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Bro. Otis Fisher
We do nothing but by the power of Jesus Christ.
Nothing. If you think that if I don't do this, it won't get done, you see, it's
God's work, therefore it shall be done. And if we are to do it, so much better.
We will do it if it's our job, even though we don't know it. 1
Timothy 2, verse 1. Some question?
2 Timothy. What'd I say? What? Well, I was just checking.
2 Timothy 2, verse 1. Now, does that tie it down?
Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
If you think that you can grit your teeth, go out and live the Christian life on your own, you're in for a big disappointment.
You won't live it on your own, even though you think you are. It's not a few rules and gimmicks.
There's no tricks to go by or you might do on your own.
Rather, we are to live by the grace of God and be strong in that grace. And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also.
Wherever you go, whatever you do, try to find a group of faithful people that you can teach the truth to, because they'll in turn teach it to others.
Do not waste your time on those who do not want to study. Thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
This reference really implies a change of position and a voluntary change in life.
A soldier must stand. He has to stand his ground. He has to take orders.
He has to march when he is ordered to, to give action when ordered.
No man that warreth entangled himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.
Are there any Christians that are not chosen to be a soldier for that luxury?
But a great many of them are trying to fight the Christian battle and at the same time take care of their own business.
The Christian life is not a playground. It is a battlefield.
And if a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned except he strive lawfully?
The only exercise some people get is running down friends, sidestepping responsibilities, and jumping to conclusions.
The method that we obtain the end is as important and maybe more so than the end.
The husbandman that laboreth must be first partakers of the fruits. Don't plant a shuck.
How many know what a shuck is? What is it?
All right. Don't plant that. It's the fruit that sustains you.
Consider what I say. And the Lord give thee understanding in all things.
Now, he asks for us to have understanding in everything. Now, that's not everything in the wide world.
It's everything that I need to know. Develop the habit of understanding clearly which you read or say.
Don't change the facts any. Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised up from the dead according to my gospel.
We need to exercise our memory. That's why I ask so many questions. One of the reasons. I want you to learn to think.
Every sermon should have the five R's. Ruined by the fall.
Redemption by Christ. The three R's. Regenerated by the
Holy Spirit. So, ruined, redemption, and regeneration.
Wherein I suffer trouble as the evil doer, even unto bonds, but the word of God is not bound.
Paul was accused of being a troublemaker. If he comes into your church, said that he would tear it up.
He'll convince you to believe in sovereignty. He'll teach you to believe that once you're saved, you're always saved.
Well, I need to remember that they're talking against Jesus Christ, not you.
Therefore, I endure all things for the elect's sake, that they may also obtain the salvation, which is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory.
Have you been in trouble lately for your stand on the word? Answer that to yourself.
We're not suffering for and with Christ if we are not in Christ.
You must be in the way. We're not suffering with Christ if the suffering is brought on by our sins.
We need to learn the difference between suffering because of sins and suffering because of the cause of Christ.
True suffering must have praise to the praise of his glory as its true end.
It is a faithful saying, for if we be dead with him, we shall also live with him.
If he lives, so do we. If we suffer, we shall also reign with him.
If we deny him, he also will deny us. Philippians 129, for unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake.
We are to suffer. It's been given to us. If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful.
He cannot deny himself. We do not have to understand things that occur in our life.
Our believing, it doesn't make it so.
Isaiah 55, 11, so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth.
It shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereunto
I send it. The words that are from God.
Of these things put them in remembrance, charging them before the
Lord, that they strive not about the words to do no profit, but to the subverting of the hearers.
Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman, that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
David, what does it mean to study to show thyself? Me? How do you do that?
That's true. If a person studies the holy word and never learns anything, chances are he's not a child of God.
God will not show himself nor reveal his mind to the unsafe.
Just know that with assurance. He's not going to explain to the foreigners.
Well, that's true. But there are those that study it for the wrong reason. I know a man at home where I grew up that's about Catholic.
He didn't know the Bible. Well, he did know the Bible as literature, and he would argue with you on any point.
He could go to the Bible and build caves. That's the kind of man that studies for the wrong reason.
But shun profane and vain babblings, for they will increase unto more ungodly.
The more you stand around with the wrong type of people, the more you'll become one of them.
Satan uses the nibbling process, just a little bit here and a little bit there.
Very soon it gets to be a bigger bite and then a bigger bite. The word babbling is one, there was a bird named that, but it's one who picks up bits and pieces of things and sells them.
Today we call them an antique dealer. Small talk that's full of silent praise.
And their word will eat as doth a canker, or of whom is
Hymenaeus and Theletus. Now, a canker, it will eat as a canker does.
Clarence, what is a canker? A canker.
All right. Any sore that eats away at the flesh.
Who concerning the truth have urged, saying that the resurrection is past already, and so the faith of some?
Or that you must be baptized? Or you must partake of the
Lord's supper? Or some other such thing? The Bible doesn't teach that at all.
Nevertheless, the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, the
Lord knoweth them that are his, and let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.
I think it'd be a good idea if there was tax on gold sermons. Never fear the
Lord, knows those are his, before you were his, before you knew him.
But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth, and some to honor and some to dishonor.
Imagine you're walking across the desert, and you see in the far distance what you think is a water hole, and the closer you get to it, the more it looks like it.
You're parched, you're dying of thirst, and you find beside this water hole two cups.
One is the gold, a highly decorated one, but it's dirty. The old cup there is made of crockery, but it's clean.
Which of the two would you drink out of? The clean cup.
Now give God as much intelligence as you have, he would use the old cracked crock.
What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endureth with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath, fitted to destruction, and that he might make known the riches of his glory, on the vessels of mercy which he had aforeprepared unto glory.
Some of these vessels, let's look at some that the
Lord knows, but in this great house of his there's vessels of gold, some of silver, some of less, some to honor, some to dishonor.
David, what is this honor and dishonor? All right.
Some of silver, some of gold, others of wood, some of earth, dirt, clay, some to honor, some to dishonor.
All in the house of God. If a man, therefore, purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, and meet for the master's use, and prepared unto every good work.
In this world there are saved and unsaved. Among the saved there are zealots and lazy people.
Maybe too many, but some are lazy. We're to separate ourselves spiritually from the unsaved, and we're to try to instruct the lazy.
Cleanse yourself from what is unclean. Those who separate themselves from the contact with contamination and corruption influences will then be himself a vessel for honorable use.
I need to stop here. We'll start with verse 22. Greg, would you dismiss this, please?