I invite you this morning to
turn back with me to 2 Timothy chapter 3. The books of 1 and 2 Timothy
are called pastorial epistles. They deal with pastors, deacons. They deal with their duties and
authority and they teach us both of their conduct among the people
and the people's attitude and conduct toward them. Young Timothy
was a preacher, and he was a pastor, and he was urged of the Apostle
Paul and exhorted to do the work of an evangelist, that is, to
leave his pastorate from time to time and to go and preach
to other small groups who no doubt had no pastors, had no
preachers. And over and over Paul stressed
to him his calling and the necessity of his office. Now he begins
this letter with an exhortation to Timothy to be as he was a
partaker of the afflictions of the gospel. And then in chapter
2, the apostle tells this young man to be strong in the grace
that's in Christ Jesus, and the things that thou hast heard of
me among many witnesses. And he said, the same commit
thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also. And then in chapter 3, he warns
Timothy of false prophets and teachings. telling him that they
should be lovers of themselves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers,
and so on, as I read to you a few moments ago. These, he said,
have a form of godliness. It's in form. It's in ceremony. It's in stations. It's in degrees
and letters written, hung on the wall. It's in their uniforms
that they wear, in their clothes, their hats. and their stations. They have a form of godliness,
but deny the power thereof. That is, none of the things that
they do require the power of God. These things that they do,
anybody could do. And so they teach others. Now
brethren, the power of true godliness is God. It's God. Now that's what He
tells us in the book of Philippians, work out your own salvation with
fear and trembling for it's God who worketh in you. both to will
and to do of His good pleasure. These things that are taught,
which Paul taught to Timothy, and Timothy taught to the churches
that he preached to, and these things that he committed to others
who were faithful, that he recognized and saw them faithful and saw
them apt to teach and so on, had a good report of the church
and the community. He committed these things to
them, and they taught others. But what they taught them was
that the things which God required of them, only God could perform. Only God could perform. You can't
believe what I'm preaching to you this morning apart from the
power of God. You can't do it. You can't do
it. The power of true godliness is
God. God who worketh in you. And where
God works, His power is effectual. Always effectual. God is not weak or tired or constrained
by human nature. Well, I understand how He saved
that man, but He'll never save this one. God not constrained by human
nature. Not even at its worst. Actually,
Paul said, God saved me as an example. Because he was the chief
of sinners. He was the Pharisee of the Pharisees. He was as far down the ladder
as you could go. He was worse than those men in
Sodom and Gomorrah. And God saved him that he might
make an example and a pattern out of him and show you just
how much power God has to turn the sinner from his ways to the
living God. He's not weak, He's not tired,
and He's not constrained by human nature. He's never defeated.
He's never overcome or stopped from doing His will. False prophets
deny the power of God in conversion. They deny the power of God in
regeneration. They deny the power of God in
the resurrection. Natural men must be resurrected
from the dead. They're dead, spiritually. It
requires a resurrection. They deny the necessity of it. They deny the reality of it.
They deny the results of it. And they deny the source of it.
Their message and ministry looks within for the power. It looks
to man for the willingness. It looks to man for the power.
It looks to him for the commitment. Their message and ministry looks
within for the power. Therefore, the whole of their
ministry is centered upon man. They have a form of godliness. They worship, but they don't
worship God. They glory, but they don't glory
in God. They preach, but they don't preach
about God. They evangelize, but they make
proselytes, which are two-fold more the child of hell than themselves. They teach. But they themselves
are ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the
truth. You can't tell what you don't know. How can you be evil,
speak good things? That's what our Lord said to
these. They were as highly trained as a natural man could be in
the seminaries of the Jews. These were Pharisees. 2 Timothy 3, 7. Verse 13, he says, but evil men
and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being
deceived. They deceive men into believing
that they can save themselves. That's a deception. If somebody's
told you that, they've lied to you. You can't save yourself. deceiving men into believing
they can please God. You can't please God. Only Christ
pleased God. You can't please Him. He's perfect. His holiness is perfect. His
justice is perfect. His wisdom is perfect. How are
you going to please Him? They deceive men into believing
that they can satisfy God's justice and appease His wrath by turning
their life around. They deceive men into believing
they have a free will. Now, don't you listen to me.
Free will is a denial of the fall of man. It totally denies
the testimony of God which says that man fell in the garden.
You can't believe in free will and the fall of man. You can't
do it. One denies the other. If man fell in Adam, then he's
under bondage. He's under bondage. He's not
free, but he's fallen. He has a corrupt nature. He has
not the divine nature. He has a fallen nature. He's cursed by the law. He's
cursed by the holy justice of God, cursed by a nature that
will not and cannot be made subject to the law. That's what it says
in Romans 8. Fallen man is depraved, none
righteous, none that understandeth, none that seeketh after God,
none good, no, not one, altogether Paul said, if you took them all
and put them in one basket, every one of them, the whole mess in
one big glob is unprofitable to God. Nothing else. Free will
denies the fall of man. It denies the judgment of God. He that believeth not is condemned
already. That's what Christ said. He's
condemned already. This is condemnation that light
came into the world and men loved darkness rather than light. Nothing
was said about anything back then. Christ just appeared in
the world and men hated Him for no reason. That's what He said,
you hated Me without a cause. He said, for which of My good
works do you stone Me? Huh? If I'm so evil, if what
I'm saying and what I'm ministering to men is so evil, Which one
of these good works are you going to take me out and stone? Oh,
we don't stone you for good work. We know that you do good work. It denies the judgment of God. And it denies the plain testimony
of Scripture. God said, by one man sin entered
into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon
all men, for that all have sin. The Scripture says, by the offense
of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation. And he that
denies his sinnerhood makes God a liar. That's what John said
in 1 John 1. Now the overwhelming majority
of religion in this world is anti-Christ. It's anti-Christ. They're deceiving and being deceived. They're telling men that they
can be saved by their works. They're telling men that they
can be saved by their free will. They're telling men if you'll
reform your life, God will change His mind and His emotion and
His fellowship with you. The way He considers you, He'll
change. He'll change. The Scripture said
God never changes. Never has. Never will. He's unchangeable. Now brethren, one of them is
the truth and one of them is a lie, isn't it? You can't say
both things and both of them be true. They are deceiving and being
deceived. But he said, you continue, verse
14 of our text, continue thou in the things which thou hast
learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast
learned them. And that from a child thou hast
known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto
salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. Why? Because all Scripture is given
by inspiration of God, and it's profitable for doctrine and for
reproof and correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man
of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.
Now what I want to talk to you about this morning is being made
wise unto salvation. Wise unto salvation. Those of
you who have experienced the grace of God, the intervention
of God in your life, who have been given a new birth, who have
been taught the truth, who have the revelation of Christ in you,
God showed it to you. And He showed it to you in this
book. You've become wise unto salvation. In what way? Because
I know the truth about God. God doesn't change. He's unchangeable. God is inflexibly holy and just. How do I know that? Because He
sent His Son to die on the cross. If God could just simply wink
at sin, why would He send Christ to suffer this humility and shame
and suffering on the cross? You see what I'm saying? You
become wise. This wisdom of God, Christ has
made unto us wisdom. He's revealed Christ in us. And
we see the fallacy of the preaching of these false prophets. We understand
now that salvation cannot be by the will of man. It must be
by the will of God. It cannot be by the works of
men because there's none righteous. That eliminates man. He's out
of the picture. God must give him a righteousness.
Righteousness must be wrought out for him. He can't accomplish
it. How is a person made wise unto
salvation? Well, in verse 15 of our text,
Paul tells Timothy that he was taught the Scriptures from a
child which were able to make him wise unto salvation. Now let me ask you something.
Can a man be brought to faith and repentance by the Word of
God alone? Does the Scripture teach that?
Can a man raised in false religion, raised in heathenism, pick up
a Bible and read it and come to a saving knowledge of the
Lord Jesus Christ? Can he just simply pick up a
book read through the book, and come to a saving faith in the
Lord Jesus Christ. Does this book say that he can? I often have this Scripture thrown
up in my face as a proof text that any man can be saved if
he'll just read and study the Scriptures. Is that a true statement? Brethren, the Word of God was
never purposed by itself to be used to convert men to Christ. You can't find anywhere in here
where it says that. It was never purposed for that. Our Lord said on one occasion,
or the Apostle Paul said by the inspiration of the Spirit, if
there could have been a law that could have given life, the law
of God could have. There's nothing wrong with the
law. And so there's nothing wrong with the Scripture. The weakness
is not in the Scripture. What I'm saying to you is that
the Word of God was never purposed of God to be used to convert
men to Christ alone. I think that the overwhelming
numbers of deceived men and women ought to be a proof of this in
itself. And this is what Paul tells Timothy. These evil men
and seducers are going to wax worse and worse. We say they
didn't have the Word of God. Oh, I beg your pardon. These
were Pharisees. These were scribes who transcribed
the Scriptures. In John 5, verse 39, the Lord
said, and I'm reading from a different version, not the King James Version,
but I read six other versions of the Bible, and this is word
for word what it says. He said to the Pharisees, you
search the Scriptures for in them you think you have eternal
life. That is, you think it is at your
disposal. You think that it's right here
and all you have to do is open the book and read it and accept
it and be saved. That's what you think. That's
what our Lord told them. You search the Scriptures for
in them you think you have eternal life. You think it's at your disposal.
They are they, he said, which testify of me, but you won't
come to me that you might have life. Why not? They had the book. They studied the book. They read
it from cover to cover. You quoted Isaiah chapter 45
to them and made a mistake, they'd say, whoa, wait a minute now,
that's not what that says. Here's what that says. They knew
the Scriptures, but they didn't know Christ. Now, the problem is not with
the Scriptures. The Scriptures are clear as a
bell. The Scriptures are inspired of God. It said, holy men of
God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. And the problem
is not in the translation, the Old English, the Hebrew and Chaldean
Greek being translated into English. The problem is in the will of
God. We live in a society that believes
they can do anything they want to do, any way they want to do
it. Anybody that deals with the public
knows that's the kind of society we live in. But the scriptures
tell us that God worketh all things after the counsel of his
own will, not yours. Not the ever-changing philosophies
of men, but he worketh all things after the counsel of his own
will. And the Scriptures said, of his
own will begat he us with the word of truth. Wherefore, he
said, let every man be swift to hear, and be slow to speak,
and to be slow to wrath. The Scriptures tell us that our
God is in the heavens and does all that He pleases to do, and
that He pleases God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that
believe. The will and good pleasure of
God in this matter of conversion and regeneration is in the preaching
of the gospel. Now turn with me to I Peter chapter
1 and let me see if I can show you the harmony of our text here,
where he told Timothy, he said, you've known the Holy Scriptures
from the time you were a child, which are able to make thee wise
unto salvation. In 1 Peter 1, verse 23, I suggest
now that you read the whole of the first chapter this afternoon,
so you know I'm not pulling something out of its context. But I'm going
to cut through the chase, go to verse 23. Being born again,
not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible by the Word of
God, which liveth and abideth forever. For all flesh is grass,
and all the glory of man is the flower of the grass. The grass
withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away. But the Word of
the Lord endureth forever. Now listen. This is the word
which by the gospel is preached unto you. God does not save men apart from
the word of God. Nor does God save men by the
preaching of the gospel without the Word of God, but He uses
the Word of God and the preaching, which is the message of the Word
of God, to instruct men and to save men. This is the Word which by the
gospel is preached unto you. The Word of God, the writings
of men inspired of God, the writings of the prophets and apostles
are the very foundation of faith. That is, they are the basis of
all true gospel preaching. Those who preach the gospel have
nothing else to prove or base their message of Christ on except
the Word of God. I can't go past that. You say,
well, it just seems to me we can't go there. I'm not using what seems to me. I'm not preaching that to you. I'm preaching to you and telling
you this morning that this is what the Word of God teaches.
I can't go past that, John. I can't go past that. I've got
nothing else to prove or base my message of Christ on except
the Word of God. Preachers do not rely on science,
worldly principles, or majority approval. I'm often told that
when I preach this message or witness to somebody. And they
say, now what you're saying is you think all these other people
are wrong and you're right. No, I don't even enter into the
equation. What enters into the equation
is what did God say. Huh? This is not about other
men. This is about what God said.
Paul said, let God be true in every man. That's a lot of men,
isn't it? Let every man be a liar. In the faith chapter of Hebrews,
Hebrews 11, verse 3, it says, through faith we understand that
the worlds were framed by the Word of God. How do we understand
that? Because God said He did. Well, what about carbon dating?
Don't enter into the equation. It's got nothing to do with faith.
Now, if you want to be a scientist, you can talk about carbon dating.
If you want to be a chemist, you can talk about all the formulas
and all this kind of nonsense. But if you're a believer, you
believe God. God said He created the heavens
and the earth. Now listen, this is what faith
is. And our first example of it in
Hebrews chapter 11. We understand that the worlds
were framed by the Word of God so that the things which are
seen were not made of things which do appear. There's no need
to test things that appear because they weren't around. When God
made the universe, he made it out of nothing. You can't test nothing, can you? There's no common ground of science,
philosophy, and worldly wisdom with this declaration. You either
believe God or you've made God a liar. You see what I'm saying?
Now, we're talking about faith now. We're not talking about
scientists and these other things. God created the world out of
nothing. Everything you see didn't appear
before creation. That's what He says. And the same thing goes with
the Gospel. It's not what seems right to
men. It's not what the majority of
men think. It's not what philosophy and
science and all that prove. It's what God says. It's what
God says. The next statement he makes in
Hebrews 11 concerns the acceptance and approval of God concerning
two brothers and their concepts of true worship. Abel brought
a lamb. Why? Because Adam, his father,
being taught of God in the garden of substitution, taught his sons,
both of them, Cain and Abel, taught them both to bring a lamb.
To bring a lamb. Cain rejected his father's counsel
concerning the Word of God and brought what he thought was right
and good. He did what seemed right to him. And God spit on his offering.
He spit on it, doesn't he? And banished him into the land
of Nod. We're not left to speculate on
how God saved sinners. We're not left to do what seems
right to us as individuals. God has preserved for us the
Holy Scriptures, which are God-breathed and profitable for doctrine,
profitable for reproof, profitable for correction and instruction
in righteousness. That, in order that, the man
of God, that man set apart by God, that man called of God and
sent to preach, can teach and call out God's elect, that he
can have a basis for what he says. that that man of God might be
perfect, that is, mature and throughly furnished unto all
good works. Therefore, 2 Timothy 4, verse
1, Paul said, I charge thee before God and the Lord Jesus Christ,
who shall judge the quick and the dead at His appearing and
at His kingdom. Preach the Word! Don't tell me
what you think. Don't tell me what John Gill
said. Don't tell me what somebody else said. Tell me what God said. What John Gill said might very
well be great, but tell me first what God said, and then I can
prove both you and John Gill. See if either one of you is telling
the truth. You see what I'm saying? Preach the Word. Read the Word. Study the Word. Be instant, in
season, out of season. Reprove, rebuke, and exhort with
all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they
will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts shall
they heap to themselves teachers having itching ears. My friend,
preachers preach Christ. They preach Christ. That's all
they preach. They don't preach anything else.
Well, when are you going to get around to telling us how to live?
I'm telling you how to live. Paul said for me to live is Christ. You want to know how to live?
Live in Him. Live in Him. Be grateful. Be thankful. Be humble. Live in Him. Walk in Him. And you have received Christ
Jesus, that's what it says in Colossians 2, so walk ye in Him. Preachers preach Christ. They
preach Him as the eternal Word being with God and being God. They preach Him in all His ordained
offices as mediator and surety, prophet, priest, and king. They
preach Him in His incarnation, coming into the flesh as a representative
man, taking upon Himself the blessed seed of Abraham. You
can read about that in Hebrews 2 and Galatians 3. When the fullness
of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman,
made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law.
Galatians 4, 4 and 5. Preachers preach Christ. He is
the propitiation. He is the one who enables God
to be propitious toward you. God outside of Christ is a consuming
fire. There is no mercy outside of
Christ. There is no grace outside of
Christ. There is no forgiveness outside of Christ. God is a consuming
fire. Preachers preach Christ crucified,
bearing their sins in His own body on the tree, paying the
ransom, redeeming them from debt, delivering them out of bondage.
Preachers preach the resurrection of Christ. Paul said in 1 Corinthians
15 that he preached that Christ was buried and that He rose again
the third day according to the Scriptures. That His preaching
was in vain if Christ was not risen because it was Christ who
commanded Him to preach. It was Christ who taught Him
to preach. Now if Christ is not raised, he said, I'm a false
prophet. He himself was a false witness
because he saw the resurrected Christ and was taught of Him.
That all faith was in vain if Christ is not raised because
sinners were declared justified by His resurrection and they
trust in Him. If He be not raised, where's
your hope? Still in the tomb. Still in the tomb. And then all
who died in faith and hope of a life hereafter perish like
the beast if Christ be not raised from the dead. Christ is the first fruits of
the resurrection. He is the proof and substance
of all hope and life and blessing. Preachers preach a resurrected
Christ, and preachers preach an ascended Christ, reigning
and sitting upon the throne of absolute sovereign dominion and
rule, ruling over all things, arranging all things for our
good and for His glory. And preachers preach a returning
Christ. He is coming back. Said he would. He said, if I
go away, I'll come again. How'd I know he's coming back? He said he would. Said he would. And when he comes back, he'll
raise these vile bodies and fashion them like unto his own glorious
body. Preachers preach salvation of
the Lord from beginning to end. It's of God's purpose, God's
design, God's accomplishing, God's perfecting, and God's glory. It's all about God. And the man who hears these things
and sees them clearly taught in the Scriptures and embraces
the Lord in his heart and mind is a man made wise unto salvation. He hears, he believes, he submits,
and he commits. He is made wise unto salvation. I always tell folks when they
come in to read this book, I'd have you read it, and read it,
and read it, and read it, and become aware of its contents. Let its contents be in your mind. So that when you hear what I
preach, you can know that what I preach is what this book teaches. Could be God will make you wise
unto salvation. Could be. Could be. He did me. And I'll tell you, if He can
make me wise unto salvation, He can make anybody. He can make
anybody wise unto salvation. May the Lord be pleased to do
just that for everybody gathered in this place today. Our Lord,
we thank You for this precious time one more time, this side
of eternity, to gather in this place and worship our God, sing
praises to our Savior, speak to your elect, speak to those
chosen of God, set apart of God, those whose hearts and minds
have been opened to receive, who have been made humble who
have been brought down and broken, and who now rejoice in the message
of grace. Be pleased for those who come
here this morning who have not had this experience of grace
in their hearts, be pleased to do so for Christ's sake. And
we give you all the praise and glory for the work. Amen.