Book of 1 Timothy - Ch. 2, vv. 3-4

Well, let's turn it over to 1 Timothy chapter 2. And we have been parked at just the opening couple of verses for what feels like a long time.

Part of that is because of where the break landed right when we got to it. But still, I want to say we've been on at least three lessons worth of material on these opening verses of chapter 2.

And we are moving into verses 3 and 4 in just a second. But in order to be reminded of how all of these connect, we need to do one last kind of stepping into these upcoming verses through verses 1 and 2.

And so last week, the thing that we honed in on was this reality.

That number one, this isn't a new idea that the Apostle Paul had with regard to exhorting

Timothy to then teach the church to pray for kings, to pray for those in authority, to pray for their leaders.

We went back to the Old Testament, we looked at Jeremiah, and we saw that there the prophet talked about the same concept.

And that is that God desires for His people to have peace around them. But that peace is contingent on obedience.

In the Old Testament context, of course, it was somewhat different because the obedience was directly tied to the

Old Covenant. But even in the New Testament, we see Paul here telling us, look, these are the kinds of benefits that you can have as believers in a civil society.

If, and the if is, of course, the condition, and then he teaches us how to pray and what the results of those prayers can be.

If we neglect those prayers, then it goes without saying that the means that God desires to bring these things about is removed, which most likely will cause the effect or the end, rather, to also be removed.

Now, God is merciful, and so we can see Him change a society in the right direction, move a society in the right direction, just because He wants to.

I feel like I've mentioned it a couple of times recently, but Nineveh would be a decent example of that. And there are certainly other societies where when the gospel hit, it hit hard, and it was just transformed really fast.

In a situation like our own where we have the roots, the foundation of our nation built upon Christian ethics,

Christian political science, and all these things already, and that we've moved away from it, it puts us in kind of a unique situation.

Because we take for granted all that caused our country to become what it became.

We take those things for granted. We decide, you know what, why don't we change a few things here and there? Why don't we loosen up and legislate more upon the social desires of the day?

And we just have been slowly for about 200 years moving away from the bedrock that we originally set.

And so now, here we are trying to essentially reform society.

And what Paul is teaching us in these opening couple of verses is one of the main ingredients for doing that.

Social reform, political reform, all of these things can't only come through brute force, action.

Going in there and getting involved in the political sphere, more

Christians running for office, all that's great. The church being more bold about proclaiming what is good, true, and beautiful and why, all of that is terrific.

But we wouldn't have this teaching from Paul here if this wasn't one of the preeminent ingredients to a societal, a cultural, and political reformation.

And that is prayer for those that are already in power because we have to remember this too. Yes, human responsibility comes into play.

Men work hard to create a political career.

They work hard to run their campaigns. They work hard to get their name out there and then, of course, to persuade their constituents.

And oftentimes they're rewarded for that hard work, and then they come into office. So all that's true, but it is on the same token, just the other side of it,

God that puts them in these positions. So we have to understand even in times where we're dealing with politicians that we do not like, and perhaps for good and righteous reasons we don't like them.

If they are an enemy to the word of God, that is something worth having a righteous anger about.

That doesn't mean that you let your personal grievances with the person get the better of you, but it's good and righteous to focus your anger upon the enemies of God and those that are maybe in some cases legislating against it intentionally.

But even in a case like that, even in those situations, God is still sovereign. He isn't looking and kind of seeing what's going to play out.

And so he wants us to be a part of this. He wants us to be a part of the Reformation, just like he told

Moses when Moses is telling the people, don't worry about it. Watch in God and see

God's hand of victory as the Egyptian army is coming up behind him and the Red Seas behind him.

And then God quickly reminds Moses, wait a second. What are you talking about here? You put your rod over the water.

And so God wants us to be a part of that type of Reformation. And this is one of the ways in which we do that.

So look at it with me one more time where we are now segueing into verse three and beyond.

But let's get the full picture one more time. He says in verse one, I exhort, therefore, that first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and for all that are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty or dignity, perhaps would be a better translation there.

For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God, our Savior, who will have all men to be saved and to come into the knowledge of the truth.

And we'll stop there for now, although the argument continues smoothly all the way through verse seven.

We need to take this one step at a time to some degree here. Now, here's the thing about the type of prayer and the motivation behind that prayer that we've spent a number of lessons talking about at this point.

We've already talked about the fact that it's for our own benefit, because if we are diligent in our prayer for our leaders, and if those prayers are answered in the affirmative, what's the result?

That we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty or in dignity.

So there is a use to it. There is a practical use toward obeying this particular command.

But it's not just useful. And this is where it's fascinating, and it starts to shed light upon the question, why is it that a prayer like this, that prayers for our leaders is a worthy cause, on behalf of, in many cases, unbelieving civil magistrates?

Why is that a worthy cause, even when we aren't guaranteed that he's going to give us a

Josiah or someone like that? Even though we know we're not guaranteed of that, why is it a worthy cause to do it anyway?

Why should we do that? And verse 3 is the answer. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our

Savior. So it's not just useful. But it is morally good. The connotation of the

Greek here means there's literally an intrinsic goodness, an intrinsic morality behind praying these types of prayers for our leaders.

It is good in the sight of God himself. These prayers are pleasing to God, meaning that when we pray for our government, for our leaders, for our politicians on every level, we are quite literally fulfilling

God's revealed will for his people. What do I mean by revealed will? I mean, he put it right here in verse 3.

It says, this is pleasing in my sight. So this is a little snapshot into the will of God with regard to what he desires.

You can make an argument. There is a theological distinction between his will with regard to what he desires and his will with regard to what he has decreed for his own glory and his own purposes.

Obviously, that becomes a more cosmic, a more transcendent topic.

But when you hone in on the practical day -to -day on his interaction with his people, that's where we put a lot of emphasis on his revealed will or his desires and things of that sort.

And here's one of them right here. It is good and it is acceptable in the sight of God our

Savior for us to pray for our leaders. We fulfill his will, his revealed will, when we do this.

And what we find kind of is the following verses unfold, like I mentioned a second ago, all the way through verse 7.

And we'll get this all in one consistent picture by then, certainly. But as we see all of this unfold, what we find is that the reason it's

God's will for us to pray for all men, as Paul puts it in this particular context, is because our prayers are ultimately an evangelistic exercise.

Our prayers are an evangelistic tool, for lack of a better term, that we can use when we are not put in positions to literally witness to a person.

So it's not—I mean, we don't have that many opportunities to walk up to the doorstep of our politicians on the highest level and share the gospel with them.

Now, the Lord puts some people in that position, and they'll be held responsible for what they do with that.

But your everyday American, like ourselves, we're not going to get that opportunity. If we do, it would be incredibly rare, and we want to be prepared for it.

That doesn't mean we need to freak out about it or think, oh goodness, if we could fail, then all of a sudden

God's word can't come to bear. That's not how it works. But the way it does work is that the

Lord expects us to be in our Bibles, to read his word, to meditate on his word. And then without premeditating what we're going to say in a situation like that, because who knows who you're going to run into at an airport or something like that.

You can't premeditate these things. It doesn't work that way. You rely on the Spirit in those moments. But what does the Spirit use?

He uses all of the information that's in your head that you put there by consuming that material, the word of God, meditating upon it, thinking about these things, having a ready defense for the hope that is within you.

The Holy Spirit draws from that. He doesn't necessarily just—he doesn't speak through us the way he spoke through the prophets.

I'll put it that way. It's not like we can speak a new revelation extemporaneously like the prophets could have because the

Spirit doesn't talk like that anymore. How does he talk? Well, he wrote a book. He expects us to read the book. And then however much of the book that we have in our minds, he uses that, and we can speak.

And hopefully it's consistently because we have a responsibility to read the whole counsel of God and not just cherry pick our favorite parts.

And so we don't always get opportunities to be evangelistic in the direct sense of we are talking with the person.

If the Lord puts us there, that is wonderful. We should be ready for it. But we're not always going to have that opportunity with politicians on the highest rank.

But we can pray. And these types of prayers that Paul is talking about in these verses is ultimately an evangelistic prayer.

And think about it. Think of the context we're in. By the time you get to verse 4, it's abundantly clear.

The sheep have been scattered. Jesus tells us as much near the end of his ministry. They've been scattered.

Now, of course, there was a near or a direct fulfillment of that when the shepherd was struck.

When he talked about that, he was talking about his immediate disciples being scattered when he was taken and scourged and ultimately murdered.

But we also know that as Christianity unfolds or has been unfolding for 2 ,000 years, the gospel is reaching all the ends of the earth.

And there are sheep out there that are lost sheep, as Dad has told us so many times.

There's three categories of people, sheep, lost sheep, and goats. And those lost sheep, you could consider those scattered sheep.

They're in the darkness. They're in the dark forest. There's ravening wolves around them looking to exploit that, take advantage of it.

And so what does the shepherd do? He has commissioned his people on earth to share the gospel, which brings those sheep from the dark forest into the light of the pasture once more and then are, of course, in the fold once again.

And so the sheep have been scattered. But what we rest upon is the promise that every single sheep will be brought into the fold before his return.

There aren't going to be any lost ones. And he talks about this. Jesus talks about this in John chapter 10.

Not a single sheep will be lost, so we can rest in that. And it also gives our evangelism confidence.

We know that our prayers will not be in vain when we pray for the Lord to work on the hearts of people.

We don't know the individuals he will work on, but we know that generally speaking, he is doing it. And our prayers won't be in vain there, even our evangelistic ones.

And so one of the means by which the sheep are brought into the fold is, of course, by his gospel being preached, his word being proclaimed, and which is what is in view here, the prayers of his people who are fervently petitioning him to save and keep on saving.

And finally, by his spirit drawing them in. And so in other words, since God has chosen to use his people as the instrument, and that's the word we must emphasize, the instrument for his many purposes in life, fulfilling his purposes in life, including the very salvation of the lost, which is amazing if you think about it.

The Apostle Paul recognized this left and right. He praised God. He lifted thanksgiving to God all the time simply for the fact that God would use someone like him to help save people.

And that's why he could claim men like Titus and Timothy as his spiritual children. He knew he wasn't the one that did the saving, but he also knew he was the one that was used as the instrument to save them, and therefore he took ownership of them in a spiritual sense.

I'm your spiritual father, and he always will be is the cool part. Every person that comes to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ because of our evangelism for all of eternity future, that we will have that bond with that person.

It's just an amazing thing. And so God has chosen to use his people as the instrument for his purposes, including the very salvation of the lost.

And it is in some way because of this reality, because he chose us to be his instrument, in some way it is up to his people to pray for the salvation to be had.

And this is a great honor on the part of praying Christians around the world to keep doing this and to stay diligent with it, because we do not realize the power that is there and what the

Lord may do with it. The way in which we get to take part in God's miraculous saving power with him, just like Moses taking part of the miraculous parting of the

Red Sea because he had his hand stretched out with a stick. It's just incredible. So this is morally good.

It is intrinsically good. It is good in the sight of God to pray for our leaders of verse three. Look at verse four one more time.

Who, talking about God, will have all men to be saved and to come into the knowledge of the truth.

Now, let me give you just a brief reminder of something, and then we'll kind of tie everything we've been talking about into this extremely important verse, verse four here.

The context that we have been in for, at this point, I think at least four lessons, four weeks.

The context remains exactly where we have been up to this point. Nothing has changed contextually.

The context remains the same, namely the prayers for our civil rulers in order that what's the result we want?

We may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity. That's still in view.

That is still contextually where we are at when we get to verse four. And we see this beautiful unfolding of God's desire for the salvation of men.

So now, with that, just as one last reminder as our backdrop, as our contextual set, to what end are our prayers for these civil leaders for?

To what end are we hoping for? What is the ultimate end that we desire and, according to Paul here, that God desires for those civil rulers to find themselves in?

Again, are we simply praying for the Lord to bless these people, the people that are in power?

Are we simply praying that God will make them think like we think? Is that the point of these prayers?

Are we simply praying that God may legislate, or, excuse me, that he may lead them to legislate in a way that we want them to legislate?

Is that kind of what we would reduce these prayers to?

And, of course, what's interesting about it is that if we're talking about Christian constituents here, in our context here in the

United States, so we are a considerable voting bloc. The evangelical voting bloc still carries a lot of weight, a lot of power, and that's by God's grace.

And we pray that that voting bloc eventually dwarfs all of them and maybe even absorbs all of them.

I mean, that's the great hope, that we are a Christian nation once again. But if you're talking about the

Christian constituents in the United States here, what's interesting about all of those questions

I just asked and what is in view in this passage is that there is one singular end that would envelop all of the things

I just mentioned, them legislating the way we want them to legislate, them thinking the way that we think, them being blessed the way that we would like the

Lord to bless them. There's one singular end that would encapsulate all of that kind of in one fell swoop.

And what is it? Their salvation. The salvation of these men, the salvation of these politicians.

And so connect this now to this verse that we come upon that is so grossly abused in soteriological debates used as a proof text to prove the extent of the atonement or something like that.

What is Paul talking about? He's talking about civil rulers, and he's talking about God's desire for His people to pray for their salvation so that we can live in the blessedness of a

Christian nation. Connect all this to verse 4. He will have all men to be saved and to come into the knowledge of the truth.

We've already defined what Paul means by all. Y 'all remember that a number of weeks ago? We did our lesson, one important lesson in the way you interpret

Scripture, the way you read it, is that you allow the context to define the meaning of the word.

All words have a semantic domain. They have a range of use. The word all or pos here can mean two things, and it can mean two things as equally as the other.

It can mean all as in the whole, the totality of something, or it can mean types from a whole, parts of a whole.

How do you know? How do you know which one? Well, it's the same way you do it in English, the same way you read an author when you're reading a novel or you're reading history or some form of nonfiction.

You would assume that those authors would hope you are reading their work with the intent they had, not with some weird thing you're importing into it.

You didn't write the book, they did. Well, if that's true for your everyday run -of -the -mill author, you certainly know that that should be the case with God's book.

You read it based upon His intent. And, of course, what's so amazing about the

Bible, unlike any other book, is that you have the intent of the author or penman, such as the

Apostle Paul, but where did his intent come from? The moving of the Holy Spirit. So you have a dual intent.

You have an apostolic intent, but that is inspired by the

Spirit Himself. And so we have to define words based upon the context in which all of this is delivered.

And we've already determined, based upon verse 2, how you define this particular word.

What is he talking about? He's talking about a multitude of civil classes. The salvation of God does not discriminate upon social class.

He doesn't only want to save the poor and to save the needy, but He also wants to save some out of the highest classes of the political sphere.

Kings, social rulers, and things like that. So we've already determined what Paul means by all.

So when you get to verse 4 and you say, who will have all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth, who's he talking about?

Paul is telling Christians that it is good or morally right, in verse 3, in the sight of God to pray for all men, including kings, including civil rulers.

And if I could just park here one more time, this is somewhat beating a dead horse, but it is an important one.

It was already tough for Jews to believe the Gentiles could be saved, even the good ones. Even Anna and Simeon may have taken issue with how exactly will this work.

We know that God is powerful enough to do it. We've read the prophecy of Jonah.

We know that Nebuchadnezzar and that Cyrus and some of these men could have a changed heart.

But collectively, I mean, come on, how could this work? There's a very distinct lineage, ethnic lineage of God's people throughout all of history up to this point.

How is this going to work? It was already hard for them to understand that. But you know what else was even harder, just to add to it, is that at this point in history, the

Jews had zero civil rulers. All of their civil rulers were Roman. All of their civil rulers were pagan, 100 % of them.

And so if it was hard to understand how God could save a Gentile, imagine how hard it would be to understand how

God could save a pagan king, an emperor, a pagan civil magistrate.

And so this is why Paul is kind of harping on this, and he will continue to harp on it for another few verses.

When we get to verse 6, he talks about the ransom, the ransom of Jesus Christ with regard to these civil rulers.

He was trying to reshape the mind of first century Christians who were predominantly Jewish on knowing that God's salvation was not discriminant based upon social class.

He would even save rulers, and more importantly than that, he would save Gentile rulers. And that was absolutely, that was revolutionary to a degree.

And so Paul tells Christians here that it is good, it is morally right in the sight of God to pray for all men.

This includes kings, it includes pagan civil rulers, because God will what? Verse 4, he will have, or another way you could translate this, or desire to have all men to be saved and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.

Now it goes without saying, both logically and theologically here, that God desires civil rulers to be

Christian. That is what's in view here. This is not a proof text for the extent of the atonement, whether it be universalism over limited atonement.

That is not what Paul is concerned about in any way, shape, or form. He's letting us know that God desires for our civil rulers to be saved, to be

Christian, so that we can live in a Christian nation and raise our kids and our grandkids in an environment that will protect them, that will allow them to be godly and have dignity, as he said in verse 2.

That will allow them to live in a way that, rather than being concerned about persecution, they're concerned about how to build generational wealth.

That is something that our forefathers did not have the luxury to do. Including, in many cases, the

Christians Paul is talking to through Timothy here. And so what Paul is talking about is that this desire that God has, this will that God has, is toward the salvation of, yes, the full spectrum of people with regard to social class, not the least of which the rulers whose influence trickles down to every other social class.

So imagine this. You have a good and moral and just political sphere with men like George Washington, with all of the men that surround it, with men like John Witherspoon.

And what happens when they are put in the positions of highest power? That influence, that moral influence trickles down to the common man.

And then all of the sudden, verse 4 really blossoms. Because when he says he will desire to have all men, or based upon the context, all types of men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth, he's talking about everyone from the

George Washington down to the Miller down the street, down to the shoe cobbler down the street, the men that are plowing the fields and that have the toughest, most laborious jobs out there that, of course, the country would be built upon.

Salvation came to all of them without discrimination of social class. And this is an amazing grace to everybody.

And so what Paul is saying here, what is in view, is that God desires civil rulers to be

Christians. God doesn't want, He doesn't desire. And remember, there's a theological distinction between His decree and His desires, that which

He wants, that which is consistent with His Word. He doesn't want us to be under the rule of secularist politicians.

Again, you can read both Testaments and you see exactly what He desires in the sense of the environment

He wants His people to be in. But there's contingencies there. The will of man is a contingency. If we decide to elect secularists,

He's going to give us secularists. That's what He did, but that doesn't mean He wants it in the sense of, that's

His preference for His people. He wants His people to have the blessing and the grace of being under Christian leaders.

And that's why we pray for it. That's why we pray for it. And so He desires them to be Christian.

He desires them to know the truth. And we can think about that on the individual level.

Obviously, you could start naming names all the way down, every politician by name, and say, we pray for the salvation of this person.

So you could get down on the individual level. But in this context, why does He want it?

In the broad context of this passage, why does God desire for the salvation of these kings, of these civil rulers?

It's because by knowing the truth, the civil rulers will help the church practice all godliness and dignity.

Going back to verse 2. We said this last week, and we have to throw this qualifier in, because we've seen men abuse this as well.

We're not talking about an integralist society here, like the Catholics had in the Dark Ages, where it's the church and the government as one thing, essentially, and then egregious persecution can take place in that context.

So it took place under the pagan rule before Constantine. Constantine came on the picture.

And that was a grace in and of itself, because it protected Christians largely for a century, for a long time, maybe multiple centuries.

But then you get to the Dark Ages and the Middle Ages, and you start to see a new form of abuse take shape, and that was that integralization of government and church.

The Bible makes it clear that while Jesus is Lord over both, they are distinct. Romans 13 has civil magistrates in view.

The pastoral epistles, when it comes to practice, has the church in view. So the Lord is the

Lord over both, but they are distinct, and the Reformers, of course, are what brought the world back to this understanding.

Sphere sovereignty was one of the great teachings of the Reformation. And so when we say here that if we have a

Christian nation or that we have moral Christian leaders, that they can help the church practice godliness and dignity, that's not to say that those spheres are now combined.

It's simply to say that when they legislate based upon God's Word and not based upon the ever -changing social or situational ethics of the age, that will help

Christians. That will help Christians grow. It will put them in a position to thrive. That's what we mean here.

The spheres are still distinct, even in this particular case. And so amazingly, and I'll kind of try to wrap this up and leave some time for thoughts if y 'all have any, but amazingly, the whole thrust of this passage that is otherwise, like I mentioned earlier, just completely thrashed for the sake of proof -texting other doctrinal theories that aren't even in view here, this isn't a passage that was intended by the

Apostle Paul or by the Holy Spirit to teach the extent of the atonement. There are passages that talk about it, some beautiful ones, especially in Hebrews 7, but many places, this isn't one of them.

This isn't one of the places where the atonement is in view or the extent of it. This is a passage that was written to show that God's will for government is for them to be a

Christian so that His people may live in peace. That's what Paul is talking about. And it's important for us to remember that for a number of reasons.

Number one, when we see this passage being thrown into some sort of debate upon who all is saved or who isn't saved or whatever it may be, and this text becomes in view, we can be prepared to say, well, hold on a second.

I'm not saying there aren't good verses for us to contemplate and wrestle with, but I don't think this is one of them, and here's why.

So that's one good reason to keep the context of this passage sharply in view. But it's also important for us to be reminded and to be encouraged by what

God's desires are, not just for His people, but the nations that His people live in, the societies that His people find themselves in by His sovereign will.

And so these are very, very important things. He wants His people to live in peace. Now, I have one last thought

I'd like to share, and then next week we'll hone in. We're still not done with Paul's argument here, but verse 5 is really interesting, and I want to make sure we have plenty of time to talk about it.

For today, let me end with this thought. In John 17, verse 9, this is Jesus' high priestly prayer.

This is Him going to the Father prior to His execution, and it's one of the most enlightening, illuminating, deep passages in all

Scripture. The entire chapter is a prayer from the Son to the

Father. Absolutely unreal. And in verse 9 of that chapter, Jesus says this,

I pray for them, talking about His disciples. I pray not for the world, but for them which

Thou hast given Me, for they are Thine. So we have to ask ourselves a question here. Is Paul disagreeing with Jesus' sentiment here with regard to not praying for the world, where Paul is now saying, no, we need to pray for the unbelieving civil magistrates that they may come to a knowledge of Jesus Christ?

And, of course, there's zero contradiction. I want to bring it up, just in case you'll ever read this passage, with the study we just talked about in minor, like, wait a second, that something doesn't add up.

Jesus is not contradicting Paul here, or vice versa. What Jesus is saying in this particular verse is that He doesn't desire the world to find success on the world's terms.

He doesn't want society or government or just culture in general to find success in any way on its own terms.

He wants fruitfulness, and He wants progress, and He wants true, genuine growth to be found on His Father's terms only.

Now, that's just one piece of what is in view with regard to Jesus' words here, but that is one of the pieces.

And so there's no contradiction between Jesus saying, I pray not for the world, and then Paul telling us to pray for the unbelieving magistrates.

Jesus is simply saying, I do not want the world to feel like they are going to be able to achieve heaven outside of Your will,

My Father. He's basically saying, I do not pray for those who desire a tower of Babel that they can build to reach the heavens based upon their own strength.

I pray for Your will to be done, and I pray for Your people, the disciples You have given Me. So there's no contradiction there, and I just wanted to throw that out there in case you'll ever have that thought when you're going between those passages.

So with that being said, we'll end there today. We have about five minutes left. Let me just read verses 5 through 7 so you can get the rest of the argument here, but we'll dive into this deeper next week.

For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God, that's verse 3, God our Savior, who will have all men to be saved and to come into the knowledge of the truth, for there is one

God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man, Jesus Christ.

And we're going to spend some time on that next week. Who gave Himself a ransom for all to be testified in due time, whereunto

I am ordained a preacher and an apostle. I speak the truth in Christ, and lie not, a teacher of the

Gentiles in faith and verity. And so there's kind of the full sweep of Paul's argument from verses 1 through 7 there, and some really amazing stuff.

Verse 5 backs up the assertion that this is not a passage with regard to universalism, because we're talking about Jesus as Mediator.

Who does He mediate for? We're going to answer that question next week. And verse 5 is also a fantastic proof of the deity of Christ as well, and we'll show how that's the case next week too.

Do you all have any thoughts or anything you'd like to share before we close out today? Yes sir, go ahead.

Take a look at anything that ends up with a word.

For instance, it's a great thought. Saul was starting persecution, and those who were spreading the word started scattering and so forth.

But develop a lot later, a lot, lot later, and I'm thinking of Eleanor Fox's book of murder.

We have Tyndale on his burning at the stake, praying for Henry VIII.

You know, Heavenly Father God, please open the eyes of the king.

And I read on Wikipedia right now, four years later, there were copies, there were translations that were being approved by that same king.

Tyndale. By Tyndale's death, then only four years later,

English copies are being approved of. It's not the same necessarily by the time of King James, that's another 80 years to go.

But somebody's prayer, even on their death, even through their murder, you can still be praying that this civil magistrate, this...

I mean, Henry is a confused individual, to say the least.

Catholic, Protestant, Protestant, secular, secular, Protestant, Catholic, nothing. Make my own religion.

And God worked in him. That final prayer, Fox's book is correct, but that gets answered.

It's 500 years now from the time of approaching, but 500 years since Tyndale's death,

English is commonly the translations of Bibles nowadays.

So think of that. That's a terrific example, Robert. I appreciate you bringing that to light.

It's a wonderful historical example of a Christian being obedient to the passage we're reading all the way to the point of death, and that prayer being answered, even when he didn't get to see the answer.

Now, he did get to see it from heaven. But the point being is there will be times where our prayers in this realm, in the realm we live in now, we may not see the fruit of it, but that doesn't mean the fruit isn't there or won't be there, and such was the case with Tyndale.

His prayer for the king, the highest rank of civil magistrate, and his prayer was answered, and the

Word of God, and his translation of the Word of God began to reform.

I mean, he was a proto -reformer. It was much because of men like Tyndale and Huss and guys like that that the reformers had some shoulders to stand on when it came to, one, having a desire to go back to the original languages.

One of the—what is the word

I'm looking for? Not motives, but like sayings.

One of the sayings of the Reformation was the Latin term ad fontes, which means back to the sources. And the

Catholic church, of course, had reined everything in to that Catholic umbrella and that Latin umbrella to the point where Latin, being functionally a dead language, no one could read it, no one could read the

Word of God. And, of course, Mass was Latin. And so your people going to Mass to hear the

Word preached in Latin that they didn't understand. And now the reformers spoke Latin, and they continued to use

Latin. And there was still a good use for it, even beyond the Reformation. But they had this desire, ad fontes, back to the sources.

They wanted to know Hebrew. They wanted to know Greek. Because then they—and by the way, this is how Luther discovered that, wait a second, it's not due penance.

It's repentance. We're not supposed to crawl on our knees up steps, bleeding and self -flagellating in these things.

It's not about that. It's about repentance. And it's because he went back to the Greek, not the Latin. And so that return to those original languages was a huge part of the

Reformation. The reason I bring that up is because Tyndale beat them to it. He was a proto -reformer.

He was already doing that. And he was killed early, quote -unquote, before he could go to the

Hebrew, to the Old Testament. It was predominantly the New Testament. And so the reformers picked up where he left off.

And we have guys like Erasmus that later came and gave us his Greek text, and Stephanas, and Beza, and all these wonderful guys.

And then you get later all of that in English too. It's just really amazing stuff.

But anyway, we will end there for today. I see some folks waiting in the back. And then we'll pick this up next week.

Heavenly Father, thank You so much for this wonderful day. Thank You for bringing us together, for giving us yet another opportunity to abide in Your Word together and to share what it has to say to us, what it has to say to our spirits, to encourage us, to give us everything we need to light our path, and to stay encouraged even when we may find ourselves in certain points in history where we look around and we're surrounded by civil leaders that are godless.

We're surrounded by fellow citizens that are godless. What do you do with that?

The Apostle Paul tells us to pray, and that with that prayer comes power, and that the

Lord can turn whole nations around through the instrument of His people, praying, sharing the

Word, proclaiming the Gospel unashamedly and standing for truth, even when the majority or the consensus opinion is contra that truth.

We thank You so much that Your Word, as it unfolds, gives us the strength and the encouragement we need to be reminded of that so that we can press on.

We ask that You continue to be with us, be with the remainder of our services here in just a moment, and we ask all these things in the name of Your Son.

Amen. Yes, sir. Oh, sure.

Absolutely. There were even some kings of Israel that weren't too hot, but they were still doing some things that were ultimately good for God's people.

Yeah, but Pharaoh's a great example of it. And then, of course, in the case of Nebuchadnezzar, he was just as bad as Pharaoh, but he actually got saved.