Timothy chapter 4. First Timothy chapter 4. Gracious Father, bless us in
our gathering today. Make known your Son to us in
ways we've not seen him before, the level of light we've not
observed before. Make him indeed to be our Jesus,
our Savior. In Christ's name we pray, amen. Beginning in verse 9 of 1 Timothy
4, this is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance,
and for this we labor and strive that we have put our hope in
the living God, who is the Savior of all men and especially of
those who believe. Part and parcel of the doctrine
of the grace of God is that God does not purpose or perform all
of his works of salvation equally toward all men. He chooses some,
but not all. He redeems some, but not all. And he calls some, but not all. Now the counter doctrine called
in theological circles freewillism, some would call it Arminianism,
Pelagianism, semi-Pelagianism, they got all kinds of names,
but they claim in some fashion or another that God does, quotation
marks, his part of salvation equally for all men But there
is one part left to man, and that part is that he believes. And so in the end, the determining
factor between who is saved and who is not saved is who believes,
as opposed to who doesn't believe. And I can see, intellectually
speaking, how it would be easy to come to that conclusion because
Even this Scripture speaks of those who believe, that God is
especially a Savior to those who believe, as opposed He's
not quite that much of a Savior to those who don't. We'll find
out what that means in a minute, but believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ and you will be saved. Whosoever shall call upon the
name of the Lord shall be saved. All of these verses If you take
them out of their context, and in particular take them out of
the context of the entirety of what scripture teaches us in
other places, you might come to the conclusion that God treats
all men the same, therefore the deciding or determining factor
in the eternal destiny of any individual person is whether
or not he believes. Now understand that I'm saying
the deciding or determining factor. Now if you set forth that God
does everything equally for all men, then you've got to look
somewhere else for the difference, don't you? If God is acting the same way
towards every person, then the difference in people's eternal
destiny must be ascribed to them and not to God. You can see why someone might
go that way, but we know from the scriptures that there is
nothing which a natural man contributes in any way to his salvation. Now, 1 Timothy chapter 4, verse
10, is especially difficult in these
difficult or problematic scriptures because we cannot revert to the
argument that by all men, he does not mean all men without
exception. How do we know that he actually
does mean all men without exception? Well, because he already distinguishes
between believers and non-believers. He says he's the savior of all
men, especially unto them that believe. So inasmuch as he's
taken believers and already set them apart as a subset of all
men, then we must assume that all men refers to every individual
in the world. Now once again, you take this
out of its context, or more importantly, take it out of the context of
the scriptures and even the Greek language itself. And we could
even say the English language. If you take it out of that context
and assign a theological definition to all the words that are in
here, A theological definition of your own choosing among the
various ones available. You might think it's saying this,
that God is the savior of all men, but really nobody gets saved
unless they believe. So he's especially a savior to
them that believe. Well, of course, that's not what
this scripture is saying. And by comparing it with other
scriptures, we'll be able to determine what the meaning of
this scripture is. First of all, let's look at that
word especially. Especially. Now, this is, I looked
it up in a Greek language book, and it said it is the superlative
form of very much. Now, we wouldn't talk this way,
but that means that it means He's a savior of all men, very
muchest them that believe. So it's an absolute superlative
when it's talking about God being a savior to them that believe.
Now, this is not a distinction in the amount of salvation given
to a person, because there is no such thing as being partially
saved. You know, that's like jumping
partway across the chasm. It just doesn't mean anything.
And so it's not like he's saying, well, God saves everyone in the
world this much, but he saves believers much more. Rather,
it's distinguishing the various ways in which the title Savior
can be applied. The word Savior, of course, is
derived from the Greek verb to save, and it has more than a
single meaning or application. Now, when it says here that he
is the special or especially or the very muchest of those
who believe, we certainly understand that to include and point to
eternal salvation. But there is also such a thing
in the Bible as temporal salvation. Don't get me wrong, I don't mean
temporary salvation. I don't mean that salvation from sin,
but it only lasts a while. I mean salvation in terms of
temporal things. You see, savior is not just a
religious word. The Greeks were using it before
Paul, Peter, or anybody ever wrote it in the Bible. And it
has various applications. Now we think of Savior, or the
word save, or salvation, we normally think of it in terms of rescue. And we think of it pretty much,
we focus it entirely on being saved from the wrath of being
rescued from death, eternal death. But even in spiritual things,
there's more to our salvation than simply being rescued from
the wrath of God. The Bible says that Christ is
the head of the church. He's the savior of the body. Now, that doesn't merely mean
that he gets the body, or translates the body from hell to heaven. It speaks of him enduring wrath
for the body. Christ loved the church and gave
himself for her. But it goes on and says that
he might present herself to him, a spotless bride. In other words,
Our Lord's saving work is applied not only to what he did for us
on Calvary, but all that he continues to do for us in nurturing our
souls, caring for us, providing for us. In fact, that is one
of the translations of this word translated Savior that you could
put here, provider. Provider. God is the provider
of all men, and especially the very muchest to them that believe. He is the caretaker of all men,
but the very muchest to them that believe. Now, if you'll
look back at Acts chapter 17, Now there, in the scriptures,
it teaches us there's one God and one mediator between God
and men. Here's, I'll just put this in,
maybe as a little extra, and then we'll get to Acts 17. It
says there's one God and one mediator between God and men,
the man Christ Jesus. Now, because there's only one
God, and this is one way that this 1 Timothy chapter 4.10 could
be taken. It's not the way that I would
go with it, It's a way that you can take it and it does no harm
to the gospel of God's specific grace. And that is, he's called
the savior of all men in the sense that he's the only God
and the only savior there is. Just like the ark could have
been called the ark of all men, but especially unto Noah and
his sons. Because it's the only ark there
was. It was never built for everyone in the world, and it wouldn't
have fit everyone in the world. Nonetheless, it's the only one
there was. And so we could say God is the Savior of all men
because he's the only Savior there is, and he is the one that
is set before men, before all men, as the Savior. But I think that we have an easier
way to go with it. And if you'll look at Acts chapter
17, Paul is speaking in the Greek
city of Athens, and he's gone to Mars Hill or the Areopagus,
and he's speaking to the philosophers there, and they asked him to
speak. And so, of course, he teaches
them the gospel. And he begins with God being
the creator of all things. And he says in verse 24, Acts
17, 24, the God who made the world and everything in it is
the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples
built by hands. So what has he first done? He
has set forth God as the creator. creator of everything. And because
he's the creator of everything, he is not worshipped within the
confines of anything that he has made. Temples built by human hands
are not adequate places for the worship of God, or for the abode
of God. He can't live in a particular
spot. He may manifest himself in one
spot and not in another, but he doesn't live in the temples
made with hands. The city of Athens had little
temples and shrines everywhere to this God and that God as though
the God lived in those buildings. He said the God who made the
world and everything in it does not live in anything in it. And
it says, and he is not served by human hands as if he needed
anything. I remember in being encouraged
to enter in to ministerial work of some kind, or at least to
go out and witness, as they called it, they would actually say this,
God has no hands but your hands. He has no feet but your feet.
Well, then God's in a fix. He's hurting for help, I'll tell
you that. He doesn't need anything from us. Now notice this, because he himself
gives all men life and breath and everything else. Here we are alive in the natural
sense of the word. and everything that it means
to be alive, and everything that is necessary to sustain that
life is provided by God. Verse 26, from one man he made
every nation of all men, that they should inhabit the whole
earth and he determined the time set for them and the exact places
where men would live. Now here's a description of God's
sovereignty over natural events. From one man he made every human
there ever was and he determined when they would live and where
they would live. So far it really doesn't sound
like God needs our hands and feet, does it? He's got it under
control. Now it says, God did this so
that men would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him,
though He is not far from each one of us. Now God made all men
from one man and determined when they'd live and where they'd
live for this purpose. that man would reach out in search
of him and find him, but it's not as though he's hard to find. The only reason it's hard for
humans to find him is because we're blind. I mean, you know,
when you have an Easter egg hunt, you know, the kids go out and
you hide those things. I was going to say you hide them
as best you can. You hide them according to the abilities of
the little kids that are going to look for them, because you want them
eventually to find them. But you make it so that they
have to look for them. But now you could get a huge
egg, set it right out in the middle of a bare yard, and a
blind man couldn't find it unless he just stumbled across it. He says he's not far from each
one of us. Why? Because he's everywhere.
He's right here. You didn't have to go to Jerusalem
to worship God. You didn't have to go to Athens.
You don't have to go to Rome. People make these pilgrimages
to various cities and so-called holy sites as though when they're
there, they're closer to God than when they're somewhere else.
There's no such thing as being closer to God in one place than
in another. Now verse 28, for in him we live
and move and have our being. He is the savior. He is the provider,
the sustainer of all men. Whatever you have, he gave you. The word save is sometimes used
to mean heal. When the Lord said to that woman,
your faith has saved you, that's the way I think the King James
puts it, and it uses the word for save, but what he had done
was heal her. He had saved her from her illness. We've all been sick, and so far,
we've all gotten better. Why? God healed us, God saved
us from that disease. We've all been hungry. And then
we've all gotten over our hunger. Why? God saved us from hunger. In every little matter of life
in which we are spared from natural death, God is saving, and that's
true of everyone. What was that song, Every Breath
You Take? Somebody ought to make a parody out of that about God.
Every breath you take, God gave it to you. Every move you make,
God determined it. He doesn't just watch over us
to see what we'll do and run to our rescue. He has directed
the path of every individual. And whenever they are spared,
from any troublesome thing, it is He that spared them, He that
saved them. He is the Savior of all men. When men stand before God, standing
there in their sins, and they hear His just decree,
depart from me, They will not be able to make
a just claim that God is treating them unjustly or unfairly. He gave them an entire lifetime
of his provision and care. They just spent that entire lifetime
rebelling against him. He kept feeding them. He kept
giving them air. He kept giving them water. He
saved them from their enemies. Some of them he even saved from
ignorance because he sent preachers to them to tell them the truth.
And they knew what the truth was, but they'd have none of
it. Consequently, in the judgment, they won't do it, but if they
had any honesty about them, They would say, you are right in doing
so, Lord. For you have been a savior to me all my life, but I would
not have you. I would not have you reign over
me. And this is my just end. Now that's not what they're going
to say, but if they were honest and just, that's what they would
say. No one. has received worse from the Lord
than what they deserve. Everyone has received better
than what they deserve. Thus it is written, he is the
savior of all men, but the very muchest of them that believe. Why? Because to all of that saving,
preserving, providing, sustaining care, that he gives to us in
this life. And think on it, how much he
saves us, just in natural things. Bonnie and I used to deliver
newspapers out in the country. And we often worked together. And I'd do the driving, and she
would stuff the papers into those little plastic boxes they had
installed out in the country. And one time, you know, of course
we're trying, I'm trying to get done as quick as I can. So we
drive up and I hear that paper hit the back of the box where
Bonnie threw it in. I hit the gas and off we are to the next
place. And we were, I think it was out in Perkins over here.
I'm not sure, but I think it may have been in Perkins, but
I could be wrong, but wherever it was, we stopped. She put it in the box. Went around this little curve,
and I'm getting it, I'm still under acceleration. And there's
a set of railroad tracks up ahead. No lights, just a little X on
a pole. And my mind is already down at
the next mailbox. And I'm gaining speed, and then
Bonnie, she waited as long as she dared, and she said, there's
a train coming. And I hit the brakes, and it was a gravel road,
so we skidded quite a bit, and stopped just short of that train.
The Lord saved us on that day. If he hadn't intervened by the
mouth of my wife, I'd have smacked into that trainer. If he'd have
smacked into me, one or the other, the outcome would have been the
same. He saves us. But oh, he saves us so much more. For he saves us from the very
sin that would have brought an end to our lives. that would
have caused us to starve, that would have caused us to die in
disease and then drop into an eternal condemnation, eternal
hell. So going back to Acts chapter, excuse me, not Acts, 1 Timothy
chapter four. We have put our hope in the living
God He is the Savior of all men. He's the only one there is. And
not only that, to every man, He gives a much better life than
he deserves. He's the Savior. But He is the
very muchest of saviors to them that believe. For they find in
Him not only everything they need for life, but everything
they need for eternal life. He it is, just like he's the
one that gave us natural life, he gives us spiritual life. He's
the one that sustains our natural life, he's the one that sustains
our spiritual life. He's the one that feeds us in
our bodies, he's the one that feeds us in our souls. So this scripture, far from teaching
that God treats all men the same, actually says that God acts especially
Savior-like to those who believe. Now, not because they believe. Their faith is how they're identified.
Their faith, the faith that they have, is actually part of the
saving he did for them. He worked in them to believe. He didn't do that for everybody. But here's how we know the ones
whom God saves in this very muchest way. They are first revealed
on earth by this, they believe. And that's proof positive. God
has begun that work of very muchest salvation in them. And he will
perfect it until the day of Christ. All right, you're dismissed.