(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Okay, so our new Sunday evening series is going to be the book of 1 Timothy, and it's for a couple of reasons. Like I said earlier, I have a current plan of keeping the Sunday evening series a little bit more practical. Not too long the series either, so unlike some of the longer Bible studies, some of the longer books, which will go on for many weeks. So I'm going to be avoiding those, but they're not going to always be books of the Bible in the evening series. We've kind of swapped that about a little bit. But the books of 1 and 2 Timothy are very practical books with a lot of guidance on church matters. So they're going to be very interesting for us as still a relatively new church. And along with the book of Titus, if anyone is unaware of this, they're known as the Pastorial Epistles, where they're particularly geared toward the work of a pastor. And as a church which is likely to become independent soon, we could all do with learning a bit more about what's expected in the future, how a church is going to run, et cetera. Now, just a couple of things on this. The letter was likely written sometime after AD 62, being along with Titus and then 2 Timothy, Paul's final inspired letters. So they're kind of his final writings. And as we see at the end of this book, it was written from Laodicea, where it says the first Timothy was written from Laodicea, which is the chief city of Phrygia, Pakitania, which is now being in western Turkey. The exact date is unknown, but like I say, it's sometime after AD 62, I think, when you look at all the dates together there. And that's about it for the facts, where we're going to go with the facts, because we want to get on with the verse of God. So we're going to get on with what the letter says. 1 Timothy chapter 1 begins with verse 1, where it says, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the commandment of God our Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ, which is our hope, unto Timothy, my own son in the faith, grace, mercy and peace from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord. I'd like to pray before we continue. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for this great book of the Bible and a book which hopefully we're going to learn a lot from, Lord. Help me to just preach this series just clearly and accurately and as you'd want it preached, Lord, and focus on the things that our church particularly needs to hear, Lord, and not on the things maybe which aren't so important to us right now. Help me to just be full of your spirit, not only during the series, but especially tonight, Lord, and help me just preach this first chapter clearly, boldly, Lord, accurately. Help me to just preach in a way that everyone will be edified. In Jesus' name I pray all this. Amen. OK, so the first thing to point out here in these first couple of verses is that Timothy was saved by Paul, hence being called his own son in the faith. This is Acts 16, where we first see Timothy during Paul's second missionary journey, it is, in Acts 16. It's about a dozen or so years since this letter, sorry, before this letter was lightly written, so how old he is, I don't know, it's debatable, and for a point in time it's just after the contention between Barnabas and Paul over John Mark, if you remember that in the book of Acts, in the chapter before Acts 15, with Barnabas taking him, John Mark, and then Paul going with Silas, he went through Syria and Cilicia, visiting the church, and then Acts 16 says in verse 1, Then came he to Derbe and Lystra, and behold, a certain disciple was there, named Timotheus, the son of a certain woman, which was a Jewess, and believed, but his father was a Greek, which was well reported of by the brethren that were at Lystra and Iconium. So Timotheus was part Jew, part Greek, and was already a disciple at this point, well reported of, so they spoke well of him. In fact, Paul had already been in Lystra in Acts chapter 14, with Barnabas preaching the gospel, where, if you remember, they'd then be called like Jupiter and Mercurius, the guys wanted to worship them, and then not long after they got stoned halfway to death, straight after that, so kind of it changed quickly for worship to attempted, you know, execution. But, you know, they then left, they returned with Acts 14, 22, saying that they were confirming the souls of the disciples and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God. So they'd been there in Lystra, they returned to do that, and Timotheus or Timothy seems to be one of those that continued, doesn't he? And here, many years later, he's now being instructed in pastoral duties, because not everyone will continue in the faith, will they? Not everyone will continue, and when we say continue in the faith, obviously, you know, if you're saved, you're saved, okay? You're saved. But there's a couple of things there, there are those that people think are saved and aren't saved, but then there's also those that get saved, start doing some things for God, going to church and everything else, and then for whatever reason, maybe drift off out of the things of God, okay? And to continue in the things of God, look, it takes a lot, doesn't it? And Timothy here is clearly a strong guy, I mean, we're talking a dozen years later now, and now he's into, you know, pastoral duties, he's into church ministry. Verse 3 says, As I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus when I went into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine, neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith, so do. So, in verse 3, Paul speaks of how he besought him to abide still at Ephesus, with the end of 2 Timothy, by the way, saying, The second epistle unto Timotheus ordained the first bishop of the church of the Ephesians, was written from Rome when Paul was brought before Nero the second time. A bishop and a pastor are interchangeable, they're the same thing, we use the word pastor now, it's the same thing. Timothy was ordained the first bishop of the church of the Ephesians. Okay, so, and here Paul's reminding him that when he got him to stay at Ephesus, one of the reasons was what? One of the goals, one of the reasons that he got Timothy to stay there, and I don't know at what point exactly he was ordained as the pastor was to charge, or you could say command, some that they teach no other doctrine. And look, straight off, so we're right at the beginning of this book, this letter called, you know, one of the pastoral epistles, and straight away we see one of the vitally important jobs of a pastor, don't we? Which is to command no teaching of other doctrine. Okay, that's important, isn't it, right? And this seems to me to be the standout reason Timothy was left in Ephesus by Paul in the first place, was to pastor this church. He said, As I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus, when I went into Macedonia that thou mightest charge some, they teach no other doctrine. And look, there are many aspects to the job of a pastor, but watching for false doctrine is up there, isn't it? Okay, that's a big part of the job, it's not always an easy part of the job as well, but it's a big part of the job, right? It's a massively important part of the job. In church leadership, look, you want to get on with people, you want to encourage, you want to help, you want to care for people, but you've got to smash false doctrine. And the thing is, sadly, there are people that go into this sort of job wanting to be people's best friend, want to go in because they just want to be popular or they want to get some sort of fame or something else or whatever other reasons are, but that's not really going to work in the future, is it? Because a lot of the time you're not going to be, a lot of the time you're smashing things, you're smashing sin, you're smashing false doctrine, and some people look at you sometimes, sadly, as a bit of an annoying police type figure who's like, you know, kind of, brother Ian's around again, or especially when it's a pastor in the future, you know? However, look, it's an important part of the job, isn't it? And sometimes, look, the rough parts are the most important parts. And what we do see out there, and I've been in churches like that, is pastor too nice, you know? Pastor, we welcome all views and opinions, yeah? There are a lot of those around. It's like, well, as long as they don't listen to Pastor Anderson, it doesn't matter. That's the sort of thing you see out there, don't you? Pastor, don't upset anyone. He's not a biblical pastor, though, okay? That's not a biblical pastor. Sometimes, you know, if you're going to make an omelet, you're going to break some eggs sometimes, okay? And that's going to happen. You're going to hurt feelings sometimes. People are going to get upset. You're going to have some rough parts of the job. Verse 3 says, As I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus, when I went into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine, neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions rather than godly edifying, which is in faith, so do. So he basically said, in the same way, don't give heed to fables and endless genealogies. And you know what Paul's saying here? He's saying, basically, smash false doctrine, and that includes all of that Zionist Jewish genealogy junk. That's really what he's saying, isn't it? Because that's really what we're talking about at this point, and pretty much kind of going forwards anyway. It's like, look, charge some that they teach no other doctrine, neither give heed to those fables and endless genealogies, all these Judaizers, all these people going on about, you know, being of the stock of whatever tribe of this and that. He said, get rid of that stuff. Don't give heed to it. Don't listen to that rubbish, right? The fables like Christ rejecting worshippers of a false religion called Judaism has somehow drew a Calvinist-style automatic salvation. That's what's being taught out there, isn't it? That's what's being taught out there, that somehow the special people, because of the fact that they can claim... No-one even knows what percent it is, because I'd imagine they all have a different version of this. As long as you can at least claim some percentage of so-called Jewish DNA, you're automatically going to get saved if you happen to live in the end times, you know? And you'll just suddenly realise, actually, I've been wrong all these years, blah, blah, blah. And a lot of them... Between, like, this is a big kind of spectrum of this sort of Zionist disorder, OK? And along it, you have, then, you have the people that think, OK, well, that's an automatic salvation. However, all the rest of them, for the other kind of couple of thousand years, they still had to put their faith in Christ. But if you happen to be, like, minimal percent, because, let's be honest, it's going to get watered down and watered down and the real reality is, is all of us have probably just as much, if not more, blood of Abraham than any of these clowns out in Israel, OK, with their Eastern European genetics and everything else. Look, it's ridiculous a couple of thousand years later. However, regardless, they think that when you get really far into the future, those guys have got the automatic-style salvation and everyone else had to put their faith in Christ. But then you get the other ones who are just completely off the wall, your John Hagee types and everything else, which is like, basically, if you worship a false religion of Judaism, you reject Jesus Christ, you're just saved anyway. I mean, how does that even work? I mean, it's nuts, isn't it? Oh, because if you worship it, you must have some sort of genetics to do with... It's ridiculous, OK? But this is basically what he's talking about here, OK? Those sorts of fables, the endless genealogies, like I said, trying to prove just some percent, some percent of Jewish blood. And again, it doesn't make sense anyway. And some percentage, some link to someone somewhere in the past, even though the only thing that matters is what? Faith. He said, rather than godly edifying witches in faith, so do. And, look, by the way, he described these as endless genealogies. This letter was written coming up to approximately 2,000 years ago. How endless are those genealogies now? Those genealogies have got even more endless, haven't they? And more ridiculous, OK? It was ridiculous back then. He's saying, don't give heed to that stuff then. Can you imagine what he'd be saying to some of the clown passers that are walking around in the IFB and everything else, trying to teach this stuff now? What on earth are you doing? What are you talking about? What are you talking about? Some guy that wears a skullcap is suddenly God's chosen people. What are you talking about? It's ridiculous, OK? It will never stop winding me up, this stuff. OK, he said to do godly edifying instead. And here's another lesson for any Zionist brainwashed passers out there, though. And I don't think we've got any Zionist brainwashed passers. We did have some strange Zionists come in here. Some strange evangelist, indeed, that was probably, I would imagine, Zionist brainwashed, OK? But we don't usually get them in here. But a lesson in case we ever do is, what he's saying is, smash false doctrine, ignore those dispensational fables, that's what he's basically saying, and ridiculous genealogies, and focus on preaching the Bible, basically. Not preaching Schofield, not preaching Larkin, not preaching Derby, not preaching all these clowns of the past, with their notes and charts and everything else. Who, let's be honest, probably none of them were saved anyway, OK? He then says in verse 5, though, Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned, from which some, having swerved, have turned aside unto vain jangling, desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor whereof they affirm. So Paul said that the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart and of a good conscience. What does that mean? Well, turn to Romans 13, which explains part of this a bit clearer. Another word for charity here is love. The end of the commandment, or fulfilling of the commandment, is charity or love out of a pure heart. You'll turn to Romans chapter 13, we're going to look from verse 8, Romans 13 and verse 8, which says, and this is Paul speaking here as well, He said, So true love, charity out of a pure heart, would automatically rule out all of those sins against others, wouldn't it? If you had true love for others, you had true charity towards other people, those things would be done. If you truly love your neighbour, you're not going to commit adultery with their spouse, are you? Or if you love your spouse, you're not going to commit adultery against them, are you? True love, true charity, true love. You're not going to kill them if you really love them, or steal from them, or bear false witness against them, or covet their things, okay? Look, all that stuff, you know, even coveting stuff for someone else, you really love them, you're just going to want them to have that, aren't you? Why are you going to covet it for yourself? You know, and all those things, if you have real love, true love, then that should cancel out those things. Turn to Matthew 22, for the other part of this, where Jesus asked which is a great commandment in the law. We just read, Love worketh no ill to his neighbour, therefore love is a fulfilling of the law. And in Matthew 22, when he's asked, which is a great commandment of the law, in the law, verse 37, Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first, the great commandment, and the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. And I've heard it explained like this before, you've got all these commandments, you know, some say like 650 odd commandments in the Bible, and then you've kind of got the, I think it was described as like, the reader's digest condensed version is the 10 commandments, and then you've got the kind of just like, back of the matchstick box condensed even more, to the two commandments being, Love God, love your neighbour, right? And it all kind of comes down to this really, you know, that charity or love to God and others is basically, it pretty much encapsulates the whole law, doesn't it? If you really love God, you're not going to put other God's idols before him, are you? If you really love God, are you going to put idols up here and God down here, if you really love him? You're not going to make him worship graven images, if you really love God, are you? You're not going to use his name as some sort of swear word, some sort of empty exclamation, if you really love him, right? Okay, if you really love God. Like, you should deal with that pretty quickly, shouldn't you? If I love God, it's not like, oh my this, and you know, oh my that. Like, what on earth? Like, he's not a swear word, is he? He's not a swear word. That stuff, look, you need to, if that's something, because that's something we see in the world a lot, and it's obviously a worldly thing, but if that's something that you've kind of, you know, got in your kind of vocabulary or something, you need to cut that out quick, yeah? Okay, and that's something that you, that should prick you if you say something like that. If you really love God, you're not going to do that. You're, you know, and, you know, some people will say things like, well, what if you don't know all of that, yeah? What if you don't know all the things you should and should be? What if you don't know about, you know, the Ten Commandments and everything else, but you just love God? Well, if you love God, you're going to get to know him as well, aren't you? Yeah, if you love God, you get to know, if you love someone, you want to get to know them, don't you? Yeah? Those of you, you know, with spouses out there, you love your spouse, you want to get to know your spouse, don't you? Well, you know, no offence, spouses, but God's better than the whole lot of us, yeah? Okay? And we want to get to know him, and look, it's not, it doesn't take long to get to know him, does it? Yeah? Fifteen minutes of the day, you get to know him in a year. You know, you put 30 minutes a day and you get to know him in six months, right? In fact, you put more than that, you get to know him pretty quickly, okay? And look, he makes it pretty clear what we should and shouldn't be doing, and back in 1 Timothy 1, though, Paul warns Timothy of those that then fake it. So we've just seen that basically that loving God and loving others, that's basically the whole law encapsulated, isn't it? Okay? And like I said, if you love God and you love others, you're probably going to learn exactly how to show that as well and have reminders, and you're going to want to go to church and be, you know, have those things preached at you. You're going to want to open your Bible. You're going to want to pray to him, hopefully, if you love him, right? Okay? That hangs all, on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets, but back in 1 Timothy 1, Paul then warns of those that fake this. He says in verse 5, Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart and of a good conscience and of faith unfeigned. So we just saw the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, sure, okay? And that's to God and to others and of a good conscience. And sadly, there are those that feign or fake it, okay? They feign or fake faith. There are those whose charity or love isn't of a pure heart or of a good conscience. You know, the I'm so loving Christian that I'm sure many of you have come across that can't even tell someone how to get saved, that refuse to even want to learn how to tell someone how to get saved, that in fact want to slam the door in your face when you're trying to tell them how to get saved, right? Doesn't sound so loving, does it? You know, that's not really, you know, well, you're just going to love your neighbor as yourself. Okay, well, they're great. Okay, but how about, you know, if I show you what the Bible actually says, not interested in slamming the door. So they're loving, doesn't it? They'll make you like pray for me and give me a glass of water or something, you know? Or the I'm so loving pastor who doesn't seem to care about wickedness, doesn't care about false doctrine, fables, endless genealogies, and the rest of it, yeah? Are they really that loving? They're that like, they're just armed around everyone and yeah, they'll call up and yeah, they're just like, you know, going to the church, they'll call up and yeah, they're just like, you know, constantly just there for you and everything else, but they can't actually smash the junk out of the church. They won't preach on anyone's sins because really they're not loving enough to do that, are they? Really, they just want to be everyone's best buddy because who do they really love themselves? He just told Timothy to not only charge those not to seek false doctrine, but not to reject fables and any genealogies. Then he goes, talks about the charity, which is love really out of a pure heart because that's more loving to the church, isn't it? That stuff, then for Timothy to have a big smile, you know, bless everyone and allow the place to be overrun by wickedness, okay? That's why they go hand in hand. They're within a few verses. Romans 12, no, you don't have to turn there. It says, let love be without dissimulation. That's fakery. Abhor that which is evil, cleave to that which is good. So we don't want this fake love and people look, I've noticed in this game, I've noticed it, you know, that if when you preach hard and I used to like, you just kind of see just this kind of, it's starting to form like the odd, like it would be the way wicked people would say things to you. So you're preaching hard and then they start talking about love and things like this, yeah. And then if you don't preach harder, you're preaching something else, then the wicked people start pushing it more and more and more. And it's like, you're constantly fighting this battle where people are trying to find a hole in something, you know, but the truth is it all goes hand in hand. You know, yeah, you need to preach hard, but sometimes, yeah, you need to encourage. Yeah, and obviously we all need to love each other as well, okay. But let it be without dissimulation, not fake love. Abort that which is evil, cleave to that which is good. Verse 5 says, Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart and of a good conscience and of faith and fame, from which some, having swerved, have turned aside unto vain jangling, desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm. So there are those that are swerved that, okay. Their charity isn't of a pure heart or of a good conscience. Their faith is feigned. They've turned aside to vain jangling. There's a lot of vain jangling around. If you're wondering, what is vain jangling? Think of the word wrangling, okay. I think it comes from that or vice versa. Quarrelling, disputing, okay. It's noisily too, okay. Empty rows and arguments where the purpose is just to row and argue. And there are a lot of people out there like that and they just want to row and argue. They're full of debate, as Romans 1 explains these people. You know, they just want to row. It's empty. A lot of the time it's pointless. Look, I don't know, I'm sure all of you have come across people like that who just want to row. Everyone just wants to row, right. Think of like these Christian debaters who don't actually preach the gospel. And people love that stuff, don't they? You know, it's like, well, YouTube candy for many. Watching people just debate and row with whether it's with Muslims is like the popular one, isn't it? But it can be with many, just debating, rowing. Does anyone ever get saved and get saved? So what's the point in it? Just empty, isn't it? It's just pointless, just a waste of your time listening to that stuff. The empty rows and arguments. The keyboard warriors, and there's a lot of keyboard warriors. I want to do a sermon on keyboard warriors sometime. Who just spend their time trying to row, insult, cause trouble from the safety of their electronic device. I mean, it's pathetic, really, isn't it? It really is. It really is pathetic. It's like, look, if you want to row, why don't you be either man enough, or a lot of the time woman enough to just stand in front of someone and just tell them what your problem is, right? But no, it's safer from behind your screen. And you know what's worse than the ones, cause there are people that do that at least behind their name, you know? I mean, we had this clown here before, that Vijay Kumar, who was so proud, you'll never beat me. Well, he's like typing out long essays within, I think a guy like Speedtyper, you know? And it was just drivel, you know, absolute drivel, but it's like, I'll just attack, attack, attack, attack, attack. However, there are those that then do it anonymously, and I mean, that's beyond. I mean, you've got like the keyboard warrior, that's pathetic, yeah? Then you've got the anonymous keyboard warrior, okay? And that is the equivalent to, in my day, that was the same sort of person that cut out letters off a newspaper, stuck them onto hate mail so that no one recognised their handwriting, and then sent a threat or an insult or something. Yeah, it's that pathetic, isn't it? And these people, they're everywhere, aren't they? Weird YouTube, Facebook, all sorts of social media accounts, where they don't have their name behind it, just insulting people, slagging them off, calling them names, you know, everything else. Some of them like know you as well, I've had this before, where they know you, but you don't really know who they are, and they're sending things to show they know you. Or just insulting you, insulting your family. I mean, what absolute little rats. I mean, that is pathetic, isn't it? Absolutely pathetic. It's like being man enough to just come to my face and tell me if you've got a problem, right? Yeah, it's just pathetic. But that is big right now, isn't it? Vain janglings, right? Fakes, frauds, and there's a lot of them around. And in Christianity, okay, a lot of these, what they do as well, and I've noticed this on YouTube and on these social media and stuff, is a lot of these, they like to throw verses around as well. Now, some of them will do it in person. We had a lady here that came not long ago with that, absolute clown, Salaam Kamara, who came in with him and then came into my office. Apparently, she was his legal witness or something. I think she, like, made teas in a solicitor's office or something. And then what he did is he recorded this whole thing, and then at the end she's going, well, didn't Jesus say, didn't Jesus say to love thy neighbour or something else, you know, love thy, you know, something about, I don't even know what she, she wasn't even quoting the verse properly. And, you know, no appearance of evil, you know, and all of this. And it's like, you know, they like to try and quote verses, don't they? And she's completely off as well. This guy's a false prophet. Yeah, he's a clown. Yeah, like, you know, I'll preach about you from the pulpit, okay? I'll do that all day long. I'll do that all day long. But people like, they like, you know, a verse here, a verse there, et cetera. It says in verse seven here, desiring to be teacher of the law. They want to be a teacher of the law, don't they? Understanding neither what they say nor where off they have fun. They don't actually know what it's really saying. A lot of the time they're completely out of context. They don't have a clue, yeah? However, they just so want to teach the law. They so want to appear to be this, like, holy teacher and everything else. And like I said, in our online world, they love trying to sound holy. If you can just quote a verse and sound holy, try to sound learned, they so want to teach others, but then they just get it all wrong. And look, of course, there are those that could repeat something they've heard in the sermon or do a Google search for verses to sound so knowledgeable. But one that's often amused me, okay, and this is something that we've had here in the past here and I've seen around, is when you get women trying to appear to be so holy, so in the faith, trying to teach everyone whilst usurping authority over the men. It's just nuts, isn't it? It's like, yeah, you know, they're trying to lift themselves up and, of course, we had some, like, high profile to you people here, ones before doing this said to be trying to teach people, trying to quote stuff and everything else. But you're completely wrong, you know. So you are trying to appear to be this sort of fount of all knowledge, like these kind of ones that you see online sometimes, but they should just be keeping quiet, learning in silence with all subjections, shouldn't they? Not trying to teach everyone else. We were talking about that old UK Soul Waning group. I mean, it was murder for it. I mean, every time, every morning, you just get, like, the latest sort of teaching this, teaching that, teaching this, teaching that. Like, you don't look holy, you look the opposite. You look like you don't understand what the Bible says about that, right? Where they're basically showing the complete opposite of a meek and quiet spirit. Because what does the Bible say? A meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price, isn't it? Or the online, either anonymous or not angry debater, and these, like I said, are everywhere, just throwing out insults at random people that they have no knowledge of. And these guys are everywhere. You ever go on, like, the comments section of anything, you know, anything contentious at all, and it's just people on there just throwing insults at me? It's bizarre, isn't it? You don't even know the person. Why are you throwing insults at them? They don't know anything about them because they've made one comment or something. And the point being that those you see on the Christian stuff. So you go on a YouTube channel of some pastor and you'll have people on there just throwing insults at people, while trying to sound all holy. It's like, what happened to speech being seasoned with grace? What happened to that? So you think you sound so learned and holy and ripping apart someone that you don't know. Look, if you know they're rep, mate, they're, yeah, smash it. Yeah, I've got no problem with that. But a lot of the time they don't, do they, these guys? So they go on these channels and they're trying to, like, look so, you know, so while they're smashing someone on there who's just asked a question. Or someone who might just be just a bit inquisitive. Had a bad kind of church background, is asked a couple of questions and suddenly you're just tearing them to shreds on a channel. It's nuts, isn't it? And really you're not holy, you're just the opposite, you know. He said, from which some having swerved have turned aside unto vain jangling, desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor way of they affirm. They want to be teachers but they're just getting it all wrong. What is it that makes people so obsessed with teaching when they don't really get it? Ego, pride, like we talked about this morning is a big one, isn't it? So pride, wanting to be the teacher, wanting to be, you know, up here. Now, there's nothing wrong with teaching if the motivation is right, okay? So if your motivation is to teach, it's because, look, you want to impart some knowledge to people, great. Here though, specifically, they're likely teaching the law for salvation, okay? That's what we're probably seeing here. But so many people, what's their motivation to teach? A lot of the time their motivation to teach is not because someone needs to do the job or someone needs to do this or whatever, or because, look, I've got something here, I think I understand this, I want to preach it to someone or whatever else. A lot of the time it's to lift themselves up, a lot of the time it's pride, it's ego, it's needing to be the man, you know? That's the wrong motivation, isn't it? And God's not going to use that. Here though, like I said, it's the teacher of the law for salvation. It says in verse 8, but we know that the law is good if a man use it lawfully, knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for man-slayers, for hall-mongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for men-stealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine, according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God which was committed to my trust. Do you know what Paul's saying here? He's saying that the law is good, but it's not to achieve salvation, okay? It's not to achieve salvation. The law is there to bring a son to Christ. Galatians 3.24 says, wherefore the law is our schoolmaster to bring a son to Christ we might be justified by faith. That's how we're justified by faith. The law is there to show sinners that they come short of the glory of God, isn't it? It's there to convince the unsaved that they can't achieve salvation. It's for the lawless and disobedient. Verse 9 says, for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for man-slayers. Well, let's continue. For whoremongers, for them that defy themselves in mankind, for men-stealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine, according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God which was committed to my trust. So it includes anything sinful according to the gospel which shows that death is possible and all men and all have sinned, right? It's to show the unsaved that there is none righteous, okay? That's what it shows. James 2.10 says, for whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. Okay, that's what the law is for. Verse 12 says, and I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry. Who was before a blasphemer and a persecutor and injurious, but I obtain mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. So Paul previously saw, if you don't know, in the book of Acts, we see he's basically hunting down the church. He's hunting down that first church in Jerusalem. He's hunting down Christians. He's blaspheming Jesus Christ. He's persecuting the church injurious. He was unjust. It was all wrong, okay? The whole thing was wrong. However, he wasn't some reprobate that knew but rejected the truth, okay? That's what he's just said here in verse 13. He said, but I obtain mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. That's what I believe he's saying there. He wasn't someone that knew, knew the truth and did that. No, he was, it was still out of ignorance, yeah? Verse 14, although I do believe that had he rejected when he got, when Jesus Christ appeared to him, when he was told to go and, you know, and be told the way, you know, more perfectly I have it, it's worded, I think had he rejected that at that point, you'd probably say it was a pretty thin ice, right? Okay, however, he didn't. But verse 14 says, And the grace of our Lord is exceeding abundant with faith and love, which is in Christ Jesus. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. Howbeit for this cause I obtain mercy that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all longsuffering for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting. So the mercy that Paul received should encourage us to not give up on the unsaved, I think is what he's saying here. Look, I think we can often easily just write people off, can't we? Oh, they're probably a reprobate, they're probably this. However, look, there are obvious signs of that, yeah, but a lot of the time, look, if you saw it, look, if the apostle Paul was out here today hunting us down and everything else, you're like, that guy's a devil all day long before he was the apostle Paul when he was born, yeah? He'd be like this guy, no chance, anything else. However, he got saved, didn't he? He got saved, okay? So he said, He said, He attained mercy in me first Christ Jesus, much so forth all longsuffering for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting. Or you could argue the pattern is in his life, but we'll see. But verse 17, it says, Now unto the king eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen. This charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on thee, that thou by them mightest war a good warfare. And, you know, something that I try and get across to you guys a lot, and it's not just the ministry, but the ministry especially, it is war, okay? It really is. And, you know, I didn't understand this before I got into the ministry. It really is a battle, okay? It's war. The spiritual battle rages on a daily basis, okay? It's unbelievable. But church life itself can often be that as well. So it's not just in the ministry anyway. And, you know, and of course, look, church is also a great place as well. So I always worry that I go too far on this, where people are like, man, I mean, what happened to, you know, just how good and how pleasant it is for a brethren to dwell together and all this stuff, and it's like, oh, he's talking about his war and battle and everything else, you know? It's like, I don't even know if I want to go there, okay? But it's not, but there is the truth, the reality is it's somewhere in between. You know, look, we're told to, we're fighting for the Lord Jesus Christ. We're fighting for the gospel, aren't we? Are we not earnestly contending for the faith? Yeah? So it is a battle. It is a war. And the more you're kind of, you get involved in proper church life, the more you see that, don't you? But however, believe me, like when it comes to the ministry, because he's talking here to Timothy, you know, who is a pastor, I believe at this point, he says, thou mightest, thou by them mightest war a good warfare. And look, the ministry is, it's like a total war. And look, I'm not saying that every single day of the week it's just like a war, a battle, but there's so much, you know? There's so many different angles and aspects that make it that war. However, you can war a good warfare though, you know? And we take it to the enemy, don't we? Yeah, we take it to them, we preach the gospel to them, we'll preach. Look, and you've got to war a good warfare. Sometimes you've got to smash stuff out of the church, you've got to smash sin, you've got to smash wickedness, you know, you've got to take it to the enemy. It's not just all defence, defence, you know, we preach it hard here. And, you know, I'm sure many others would do the same here. We can war a good warfare. And what he does here is he says basically, you know, he gives us this reminder that ministry is war. He tells Timothy to war a good warfare. Then he goes on to give an example of this. He says, holding faith and a good conscience, which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck, of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme. Who are Hymenaeus and Alexander? They've been delivered unto Satan, which in 1 Corinthians 5 is referring to, they use the same terminology Paul does, it's referring to church discipline, it's being kicked out of the church. Verse 5 says in 1 Corinthians 5, to deliver such a one unto Satan, talking about this fornicator, for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Okay, so here at this point, he's talking about some church discipline of these two guys, Hymenaeus and Alexander, who he's delivered unto Satan. I've said this many times, you go, well, how are they delivered unto Satan? Did he like wrap them up in a bow and kind of, you know, with Satan written on the card on the front or something else? I mean, what's he address? According to most, it'd be down in hell, wouldn't it? Although that's not the reality, right? Maybe it's like just down at the local false church. The truth is, is that when you're out of church, when you get kicked out of church, you basically, for me, I believe that you no longer have that sort of protection that comes with church and you're more likely to therefore, or in fact, you will, if you're kicked out, and you're saved, if you're not saved, then you're not going to get the chastisement of God. But when you're kicked out, then I believe you are then going to basically, you know, have a hard time. Now it's almost like, okay, that protection's gone and Satan's going to have his way with you. Okay, now the idea is that if you're saved and you're kicked out of church, that you're going to want to get right and come back. But a lot of people go, well, that's the purpose of church discipline. No, the purpose of church discipline is that a little leaven leavens the whole lump. The purpose of church discipline is to get that leaven out of the church. However, a secondary reason for church discipline and a secondary sort of benefit of it is that sometimes people who are right will come back right with God afterwards. And they'll get kicked out, they'll have a bad time of it, they'll think, I don't want to be out of church anymore, actually the grass isn't greener, actually this isn't a good thing and I'm going to get right in whatever that issue was and come back into church, yeah. Now at this point where he says, whom I've delivered unto Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme, that's talking about church discipline, okay. However, these guys, I don't know, we're going to have a look in a second who they are because I think that they probably go on to prove that the church discipline, you know, although that was stage one, really these were bad people. Turn to 2 Timothy 4 because we're saying who are these guys then? Hymenaeus and Alexander. There's an Alexander mentioned in Acts 19 when Paul was in Ephesus, a Jew that tries to calm the uproar over their goddess Diana. This could be the same guy, okay, we don't really know really much more than that. Simon the Cyrenian, if you remember, is described as, he's a guy that was compelled to bear Jesus' cross, is described as the father of Alexander and Rufus and I believe maybe that this Alexander is the same guy. We see Rufus mentioned, I think if I remember right, in Romans 16, if I'm right, yeah, Romans 16 and he basically seems to be in a positive light but maybe Alexander isn't. But by 2 Timothy 4 and verse 14, there's an Alexander, and like I say, an Alexander isn't mentioned much in the New Testament, there's an Alexander with a bad reputation. And 2 Timothy 4, 14 says, So it sounds to me like this was a guy that had heard and withstood sound words. This is a guy that was probably in church, this was a guy that was hearing things preached and has withstood them, that's what I believe, because what words was he greatly withstanding otherwise? This is a guy that's heard the Gospel, heard it preached, heard many things preached and he's withstood it. I think this is probably the same guy, okay. I might be wrong, we can't say for sure, you can't be dogmatic about it. Go to 2 Timothy 2 for Hymenaeus and we're going to look from verse 15. So 2 Timothy 2 mentions Hymenaeus where he says from verse 15, Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly divine in the word of truth. But shun profane and vain babblings, for they will increase unto more ungodliness, and their word will eat as doth a canker, of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus, who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already, and overthrow the faith of some. So this is a couple of years later, denying the resurrection to come, overthrowing people's faith. They sound like bad guys to me, right? These don't sound like sort of picture perfect church members. These sound like probably the worst type of guys. They're saying that the resurrection is past already, and overthrowing the faith of some. There are people going, wait a second, the resurrection is past, why am I here? This is beyond just slight error with doctrine. This is full on false doctrine. This is like salvation stuff as well. So this guy, especially, we see Hymenaeus and Philetus, but Hymenaeus is who we're talking to here, we see that this guy is, for me here, we're seeing that he's an unsaved church infiltrator. And in 1 Timothy 1, where we are, we see Hymenaeus and Alexander having been church disciplined, delivered unto Satan. Later in the second letter, they seem to be getting permanently marked, and at least, look, Hymenaeus, you could say for sure, I reckon Alexander the coppersmith is probably the same guy. We don't see an Alexander really mentioned other than that, other than, like I said, a couple of obscure mentions, which don't kind of affect it either way. So I think it's probably the same. We don't know whether or not they returned in between. They could have been whispering and poisoning from outside the church, for all we know. We don't know whether they came back from this initial church discipline. But what we do know is that these are very real, named examples of bad people that Timothy and Paul are dealing with. Named, shamed, real examples of people from the past that were dealt with by Paul and Timothy. And the reason I say that is because that is the nature of church life. It's a sad reality, but it is a reality of church life. When you're at a real church, and it can be off-putting, it can, knowing that they will creep in, knowing that we'll regularly have to deal with this stuff, can put you off, can't it? And that's part of the goal of it as well. Part of the goal is to put you off, is to make you think, I can't deal with this sort of stuff. It's part of the battle. But Paul had just said to Timothy in verse 18, This charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on thee, that thou by them mightest war good warfare. And I think he's basically saying about the preaching that he's heard before, that he's been under, he said, you need to war good warfare. You need to remember the stuff that you've heard, remember the stuff that you preach, you need to war good warfare. And part of that warfare is close-quarters fighting. That's the reality of it. And look, for us, for people in a church, you're going to have to sometimes deal with that. But a lot of that you can leave to the leadership. So we don't obviously just want people just walking around churches, constantly trying to fight for and everyone and pick battles and everything. But look, serious stuff you need to come to. And obviously, look, if there's stuff that you're just finding uncomfortable, something you're dealing with or listening to or something, sure, come to me, okay? And I'm not saying don't do that. But the rest of the time, you want to try and get on with people. But what you need to understand as well, though, is although that can be left to the leadership, yeah, myself under Pastor Thompson, we're going to deal with a lot of that stuff and deal with those sorts of issues. You've got to know that although it's inevitable, we do grow and strengthen from it. So although you might be like, oh, I just don't know, this sounds, you know, church just sounds a little bit rough and people getting kicked out and people, you know, constantly coming in and causing grief and everything else. And it feels a bit like there's a bit of a spotlight, like there's kind of like this Arrow movie around going, ooh, you know. And it's not like that. Look, that's not what average people are showing. And believe me, I'm not doing that either. So I don't just sit there just, this one must be wicked. Yeah, you'll see red flags. And red flags are just that, okay? They're flags. They're not like 100%. And yeah, you know, sometimes you're going to be like, that was a bit weird and everything else, but you want to give people the benefit of the doubt, okay? You want to see the best in people. However, we also need to have our eye out for false doctrine, for weird sort of stuff, all that stuff that I've talked about before, people trying to pull people off to one side, people trying to like, you know, jump on new members to get their numbers and think that it's all like weird stuff, right? And the more I preach that, then the more that should, A, try and B, help people that don't really know any better to just behave in the right way, right? Okay, so you don't have to sit there thinking, oh, no. However, we do grow and strengthen through it as well. And it will happen, it does happen. And here, first chapter, within 20 verses, of the first of the pastoral epistles, he's talking about people, wicked people, getting kicked out, talking about fighting, warring, a good warfare. That's just the reality of it. And as uncomfortable as it is sitting in the church hearing this stuff breach, like we've said many times, Paul warned them night and day with tears. Every single day for three years, he warned them about this sort of stuff. So, look, as much as it's uncomfortable and sometimes people don't want to hear it, I'm not going to feel bad preaching this stuff. Here in 2 Timothy, in chapter 2, look at verse 19, because we were there, sorry, I know you turned back, where he said, Nevertheless, the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are his, and let every one that nameeth the name of Christ depart from iniquity. If we're saved, okay, we want to be as far away from this weird behaviour as possible, don't we? That's the best thing to do about it. So if you're sitting there going, oh man, I know I've done this a bit weird. Well, the trick is, is just, if you name the name of Christ, depart from iniquity. Right? Be a good church member. Just settle in, enjoy, get involved, you know, love it. And the more people depart from iniquity, the more then when we get the real full of iniquity, the works of iniquity come in and just stand like a sore thumb. And no one's going, I just never knew, because everyone else is kind of being weird, yeah? Okay, let everyone that name the name of Christ depart from iniquity. So we want to avoid all that. 1 Thessalonians 5, 22 says to abstain from all appearance of evil. Abstain from it all. Get rid of all appearance of evil, right? And again, look, we're all going to kind of look, say funny things now and again, be a bit odd and everything else. But if you're just abstaining from all appearance of evil, you're just departing from iniquity, look, you know, no one's sitting there going, that's a bit weird, that's a bit odd and everything else, right? But then he says in verse 20, but, but, in a great house, is this a great house? This is a great house. This is a house of God, right? I don't think there's a greater house than a house of God. The pillar and ground of the truth. But in a great house, there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth, and some to honour and some to dishonour. If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified and meet for the master's use and prepared unto every good work. Do you know what? We grow from this stuff. From the stuff that we went, you know, the stuff that we went through last year in this church, or sorry, it's a year ago now, we're coming up to the anniversary of removing a large part of the church, really. No, we've got nothing but stronger from that, okay? Like, you know, the church has got stronger in the ministry. Myself and my wife have learned so much from that. And with so many of the different attacks and everything else, we have got stronger. And it says here, if a man therefore purge himself from these, and here I believe he's talking about these vessels to dishonour, okay? These are wicked people. He shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified and meet. That's suitable for the master's use and prepared unto every good work. We grow and we strengthen and we learn from this. From every time we deal with people, not just the ministry, not just those in the ministry, not just those in leadership, but all, everyone should grow and learn from it. And they're not always going to be, you know, like as ridiculous as Dory, okay? Or, you know, or Alex and Holly or, you know, just like, they're not always going to be that blatant. But everyone grew from that, didn't they? They're like, yeah, wait a second. And we were laughing about it earlier, just saying like, it was so ridiculous, wasn't it? It was so bizarre. You know, someone said the first time they met him, he just walked in and went, four. I was like, what? Four salvations. Just absolutely bizarre, isn't it? Yeah, but however, we've all, like, now we're like, okay, so that's weird, isn't it? Coming back six, ten, like, it was nuts, wasn't it? But at the time, a lot of people were a bit hoodwinked just because, you know, we weren't as used to this stuff, you know? And as we grow, as we grow, as we see this and see it more, you just start to see this sort of stuff going on, you grow, you get stronger, right? And that's what's going to happen. When, as we purge ourselves from these, we become vessels unto honour, sanctified and meet for the master, he's prepared unto every good work. Everything can have a purpose, can't it? You know, all things work together for good, yeah, to those that love God and are called according to his purpose, right? Okay, and all these things, all these people can be used for the good of God's people. He said in, he said, Okay, look, the ministry, church, the ministry and just church life generally is going to be war a lot of the time. A lot of the time, look, there's going to be great times. There's going to be times when you're just, when you're patting each other on the back going, that was great. You're going to come through a small skirmish or battle and come out the other end and go, okay, you know, we got stronger from that and we're persevering and we're getting salvaged, we're getting baptisms and we're growing and we're affecting people and we're changing lives, we're seeing lives change and we're going to get attacked at those times as well. We're going to have people trying to demoralise, trying to discourage, trying to find ways to pick at you, to find holes, to find fault and everything else and we're going to battle our way through that as well and we're going to have times where it feels a bit low and we're going to have times where we feel ecstatic. Okay, and that's just the nature of the ministry, that's the nature of church life. He said that by the mightiest war, good warfare, he said holding faith and a good conscience and the way a lot of the time that we defend against these types of people is by having a good conscience because they'll throw everything at you, they'll accuse you of everything, they'll try that, and obviously in the ministry it's worse for that but that will happen with some of you sometimes, sadly. There'll be people trying to accuse you, it might be outside of church, trying to claim you've done this, said that, acted lightly, trying to change something you've said a little bit to make it sound much worse, whatever else they try and do, but you hold a good conscience. If you hold your faith, hold a good conscience, unlike these guys who concerning faith have made shit, you hold your faith, hold a good conscience, stay strong, then we can get through that and get all the benefits and all the rewards and all the enjoyment that comes from serving God and being part of God's army, right? He said, of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I've delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme. And obviously there's church discipline there, but we're going to, like I said, I believe these guys end up proving that the church discipline, you know, well, at least it wasn't going to have the effect of them returning. Okay, so that was 1 Timothy, and again, look, there's going to be some, you know, some rougher parts here but that's the nature of the ministry. However, we're going to learn a lot as we go through this book and many protocols and ways of doing things in church, which I'm hoping we're going to really cement in here. We're going to finish up now in a word of prayer. Father, thank you for, well, just, you know, this great book that we've started just teaching us just straight away in the first chapter of the things, you know, that we have to watch out for and also just, you know, not just the endless genealogies and the false doctrine, all that sort of stuff that we're to keep an eye out for and obviously in the ministry especially, but also, you know, just to understand that it is a war, we are in warfare, we're battling for the Gospel, Lord, we're earnestly contending for the faith, that there's much, much opposition to that. Help us to stay strong, Lord, help us to want to be strong, to want to, you know, just take what we should do and that's honour and, you know, feel honoured to be able to serve in your army, to be able to fight for you, to battle for you, help us to take it seriously as well, also help us to enjoy along the way, Lord, help us to just be a church which still gets the enjoyment out of all the great parts of being saved, being part of your church, Lord, being part of this church in the UK just serving you and leading the battle, leading the charge. Help us to all get home safe and sound this evening, Lord, and hopefully all just find a way of making it back on Wednesday night as well to be in church, Lord, to listen to your word read, preached, to sing praises to you and to fellowship together, Lord. In Jesus' name I pray all of this. Amen.