When you stiff-arm God, when in Stephen's words you become stiff-necked, resisting the Spirit of God, ultimately you are playing Russian roulette with your soul. When the Spirit of God begins to work on your life and you resist Him, ignore Him, put Him off. You are sinning high-handedly. Welcome to Search the Scriptures, the Bible teaching ministry of Dr. Carl Broge.
Senior Pastor of Community Bible Church in Beaufort, South Carolina. As we continue our study of chapter 1 of 1 Timothy today, We find in verses 7-10 an examination of the law in an age of grace. In other words, if we are saved by grace, why do we need the law?
Well As we rejoin Dr. Broge, we see that the law was made for those who want to break it. Realizing the fact That the law is not made for a righteous man, but for those who are lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers. Paul is saying the law, among other things, is designed for those who naturally want to break it. That's why laws are given.
If everyone by nature would automatically obey what was right, there would be no need to have a law. And if you come to think of it, that's true in every realm of law. The only use of the law, or the primary use, is for the lawless. For example, There would be no need for speed limits and other traffic laws if everyone drove courteously, safely, carefully. There'd no need to put a hedge around your yard to fence it in, to mark your boundaries, to have clear delineations through leases and contracts if people would not violate the law of God, if people would not trespass.
There would be no need for marriage laws or divorce laws if God's original purpose for a permanent monogamous marriage was held and honored by men. There'd be no need for laws that deal with race relations or civil rights legislation. If man was always impartial, The law is for the lawless. It is to show a man what he ought to be and to condemn a man when he's not. That's the purpose of the law.
And if that's true of the law of the land, it's certainly true of the law of God.
Now, Paul is not saying. That is a righteous man, understand how he uses the phrase righteous man throughout his epistles, sometimes experientially, sometimes positionally. Hear the latter. When you got saved, God justified you. He declared you righteous.
And if you are in Jesus Christ today, you're as holy as God through God's eyes. That's why God calls every true believer a saint. You are righteous, but understand that when God declared you righteous, when God made you a child of God. He gave you a law that you are still to follow. You still have an obligation to obey it.
Listen to what Paul says in Romans 8. Paul is not saying. That a righteous man, a Christian, should ignore the law of God. Otherwise, that would contradict this verse. Look.
For what the law could not do. Weak as it was through the flesh. That is to say, The law could not save you. You could not be saved by your moral obedience to the law. You could not be saved by your good deeds.
Because to be saved by good deeds, you would have to perfectly keep the law, because James says to violate one point of the law is to be guilty of the whole law.
So what the law could not do, that is it could not save you because it was weak in your sinful, fallen flesh. What it could not do, God did. How? Sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh. Why?
As an offering for sin, he condemns sin in the flesh. Christ, in his own body and the cross, took all of your sin. He took the curse of the law upon himself. Why did he do that? Not just to deal with the penalty of your sin, but also to call you to a new life in order that the requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
So Paul is clearly teaching that the law has application for the believer. It's obligatory on the believer and that, for that matter, for all mankind. But what he's teaching here in 1 Timothy... Is that the law is not to be a chain around your heart? It's not to be a fetter to enslave you.
Such that through your obedience you earn a life that is pleasing to God. Listen, I don't need a law that says thou shalt not murder your parents. Because I love God. I've been born again and I love my parents. You don't have to write a law, thou shalt not murder your parents, because I don't want to murder my parents.
And what Paul is saying here, these false teachers who unlawfully used the law taught it in such a way because they taught that obedience to it redeemed you, and God says that's impossible, but they taught it in such a way that it produced bondage and servitude. It was kept, they taught to earn the favor of God, something you can never earn. But those of us who are under the grace of God understand that God has accepted us in Jesus Christ through the merit of His Son, and so that you don't need a law to try to make you obey because you want to obey. You have a new want to. And so the purpose of the law is not to fetter the righteous, it's to restrain the wicked.
The law is designed, he says here, for the lawless, the rebellious, the ungodly, the unholy, and so on.
So Paul moves from that more general statement. to a more particular statement. And when he gives this list. for which the law was made. He doesn't just pull it out of the air.
The Holy Spirit directs them. And it follows perfectly the Ten Commandments. We could spend a whole sermon on this, but let me just plant the seed in your heart, and you can go back and study it more this week. For instance, follow the flow of thought here in verse 9. Realizing the fact that law is not made for a righteous man, but for those who are lawless.
or rebellious. Notice the first group that he mentions. Those who are lawless and rebellious.
Now the lawless are those who refuse to recognize the law of God. The rebellious are those who are unwilling to submit to the law of God. And taken together, and these two words are connected together inseparably in the Greek text, it's a violation of the first commandment, thou shalt have no other gods before me. Because these kinds of people were their own God. They were a God unto themselves.
He continues, For the ungodly and sinners.
Now, ungodly describe those people who have no inner reverence for God. They willfully ignore what God says in His Word. He's not necessarily speaking here of a professed atheist. But those who disregard the will of God for their life. And sinners, one of 11 words translated as such in the New Testament, describes a group of people who, in their practice, oppose God.
And so, taken together, it's a violation of the second commandment. Thou shalt not make any graven images. You shall not worship or serve them. And so we have people today who are serving their own created gods because they are ungodly and sinners. Third, he speaks of the unholy.
and the profane.
Now the unholy are impure. The profane are irreverent towards holy things. They mock or make fun of holy things, and we have a lot of profane people today.
Now it's interesting, the Greek word for profane is the word for threshold. You know what a threshold is, you step over it every time you go into the house. And so the profane Put God's truth under their feet. They walk over it as if it were a common thing, as if it were like dirt. And taken together, it is a violation of the fourth commandment, of the third and the fourth commandment: Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, and remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.
Now, those first words are a blanket condemnation of those who disobey the first of the four Ten Commandments. But then he moves from our duty to God to our duty to man. And so he adds here in verse 9 that the law is for those who kill their fathers or mothers for murderers. Of course, this is a violation of the fifth and sixth commandments: honor thy father and thy mother, thou shalt not murder. Verse 10 begins that the law is for immoral men and homosexuals.
He's referring to sinful, heterosexual, and homosexual practices. This is a violation of the seventh commandment. Thou shalt not commit adultery. He continues, and kidnappers. This is a violation of the eighth commandment.
Thou shalt not steal. Then he adds liars and perjurers. This, of course, is a violation of the ninth commandment. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. And then he concludes, and whatever else is contrary to sound teaching, that's a summary statement of the tenth commandment, because all of the other sins not listed are rooted in that commandment, thou shalt not covet.
Now follow the flow of thought here. The law, we are told, are not made for those who've been declared righteous. Rather, it is for those who are lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers and immoral men, and homosexuals, and kidnappers, and liars, and perjuries, and whatever else. is contrary to sound teaching according to The glorious gospel.
Now please note. Paul here, as he does throughout his epistles, he moves from the law of God to the gospel of God. Because in Paul's mind, the two were always linked together. Paul is saying that the law is for those who by nature do not love God or man. They only love themselves, they're wrapped up in their own world.
And so please understand, again, Paul is not saying. That when he says the law is for the lawless, that it has no role in the life of the believer today, because the rest of his epistles teach otherwise. But he's trying to deal with the problem at hand that Timothy is facing. I mean think about it. For a lost person, when you were lost, the law condemned you.
When you saw the law of God, you looked at it like in a mirror. You saw what it said. And you looked at yourself. You said I fall short of that. What are men doing?
They're taking the silver plate off the back of the law today. You just kind of look right through it. You don't really see yourself. Why? Because they lower the bar of God.
And so it's no longer alcoholism, it's drunkenness. It's no longer homosexuality, it's misplaced father love. It's no longer pornography, it's adult entertainment.
So the law of God condemns you. And it shows you that you need to flee to Jesus Christ for pardon. But then, as a saved person, the law of God directs your conduct. You see what you are supposed to do as a believer, and then you realize that it's impossible to do it unless you flee to God for His power, because without Him, you can do nothing.
So, it condemns us that we might come to Christ to be justified, but it also directs us that we might come to Christ and be sanctified. And so, Paul wants Timothy to understand the lawful use of the law.
So, by design, the church is to teach the law of God. Secondly, in addition to teaching the law of God, we are to preach. The gospel of God. Paul is saying to Timothy, Timothy. You need to silence these teachers who unlawfully teach the law.
But make sure, Timothy, that you teach the law because the law is good. And when you teach it, Timothy, please teach it, note, according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted. It's the glorious gospel. It is the good news that saves a lost sinner. And again, the law and the gospel go together because without the law, You'll never see your need for the gospel.
Do you realize that? You see, many men don't get saved. Because they don't really think they're all that bad. That's why Jesus said to the Pharisees, the prostitutes And the tax gatherers will get into the kingdom of God before you do. I came not to save the righteous, but sinners.
I came to call sinners to repentance. And so the law and the gospel go together because the law without the gospel is a diagnosis without a remedy. And the gospel without a law is salvation for a people who don't need it. It's not until you get a man lost that you will ever get him saved. And that's why as you preach the gospel, you use the law of God to help by the Spirit of God to help man to see his sin.
It's not until you've heard the bad news that the law condemns you that you will flee to Christ for the good news that Christ can save you.
Now the law is not gospel, but neither is the gospel lawless. And of course, Paul knew it firsthand because Paul knew that he had blatantly disobeyed and violated the law of God, that he stood condemned before a holy God, and it was because of that that he came to the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ. And so Paul moves here to describe his own personal testimony, one of five times. In the Bible, where Paul in some form or fashion gives his testimony, he becomes exhibit A. For what the gospel can do.
And so we learn first by his personal testimony what Paul was like by nature, what Paul was like. By nature. Look here, beginning in verse 12, he starts with just thanksgiving. I thank Christ Jesus our Lord. who has strengthened me.
Because he considered me faithful, putting me into service, even though. I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor. I have those three phrases underlined in my Bible. He describes himself as a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a violent aggressor. That's what he was like before he was saved.
First, we're told he was a blasphemer. Why? Because he denied the deity of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and he forced others to do it. In any group today, be they Catholic, Protestant, or cult, that denies the deity of our precious Lord is blaspheming God. He repudiated Christ and his claims.
He said Christ was an imposter, he was not God, he was a false Messiah. Secondly, Paul says that he was a persecutor. Why? Because he used physical force to go against the church of God, he tried to destroy it. Luke, when he describes Paul in Acts 9:1, he says that Saul of Tarsus breathed out threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord.
Murderous threats. It was the very breath of Saul. And what drove this man? His passion. Was to wipe out the church.
Acts 7 tells us that he was responsible for the stoning of Stephen. And when he shares his testimony in Acts 22, he said, and I persecuted this way to the death. binding and putting both men and women into prisons. But not only was he involved in the death of Stephen, he was involved in the death of many other believers. When he stands before Agrippa, he says, So then?
I thought myself that I had to do many things hostile to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. And this is just what I did in Jerusalem. Not only did I lock up many of the saints in prisons, having received authority from the chief priests, but also when they were being put to death, I cast my vote against them. And so when Paul sums up his life to the Corinthians, He said, for I am the least of the apostles. Who am not fit to be called an apostle?
You remember what we read last week? He doesn't say I'm an apostle according to the will of God when he introduces this epistle as he so typically does. He said, I am an apostle by the commandment of God. Paul had to be commanded by Jesus Christ to take on the role of apostle because Paul, when he looked at his past life, he said, I'm the least of them, I don't even deserve to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God.
So he describes himself first as a blasphemer. Secondly, as a persecutor. Notice third, he calls himself a violent aggressor.
Now the Greek word is humis, put together with another one. It means proud. and insulin. In modern terminology, we would say Paul was a bully. It conveys the idea of a haughty man, a proud man, who would throw around his weight.
And get against people in violence.
Now, you wouldn't want to meet this kind of fella in a back alley. You wouldn't want to meet Paul. In fact, if you're a Christian, you wouldn't want to meet Paul in broad daylight. Because he hated Christians. He despised everything they stood for.
In fact, when Paul was finally born again, The church thought he had faked conversion. They thought that he was just coming on with a phony confession to get on the inside, and it took Barnabas, Acts 9 teaches, to show him otherwise. He was a violent aggressor.
So that's what Paul was like by nature before he was saved. But also consider what Paul became by grace. He adds here in verse 13, and yet I was shown mercy. Because I acted ignorantly in unbelief.
Now, the mercy that Paul desired Timothy to know in his opening greeting, he had personally known through his own relationship with God. In fact, it's passive. Literally, it says, I was mercied. God showered his mercy upon Paul. God had pity.
God had compassion on the Apostle Paul. And he tells us one of the reasons: because I acted ignorantly in unbelief.
Now, understand there's one sense in which God describes all last men and other passages as being in ignorance. In unbelief, why? Because the God of this world, the devil, has blinded your eyes to the truth. And so the initiative does not begin with you, it begins with God. He takes the first step because no man can come to the Father unless the Father draws him.
But He doesn't limit His work of the Spirit to a select few. He works upon all men, the whole world He will send the Spirit to convict of sin, righteousness, and judgment. But Paul is using here ignorance in a different sense. He is reminding us that he did not deliberately act against a clear knowledge of the truth and so resisting the Holy Spirit. Remember what we just read in Acts 26.
So then. I thought to myself that I had to do many things hostile to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. His plea of ignorance, please understand, is not an excuse for his sin. It's simply one of the reasons that God had mercy on him. You see, in the Old Testament, God made a distinction between those who sinned in ignorance.
And those who sinned presumptuously. You may want to go back this afternoon and read Numbers 15 because there we learn that forgiveness was available for the former group and not for the latter group. And I believe that God put Numbers 15 in the Bible to remind us also of a new covenant truth. When a man willfully, deliberately, presumptuously, the King James says high-handedly, sins against the light that God has given him, then he ultimately becomes blinded by that light. When you stiff-arm God, when in Stephen's words, you become stiff-necked, resisting the Spirit of God, ultimately you are playing Russian roulette with your soul.
When the Spirit of God begins to work on your life and you resist Him, ignore Him, put Him off, You are ascending high-handedly.
Now, Paul was wrong and wicked for what he did, but he wants us to understand that his crimes against God and against the church were not the result of his setting his will against the known will of God. He was not sinning presumptuously, as Numbers 15 said, or as the new covenant says, sinning against the Holy Spirit. He actually thought he was serving God. But nonetheless, this man who tried to please God in his own merit, because those who serve and live in the flesh can never please God, he later wrote, because he tried to serve God in his flesh, he became nothing but a blasphemer. and a persecutor and a violent aggressor.
And so God had mercy. God had compassion on this man, but God also showed him grace. He showered him with his undeserved favor. Look at verse 14. And the grace of our Lord was more than abundant.
With the faith and love which are found in Christ Jesus. Of course, these are the verses from which John Bunyan writes his autobiography: Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners.
Now, this word abundant. Is a Greek word that means overflowed. It was used of a river that was so full it just overflowed its banks. And Paul is comparing God's grace to a river that just overflowed its banks. And so he attaches to this word abundant, hooper.
He says here, notice, more than abundant. I like the King James, it says exceedingly abundant.
Now you know the word hupere. We get our word hyper in English from it. We speak of hypersensitive people. We speak of hyperactive children.
Well, Paul here is speaking of hyperabundant grace. Where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more. And so God's grace flooded Paul's heart. It overflowed his heart with the faith and love which were found in Christ Jesus. He was an unbeliever in unbelief, but God flooded his heart with faith.
He was hateful and hating others, persecuting the church of God, but God flooded his heart with love. And so he goes on in verse 15. It is a trustworthy statement deserving full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all. Paul is saying this. If God's grace is adequate to save me.
It can save anybody. It's a statement deserving your full acceptance. Embrace it with all your heart. If God could save Saul of Tarsus, He can save you. You know, if he came in here today, we wouldn't think that.
He was just neutral. We would have concluded Paul was beyond saving. He was out and out for the enemy. Most of us probably would never would have prayed for Saul's conversion. And Paul is helping us to understand.
that if God can save me, He can save anyone. When he writes his letter to the Corinthians early on in his ministry, he says, I am the least of the apostles.
Some years go by and he writes again to the Ephesian church and he broadens the term and he says in Ephesians 3 and verse 8, I am the least of all the saints, I'm the least of all the Christians. And when he comes to the end of his life, Paul says, I am the chief of all sinners. You see, as a man grows in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ, as he learns more and more what God is like, he sees more and more what his sin is like. And so Paul said, this is a statement. Deserving your full acceptance.
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and I'm the chief, I am the foremost of all. And that's why he adds in verse 16, and yet for this reason I found mercy. Why? In order that in me as the foremost. Jesus Christ might demonstrate his perfect patience as an example.
As an example for those who would believe in him for eternal life. Paul is reminding us That the grace of God that was shown to him was not only something that resulted in his conversion, but it was also an example. of God's perfect patience.
Now, the word patient here I think is better probably translated in the Old King James. Long suffering. They used two English words put together into one. And it's actually two Greek words put together into one. Macro thumios.
Macro, you know our English word macro means something that's big or long. We talk about macroeconomics. Thumos, we get our word thermometer or thermos from it. It refers to something that deals with the connotation of heat.
Well, the Greek word means passion. Or anger or rage. In English, we could have translated long-tempered. Literally, the word means taking a long time to get angry. That's God's patience.
You would have thought that God would have just snuffed Paul out. Paul, I've had enough of you. You've locked up enough of my servants. You've killed enough of my evangelists. You've ripped off enough of my pastors, Paul.
You're out of here. Your little ticker's gonna stop in your chest, and you're dead meat. But Paul became an example of God's long-suffering. of God's patience. Jesus Christ endured the blasphemy of the Apostle Paul and the persecution of the Apostle Paul because Jesus said, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?
Because to persecute his body was to persecute the head. And yet the Lord Jesus did not smite him with judgment. Even so, Paul is telling us that he is an example of God's patience towards the rest of the world. And if God could save Paul and be patient with him and then use Paul in the mighty way that he used him, He can use you. For a copy of today's message, Responsibilities of a Pastor and His People, the second in our series from the book of 1 Timothy.
Please call Search the Scriptures at 877-787-777. Mm-hmm. and request program 1 Timothy 002. You can also listen online at our website searchthescriptures.org. or through the Search Descriptions app for smartphones and tablets.
We hope that you will join us tomorrow as we continue to search the scriptures.
