Now, back there in 2 Timothy, Apostle Paul here is preaching
and he says some things to Timothy that are of utmost importance
for every preacher of the gospel to remember. And because every
believer is a witness of Christ, these are things that it's important
for every believer to remember as well. Let's just jump into it here.
First of all, we are told what to flee and we are told what
to follow after. First of all, he says in verse
22, flee also youthful lusts. Now, a believer that's been given
a new heart by God's grace, he's going to flee youthful lusts
such as uncleanness and sins and wickedness and evil and things
of that nature. But remember the key to understanding
the Scripture. We saw this last Thursday. The
key to understanding the Scripture first is to find out who's speaking. And we know that Apostle Paul
is writing this. And then to whom is he speaking?
He's writing to Timothy. He's writing to a preacher, a
young preacher. And what's he writing about?
What's the context? Well, he's been speaking about
not striving with men over the gospel. Not trying to use our
wisdom and our strength when we're declaring the gospel to
men. And especially about unprofitable
words, words that don't profit. If we strive with men when we're
trying to declare the gospel, that's unprofitable. And that's
going to end up subverting the hearer. That's going to take
them away from Christ and put their focus on you and me. And then if the words themselves
that somebody's speaking about are vain and they're unprofitable,
it does no use to strive about those words. Look back up at
verse 14. He said, He said, strive not about words
to no profit, but to the subverting of the hearers. It won't do any
good to strive. Not to strive about the gospel
or not to strive about words that are unprofitable. Both will
be unprofitable. and they will subvert the hearer.
Look down at verse 16. He says, But shun profane and
vain babblings. If it's profane and vain, what
makes it that unholy and vain is it's not according to God's
Word. That's what makes it profane. God didn't say it. It's not according
to God's Word. And he doesn't say here, repeat
their babblings. You know, you hear somebody say
something and you begin to strive about it. Next thing you know,
you're repeating what they said to one of your fellow brethren. He doesn't say, repeat them.
He says, just shun them. Just shun the vain babblings
altogether. Don't even talk about them. That's what he's saying.
And he says, verse 16, he tells us why. He says, for they will
increase unto more ungodliness. and their word will eat like
a canker. And that's the end of it. That's
what God says, that's what it'll do. That's what He says it'll
do. And that's God's word on it,
so that's what we ought to believe. God says if we repeat it, we
strive about it, you know, that's what it's gonna do. Have you
found that to be the case? When you strive with somebody
about the gospel or, you know, you strive about some unprofitable
word, you find yourself in iniquity. You find yourself in ungodliness. thinking ungodly things, doing
ungodly things, saying ungodly things, and their word, what
things that were said, just eat at you. They just eat at you.
So it's just exactly like God said it would be. And look down
at verse 21. If a man therefore purge himself
from these, he should be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, meet
for the Master's use, prepared unto every good work. In other
words, he'll prove that God set him apart, God made him a vessel
of honor, God has given him a heart to hear this Word, understand
this Word, and trust God, trust Christ to make the Word effectual. He's learned that. You know,
if you get into strife and debate about errors with men, you know,
you're going to end up looking like the men that you're striving
against. Remember the old saying, you've heard this, you get in
a fight with a skunk, you might win it, but you're going to end
up smelling like a skunk. And that's true. And that's what
he's saying to you here. So he said, just shun it, just
avoid it altogether. So in the context, the youthful
lusts that were to flee are the lusts involved with striving
to make men understand the gospel and and are striving about vain
babblings that men come up with, unanswerable questions and strifes
and debates and those kinds of things. Now, it doesn't have
to be a young man who pursues youthful lust, but they're called
youthful lust because it's usually a young person that does this. A young person, when they hear
something that's not according to the scripture, and they've
learned the truth of the gospel, they're real quick to speak up,
real quick to rebuke somebody, real quick to try to make somebody
understand the truth. And you've done that, I'm sure,
when you were younger. You thought all you got to do
is just show this in the scripture, and somebody would believe it,
and they didn't believe it. And so then you got a little hot
on the collar and you started trying to make them see it and
using every tactic in the book. Next thing you know, you've just
deserted the word of God altogether and not heeded what he's saying
right here. We got to remember that every
one of us have an old man of sin in us still. We have an old deceitful heart.
Every believer does. That old man of flesh is still
with us and going to be with us till we die. And so you could
begin talking to somebody, and really in your heart of hearts,
in the new man, your desire is you want that person to see the
glory of God. But before it's over with, you
ended up seeking your own glory. You can go to them seeking truly
for them to see, to praise and glorify Christ, but before it's
over with, you're seeking your own praise and your own glory.
You start out seeking for Christ to have all the preeminence before
it so with all eyes are on you and all eyes are on me rather
than on Christ. And that's what he's saying we
should flee from it. Don't just avoid it. He says
you run from it. Flee from it. That's active. That means get away from that
altogether. And then he tells us what to
follow. Verse 22, but follow righteousness, faith, charity,
peace with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.
Follow after righteousness. Christ is the believer's righteousness.
He is our righteousness. Now, Christ is the head of the
church. He has all power. He is the head
of the church and He knows them that are His. Christ our righteousness. He knows them that are His. He
taught us don't ever try to separate the wheat from the tares. We
make a horrible mistake. Do something that is not right
at all if we start trying to determine who's a believer and
who's not a believer. That's not right. That's not
following after righteousness. He calls strife and debate and
youthful lust iniquity. That's what He called them up
there in the verse. He says there, let everyone,
verse 19, let everyone that nameth the name of Christ depart from
iniquity. That's what he's calling strife and debate and all that
stuff. That's iniquity. That's not righteousness. But
here he's saying to follow the Lord, to trust Christ, to look
to Christ, to obey this word of Christ. That's to follow after
righteousness. And then he says follow after
faith. Now, let's think about this. Do we believe that our
Savior is sovereign Don't you believe He's absolutely sovereign?
Don't you believe that He's able to accomplish the will of God
the Father? It was God the Father's will
that He come to this earth and establish the law for God and
for His people. so that God could justify us
and do it according to true justice. And was He faithful to do that? He came to where we are and He
was faithful to justify us, to fulfill the law, to declare God
just and to justify. Do we believe Christ is sovereign
ruling all men and all things for the good of His church? Yeah. He's sovereign ruling everything
for the good of His people. That's what He's doing everything
for. Do we believe Christ has put His pastor in place and that
Christ is preaching the gospel through His pastors wherever
He's put them? Yeah. He's the one that did it
and He's the one making the word effectual through the Holy Spirit
as the gospel is being preached. Do we believe Christ has power
to instruct His child through the gospel? That's what we believe. These are things we believe.
And Paul said then over there in Romans 14, rather than doubting
our brethren, rather than disputing with our brethren, he said this,
who are you to judge another man's servant? He's saying he's
Christ's servant. If he's a true believer, he's
Christ's servant. And who am I to judge one of
Christ's servants? That's his servant. And he says,
to his own master he stands or he falls. If he falls, who let
him fall? Christ did. It's his own fault
if he fell, but Christ let him fall. And who's going to make
him stand if he stands? Christ is. And he says, yea,
he should be holding up for God's able to make him stand. So if
we believe him, he says, follow after faith in him. When it comes
to preaching the word, believe God, trust Christ. And then he
says, follow charity. Look over 1 Corinthians 8. We're
going to go to 1 Corinthians a few times. 1 Corinthians chapter
8. Look at this. You get some doctrine. You get some doctrine, but if
God hadn't put the love of God in our heart, and He hadn't regenerated
us and given us a new heart and a new spirit, here's what that
knowledge will do. He said in 1 Corinthians 8, 1,
there in the last part, knowledge puffeth up. That's what it'll
do. Give a man the big head. He thinks
he's something. But charity edifies. You give a man knowledge together
with the love of God in his heart, he'll be used to edify sinners,
to edify. Look here, he says, and if any
man think that he knoweth anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought
to know. But if any man love God, the
same is known of him. And you know what? God'll teach
him. God'll teach him. Listen to how important love
is. Look at 1 Corinthians 13. This is how important love is
and this is what love does. Verse 1, Though I speak with
the tongues of men and of angels, I could be the best preacher
you ever heard in your life and have not charity, not born of
God, not given the love of God in the heart, for Christ and
be constrained by His love alone and for the love of brethren
alone, I've become a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. He
says, and though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all
mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith so
that I could remove mountains and have not charity, I'm nothing. And though I bestow all my goods
to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned,
and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. Now here's what charity
does. Charity suffereth long. Suffers
a long time putting up with ignorance and misunderstanding and slowness
to believe and all those things. Suffers a long time. Look here.
And he's kind. Not only suffers, but he's kind
while that's happening. Charity envieth not. Charity
vaulteth not itself. It's not puffed up. Charity doesn't
envy God's power so that I try to make a sinner believe by my
power. Charity, the love of God in the
heart, wants God to have the glory. He wants God to have the
power for doing weights on God. So he doesn't vault himself,
doesn't puff up. Charity does not behave itself
unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, and thinketh
no evil. Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but
rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things,
hopeth all things, endureth all things. All of that I just read,
he's talking about towards a brother. You don't start demising and
thinking and doubting and disputing in the heart, you don't start
Don't start writing them off. It means you hope for the best.
And you hope that God is working a great work of grace in their
heart. And you don't listen to other people say otherwise. You
believe the truth. You don't believe in evil report.
You believe the truth about them. And look here, verse 8. Charity
never fails. But whether there be prophecies,
they shall fail. Whether there be tongues, they
shall cease. Whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
He says down there a little bit further, we got faith, hope and
love. Hope is going to be a reality
one day. Faith is going to be a reality one day. Love won't
ever go away. It will always be with us. And
these faith and hope and our preaching and all these things,
these are the childish things He is talking about. That when
we become a man one day in glory, saved, we are going to put these
childish things away. And love's gonna remain though.
So see how important love is? Now you think about it. Christ
is wisdom. He's knowledge. He's knowledge
itself. The power and wisdom of God.
And He's also love. He's God of whom it's said God
is love. So He's preeminently knowledge.
By His knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many. And He's
preeminently love. Now how did preeminent wisdom
and love deal with sinners? Now, when he was dealing with
those outside and those that were self-righteous religionists
who were rebelling and who he knew would not believe and were
not his and were just trying to entangle him in his words,
he dealt harshly with them and he rebuked them strongly. But
towards his own brethren, towards those that he was drawing, that
were sincerely desiring to know the truth, He dealt very tenderly
with them, very tenderly with them, even in their ignorance.
He rebuked them strongly sometimes, but not like he did those on
the outside. And the scripture says, he shall
not cry nor lift up nor cause his voice to be heard in the
street. A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking
flax shall he not quench. Sometimes you and I We're so,
we have so little fire of God and so little light in us that
there's just smoke. That's all it is. Just stinking,
smoking flax. But you know the truth of the
matter is, if there's smoke, there's some life there. There's
fire there. And He didn't put the fire out.
Even though we're ignorant and don't know and don't understand,
He don't break the bruised reed and He don't quench the smoking
flags. This is our Savior. That's what true wisdom and true
love does. And He says, follow after peace.
Think about the peacemaker. Christ the peacemaker. Here you
and I were. Our sins separated us from God.
And Christ is the only mediator between God and men. Here's what
He did. He didn't go to God and say,
I wouldn't save them. Look what they do against you.
Look what they said against you. And spread all through the angels,
all these rumors and all this doubting and disputings about
the brethren who sinned against God. He went to where they were. And he stood between God and
them. And he said, Father, take all
of their sin and lay their iniquities on me. What kind of iniquities? Iniquities like being in unbelief,
iniquities like refusing to believe the gospel, being slow to believe
the gospel, iniquities like speaking things that aren't true and accurate
in the gospel, according to the gospel, iniquities like dealing
harshly with one another and rebuking one another and being
hard with one another. All the iniquities that you and
I are guilty of, Christ said, instead of writing us off because
of those things, He said, put that sin on me. And he bore the
justice for it, the stripes for it. And he put away all our sin. That's what the peacemaker did.
And that's how he made peace. And he says to us, he came to
us and he told us this. And he said, now, I'm your peace.
And he made that word affectionately in our heart. And he said, now,
this is how you make peace. And he says, now, you follow
after peace. You follow after peace. The whole
time he was here, he didn't speak his word. He spoke God's word
as the servant. He didn't exercise his will to
make sinners believe. He waited on God the Father to
draw. And that's what he's saying to his preacher here. This is
how you deal with sinners. And to his witnesses, he's saying
that. Blessed are the peacemakers. Why? They shall be called the
children of God. They are like their Father. They
are like their everlasting Father. With whom does He say do this?
Look there at the end of the verse in our text. In 2 Timothy 2, He says, With them that call on the Lord
out of a pure heart. Verse 22. You do this with them
that call on the Lord out of a pure heart. Now here's what
you've got to remember about these folks. Are they sinners? Yes, they're sinners. Are they
going to err? Yes, they're going to err. Have they been given a pure heart
by God's grace? Yes, they've been given a pure
heart by God's grace. They sincerely want to know the
Lord. They sincerely want to know Him.
They're going to err though. When they do, do we doubt them
when they err? Well, are we going to err? Am
I going to err? Do I want God doubting me when
I err? No. So we don't doubt them. We don't doubt them when they
err. There's plenty of folks outside the church that strive
against us, isn't it? There's plenty of folks that
would strive against us, that oppose us, that would kill us
if they could. Isn't that enough? So that we
ought, ourselves, as brethren in the church, not try to hold
each other in doubt and dispute and oppose each other. It's enough
having the opposition we got from without, not to oppose within. Alright, secondly, he tells us
we must stay out of the way and use the Word of God alone. We
must stay out of the way and use the Word of God alone. Verse
23, But foolish and unlearned questions avoid, knowing that
they do gender strife. And the servant of the Lord must
not strive, but be gentle unto all, apt to teach, patient, in
meekness, instructing those that oppose themselves. Now, the purpose
for God's preacher not striving is so that God's Word takes center
stage. The purpose for not striving,
for not losing our patience, for being gentle, for being meek,
the purpose for these things is so that God's Word has center
stage instead of us. That's the purpose. We never
want to convince men to believe by our wisdom. Look at 1 Corinthians
2. 1 Corinthians 2. Paul said this, Our brethren,
when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or
of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. I didn't
come to you trying to put things into my words and make it palatable
to you and appealing to you and less offensive to you. I didn't
come that way, using wisdom of words. I didn't come trying to
impress you with my oratory and any of that. For I determined
not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness
and in fear and in much trembling." And I told you before that wasn't
because he was afraid of public speaking. That was because he
was doing this in the fear of God. And it was for reverence
toward God whom he was the ambassador for. And he said this, And my
speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's
wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power. Oh,
I know how you do that. You get up and you start preaching
and you don't use any notes. Or you get up and you start preaching
and you get into this certain cadence in the way you preach.
Or you preach real loud and strong and bold and beat and bang on
things. No, you just preach God's Word. Preach what God says. It don't matter how you preach
it. You just preach what He says. That's the key. That's the key.
Why? That your faith should not stand
in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. And then he
said, be gentle. Why? Because the gospel is offensive.
We don't have to make it offensive. The gospel is offensive. When
you tell somebody that God sovereignly chose whom he will and he passes
by whom he will, that takes the choice out of the sinner's hand.
That's offensive. When you tell a sinner that Christ
accomplished the eternal redemption of His people because He is the
righteousness of God, He fulfilled the law Himself, that takes out
of the sinner's hand any possibility that he can obtain a righteousness
by his own obedience under the law. And that's offensive to
him. When you tell a sinner that whenever the Holy Spirit sanctifies
that sinner and brings him out of darkness into light, out of
unholiness into a state of holiness, So that right then, He's fit
and meet to be partaker of the inheritance of the saints in
light, just like the thief on the cross was. That takes out
of their hands their works whereby their deeds and their doing and
their flesh are going to progressively make themselves holier and holier
and holier until nobody is standing to be around them. That takes
that out of their hands. And that's offensive to them.
That's offensive to them. The Gospel declares no man can
do one thing to save himself. That's salvation of the Lord.
And so therefore it's offensive. Paul said, Our brethren, if I
yet preach circumcision, if I told a sinner there's just one thing
you can do, why do I yet suffer persecution? For then is the
offense of the cross ceased. So he tells us there that we
have to be gentle. And he says be patient. Why do
we have to be patient? Because God works in His time,
He don't work in our time. That's number one. All of these,
number one, are toward God. We got to be patient toward God
because He's working on His schedule, not our schedule. And if you
look at our text, and hold your place in 1 Corinthians, but if
you look back at our text, the marginal reference there says
this. It says, forebearing. He says,
the servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto
all, apt to teach, patient. That word is forbearing. It's
forbearing. That's the word. It's forbearing. And why must you be forbearing?
Because the believer, I mean the sinner, is going to say a
lot of boneheaded things and do a lot of boneheaded things
and You just got to wait on God to teach you. The natural man
receives not the things of God because they're spiritually discerned. And this goes for a believer
too. Whenever we fall into error, you can't just snap your fingers
and say a word and make the believer go, oh, okay, I got it. It takes
God to give him a heart. But Paul said, when it pleased
God who separated me from my mother's womb, He called me by
His grace when it pleased Him. We got to be apt to teach. I
have to teach. Teach what? Word of God. Only
the Word of God. Go back there to 1 Corinthians
1. I'll show you why. I have to teach the preaching
of the Gospel alone, but not by wisdom of words, not by striving,
not by debating, not by disputing. Here's why. Look at 1 Corinthians
1. Look at verse 17. For Christ sent me not to baptize,
but to preach the Gospel. not with wisdom of words, lest
the cross of Christ should be made of none effect. For the
preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness,
but unto us which are saved is the power of God. For it's written,
watch this word, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and will
bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where's the wise? Where's the scribe? Where's the
disputer of this world? God's not going to let any man
convince any other sinner of salvation and it be real in his
heart by a man's wisdom in disputing and striving. Because then we
got something to glory in. The preacher would have something
to glory in. Look at all these people I saved. I got all these
people. All I told them they had to do
was walk an hour. And I made somebody walk an hour first so
they wouldn't feel lonely. They had somebody to go before
them and they followed them. That ain't going to save them.
Because God's the one that does the saving and He's got to bless
it. And the only thing He said I'm going to bless is, you stand
on your hind legs and you preach God, who God is. Preach God is
sovereign. Preach God chooses. Preach God
redeems. Preach God regenerates. Preach
God preserves. Preach God resurrects. God glorifies. God keeps. God's the savior. Preach God. I don't understand
Men who think they can preach and teach and get sinners to
believe on God by not telling up people sinners who God is
That don't even make sense. Oh I get folks to believe believe
on a God you ain't even told him about The blessing that comes
from God wherein He blesses is just simply declaring Christ
to them crucified. That's the word that He blesses.
And unless He blesses it, you can build a church and build
an earthly church with earthly members and earthly converts.
I don't mean it has anything God's in it or has anything to
do with it. For after that, in the wisdom of God, the world
by wisdom knew not God. It pleased God by the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believe." That's why He did it
this way. And we must use meekness. And chiefly, again, that's toward
Christ. Toward Christ because... and toward our fellow believers,
whether they're... and toward unbelievers. Because
when men oppose us, We gotta remember this, they're not opposing
us, they're opposing themselves. He said this, in meekness instructing
those that oppose themselves. That's who they're opposing.
That word themselves refers to the preacher they oppose, and
it refers to the sinner opposing himself. But if we strive rather
than being gentle, and rather than trusting the preaching of
God's Word, or rather than being patient, rather than being meek,
We're proud. We're leaning to our own understanding.
We're leaning to our own wisdom. And understand this. I want you
to be careful to hear me when I say this. When we speak to
those who believe the gospel, but who are in error, this goes for them the same as
it goes for an unbeliever. You take, for instance, a believer
and he thinks that we ought to use the wisdom of words when
we're speaking to unbelievers. Or to say it this way and that
way and hold back on this doctrine and not talk about that doctrine.
Because this way, you know, we can somehow get believers to
believe by not telling them who God is. Well, he's in error.
That's error. That's not true. That's not true. But if I oppose Him and it gets
to the point where I start striving with Him and trying to convince
Him that that's not true, I've fallen into the same error. Because I'm not being patient
and waiting on God to teach him and just preach the Word of God
and wait on God to do it through the Word of God. I've fallen
into the exact same error as my brother. And sometimes a true
believer finds himself in need of repentance. We find ourselves
doing that. And we become ensnared. This
is the strange or the contradictory thing about it. We can become
ensnared because we started striving to tell people that you don't
have to strive with sinners about the Word. You just declare it. You see what I'm saying? That's
just us, though. That's how we are. That's what
we do. We become ensnared because...
Alright, thirdly. He tells us why God's preacher
must use the gospel. Verse 25. 2 Timothy 2, 25. If God, peradventure, will give
them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth, and that they may
recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken
captive by him at his will. Now, lost sinners, no matter
how religious, and true believers who are in error, both of them
are snared and are the captives of the devil while they're ensnared,
while they're captive. Now, the devil can't do anything
but what Christ permits him to do. When it says there that they're
taken captive by him at his will, it's at Christ's will that they're
taken captive. Christ wouldn't allow it. Christ
won't allow Satan to do what he can do. He goes about seeking
whom he may pretty please give me permission to devour. Like
he came to God and said, if you considered, and God brought it
up, said, if you consider my servant Job, and God said, you
can go now and deal with him, but you can't touch him. And
then later God said, okay, now you can touch him. but he can't
do anything but what God gives him permission to do. But the
only way that sinner is going to be freed, whether he's an
unbeliever or he's a believer in error, the only way he's going
to be freed is for God to free him, for Christ to give him repentance. Now, what's repentance? What
is it? Repentance is a change of mind
that is so radical that it makes the sinner renounce and forsake
all his former religion which he thought was gain or all his
former error that he thought was right. It makes him leave
it. And at the same time, repentance
makes the sinner put all his confidence in Christ alone. Repentance
and faith are two sides of the same coin. Now, you know Philippians
3. Paul, at one time, he thought
gain was the religious ceremony his parents performed on him
when he was an infant. He thought that was much gain
with God. He thought that his stock and his tribe, who his
family was, that gained him something with God. He thought that his
religious denomination made him somebody. He was a Pharisee.
And he thought that obedience to the law got him a leg up with
God. He thought all his zeal got him
something with God. And that was the case. While
that was the case, he opposed Christ. He opposed every minister
of Christ. He opposed the Gospel. He was
on the road to Damascus going to kill them. That's what he
was going there for. But after God granted him repentance, he
renounced those things as utter dumb and said, I count them all
lost that I might win Christ to be found in him. Now that's
repentance. That's true repentance. It's
not repentance to stay in those things and stay with those things
and come out from among them and accept some new doctrine
and say, but now I saved in all that. And that's what a man believes
he was saved in is what a man believes. That's true. Now how did Paul have that repentance?
How did he get that? Look at Acts 9. Look over at
Acts 9. The Lord Jesus Christ appeared
and arrested him and blinded him. He had to appear to him
in person because Paul was an apostle and that's how you became
an apostle was for Christ to call you himself. But even when
Christ called him himself, Christ used Ananias and sent Ananias
to Paul to tell Paul the word that Christ would have him to
preach and to tell Paul what Christ had done for him. But
do you remember Ananias? Ananias didn't want to go to
Saul. He was Saul of Tarsus then. He
was a bad man. And Ananias said, I don't want
to go preach to him. I don't want to go preach to
him. I heard about him. He didn't want to use meekness
to Christ and trust Christ. He wasn't going to be patient
and trust Christ. He wasn't going to be forbearing.
He wasn't going to be gentle. He wasn't going to be apt to
teach. He wasn't going to be nothing. He was scared to death of Paul.
And look at what the Lord told him, Acts 9, 15. But the Lord
said unto him, Go thy way, for he is a chosen vessel unto me,
to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of
Israel. For I will show him how great things he must suffer for
my name's sake. But he sent an Ananias to him.
But Christ said, But I'm the one that's going to show him.
what things he must suffer for my sake. And Ananias went his
way, and entered into the house, and put in his hands on him,
he said, Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, that appeared unto
thee in the way, as thou camest, hath sent me, that thou mightest
receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost. He told
him what Christ sent him to tell him. He didn't say his own words. He didn't say what he would.
He didn't look to his own reason and his own understanding. And
he didn't go in there trying to force his eyes open either
and making him see something. He went in there and he told
him what Christ sent him to tell him. That's all he did. He didn't
strive one way or the other. And look what happened. And immediately,
there fell from his eyes as it had been scales and he received
sight for with and arose and was baptized. That's when God
gave him repentance, right there. That's when Christ granted him
repentance. That's when he said, from then on, I counted it all
dumb. Everything I had put my confidence
in was dumb. How did he do that? How did Christ
do that? A man went and spoke what Christ
sent him to speak. That's it. That's it. And later,
Paul said, because he experienced that, in 2 Corinthians 4, Paul
said, therefore seeing as we have this ministry, See, in a
way, I received this ministry. He said, As we have received
mercy, we faint not, but have renounced the hidden things of
dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God
deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves
to every man's conscience in the sight of God. And he said
down the page, For God commanded the light shine out of darkness,
and He's shining our hearts. to give the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus. And we have
this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power
may be of God and not of us. Now, how come you and I who have
been granted repentance already to turn to Christ and believe
on Christ and rest in Christ for all our salvation, how come
sometimes we find ourselves striving with men who oppose us? Even striving over the power
of Christ to work this work through the clear preaching of the gospel.
Why on earth would we strive about that? How come when we
do, we end up in all sort of ungodliness and division and
it's like a cancer just eating us up? Well, it's certainly not
because Christ lets one go for whom he died. Because he don't.
He don't. But sometimes, when we turn from
Christ and strive with men, Christ allows Satan to take us captive
at Christ's will, that Christ might set us free through the
preaching of the gospel delivered to us through His preacher. Just
to remind you, believer, that repentance is granted through
Christ's Word and not through your striving. Sometimes we've got to be made
captive all over again. so we can hear the Word of God
all over again, preached to us by a preacher all over again,
and Christ sets us free all over again to remind us this is the
only way repentance is granted. And I tell you this, if you are
going to make a man a preacher, sooner or later you are going
to go through something that has to do with you striving and
trying to make it happen, and Christ bringing you down flat
on your face, casting you out, and then coming back to you,
and giving you repentance through the gospel to show you Christ
is the one running this show, not me and not you. And then
that man will be fit to go preach something, because now he knows
it. Now he knows it. We don't experience trials in
this life a few times, just a few. I'm talking about real trials.
And you can just about, I can count them on two fingers. And every time it turned me and
made me look to Him alone. And after a while you forget
and have to be taught again. We can't grant repentance. You
can't, I don't care how good you can explain something and
declare it and how forceful and how, however, you can't give
a man repentance. Only God can do it. Only God
can do it. Alright, let me see here. So
then, Our text says, The servant of the Lord must not strive,
but be gentle unto all, apt to teach, patient in meekness, instructing
those that oppose themselves. If God, peradventure, would give
them repentance to the acknowledgment of the truth, that they may recover
themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive
by him at Christ's will. Amen. Our great God and our Father,
We come to you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray,
Lord, for everyone that hears this message. And we pray, Lord,
that you might truly grant your child repentance. That you might
cause the heart to be broken. That you might cause the eyes
and the ears of the heart to be lifted up to you. That you
might cause your people to see that
you are the head of your church. You have all power to work that
which is needful in the heart of your people. Make us to not
doubt your power, not doubt our brethren, not doubt those you're
drawing, and make us to trust that you're going to call out
your sheep, instruct your people, increase us in knowledge and
grace right according to the time that you've set, by the
means that you've set, and we can submit to you, we can submit
to our pastors, we can submit to our brethren, and we can trust
you're going to do right. Lord, give us grace to believe
this. Give us hearts to understand it. We pray for our brethren
everywhere that are struggling with these kinds of things, whose
hearts are aching and breaking and for those who are even yet
not even brought to this point that might still be just having
these unprofitable words eating them up like a canker. Lord,
make it effectual. Make it effectual in their heart.
Unite your brethren. Lord, unite your people. We ask it for your honor and
your glory. Forgive us, Lord. We're just foolish sheep. that you're a wise shepherd. We thank you, Lord. Amen.