First Timothy lesson 8 cont.
1 Timothy · Mike Doyle · Jul 14, 2024
1 Timothy, No. 22
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261935524478

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

First Timothy chapter one, and we're working our way through verses 18, 19, and 20. And last week we covered verse 18. Verse 18 says, this command I entrust to you, Timothy, my son, in accordance with the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you fight the good fight of faith. So, a couple of things.

One, we discovered that the word command means instruction, that Paul had instructed Timothy. about the circumstances in Ephesus. Timothy is the elder at the church of Ephesus, and Paul treats him as a son, his own son, and the instructions that he gave Timothy were in accordance with the prophecies that the church had received about Timothy. In other words, Timothy was gifted by the Holy Spirit to do the job that he was in. And probably, it sounds like the only one in that whole area that wasn't quite sure about the prophecies was Timothy.

And so there's an encouragement for him to take a hold of the ministry that God had given him and trust God and move ahead. And so I'm not, I don't, you know, a lot of people call Timothy timid. I'm not sure he was timid as much as he was probably just young. And these old guys have a tendency to bully people around, so he was, you know, and Paul was saying, don't let those guys push you around. You need to fight the good fight of faith, and we ended up talking about what is the good fight of faith. There's always going to be conflict, I think, doctrinally in this fight of faith, and it's pretty quickly boils down to an opinion session.

Well, I think this, and I think this, and I think this, and this is how I feel about it. Somehow that what I think and how I feel about it overrides what it really says. So one of the great things about a church like this is that we do spend time finding out what it really says. And we're open to listening to the Spirit of God as He teaches us through His Word.

But there's a fight. And you know, like our Wednesday night group and other groups, there is a fight out there going on, especially in today's Christian world between neo-dispensationalism or Reformed theology and dispensationalism, grace-based theology. And the Wednesday night group that we have, we've been having a lot of fun with that, because it's identifying pretty carefully some of the issues between Paul, term Pauline dispensationalism, and what detractors that he has, especially these two guys from Dallas Seminary that wrote this book about progressive dispensationalism.

What's the difference? So you can rightly divide the word of truth. You can see how the bump is just a little. But when you get way down the road, it's like this. And we're way down the road on Reformed theology these days. Okay, so we left off at verse 19, keeping the faith, and a good conscience, which some have rejected and suffered shipwreck in regard to their faith."

So the first thing I want to look at, and we talked some about this last week, why does the word say, the faith, that the word faith has a definite article in front of it? What is he talking about? Or maybe better, what isn't he talking about? It's your turn to talk. when he says, by keeping the faith and a good conscience, what does the definite article tell us? It's always God? It's the doctrine of the gospel of the Lord Jesus, the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. It isn't personal faith. It isn't my faith he's talking about. He's talking about the composite of what the church believes, the faith. And so.

That definite article, when you see that, you know, we have a tendency to, every time we see the word faith, we automatically apply my personal faith to it. Well, it's not necessarily, if you recognize that the definite article can mean something different other than my personal faith, it helps us understand that faith is talked about in God's word, you know, several ways. Actually, faith, in Hebrews 11, 1, that defines what faith is. There's personal faith, there's the faith, and then there's the principle of faith. How do things work principally under faith?

Al did a really good study on that. Yeah, he did. He really did. Yeah. In the NASD 95 edition, it's just as keeping faith. Yeah, they left it out of there, but it's there. It is there. So let's look at some other verses that will help us with this, I think.

Somebody read 1 Timothy 6.12.

Somebody else put your finger in 1 Timothy 6.21.

And we're also going to look at 2 Timothy 2.18. So, 1 Timothy 6, 12.

Anybody? Okay, so, the good fight of faith. It's not the good fight of his personal faith. It's a good fight of his defending of the faith in the Word of God and to be in a position where you can defend it. I think that's critical. You ought to be able to defend what you believe and not base it on emotion. Do it by the Word. Do it biblically.

1 Timothy 6.21. which some professing have erred concerning the faith. Praise be with you. Amen. Interesting.

Which some have professed, and thus gone astray from the faith. Have you ever known anybody in your Christian life that professed something for a while, and then all of a sudden you find out that they're down the road? and they're in some other environment, and you wonder, how did they get there? I thought they, you know, somebody made a comment about somebody we all know last night. Did you hear so-and-so is going to a Messianic Jewish congregation? And it was like, how did they get there? They used to be here, you know?

Well, it doesn't mean that, It doesn't mean that I think the fundamentals aren't taught here, because they are. The issue is faith is more than a profession. It's a substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. It's either real or it isn't. I like what Macaulay says. He uses the pickup truck example. By the other door. Yeah. Well, I've never. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, if there's any, if there's any important encouragement from the word of God and from the Holy Spirit is to know what you believe and believe what you know. Settle down on it. Is it right or not? Is it really true? Or isn't it? Or am I just mouthing something because I read it somewhere, or somebody said it, or it sounds cool?

The last one is 2 Timothy 2.18, and now he talks about men who have gone astray from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already taken place, and they have set the faith of some.

If you live in a Christian world today and you're serious about your Christianity and people recommend, oh, I read this book by this guy or that book by that guy. Heidi came up to me this morning and wanted to know what I knew about this certain guy. And I said, well, I think he's amillennialist, if you know what that means, that the resurrection or that the rapture's already happened. and that we're in the kingdom age right now and that kind of thing. And she said, well, that's what I thought. Those things aren't subtle. I mean, people that believe those kinds of things, that write about them, they're clear. They're clear about them.

One of the things that was interesting on Wednesday's study in this Bach and Blazing book, Daryl Bach, to his credit, He wrote his PhD thesis on dispensationalism, and that's how he came up with neodispensationalism. He figured that those old guys didn't all have it right, and he was going to fix it, right? And he studied every well-known dispensationalist and all that he had written and knew he wasn't opinionating, so how does a guy like him come up with something new that really is off the rails? Somewhere along the line, he missed the fundamentals.

What would you say is the most important fundamental there is in God's word? The cross. If you don't get that right, and not only that your sins are forgiven, but that you died there, if you don't get that right, then you're vulnerable to anything because you don't realize that what God has done is made you a whole new creation and there's a theology in the epistles directed to those folks who are in Christ. It's different than every other human being that's ever been on the planet, okay? I think I'll ask. Similar question buck.

How did he get it? You know probably because he had a predetermined idea what he wanted and then you plumb the scriptures to move your your hypothesis, but I also go is how does and Myself included how do I miss the identification trues? You know yeah, and how do I miss that? How did I miss that for years? Yeah, and and I You know, I guess that's the question. How do I miss it? Yeah, and see, that's a great question, because I think probably the most prevalent answer is that nobody ever taught you. But I mean, you know, I searched the scriptures. I read those, as I've said that many times. Sure. How did I read Romans 6?

How did I read Galatians 2.20?

How did I, you know, 2 Corinthians 5.17? I can tell you how Daryl Bach did it. He says, oh, I identify with Romans 6. You know what he meant? Just like I identify with John the Baptist's baptism, I identify with Romans 6, which means he had no idea what he was identifying with. Yeah, there's no water there. Yeah. But I mean, it's the same question, I think. How do you miss that?

You know, it's interesting because I think that Romans 6 is basic Christian doctrine. It's not, you know, you've got to have it to grow spiritually, you've got to understand co-crucifixion, but it's in Romans chapter 6, the first book of Christianity in the sixth chapter. It's basic. But I mean, MacArthur... And so if I'm the enemy, and I'm watching you Christians flounder around, what am I going to keep you away from if I can? Romans 6. But I mean, MacArthur obviously studies the Word, but off.

How do all these guys who study the Scripture? Maybe it's the same thing as Bach, that predetermined thought, and you jerry-rigged the scripture to fit your hypothesis or your premise. And he had a classmate, Blazing, who the two of them put the book together. And the book really is, each chapter is a different progressive dispensationalism, a different one, and what they believe, which all lines up with what he believes. Could it be that the one nature is...

You know, I'm not sure Bach even addresses that. But progressive dispensationalism doesn't have room for death, burial, and resurrection with Christ. They don't have room for that. You know, you talk about the enemy. I was wondering, you know, with the sin nature that we have, that's always going to be something away from the cross. You're going to miss the Holy Spirit and being somewhere.

Sure. Yeah. It's not a correct understanding of man's fault. Well, even if you... I mean, how many times, Courtney, how many times did you read Romans and read right over it? Oh, no, that's what I'm saying. Yeah. I do that. Yeah. When did I... I'm not an actor, but I just look. Sure. You know, I look and I really take the... Something I read by an hour, yeah, okay. Sure. you know, or Galatians. Like I said, those three kind of are always mine. Romans 6 and Galatians 2, 20 and 2 Corinthians 5, 17.

I'm a new creature in Christ. I'm a new creature. What does that mean? Well, you know, I'm new in that You know, again, fitting the hypothesis is that now I'm a saved sinner with now the power of the Holy Spirit to do whatever. It's not that I'm death, burial, and resurrection. It's now I have the Holy Spirit that will now help me interpret Scripture to be a better Christian, to be, you know, which I think to Donna's point, it's the flesh loves it because it has purpose. And what better code of ethic as a Christian in that position than the Sermon on the Mount?

That's how we live, and doesn't everybody do that? Well, and also I think, you know, I'm seeing it together as reform and things that, you know, we are, or covenant, I guess. It's all earthly. The flesh loves the earthly, not the heavenly. And so what does the flesh gravitate to? Is that type of teaching or philosophy or premise that, you know, that it's all earthly, stay away from the heavenly.

Yeah, when you're first confronted with the Roman six identification that you died, what'd you think? I mean, I remember, I distinctly remember when I first saw it and a guy said, what does it say? And I said, it looks like I died. I remember thinking, what, what do you mean I died? I have no idea what that is, but it says it. Yeah. So I look, I think I'm alive, I'm okay. What do you mean I died? But there I was in black and white, and I was crucified with Christ. Besides the identification, the second is position and condition, because you mix those up, and you suddenly condition is everything, and you don't realize your position.

And I think that's why, like you said, I'm alive. Why does that? I can't. What's your position that changed? And so you're looking at your condition. I'm still alive. What does this mean? It might mean something else. Or you try and go by that because you don't understand that's your position, not a conditional. Yeah. Well, and that's another principle you weren't taught. Right.

So, it just points to the fact that here in 1 Timothy, Paul is telling Timothy, here are the basics and you gotta stick with those. And he's gonna say going forward here, you can't let guys come in with their theories, you gotta shut them down. If you're studying, we studied that in Titus, Paul was not, warm fuzzy about guys like that. It's like you've got to stop them in their tracks. And you think there aren't people like that around.

They're all over the place, you know, in terms of some pet theory they have or something they learned at Bible college that has stuck with them all their life. And they have maneuvered or manipulated the truth that they've known around this thing that they won't let go.

You know, and so. And also this, you gotta remember, as we parse these into little tiny sections, remember the beginning of this was, don't even give your ear, don't turn, don't, I mean, don't even start this, because once it starts, it'll deviate and grow. And we've seen that, obviously.

Yeah, and you gotta start with the Apostle Paul telling the Galatians, if anybody teaches any other doctrine than what I taught you, let him be accursed. Boy, that's kinda arrogant, isn't it? Am I not entitled to my opinion? If they're teaching false doctrine, they're already cursed. Sure, sure. But look what happened in Galatia. And then one of the pillars of the church, Peter, does the cowardly duck. So here I am sitting there watching what's going on, and Peter hides. Wait a minute.

Yeah, and so my point is that this fight goes on all the time, all the time. And it's not that you're in a position to get in somebody's face and that kind of thing, but you have to know what you believe and rest in those facts and trust God about that, and sometimes you're It's like I want to tell the gospel. After 25 years of screwing that up, you finally realize to keep your mouth shut and let God do his work. I think that faith can operate and happen obviously in many things, and it can be error. But when it's combined with good conscience, There's a different motive there. So I'm interested to talk about that because you can be very driven by your faith and still be wrong.

Yeah, absolutely. You're operating outside of good conscience. Absolutely right. Conscience is a qualifier to faith or a component of faith. And I think it is. That's what I want to get into. But the combination of those two prevent that faith from growing astray. What is it? How does it function in regards to walking alongside? These are questions that I really. Okay. All right. That being said, I want to do something different. I want to go backwards in that. Before that, they were already compromising. Yeah. Is that this because when you said at the beginning and I Went to look at in 612.

It says fight the good fight of faith. This one doesn't it says fight the good fight It doesn't put faith in there. It doesn't so that's I'm wondering the differences between 612 and this is Fight the good fight of faith. I think is is different than what he's saying here almost I think in the context of what he's saying here is fight this this poor doctrine is, you know, in context, that's what he's been saying all along. These guys are coming out, they're horrible, they're, you know, off base. Fight the good fight. And then he says, you know, keeping the faith, so keeping the word and all that, I think, I think this is more the fight of bad doctrine and the promotion of, you know, inaccurate doctrine. I think that's right. Correct. And so And he's being charged with that role. So yeah, for sure, it had to do with doctrine that was being mishandled. That's what I'm saying. I think this is a little different than 612. Well, think about this.

How's the gospel message presented today, for the most part? It's presented that Jesus is the Savior and he's going to fix all of your problems. but here's what you have to do. You have to be sorry, you have to confess, and you have to do some other things. What's the problem with that? It's not sound doctrine. Why do they call Jesus the savior? Because he's the one that does the saving, not you with his help.

But for Christians after salvation, 1 John 1, 9. Oh, it's way before that. Yeah, but if we confess our sins in faith... But think about this. If I come to Christ with a list of things that I did, something as simple as, get out of your seat and come forward, then what do I have in my conscience? Well, there's something I've got to be doing. rather than I am the recipient of God's grace and He saved me, and all I had to do was believe in His Son and the work.

That's it. So if I start on a grace basis, I'm much more likely to grow on a grace basis. If I start on a half-law, half-grace basis, where am I going to go? I'm going to go legal. And that's where the conscience comes in. Because all of us, if you're just entering into grace or beginning to live by grace, your conscience is going to nag you for a while until the Spirit of God persuades you, wait a minute, what I've told you is true. The Son of God did die, and so did you.

Yeah, all I'm saying is this seems like a different fight. This is a fight for doctrine. It is. Versus six wills, which is, you know, personal faith or the faith, because it isn't in here. It's a fight the good fight. And I think in context, that means fight for the true doctrine. Yeah. He's the leader. Right. But it's just a difference between 612 and this. Sure. 612 and this is two different fights. Yeah. You know, and I think when we go to 612, that's more of, I think, where people, they leave off the backpack, fight the good fight.

So I'm going to take on Satan. I'm supposed to fight him. I'm supposed to do all this stuff. Whereas, we've said before, when you look at the armament, they're all defensive. You know, the word, the helmet, all this. you know, they're defensive. We're not supposed to go out and attack. It's not our responsibility to go after Satan. And that's where a lot of people fight the good fight. I'm going to go after Satan while they forget about faith.

Well, and I think 612 is saying, your walk better line up with your talk. That's what he's saying. And I think it's fight the good fight, which is all the attacks of my faith. That's where I stand defensively. Is it real or not? Yeah. So it just seemed like a difference between the two fights that we have. This one is a fight of 612. So how are you doing with those?

Are you winning on both sides? is all that they claim. So what does good conscience have to do with the divide of faith? So some of the notes I put down are, the truth must be held with a good conscience. What does it look like if faith itself is not a good conscience?

Law. Law. Yeah. That's what I think. Here's what I got to do. But if the truth is held with a good conscience, you realize What can I add to what has already been done? I'm the recipient of the grace. I'm not the causer of it. Can you have a good conscience without the Holy Spirit? No. No. No way. I was just going to read that. Romans 9-1 Paul says, I'm telling the truth in Christ. I'm not lying. I've just been reading about this.

My conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit. There's a lot of mention of consciousness. And what is conscious? The simple definition is a mechanism whereby I'm accused of the things that I do wrong and excused of things I do right. But the conscience has to be, I'm going to use the word, invaded by the Holy Spirit.

Because maybe I'll use this example. I meet somebody like Donna, and I love her. And my conscience is looking for what can I do to make her happy? And what can I do to make her notice me? Flowers. Oh, let me finish. So we get married, and we learn that, well, there are certain things that she likes and doesn't like, certain things I like she doesn't like.

But it's living with her where I find out which ones are really important and which ones are not so important. So, because I love her, I want to avoid those things. I don't want to do those things, not from a legal standpoint. I just don't want to do anything that's going to harm the intimacy that we have.

So, I think you can parallel that to growing in the knowledge and grace of the Lord Jesus. That's why intimacy with Him is so important. How can I learn about the tiny little things that might offend him, unless I'm growing and learning those things because I spend time with him.

That's how you know. Because I can give you a list, everybody's got a refrigerator list, you know. The problem with the refrigerator list is that, you know, today I've got my list, and I look over there and she's got her list, And I'm saying, okay, I can do that. And she says, yeah, I think I can do that. And we get up tomorrow morning and she erased one off the top and added a new one to the bottom.

I'm not doing that. That's legalism. There's no demands, you know, that we love each other because it's the love of Christ in us that does it. It isn't that I've got to pump it up somehow. It's the same way with a conscience that gets to be transformed by the renewing of your mind. How do I get transformed so that my conscience and my thought process and all about me begins to understand and just abide in who the Lord Jesus is? That's where it comes from. A rule or a law isn't going to change your conscience one bit. All it's going to do is convict you every time you screw up, you know, and then make you arrogant if you fix it.

Hmm? Yeah. Yeah. I'm thinking about this, but it's somehow or other, we have to become everyone, right? That transformation is not for me on the earth. That transformation is my conscience is with Him in the heavenlies, because that's who He's told me I am. Yeah. Is that being conformed to the image and having the mind of Christ? Yeah.

But you have to be taught and convinced of that. What's that? You have to be taught that, that is not part of your conscience. And the Spirit's the one that's going to do the teaching there. It's not that I read it in a book somewhere. I think that that's where we get to, you know, we're talking about Bach and Blaise and these guys, and there's millions of others, right?

Yeah. When the Holy Spirit convicts man's conscience on the Word of God and it's based on that, My conscious testifies with the Holy Spirit. We are on the same page. Sure. Sure. And it does mean that you even in that piece that you have being taught having the right conscious being convicted of the things that testify with the Holy Spirit.

You still have quote-unquote fights. You have those that disagree with you that you have to correct, but it's not about the correction itself. It's also in conjunction with the conscience. we quote-unquote fight. Can you ever find that there's something in your life where the Spirit of God has whispered to you, we've got to fix that. And you say, not right now. We'll get to that later.

Just going to the ultimate authority, Webster, or conscience, the sense or consciousness of moral goodness or blameworthiness of one's own conduct, intentions, or character together with a feeling of obligation to do right or be good, a faculty power principle in joining good acts, the part of the superego in psychoanalysis that transmits commands and admonitions to the ego, conformity to what one considers to be correct, right, or morally good, sensitive regard for fairness or justice.

So if you're an ultimate narcissist, You say, yeah, that's right. In other words, I decide everything. I know. Again, on this, it's all me. But it still begs, what is our conscience? With a good conscience, how am I splitting between my ego and my self-conscious and what is a spiritual conscience.

I think the example I gave about husband and wife is really how it happens. That this intimacy with Christ grows to the point where you know what's of Him and what pleases Him and what doesn't. And sometimes you don't even know why it doesn't please Him, but it isn't about Him, so I'm not going to go there.

Well, that's a lifetime to just learn the basics about intimacy with Christ. Imagine us when we get to be with Him, no sin nature, and we're totally in. You know, the Lord Jesus, when He was here, He had one goal in mind, and that was to do the Father's will. That was it.

Well, I must say, I'm not even close to that. I'd like to be more close than I am, but I have to know what the Father's will is, and the Spirit of God has to work into me and you what's pleasing to Him and what isn't. And sometimes it's something that's so innate you can't even describe it. Like, be quiet. Don't say anything. I got this. I don't need your help.

Well, and that's fighting the goodness. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. Because your mouth is like this. You want to say something. Nope. Nope. I'm just trying to look it up. It was either today's or last couple of days on Hungry Heart. It was something similar to this about you don't know it all to begin with. and that the Holy Spirit is growing you and convincing you and working through you. It's like when the drewgers came down six weeks ago, I prayed. I thought, gee, how should I pray about this? And what ended up being is I prayed that God would show them that we loved them. It was the most important thing in my mind.

I don't know if that was what God was going to do or not, but that did happen. They know. And who did all that? He did it. He did it. Oh, gee, I'm way over. You music guys are coughing by now. OK, so we'll pick up with six. There's a lot more to talk about in conscience, so we'll pick up with that next time. Let's close.

Father, we thank you for your word and we thank you for your spirit. We thank you for the new life resurrected that we have in the Lord Jesus. And my prayer for every one of us is that we would grow in the knowledge and grace and intimacy with the Lord Jesus. We pray in his name. Amen.