June 18, 2017 PM Service: Timothy’s Charge, Paul’s Warning by Pastor Josh Sheldon

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June 18, 2017 PM Service: Timothy’s Charge, Paul’s Warning I Timothy 1:18-20 Pastor Josh Sheldon

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First Timothy chapter 1 and we will set ourselves to verses 18 through 20 here
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Timothy's charge Paul's warning a charge to the young man
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Timothy at the church in Ephesus and a warning to young Timothy of the dangers
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That are inherent in some of the errors that he has been set there charged to refute
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Timothy 1 beginning at verse 18 this charge I instruct to you I Entrust to you
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Timothy, excuse me. Let me start again this charge I entrust to you Timothy my child in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you
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That by them you may wage the good warfare holding faith and a good conscience By rejecting this some have made shipwreck of their faith among whom are
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Himenaeus and Alexander Whom I've handed over to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme
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So Timothy's charge here includes this warning. It's a warning that he take personal care of his own conscience
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He has to take personal care of his own conscience Holding faith this is to him holding faith and a good conscience
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You know minister Cannot do his task. He cannot expect to have the expectation of God's hand of approval
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God's pleasure upon his work Except for this that he looks to his own conscience
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Spurgeon used to say that a man could not preach a text until that text has really grabbed him until that text which he would
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Presume to preach to a congregation has done violence to his own soul
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Here Paul says something rather similar to the great preachers counsel he says
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Timothy I Trust you with this charge In accordance with prophecies previously made about you
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Holding the faith and a good conscience Two examples of the dread consequences
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Consequences of laziness in this regard are cited Himenaeus and Alexander and seemingly these two took no care of their own conscience and Consequently were shipwrecked in their faith
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So Paul's charge to Timothy is to protect the church against incursions by false teachers
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It's going to include men whose gospel is Simply not the gospel of the Bible or it could be men who so twist the sacred word that it sounds like the true gospel
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But it leads others astray from it It beckons others to follow into what turns out to be
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Well to use the words here a shipwrecked faith So this charge
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I entrust you Timothy charge is a military term it has to do with the transmission of orders
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They had to be repeated exactly they had to be followed to the letter if an army was for example
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Supposed to concentrate itself at a particular place and march out at a particular time against a particular formation of the enemy
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Well every commander had to get the orders exactly Lest a small group would march out
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Unsupported by the others and get wiped out and in piecemeal an army destroyed. No, it was a charge
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To the messengers from the general the commander of the army a charge and this was something had to be repeated
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Exactly time and time again to each commander of each group so that they all moved in Accordance with the leader the generals desire and his plan
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Every word conveyed fully and precisely And that's the word that Paul uses
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To Timothy when he charges him this military word this military word, which means you need to repeat it
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Exactly you need to repeat it precisely you need to give the right instruction so that this unit
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Which is of course the church at Ephesus then the church at Providence Today that this church moves in one direction
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Towards a single goal in accordance with the leader the generals instruction Jesus it was entrusted to him
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Now as if having a military term used doesn't put enough pressure on young Timothy Timothy you need to repeat this exactly you cannot make any errors.
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No mistakes allowed here If that's not enough It's entrusted to him this commercial term that has to do with leaving a deposit with someone and this guardian
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This one the deposit is left with has a special fiduciary responsibility To guard and to protect the assets left in his care
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There's a lot of responsibility a lot of pressure It's a huge responsibility, and it should be a lot of pressure
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We know that we do it by we've submitting ourselves to the power of the Lord There's a spirit working through us that it is
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God who's building up this church. That's what Jesus says I will build my church. It is he who's doing it by and through us and yet let us not
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Make light of the fact that there is pressure here. There is a sacred charge There is an entrustment of this gospel to be repeated correctly
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In all sorts of contexts in all sorts of places wherever this gospel is preached
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That the gospel is accurately and rightly preached Paul didn't just hand this off to him casually like okay emphasis
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Who wants to do this so who lead this so I have any volunteers okay you fine
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No, it was nothing like that We spoke about this before but let's remind ourselves that Paul had known
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Timothy for a long time we read of him meeting Timothy and the whole family back in Acts chapter 16 and There it seems that Paul stayed with the family for a long time.
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He got to know them rather well rather intimately Excuse me Timothy seems to have proven himself to have been to be a faithful man of the gospel one who took instruction
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Well one who implemented the doctrines that he was taught He proved himself conscientious in keeping to the apostolic teaching
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Paul was through experience with him able to see that what he told Timothy Resulted in words that Timothy used to say here's the apostolic instructions it with quotes were repeated every word
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No he told people this is what Paul said and he applied it to them and Paul was satisfied that this application was a correct and an accurate application of the gospel
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Rightly given to the people he had proven himself He showed himself to be conscientious in keeping to this he understood the gravity of his charge and the need to deliver it it of course being the gospel and The charge to deliver it over and again accurately to the congregation
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You know pastors today Are really no less responsible to proclaim fully the same gospel that was entrusted to Timothy You know we all know that that grade schooler game where you line up a bunch of kids
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What are they third fourth grade and you give the one at the beginning a simple sentence? Like cows like to swim in the
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Red Ocean Something like that it can't be can't make too much sense It's got to be a little bit nonsensical cows like to swim in the
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Red Ocean And by time it gets to kid number we only need about dozen kids I Can't even imagine what would be by the time you get there, but it has no semblance at all to cows like to sleep
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To swim in the Red Ocean It's a fun game. I have all adults here
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I'm almost all adults if we lined up right now And I gave the first guy a sentence by time you got to the double doors back there I Can almost guarantee you it would make no sense?
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But it's not a game that we play here It's the gospel of the
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Lord Jesus Christ Salvation in him the faith that we must have in the work that he did on the cross that is being
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Proclaimed and repeated here time and time again It wasn't just Paul the great and bold church founder who had this high opinion of Timothy We told
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Timothy cows like to swim in Red Oceans and over and over again Timothy would tell the car the the congregation that but of course not that Jesus Christ came to save sinners of whom
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I am the chief the gospel message he it wasn't just Paul though who had this opinion of Timothy as one who was
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Faithful to give the accurate gospel over again the church There's some church.
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We don't know which was but there was a church that confirmed Timothy and all this He is here in these verses reminded of prophecies made about him first Timothy 414
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He's further instructed do not neglect the gift you have which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders
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And that's what I mean, but some church We don't know where it was But some church a council of elders leaders of that church council of elders laid their hands on you
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You see the church as a body saw and confirmed his giftedness
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Perhaps a prophet made a singular declaration declaration of God's will for Timothy And there are those who think prophecy ended with the close of the canon
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And they will argue here that this was necessary then because the sheer newness of the gospel
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Meant that there was no time for a man to be tested in that gospel In fact at the time that first Timothy was written or chapter 3 tells us the qualifications for elder elders pastors deacons
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At the time it was written in the early 60s the New Testament wasn't yet complete so there was no full body of revelation to test a man against yet Now those who say the prophecies have ended would say
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That they ended when the scripture was complete and so the revelation of God was complete
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So in that sense God would designate his ministers by name as In Acts chapter 13 with Barnabas and Paul where the
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Holy Spirit said set these two aside to me for the work. I have for them Later with the scripture complete men could look to the scripture to find
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God's will for who was to lead any particular and discreet body Those who believe prophecy continues have in their favor the plain meaning of the text was text which states the case very matter -of -factly
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This gift was given to you by prophecy by the laying on of hands In either case and we're not really going to argue for either one here this afternoon
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My purpose only to acknowledge that there are true brethren who might have differing views here And this is one place where they could take some support depending on how you look at it
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The indication that we have here the important point for us here this afternoon is that they confirmed
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The giftedness that he had It was a collective wisdom and experience of the church confirming his talents in his commitment to the
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Lord and the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ As we noted last week even
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Paul retained his core personality his latent talents when he went from Pharisee to apostle
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God didn't give him new talents so much as he sanctified and redirected what he already had and So I would suggest with Timothy But that by confirmation this laying on of hands as this
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Council of Elders at this church who had experience with Timothy the way Paul did Said yes,
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Timothy. We see these gifts in you And so the
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Charter Paul gives Timothy to guard against and expunge falsity from the church What met with his skills?
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Whether those skills were innate or divinely conferred upon him at whatever that ceremony was with the
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Council of Elders That's for another day The fact of the matter is Timothy had these skills
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And he employed them for long enough for the church and for Paul to see them and trust him with greater and greater responsibility there's another military term that comes to bear here and It's one that we come across a metaphorical kind of description of the
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Christian life that we come across often He tells Timothy wage the good warfare
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Wage the good warfare So make no make no mistake Christian If you are in Jesus Christ You have a terrible enemy
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And we know who that is If you are in Jesus Christ, you are in a war
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You just give a couple of passages here Ephesians 6 12 we do not wrestle against flesh and blood
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But against the rulers against the authorities against the cosmic powers over this present darkness
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Against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places 2nd
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Corinthians chapter 10 verses 4 through 6 for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh
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But have divine power to destroy strongholds We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey
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Christ Being ready to punish every disobedience when your obedience is complete so this warfare metaphor
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This pictorial language of the violence of the spiritual struggle is many places in the scripture but Timothy's immediate campaign
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Is Not the men mentioned in verse 20 hymenaeus and Alexander The first attention the first warfare the first combat.
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He's to enter into is who? Himself Keeping the faith and a good conscience.
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I believe this is him Timothy's initial initial engagement in his warfare is himself
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Jesus teaching about specks and logs keeps coming up doesn't it? I mean it must seem that I study sometimes no other passage than specks and logs
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But the principle does keep coming up in Scripture like forgiveness all a pastor has to do is keep working through the
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Bible in any kind of successive passage and this is one of the Subjects that's going to come up a lot forgiveness over and over specks and logs and what is the problem with going to a brother or a sister who's got that speck that little thing in their
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Eye, and you've got this log in your own eye that you're leaving there In a word hypocrisy, and we all know how the
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Lord feels like about that So what's the idea here before Timothy?
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With all his recommendations with all the affirmations of this Council of Elders the Apostle Paul himself
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Before he goes bludgeoning the erring teachers Where does he look?
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Look to your own soul Good exercise for any of us Look to your own soul first Let us be sure of our own conscience before we rebuke another let our motives be laid bare before God a wit a word
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Fitly spoken can do great good like apples of gold and settings of silver as Solomon says in the proverb
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Words can also do great harm so much so that Jesus can accuse us of murder because of the damage our words can do to others and How is this how does
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James answer it? Is it not this that your passions are at war within you So take careful note brothers and sisters in the
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Lord The fight is not good if the conscience is bad
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If our consciences are not clean, then the battle is ours and not the Lord's If the conscience is not clean if we have not done business before the
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Lord Before we go rebuking others Then I think we're proceeding on our own and in our own flesh and not bathed in prayer and submission to the
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Lord and his spirit and then after this the charge the entrustment to Timothy The warning to take care to his own faith his own conscience.
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Then finally we have the false ones names We've named them already him Anais and Alexander We began this letter a few weeks ago, we found that they taught that the law was a means of grace on That error we learned of early on here.
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We're not going to repeat it here very much It's like the Judaizer invaders in the Galatian Church.
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They sought to reintroduce that which exhausted its purposes, which is law As if that weren't enough to become the subject of the
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Apostles charge To Timothy in 2nd Timothy, we read even more error that these men would bring
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It tells Timothy in 2nd Timothy chapter 2 verse 16 Avoid irreverent babble for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness and their talk will spread like gangrene
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Among them are him Anais the same him Anais we have in chapter 1 of 1st Timothy among them are him
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Anais and Philetus Who have swerved from the truth saying that the resurrection has already happened
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They are upsetting the faith of some so on the one hand in 1st
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Timothy This teaching of the law as this means of grace this means of growth
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The law had a purpose the law had a good and holy and right purpose from God to show us our sin
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To show us the sheer hopelessness of doing anything about becoming the righteousness of God by obedience to the law
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Because by the works of the flesh no no human being shall be justified as what Paul says in Romans, so that was an error
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Here this other one. They're saying that the resurrections already happened You know we have a movement like this today.
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Have you heard of something called preterism? There are different gradations of preterism you have partial preterism you have full preterism you have preterism with a few caveats
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You have preterism with a small p Preterism Its premise is that the
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Bible was fulfilled. It was completely fulfilled in AD 70 That was the time when the
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Roman legions came and finally destroyed the temple leaving only the Western Wall What today is called the
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Wailing Wall? That wall still exists still there in Jerusalem that famous place that holy site in Judaism is
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The only thing left after the Roman legions came in 70 AD and preterism will tell you
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The preteristic viewpoint is that that was the end that was the fulfillment of everything in the
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Bible it all stops there And it goes so far as to say that that was the
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Lord's promised return Now I believe if you read the Olivet Discourse That Jesus came on the clouds at the head of those legions that he sent because all things are of God and within his will
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That's a metaphorical way He's going to come again as we picture in Revelation on the white charger with the sword of the
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Word of God coming out of his mouth as he destroys God's enemies But preterism says no, it's all over and it goes so far as to say that 70
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AD was also the resurrection and That the believers resurrection is over And how they can say this without calling themselves blasphemers
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I don't know, but it's as bad as what hymenaeus and philatess taught there in Ephesus These are not just words undoubtedly these men were impressive they're eloquent they were persuasive
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They were believable and they did for others what they had done for themselves They upset their faith.
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They caused people to doubt Jesus words that he would come for us as he promises so many times
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You know there's a difference between this and an error Preachers are men who can make mistakes a good man can at best hope those mistakes are few and not devastating
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Even while applying hard steady and good skill we still make errors all of us do these men though they're guilty of something more a
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Willful mistake they knew what Paul had taught and they intentionally presented something else
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We need to note carefully that Paul says they rejected the very things he tells
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Timothy to protect faith and conscience They rejected this and so his shipwrecked their faith
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These are precious prizes bestowed upon the Christian by God Faith is a gift as is a clean conscience which comes because of the faith the clean conscience which knows that our sins have been answered by Jesus Christ and Therefore we can stand before God with a clean conscience because when he looks our conscience
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It's not the deeds of the last moment, which certainly were sinful It's Jesus Christ in his atoning death for us that God sees so our consciences are clean
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In chapter 4 verse 2 Paul will write about consciences that have been seared Cauterized and by that made hard as flint in their ability to resist the pricks of conscience
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To Titus he will write about consciences that have been defiled Which I think is much the same thing defile cauterized just kind of get used to sin
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Get used to doing things this way get to the point. You just don't even notice it anymore
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Your conscience is a delicate and a valuable thing It's a gift it can incur great damage from seemingly innocuous things a word of doubt here a discouraging word over there an eloquent
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Persuasive man telling you all the Lord's returned the resurrections over now let's worship
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Jesus and look forward to his coming again, or I don't know how they would do it and Stirs up the faith of some in the wrong way making them doubt
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Making them so they're not looking forward to the Lord's coming that glorious return that we spoke of early this morning
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Now a good conscience is a valuable And precious thing purchase we could say at the cost of Christ's death on the cross
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Where we get this clean conscience this one that he's told to protect to watch over Faith is as simple as that clean conscience from faith as I've said and it's something to be guarded something to be protected and nurtured
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We need to remind ourselves at what cost our conscience was cleansed Which is the blood of Jesus Christ?
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We need to remember always this price that was paid In order that we could have a clean conscience between no less than God Almighty And what was that price?
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This is what we come for in the afternoon here I point to the elements the broken bread the wine
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The broken bread showing the torture that Jesus were reminding us of the torture that Jesus endured in his body his body broken
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For you the wine which reminds us of his blood his life poured out
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For sinners like you and me and all this Among the many benefits that accrue to us because of the faith that we have and what he did and what these elements represent a clean conscience
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The same that took Timothy is told to fight the good warfare Hold the faith hold your good conscience.
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It's a warfare. It's a battle. It's a struggle all the time Watch your conscience
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Don't let it be defiled. Don't take sin lightly Because every time we sin
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Knowing we sin and get away with it We became we become just a little less sure about God's displeasure in it
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Don't we we come a little bit better at justifying it rationalizing and finding our excuses We start saying more and more often.
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Well, I only did this because you and then fill in the blank I think that's one of the danger signals we have that we're failing to do exactly what
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Paul tells Timothy do here Wage the good warfare holding faith and a good conscience
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We can add To the idea that this is warfare that is warfare of the most desperate sort
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You to remind yourself Christian that you've been cleansed You need to remind yourself that the blood of Jesus is powerful to forgive sins even now when the
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Holy Spirit pricks your conscience about something fight the good warfare and Fall down and submit to him fall to your knees and confess and thank
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God for showing you just how easily We can wander away Him and ace and Alexander Rejected the value of faith and the gift of a clean conscience
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Now I doubt very much that they announced it like this. They said hey church. Guess what before I preach to you today?
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I have an exciting announcement. I've rejected the faith. My conscience is defiled with all sorts of things I no longer care to acknowledge or confess any of them
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Now roll your scrolls open to the gospel of and let's get started much more subtle than that We need to guard ourselves here holding the faith and a good conscience is constant warfare
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Remember first John 1 9 if we confess our sins He is faithful to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness
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Keep short accounts with God and with others remember the armor of Ephesians chapter 6 verses 10 through 20
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To do otherwise is to join him and ace and Alexander in their shipwrecked faith One commentator notes for us that a shipwreck is not necessarily fatal the
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Lusitania was a famous shipwrecked I've talked to many I've read the detailed history of That disaster that ship sank in 18 minutes after it was torpedoed out of nearly 2 ,000
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Passengers some 760 survived So a shipwreck is terribly terribly dangerous because the medium in which the ship travels which has water is not our natural place to be
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Fish survive in water, but not people Not for long
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Yet even these shipwrecked falsifiers have a hope like the 760 who survived the torpedoed
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Lusitania There's still a hope Paul handed them over to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme
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Handing them over is probably church discipline When someone refuses to repent of established sin they must not be allowed to remain as members in good standing
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First Corinthians 5 Matthew 18 15 and 22 they both demand excommunication as the penalty
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Not for the sin before refusing to confess and repent and this is what Paul means He says
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I've handed them over to Satan I put them on the auspices of Satan outside the church to behave as though they are worldlings
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Which is what they're acting as when they when they refuse to repent Paul's hope
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We might even think his prayer was that they would learn they would repent they would be restored by God and by the
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Ephesians So the good fight is for us all Fight the good fight fight the good warfare hold your faith hold your conscience
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The fight is for us all too often We're ready to face the beast's Ephesus or stare down the gaunt faces of the
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Sanhedrin, but cannot enter into combat against who? ourselves How ready we are with Peter to die a grand and dramatic death only to find that we cannot even admit to knowing the
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Lord We are engaged in warfare against an implacable foe Our own tendency to silence the warnings of our own conscience
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So I think there's much instruction here for us in what Paul instructs Timothy. I think especially here remember the constant fight the
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Martial struggle that it is to hold our faith and the good conscience both of which are precious gifts from God And God will engage the battle with us.
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I Will close with a historical example of this from the
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Old Testament 2nd Chronicles chapter 20 verses 14 through 15 I'll read this without comment because the verses themselves give you the context and The Spirit of the
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Lord came upon Yahaziel the son of Zechariah the son of Benaiah the son of Yael son of Mattaniah a
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Levite of the sons of Asaph in the middle of the assembly and He said Listen all
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Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem and King Jehoshaphat Thus says the Lord to you do not be afraid and do not be dismayed at this great horde for the battle is not yours but God's Can we say listen?
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church and all the officers Who minister in this place? Thus says the
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Lord to you do not be afraid do not be dismayed at this great battle that is yours This struggle against your own conscience the warfare that it is to keep the faith
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Do not be afraid do not be dismayed at it for the battle is not yours by God's Which he will wage in and for us by his indwelling spirit.