What Does The Man Of God Need

00:01 Well, let the church say amen this morning. That's a little weak. Say it again. Let the church say amen. 00:07 Amen. 00:08 That's a little better. Still kind of weak. Must be the weather outside. Want to give you Christian greetings this morning in the name of the Lord. And I did not connect the dots. In fact, some of the dots I didn't know were in existence until this morning. 00:23 And we have three guest ministers here this morning that any one of them should have been up here this morning. But I didn't know those dots were all going to be here. And I didn't connect them, even the ones that I knew were in town. So anyway, here we are. And we're going to just proceed with what the Lord has laid on my heart this morning. 00:45 So if you want to turn in your copies of the Scriptures to the book of 1 Timothy, we are in 1 Timothy these days in preparation for leadership selection this coming fall or this fall in about three months. 01:01 And looking at the life of the Apostle Paul and looking at what he has to say about the man of God, about the one who God has called to be a minister of the Gospel, but even more than that, who has called each one of us to fill a role in the family of God, 01:22 in the kingdom of God, in the warfare of God that we see raging all around us. So our text this morning is from 1 Timothy 1:18 through 2:7. 01:37 And we want to ask and answer the question, what does the man of God need to fight the good fight of faith? And what does it take to win? And what does it take to press in and to move forward and to not be destroyed as we wage this Christian warfare? 01:58 This charge I commit to you, son Timothy, according to the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you may wage the good warfare. Having faith and a good conscience, which some having rejected concerning the faith, have suffered shipwreck, 02:18 of whom are Hymenius and Alexander, whom I delivered to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme. 02:25 Therefore, I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and for all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, 02:46 who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all to be testified in due time, for which I was appointed a preacher and an apostle. 03:05 I am speaking the truth in Christ and not lying, a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth." We can actually learn some things about warfare and about spiritual warfare by studying military strategies. 03:21 There is what has been called PSYOPS, which stands for psychological operations. 03:28 It's a form of trickery that Satan uses on people and that is a form of warfare that goes about as old as the art of warfare itself. As an army, we can learn from Alexander the Great. As Alexander the Great, 03:47 on one occasion, when his army was retreating and in full retreat in front of a larger army, he gave orders to the armorers to construct oversized breastplates and helmets that would fit men of seven to eight feet tall. 04:03 And so he left those behind in order to discourage the enemy that what they were up against were men that were seven or eight feet tall instead of just normal-sized men. As his army would retreat, he left those items for the pursuing army to discover. 04:23 And when the enemy would find those oversized gear, they would be demoralized by the thought of fighting such giant soldiers. And they would abandon their pursuit. Now, when we talk about the good warfare of the Christian life this morning and about fighting that in the power of God, we're not talking about trickery. 04:42 We're not talking about having PSYOPS or psyching out the enemy. 04:50 We're not talking about winning by some measure of deceit. But what we're actually talking about is by putting on God's armor and by using the resources that God has given to us to be victorious and to overcome. And these are legitimate resources. 05:08 And so when Paul is writing to Timothy in this passage of Scripture, he's saying, "I want you to wage the good warfare, the good warfare. Wage it. I want you to win it. I want you to overcome. And I'm giving you this charge, Timothy." And so he says, "I give you this charge. 05:28 And I commit the charge to you." Timothy had a charge. He had a command. He had an instruction on how he was to proceed in some very difficult times, in some very difficult eras, some very difficult issues. 05:42 You remember the context here was found over in verse 3 that he was left in Ephesus while Paul went on to Macedonia, that he would charge some that they teach no other doctrine nor give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which caused disputes. And so that was Timothy's mission. 06:04 Now, you can read that on a page. But can you imagine the intensity of trying to confront these men who were giving heed to fables and endless genealogies, who were promoting this false doctrine in the congregations, and such men as Hymenius and Alexander, 06:23 whom Paul delivered unto Satan to be destroyed or their flesh would be destroyed, that they would learn not to blaspheme? So this is spiritual warfare. This is not just sit back in your easy chair and take it easy for a while, Timothy. But this is to rise to the occasion. 06:41 And it was not an option for him to disregard this charge. And it is not an option for him to disregard his father, his spiritual father's instruction. And he talks to him about his son Timothy, his son in the faith, his son in the ministry, 07:00 his mentee, as it were in modern-day language of mentors, mentors and mentees. And he said, "This is what you were born for. This is what you were born into the kingdom of God for. 07:14 This is your reason for being at this time, at this place, is because of the prophecies previously made concerning you that you would be filling this role." Now, we don't know exactly what these prophetic utterances were. But they pointed Timothy's way into the ministry. In chapter 4, 07:33 verse 14, he says, "Do not neglect the gift that is in you, which was given to you by prophecy with the laying on the hands of the presbytery or the eldership." So when they commissioned and ordained Timothy to the ministry as a young pastor, a young evangelist, a young minister, 07:53 a young helper for the Apostle Paul, something happened by way of a spiritual endowment. He was spiritually endowed with a gift and with some prophetic words about his role as a minister of the Gospel. 08:11 And so what are some of the necessities that we find in this passage that help us be equipped for warfare in the kingdom of God? I would suggest to you four of them this morning. I would suggest to you that the first one that Paul showed Timothy was that Timothy needed to have a pure heart, 08:32 a pure heart. Looking there in verse 19, having faith and a good conscience, a sincere faith and a good conscience, a pure heart. 08:44 The second one that we'll look at this morning is that he had loving prayers for all, prayers from a heart of love for all men and even those in authority. And then the third one we find in verses 4 through 7 was a clear message. 09:03 And if we're going to win the battle of warfare in the Christian life, we're going to need to have those three things as well: a pure heart, a loving prayer for others and a concern for others, and a clear message with the Gospel. 09:22 So what are some of these things that go into a pure heart? He talks about faith and a good conscience, which some, having rejected concerning the faith, have suffered shipwreck. Now, in this battle for truth, there are some that suffer shipwreck. Not everyone makes it to shore. 09:42 Not everyone is going to make it through in these navigational waters. Not because they don't have the resources, but because they have some other agenda like Hymenius and Alexander. They had some other agenda. But he said, 10:01 "I want you to have faith and the faith and a good conscience, a heart that is cleansed from selfishness." Generally, when there is shipwreck, there's some level of pride, arrogance, and selfishness that has not been surrendered to the lordship of Christ. 10:20 And so he said, "I want you to have your heart cleansed. I want you to live cleansed from a heart of selfishness. 10:26 I want you to be free from hypocrisy." Chapter 1, verse 5, he says, "The purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and from sincere faith, not hypocrisy or a hypocritic profession professing one thing and doing another, 10:46 but being sincere and genuine in your pursuit of the truth and in your pursuit of God's will for your ministry." Now, I see here in verse 20, 19 and 20, a bit of a difference. And I've been pondering on this since we preached from chapter 1, 11:07 where the Apostle Paul said in verse 13 that he was a persecutor and a blasphemer and an insolent man. But he attained mercy because he did it ignorantly in unbelief. And yet here you have Hymenius and Alexander, who must not have done their sin in ignorance and unbelief. 11:28 So if it's not ignorance and unbelief, what is it? It must be rebellion. It must be rebellion. And so as I pondered on this, I have believed for a long time that there is a difference between ignorance and rebellion, ignorance and just flat-out disregard for the truth. 11:49 There's a difference between not knowing the truth and disregarding the truth. And so Paul was one who should have known the truth. We could argue that he should have known it. But he didn't know it. And he did things that violated God's word and God's will. But he did it ignorantly in unbelief. 12:08 And the grace of the Lord was exceedingly abundant toward him. But here comes Hymenius and Alexander, who I think by implication are not ignorant as was Paul, but are rebellious, are rebellious. They are apostate. They are disregarding what they know. 12:30 They have been chosen. They have been called. They have been instructed. They have been counseled. They have people speaking into their lives. They have the authority of the apostles speaking into their lives. And they still choose to rebel against God. 12:48 That is cause for some fairly serious repercussions and church discipline as we read about it in verse 20. Now, there are those in Scripture who were ignorant. You have men like Apollos. Apollos was a young Christian. And he started preaching the Gospel. 13:09 And Aquila and Priscilla had to pull him aside a little bit and say, "Brother Apollos, let us counsel you and give you some teaching and some training here more excellently in the ways of Jesus Christ." And he received that. And he submitted to that. And it grew and increased his ministry. 13:28 But that was not the case with Hymenius and Alexander. We don't exactly know what their issues were. We do find out that over in chapter 2, verse 20, 2 Timothy, 2 Timothy chapter 2, 13:47 verse 20, he says, "No, it's not 2:20. My notes are deceiving me here." Chapter 4, verse 14, "Alexander, the coppersmith, did me much harm. May the Lord repay him according to his works." Alexander was a fairly common name in this time period. 14:07 So you could reach back into the book of Acts and see some places there where Alexander was mentioned. But we don't know if it was the same Alexander or not. But Hymenius and Alexander, it's not so important what they did, but that they were unrepentant in doing so. And what kind of blasphemy they were doing, 14:29 what kind of teaching they were promoting, we don't know except it probably had to do with these fables and endless genealogies. But at any rate, Paul says, "We've got to do something. We have done something. 14:41 We've delivered them to Satan that they would learn not to blaspheme, not to teach false doctrine, and would come under the authority of the church and of the apostolic teachers of the word of God." Now, this is different than men that make mistakes in the ministry. 14:58 And all of us that have been in ministry for any length of time can point to mistakes that we have made. We have erred. We have made errors in judgment at times. In fact, I look at my life. And I told someone recently that I have no regrets for the things that I have done in my ministry. 15:20 I do regret some of the ways I did it. And that's a difference. That's a difference. Because even especially as a young minister, not sure how to handle all of the issues that came, still not sure how to handle that, all the issues that come to you in church leadership and making some, 15:41 I would say, 15:45 less than stellar decisions in how I did something. 15:51 But that's very different than just deliberately setting out to do something bad and to do something wrong and to cause undue hurt and so on. And so there's a difference here between ignorance and even bad counsel, but not knowing a better way to do it. 16:11 As we grow in our ministry and as we grow in walking with the Lord, we find out better ways to do something, maybe more appropriate ways, maybe more tactful ways, maybe more gracious ways, maybe more merciful ways. And there's always several different ways to do what needs to be done. And sometimes, if you don't know any better, you do it the wrong way. 16:32 But Hymenius and Alexander did not have a pure heart. They were not guiltless. They were not ignorant. 16:40 They were not just have bad information. They were men of bad character. They were just wrong. And when you're just wrong, you need to ask forgiveness. You need to repent. 16:58 And when you don't ask forgiveness and you don't repent and you're wrong and you've been rebuked and you've been counseled and you've been challenged and you've been warned, then something else needs to happen. And that's what happened in verse 20. Hymenius and Alexander were delivered unto Satan to learn not to blaspheme. 17:17 Now, what is this all about? Well, I think this is a case of church discipline, a case of church discipline, a deliberate apostasy that required discipline, a rejection of counsel, accountability, and authority. And we don't talk much about church discipline in our day and age. 17:39 But we have done it. And we continue to do it as it needs to be done. And this discipline reminds us of what Paul said in 1 Corinthians chapter 5. You're familiar with that passage. You don't need to turn to it. 17:55 But you can if you want to, where the issue of sexual immorality was there and of incest, of man having his father's wife and the church not dealing with it, the church not rebuking, not disfellowshipping. And Paul comes along. And he says, "You must chase. 18:16 And you must purge out the leaven of sin out of the church." And so that's what they ultimately did under the direction of Paul and Paul's spirit and the spirit of God. 1 Corinthians, they disfellowshipped so that this and this is what the Scripture says, 18:34 that the body may be that the body may be disciplined so that the spirit might be saved. 18:45 And in fact, it says exactly this, chapter 5:5, "Deliver such and one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus." I think this is what he's referring to in chapter 1, verse 20. 19:00 Now, when it comes to church discipline, we're not talking about people being disciplined because they changed churches. Now, some people and some of you here this morning have maybe been disciplined from a background that says if you leave one church and you go to another church or you go to another denomination, 19:20 then you're disciplined. The system is structured that way. That is not the case of biblical church discipline. Biblical church discipline is when there's unrepented sin. And there is rebuke. There's confrontation. There is administration of loving, 19:40 caring, correction that is disregarded. And sin is continued in without repentance. And then finally, that results in taking that case to the church and the church disfellowshipping such and one so that he might experience the shame of sin and be motivated to repent. 20:02 That is a biblical construct from Matthew chapter 18. And that's what Paul was exercising here in chapter 1, verse 20. This comes from biblically unrepented sin. And it removes one from the protective covering of Christ. 20:23 When one is put out of the fellowship for unrepented sin, he is removed from the protective covering of Christ and put under the influence of Satan himself. Well, if you're out from under the protection covering of Christ, then what is your domain? 20:41 You are then delivered over into Satan's domain, chastised directly by Satan, not just as punishment but as discipline, discipline to try to bring about a change of heart, 21:00 a change of mind for those who are living in error. And so that's what we're talking about here in Hymenius and Alexander and Apostle Paul's ministry to them. And so this comes from a pure heart. 21:17 I don't think that Apostle Paul was out to just spite Hymenius and Alexander. No, there was a blasphemy happening here. It was not that he was out to get vengeance or revenge or be spiteful. But it was to deliver them to the enemy that they would learn something and repent. 21:40 And it's unfortunate that that's what it takes for some people to get some people's attention. But better that than go on without confrontation, without discipline, and perish for all eternity. We don't know what happened to Hymenius and Alexander. I would hope that they repented. 21:59 We don't know that. But at any rate, Paul fought the good fight of faith. And he's saying, "Timothy, if you're going to do this kind of warfare, you must have a pure heart and sincere faith." The second thing we see in this passage of Scripture is that there must be prayer and loving prayer for all. 22:21 We see it in verse 1 of chapter 2, "Therefore, in view of what he has said previously, I exhort, first of all, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men." Now, there were a few men here that made shipwreck. 22:42 But all men need prayer. And all men, verse 4, have God has a desire for their salvation. So what is this prayer to be about? Well, he names four things: supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, 23:01 three or four different aspects, dimensions of prayer. We are exhorted. That word exhort means to call near, to beseech, to urge, to entreat, to invite, to urge that there be prayer for all. First of all, he says, 23:20 the word first of all means of primary importance. This is prayer was a common theme in Paul's teaching and ministry, Ephesians 6:18, "Praying always with all prayer and supplication and watching thereunto with all supplication for all saints in the Spirit." Philippians chapter 1, verse 6, "Be careful for nothing. 23:39 But in all things, by prayer and supplication, let your requests be made known unto God." Colossians 4:3, "Continue in prayer and watch in the same with thanksgiving." 1 Thessalonians 5:17, "Pray without ceasing." Luke chapter 18, verse 1, 23:56 "Jesus said that men ought always to pray and not to faint." So prayer is an important part of the church, life of the church, and the important part of the life of a Christian. Someone has said that prayer is to the church like breathing is to the body. So you need to breathe. 24:15 You need to pray. Can't live without breath. Can't live without prayer. So he said supplications. Let's break this down a little bit. He says supplication, that is the word that means requests, prayers of petition and desire, prayers of need and wanting, then asking. 24:37 Almost all prayer begins with some sort of sense of need, even if it's the prayer of worship. 24:44 It begins with a need to connect with God, a need to reverence God, a need to come under his authority and under his lordship and under his great benevolence and his providence and to recognize who he is and who we are in relationship to that and worship accordingly. Supplications, this is where prayer begins, 25:04 out of a sense of need, a sense of undone-ness. And then secondly, prayers. Well, that almost goes without saying. Prayer is prayers. But these are prayers, public prayers and private prayers only to God, prayer that goes only to God. Now, 25:24 in supplications, you can ask somebody else for something. 25:28 You can ask your dad for a new car, a new computer, a new whatever. You can ask your dad to take you fishing. Supplication. But you don't pray to your dad or to your mom. So we specify that these supplications are to go to God. 25:49 They're to go to God and to God only, sometimes in private, sometimes in public, sometimes just uttered or even unuttered between you and God in your spirit. And then he says he wants us to pay attention to intercessions, intercessions. Now, 26:08 here and in chapter 4, verse 5 is the only two places where this Greek word is used, for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer and prayer, intercessions, terms for approaching a king. This in the original language has the idea of coming to a person, 26:29 falling in line with a person, and to draw near for familiar conversation. It has the idea of somebody that you know and you come alongside and you converse and you come and plead with a person. 26:46 And it also has come to mean to come into the presence of a king and make requests for someone or something. Origin, an early church father, says it emphasizes conversation, petition, and boldness of access to God's presence. 27:03 And so here he says, "I want you to take advantage of this opportunity to intercede for others." God wants you to come alongside of him, wants you to enter into his presence as the king of the universe and has given you the opportunity to present your requests unto the throne room of heaven and earth. 27:24 And yet so seldom we do it. Intercession has the idea of praying for someone. Abraham interceded for Sodom and Gomorrah. "Lord, would you not destroy the city if you found 50 righteous persons? I'll not destroy it for 50." And then 45 and then 40. 27:45 And Abraham negotiated with God all the way down to 10. "Lord, if you find 10 people that are righteous in the city, would you spare the city?" God said, "I'll spare it for 10." That's intercession. That's intercession. Well, if there's ever been a time we need to intercede for our nation, it is now. 28:06 In fact, specifically, he says here in verse 2, "For kings and all who are in authority." Moses interceded for Israel after the golden calf. God was going to wipe them out. 28:20 God said, "I'll make of you a new nation, Moses." And Moses said, "No, God, remember your commitment to these people and your glory of your name, your great name amongst all the nations." And God's hand was stayed because of Moses's intercession. Moses interceded for Miriam with her leprosy. 28:41 She was bad-mouthing Moses. Her and brother Aaron got together. And they were having a pity party against Moses's leadership. And God struck her, didn't strike Aaron, but struck her with leprosy. And Moses interceded, "Lord, forgive her. Lord, please have mercy on her." And then God said, 29:00 "Well, if her dad spit in her face, she'd have to be outside the camp for seven days. So let her be outside the camp for seven days. And then she can come back." God healed her of her leprosy in response to Moses's prayer. Moses had prayed for Israel for their unbelief in not entering into the land of Canaan. Again, God was sore displeased. 29:21 And Moses appeased the wrath of God by interceding for the people. And Samuel interceded for Israel over the Philistines, the Philistines. "Samuel, pray for us." And Samuel interceded for Israel over the Philistines. And Jeroboam's hand in 1 Kings chapter 13, verse 6, 29:40 "The man of God came to Bethel and cursed the temple at Bethel." And Jeroboam, as king, reached out to grab him by the throat or by the neck or by the whatever, the tunic, and shake him up a little bit. And when Jeroboam reached out and grabbed him, his hand turned to be leprous. No, it was paralyzed. That's what it was. 29:59 It was paralyzed. He was unable to withdraw it and began to die on the spot, the hand. And the man of God prayed for him. And the hand was restored. Job's friends were interceded for by Job for the breakdown of their relationship and for misrepresenting God and godly counsel. 30:21 And Job prayed for his friends. And something happened with his friends when Job prayed for them. And something happened in Job's life when Job prayed for them. Now, we bring that concept into this verse 1 of chapter 2. And this is the kind of prayer, supplications, prayers, 30:42 intercessions, coming alongside God, entering into his presence with our needs and on behalf of others. And let us not forget giving of thanks, giving of thanks. In fact, we probably ought to start with giving of thanks because that's powerful praying to not only just ask for God, 31:03 to ask God for something all the time, rushing into dad's presence, rushing into the presence of the king. And God, I've got five minutes here to give you. I got to pray for my list. And then we rush away if we take that long. No, we come in and we give thanks. We give thanks to the Lord. "Thank you, Lord, for this nation we live in. 31:24 And Lord, we know that we need to pray for our kings and our leaders in authority. But Lord, we thank you for the country that we live in. We thank you for the place of plenty. We thank you that we have an opportunity to live free and to represent you according to the dictates of our conscience." And so we thank the Lord even before we ask. 31:45 He says, "This is to be done for all men, all men, rich or poor, kings or poppers, male or female, Jews or Gentiles, Arabs or Asians, conservatives or liberals, friends or foes. Pray for all men everywhere." God's message is a universal message. 32:07 It's a message for all people of all times who desires, verse 4, all men. That word men there has the idea of all humanity. It's a genderless word. It means all genders, all people, all men to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth. 32:24 You see, there are those who believe and teach that Christ only died for a few people. We believe that Christ died for everybody. We believe there are those that teach that God only wants to save a few people. We believe the Scripture says that God wants to save everybody. For God is not slack concerning his promises as some men count slackness, 32:44 but is faithful and worthy and not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. And so we pray for kings and those in authority, kings. What would it be like, brothers and sisters, if we prayed for the kings, for the leaders of our land by name on a regular basis? 33:04 I had to be rebuked this morning in my own heart because I started thinking, "Well, I don't even know the names of some of our leaders. Well, I know the governor. I know the president. 33:15 I know the vice president." I had to look up the one senator. I knew his name, but I couldn't remember it. So that tells you how often I've been praying for him by name. And then I had to look out and see which congressional district we're in and who our US representative is. 33:34 How many of you can tell me who the US representative is for this district? 33:42 So you haven't been praying for him by name either, have you? What would happen in our land if we began to pray for our leaders by name? By the way, his name is Rudkin. Rudkin. He took Jackie Walorsky's place. Forget his first name. 34:02 I don't even know the name of the mayor anymore of Goshen. It used to be Eric Stutzman. No, not Eric. Jeremy. Jeremy Stutzman. But he resigned now. And there's another. There's a lady that's in place now. I don't remember her name. 34:15 So I have to do some brushing up on praying for my leaders, praying for the kings and all who are in authority. You mean even Nero, that worthless scoundrel who accused the church and was anything but faithful as a leader of the Roman Empire? 34:36 Yeah, even Nero, even Nero. I'll let you fill in the blanks from there. Why? So that we can live a quiet and peaceful life. Now, this doesn't mean so we can live a life doing nothing. This does not mean that we can live a life just sitting back and making money. 34:57 Why would we pray that we could live a quiet and peaceful life? It's so that we can live godly with reverence and dignity. The word there, reverence, means dignity, so that we would be restful in our spirits, unmarred by disturbance, 35:16 that we could have tranquility from within and from without and not be afraid of outward disturbances so that we might live godly and holy in every way and serve God well without disturbance. 35:36 Now, not every culture can do this. Every culture can serve God well, but not all of them can serve without disturbance. So we want to pray that God's word would have free course and so that we could represent him well and do kingdom business, do kingdom business while we have opportunity, 35:59 not having church scandals, but having pure faith and sincere faith, pure hearts. 36:11 As I look over the last 30 to 40 years, which is what I remember of history and church life and the church's relationship with the culture, 36:22 I am appalled at how many scandals have rocked the church in the last 30 to 40 years. Now, maybe it's always been that way. 36:37 But it seems like that we have done a lot to destroy ourselves in our church, in the church of Jesus Christ in North America. We've done a lot to destroy ourselves. 36:53 He's saying here, "Live and serve God in holiness and godliness and dignity, the dignity that is fitting for a Christian. And let our disruptions not be from within, but let them be from without. 37:14 And pray that those would be minimized." Such a life pleases God. Such a life is acceptable and well-pleasing and good in the sight of God, our Savior. And so we have a pure heart as one of our weapons. 37:32 And we have loving prayers for all as part of our weapons. And the third thing and final thing this morning is a clear message, a clear message. Oh, that God would give us a clear message. He talks here about having a knowledge of the truth, 37:54 men being saved. And then he explains that, verse 5, "For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." The word men there again is humanity. There's one mediator between God, the one God, and humanity. And that is the man Christ Jesus. 38:17 Now, if you remember back three weeks ago or two, whenever it was that I preached on chapter 1, you remember we talked about these fables, 38:26 this idle talk, these endless fables and endless genealogies that they would create in Greek and culture and even in Jewish culture. They would create fantastic, romantic historical fiction that was false. And they would have in the Greek world, 38:47 they had all kinds of gods who had found this city and controlled this group of people and this city and this group of people and very fanciful stories that caused disruption rather than true faith. 39:03 And with all of those gods, you weren't exactly sure which God was where, when, and how, and why. And Paul just comes along and says, "Let me tell you a very clear message that there is one God. And there is one mediator between that holy God and sinful man. 39:23 And that is the man Christ Jesus." And he calls him the man because, again, the Gnostics and those fablemakers didn't believe that God could be a man because to be a man would mean that he would touch evil matter. And he would be part of evil matter, flesh. 39:45 And Paul says very clearly, "One God, sinful man, one mediator, the man, the man Christ Jesus." Oh, for us to have a clear message. He says, "This is what I have been called to preach. This man is the ransom," verse 6, "for all. 40:05 And he is being testified now. This is the due time. And I was made a preacher and apostle. I'm speaking the truth." The word preacher there means a herald. And so we have the subject matter for every herald, every preacher, every Christian, every teacher, 40:26 every leader, every believer, every witness for Christ has this clear message, one God, one mankind, sinful as they are, one mediator, the man Christ Jesus, a ransom, payment for sin for all that God wants all to come to faith. 40:45 And so we have the subject matter for every herald. We see souls saved to preach the truth, to preach Jesus Christ, not politics or philosophy or psychology or social action, but to preach Christ. We have the audience for every herald. This is the all men. 41:04 He will have all men to be saved. The mediator that is to be preached is Jesus Christ, one who intervenes between two parties in order to make and restore peace, to form a compact or ratify a covenant. That's what Christ has done for us, 41:26 a preacher, a messenger vested with public authority who conveys the official message of the king. That's the word herald. He conveys the official message of the king, of magistrates, of princes, of military commanders. This is a runner, 41:47 a speaker who is under the authority to preach the message of the authority without alteration. You see, we as men of God and women of God do not have the luxury of picking and choosing what part of the message we preach. 42:08 We don't have the authority to change this message one iota. We are under the authority of the king. Remember verse 15 to verse 17, "To the king, eternal, immortal, invisible, God alone who alone is wise, 42:28 who alone receives honor and glory. 42:30 And he has given to heralds, the heralds of the gospel, the appointment, go and deliver my message and don't change a thing, not one thing, a clear message, a clear message." 42:49 So where are we? Where are we in relation to a pure heart? Where are we in relation to prayer? And where are we in relation to a clear message? 43:03 If we miss out on any one of those, we stand in danger of being like the British warships who were sunk by the Germans in World War I. As the battle began, British and German ships engaged in each other in long-range artillery. The British lost a heavy cruiser called the Lion. 43:24 It was hit by an artillery barrage and quickly sunk. Next was the Indefatigable, was hit in its powder magazine and blown to pieces. And then the Queen Mary was sunk, taking a crew of 1,200 soldiers, sailors straight to the bottom of the ocean. 43:45 What they realized was that a flaw of design in the British ships was the problem, that they were equipped to absorb attacks from the side, but not ones that came from the air. 44:03 So only after the British began to armor their ships on top as well as on the sides did they stop losing ships to German long-range artillery. You see, God has given to us these resources to wage the warfare of the kingdom of God. 44:22 You don't want to be deficient in any one of them or you open yourself up to attack. And so let us have a pure heart, sincere faith from a good conscience. Let us have prayer for all, 44:42 all men, and especially for those in leadership. And may we have a clear message that would be unapologetic, uncompromised, and unchanged. Let's pray. Father, we thank you this morning for the words of the Apostle Paul and your inspiration of the Holy Spirit to us today, 45:03 so many years later than Timothy. These are timeless words. They're a timeless message. Lord, we don't want to change a thing because to change anything is to be unfaithful and disrespectful to the message of the gospel. And so, 45:22 Lord, let us grow in our understanding. Forgive us where we have ignorantly failed, where we have received and followed unwise counsel. Lord, keep our hearts pure from selfishness, from hypocrisy, from rebellion. 45:45 And, Lord, give us a love for all men, for humanity, for mankind. 45:54 God, so often, so often, we stand in judgment over others without really being moved with compassion and tender love and prayer. 46:11 Lord, bring us to repent of our wrong attitudes and build in us love and compassion for all for the glory of God, 46:27 that we might live a life of godliness and holiness that is acceptable and well-pleasing to our Father in heaven, that those around us may see our good works and glorify our Father who is in heaven. To that end, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.