We're in 1 Timothy and looking
in chapter 2. I'm going to read the first four
verses of that. It says, I exhort therefore that
first of all supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of
thanks be made for all men. for kings and for all that are
in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in
all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable
in the sight of God our Savior, who will have all men to be saved
and to come unto the knowledge of the truth." Now, Paul and exhorts Timothy and
through him the church of God of many things. And this exhortation, an exhortation
is a stirring up. It's more than just telling somebody
something. In other words, I can tell you
that you need to pray. But if I'm exhorting you to pray,
it's more than just me telling you you should do that. I am
encouraging you to do that. I'm pressing it upon you. And so Paul in his writing here
to Timothy is not just saying it would be a good idea, by the
way, for you to do this. He's saying you must do this.
He's saying I implore you to do this. I encourage you with
all that's within me. I exhort you, therefore. And
he's saying this not just, of course, to Timothy, but to all
of those who would come after Timothy and would read these
words. And he says that first of all,
he said, I want this to be implanted primarily in your mind, that
you should make supplication for all men, even kings for all that are in
authority. So when Paul's writing here about
all men, while we might apply this in
this fashion to consider that he is speaking about all men
individually, that's not really what he's saying. What he's saying
is you need to pray for all men, not just Jews, not just Gentiles,
not just the rich, not just the poor, but all men. See, when we preach the gospel,
we don't go out and select those to whom we will preach. We're
to preach the gospel to all men. Now, we understand that all men,
can mean all men individually. We understand that it can. And
when we include our consideration of all men as always being speaking
about all men individually without any qualifications, then we run
afoul of many things in the scripture that gives us great difficulty
to comprehend how this could be. And so it's necessary that
we understand who all men are. Because he's gonna repeat this
phrase again. We're not trying to limit it
to those whom we think are all men, but we are merely trying
to point out that when he's saying all men here, what he's, the
message that he's getting across. And so he says, I exhort, therefore,
that first of all, you need to do this. Now, prayer, and I exhort
you on this, prayer is how every day must begin for the children
of God. With prayer. I mean, Why would we not give thanks
unto the Lord in the morning when we arise, when we have been
granted another day? First of all, he says supplications. Now he uses four words here. And the first thing that he mentions
is supplications. And then he says, and I think
I'm not reading this into it, I believe this is the gist of
what he's saying. I exhort therefore first of all
that supplications with prayers, intercessions, and giving of
thanks be made for all men. Because supplication is asking
If I make supplication, if you are sick and I make supplication
for you before the Lord, I would be asking the Lord to heal you.
It's not wrong to pray for the Lord to heal somebody, even if
it turns out that he didn't see fit to heal them. Because you
see, we desire that, do we not? For their sake. Now when we pray
that, surely we desire for the will of God to be done. And we
don't pray for the Lord to heal someone contrary to his will,
we pray it because that's our petition. And our petition, we always know
by what the Lord said in his model prayer. He said, may thy
will be done in the earth as it is in heaven or as it is already
decreed. in the heavens. We don't know
what the Lord's will is in that sense. I mean, when somebody's
sick, we don't know what the Lord's will is. I mean, I can't
tell if they're going to perish from this illness or they're
going to be raised up. I don't know. But I know that
my love for them and my desire for them is that they might be
healed. And so that's how we would pray.
Nevertheless, thy will be done. And so he begins by saying these
supplications, these petitions need to be made. We ought to
be concerned about men in general. I mean, we're not going through
life with blinders on and not caring what happens to other
men. I mean, I don't see anybody and
I don't know who the elect of God are. But I don't look at
the world and say, well, I'm not gonna pray for that guy because
he's probably not one of the elect. Or I'm gonna pray for
him because he is. I don't know who they are. The
Lord knows them that are his. And he'll call them in his own
time. But you see, we as men, we're
all in the same boat. I mean, we're sailing in this
ship across this ocean and we're all in the boat together. And that's what he's saying here. I exhort therefore that first
of all, supplications should be made for all men. And then
he says something. Now, most people think that when
they think of prayer, primarily what they think of is supplication. petitions. The Lord said, make
your petitions known unto the Lord. Ask Him. You have not because
you ask not. I mean, why would you not go
to Him that owns a cattle on a thousand hills if you need
a cow? You know, if you need something, He's the one that's
got what you need. And so you would make those supplications. But I would venture to say to
you that supplication is not essentially prayer. Prayer may
include supplication. But then he uses the word, he
says supplications, and then he uses another word. Prayers. So that tells me, and when you
look at this in the Greek, I'm not a Greek scholar and don't
know a whole lot about it, but I can tell that these four words
that are used here are all different words. The first one means that
supplications is a petition. He said, make petitions. For all men, you're indiscriminate
in that. All types of men, you're not
picking them out. And then he says, with prayers. Now, prayer is prayer. What is
prayer? The Lord taught us what prayer
was. When he said, when the disciples said, well, how should we pray?
He said, when you pray, pray like this. He says, our Father,
which are in heaven, hallowed be thy name. All prayer is worship. Prayer is worship. In fact, the
word that's used here for prayer is worship. When we read in the
book of Acts that Lydia and a group of women gathered down by the
river It says where prayer was want to be made. Now does that
mean that when you walked by there, they were all sitting
there with their heads bowed and their hands folded? Is that
what they were doing? Well, they may have been, but
what he's getting at here is that's a place where worship
was made. See, prayer is worship. And when
we truly pray, we truly worship God, because it's that which
comes from the heart, that where the Spirit of God indices, that
which the Lord told Nicodemus of, or told the woman at the
well of. He said, that the father seeketh
such to worship him in spirit and truth. That's what prayer
is, true prayer. Now, because somebody, you know,
makes a request, Lord, I need $50 to pay this bill off today. That's not necessarily prayer. That's a petition, that's a supplication,
and it may fall into the category of prayer in some way, but brethren,
prayer is worship. And prayer is to be made among
God's people. It will be. I mean, you can't
keep a man from worshiping God that knows him. The Spirit of
God will cause him to worship. He gives us groanings that cannot
be uttered. Even when we're not consciously
aware of what we are, the Lord is pleased to work in his people
to worship him. And so he says, let worship be
with you. I exhort you. He says, enter
sessions. Now an intercession is coming
in the behalf of someone else. You remember Job, the scripture
says, that he made offerings for his children. He was concerned about his children.
And they was off doing whatever they were doing. Well, he couldn't
be with them every minute of the day, but he could make intercession
for them. And so it is that we intercede
for one another before the throne of God. We don't have to wait
till somebody gets sick to pray for them. We pray for our brethren. Why? Because we love them. We
make intercession. I mean, the Lord gives us an
example of being our intercessor. Why does he intercede for us? Because he loves us. Because
he desires our benefit. And so it is, that's what intercession
is. We're interceding in the behalf
of someone else. You might make a supplication
for your own self, but you can't intercede for yourself. See,
you can intercede for somebody else, but you can't intercede
for yourself. And so the Lord says, with intercessions,
I mean, we come to the Lord in the behalf of other people. We
come in the behalf, Lord, hoping our children's eyes to behold
your glory. Because they're not concerned
with that. You know, I mean, they're not born concerned with
the glory of God. But we desire that the Lord might
work in them to show them such things. So we intercede in their
behalf, in their weakness. And giving of thanks. Now, that's
another vital part of praying, giving thanks. Now, it is quite
a common practice, especially here in the South. I've never
been in the North, so I don't know much about it, but I know
in the South, it is quite a common thing before people eat that
they ask a blessing on the food. They give thanks for the food.
Now unfortunately, that becomes a rote habit. Now there's a lot of good things
that can be said about habit. All habits are not bad, there
are good habits. And I would say it is a good
habit to pray before we eat. But you know it's a better thing
if we truly give thanks. You know, with a mind and heart.
And I think it's important, you know, not just to teach. When
I was a little kid, they used to teach us a little thing to
say before we ate, a little blessing, and I imagine a lot of y'all
were taught the same thing, you know? And that's not a bad thing. I
wouldn't ever tell anybody not to teach their child prayers. What does a child know? Did not
the Lord teach his disciples what to say? Sure he did. I mean, that's what he said.
But more than just what to say. See, it's more important, I believe,
to teach our children why we would ask the blessing than it
is to teach them to ask a blessing. Because, you know, children need
to be instructed to know why they do the things. Why do we
do things? Why do we come down here to meet on Sundays? Do we
just come because it's just the thing we ought to do? Or do we
come because we delight to meet with God's people, to praise
his name together, to worship him? And so, giving of thanks. We give thanks, prayer is designed
for men to give thanks unto God. And I've often thought this in
my own mind. We don't spend more time giving
thanks unto God than we do asking him for stuff. But I mean, we
don't have any problem coming up with stuff to ask him to do
for us. But oh, how much time have we
spent in thanking him for what he has already done for us. Giving of thanks. And he says,
I exhort therefore that supplications be made for all men, for kings,
for all that are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and
peaceful life in all godliness and honesty. As much as it might
pain us, We need to pray for those who are in places of authority. God put them there. Now, there's
a lot of people that don't believe that. You know, you hear them. They say, well, Donald Trump
ought to be president. Well, no, he shouldn't. You know who God put in for the
president? Joe Biden. He did. He put him in there. You might
not like him. I don't think all those Israelites
like Nebuchadnezzar that much. They didn't like Caesar. Paul said, pray for them. He
said, pray for them. For all that are in authority,
because we're to be. submissive to the authorities
that the Lord has ordained for our benefit. Now, that doesn't
mean that I think everything that the government does turns
out for my benefit, because a lot of it doesn't, but God ordained
the powers that be for our benefit. Now, what would it be like? It's
like these people that got all up in arms about the defunding
the police type idea. Now, how stupid is that? I mean,
that's the one function. that the Lord ordained government
to do is to punish evildoers. And so he has ordained, he said
that they bear not the sword in vain. We wouldn't need police
if men weren't depraved. I mean, if you had, everybody
was out here trying to do good, police wouldn't have nothing
to do, would they? What are they doing? They're
corralling the evil doers, and I'm glad that they are. Because
that is the one function that we read in scripture that the
government is supposed to do. A lot of the stuff they're doing,
they shouldn't be doing, as far as I can see. But nonetheless,
we're to pray for them, that we might be able to lead a quiet
and peaceable life in godliness and all honesty. Now that's the
desire, is it not? For the children of God, for
all men. I mean, to lead lives of quietness
and peace. To be able to walk in godliness,
in a fashion that would honor God. May our prayers be in such
fashion. For this is good and acceptable
in the sight of God our Savior. This is proper. That's what we
ought to do, he said. It's good that we should do this. Who will have all men, the same
ones, to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth?
When we preach the gospel, We preach the gospel to all men. Now will all men hear it? No. That doesn't mean we don't preach
to them. Doesn't mean we don't care for them. We don't pick
out who we care about and who we don't. We desire that they
might know the truth. But is the all men indiscriminate? I mean, is this telling us, it
says, who will have all men to be saved? But yet, all men are
not saved, and so therefore, God failed in some way. I mean,
that's the ultimate conclusion, is it not? If we take this to
be absolutely meaning that the Lord will, it is God's purpose
to save all men. Well, what's the but? but they
won't let him? No, it doesn't mean that. It's
not saying God wants to save everybody, but he can't. It means
he would have all types of men. The Lord is no respecter of persons. The Lord doesn't save the poor
and not the rich. He saves men of all categories. from every walk of life, black
and white, red, green, whatever. I mean, the Lord is not a respecter
of persons in that way. He would have all men to be saved.
Now I want to skip ahead and I'm going to show you what I'm
getting at. Because in verse six it says, he who gave himself
a ransom for all. Now did he die for all men indiscriminately? Brethren, if we believe that
the salvation of God's people rests in Jesus Christ and he
died for a man's sins, how could that man not be saved? So we're
clear in our, as we look at what the scripture teaches as a whole,
that he did not die for the sins of every individual. Because again, if he did, then
all men would be saved, would they not? If he poured out his
blood and he paid for the sins of a man, what could ever bring
condemnation upon that man? I mean, if the salvation of God's
people rests in the blood of Christ and Christ alone, then
that salvation is absolutely certain. And so it says here,
who gave himself a ransom for all. Now again, who is the all?
He defines it, to be testified in due time. You see, the all
for whom Christ died will be known in time. The Lord will manifest that He
knows those that are His. Now should He have saved anybody?
No. You know, people say, well, it's
not fair. Well, should God have saved anybody? Should Christ
have poured out his precious blood to take away the sin of
anybody? So there's nothing unfair. He gave himself a ransom for
the all which are to be testified in due time. All will be saved. For whosoever shall call upon
the name of the Lord shall be saved. The Lord said, all that
the Father giveth me shall come to me. And him that cometh to
me I will in no wise cast out. That's true. Never has a man
come to Christ desiring his mercy. and has gone away without it.
Never has a man called upon the name of the Lord and perished. I like that hymn we sing sometimes. But if I die with mercy sought,
when I the king have tried, this were to die, delightful thought,
as sinner never died. I can but perish if I go. I am
resolved to try. For if I stay away, I know I
must forever die. The Lord receives sinful men.
He's the Savior of all men. There is no other Savior. Christ
and Christ alone. is that one who suffered, bled,
and died for sinners, that they might be saved. Not that they
might in the sense of hopefully they would, but that they absolutely
would be, they should be, they shall be because of what he has
done. May the Lord give us a mind to
call upon him.