I'd like for you to take your
Bibles this morning and turn with me to 1 Timothy 1. 1 Timothy 1. Primarily, I want
to be looking this morning at verses 11 through 17. Paul's letters to Timothy make
up just a portion of what Bible teachers and professors
and writers of the scripture, theologians, call the pastoral
epistles. They're written to admonish pastors. And in his letters to Timothy
and Titus, Paul emphasizes his objections to these heresies
brought about by the gospel of God's free grace in Christ Jesus. and which come about by this
new age, this gospel age, and were forced into light by the
transition from Judaism to Christianity. That's why I wanted to read you
Paul's conversion. He was a Judaizer. He was a Jew. He was a legalist. And he was
zealous. He was down there at the high
priest's front door begging for letters. Give me a letter. I'll go. I'll go, they'll not
get away with this while I'm alive. Give me the papers. Give me the papers. Man or woman,
makes no difference to me. I'll bind them and bring them
to Jerusalem where they can be stoned for their heresies. This was a new age, the gospel
age, the new covenant or testament of Christ. and the priesthood
and the sacrifices and the ceremonies, the tabernacle, the temple of
worship, and the whole of the Jewish church state had come
to an end. It's over. It's over. Paul described it in Hebrews
chapter 8 with these words. He said, in that he saith a new
covenant. That word is testament. He hath
made the first old, now that which decayeth and waxeth old
is ready to vanish away. It's time for it to go. It served
its purpose. Served its purpose. And to carry
over or rebuild what God has fulfilled and established in
Christ, is to deny the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
It is to deny that Jesus is the Christ. I don't care what it
is you do. You call yourself a priest, you
go to a Catholic seminary and you earn that degree and they
give you the title of a priest. And you put on that uniform of
a priest and act that part of a priest, you're denying that
Jesus was the Christ. You go through the book of Hebrews
and you'll find out that the Lord Jesus Christ is the priest. He's the priest. And we're priests
by His calling. But we don't serve as high priests.
He's the high priest. This was a new age. All of these
things were being fulfilled. to carry these things over, to
carry over this priesthood, to carry over this, and that's what
all these denominations are. Now you call them what you want
to, you be benevolent toward them if you want to, I'm telling
you this. All they're doing is restructuring that old Jewish
church state. I don't care what name it goes
by, Methodist or Baptist or Episcopalian or Catholic or anything else.
They organize and denominationalize. They're trying to restructure
that old Jewish church state. And it's gone. It's gone. Paul said he is not a Jew which
is one outwardly. He's a Jew which is one inwardly.
And circumcision is that of the heart, not in the flesh. To carry
over and rebuild what God has fulfilled and established in
Christ is to deny the person and work of Jesus in His office
as the Christ. And it's to misuse and misinterpret
the types and the figures that was given for it. Totally misuse
those things. Paul didn't deny that God gave
them and instituted for them a tabernacle and an altar and
a priesthood and these ceremonies. He went to the synagogue. He
went to the temple. But God set before us in figure,
in visible form, the priestly work and intercession of Christ,
showing us how God saves sinners. And other foundation, that's
what they said, other foundation can no man lay than that which
is laid. That's what he's talking about,
Christ the Lord, this promised Christ, the Lord Himself, God
Himself. appearing in this world as a
man and accomplishing. That's the Christ. There is no
other foundation. That's the foundation. That's
what it's all about. That's why he had a priest. That's
why they had a tabernacle. That's why they had a temple.
That's why they had a mercy seat. That's why they had that Ark
of the Testament. All of these things. He tells
us over in Romans 3, he said in verse 24, being justified
freely by His grace through the redemption that's in Christ Jesus. Listen, whom God sent forth. When did He do that? In the Old
Testament. Whom God sent forth to be the
mercy seat, the propitiation. through faith in his blood, to
declare God's righteousness for the remission of every Old Testament
saint, sins that are past. And upon this same foundation,
he declares the same truth at this present time, which enables
God to be both just and justifier of all them that believe. Then
as he begins to talk to young Timothy about these objections
and heresies, I believe this old converted Pharisee is reminded
of his past. That's why I wanted to read to
you something of his past. He was a devout Jew, a Pharisee
of the Pharisees, opposed to Jesus of Nazareth. He couldn't
stand to hear his name. Opposed to his gospel, opposed
to his disciples. opposed to his claims and to
his resurrection. He was as religious as any man
could possibly be, but didn't know God. Didn't know God. And no one alive could project
himself into the shoes of the Judaizers like the Apostle Paul. I'll tell you something. When
God converts a man, whatever it is He's converted him out
of, He can slice that thing to pieces. You don't believe me,
you listen to Henry Mahan. He come out of fundamentalism,
I'm telling you, there ain't a preacher alive that can butcher
up fundamentalism like Henry Mahan. He can show you every
fault, every error, I used to, when I was being converted out
of religion, I can remember listening to his tapes and saying to my
brother-in-law, I think he stands outside here because he's quoting
us word for word. That's Paul. That's Paul. I'm telling you, no one, you
read these writers, none of them can even come close to him as
far as being able to project himself into the shoes of these
Judaizers like Paul. He could spot one a mile away.
But neither could any man sympathize with them like Paul. He said in Romans 10.1, he said,
My heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they
might be saved. In Romans chapter 9, he says
the same thing, calling the Holy Ghost as his witness. of the
great heaviness and continual sorrow in his heart over his
kinsmen after the flesh, even to the point, and there's only
one other man in the Bible that I know of who said that, and
that was Moses, even to the point of being accursed from Christ
for their salvation. Moses said, if you block them
out of the book, block me out of the book. God said, I'll block
who I will out of my book. You go do what I told you to
do. But to be able to say this and
call the Holy Ghost as your witness, whoo, that I might be a curse
from Christ for my kinsmen. He had a burden for them. He
knew their blindness. He knew something of that satanic
blindness of false religion. He knew its deceitfulness. He
knew all about its lying wonders and its organized intimidation
and its long-standing tradition. He knew all about it, and it
grieved him in his heart to see those he loved still in it, steeped
in its lies and swallowed up in its tradition. Don't you hate
that? I can't stand it. I get around my relatives and
I listen to them and they start talking that old stuff. And it
just grieves me in my heart. I just mourn it. I want to tell
them. I don't want to see them stay
there. I want to tell them the truth. I want them to see the
truth. I want them to receive this light. That was the burden
on Paul's heart. And remembering the grace of
God that came to him, unhorsed that proud rebel and threw him
down in his face into dust. Brought mercy to that proud sinner. The chief of sinners. I Timothy 1.12. And I thank Christ Jesus, our
Lord, who hath enabled me. That's the way believers talk.
They don't talk about getting saved. They're talking about
God enabling them to do anything. God enabled me, he said. God enabled me, for he counted
me faithful, putting me in the ministry, Now listen, who was
before a blasphemer and a persecutor and injurious, but he said, I
obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly and
unbelieving. I obtained mercy. I want to tell
you this morning, I titled this message, The story of the sinner. That's it. This was his story. He told it everywhere he went.
You can't read the writings of Paul without coming to this and
he begins to tell it. Here's what I was, and here's
what God did. Here's where I was, here's what
God did. Here's what I used to say, here's
what God taught me to say. I was enabled of God. This is
the story. I obtained mercy. This is it.
Paul could say nothing else about his past. I don't care what you
ask him, this was the answer. This was the answer. This is
the history of the Apostle Paul. This is all that he could say
of his past. Paul, what happened to you? What
turned you? How did this great turning come
to pass? You were going this direction
and now you're going there. What cause? I obtained mercy. I obtained mercy. What stopped you on your downward
spiral into hell? I obtained mercy. Yep. What happened to convert you
out of religion into the faith of God's elect? I obtained mercy."
That's what he says. Oh, what caused you the loss
of all things and gave you the spirit and attitude to count
them but done? I obtained mercy. Ask him what
you will about his past. A young man at the Danville Conference
a few years ago said to me, he said, how do you explain your
past indifference and absence from the people of God. I obtained
mercy. That's how I explain it. Forgetting
those things which are behind. That's what Paul said. They can't
do you any good. They can't do you any good. This
was Paul's story. He had nothing else to say of
his past that was worth talking about. And this is the story
of all those who now preach the gospel of Christ. Go talk to
one of them. He'll tell you the same thing.
I found mercy. I obtained mercy. God showed
mercy to me. Listen to this. He said, such
were some of you. That's what he told his Corinthians.
Such were some of you, Paul said, but you are worse. You are sanctified
and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit
of our God, you have obtained mercy. Mercy. They all had to denounce the
hidden things of dishonesty. They all had to be brought out
of Phariseeism and Legalism and Ceremonialism and whatever other
isms there is. This is the story of every God-called
preacher. And this, my friend, is the story
of every saved sinner. I obtain mercy. Oh, I used to hear so many. We
had testimony night on Wednesday night. I don't know if y'all
ever experienced that or not. What that is, is men and women
standing up and telling them what they did for Jesus. That's
what that is. I remember the time, I remember
the place, I remember the tree, I remember the old whatever it
was, and on and on and on. There's no end to it. But I tell
you, when God comes into your heart, it changes then. You don't
start talking about what you did for him, you start talking
about what he did. He enabled me. There he was. Can you picture a proud rebel
on the horse with a He's got a big scroll full of papers.
He's got papers on everybody. Everybody they ever heard about.
He's got them, and he's on that horse, and he's riding down the
road. And he's got his head up in the
air. He knows he's serving God. He's
doing God a favor. And he's going down the road,
and pow! God kicks him off that horse, shoves his face down in
the dust. And Paul looks up, and he can't
see anything. He can hear this voice, and he
said, who are you, Lord? and what you want me to do. It's the story of every sinner
saved by grace. If you can put your finger on
something you did, something you said, and something you felt,
and glory in it, as to why you're here today, you don't know God.
You're still on the horse. You still got the papers. You're
still riding around. I tell you, when he unhorses,
and he does, every proud rebel, he's going to put your face in
the dust. I just, I'll be honest with you. People come to me and
they start talking all that old jargon, all that old religious
jargon about this, that. I just tune them out. I used
to accuse my dad, he had a hearing aid, and he didn't want to hear
what you were talking about. He just tuned you out, turned it off.
Turned it off. That's what I do. I just turn
them out. I don't want to hear it. The first work of grace, can
you hear me, is to bring you down. You ain't going to go up until
you brought down. He killeth. That's what the old
woman prayed there in the Old Testament. She said, the Lord
killeth, and then he maketh alive. He bringeth down, and then he
bringeth up. This is the first work of grace.
That Pharisee was sure he was saved. Sure he was. He come up there, a citizen,
a fellow heir, son of God, proud son of Abraham, heir to all the
promises of God. And he stood afar off because
there was a publican up there. And he crossed them arms and
he stood there and he rocked back and forth With that proud
look, he said, I thank God. He looked right up into heaven's
door. He said, I thank God I ain't like him. You know folks like that, don't
you? I was a folk like that. And still too much in me like
that. And that old publican, he bowed his head. He said, God have mercy on me,
the sinner. The sinner. Let me give you five things this
morning that I know about the mercy that Paul said he obtained. Five things. The first thing
I know about this mercy is that it comes from God. Only God can
give it to you. There's no need to come to me
and say, preacher, what do you think? What's it matter what
I think? Huh? It's God who shows us mercy. Go through the scriptures. You
can't find anybody else that's able to dispense this mercy.
This mercy comes from God. Moses said, show me your glory.
He said, I'll show you my glory. Now he said, nobody else. I will. I will. That's where it comes from. It
comes from God. He ain't mercy in the mourner's
bench. I remember an old Nazarene evangelist one night, just before
he gave the altar call, we had a little bench up front, a little
mourner's bench. They called it an altar. But
I remember him standing up there and looking out over that audience. They got this thing down to a
science. He said, now there's no efficacy
in this mourner's bench at all. This is just a place where men
meet God. Let me tell you something. You find a place where men meet
God, you found a place with more efficacy than you're able to
stand up and tell people about. Because it takes a perfection
to meet God. It takes perfect justice and
perfect holiness and perfect righteousness to meet God. And that mourner's bench ain't
got any efficacy. He's right about that. But that
ain't the place where men meet God either. This mercy comes from God. There's
no mercy in the bench, and there's no mercy in the front of the
church, and there's no mercy in the preacher's hand, and there's
no mercy in the hands of the presbytery, and there's no mercy
in the catechism, and no mercy in the water, and there's no
mercy in the bread and the wine. Mercy belongs to God. It's of God. Romans 9, verse
16, it's not of him that willeth. It's not of him that runneth.
It's of God that showeth mercy. Ain't that what he said? He said to Moses, I'll have mercy
on whom I will have mercy, and I'll have compassion on whom
I will have compassion. And it's not on the shelf for
you to take when you will it. And it's not hovering over you
or following along beside you, When the end comes, you can grab
it real quick and pull the string like on a parachute. Mercy is in the hands of the
sovereign. It comes from God. Only He can dispense it. And
because it is in His hands, it must be dispensed according to
His character and will and purpose, justly, righteously, and particularly. That's right. This mercy comes
from God to individuals. Only God can dispense mercy.
It belongs to Him. It's what He is by nature. God
is merciful. He's merciful. All right, here's
the second thing I know about this mercy. This mercy is obtainable. Paul said, I obtain mercy. It's
my possession. I hold it in my hands. I obtained
it. It's mine. It's not something
way out there somewhere. It's something now, something
immediate, something he had, something he possessed. He said,
I have obtained it. Plain as words can be, he said,
I obtained mercy. Well, how did this man who was
a blasphemer and a persecutor and a murderer Obtained mercy. Well, he obtained it first because
of the person and work of Jesus Christ. Watch this, Hebrews 9,
verse 12. It said, By his own blood he
entered in once into the holy place, having obtained mercy. He obtained everlasting, eternal
redemption for us. And secondly, it comes by the
hearing of faith. In Acts 13, verse 38, he said,
Be it known unto you, therefore, men and brethren, that through
this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins. And
all them that heard him believed. They believed. By him all that believe are justified
from all things which it could not be justified by the Law of
Moses. He said, Faith cometh by hearing,
and hearing by the Word of the Lord. And the Word of the Lord,
that is the Word of Jehovah. You see that? Boy, that's a whole
different thing than just talking about this book. When he said
the Word of the Lord, he's not just talking about this book,
although Christ is the theme of this book. He's talking about
the Christ of which this book was written. He's talking about
the Gospel. The Word of the Lord is the Gospel. Listen to this, I Peter 1.25, But the Word of the Lord, that's
the Gospel, isn't it? The Word of the Lord endureth
forever, and this is the Word which by the Gospel is preached
unto you. That's the Word of Jehovah. And
then thirdly, it's attainable through or by the Spirit of the
Living God. He tells us over in 1 Corinthians
chapter 2, He said, I preach this gospel and hold this gospel
and it's a mystery. It's a mystery. It has to be
revealed. Men can't see it. I want them to see it, but they
don't see it. I show it to them in the Word of God, but they
don't see it. I talk to them about it, but they don't see
it. They don't see it. I have not seen nor ear heard,
neither have entered into the heart of man the things which
God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed
them unto us by His Spirit. Wow! Those who never... Now, won't you listen to me?
Those who never obtain mercy are those described in this same
chapter, 1 Corinthians 2, verse 14, as those who receive not
the things of the Spirit of God. They never obtain mercy. Never do. Why won't they receive
them? Because they're foolishness to
them. Foolishness. What do you mean? You mean I
have to have this thing revealed to me? That's what it says. That's
foolishness. I've got a mind. I've got eyes.
I've got a Bible. I have understanding. I'm an
intellectual. Give me a schematic to a TV and I'll build it for
you. I'm an intellectual. I have no doubt that you can
build a TV or that you can put a man in a spaceship and send
him to Mars, but I'll tell you what you can't do. You can't
pick up this book and figure out God. You can't do it. It has to be revealed to you,
don't it? Reveal. I ain't going to have it. Do
like Don said, take his Bible and throw it in the garbage can
on your way to hell. That's right. That's right. Thirdly, mercies for the guilty. Boy, if I could find somebody
guilty, I'd preach to them. I could. I can't find anybody
guilty. They're not. They're just not
guilty. They got caught doing something.
They're sorry about that. More sorry that they got caught
than what it was they were doing. I can't find anybody guilty before
God. What thing soever the law saith,
it saith to them who are under the law, that every mouth may
be stopped, and the whole world become guilty before God. There's
that first work. I tell you, he makes you guilty.
He makes you to feel it, sense it in your soul. Guilty before
God. Guilty. Job said, if I justify
myself, my own mouth will condemn me. He was guilty. Guilty. He couldn't even defend himself
before his friends because he was guilty. In our text, Paul said, I was
before. a blasphemer, injurious. I wasn't in some harmless place
of confusion, but I did injury. I did injury. Over in Matthew
chapter 9, in verse 10, it says, And it came
to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house, Behold, many publicans
and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples, sat
down there to eat. He preached, taught them. Now he retired into the home
where he was going to spend the night, and they served meat,
and lots of these publicans and sinners came in there, and the
Pharisees was there. When the Pharisees saw it, they
said unto his disciples, why eateth your master, republicans
and sinners? Don't he know who they are? Don't he know their reputation?
Why is he eating with them? Why is he fellowshipping with
them? And when Jesus heard that, verse 12, he said unto them,
they that behold need not a physician, but the sick. The sick. Now he said, you go
learn what this means. You go learn what the prophet
said. You go learn what the Word of
God said about you. You go learn that. 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. I'll tell you this, I've got
some good news if I can find one. If I can find a sinner,
I've got good news. I can tell him where mercy can
be obtained. Mercy is for the guilty. Oh, all a guilty man can do is
hope for mercy. All right, fourthly, this mercy
that comes from God, which God obtained for us in Christ, brought
to us in the Gospel, made official by the Holy Spirit, is without
question. It's without question. Listen
to how he says this. I Timothy 1.15, he says, 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. He said, you can believe this.
You can count on this. I did a job for a fellow one
time, and he handed me this old beat up looking check. And I
said, will the bank cash that? He said, if I wrote it on a paper
sack, the bank would cash it. That's what Paul's saying here.
You can take this to the bank. Take it to the bank. This is
a paper sack. Who can read the blessed promises
of it and see the great cloud of witnesses that example it
and see the Son of God in His manhood, see the company He kept,
see that grace and kindness He showed in the gospel we've heard
preached for 2,000 years and question the willingness of God
to show mercy? It's a fateful saying, ain't
it? Over and over and over again, He shows mercy to sinners. Here's the man that God's going
to use to example all that believe. You know where He found him?
Mesopotamia. You know what he's doing? He
had his barlow out there in his shed. He was carving out idols.
That's what he was doing, Abraham. His daddy was an idol maker. Down there in that temple, down
there in that garage with his daddy, had his little barlow
out shaping out gods. God called him. He said, Abraham, get out of
there. Get out of there. God saves sinners. That's so hard for this generation
to understand. God saves sinners. Oh, who can look at these things
and not see them? We didn't gather here this morning
to rehearse a few doctrines and then go back to our pitiful lives,
but to tell men and women that mercy can be obtained. It can
be had, John. Mercy. Mercy. That's what Paul's telling these
preachers. I know these folks are spreading lies and I want
you to refute these lies. I don't want you to be a part
of it. I don't want you to confirm what they're saying. When a man's
a liar and he stands up and does these things, don't permit him
into your congregation. Don't even bid him Godspeed.
Leave him alone. You be faithful and warn your
congregation about him. Warn them about these things.
Over and over and over he tells them that in these pastoral epistles.
But he said, you remember this. Such were some of you. Huh? Oh, yeah. Such were some of you.
And he said, that's my case. That's my case as well. Listen
to this. And here's the last thing I want
you to see. That the standard of this mercy was first demonstrated
on the chief of sinners. I Timothy 1 verse 16, Howbeit
for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ
might show forth all longsuffering, now watch it, for a pattern to
them which should hereafter believe on Him to life eternal. God made an example out of me.
That's what he said. He made it. Preacher, you just
don't know how far down I am. You just don't know the depths
I've sunken into. No sir, I don't. But I know the
depths he's sunk into. And you ain't that far. He's
the chief of sinners. The chief of sinners. He was in the place Russell of
those that he gave up to a reprobate mind. That's where Paul was. He was in those folks who had
been given over to a strong delusion to believe a lie and be damned. Dead while they lived. Twice
dead, plucked up from the roots. Paul was a Pharisee. And I'm
going to tell you something. Religious and lost, they're farther
away than the drunkard. They're a lot worse off than
the harlot. The Pharisee is way beyond the perverted and the
obnoxious heathens of the world. Our Lord said He turned around
and looked right into the face of those Pharisees and scribes
and Sadducees. Most religious people on earth.
He turned and looked right in their face and he said, let me
tell you something. It's going to be better on the folks of
Sodom and Gomorrah than it's going to be on you. Isn't that
what he said? That's exactly what he said.
You're way worse off than they are. If they'd had one stand before
them like you have standing before you, they would have repented
in sackcloth and ashes. the perverts of Sodom would fare
better in the judgment than they would. And this man Paul was
a Pharisee of the Pharisees. God reached down to the bottom
of the pit, the bottom of the barrel, and scraped Paul off
the bottom. And He did it for an example
and for a pattern to all those sinners who see themselves the
sinner. Will God save me, the sinner? Listen to this one. He scraped
him off the bottom first. First. Oh, I tell you, when it
comes to the mercy of God, think about this. Peter stood up on
the day of Pentecost and preached to that bunch of Jews who was
over there a few days before that, jumping up and down and
screaming, crucify! Crucify! Couldn't stand him. Give us that murderer, that seditioner. We'll take him, O Christ. Stirred
up by those false religionists in their hearts to cry out against
the Son of God. Peter stood up at Pentecost and
said, this same Jesus that you crucified, God made Him both
Christ and Lord. They said, what are we going
to do? He said, repent. Repent? You mean God had mercy
on them? Oh, yeah. Three thousand souls
bowed their head and God showed mercy. Think about it. Oh, I
tell you, when I think about the mercy of God, it's beyond
anything that I can say, anything that I can use to illustrate.
It's just so far beyond the depths that God will go down and save
sinners. But I tell you, He won't go this
high to save The self-righteous. What are we going to say? Who
have obtained like precious faith, what are we going to say to these
things? What does this mercy obtained
cause the heart to say? Look back here in our text in
1 Timothy 1 verse 17. I'll show you what it says. It says, now, having obtained
mercy. He said, I obtained it. It's
mine. I was the chief of sinners, but God reached down, saved my
arm-wrestled soul. Now, he said, to the King. To the King, eternal, immortal,
Invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory forever and
ever. That's what the heart that obtains
mercy says. And it says it all the time.
All the time. I told the folks over in Wichita
Falls, I said, you sit down at night, you get ready to go to
bed, you sit down on the edge of the bed and you just get to
thinking and surveying the day. And I said, you know you're an
heir of God. An heir of God. You know you're
a child of God. You've obtained mercy. My soul,
look around this area. At the thousands and thousands
and hundreds of thousands all over the state haven't found
any mercy, but you did. You did. Why then did you live the life
you lived that day? Ain't you ashamed? Sit there
on your bed with your head hung down. Why did I do that? God
forgive me. Why did I say those things and
act that way? Why? Why? Why? And then you think about that
mercy. You think about that mercy. Oh, that mercy. God gave you
mercy and grace and righteousness and peace in the Lord Jesus Christ. And you bow your head and give
Him thanks. And you wake up the next morning, and you say the
same thing about your dreams that night. They're filthy too.
You have to get up and even confess your sin in your dreams. You
can't even sleep. Mercy. Mercy. Mercy. Oh, that's what faith does. It
revels in it, the mercy of God. Mercy of God. and wants to tell
it, wants to tell it to the world. The world don't want to hear
it. Mercy to the chief of sinners. The old songwriter in the chorus
said, this is my story. To God be the glory. I'm only
a sinner saved by grace.