how we love that word, grace. It is a charming sound,
the hymn writer said. The grace of our Lord was exceeding
abundant with faith and love, which is in Christ Jesus. In
other words, for by grace are you saved through faith and that
not of yourselves, it is a gift of God. When the grace of God
brings salvation, It works faith in us. Now this is something
that you know this, but you must believe. He doesn't believe for
you, and yet he gives you the faith. He works faith when the
abundance of grace is given to a sinner, he works faith in us. Faith cometh by hearing, and
hearing by the word of God, but we ourselves must believe. And not only faith, but love. Those two twin graces, faith,
we know works by love. Now let me ask you this question.
I think Paul might might have wanted Timothy to think about
this. How could any minister, how could any minister turn aside
to preach fables and vain jangling from the glorious gospel of the
Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious gospel that could change this
persecutor, this blasphemer, this injurious person into a
warrior a preacher of the gospel of Jesus Christ. How could anyone
that knows anything about the gospel? forsake the swerve from
preaching the gospel, the glorious gospel of the blessed God that
can do such as this, that is the power of God unto salvation,
that can take a lost, ruined sinner and save that person,
convert that person, regenerate that person, and make him a servant
of the Lord. How could anyone turn aside from
preaching this glorious gospel to preaching vain jangling and
fables? And yet that's what some had
done in Ephesus. Verse 15, this is a faithful
saying worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners of whom I am chief. This is the purpose,
this is the reason that He came into the world. For the Son of
Man has come to seek and to save that which is lost. This is a
faithful saying, Paul says, that Jesus Christ came into the world
to save sinners. I just wrote these things down.
This is the purpose of the Father sending His only begotten Son
into the world. Why did He send Him? To save
sinners. This is a purpose of the eternal
Son of God becoming incarnate. Why did He come into this world
as a man? To save sinners. This is a purpose
of Him being made under the law. Why? To save sinners from the
curse of the law. This is a purpose of Him being
made sin. Yes, the scripture says that
He was actually made sin. He who knew no sin was made to
be sin. He took the sins of His people
in His own body and bore them on the tree. What was the purpose
of that? To save sinners. To save sinners. He didn't come to make sinners
salvable. That's what many people think,
isn't it? What many people preach, He just
came to make salvation possible. No, he did a whole lot more than
that. He came on purpose to save sinners. That's why he came. It's a faithful saying, Paul
says, and it's worthy of all acceptation. I accept this to
you. I accept this. It's worthy that
I accept it. It's worthy that you accept it.
It's worthy that all men accept this truth. He came into the
world to save sinners. And then Paul said, of whom I
am chief. Now, if you notice in the chronological
order in which Paul states these three things, the first time
he said, I am the least of the apostles. Well, there were 12,
not many apostles, right? He said, I'm the least. But then
in Ephesians, he wrote that in 1 Corinthians. Then in Ephesians,
he says this, unto me who am less than the least of all saints. Well, that's a whole lot more
than 12 apostles. But now, this is the last time
he writes on this subject. I'm the chief. I'm the chief
of sinners. Now that's the kind of groin
and grace I believe in. Like that woman told Arthur Pink
one time, she said, I tell you, the kind of sanctification I
believe in is that it's like the tail of a calf. And he said,
what do you mean, the tail of a calf? He said, the longer it
grows, or she said, the longer it grows, the closer to the ground
it gets. And I say the same thing. When
a person grows in grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, we'll
be just like Paul. I confess, I'm the chief of sinners. Well, haven't you got better?
Hasn't your flesh improved a little bit over these years? I doubt
that. I still need Christ as my savior. Tonight, probably more than ever. Number six, verse 16. Albeit
for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ
might show forth all longsuffering, for I patterned to them which
should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting. What a pattern of the longsuffering
that is manifested in the history of Paul. The longsuffering of
the Lord Jesus Christ. I was thinking of a line of a
hymn, I couldn't remember the name, and I told Bill before
the service, and he said, oh yeah, that's, he is so precious
to me. But one of the stanzas, he stood
outside my heart's door, patiently waiting an entrance to gain. He stood outside my heart's door
through sunshine and rain, patiently waiting an entrance to gain. I tell you, he was long-suffering
to Saul, and he was long-suffering to me. Long-suffering. Christ was exercising his long-suffering. He was waiting all the time.
Paul was running towards hell just as fast as he could go,
blaspheming and injurious and persecuting the way of Christ,
and Christ was long-suffering until the appointed time. And
then he met Him. Then he met Him. Verse 17, Praise
be unto the King, the King who is God, who is eternal. That is, He has no beginning.
He has no end. He is immortal. In Him is life,
and all life emanates from Him. There is no life outside of Him. He is immortal, and He's invisible. No man has ever seen God, the
only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father. He has
declared Him. Now hurriedly, the second command
of war, a successful warfare, in verses 18, 19, and 20. This charge, this charge I commit
unto thee, Timothy, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which
went before on thee." What does that mean? I think it was two
weeks ago we saw how that Paul took Timothy to go with him on
this missionary trip, and we read there in Acts chapter 16
that he was well reported of by the brethren in Lystra and
Iconium." In other words, they expected, they prophesied that
the work that Timothy was going to do was going to be a useful
and it was going to be a good work. Now Paul says, by these
prophecies, take courage. Take courage, Timothy, and fight
a good fight as a minister of Christ. I want you to look hurriedly
back here to Deuteronomy chapter 31, just a moment. This verse
of scriptures tells us it's God speaking through
Moses to Joshua as they're about to go into the land of promise.
But look at verse 6. The command is, be strong, be
strong. And be of a good courage. Fear
not, nor be afraid of them. For the Lord thy God, He it is
that doth go with thee. He will not fail thee, nor forsake
thee. Be strong. Be of a good courage. Fear not. Don't be afraid. Why? Because the Lord thy God
He's the one that's going with you, and He will not fail you,
and thank God, He will not forsake you. Amen? Now back to verses
19 and 20 here in our text, Paul said, holding faith in a good
conscience, which some, having put away concerning faith, have
made shipwrecked, of whom is high Mineas and Alexander, whom
I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme."
He names these two men who concerning the faith. Now, this faith here
was not their faith. In other words, this isn't your
faith with which you believe in Christ. That's not what they
had turned from. It was the faith that was once
delivered unto the saints. It's that body of truth, the
gospel, that we believe. Holding faith and a good conscience,
which some having put away. Some have, and he names these
two men, and if you look in II Timothy, we know that one of
these men What he did, he began to teach that the resurrection
was already past. 2 Timothy chapter 2, verses 16
and 19, he said, but shun profane and
vain babblings, for they will increase unto more ungodliness,
and their word will eat, as doth the canker of whom is Hymenaeus
and Philates, who concerning the truth have erred. This man
he names there in our text, Hymenaeus, he's heir. And this was his heir
saying that the resurrection's already passed. But Paul said,
I've turned these two over to Satan. And notice in the text
again, and I'll close. He said, I delivered unto Satan
that they may learn. It wasn't to destroy them. He
said, I've delivered them unto Satan. And I believe this was
power that an apostle had. We don't have that power today.
No man does. We have church discipline, but
this is not what he's speaking of. He's speaking of the power
an apostle had. But the point is he delivered
him unto Satan that in order that they may learn not to blaspheme. So it wasn't to destroy him.
to destroy these men, but it was to discipline them, chastise
them, that they might learn not to blaspheme. The truth, the
body of truth, the faith, that it's intact and it must be held
firmly by those who preach the gospel. I pray that the Lord
would bless our message tonight, For his glory, I want us to sing
another hymn, or parts of a hymn at least. Bill, comment this
time and then we'll be dismissed. We'll be dismissed with singing
the hymn. Let's stand as we sing.