We're looking here in 1 Timothy,
the first chapter. We've looked at several of these
verses. And of course, last week we centered
our thoughts on using the law lawfully and understanding who
it is that the law is made for. and the purpose of the law. Most people think of the law
as though it were a set of rules that God has set forth that men
can check off and see which ones they've done and which ones they
haven't, or they can look at them and think how well they're
doing in life as to whether or not they measure up to their
neighbor. And as a general rule in our
minds, it's usually fairly easy for us to consider that we measure
up pretty well compared to somebody else. But they that compare themselves
among themselves are not wise and the law was never given so
that men might compare how well they're doing or to look at it
as though it were a checklist to see which ones we have done
and which ones we haven't and which ones we can work on to
improve. But Paul plainly says who the
law was given for. He said it was not given for
righteous men. Now when a man gets to thinking
that he has some righteousness of his own, then he has departed
from the truth. Because what the law is designed
to do is to show us that we are unrighteous men. And that is
when you read the law, unless you are blind, you come away
with the conclusion that you can't measure up to it. When
a man looks at it and he says, well, I've done these things.
Remember the rich young ruler. He came to the Lord and he said,
well, I've done all of that. I'm doing pretty good. I mean,
you know, there's gotta be something beyond that that I do. And of
course the Lord told him. a thing that he'd never considered
before, because he didn't have a right understanding of the
law. Had he known that he was not a keeper of the law, he would
never have come to the Lord with such a boast as that. So, Paul
talks about the law, and the law's important. And never do
we ever want to give anybody the impression that we are somehow
set against the law. But we're desirous of being mindful
why the law was given and what the law does. And when we have
that understanding, we can only then, is it that a man can have
a proper regard for what it is that Christ has done. Because
Christ has come and he has fulfilled that law in our behalf. He is the end of the law to those
that believe. That is the purpose of the law.
The law was given that it might manifest our sin, but that it
might manifest the righteousness of Christ to us. As we look at
Him as that perfect law keeper, and seeing that He is that perfect
law keeper, then we desire to flee unto Him because the law
breathes out threatenings and slaughters against us each time
we look at it with any consideration that we might be made holy in
the Lord's sight by any adherence thereto. Now, so Paul speaks
about the law and we're gonna leave that behind, but it's necessary
that he say what he said concerning the law that we understand the
import of what it is that he goes on to say. Now he says that
those that use the law lawfully do it according to sound doctrine.
Those that do not use it lawfully are walking contrary to sound
doctrine. He says that in the 10th verse. For if there be any other thing
that is contrary to sound doctrine, that is, the Lord gave the law
to manifest the sin of men and to manifest as well the unsound
doctrine that men believe by nature. See, all men are born
into the world believing something. You don't have to teach a child
that his way is right. He believes his way is right.
And the older that he gets, the more convinced he is that his
way is right. And he has to be corrected. And parents that don't correct
their child will have one that grows up and it won't be correctable. You know, because it's necessary
that we learn basic things as we come into the world, that
there is an authority in the world. Today we don't have much
of a consider, or the world at large does not have much of a
consideration of that. And the idea that children can
be raised without a consideration that there is an authority, That
there is one to whom they have to bow their knee, whether they
want to or they don't. That's necessary for us to be
taught that as children. And as the Lord gives us grace,
I'm thankful for parents that taught me that. Now, I didn't
learn it very well, and I was a rebellious child, no doubt.
But yet, by the grace of God, there are certain principles
that have been instilled in me that I can't escape. That's what
the Lord said, right? Train up a child in the way he
should go. When he's old, he'll not depart
from it. That doesn't mean that he'll believe everything you
believe or that he'll walk exactly according to everything that
he should. But it does mean that he will never be able to escape
from a foundation that was laid. He may rebel against it. And
you know, there are many today in our prisons and whatnot that
are there because they had nobody to teach them those things, those
basic things. And there are many in the prisons
who will say, you know, if I had listened to those things I was
taught, they can't depart from it. Unfortunately, there are
many given over to reprobate minds, and they have no regard
to the things of God at all. But may the Lord be pleased to
give us grace, because we'll be that way. apart from the mercy
of God, to teach us. As Paul says here, according
to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed
to my trust. And I thank Christ Jesus, our
Lord, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful,
putting me into the ministry, who was before a blasphemer and
a persecutor and injurious, but I obtained mercy, for I did it
in unbelief. Now the scripture says there,
because I did it in unbelief, and I'm gonna go back in a minute,
and we'll talk about that. exactly what is being said here.
And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith
and love which is in Christ Jesus. This is a faithful saying and
worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners of whom I am chief. Howbeit for this cause
I obtain mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth
all longsuffering for a pattern to them which should hereafter
believe on him to life everlasting. Now unto the King eternal, immortal,
invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory forever and
ever. Amen. This charge I commit unto thee,
son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before
on thee, that thou by them mightest war a good warfare, holding faith
and a good conscience, which some having put away concerning
faith have made shipwrecked. Of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander,
whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme."
According to the glorious gospel of the blessed God. Now this
is that message which Paul was sent to preach. And he is going
to explain how it is that he came to be a preacher of that
gospel. Because he didn't start out in
life that way, did he? I mean, he was raised up in a
strict Jewish tradition. And he says in the book of Philippians
how that he was a Pharisee of the Pharisee. He was a law keeper. He was a moral man. He was upright
in all of his ways. If you had looked at Paul you'd
say that's somebody I need to be like. But when the Lord brought
Paul to a proper understanding of who he was, he cast off all
of those things and he understood that he was indeed one who was
before a blasphemer. and a persecutor and injurious. He would never have described
himself in those terms until the Lord in his mercy awakened
him on the road to Damascus and brought him down to the dust
before himself. And he says here, I thank Jesus
Christ Jesus our Lord who hath enabled me. Now he's speaking
about from whence he got his power. Now we hear a lot of preachers
on the radio and TV today talking about the power. They got the
power, you know, they can fling out demons and heal people and
do all this thing, make you rich if you'll send them some money
in an envelope and they'll pray over it and you'll just get blessings. You'll probably get a Cadillac
next week delivered to your door if you just support them because
they need the money. And because God's going to go
out of business and he won't be able to save anybody if you
don't send them your money. So he can send out people. They
can go out and go all these places and fly in their jets and stuff
to go and minister to people. And so it's all just a big game. I mean, it's all just a bunch
of baloney. But unfortunately, the religious
world and the religious flesh of men gravitates towards that. Because it seems good, because
after all, I'm gonna get some benefit from it. I mean, if I
go somewhere and I'm sick and some guy's gonna pray for me
and I'm gonna be made better, well, that's good. Or if I'm
gonna be made rich because I had faith in what he was saying,
then that's good for me. But you see, what Paul's talking
about here is not, though he benefited from these things,
when the Lord brought him to the place where he would bring
him, he came to understand that these things, the desire that
he had was not unto his own benefit, but it was unto the glory of
God. And so he said here, I thank Christ Jesus, our Lord, who hath
enabled me. He has given me strength. He
has made me what I am. He says I couldn't do anything
apart from him. He put me into the ministry. He counted me faithful. Now some
look at this just like some look at what the Lord said about Noah
when he said that the Lord saw Noah as righteous in his generation. And they say, yeah, well, see,
all the people in the world was wicked, doing wickedness. And
the Lord looked down and he said, no, there's one man down here
that's really doing good. And so since he's doing good,
I'm gonna bless him. That's not what the scripture
says. The scripture says Noah found grace in the eyes of the
Lord. There's no indication that Noah
was any different than anybody else in the world. Just like
Abraham when he was in Ur of the Chaldees and the Lord called
him out. What was he doing? He was in
pagan darkness. He was walking according to the
dictates of his mind. He had no thought toward God,
had no understanding. But yet God, who's rich in mercy,
called Abraham. when it pleased Him. Just like
this, the Apostle Paul, when he was walking on the road to
Damascus, with desire in his heart to kill believers in Jesus
Christ. He wanted to stamp them out.
He wanted to be done with this thing. He hated the gospel. And he was looking for people
that were out preaching it, and he was going to do them harm.
But he said, the Lord. hath enabled me, and he counted
me faithful. Paul wasn't faithful. He wasn't
faithful, except to his own tradition. In his mind, the Lord didn't
look at Paul and say, well, I see him as faithful. He counted him
faithful. That is, he numbered him among
the faithful. He said, you are of the household
of faith. Now, how'd he get in there? The
Lord put him in there. God who is rich in mercy with
the great love wherewith he loved us. He has quickened us. He has made us alive. Not through
our own power. Paul said he enabled me. He awakened
me. He showed me what I was by nature
for he has counted me faithful. He has made me faithful is what
he says. He put me among the faithful.
He put me there. Putting me into the ministry. Now did Paul decide to go into
the ministry? You know, when I was growing
up, they used to have these meetings every now and then, and they
would call in some high-powered preacher, and their hopes was
that they would have these what they call youth revivals, and
they would have it where they'd have somebody that came in, and
he really was going to stir up the youth, and what they were
trying to do was get somebody to decide to go preach, or go
to the mission field, and all of these things. Did Paul decide to preach? No, the Lord put him into that
position. It wasn't anything he could do
about it, was it? Now he was glad, don't get me
wrong, he willingly followed the Lord. But the only reason
he willingly followed the Lord is because the Lord made him
willing in the day of his power. See, the Lord visited Paul and
he brought him to that place. He enabled him and he counted
him among the faithful and he put him into the ministry. Now here again, let me speak
about this a minute. The ministry, what is the ministry?
Now, when you hear a lot of people talk about the ministry, it's
like it's some profession that somebody goes into. Well, he
went into the ministry. Well, you can't go into the ministry.
You can't go somewhere and learn to be in the ministry. Because
the ministry is that to which all of God's children are called.
It means to service. See, when Paul is speaking over
here to the Ephesians, And he says that he has given pastors
and teachers for the building up of the saints unto what? The work of the ministry. See,
the purpose of preaching and teaching among the saints of
God is to prepare the saints of God to be able to minister
one to the other. That's the whole purpose. See,
ministry is the activity of God's people one to the other. Every
joint supplying that which the body lacks. You know, we're not
to be looking for somebody else to minister to us, but by the
grace of God, if we have the grace of God, how can we be of
help to our brethren? See, that's what the Lord put
Paul into. Now, He gives different gifts.
Everybody that's called to the ministry... See, all of God's
children are called to the ministry, but not all of God's children
are given teaching gifts, not all God's children are called
upon to do those things. That's not the ministry. It's
not talking. See, now, the Lord may use somebody
teaching as a minister to minister to us, to bring service to us,
because that word service or ministry there is the same word
that is translated as deacon. Now, people think of a deacon
as a servant. Well, he is a servant, but he's
not a servant any different than anybody else. He's just maybe
an office that he's been called to. But we're all ministers,
one to the other, helpers along the way, by the grace of God. And Paul was called to be a helper
to the children of God. And he understood that, and he
said quite often, for your sakes, he says, I've done this thing,
for your sakes, he said, I have endured these persecutions. Now he wasn't saying that to
put a guilt trip on them, but he was just telling them what
the truth was. Because the Lord enabled him. How did he undergo
stoning? And they took him up as dead.
I mean, they said they figured he was dead. But the Lord caused
him to live. Why did he endure such things?
Because he was enabled to. And the Lord enables men to do
the things that he would have them to do. by his grace. It's not the effort, Paul. You
know, he wasn't looking for a brownie or a Batman cookie or something
extra for what he did. He was just glad by the grace
of God that he was able to do what he could do. And by the
grace of God, he moves out in the people of God to desire to
help one another. And so he did, he was put into
the ministry, to the place of service. And then he says who
was before a blasphemer. Now you probably, when we think
of somebody blaspheming, we think of somebody who's using the Lord's
name as a curse word or they're out just saying, you know, awful
things. Paul probably never took the
Lord's name in vain in the sense that men would consider taking
the Lord's name in vain. Now let me say something about
that as that thought comes to my mind. When I was growing up
I was taught basically that taking the Lord's name in vain was when
somebody said G.D. and I'm not going to even say
the word but that that was taking the Lord's name in vain. Well
that is taking the Lord's name in vain. But you see to take
the Lord's name in vain is to take the Lord's name in any fashion
without a proper regard to His holiness and His glory. When
men speak, you often hear men use the name, the precious name
of Jesus. And they'll say it just in an
offhanded way. Well, that's as much taking the
name of the Lord in vain as it is to do the other thing that
I was talking about. So we never, we're not, and you
know an expression that just, it makes my shirt tail run up
and down my back. It's awful this expression that
has become so common in our society. And the letters of it is O-M-G. Don't ever do that. Don't ever
use that. Why would somebody do that? There is no fear of God before
their eyes. I had a fellow in the store the other day. And
every other word out of his mouth was using the Lord's name in
some fashion. And he was even, you know, he
had asked me, you know, are you still preaching? And he was,
you know, talking like he was a believer and all this kind
of stuff. And here he is doing all that. And I said, you know,
you must not believe in the God you say you do or you wouldn't
be speaking like that. Why would people do that? I got
off on a tangent there, don't forgive me. But a blasphemer,
see blasphemy is speaking something that is not truth in the Lord's name. So a blasphemer
is somebody that comes speaking lies. That's blasphemy. That's what Paul said. You see, he was teaching the
word of God, was he not, as a Pharisee? I mean, did he not believe the
letter of the law? Well, sure he did. But he said,
I was a blasphemer. Why? Because I wasn't using the
law lawfully. I had no idea what I was talking
about. I was a blasphemer and a persecutor.
Now he wouldn't have thought he was persecuting. He thought
he was doing God a service, did he not? And putting men to death. Thought he was doing the right
thing. So just because you think you're doing the right thing
does not mean that you are. And injurious. But I obtained
mercy. Now the scripture says here because
I did it in unbelief. Ignorantly in unbelief. Let's understand what Paul is
saying here. He's not saying that the reason
God showed mercy to me was because I was doing these things ignorantly.
We use the word because in that fashion. This is the cause of
that. This word that's translated here as because is used about
1,100 times, or a little over 1,100 times in the New Testament.
It's only translated as because a few times comparatively. But
it's most often translated as that or for. Now what Paul is
saying here is not that this is the reason that I received
mercy, but he's pointing out the fact that he was doing these
things ignorantly and in unbelief, all the while thinking that he
was in belief. See, he is emphasizing the fact
that as a blasphemer and a persecutor and one doing these things ignorantly,
what does he say? I received mercy. See, mercy is not mercy if it's
given to somebody because of something. See, people think
that they gain the mercy of God because they do something. You
don't gain the mercy of God because you do something. You gain the
mercy of God because he's pleased to show mercy. He said, I will
show mercy to whom I will show mercy. And so he said, For I
did it ignorantly and unbelief, but I obtained mercy." He's incredulous. He says, here I am going about
ignorantly persecuting the people of God, and God who's rich in
mercy showed mercy to me. Oh, what a wondrous thing. And
the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love,
which is in Christ Jesus. Exceeding abundant. Brethren,
the grace of God, when a man comes to understand the place
where he is by nature, and he becomes a child of grace in manifestation
as the Lord shows him grace and mercy, he knows that it is exceeding
abundant. See, a man who thinks that it's
just, well, it'd be a nice thing to have. No, it's an abundance
of grace. It's a pouring out of mercy. with faith and love which is
in Christ Jesus. Now Paul was not there, was he,
by nature or by practice, by the things that he underwent
and undertook to do. But by the mercy of God, he was
brought to faith and love, which is in Christ Jesus. And this
is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ
Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. Now that's the glorious message
of the gospel, is it not? This is a faithful message. See,
this is the true message. There's not any other message.
There's no other foundation upon which the people of God can stand
but this, a faithful saying worthy of all acceptation. Christ Jesus
came into the world to save sinners. And he saved sinners. Only people that he does save.
Are you a sinner? You know, everybody knows they're
a sinner, don't they? But that's not the kind of sinner.
See, the kind of sinner that we're talking about here that
the Lord came to save is not just somebody that knows they
have sinned. But see, there's a difference
in knowing that you have sinned and believing that you are a
sinner. Because you see, a sinner doesn't have anything to plead
before Almighty God. He's totally bereft. He's not
going to come and say, well, Lord, I tried to do your will. I did this and I did that. No,
he has no plea. See, a sinner is without anything. In fact, Joseph Hart wrote in
one of his hymns, a sinner is a sacred thing. The Holy Ghost
has made him so. I know not how. The Spirit moves,
convincing men of sin, revealing Jesus through the Word, creating
faith in Him. I don't know how that happens,
but I know this, that the Lord will save a sinner. He'll save
those that call upon His name, those that know themselves to
be in dire need of mercy, without any hope or help beyond His. Such are those whom Christ came
to save. He seeks and saves that which
is lost. May the Lord give us a mind and
heart to call upon Him in such a fashion. Well, we're thankful to once again be able to gather
together with God's people. And the older that we get, the
more we realize that We have a certain number of times that
are allotted to us to do that. We just visited with a dear brother
yesterday. He's 90 years old and not in
very good health. But he thanked us for visiting
him, but I tell you the blessing was mine. in visiting with him
for his testimony of the faithfulness of God to him in his life. And you know, when you're, the
farther you go in age, the more you realize that you have more
days behind you than you do in front of you. The same Lord who's faithful,
been faithful in those days bringing us to this place is the one who
will lead us throughout the rest of them. And may the Lord help
us.