Looking in 2 Timothy chapter
two. Again, reading there in verse
19. Says, nevertheless, the foundation
of God standeth sure, having this seal. The Lord knoweth them
that are his, and let every one that nameth the name of Christ
depart from iniquity. But in a great house there are
not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and
of earth, and some to honor and some to dishonor. If a man therefore
purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor,
sanctified in meat for the master's use, and prepared unto every
good work. Flee also youthful lust, but
follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that
call on the Lord out of a pure heart. But foolish and unlearned
questions avoid, knowing that they do gender strifes. And the
servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all
men, apt to teach patience. In meekness instructing those
that oppose themselves, 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 this is an interesting passage
of scripture that Paul is writing to Timothy about. Of course he
is carrying on with the very same instruction that he gave
him and the exhortation to shun profane vain and vain babblings,
for they will increase unto more ungodliness, and their word will
eat as doth a canker, of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus." Now, there are always going to be
men who pervert the word of God. It's an easy thing for us to
sit around and say, well, we don't do that. Or it's also very
uncommon for a man to realize that he has done that or to admit
that he has. But it is a true thing that there
is but one truth. There's not a multitude of truths. look at all the different ideas
that people have and say, well, all of them are right. Because
not all men give Christ all glory. And anybody that does not give
Christ all glory in the salvation of sinners is not speaking the
truth. Now they might not knowingly
set out to not speak the truth, but nonetheless to give credit
to anyone other than Christ for the salvation of His people is
not true. Or to turn the things that Christ
has said away from that. Now He speaks here about Hymenaeus
and Philetus as examples of some who have erred from the truth. He said, concerning the truth
have erred. They moved away from that which
Christ spoke, saying that the resurrection is past already,
that there is no such thing. that it's already been done.
We're not expecting that we shall be raised from the dead. Now
there are those, there are many, there are some at least who claim
to be followers of Christ who do not believe in a bodily resurrection
of the saints. Paul said if the dead be not risen, if in
this life only we have hope in Christ, then we are of all men
most miserable. In other words, if the only thing
that we have to look forward to is a hole in the ground, then
we don't really, what are we doing? I mean, we're kind of
wasting our time, because we believe that Jesus Christ rose
from the dead. And the purpose of his rising
from the dead was twofold. One, it was to manifest his triumph
over death insofar as he was that acceptable sacrifice that
was able to go back into the presence of the Father as that
one who had taken away sin. But he also was risen from the
dead to become the first fruits of them that sleep. that he would
be the illustration, that he would be the one who would show
what his purpose was for the saints of God. He said, I give
unto them eternal life and they shall never perish. Now you cannot have a people
that never perish unless you have a resurrection. And if that
resurrection be passed and we are not those who presently enjoy
the fruits of a life that will not end, then we are saying something
that's not correct. So it is that God's people, not
all men, but those who by the grace of God have been called
to believe in Christ, have also been called to believe in the
hope of the resurrection. the hope that Christ rose from
the dead, because if we don't believe Christ rose from the
dead, then we really don't have any expectation. But then if
we don't believe Christ rose from the dead, but we don't believe
that we shall rise from the dead, then we're of all men most miserable.
We have no expectant hope, no hope that is yet to come beyond
this life. Now I know that it is a common
thing Most everybody thinks that when somebody dies, they all
talk about, well, he's going to heaven. Well, everybody, according
to what scripture says, now I didn't make this up. I didn't design
it. I didn't say this is how it was. But this is what scripture says.
Not all men will go to heaven. Not all of those who are born
into this world will dwell forever in the presence of God. Some
will be, according to what the scripture says, and again, I
didn't make it up, will be cast into a lake of fire. Now, that's
not pleasant, is it? And I would tremble to say to
anyone, you know, that this is the outcome of some, but it is
the outcome. of those who are not found in
Christ. Those who are not seeking Christ. Those who have no desire after
Christ. Because the most miserable place
for a man who has no love for Christ to be would be in the
presence of Christ. I mean, the Pharisees, they hated
Christ. You think they'd want to spend...
Think about that. You know, somebody that hates
Christ, I mean, do you want to be around the people you hate?
No, you don't want to be around them. But those who have eternal
life, they desire that. You know, they desire the presence
of Christ. They desire the life of Christ to be found in them. They're miserable because of
the sin that does so easily beset them. They see, you know, what
sorrow it causes, not only to themselves, but to others. And
so this is a great burden to bear. And so this error of Hymenus
and Philetus was a terrible error. He said it overturns the faith
of some because our faith rests in the resurrection of Jesus
Christ and the resurrection that is to come. He said they overthrow
the faith of some and it is true that there are many who are what
I would call spurious believers. There are many who as the Lord
taught in the parable of the sower There are many who, like
the seed that fell on the stony ground, they spring up for a
season, but then they fall away. And so it is true that there
are those who seem, at some point in time, that they are the followers
of the Lord, only to turn aside and walk no more with Him. Now
there are some who go along the way and fall by the wayside.
And the Lord is pleased to recover them out of that situation and
bring them back. So you can't always say that
because somebody has fallen by the wayside that there is no
hope for them. I don't know that. That's a dangerous
place to be. I wouldn't want to be in it.
Lord deliver me from it. But then this is what he says,
the Lord knoweth them that are his. The foundation of God, stand
it sure, this is the basis of the hope of God's people is in
the Lord, the foundation of God. That's our foundation, is it
not? I hope it is, because if our
foundation's built on anything else other than the truth of
God, the word of God that's been given to us, we've got a false
foundation. And so this is a true thing,
the Lord knoweth them that are His. Now we talked about that
a moment ago when we were looking at, as Brother Al was teaching
us about Gideon and those 300 men that the Lord pointed out
to Gideon that He would use out of what was it, 132,000? 32, that's right, 32,000. Said 32,000
men, 20,000 of them took off at the get-go and didn't want
to go, and so there was 12,000 left, and then out of that, there
was 300 that the Lord set apart. And that's a picture, is it not?
The Lord knoweth them that are His. He wasn't, the Lord wasn't
wondering if He was gonna get 300. I mean, he didn't send Gideon
down to the river and say, well, get as many of them as you can.
No, he said to Gideon, he said, look, this is what's going to
be the evidence of them. The Lord's the one that set the
parameters, and the Lord's the one that directed those that
did what they did. The Lord wasn't surprised at
all in any one of them. He knew every one of them before
they ever went down there. And so it is, the Lord knows
them that are His. He knows His people. And so,
you know, it's foolish for a man to think he's gonna fool God
in any way. Or he's gonna somehow make a
deal with God. The Lord knows them that are
his. And then he says this, and let every one that nameth the
name of Christ depart from iniquity. You know, I know there are many
that accuse those of us who preach what's called the gospel of grace.
that we encourage men to sin, or we don't care if men sin or
not. They tell us, well, you know, if you preach that what
men do doesn't make any difference, that's the only thing that matters
is what Christ has done for them, why they'll just go off and Do
all kinds of evil. I mean, what's to keep them from
it? Well, I say to this, if a man really believes that would be
the case, he doesn't know anything about the grace of God. Because
the grace of God constraineth us. The Lord moves upon us. And it is, even as John said,
little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin
not. We're not encouraging men to
sin. We're encouraging God's people to refrain from it. We
know what men are by nature, however. And we know that men
will indeed follow that nature apart from the restraining grace
of God. And so the encouragement and
the exaltation of the word of God to the children of God is
let everyone that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity. If you say you're a follower
of Christ, then turn away from those evil things that you are
inclined towards. We're not pursuing those things,
we're desiring to be delivered from them. But then he says this,
but in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and
silver, but also of wood and of earth, and some to honor and
some to dishonor. There's a couple of things that
I think, lessons we can get out of this. In a great house there
are not only vessels of gold and silver, but wood and earth,
and some to honor and some to dishonor. Now, there's all types
of people in the earth. And the Lord has his people out
there. Remember, he said in Paul's argument in Romans 9, he said,
isn't it the Lord's prerogative to make some vessels unto honor
and some to dishonor, as it pleaseth him? Now in that, there are those
whom the Lord would bring to honor, that is, they would be
brought out of darkness and into the light, and then there are
some that will continue on in their darkness. See, a man doesn't
have to do anything to get into darkness. He's born that way. I mean, the wicked go astray
as soon as they're born speaking lies. I mean, it's just a fact. You never have to teach a child
to tell a lie, do you? I mean, did you ever sit down
with any of your kids and say, now here's how you do it? No,
they just knew how to do that, didn't they? I mean, the first
time they ever got into something they knew they wasn't supposed
to do, and you called them in it, what was the first thing
they did? Well, I didn't do that. So there are vessels unto honor
and vessels unto dishonor in the general sense, but also in
a great house, that is, among the people of God, There are
vessels of gold and silver, but also wood and of earth. Now I believe that's speaking
about the people of God. Now not everyone is a vessel
of gold and silver, some are wood and earth. What I mean by
that, what does he mean by that? He means that not everybody is
given the same measure of faith. Now all of God's children are
given faith. according to the measure that
he sees fit to give. But everybody is not given the
same gifts. Everybody's not given the same
abilities, the same degree of faith. Now, is that, do we, is it our job to try to get everybody
to be the same? No. Our job is to declare the
riches of the glory of Christ in the hearing of God's people.
And that will be a blessing to all of them. You see, I don't
think even the vessel of earth is not blessed by hearing the
sound of Christ as a reigning king. He might not react to it
the same way that somebody else does. Well, so it is, and not
all men have the same understanding as far as the truth of God is
concerned. Some men are able to delineate
doctrinal truth and tell you things, you know, in a very systematic
fashion and a very clear fashion. Some can't. I mean some, but
here's the thing, all of God's people have one basic thing that
they desire and that is to be found in Christ. And so we're
not out here trying to determine who are the children of God. Now we can indeed notice that
from time to time as he says here, Hymenas and Philenas. They've
turned aside. He said they've overthrown the
faith of some. Now some things become obvious.
He speaks of some as being enemies of the cross of Christ. We can
know that. If somebody's not speaking the
glory of Christ, then they're the enemy of the cross of Christ.
Paul said, I'm determined to know nothing among you save Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. So if anybody comes bringing
another message, adding something to that, then they're enemies
of the cross of Christ. They're speaking those things
which they ought not. And so there are vessels of wood
and of earth as well as gold and silver among the saints of
God. Now at the same time, it's also
the Lord's prerogative to make some vessels unto honor and some
to dishonor. Now I don't think that any of
God's children are vessels unto dishonor. I don't think that's
the application there. I think they are vessels of honor.
Now, you know, honor is a thing that's bestowed on somebody,
isn't it? I mean, a man doesn't just have honor. I mean, you
can go out here and do all sorts of wondrous things, but if nobody
ever recognizes it, you didn't receive any honor, did you? I
mean, there's a lot of people that go do things behind the
scenes that nobody ever knows about. I'm talking about in normal
life out here and go about, and they don't want their name to
be known. They don't receive any honor. So honor is something
that has to be bestowed on somebody. It has to be given. And the Lord
does indeed give honor unto those whom He loves. He calls them
unto Himself. And He honors them with faith
that they might believe, that they might trust Christ. And
so he goes on, he says, if a man therefore purge himself from
these, and what's he speaking about from these? I think he's
speaking about the errors that he's been talking about. That
is, the error of Hymenus and Philetus, those who speak vain
babblings, that is, words to no profit. There's all kind of
doctrines out there. You can fill up this building
here with books about every sort of thing you could find in the
Bible and you could set a match to it and burn them up and the
world would not be any worse off, probably be better off as
a result of it. So there's no shortage of those
that he, this idea and that idea out there, write books and go
into all sorts of things at the end of the day. much of that is vain babbling
it's not of any use to the people of God because there's one thing
that is needful for the sons of God and that is to know Jesus
Christ and to walk in his way and so he says if a man therefore
purge himself from these false doctrines from those errors says
he shall be a vessel unto honor sanctified and meet for the master
use that is Seeking out those things that are pleasing in the
sight of God. Now, on the one hand, there's
not a thing in the world you can do to please the Lord. But
yet, on the other hand, the Lord is pleased with His children.
And He's pleased when we walk in His way. So, you know, it's
kind of a conundrum. We tell men you can't please
God, but yet God's pleased. with his people. And so we sing
a song sometimes. I think the version of it is
only in one book. But it's Christ hath a garden
walled around and it speaks about in there that he's well pleased
to smell our poor perfumes. I mean, you know, think about
this. Here we are sinful men seeking to praise the most high
God. And what could we ever do that
would really be useful or something he would take notice of? But
just like a child brings a broken flower in from the yard, and
half the petals are gone off of it and everything, and he
gives it to his mama. And it's just a weed. It's nothing but it's pleasing
to her. because it comes from Him. And
so the Lord is pleased with His children in that fashion. And so it is that may the Lord
give us a mind and heart to be sanctified, set apart, meet,
that is fit for the Master's use and prepared to every good
work. Is that not our desire? I mean, is that the desire of
every one of God's children? I think so. I don't think that
God's children can desire not to be pleasing in the Lord's
sight. They desire, they want to be
prepared to every good work. Flee also youthful lusts, but
follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace with them. That
call on the Lord, I have a pure heart. Youthful lusts, that is
those things that don't do anything but serve our flesh, flee from
them. I mean, that's not the same thing
that Paul wrote to the Colossians about. He said, set your affection
on things above, not on things of the earth, where Christ sitteth
at the right hand of God. That's where our affection is
to be. Flee them, follow righteousness, faith, peace with them that call
on the Lord out of a pure heart. I mean, we desire fellowship
with the people of God. that call on the Lord out of
a pure heart. Now sometimes I believe this is true, that a man might
not have a clear understanding of the truth of God, but the
Lord may have given him a pure heart. He may be as one of those
who is a vessel of wood or a vessel of earth. And so we need to be
mindful that we have fellowship with those that call on the Lord
out of a pure heart. Remember that Apollos was a man
preaching when Priscilla and Aquila heard him. And he was
preaching what he knew. But he wasn't preaching the whole
truth. So they took him aside and they explained to him the
Word of God more perfectly. And God was pleased to give him
an understanding. Now what they could have done,
of course, is just say, they could have went around and, you
know, denigrated what he said or said, we ain't have anything
to do with you until you get straightened out. but know they
had compassion on him and concern by the grace of God as the Lord
moved them to help him. And so we need to be mindful
that the Lord alone is the one that makes us to differ from
another. And so that, you know, if a person's overtaken in a
fault, we don't destroy them. as a result of that, but we seek
to help them. And if they call on the Lord
out of a pure heart, but foolish and unlearned questions avoid.
We don't need to get into a bunch of arguments with people. If
a man is not willing to receive the Word of God, and we go to
him and we expound to him the Word of God more perfectly, then
we're to avoid that. I mean, you can get brought up,
when I was younger, I, you know, spent too much time arguing with
people about this doctrine or that. I mean, what difference,
what do they know? What are you gonna do? You're
never going to convince a man against his will, unless the
Lord humbles a man. All you can do is testify the
truth. Now, I'm not saying we don't
need to testify the truth, but avoid foolish arguments. You
know, the argument's not going to do you any good. I remember
Brother Don Martin, he used to tell about when he was first
confronted about the subject of election by a brother that
he had esteem for. And the brother started teaching
this truth. And he got angry. He said, well,
that can't be true. You know, I can't receive that.
By the grace of God, the Lord humbled his heart, and he went
home, and he started reading. He says, I'm gonna read every
passage in the scripture that has to do with this subject.
And he got the concordance out, and every place that the scripture
mentioned election, or predestination, or calling, he read it. Well,
by the time he got through, he was a stronger believer in those
things than the one that told him. Because the truth of the
Word of God will always bear witness that it is the truth.
You can't overturn it. The only people that will not
receive the truth of the doctrine of election, now we know that
the Lord has to give a man this, but we're speaking, humanly speaking,
is a man who will not take the Word of God and openly and honestly
look at it. Can't be denied. You might not
like it, and you might wish that it wasn't in there, But you can't
say that it's not in there. You can't say that it means something
else. It means what it means. It is
what it is. And it's pretty plain from the
beginning to the end. But we're not desiring to be
in strife with people about this. You know, if somebody wants to
argue about it, let them go on with it. If they want to know
about it, we're going to tell them about it. So we avoid that. The servant of the Lord must
not strive, but be gentle unto all men. apt to teach and patient. Now he's exhorting Timothy as
one who had the gift of teaching and he said you must not strive
about it. That's exactly what I'm talking
about. You're not trying to beat people over the head with the
truth but you're just telling them the truth as it is. And
in a gentle way unto all men thinking about their needs in
meekness instructing those that oppose themselves. If God, peradventure,
will give them an acknowledgment, repentance unto the acknowledging
of the truth, that's exactly what we're talking about. Now,
Brother Don, that's a good example of somebody who I believe, and
he would have told you this if he was able to be here, that
this exactly describes him. If peradventure the Lord will
give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth. The Lord did give
him that. Now, I've known other men that still maintain, they
say, well, in fact, I heard a person say one time that, well, if that's
the truth or if that's the way God is, I don't want anything
to do with him. Now, that's not a repentance
unto the acknowledging of the truth, that's a rebellion against
God. I mean, cause it's not, we're not making this up. You
know, it is what it is. It is what the Lord says. And
so, the Lord will oft times give men a repentance to the acknowledging
of the truth that they may recover themselves. That is, that they
may be recovered. Obviously they didn't, Brother
Don didn't recover himself. out of the thing by his own power,
but he himself was recovered out of the snare of the devil,
who were taken captive by him at his will. Now the devil goes
about what? Seeking whom he may devour. And there are some men that the
devil can devour, but there are some that he cannot. And they
are those favored vessels of the Lord. And so it is that off
times men are taken captive. See, what Paul's speaking about
here, he's showing how fickle men are and how able we are,
each one of us, to be deceived. And we would be deceived. In
fact, the Lord said that there's coming great deceptions on the
earth, or he was speaking of it at that time. I believe those
deceptions are here. He said that would deceive even
the very elect. if it were possible. It's not
possible that God's people should be turned away from Christ. It's
impossible. Because God's people run to Christ. They desire Christ. They confess
even as Peter said, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the
words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that
thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And I believe
that is what true faith is. You know, it's not believing
what I say. It's not adhering to the doctrine
I teach. But faith is when a man falls
on his face and confesses of a truth that Jesus Christ is
the Lord of glory, the King of kings, and the Savior of sinners. May the Lord give us a mind to
be such a people.