No Alternative! (1 Tim. 4)

We do not allow surgeons to operate on us who can’t tell a liver from a kidney. We don’t need ministers preaching to us who don’t know the difference between Justification and Sanctification. We need physicians of the soul, now more than ever, who can rightly divide the Word of truth. There can be no alternative.

3. We must pray and support this vision now more than ever because God’s glory deserves it.

And so we read:

The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe (1 Tim. 4:9, 10).

That “Living God” is Jesus Christ Himself, the Savior of all people, the One who is sufficient to save a thousand worlds and who is efficacious to save His own from out of this world. He is the focus of Timothy’s ministry. The later times had come. False teachers were going about teaching errors that blurred the beauty of the Gospel of God’s grace and diminished the saving work of Jesus Christ on the cross. This could not be. There could be no alternative. Timothy would have to stand up: because God’s glory required it.

A student at RTS Charlotte told me about a trip he made across the United States. On his travels he stopped in Salt Lake City. He said that it was beautiful. He toured the Mormon Temple. As a young lady gave him a tour and began to teach her beliefs, he was so disturbed by the false teaching that he ran to the restroom to weep. He said that he felt that the teaching was an affront to the glory of God and the Gospel of Jesus. He said that he felt God was calling him to plant a church in Utah. We have had others who have and who are there now laboring in the midst of that beautiful but spiritually blighted country to shine the Gospel to human beings in need. In his heart there could be no alternative.

Those who labor in preaching and teaching to prepare these men and women to become pastors, missionaries and Bible teachers must not retreat in this time of crisis.

4. We must pray and support this vision now more than ever because God’s people must have it.

Paul goes on to show that Timothy must not be deterred by his youth. He must go on, but with what? He must continue to be an example to the flock. He must continue with the public reading of the Scriptures, with exhortation and teaching, with remembering how God had worked in his own life. He had to practice the things he had learned. And why?

Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers (v. 16).

Friends, the people in our land are in desperate need of God’s truth. They need the reading and teaching and preaching of God’s Word. Jesus said that you shall know the truth and it shall set you free. The more truth you get, the more freedom you have. The greatest threat to people is not a lack of money in their 401Ks but a lack of truth in their minds and a lack of love in their hearts. We preach the grace of Jesus Christ, the truth of His Word, which saves people from sin and hell. In doing so we save ourselves, says Paul.