You'll take your Bibles now and
turn with me to 1 Timothy 2. We've had the verses read to
us a little earlier. And in the verses leading up
to my text in verse 5, there's a troubling verse. I noticed
when Anthony got to it, he slowed up when he read this verse. It's
a troubling verse. I believe I need to deal with
this verse before I can have any hope of holding your attention
in my text. In verses 1 and 2, we are exhorted
to pray for, and to make supplications and intercessions for, and even
to offer thanks for all kinds of men. All kinds of men. We pray just for one another.
And Paul says this thing of salvation, this thing of the Kingdom of
God is a lot bigger than San Diego. San Diego is a big place. But it's a whole lot bigger than
San Diego. And it's a whole lot bigger than
this little group. And it's a whole lot bigger than Arkansas. God's
Kingdom incorporates all All things. He doesn't just reign
over a few of His elect, but He reigns over all men. I said to you last night, one
of those things, one of those visions that He hangs up in the
heart of the believer is Jesus Christ the Lord. And He rules
and reigns over all things. For kings, he said, and those
in authority, and for all men in general, and to this end that
we might live quiet and peaceable lives in godliness and honesty. He uses all kinds of men to accomplish
his purpose of grace in this world. He used Balaam, didn't
he? Sure he did. He used Nebuchadnezzar. And he
used Pilate and Herod. and the Gentiles and the Jews.
In Romans 13, I want to read for you just a few verses here.
It says, ìLet every soul be subject unto the higher powers, for there
is no power but of God. The powers that be are of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth
the power resisteth the ordinance of God, because they are ordained
of God.î and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation."
Authority in the home, authority on the job, governmental authority,
all are put into place. And he tells us in verse 4 of
Romans 13 that these powers are his ministers to his people for
good. Well, preacher, you don't know
my husband. You don't know my boss. You don't
know our governor. No, but you do. And that's why
he says to pray for them. Pray for them. That you might
lead a peaceable life. Because that's why God put them
there. That's why they hold that off. They don't have a clue why
they're there. They have this in mind and that in mind. That
doesn't mean God is not using them. They said, is it lawful to pay
tribute unto Caesar? He said, let me see a piece of
your money. Handed it to him. He said, whose
picture is this? He said, Caesar. Render it to
Caesar then. It belongs to him. Render to
him what belongs to him. Render to God what belongs to
him. Caesar is being used of God to accomplish God's purpose
of grace. And so are God's authority in
the home, and God's authority on the job, and these policemen
out here, and all these things. They're not a terror to good
work. They're just terror to men who are criminals, and terror
to men whose idea is not to do good. But they're not a terror
to us. They keep peace. I tell you,
I went down to Mexico and I was glad to get back to this country.
I was glad to get back. Now, here's the troubling verse.
Who will have all men to be saved? Who will have all men to come
unto the knowledge of the truth? Now, there's no way that any
man who's ever honestly read and studied the Word of God can
interpret this verse as meaning every son of Adam without exception. There's no way that you, without
contradicting the Word of God, there's no way that you can make
that application. Because God worketh all things
after the counsel of his own will. He ruleth, Nebuchadnezzar
said, in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of
the earth, and none can stay his hand or say unto him, What
doest thou? Whatsoever he please, David said,
that did he in the earth, in heaven, in the seas, and all
deep places. And if it were the will of God
to save all men, I guarantee you all men would be saved. because
nothing can thwart his will. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4,
verse 3, he said, If our gospel be hid, it is hid to the lost,
in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them
which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ,
who is the image of God, should shine unto them. For we preach
not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your
servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness, that's in the beginning of the creation,
has shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of
the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. It is God that
gives light, is it not? In Him is no darkness at all.
That's what John said. It is God that commands it to
shine and gives it direction. It is God that puts the treasure
in the earthen vessel. And if God willed all men to
be saved, He would effectually shine that light in every heart. And every soul into which He
shined that light would be saved. Whatever this verse 4 of 1 Timothy
is teaching, it's not teaching that every son of Adam, that
it's the will of God that every son of Adam be saved and come
to the knowledge of the truth. What it is teaching is found
in the context of the verse that I read to you earlier. It's for
all kinds of men. That's what he's talking about.
You're to pray for the kings and men in authority. You're
to pray for governors. You're to pray for your husband.
You're to pray for all kinds of men and men everywhere, just
in general. I've lived in places where I
had neighbors you couldn't get along with. I mean, you just
had to walk on eggshells the whole time you lived there. They
were always Arguing over the boundaries and don't mow on my
side, you know, just get a chalk line or something out there,
you know, there's no fence, you know, just pray for all kinds
of men if you want to live a peaceable life. Pray that God will constrain
them and perhaps He may even save them because this is the
will of God that all kinds of men be saved. All kinds of me. In John chapter 17, when Jesus,
our great High Priest, prayed to the Father for the salvation
of His people, do you know He refused to pray for the world? He said, Father, I pray not for
the world, but for these which Thou hast given Me. and to establish
God's sovereign purpose of grace in the election of a people,
he singled out two children not yet born, neither having done
any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election
might stand. And he said to their mother,
we're going to change things up. The elder is going to serve
the younger. Why? Because Jacob have I loved,
Esau have I hated. This whole idea of universal
love and universal redemption and God not being willing for
any to perish is not taught in this book. It's a lie out of
hell just like the free will of man. Men are quick to believe
Satan's lies because they have a common nature. That's right. They have a common nature. God
describes sinners the same way he describes Satan. He uses the
same word, abomination. Balden men are taken captive
by Satan at his will, it says in the scripture. At his will. He said, you be careful. You
be careful. You're rebuking these people
and teaching these people and saying these things. You be careful. Many of them have been taken
captive by him and he takes you captive at his will. He didn't
have a problem with Job, did he? Ephesians chapter 2 verse 2 says,
in times past, that is before God quickened us, we walked according
to the course of this world, according to the prince of the
power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children
of disobedience, among whom we all had our conversation in times
past, in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the
flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath,
even as others. But God, there's a message right
there, but God, who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith
he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened
us together with Christ, and hath raised us up together, and
made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. that
in order that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding
riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. Now then, have I got your attention?
There's one God and one Mediator between God and men, the man
Christ Jesus. Now, let's just start here and
let the verse, there's a natural outline right in the text. There's one God. One God. One eternal, everlasting God. In the beginning, God. One throne,
one omnipotent power ruling over all, directing all, sustaining
all. One God. My pastor told me one
Sunday morning that his desire, his burden, was to bring us the
truth of the text, of this text, that we might be able to live
and die in this evil world with some kind of reasonable hope
before the one true and living God. There's one God. One God. Eternal. Almighty. Unchangeable. All wise, all seeing,
everywhere present, God. And this God is holy. He's holy beyond your wildest
imagination. He's holy. Job said the stars
are not pure in His sight. Perfectly, constantly, fully
holy. His Bible is a holy Bible. His prophets are called holy
prophets. His temple was called His holy
temple. Anything that has to do with
God is holy, or it has nothing to do with God. This God is just. He told Moses, I will be merciful. Moses said, show me your glory.
He said, all right. I'm going to put you over here
in the cleft of the rock. I'm going to hold my hand on you
because nobody can see God and live. And I'm going to pass by
before you, and I'm going to declare my glory, and I'm going
to show you my hinder parts. His hinder parts is accomplished
redemption. I'll let you see the end, but
you can't enter into the glory of the middle of it. Only Christ
can do that. But I'm going to show you the
accomplishment of it. And I'm going to declare to you
my glory. I will be merciful to whom I will be merciful in
this accomplished redemption. I will be gracious to whom I
will be gracious in this accomplished redemption. You see what he's
saying? But I will by no means clear
the guilty. God is just. Justice and judgment,
David said, is the habitation of his throne. And Solomon said
this, "...he that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth
the just, even they both are an abomination to the Lord."
Now brethren, when God tells us His nature and attitude towards
sin, when He tells you of His holy character and of His righteous
justice and judgment when He warns us of things. It's not some far away distant
judgment to which He warns us. Satan said in his heart, All
these evil things that he was going to do. I'm going to be
like God. I'm going to sit in the mound
of the congregation. I'm going to have the glory that
God has purposed in this God-man, Christ Jesus. I'm going to have
that. I want that. He's not worthy of that. I am.
The prophet said, I saw him fall from heaven like lightning. Instantly. Instantly. And all the angels
who followed after him, and in an instant they were bound in
chains of darkness, reserved unto the day of judgment. No
opportunity for mercy, no intervention of God, no light of the conscience,
no light of creation, no light at all. Reserved in chains of
darkness unto everlasting punishment. Just and everlasting torment. When Adam fell in the garden,
the whole race plunged into instant and instant an irreversible fall. He can't evolve himself out of
it. He can't climb out of it. He
can't get out of it. He can't walk or work his way
out of it. He can't will his way out of
it. The darkness of spiritual death
passed upon us and reigns unto death. Read Romans chapter 5.
Verse 12, ìBy one man sin entered into the world, and death by
sin, and so death passed upon all men.î How do I know that?
Because they all sinned. Brethren, only sinners sin. Righteous
men donít sin. Sinners sin. Thatís why when
God looked down at man, He said thereís none righteous. If there
was any righteous, they wouldnít sin. Sinners sin. David said, ìI come forth from
the womb speaking lies.î Well, I don't believe sin's in
our nature. I'll tell you what you do. Get
you four or five kids, and when they're here, you take them back
and put all kinds of toys and everything in the world, put
them back there in the room, and say, here you are. You can
have anything's in here, all these toys, trucks, doll babies,
all this stuff. You all play with whatever you
want to, but don't go through that door over there. And then
go out and watch and see where they go first. That's right. That's right. We're sinners. We're sinners. That's why we sin. Every imagination of man's heart,
God said, is only evil continually. He rebels against all light,
the light of conscience. He sears his conscience with
a hot iron. The light of God's omnipotent
power and creation, He shuns. He won't have it. He does not
like, it says in Romans chapter 1, to retain God in his knowledge. He'll call it mother nature,
and he'll call it evolution, and he'll call it the unseen
power of natural forces, but he will not acknowledge the living
God. He blames his guilty conscience
on the superstitious religion of his parents. And he won't
come to the light. Our Lord said, here is the condemnation. I didn't come to judge. I came
to save. The world is already judged. He that believeth not is condemned
already. Isn't that what He said? And
He said, here is the condemnation. Light, perfect, infallible, continual,
pure light came into the world. And men love darkness rather
than light. Now brethren, you may not like
me because of my attitude or my preaching or the way I preach.
I've got lots of faults. But he didn't have any. This was pure light. And they
despised him. And all men are the same. They're
all the same. There's no difference between
you and Charles Manson. Who maketh thee to differ? Ain't
that what Paul said? If there's a difference, God
made the difference. He restrained you. And men call
God's restraint righteousness. Don't you mistake the two. Well,
I just, man, I can't imagine myself doing that. That's because
God constrained you. Otherwise, you'd have done it.
You know, He constrained them at the cross. I heard Brother
Mahan say this one time, if God hadn't constrained man, they'd
have boiled him in a pot and ate him instead of nailing him
on the cross. He's exactly right. He will not come to the light.
And there he is, my friend, but only one hope for Adam's doomed
race, and that is that God, by his own purpose and grace, appointed
a mediator. That's what Paul is talking about
here. He was all involved in the law and the keeping of the
law and self-righteousness and all these things, and he was
proud of his Jewish inheritance, and he was proud that he could
go back and tell you, I circumcised the eighth day. He said, you
have things that you're proud of in your past? I have more.
I circumcised the eighth day of the tribe of Benjamin. I can
go back with my roots and connect myself to Abraham, can you? Paul
said, I had some things. He said, you talk about zeal?
He said, I went down and got the papers and went over here
to those who I believe were false religionists and with those papers
and I took them and I stoned them unto death. You want to
talk about zeal? I was zealous. But God opened his eyes to see
what he really was. One God and there's one Mediator. And when Paul found out about
that one Mediator, it changed his whole life. That's all he
preached from that day until he died. Wherever and upon whomever
this all-seeing, all-knowing, almighty God finds sin, He will
and does judge that sin both in the moment and in the fullness
in that great day. Judgment is immediate. Did you
know that? Lots of times I remember as a
child going to church and listening to a man preach. I left thinking about it. And
thinking that I was in some kind of a vacuum. That I had from
now to judgment to make up my mind about this thing. But it's
just not so. It's not so. God judges you for
every shone of light, whether it be conscience, or creation,
or the gospel preached, or the Word of God read. Any bit of
light that comes your way, there is a judgment. There is a judgment. And he says over in John chapter
3, I believe it is, He that believeth not the Son. How does that go
over there? Can you quote that scripture
at the last verse? John chapter 3. Maybe I can find
it real quick. I think it's important that you
see this according to my text here. In John chapter 3, in verse 36, He that believeth on the Son
hath everlasting life, and he that believeth not the Son shall
not see life. Why not? What does that say? For the wrath of God abideth
on him. Swift, immediate judgment. Whenever and upon whomever this
all-seeing, all-knowing, almighty God finds sin, He will and does
judge that sin both in the moment, not fully, but in the moment. And you know what He does? You
know how you're convicted when you hear the truth? And you just
press it away. You shove it away. Next time
you don't have to shove so hard, do you? Pretty soon it just rolls
off like water off a duck's back. Gospel hardens, what the old
preachers used to call that. God judges. And there's no appeal
from it. There's no getting around it.
There's no place to hide from it and no resisting of the condemnation
of God. You can't do it. There's only
one thing that stands between the sinner and everlasting hell,
and that's this one Mediator of God. The only thing that stands
between Him. We sin constantly. Doesn't that
mean God's judgment falls on us? Constantly. Constantly. Constantly. 1 Corinthians 8.5
says, For though there be other called gods, the God of this
world, Sun God, Moon God, Snake God, you can go on and on, whether
in heaven or earth, there be God's many and Lord's many. But
unto us, he said, there is but one God, the Father of whom are
all things, and we are in Him, and one Lord Jesus Christ by
whom are all things, and we by Him. One God. One mediator between God and
men. He dictates the terms. He makes the rules. He holds
all the authority. He alone exercises justice and
judgment. God hath appointed a day in which
He'll judge this world in righteousness by that man whom He hath ordained. And ultimately, his will will
be done. And believers know this. They
are in full agreement with this. And they are taught to pray according
to this, not my will, but thy will be done on earth as it is
in heaven. Now they pray. One God. One Mediator. Now strictly speaking,
what is a Mediator? What's he talking about? A mediator
is a fit representative standing between two parties who are at
odds with each other to attempt to reach an agreement and thereby
reconcile the two. In the case of men, when we're
talking about two men, both have the same father, Adam,
and they're at odds with each other, there is a mediator. And he goes down here and he
goes to one and tries to get him to concede a little, and
then he goes over here and he tries to get this one to give
a little bit, and he goes back. Basically, what he's doing is
trying to get them to compromise so he can bring them together.
That's what they do. In the case of men, it involves
give and take from each side. They want to reach an agreement. So one side compromises a little,
and then in turn the other compromises a little, and they reach an agreement.
But God's not like men. God's not at fault in this thing
of sin. Man is at fault. God's not ignorant. Man's ignorant.
God's not going to compromise or change in anything concerning
His character, His purpose, and His will. And God has no faults,
and He will not concede His position and power. I won't share my glory
with another. And man is so depraved that he
can't help himself. He has nothing with which to
redeem himself. So this Mediator, God's Mediator,
He not sent. Like we would send men on some
kind of a cooperative effort to reach an agreement with someone
by lowering his standards, lowering the standards of God, or improving
the standards of men. That's not what this mediator
is all about. But he's been appointed of God
to accomplish the peace. He is our peace. He must go and
accomplish the peace. Man can't accomplish it. He's
a sinner. He's under the wrath of God.
He owes God that which he cannot pay. God has to send a mediator
to accomplish the peace and to make reconciliation. He reconciles us to God, Paul
said, in one body by the cross. And therefore, He Himself is
our peace. Listen to this. You can turn
over there if you want to. 2 Corinthians 5. 2 Corinthians 5 and verse 18. And all things, we're talking
about redemption here, But it's inclusive of all things. It's
inclusive of these men that we're to pray for and kings and all
these things. I've already shown that to you. But all things are
of God who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ and
given to us the ministry of reconciliation. Well, what is this ministry?
To wit, verse 19, that God was in Christ reconciling the world,
not every man, but out of every kindred, tribe, nation, tongue
under heaven, reconciling them, reconciling the world unto himself,
now listen, not charging, that's what that word means, not imputing
their trespasses unto them. Think about it. not imputing, not charging their
trespasses unto them. He did not send this one mediator
into the world to inspire men or reform men or beg men to change
their minds. He did not send his son into
the world and butcher him on a cross to make you feel sorry
for Jesus and let him come into your heart But in II Corinthians
5.21 it says, "...he hath made him to be sin for us who knew
no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. He stood before God as a guilty
sinner in my place. And God poured out his wrath
on his son as he will or would have poured it out on me." And as our substitute, God's
mediator of peace, He stood before God and the Scripture said, bore
our sins in His own body on the tree. One mediator. One God. Between God and man. The only gospel there is commissioned
of God to preach is this glorious gospel of God, one mediator. Scott preached on this one time
on reconciliation, and he said, the war is over. Stack your shotguns
in the corner. The war is over. God is not angry
with you. He has punished your sins in
His Son. He alone has pleased the Father, satisfied
justice, exalted and honored the law, and he reigns in glory
to make his work and our inheritance sure to all that believe. God sends his preachers and he
draws his elect to hear it, and hearing this gospel they believe
it and are sealed with that blessed spirit of promise. And they hope
in Christ, and they rest in Christ, and they confess Christ, and
they're baptized and identified with Christ, and they die in
the faith. One mediator between God and
men. Well, preacher, you started out
talking about particular redemption. How can I jive that up with particular
redemption? How can I jive that up with God's
sovereign unchangeable will. How do I know if God is willing
to save me? How do I know that this one Mediator
was appointed for me? Where can I find my interest
in the Savior? How do I obtain that? Listen
to this. This is John chapter 6 and verse 37. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me. And him that cometh to me I will
in no wise cast out. For I came down from heaven not
to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me. And this
is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he
hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again
at the last day. And this is the will of Him that
sent me. This is God's sovereign, eternal,
immutable will right here. This is the will of Him that
sent me that everyone which seeth the Son, as I have set Him forth
as a propitiation through faith in His blood, everyone which seeth the Son,
and believeth on him may have everlasting life, and I will
raise him up at the last day. One mediator between God and
men, the man, Christ Jesus. That's it, folks. That's the
only hope there is. That's it. It's Christ or Christ
or hell. There's no middle ground. There's
no compromise. You can't work your way out.
You can't wheel your way out. You can't walk your way out.
You can't climb out. Not of him that willeth, not
of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. And he showed
that mercy in Christ. And he points to it.