The title of the message here
in 1 Timothy 1, beginning at verse 17, going to the end of
the chapter, the title is, as you can see, is Praise, Faith,
and Conscience. Three words that come to the
surface here of what Paul is concluding this opening of the
letter to Timothy. Praise, because what he's going
to be talking about is what we call a doxology. You've heard
that term in your hymnal, right on the inner page. You all have
sung this, I know. But that's what that is, the
doxology. It says, praise God, from whom
all blessings flow. Praise him, all creatures here
below. Praise him above you, heavenly
hosts. Praise Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost. That's the doxology. And the
doxology is a word of praise and worship to God, especially
by his people, sinners saved by grace who know Christ. We
praise God for saving us. Now that's what Paul's doing.
Look at verse 17. He says, now unto the King eternal,
immortal, invisible, the only wise God be honor and glory forever
and ever. Amen. That's the doxology. another form of what we sing
when we sing that doxology. And it's a beautiful thing because,
you know, John chapter four tells us that the Lord, in saving his
people, what he desires for his people is to have a people who
worship him in spirit and in truth. And then Paul wrote in
Philippians chapter three, he said, we are the circumcision,
verse three, which means spiritual circumcision of the heart, the
new birth, which worship God in the spirit, that is, from
our hearts and according to the spirit's leadership in the word.
And we rejoice or we boast in Christ Jesus and have no confidence
in the flesh. So that sets the tone of a worship
service. What are we here to do? We're
not here to honor men and women. And I know a lot of people, they'll
ask me, say, well, what do you do on Mother's Day? Well, we
preach the gospel to the mothers. What do you do on Father's Day?
We preach the gospel to the fathers. But we do that every Sunday.
All you mothers and fathers, and listen, don't get me wrong,
I honor my father, I honor my mother, thank God for him. My
mother, especially, because she was such a kind person, but she
was the one who was instrumental in leading me to hear the gospel.
And I thank God for her every day for that. And I miss her.
But we do honor, you know, the Bible says, honor your mother
and your father. But we don't take a worship service. You understand
what I'm saying? We're here to worship God. That's
what we're here to do. And so that's what Paul's saying
here. Timothy, we're here for the king eternal, immortal, invisible,
the only wise God be honor and glory forever and ever. Well,
that's the doxology. And that's what happens when
God brings us into his kingdom, personally brings us in. You
know, we're born spiritually dead in trespasses and sins without
any inclination to glorify and honor the true God now. Now understand
that, you know, even in a totally depraved, spiritually dead state,
people can be religious. And they can talk about God.
But here's the point of the scriptures. You do not know the true and
living God until he reveals himself in the person and the work of
the Lord Jesus Christ, as identified and distinguished in this book.
You understand that? For the first at least 20 years
of my life, always religious, I've got to tell you, I wasn't
an idolater. And I was going to churches where I was hearing
about God, but not the truth. They were holding back things.
And you say, well, that may be too harsh. No. That's what happens
in salvation when we're born again. We turn to God and turn
away from our idols. And idols are not just things
we like to do that keep us from going to church. Now, you can
turn things into idols in many ways. But you know, I always
heard that, that would say, well, if you're a baseball, football,
or basketball fan, you let those games take you away from church,
that's your idol. Well, I dare say that you don't
expect baseball, football, and basketball to save you from hell,
even though you like to do it and you may have a skewed understanding
of what your priorities should be. But you never did. I never did look, I mean, I like
music. But I never did look at music
to be my savior. But the God that I was hearing
about, who was not sovereign, who was not a just God and a
savior, and we'll talk about more of that later on in 1 Timothy
chapter two, he's not the God of the Bible. And I'm not being
too harsh there, I'm just being truthful. But when God reveals
himself in the glory of Christ, as both a just God and a savior
who saves sinners by his free and sovereign grace based upon
the righteousness of Christ freely imputed. That's when it emits
forth that praise. Praise God from whom all blessings
flow. All blessings flow from him,
they don't flow from us. They don't flow from me to you.
If you get a blessing this morning, it comes from God and I'm blessed
too the same way. And I didn't earn it and didn't
deserve it. Blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly
places in Christ Jesus. So it brings forth true worship
from our hearts. Thanksgiving to Christ who loves
us and gave himself for us. And he identifies God, the king
eternal. God is eternal, he's the alpha
and the omega. The beginning and the ending,
that's spoken of Christ, God the son incarnate. It's spoken
of the father, it's spoken of the spirit, the one God who subsists
in three persons, the king eternal. He who is, who was, who is, and
who will ever be. Think about that, it's mind boggling.
God had no beginnings. And he certainly has no end.
And all of that filters down into the fact that everything
that we see in creation in time comes from him, ultimately. And so we thank him. He's the
king eternal. He is God eternal. He's the eternal king of nature,
providence, and grace, I put in your lesson. His throne is
forever, and his kingdom and government, there is no end. Mark it down. And then he says
immortal. God is immortal. That means he
cannot die. Somebody asked me, said, well,
what about Christ? He's God, isn't he? Did he die? Yes, he
did. The God-man died. And that death
can only be attributed to his humanity, his sinless humanity. It was an act of his entire person,
the old theologians say. And we can't figure that one
out. But God, you know, I've heard people say, well, God died
on that cross. God cannot die. God is the summation
and definition and reality of life. But this person, Jesus
Christ, who is God, did die. And what did he have to do in
order to die? He had to become a man. He had to take into union
with himself. Let me show you that in the book
of Hebrews. Look over at Hebrews chapter
two. And that's just a few pages over from where we are in Timothy.
Hebrews chapter two. Look at verse 14. of Hebrews
chapter two. Now he's talking about the children
of God. In essence, what he's talking
about here is the elect. And Hebrews 2.14 says, for as
much then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood,
that's God's people with flesh and blood, he also himself likewise
in the same way took part of the same. Now he wasn't born
like you and I. He wasn't born in sin. His was
an immaculate birth. or an immaculate conception and
birth. And he did this, he took part
of the same, that through death he might destroy him that had
the power of death, that is the devil. The devil who was instrumental
in bringing in sin, okay, Christ came to take care of that problem. And how did he do it? By his
obedience unto death on the cross. And He did satisfy God's justice
and bring forth righteousness as indicated by His resurrection
from the dead. And so now, go back to 1 Timothy
1, He is the immortal. In His deity, always was immortal. But now, even in His humanity,
He's immortal. He cannot die. Right now, Christ
exists at the right hand of the Father as God-man, the Redeemer. the intercessor, the mediator. Down in 1 Timothy 2, Paul writes
in verse five, there's one God and one mediator between God
and men, the man Christ Jesus. Now, he's not denying Christ's
deity there, he's just emphasizing his humanity. And his humanity
needs to be emphasized along with his deity. And you'll see
both emphasized throughout the scriptures. So he is immortal,
he's the living God, the living Redeemer. And though he died
as man, he'll die no more, but live forever as God-man, intercessor,
mediator, king. All right, he says here in verse
17, our God is invisible. And that refers to God Almighty
in his divine nature. I put in here, it's written in
1 Timothy 6, he dwells in light inaccessible. In other words,
you can't see God in a physical form. You don't see God in dreams
and visions. You see God by His revelation
of Himself in the person and work of Christ. 2 Corinthians
4 and 6 says it this way. It says that you see the light
of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. So if you're
gonna know God, if you're gonna see him savingly with the eye
of faith, you gotta see Christ. And that's what he said over
in Matthew chapter 11. He said, no man knoweth the Father
save the Son, and no man knoweth the Son save the Father, and
he to whomsoever he will reveal him. And then secondly, we know
him by his word. His word right here. For whatever
I know about God that's true comes from this book. And whether
it's offensive to men or not, this is the one true and living
God. You know, a lot of people today,
they refuse to believe in the absolute sovereignty of Almighty
God. Yet the Bible teaches it. And
I always think about it this way. When I was up in Ashland,
I was preaching on TV up there, there was a lady from West Virginia
who sent me a book by a supposed Christian scholar, Bible scholar. And I knew who the man was, and
I knew what he preached, and it wasn't the true gospel. But
he was preaching against what he called Calvinism. And of course,
we're not Calvinists, we're doctrines of grace people. Calvin believed
a lot of things I don't follow, but I do believe the doctrines
of sovereign grace that he claimed to believe, so I don't know about
Calvin, all right? Calvin's dead. So, but anyway,
this guy was writing against it. And what struck me about,
I just wanted to see what he had to say. And what struck me
about the book is the same objections, I mean the exact same objections
this guy had against the doctrines of the sovereignty, absolute
sovereignty of God, were the same objections that the Apostle
Paul anticipated from unbelievers as recorded in Romans 9. And
I almost wanted to write the guy, I said, do you realize that
Paul's given you your answers there and you just refuse to
believe them? And this is a Bible scholar. But what do we, what is our,
it's not our choice. You say, well, you can choose
what you believe. You know the word heresy has as its root the
word choice. What heresy is, is a person who
chooses to believe what he or she wants to believe, whether
God's word teaches it or not. That's the problem. What does
God's word say? What does God say about himself?
And he says, I'm the potter and you're the clay. Has not the
potter right to deal with the clay as he sees fit for his glory? He said, I'll have mercy on whom
I will. I'll be gracious to whom I will. All of that. It's in
the Bible, and it's not just in Romans 9, it's all the way
through, from Genesis to Revelation. So here's the invisible God that
can only be seen by revelation in the person of Christ and in
the work of Christ, Emmanuel, God with us, all right, God manifest
in the flesh, and in the work that he accomplished in order
that God would be just and justifier. And that entails all of his attributes. He goes on and says he's the
only wise God. Wisdom begins and ends with God.
And the beginning of that wisdom, you see, that's the understanding
that God gives us. Christ himself is the wisdom
of God. You can see it personified metaphorically
in Proverbs chapter eight. That wisdom that was with God
before the foundation of the world. That's referring to Christ.
And so he's the only wise God. Wisdom is to see and follow the
Lord God as he reveals himself in the person and work of Christ.
The gospel is the preaching of the wisdom of God in Christ. And so he's the fountain of wisdom.
He reveals himself that way. And to him, as he closes, glory
forever and ever, amen. There's the praise. There's the
doxology. Well, look at verse 18. He says,
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. Now Paul had charged Timothy
to tell the people of Ephesus to don't do anything or preach
anything that is contrary to sound doctrine. And that sound
doctrine certainly is the gospel and the word of God. Well, now
he comes to Timothy personally, and he says, I'm charging you,
Timothy, that you preach those things to the people. And this
is an encouragement. Timothy was not preaching a false
gospel, and he was not preaching contrary to sound doctrine, but
Paul's encouraging him to keep on. doing that and we'll see
that in the next verse specifically but this is a charge you keep
preaching what you're preaching and don't let up and according
to the prophecies which went before on thee now I looked that
up on several commentators and most gospel commentators And
most of them agree, and let me just show you on the list. Apparently,
God had spoken to Timothy by others through the gift of prophecy,
encouraging Timothy to stay strong in the truth. Back then, before
the Bible, as we have it in this form, was completed, you know,
what we have is the completed Word of God. And I know preachers,
especially charismatic preachers, they'll talk about they've received
a new revelation from God. Well, I got news for them. If the revelation you got from
God is outside the scripture and doesn't agree with the scripture,
it's not a revelation from God. And you know they talk about
speaking in tongues, you know, and God speaks to them. Well,
read 1 Corinthians 14 on the method. That was not speaking
some kind of a heavenly gibberish. That was speaking the truth in
other languages, which people could understand. So if you say
something that somebody doesn't understand, what did Paul say? You might as well just bang a
big gong up there. You'll get more out of that than
you will what you're hearing. People don't realize that. Well,
Paul received new revelations from God. So did the other apostles. The prophets of the Old Testament
did. Because people didn't have the word of God back then like
we have it now. So here's the point. If they
don't speak according to this word, there's no light in them.
Test the preachers with the word of God. And if they say something
that's outside of scripture that's new, just ignore it. Whatever
it says. So, what Paul is telling Timothy,
you're in a warfare. Look at verse 18. 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. Every believer is in a spiritual
warfare. Preachers of the gospel are in
a spiritual warfare. We war against The world against
the flesh and against the devil. And that war against the flesh,
really that's a war against ourselves, isn't it? The inner workings
of the fight between the Holy Spirit and the flesh. And of
course the Spirit wins, we know that. The battle's won, but it's
God's purpose for us to go through this battle for his glory and
that we might totally depend upon him in Christ. That's the
reason. It honors him. And when we die
and leave this world and go to be with Christ in our spirits,
that battle's over for us personally. But Timothy's in a battle, he's
preaching the gospel, and there are others who have come along
and have questioned it or denied it. And so look at what he says.
Now here's the next word on your title there, verse 19. Holding
faith, Here's the second word, and a good conscience, which
some, having put away concerning faith, have made shipwreck. Now, holding faith. The word
faith there is not referring to our believing, all right? Even though we are to believe,
that's a gift from God. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Faith there refers to the body of objective truth, the doctrine
that comprises the gospel and the Word of God, that identifies
and distinguishes the true and living God and the way He saves
sinners. The faith. When we talk about,
I'm preparing a message on this for the future, on self-examination. Examine yourself, whether you
be in the faith. What that means is, what I claim
to believe and what I'm hearing, is that the faith? Is that what
the Bible teaches? Faith, you know, as the root
word of the original Greek is knowledge. What I know to be
true, all right? And what Paul's saying to Timothy
is holding faith. Hold on to that sound doctrine,
that true gospel. Don't sway from it, don't stray
from it. Don't question it, and don't
confuse it, and certainly don't deny it. And if you hear somebody preaching
something that does those things, you need to confront that person.
And you need to deal with it. So this faith, and this faith
that he's talking about are things that believers cannot disagree.
These are the fundamentals of sound doctrine that identify
the true and living God as opposed to idols, the true Christ as
opposed to counterfeits, the way of salvation unto life and
righteousness by Christ, obedience unto death as our surety, our
substitute, our redeemer, our intercessor, mediator, our keeper,
preserver, all of that. Those are the doctrines of grace.
So hold fast that faith. And then a good conscience. Now
you know a good conscience, Paul had mentioned that back earlier
in 1 Timothy 1. A good conscience begins with
the truth of Christ and his blood applied to our minds and our
hearts to put away our sins and to bring us to submit to the
righteousness of God, the imputed righteousness of Christ, for
our whole salvation. That's what cleanses our conscience
from the legal accusations and guilt of sin. My conscience can
be clear, not because I'm a perfect person within. In some ways,
my conscience will get after me on that stuff. But when it
comes to how God saves sinners and a right relationship with
God, it's all Christ. And the sin, God will not charge
me with sin. He's charged me with the righteousness
of Christ. But Paul specifically here is
talking about the sincerity and honesty that comes with being
believers, being preachers of the gospel, witnesses, that we're
to live lives in good conscience, sincerely. Now, sincerity without
truth is deadly. But sincerity in the truth is
honoring to God. And that's what it is. I want to glorify God. And then
he says, which some have put away concerning faith, have made
shipwreck. Some preachers and teachers in
Ephesus have failed, either in holding faith or in a good conscience. And that term shipwreck, it's
kind of like, you know, it's like a ship in the storm. not
anchoring at the pier of safety, the harbor of safety, and that's
what to say. In other words, you hear things
that are contrary to the faith and that are not sincere and
honest, and you just drift on by, and you end up on the rocks. And he mentions two men's name
here, Hymenaeus, verse 20, Alexander. Hymenaeus is mentioned over in
2 Timothy, Alexander may be the same as
Alexander the coppersmith. Remember, Paul mentioned him,
he did him much harm. And he was the one in Acts 19,
was with Paul in Ephesus. And what their error had, he
says, the error that they had to do with was they were talking,
they were teaching that, I think, denying the resurrection of the
dead in the end, and saying the resurrection is past. Well, you
know, Paul dealt with that in 1 Corinthians 15. If there's
no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen. And
we're of all men most miserable. And so it says, he delivered
them unto Satan. Now this is what several commentators
said, but I added a little codicil here because I want you to recognize
something. Whom I delivered unto Satan. Now how does that happen?
Well, there's several ways, but by apostolic authority, He delivered these men into the
hands of Satan as a token of God's displeasure. But here let
me tell you something about authority. Somebody asked a man one time,
said, what authority does a pastor have? And the man answered, right,
he didn't have any. Not in himself, not by his office,
not by the man. Right here's our authority. You
understand that? God's word is the authority.
And that's the same with Paul. This apostolic authority, is
not the authority of the man or himself, but it's the authority
that he has by virtue of preaching the word of God, and understand
that. So he turned them over to Satan.
It's kind of like you remember in 1 Corinthians 5, the man who
was committing incest with his stepmother, and they cast him
out of the church. But they didn't pronounce anathema
on him right away, They prayed for him, and this is what I think
it says here, that they may learn not to blaspheme. Paul's doing
this as a disciplinary measure, that they be chastised and disciplined
and corrected and called to repentance. And I've got several scriptures
there that you can read on that. But that's the first way to deal
with these things, if somebody gets caught up in this stuff.
And you know, you all been through that. You had somebody preaching
heresy, you went to that person and you tried to get them to
repent. They wouldn't, so that's it. All right, okay.