Well, that's about the finest
thing I ever heard on that subject in my life, I'll be honest with
you. Great help to me and I appreciate it, brother. Terry, we meet at Philippians
chapter one. We begin reading verse nine and
read through verse 19. The title of my message is, What
Then? What then? And this I pray, that your love
may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment,
that you may approve things that are excellent, that you may be
sincere without offense till the day of Christ, being filled
with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ unto
the glory and the praise of God. But I would, ye should understand,
brethren, that the things which happen unto me have fallen out
rather into the furtherance of the gospel, so that my bonds
in Christ are manifest all in the palace and in other places.
Many of the brethren of the Lord, waxing confident by my bonds,
are much more bold to speak the word without fear. Some indeed
preach Christ, even of envying strife, and some also of goodwill. the one to preach Christ of contention,
not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my bonds, but the
other of love, knowing I am set for the defense of the gospel.
What then? Notwithstanding, in every way, whether in pretense
or in truth, Christ is preached. Now therein do we rejoice. Yea,
and I shall rejoice, for I know this shall turn to my salvation
through your prayer and supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. The Word of God tells us what
we know. It says we know that all things
work together for good to them that love God to them are the
called according to his purpose. In Isaiah the third chapter our
Lord sets forth all the things he strips Israel of sets forth
the debauchery of their opinion toward things that are worthwhile.
And it seems he was saying, there's just no hope for any of you.
And then he says, but saying to the righteous shall be well
with thee. It shall be well with thee. I confess that in the last few
years, I've often found myself drawn to read this passage of
scripture again, again, again, and again, It intrigued me from
the first time I read it, and even today I find it quite stimulating,
and in my own heart necessary to often read it. I find myself
troubled often by how easily friends and brothers and some
early distant miss out of hand, because I find that bent in my
own mind, in my own disposition. And then when I'm in that state
of mind reading these words, they sting a little bit. They
sting a little bit, perhaps more than a little. As I expect, I
mentally kick against the pricks. These words confront me with
my own belief, or lack thereof, in the sovereignty of God in
all things. Paul, evidently, is in a really good place here. He's in a really good place.
I've often looked at his words and said, well, how can that
be? Or is he? He's in prison. He's in chains. And his words yet drip with grace
and the glory of Jesus Christ. He seems as if he is above it
all, somehow. Above it all. And perhaps he
is. He says in the context of this
chapter that he is ready to die. He's ready to die, even desires
death. But it's evidently convenient
for Christ to have him stay for a while. But he says, I would
rather be with Christ than be here if I had my choice. What is it about a man or a woman
when they are, when they see that they're dying? What is it
about that mind of the dying that changes perspective, causes
us to put things in a different kind of order. Maybe that's what
Paul is doing here. Scott Richard used to say that
we should rehearse our death. We should rehearse our death
so that we might know how to live and I think that's probably
true. What Scott was talking about
and I believe what Paul is referring to here is the concept of perspective. Perspective. When I was just
a wee lad, my dad and my uncle and my granddad bought an airplane. A J3 Cub, Piper Cub. Pretty little
old airplane. It was yellow. Metal frame covered in cloth. and they put some kind of epoxy
on it, they called it dope, and it was a flying machine. Used to be a crop duster, my
dad told me. One sunny day, my dad took me
down to Sides Field, right off of Highway 150, just outside
of Winston-Salem. We drove down through a tobacco
field past a farm pond, that was also Sides Pond. So side
must own the whole place. And at the end of the road was
a landing strip. And to the left of the road was
a carport-like structure with a tin roof. And inside was that
shiny yellow airplane. I don't remember how old I was,
but I was a very young man. But I was getting excited. My
belly was doing flip-flops. I'd never been higher off the
ground than a tall poplar tree, one of which I fell out of about
60 feet when I was about eight years old. Reason was I decided
to try to smoke cigarettes where nobody could see me hanging on
to a poplar tree at 60 feet in the air. My first experience with tobacco
and gravity. after Dad pushed the plane out
of the hangar. And he did push it. He lifted up the tail of
it and pushed it out. He took the cover off of something
he called the pitot tube, which registered airspeed. He went to the front of the plane
after strapping me in the back seat. He grabbed hold of the
propeller and spun it. I thought that was interesting.
Then he came to the cockpit and pulled out a handle that I later
found out was a throttle. And he jiggled it a couple times
and set it about a quarter way out. Turned on the switch and
he said, contact. I don't know who he said that
to, but he said contact. He went back to the prop and
lifted up his right leg and grabbed hold of that prop and spun it.
And that little 85 horsepower engine fired up. Now my belly
was really chomping. Pulled out the throttle. We began
to roll. Went out to the end of the strip,
which is right next to a creek. Picked up some speed. And we were airborne. We broke the bonds of gravity. And I was in awe. We got up a couple thousand feet,
and I could see for miles. We used to have to drive 20,
30 minutes to see Mount Pilate, but right over there it was.
I could see it, Pilate Mountain. I could see Winston-Salem, and
it didn't look so big. We flew over our house, and we
lived in a pretty good-sized house. It was 100 years old,
and my grandfather and my father had made several additions to
it, so in the end, we had about 10 rooms. It looked like a Monopoly
house, Monopoly game house. I was changed. Everything was
the same down there. The little ant people were still
bigger than I was when I was standing next to them. But I
was looking at everything from a different perspective. Seeing
things different. Soon I would descend and I'd
see things from the ground, but I never completely lost that
first time that I saw things differently. And I often think
about it even today, and I'll soon be 71 years old. I must
have been about six when that happened. Several years later,
I sat in an instrument shop in Building Hall, England, when
I was a sergeant in the Air Force. And somebody brought me a Stars
and Stripes newspaper. And on the front of it, it had
a picture of the horizon of the moon and this beautiful blue planet
out there a quarter million miles away. And it was Earth. And I thought, man alive. I've
been living on that thing all my life, and I never knew it
looked like that. Different perspective. It's all about seeing things
from a different perspective. Perhaps that's what Isaiah meant
when he said, they who waited on the Lord would mount up on
eagles' wings. I used to look at that and say,
does that mean we're going to fly? Well, yes, in one sense, but
I think it means seeing things from a different perspective.
Because an eagle sees things like we don't see them. To wait
on the Lord is to see from a different perspective. So I find myself
often bound to the horizontal, seeing all things that are just
around me, and I lose that perspective. I lose that perspective. Though
we have the answer, our view is skewed because our eyes are
cast on things around us horizontally rather than the perspective,
the vantage point of a soaring eagle. And I think Paul here in this
passage of Scripture was mounted up on eagles' wings. Scott Richardson once said to
me, if we could see things as God sees things, we wouldn't
change a thing. We wouldn't change a thing. Now,
as we are here on this earth, viewing things horizontally,
we often feel like we'd like to change a lot of things. But Paul is here in Philippi,
here writing to the church at Philippi. He's in jail in Rome. This church at Philippi began
on the riverside when God opened a lady's heart named Lydia. Paul taught her the gospel and
she started a church in her little house. And that's why we have
the gospel in America today, because that was the first church
in Europe, Philippi. Infatuated in the gospel being
brought to this land. And Paul here is addressing the
Philippian church about some problems they're having. And he's talking about two kinds
of preachers. Two kinds of preachers. One kind
is described as preaching Christ even out of envy and strife and
contention, not sincerely. Supposing to add affliction to
Paul's bonds. It probably means they were saying
things like, well, I'm preaching the gospel and I ain't in jail. Paul said supposing to add to
my bonds because they were actually added no affliction to him. But
they thought by their manner to cause men to wonder if Paul
was really preaching the gospel at all. Isn't that just the way it is?
Sometimes a supposed difference arises and men begin to take
side circle wagons and watch their six. They even begin to
question where men stand. I remember years ago a group
of men, about five preachers, left me. I was surprised when they were
gone. I really wasn't looking for them anyway, but they had
made it known that they had left me. But like I said, I didn't
really know they were gone until they told me. So it must have
not been that important to me. But anyway, they left me and
told me that there was only five men preaching the gospel in the
United States and I wasn't one of them. Several years later, one of those
men, one of the followers of those men invited me to his house
and I went over to his house and we had hamburgers. I could
see that he had a troubled look on his face, but I wasn't about
to bring it up, and I knew where he was going or where he was
coming from. And we walked out to the creek, and we were sitting
there talking, and he pulled out his skull and threw a dip
in his cheek, and I pulled out a camel filter and lit one up,
and we were sitting there on the rock, creek water running
around our feet. And he says, Tim, very seriously,
Tim, brother Tim, We just don't know where you
are. I started to say, well, I'm standing
on a rock right here. I said, what do you mean? Well, you know what we believe,
what we preach. We just don't know where you
are. I said, let me tell you where I am. I'm right where I
was when you left. And I'll be right there when
you come back. And they've all come back. But
during that time, I wasn't a gospel preacher. I was a rebel. I was a false prophet. I was all those things. That's
the way of the flesh. We cause suspicion by innuendo. Paul knew this when he was addressing
the Philippian church. But there was another group of
men who preached Christ out of goodwill, from a heart of love,
knowing that Paul was set for the defense of the gospel. And
here we are looking at these two kinds of preachers, and if
I know my own mind a little, we're choosing sides a little
bit anyway, aren't we? And if I dwell on it long enough,
I'm going to get mad at one of them. And Paul, fully aware of the
vagaries of the human mind, forces us to stop and look at both men
by saying, what then? What then? What are you thinking
then as these two men are described? One preaching out of contention
and envy and not sincerely. Another preaching out of love,
defending Paul. and the gospel he preaches. I was thinking, Paul, as you look
at these two men, you must be way up yonder in the ether somewhere,
able to see how this turns out. You see, Paul never used the
term preaching Christ loosely, and he said both of these men
were preaching Christ. He said it. One preached Christ. Now, Paul didn't use that term
loosely. When Paul said preaching Christ, he meant to say the same
thing he said to the Corinthian church, I determined to know
nothing among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified. He
said both these fellows were preaching Christ. One of them
was a snake, it seems to me, but he was preaching Christ.
Preaching Christ. He wasn't saying that one of
them was talking about another Jesus or another gospel. He was
pretty clear about that in the epistle of the Galatians. He
said two kinds of preachers were preaching Christ, then what?
What then? They were preaching Christ. He
said, if a man preach any other gospel than that which I preach,
let him be accursed. And he repeated himself in verse 8 and 9 in Galatians
chapter 1. He said, these fellows are preaching
Christ. And I'll be honest with you, I still, I've been preaching
Christ for 40 years, or better. And I look at these things and
I think, there just ain't something right about one of them guys. Oh, to bow before those eagles,
Wayne. To get high above these things. There's obviously a difference. And Paul, before he speaks of
these preachers, lays some groundwork for these people. In verse 6,
He carries the congregation on high. He gets them up on eagles'
wings and assures them that when they see these two kinds of preachers,
that neither their contentious man nor the loving man was the
author or finisher of the work that accomplished their salvation.
Neither one of those preachers had anything to do with their
salvation. That was accomplished because, according to His Word,
being confident in this very thing, that that which hath begun
a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. I preach the gospel. Our brother
preaches the gospel. Jim preaches the gospel to you
every week. But he's telling you what God has already said.
He's reading a report. A finished report. A report that's
already done. He can't change you. I can't
change you. Gary can't change you. Can't
change nobody. Should you worry about that?
Not if you're confident of this very thing. That God who began
a work in you will accomplish it to the day of Jesus Christ.
He will perform it. You're okay. That's why we can
say things like, it shall be well with the righteous. Well,
it don't look good. It shall be well with the righteous.
It shall be. He also prayed for them, uh,
beseeching God for them that they might have three things
here in verse nine and 10. He says in this, I pray. that
your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in
all judgment, that ye may approve things that are excellent, that
ye may be sincere without offense till the day of the Lord Jesus
Christ. He prayed that their love would abound more and more. Love, after all, covers a multitude
of sin. Secondly, he prays for their
knowledge in all judgment. That word judgment here means
sense, means sense. as in to sense or discern. Praise for that. Thirdly, praise
that they might approve things that are excellent. The word
approve actually is test or prove. And the word excellent means
differ, differ. So his prayer is that they would
sense and test that which differs. So they have a difference here,
don't they? Sense and test that which is different. Now why did
he say that? Perhaps they'd know what preacher not to follow in
this particular situation as far as his attitude goes. Maybe
that's what it was. He also prepares them with a
view from on high. He says this, verse 12, but I
would, you should understand. Brethren, that the things which
happen unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of
the gospel. Oh, I wish I was a believer sometime.
Don't you? For the furtherance of the gospel.
My bonds and my chains are for the furtherance of the gospel,
no matter what these preachers say. What then? Then in verse
18 he says, notwithstanding every way, whether in pretense or in
truth, Christ is preaching, I therein do rejoice and will rejoice. The capstone is in verse 19,
he says, for I know that this shall turn to my salvation through
your prayer and the supply of the Lord Jesus Christ. Brethren, God is in charge. Nothing happens that we find disturbing here
in our horizontal life. Nothing happens that he hasn't
put to happening. God doesn't allow stuff. He causes
stuff. He causes stuff. Last night after
Gary preached that wonderful message. I was talking to him
today also, and he said, I just had to be sure about this myself.
And isn't that the way it is when we preach the gospel? You
think we made it up for you? It ain't up for you. It's for
us to start with. It's for us. Brethren, they that wait on the
Lord, being confident in this very thing, that he which began
a work in you will perform it to the day of Jesus Christ. sensing
and proving what differs shall mount up on eagles wings breaking
the bonds of horizontal aspect and see God see as God sees it and know everything
is on schedule and according to plan. I hope someday, of course I ain't
got that long, you know, running out of time. I hope someday to
be like Paul, to be like Paul. Jeremiah, who quit on God, got mad at God,
whipped over Israel, said even God just wore him out,
beat him up. He said in Lamentations chapter
three, Verse 27, it is good for a man that he bear the yoke
of his youth. Verse 26, it is good that a man
should hope, both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the
Lord. What then? If things don't seem
like they ought to be, that's not to say we should not
always stand and defend the gospel with every fiber of our being.
But we always ought to do this, if we can, in our moments, and
occasionally we can when the gospel is preached, to mount
on those evil wings and soar, maybe so high that we can open
this book and see the beginning and the end of things. how they
begin and how they're going to end. And maybe see if what bad things
happen here turn out for good over here. Because that's how it's going
to be. Perspective, after all. Perspective. What then? What do you think? Well, preacher, I'm upset about
this. Okay. good because that's what you're
supposed to be and you'll get over it because that's what you're
supposed to do. God help us. All right.