I invite you this morning to
turn with me to 1 Timothy chapter 1. I asked the congregation up in
Van Buren, Arkansas at the Preachers of Grace conference last Saturday
if there was anyone in the place, there were some 26 pastors represented
at that conference whom I have never met. And I ask if there
was anyone in that place who did not believe that the Bible
was the inspired Word of God. That this book is the Word of
God. This book that I open and preach
from, open and read to you from, is the Word of God. This is not
the Word of men talking about God. This is the Word of God. And men wrote it, but they wrote
as God breathed His Word through them. That's what I mean by inspired. It is the infallible, inerrant
Word of God, that which states the matter, defines the matter,
and is the very foundation of the faith of God's elect. This
is the foundation. It's not, well, I think, no,
that's got nothing to do with it. It's not, well, our church has
nothing to do with it. It has to do with the Word of
God. And if I can't take what I believe and verify it in the
Word of God, then I'm on my own. I've got no authority for what
I say. I've got no authority for what
I believe. It's just opinions. And like
somebody told me one time, opinions are like noses. Everybody has
one. And they do. That's the truth. But the Word
of God is that which states the matter, defines the matter, settles
the matter, and is the very foundation of the faith of God's elect.
And my question then is this. Is this book I'm holding in my
hand right here the Word of God? The Word of God. If it is, it
is the children's bread. This is what they have an appetite
for. The Word of God. Show me the
promises of God. Show me the warnings of God. Show me the faith of God's elect.
But show me in this book. This is the children's bread.
One of the old preachers and commentators from years ago said
he was in his study one day, leaned back in his chair. You
get kind of carried off into things and you're very deep in
there and you don't realize you're kind of hunched over your desk
and after a while that back starts to stiffen up and he kind of
leaned back to stretch his back out and when he did he looked
down and there was a fly on the face of the book. And he watched
that fly, and it crawled its way a little while, and it went
way a little while, and it'd go up to the top. And it went
all over that page and couldn't find a single thing that it had
an appetite for. Finally, it flew off somewhere
else to find something that it did have an appetite for. And
I wonder, as he did that day, how many, how many there are
who scan all over this book and find nothing that suits their
appetite. And they go elsewhere. They go
somewhere else. Well, I hope this will never
be true of you and I. I hope each time we open this
book and read its contents that we'll find fresh supplies to
satisfy our hungry souls. Now Timothy was a young boy whose
mother was a Jew and whose father was a Greek. I don't know if
you knew that about him or not, but his mother was a Jewess and
his father was a Greek. And it doesn't have a lot to
say about his father, but it does about his mother and his
grandmother Lois. They were both believers. Lois
and Eunice, they were both believers. And they were faithful to teach
their children the Scriptures. Now, I'm not real big on children's
literature. Some of it is good. There are
some good sources of children's literature out there. But I'm
not real big on literature. I'm big on this book. Read this
book to your children. Get them acquainted with the
Word of God. I know they don't believe it
right now. Even if they tell you they do, they don't believe
it right now. And then when they get a little older, have them
read the Scriptures to you. Have them read it. Get it in
their head. I stand up here every Sunday
and I read Scriptures that I know most of you could probably quote
back to me because I've read them to you so often. That's
the idea. That's what I want you to do.
I want the Word of God in your mind, in your thinking. And then
when you hear things contrary to the Word of God, which would
have just swept you off your feet, you'll wait. You'll say,
now wait a minute, that can't be. That can't be. That's contrary to the Word of
God. Contrary. It is ignorance of the Word of
God that causes men and women to be drawn aside into all the
lying deceits of the religion of this world. And at some point,
under the ministry of the Apostle Paul, God saved this young man,
Timothy. And Timothy knew the Scriptures.
He knew the Scriptures. And he taught him the Gospel
of God's sovereign grace in Christ. And Paul recognized God's hand
on this young man, recognized his gifts of discernment and
his attitude and spirit. And it took him under his wing
fellow helper and laborer in the Gospel of Christ. And it
sent him on this occasion to the church which he had established,
the end of this church at Ephesus, that Paul had established because
some had been swayed by false prophets who came in unawares. That's how they always come in.
They come in very quiet, don't have a lot to say, and sat down. And then after a while, After
a while, then they began to introduce the poison. And here it comes,
unawares, unaware. Nobody even seen them when they
come in. And the elders that Paul had
left in charge were not exercising any discipline concerning these
men. I don't know how that worked. Maybe they were relatives of
a large number in the congregation. Maybe they were influential men
in the community. Maybe they were strong supporters
of the church. I don't know the reason for the
lack of discipline. There's all kinds of reasons. Paul said this, if I fear men,
I should not be the servant of Christ. If you intimidate me by the money
you give or your presence in this church, I shouldn't be the
servant of Christ. Paul said, I fear God more than
I fear you. Whatever the reason, they were
not being checked nor anything being said to the congregation
concerning their errors. So Paul left Timothy there, verse
3. that he might charge some that
they teach no other doctrine. He is going to take these troublemakers,
and Timothy, this young preacher, is going to charge them that
they bring no other doctrine. Verse 4, And not to give heed to fables,
Do you know what he's talking about here? Anybody here ever read Aesop's
fables? They're stories, some of them
true and some of them just made up to establish truth. That's what a fable is. Now, illustrations are great
when the truth has already been established, but you can't establish
truth with a fable. You can't establish truth with
a fable. And don't leave the context of the Scripture. We're
talking about false prophets here. We're talking about men
having influence in this church. Men who strongly influenced it. Even the elders were being drawn
away by their errors. And this was a strong... All
you've got to do is read the first chapter of Ephesians and
you know that this was a very strong doctrinal church episode. Recently, I was talking to a
pastor about the necessity of gospel preaching. And I gave
him three or four scriptures. And in fact, I brought a message
on it the day before. And when I had finished, he said
this to me. He said, well then, how do you
explain my profession? And I said, it's your profession.
You explain it. I'm not going to explain your
profession. You explain it. What I'm showing you is the Word
of God. And you don't judge the Word
of God by your professions, you judge your profession by the
Word of God. Your experiences and professions
do not establish the doctrine of Christ. Doctrine is declared
and taught in the Word of God. And you'd be wise to examine
your experience and professions by the Word of God instead of
the other way around. Don't give heed to fables. One
old man, after I had preached, sat down at the table where I
was eating and they were discussing the subject of my message, the
necessity of gospel preaching. And with tears streaming down
his face, this old man, he was about 75 years old, tears streaming
down his face, He told of an experience he had without the
Word of God, without the hearing of the Gospel, without anything,
without any knowledge whatsoever of the Gospel, how God saved
him in his closet. And everyone at that table, I
watched around that table, these were preachers. Everyone around
that table was moved by his testimony. Now this is how false prophets
work. They come in and with emotion,
strong emotion, you look at them, they affect you. You can't listen
to a testimony like that and not be affected by it unless
you know better. Unless you know better. And this is what he's saying
here, don't give heed to fables. Don't give heed to fables. This
old man was sincere. He no doubt believed what he
was saying. And I have no doubt that his
experience was very real to him. But it was a fable. It was a
fable. And we're not to give heed to
fables. And don't give heed to endless genealogies, which minister
questions rather than godly edifying, which is a fable. I read some
literature years ago about how the black man came about as a
result of Lot's incestuous relationship with his two daughters. And then
in another pamphlet, it read, because of the sin of Ham, uncovering
his father's nakedness. And then another one, something
else. And so it was the most ridiculous
thing I ever read in my life. Endless genealogies. Endless
genealogies. Speculations. Unanswerable questions. Real preaching is love out of
a pure heart. That's what Paul said. It's pure
charity. That's what it is. Pure charity. It's the heart of a sinner who's
been made to see what he is. Made sensible of what he is. Convinced of God of his sin,
but who, like Noah, found grace in the eyes of the Lord. That
man can tell the gospel because he knows it. Old Barnard said,
you can't tell what you don't know any more than you can come
back from somewhere you haven't been. And that's the truth. That's the truth. A man who knows
both by experience and by the Word of God how God saves sinners. He was perishing himself. I know
what perishing sinners feel. I was perishing when the Lord
found me. I can be sympathetic to Him. I can be gracious to Him. I can
be patient with Him. Because men were patient with
me. I was deceived just like that.
Deceived. I was swallowed up in religion.
Just swallowed up. You know how long it takes you
to adapt their whole literature, their whole... You know they
got their own speech, don't you? They have their own language.
They have their own speech. And in about three weeks, you'll
be talking just like they talk. You'll be dressing just like
they dress. You'll be walking just like they walk. You'll have the little definitions
and the little phrases and all that. It's like flies to fly
paper. As soon as you go in, it just
begins to deceive. Deceived. I was deceived. I can
be sympathetic to people who have been deceived. And I can
uncover the deceit because I was deceived and then received that
revelation of God. Such, Paul said, were some of
you. You're just like them. Just like
them, but you're sanctified, you're justified in the Lord
Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. Plucked out of the burning,
arrested in your evil progress, and drawn by the cords of eternal
love to the only one who could do you any good, the Lord Jesus
Christ. The highest end and loftiest
goal is charity out of a heart made pure by the grace of God. And it comes by way of a purged
conscience. A purged conscience. One upon
which the Holy Ghost has applied the blood of Christ and purged
our conscience from dead works. to serve the living God. And
some of these men who seemed at the time to be strong men
of grace have forgotten these things. They had let these things
slip. And they turned aside, Paul said,
to vain jangling. Just vain jangling. Desiring
to be teachers, verse 7, of the law, understanding neither what
they say or whereof they affirm. Any man who tries to show you
how you can, by your obedience to the law, draw closer to God,
find favor with God, strengthen your faith, or influence your
children is an enemy of your soul. Paul said, if righteousness come
by the law, Christ died in vain. He died in vain. That's just
how plain it is. He said, if you so much as be
circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. Verse 9, knowing
this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for
the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners,
for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers
and manslayers, and a host of other things that reads like
yesterday's newspaper. And in great detail, Paul identifies
himself with those that he just described. Oh, but he said, verse
13, I obtained mercy. I found mercy. God showed me
mercy. Our Lord said to those proud
Pharisees that day, He said, you go learn what this means.
I will have mercy and not sacrifice. For I have not come to call the
righteous, but sinners to repentance. Verse 14, And the grace of our
Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ
Jesus. It worked in him. I talk to you
all the time about the experience of grace, and I am not talking
about some feeling like somebody poured warm honey down your back
or something. I am talking about the experience
of a sinner, a sinner who sees himself doomed before God, and
God in His mercy coming to that sinner with great grace and mercy
and speaking peace to his soul. showing him how God saves sinners
in Christ. The grace of our Lord, he said,
was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. If you are here today and you
are one of those given to Christ, one who has received that effectual
calling of the Spirit and heard the Gospel with ears of faith,
you know what these Scriptures are saying. You can identify
with them. The Lord, He said, is not slack
concerning His promise, as some men count slackless, but is longsuffering
to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should
come to repentance. God will have all those given
to Him to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. Now
watch this. Here is my text, verse 15. This
is a faithful saying. worthy of all acceptation that
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am
chief. Do you believe that? Do you believe that? I tell you, if half the people... I said in that group up there
the other day, and this thought came to me, if half the people
our Lord saved in His earthly ministry came through the door,
I wonder how many of them would keep their seat if one come in
and sat down beside him. Huh? I kind of think they'd do
this, don't you? And go over and sit in the back.
What if that old leper came through the door today? With a rag over
his face and his skin, just, huh? Came in and sat down next
to you. That's what you'd be doing. What if that harlot taken in
the very act was to come in here today and sat down? Would you just kind of scoot
over a little bit? Or would you welcome her here? Do you believe that? Do you believe
that he came into this world to save sinners? Sinners! Vile, wretched, worms! God came, He become a man, took
to Himself human flesh to save sinners. Prostitutes and rowdy fishermen
and filthy beggars, sick folk, the leper, dead men, dead men,
and men who had to be carried. God saves sinners. You know when I understood that?
When He saved me. When He saved me. He saved sinners. But I can't find none. I can't find none. I had a man
come in here one night. He spent 30 minutes telling me
what an awful sinner he was. After he heard me preach and
describe what a sinner was, he went outside and told his friend
that brought him over, he said, I'm not that bad. Sinners. Sinners. Go learn what that means, our
Lord said. I have mercy, not sacrifice. I'm not come to call the righteous.
Well, what is a sinner? A sinner is a man born. under
the curse of God. He's a lot like that article
I mentioned earlier that those men wrote about the black man.
David said, I was as a beast before they. As a beast. Not fit to be called a man. Not
fit to enjoy the blessings and benefits of God. Not fit to dwell
in this world. None good. None righteous. No
fear of God before their eyes. Isaiah said, all together, is
an unclean thing. All of them. Water them all up
into one big wad. And what have you got? An unclean
thing. A bunch of leprous rags. A bunch of minstrel cloths. Not fit to be called a man. Not
fit to enjoy the benefits of God. Not fit to dwell in this
world. Isaiah said, altogether, as an
unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. You know
anybody like that? I can't find one. If I could
find one, I've got good news for you. Christ died for you. What is a sinner? He's a man
running headlong into hell who thinks he's on his way to heaven. He's a man who rejoices in religion,
who believes what he has is life everlasting, but whose whole
body, mind, and soul is filled with death and darkness. He's
a man whose will is biased to sin and biased to ignorance,
biased to the world, and biased to himself. A sinner is a man
whose every thought, motive, intent, and action is only evil
continually. A sinner is a man so strongly
confident in himself and his ability that even in the judgment
of God, he'll yet try to argue with God over his righteousness. What is a sinner? A sinner is
a man separated from God. Among other things, in Ephesians
chapter 2, Paul describes the sinner as being without God in
the world. Without God in the world. He doesn't know God. His mind
is enmity against God. Our Lord said, here is the condemnation
of man. Do you understand that man is
under the judgment of God? He is under the wrath of God? Well, there ain't no fire falling.
The ground's not cracking open to swallow me up. What do you
mean I'm under the wrath of God? There's condemnation, our Lord
said. Here it is. Light came into the
world. And men love darkness rather
than light. There's the condemnation. There's
the condemnation. He has a Bible and he reads it,
but he won't come to Christ that he might have light. He has a
preacher and a church in his community, but he won't receive
the things of the Spirit of God. They're foolishness to him. If I could find a sinner, I've
got good news for him. Christ came into this world to
save sinners. And if preachers could just see
men as they are, dead in trespasses and sin, dead, dry bones, just
bound in chains of darkness, they'd quit trying to reach them
with programs. They quit trying to reach men
with emotions and music and outward activities. They quit trying
to get men to walk down an aisle. I talked to five preachers up
there about coming to the front. And in my message, I made it
clear as a bell, we don't do that here. We don't practice
that here. I've got nothing for you. I'm giving you this morning
what I have for you, the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Coming
down front, there's nothing down here but some flowers, and they
ain't real. I've got nothing for you. You
know what they did after I got done preaching? Had an altar call. Go figure. If you knew the truth, you'd
quit doing those things. You'd quit those crazy programs
that's teaching heresy to your children and carrying them off
into hell. You'd stop that. Come you out
from amongst them. That's what the Lord said. Get
out of there. Unplug from it. Pull the plug. Get out. Go find somebody preaching
the truth and listen to him. Hear Him. Believe Him. Rejoice
in the Word of God. Look to Christ. Walking down aisles, joining
some organizations, sprinkled with holy water. The sinner is
a man doomed unless the living God speaks life into his soul. God has to speak. Paul preached
to those Thessalonians and they made some moves. And he said,
I know your election of God because when my gospel came to you, it
didn't just come in words. It wasn't just words. It wasn't
just things to be bandied about and debated about and shared. I'm so sick of hearing that sharing
business that's going on today. It just makes me sick at my stomach. They quit trying to do these
things. He's doomed. God has to speak. God has to
speak. And there's no hope for him unless
God intervenes in his life. And that's how God saves sinners.
He chose to save a people in Christ for the glory of His name,
and He appointed for them a mediator, a representative and substitute.
He appointed for them the Savior, Christ the Lord. He, according
to God's eternal purpose, came into this world as a man appointed
strictly to save those sinners. Not every sinner, not all sinners,
but chosen sinners. Sinners whose names were written
upon His shoulders and over His heart to bear them up before
God. Thou shalt call His name Jesus, Joshua, for He shall save
His people from their sins. And as our covenant surety, He
stepped into our shoes before the holy law of God and obeyed
that law on our behalf. He was tempted in the process,
persecuted in the process, laughed at in the process, and all without
affecting that obedience. Jesus Christ is the righteousness
of God for all His elect. Paul said in I Corinthians chapter
1 that God hath made Him to be for us wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification, and redemption. And He is the propitiation for
our sins, that which appeases God's justice and wrath against
sinners. By His suffering and death, He
satisfied the justice of God and emptied His wrath for us.
He drank the whole cup, and He drank it dry. And then God, in
honor of His work, And to declare His full satisfaction with it
and the full sufficiency of it, raised Him from the dead and
seated Him at His own right hand." What's He doing up there? He
sits upon the throne of total and absolute sovereignty. A throne
of mercy and grace to guarantee. To guarantee. He's our guarantor. And He sits there upon that throne
of absolute sovereignty. to guarantee that all for whom
he lived and died and now intercedes for in glory shall receive the
full benefit of his labor. That's why he's there. And he
worketh all things to that end. To that end. That is the will
of God. Now Paul said, this is a faithful.
This is not a faithful. This is a faithful saying. And
it's worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners of whom I am chief. Now listen to this,
and I'll close. 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. Paul said, he made a pattern
out of me. He made a pattern out of me. And he told those Thessalonians
that he knew their election of God. His gospel came in power
and in the Holy Ghost. They received it in much affliction.
They become followers of him and the Lord. And they became
examples. That's what he said he was. God
made an example out of me, Paul said. The chief of sinners, to
give hope to all the other sinners, He saved me. And Paul looked
at those Thessalonians and he said, He made examples out of
you, too. Now, I'm going to tell you something. He makes examples
out of every one that he saves. They're all sinners saved by
grace. I've heard the story of men here,
overseas, over in Australia, over in England, down in Mexico.
I've heard the same story from a thousand sinners. God saved
me by His grace. I was lost and undone, and God
came to me and spoke peace through His gospel. And I'll tell you
this, He saves sinners in Christ through the preaching of the
gospel and the effectual working of the Holy Ghost in the hearts
of all those who hear. And when He does, they are filled
with love and gratitude and compassion for others, and they give themselves
to the work of the ministry." They give themselves. Now, I'm
going to tell you something. You can get all the disciplinary
committees, and you can get all the elders of the church, and
you can write books and minutes and laws, and you can put them
up here on the board, and it won't have one effect on anybody
in that place until God speaks peace to his soul. And when He
does, He fills that man with a love for Christ and a love
for one another, and he wants to be just like Christ. He's
got no laws. He's got no tables of stones.
He loves Christ. And he comes back to hear. Why?
Because he's hungry to hear Christ. And he changes his life because
he doesn't want to embarrass God. He doesn't want to shame
God. He loves Christ. And that love of Christ constraineth
us, and that love of Christ in your life, when God saves you, and teaches you something about
His love, and grows you in grace and knowledge of Him, and that
love begins to abound. You abound in good works. I won't
have to stand up here and tell you how much to give. I may have
to tell you to hold some back. Because you won't give everything
you have. And I tell you this, once you've
given yourself, the rest of it comes right along with you. Right
along with you. May God give you ears to hear
and a heart to understand His Word, and me too.