First Timothy Lesson 27 Continued

Okay, we are in 1 Timothy chapter five. I forgot to mark how far we got. I don't know if we got to question three. Question two is half the class. But I'm gonna start there and we can talk about a couple of things. One, which we didn't talk about, if you look in Acts, You don't have to.

Acts 11.26, that was the first place that believers were called Christians in Antioch.

And we think that that was a term of endearment when in fact it was just the opposite of that. King Agrippa, he used the name in his famous sentence, with but a little persuasion you might make me a Christian. He was not being kind to Paul. Being a Christian was, it's like being a dispensationalist today, it's a dirty word. And why would that be? It's simple, because the god of the Roman Empire was Caesar.

Anyway, Part of the reason I talk about that is because when you're looking at all these qualifications for a widow to be supported by the church, it's important, I think, to understand that This really is a special kind of a woman. And next week, in the next lesson, we'll talk about the things that disqualify you from being on that list. But at this point, what we discovered was is that you had to be over 60 years old You had to have been the wife, or you were the wife of one man, having been the wife of one man.

Your reputation, you had a good reputation. People bore witness to that. You were noted for your good works. You have brought up children, maybe. You had shown hospitality to strangers. You had washed the saints' feet. We talked about that last time. You had assisted those in distress. And you had devoted yourself to every good work. How many people you know like that? I think you know some. that are trying. No, I'm not talking about Catholics trying. I'm talking about people who are like that. They kind of throw everything up against a wall and see what sticks.

So the reason now, moving on to verse 11 and 12, the reason he begins to explain 11 says, but refuse to put younger widows on the list, for when they feel sensual desire and disregard of Christ, they want to get married, thus incurring condemnation because they have set aside their precious pledge. I gotta tell you, in our society, this would not be something that we would want to investigate further, I would think. Okay, so, what would you, in that society, what's young, what age, under 60? Okay, so, probably, I suppose there's a person that is 60 that didn't act like they were 60, but, Young is interesting, so what's the reason for refusing her to, and the number one thing was this, you have to be on the list.

It's really interesting how careful Paul is to be organized. Every body of believers had a list. If you wanted help from the church as a widow, you had to get on that list. The qualifications for that list, we've just gone through. Why would they refuse to put somebody on the list who might apply?

Because you can't say there's anything wrong with sexual desire if you're married, or if you want to be married. But it says here that, for they feel, the Word of God using the word feel, sexual desires. So it's not because of sensual desires are wrong, nor is it because they will lead to a second marriage, which would disqualify them automatically.

Notice how much emphasis Paul puts on once married, always married. It's because of the type of sensual desire in view here are those which disregard who Christ is. Now, that brings up, I think, a pretty interesting discussion. One is that a woman's sensual desires might involve an unbeliever. She may marry him, which would be clearly be contrary to God's will.

The fact that they will marry is a word that means that they're gonna do that, if that's where their focus is. The word phthalo, feeling, comes from the word, which means emotions. And these widows were bent on marrying or we're determined to be married. So, what's the problem with that? I mean, I'm an American, I can feel like I want, do what I want. What's the problem? They become dependent on the husband rather than... This is even before that. What's the problem?

Why is he making a distinction here between what he's just described as what a widow should have, and he's not necessarily saying in verse 11 that this is bad, but when you contrast it to what he said 8 and 9 or 7, 8, 9, 10, it's not the same. So what's the difference? You see the difference?

I'll take a stab at it. One has the potential of being distracted. from the service of the Lord and to the involvement in the church. The other has less distraction and more devotion, potentially because of their marriage situation and age. So, how do I say this?

I think when you As a believer, you come to understand what it costs Christ and God to save you, and that He demands politely devotion to Him. If you get involved in some other enterprise that begins to take the place of devotion to Him, That automatically disqualifies you if you're a widow. I think it's the same with all believers.

So many believers want to know why they don't grow. I think it's because they're not devoted. Then you say, well, why aren't they devoted? Is it their fault or is it the Spirit's fault? I think the Spirit's doing His job all the time. So I think other things just become more important than the Lord. and the Lord is neatly fit into this part of your life, but then you got this other things and this thing here and that thing there, and they may or may not have equal sway on how you think, but it's like a man who, as a Christian, is about making money. How much time does he spend thinking about the Lord, as opposed to how much time you spend thinking about making money. And you can tell. You know? Tell by a guy's conversation. Or whatever. Whatever the distraction is. You know, I want to be famous. I want people to think a certain way about me. Anything other than just simple devotion to the Lord Jesus. I think the Greek really helps in this one, actually.

The Strongsist has begun to wax wanton against, but then when you get into Zodiaty's definition, I think it's pretty good. It's a big long Greek word, you know, a couple of different words. Kata strinanoia or something like that. Kata against and then strinialio, to live profligate, luxurious life, to revel or riot against someone, show insolence, meaning that they lived a life of luxury and gaiety to the neglect of Christ and the detriment of his cause.

Boy, that's intimidating, isn't it? Yeah, but I mean, it's just what you're saying. You're focusing on something else besides Christ. Everything else is a distraction that takes you away from Christ. And I really do think that we live in a world that constantly is bombarding us with anything other than the Lord Jesus all the time. You know, it's everything around us. And so it's very easy to chase squirrels. Squirrel.

Yet, on the other hand, I really, I'm more and more convinced that God calls us to serve him when he saves us, to be a servant, and it doesn't matter whether it's high profile or low profile, or anybody knows about it, because he knows. And he knows your heart. And he can change your heart about stuff like that. Whatever it is that gets in the way of him, it doesn't mean that's gonna go away, but you're gonna change. He's gonna become, should become increasingly more important to you all the time about everything. Can I read a scripture in 1 Corinthians 7? But I want you to be free from concern. One who is unmarried is concerned about the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord. But one who is married is concerned about It's interesting.

So you would think if that was the only verse on marriage in the Bible, that being single was the way to go. Well, if that was the way to go, we're not going to have more Christians after a while. The point is that the Lord, in most cases, I think, the Lord would have us married if we have a wife or a husband. in the middle of that environment is where you grow and the Lord becomes. I mean, if you're serious about being a husband, you have to be serious about the Lord, because you're not going to do this husband thing without him. And if you're serious about the Lord and you're a wife, you're not going to do the wife-mom thing without him the way it should be. So it's not that you have either or, it's that you have both going on at the same time.

But the Lord is always the one that is the director of our life. And he directs us to serve. Are mom and dad servants? You bet they are. But they're servants of the Lord first, and they bring up their children based on their servitude to the Lord, so they don't make mistakes that way. The children, like in our society today, the children have become the important ones, rather than the Lord.

But I'd like to not use my life with Donna. Donna's never been a detriment to me and what the Lord would have me do. As a matter of fact, she's been very supportive. In a good marriage, there's an enhancement of Christ rather than the objection. Well, you know, I think every Christian needs a spiritual friend. Most of the time it's your spouse. Sometimes it's somebody else, not your spouse. But, you know, you need somebody you can bounce spiritual stuff on, you know, because if you're devoted to the Lord, that's going around in your mind all the time, you know.

Like I was laughing at Wolford, I was talking, I think the other night he said, what he liked about Holly Hill is that We have Bible study on Monday night, and we have it Tuesday noon, and we have it Wednesday night, and we have it Thursday, and then we're back in church on Sunday. To him, that's perfect. And Heidi too. I think it's perfect, yeah. And so I think that's what Paul's talking about here is that don't get sidetracked off of the Lord and begin to think about anything other than him.

And in this case, how about marriage? If I'm a widow and I want to be married again? Now, one last question there. We know, I've known people, you've known people that got, older people who were widows and widowers that got married for companionship, just to hang out together and take care of each other. I don't see a problem with that. But I don't think you have to do that. I think once you're, if you're a widow or a widower, it really does free you up to serve the Lord more all the time, you know. I thought I'd really get rebuttal about that.

More time for vacation. Don and I were talking this morning because one of the things we'll talk about next week is, I'll do it in the form of a question. What's the absolute worst thing a person could have going on in his life? You know what the Bible's going to tell us next week?

It's being idle. Got nothing to do. Sitting around. And I don't care who you are. If you walk with the Lord, there's always something to do. Always. Now at my age, I know lots of people that are retired and idle. One, they die pretty quick. How many rounds of golf can you play in a day? Or they get tired of traveling, or they can't travel anymore physically, or whatever it is.

But the great thing about walking with the Lord is you are not idle. That book never goes away. Constantly, it's teaching you something. And if you're a servant, you always find a way to serve somebody, something real simple. And if you say, well, gee, I'm idle, I don't have time, ask the Lord. But hang on, because my buddy Bob Strahan used to say, If you're really serious about spiritual growth and you go to the Lord and say, Lord, I really do want to grow spiritually. He said, then hang on to your chair because you're going for a ride.

The Christian life is extremely exciting compared to everything else. I think the thing is whether married or unmarried or whatever, it's still It's just what is your focus, single or married, if it's focused on the Lord. That's the key, whether you want companionship, but companionship can mean both of you functioning with the Lord. It's not an either-or, or one's better than the other. I think it's still, it's just kind of what you said before too, what masters you. If the Lord is your focus, whether you're single or married, it doesn't matter. It's the focus is what is the important part in life.

Yeah, and you can tell with, I find people don't like me to pray for them, but I notice sometimes that people that I care about They're kind of out of sync a little bit, you know? So I pray that way. Then the stuff hits the fan and now they're mad at me. So question five, I think we've already answered.

Why is feeling sensual desire a reason for not being on the list? Vincent says, when we have begun to wax wanton, Gordon talked about what the Greek word wax wanton, is used with the Aorist subjunctive, their unruly desire withdraws them from serving Christ in his church and is therefore against him. You know, there's never, one of the decisions you have to come to as a believer, there's never a time that the Christian's in neutral. You're either with Christ or you're against him.

There is no yellow line. It's like lost and saved. I've had lots of people tell me, well, so-and-so's a really good person. They're almost saved. No, they're not. They're on that side of the line. Yeah, you can't walk the fence. Yeah, you can't. The term I always use for that is, you can't be sort of pregnant. Yeah, sort of pregnant, that's right. You either are or you aren't. It's like there's no middle ground in that. But the grass is greener always on the other side. Well, it appears that way. Yeah, right. But you have to learn that it appears that way. It isn't, but it looks that way, you know.

So, verse 11 says to refuse to put younger widows on the list when they feel sexual desires in disregard of Christ. They want to get married, verse 12, incurring condemnation. Oh boy. What is condemnation? What's that word mean? Crima, judgment, or at the strongest condemnation, thus in turn would bring them discipline.

So a lot of times I think, I look at situations, and I'm sure you do too, and you think, oh, how can they be getting by with that? I never got by with that. Every time I went off the trail, the Lord really had a lesson for me to learn. But they seem to be just going merrily along and not paying a whole lot of attention. and not being exercised or chastised for behavior. So I had this thought in my mind. We have three or four women that want to be on the widow's list. You call them in and you ask them these kind of questions. You don't have to call them in. You know. Let's see, from Vincent.

The word damnation in AD 1611 was used a sense of judgment or condemnation as is shown in the proper tense of the participle having. In its early stage, the word had in it no idea of future punishment. Chaucer, you guys all know who Chaucer is, right? No. Chaucer uses the word in the following way, and this is early English. For we thou wast know thyself verily thou, that thou and I are damned to prison. That's what he said.

That's old English. So, What Vincent is saying is that the word damnation is really an obsolete word that we don't use anymore. The meaning here is that they have broken their first pledge, and this may refer to a pledge to devote themselves after they became widows to the service of Christ in the church. So the word damnation, I don't know what your Bible says. Mine says condemnation, New American Standard. So condemnation is not, if you're a widow who does this, this doesn't give you a fast track to hell.

What it does is it opens you up for discipline from the Lord. more discipline, until they grow in grace together. Or, you know, if it's of the Lord, then it's just all grace. Well, really it was that easy, huh? Well, the man is knowledgeable enough to see it.

Well, you know, most of the time people get married, that they're not only young physically, but they're young spiritually. They may have had good teaching in their life, but they haven't, you know, we were at a baby shower yesterday, and I'm sitting across open space looking at these two kids that are married, and they're really cool people, and I think the guy, Connor, is pretty spiritually savvy for a young man. And he's sitting next to his wife and they're opening up presents and she's pregnant and they haven't got a clue what's coming. Not a clue. They know that they love each other. They know they love the Lord. They know that they love their baby. You know, and they're going to be great parents, but it isn't going to be a walk in the park. You know? I'm glad you didn't give them that spiritual wisdom where they made a little baby shower. You guys don't know what you're in for.

Have a great day. But actually, it's a very fruited growth. I mean, you think about it. You have two people who have made who have been saved by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ enter into a marriage with sin natures. How's that gonna work out for you? You got two sin natures living at the same address, both of them thinking they're king or wanna be king. If you don't have Christ in the middle of that, I mean, you're set up for a disaster.

So, okay. Michael, do you agree with this footnote? It says apparently these younger widows have pledged not to be remarried? Apparently they have, and that actually brings up the very last word in verse 12. It says, thus incurring condemnation. Reason. Because they have set aside their previous pledge. What was the pledge? What did they previously pledge to do? The word is P-I-X-T-I-S, which is normally translated faith.

If they marry against Christ, they are practically denying faith in him. So let me put it this way. I think what Paul's saying here, if you sell out to Christ as a widow and then you start looking around for a husband, You're trying to serve two masters.

So the previous pledge he's talking about here was their devotion. And on that list of things we went through, they said, well, that's the way I want to live. Well, that's your very life. Yeah. But now, well, maybe I want to be married. Wait a minute. And that brings up a question which we can close with this.

How often, you don't have to answer, but how often have you set your mind to go some, this direction, and you find out over the next little while that everything opposite to that hits your mind all day long? all day long. You don't want to go there. No, you want to do this. You don't want to go there. Or I'm afraid to go there. Or whatever. Do you ever have those kinds of things? I think that Ephesians 6 calls them the fiery darts. Because Satan Satan's number one temptation is this.

Did God really say? So I decide, or a widow decides she's gonna walk with the Lord just because she wants to serve him. And here comes the dart. Why are you doing that? Did God really want you to do that? Is that the way you should go? the double-minded person is. Well, the point is that you can't stop the darts from showing up. What you do with them when they get there is what the issue is.

Am I nuts or am I the only person that has that kind of experience? I'm forever saying, oh, I would really like to do this and do that, and then I get this. Is that really what the Lord would have you do? or think, or... I'm the only one. You've got to find the one that hits the bullseye. They all hit the bullseye.

I mean, the point is that a woman like this or anybody who says to the Lord, I belong to you, and I'm convinced there's a time in every Christian's life, doesn't matter man or woman, when it becomes what I call sell-out time. that the Lord gets you in a position where you say to him, I don't care where I'm going. I don't care anything other than being and going with you. That's all I wanna do. I don't care what the circumstances are. I wanna walk with you. And the minute that you say, he says, okay, come with me. Here come the darts. You sure you want to do that?

He's also prepared us, in Ephesians, putting on all the armor and taking up the shield of faith which will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. He's equipped us to do that if we... He has. If the arrows come, if we have faith, you're good.

Look what it says about the shield. Well, that is. That's what I said. In addition, taking up the shield of faith, with which you're able to distinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take up the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. I mean, all those things are to keep you defensively from being hit with the arrows.

Yeah. Well, when we were studying that a month or so ago, at the beginning of that passage, here's this one thing. Put it on. It's all right there. It's yours. Put it on. If any of you have been in the military, if you're going to go out in the field, you better be taking your gear with you and have it on. That really matters. All right, I'm done. You done? Let's close.

Father, we thank you for your grace. We thank you for the life that you have caused us to be in Christ and this is life. We're so thankful for that. We're thankful for the fact that we can grow on a minute by minute basis into the very image of him. And we pray in the Lord Jesus's name, amen.