Gooding, David: Maintaining Assembly Principles and Spiritual Vigour

Now let us come to the first epistle by Paul to Timothy and read a selection of chapters calculated to lead our hearts into profound thanksgiving and worship of the majestic glories of the God who loves us and the immeasurable profundities of his grace. We begin in one Timothy chapter one, one Timothy chapter one, and start to read at verse twelve. I thank him that enabled me, even Christ Jesus our Lord, for that he counted me faithful, appointing me to his service. Though I was before a blasphemer and a persecutor and injurious, how be it I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord abounded exceedingly with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. Faithful is the 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 obtained mercy, that in me as chief might Jesus Christ show forth all his long suffering for an example of them which should hereafter believe on him unto eternal life. Now unto the King eternal, incorruptible, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. And then from chapter two, beginning in verse three: For this is good, namely that we should pray for all men and all that are in authority. This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who willeth that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, one mediator also between God and men, himself man, Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all, the testimony to be born in its own times, whereunto I was appointed a preacher and an apostle. I speak the truth, I lie not, a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth. Then the final words of chapter three from verse fourteen onwards. These things write I unto thee, hoping to come unto thee shortly, but if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how men ought to behave themselves in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. Without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness. He who was manifested in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached among the nations, believed on in the world, received up into glory. Chapter four and verse ten. For to this end we labor and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the savior of all men, specially of them that believe. Chapter five and verse twenty one: I charge thee in the sight of God and Christ Jesus and the elect angels, that thou observe these things without prejudice, doing nothing by partiality. And finally, the words of chapter six from verse thirteen onwards. I charge thee in the sight of God, who quickeneth all things, and of Christ Jesus, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed the good confession, that thou keep the commandment without spot, without reproach, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which in its own times he shall show, who is the blessed and only potentate, the king of kings and Lord of lords, who only hath immortality, dwelling in light unapproachable, whom no man hath seen nor can see, to whom be honor and power eternal. Amen. May God give us a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, that our hearts this night may see again afresh the glories of our God and our Savior. Now we are met here, my dear friends, in the first place, as, uh, uh, to honor our God and our Lord Jesus Christ, and in the second place, to rejoice with the members of this particular assembly as they celebrate the years of God's goodness to them. One um hundred and twenty five years ago, you have had it s- said, you have heard it said just now, one uh hundred and twenty five years did they begin their public testimony for the Lord, and by his grace have continued to this very present time. We rejoice with you, my dear brethren. Let us say that, all of us who are not members of this church. I speak, I presume, for you all, you rejoice with our dear brethren in all that God has done for them in these many years. The potted history that we have just, uh, listened to moves, sir, my admiration for you and your fellow members of this church. You have not insisted with unintelligent doggedness to remain as a church in one and the same place all over these one hundred and twenty five years. To remain, whether there were those who could profit from your witness or not, simply because you determined to stay where you had originally been put. You had the God-given intelligence to look upon the fields to see where you could be the more effective for God, and you moved not once, nor twice, nor three times, nor there is but four times, so that you might, in the course of these one hundred and twenty five years, fulfill your ministry to saint and sinner the more effectively. You have set us, good sirs, my dear sisters as well, you have set us a shining example to emulate and follow. And of course, we're glad to share your joy at this anniversary, as we stand with you in your courage and your faith, in all the prospect of what God will do for you in the coming years until the Lord shall come. I personally find, I count it a great honor to be allowed to take part in this, your year of anniversary. I hope you will not think that I detract at all from your anniversary when I say tonight that this year I'm celebrating an anniversary of my own, you'll say. And not an ordinary anniversary either, I might tell you. Nothing short of a jubilee of fifty whole years. You scarce thought I was old enough, but I am, and this year I celebrate this jubilee of fifty solid years since first I stepped onto the hallowed soil of Northern Ireland. It was in Christmas in of nineteen forty and the Des- and the January that followed that I first became acquainted with Northern Ireland and the believers who lived here. And I would like publicly to express in my jubilee year my profound thanks to you, my Christian friends, and to all my thousands of Christian friends throughout this province, for all the kindness and grace and patience and care and love that you have bestowed upon me in these fifty years. And not only so, for the stimulus that your example has given me. I mention your, in particular, your zeal for the Lord. We cold Englishmen, of course, naturally admire your warm hearts and your burning zeal for the Lord, and in particularly your zeal for the gospel, and your zeal for the spreading of that gospel through missionary work around the world. Thank you, my dear brothers and sisters. I value your help and your kindness and your example these fifty years. And moving from one thing to another, let me observe that there is an unwritten rule, so I have gathered it, unwritten because it's not in scripture, that no preacher should ever preach the same sermon twice, at least not to the same audience, you'll see. There's something offensive in doing that, of course, yeah. It seems to be almost an invariable rule. Um, I haven't yet found it in scripture. I confess that as I read the Gospels, I get the impression that the Lord Jesus told the same parable on different occasions in slightly different words. But if it be a rule, there are some that get round it by preaching from a different verse every time they preach, but in the course of their remarks, saying very much the same thing as they said on other occasions. Do you see? These rules, though unwritten, uh, and apparently inflexible, can be got round. I want to confess that when I first came to Northern Ireland, and by the great courage of the, uh, conveners of the Christmas Conference, I was allowed to address the gathered throng. I dared to preach from one Timothy, written by Paul to his colleague. I suspect I've preached on it many times since. I want again to preach on it tonight. In those fifty years ago, I preached, I suppose, with youthful, though rather raw, enthusiasm. I trust tonight I preach with a little bit more maturity gathered through the experience of years. I want to preach on it because I want, in my jubilee year, to profess again my faith that in this epistle by Paul and the other two epistles, the second to Timothy and the first and only to Titus, to profess my faith publicly that I believe the words of these epistles are the living words of the living God, as applicable and necessary to the health of the church today as they were when they were originally spoken and written through the Apostle Paul. I say that against the background of knowledge that one has acquired in the course of the years, of the many s- currents and strong waves that have run, and tides that have run against the bulwarks of this particular epistle. In certainly in the circles of academic theology, there has been for many years a very strong argument put forth that the epistles, the pastoral epistles, as they're called, First and Second Timothy and Titus, were not written by Paul to start with. They were written by somebody else at a much later stage in the development of Christendom, perhaps the end of the first century or the beginning of the second. And when you inquire of these academic theologians, what makes them think that this letter to Timothy was not written by Paul, but comes from a much later stage. They will say, but look at the difference between what is being said in First Timothy and what you find in the earlier letters of Paul written to the churches that he founded. Take, they say, First Epistle to the Corinthians. Oh, how different, they claim, is the emphasis of First Corinthians from the emphasis of First uh Timothy. Corinthians? Why, the organization of the church is scarce mentioned. Not through all its chapters, First and Second Corinthians, is the word elder or bishop ever used. Instead, his letters to those churches picture a church that is vibrant with life, full of spontaneous activity. The emphasis lies not on organization or the rules and regulations of the church, bishops and deacons and this, that, and other. The emphasis lies on the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and it is obviously there in Corinth there was much spirit life, spontaneous and energetic, full of the first flush of the enjoyment of the gospel. They say, how different is First Timothy? For there, the gifts of the Spirit are scarce mentioned. Their spontaneity seems to have gone. Now it's a question of rules and regulations, what the men may do and what the women may do, and bishops and deacons and other such things. They say that this is the mark of a much later age, when the church had lost its original first love and the spontaneity and joy and wonder of the Holy Spirits present among them, and settled down to the dreariness of organized Christendom, which the legality of which had crushed out almost all the spontaneity of spiritual life. That's a big charge, isn't it, you what? So put, of course, is grossly unfair. You'll say, let me take an analogy, though I do it with fear and trembling. You have observed, I suppose, oh, the romantic glow on the face of the courting couple and the newlywed. Ha ha. They seem scarce to be walking with both feet on earth at the same time. Such is the glow and the wonder of this newfound relationship. That's natural, isn't it? You wouldn't quite expect it to show in the same way on the, on the faces of those that have been married for fifty years, scarcely, would you? No, life has intervened with all the practicalities of life and the bringing up of children and the anxieties of daily life and all that kind of thing. But if some spontaneity seems to have disappeared, yet you would be ill-advised to suppose that the marriage had gone sour or something, and the love and life of it had been crushed out by mere routine and regality. It wouldn't be true, would it? At least I hope it wouldn't be true. You must yourself judge how far I speak in ignorance. You'll see. No, that's his natural course of events. We can't all of us all the time live in the first flush of conversion, and our relationship with the Lord will go deeper as the years go by, and we trust the more mature, but nonetheless real. Of course, I'm not denying the obvious fact of history, that eventually, of course, the Christian churches lost their first love. The very church in which Timothy was serving when he received this letter from Paul had lost its first love, were in danger of having their candlestick removed. And it is true, as the centuries went by, spontaneity and simplicity of the early churches and the presidency of the Holy Spirit in the control of the church was largely forgotten. And as a substitute, the church developed all kinds of organization, modeled largely on the organizations of imperial Rome. And now you had a whole hierarchy of involved organization, from laity to deacons to priests to bishops to archbishops to cardinals to popes, and then finally to the emperor himself. And yes, it is the fact of history, what enormous repression resulted from that unfortunate organization. That is true. Happily, God from time to time raised up those who protested and sought once more the simplicity of the New Testament churches and the freedom and the spontaneity that God originally gave to them. One thinks of those believers in North Africa and elsewhere who resisted the attempts to centralize Christianity with a worldwide headquarters and to tie it in with the state and all those kind of things. One thinks of the Waldenses in the mountains of Italy and France. One thinks of the churches of South Africa that paid dearly for their opposition to this kind of organization. And we praise God for the coming of the Reformation and the freedoms it regained. We praise God even more for those dear friends of ours who saw that the reformers had not gone far enough. That the true church of God must be a gathering of true born-again believers, and not a state institution of which all the members of the state are members, whether they be converted or not. Who sought to press what scripture teaches, the baptism of believers, and not that other device, baptismal regeneration, which is the only method by which you can have a state church, in which all the members of the state are members of the church. Yes, we honor them tonight who stood for the simplicities of God's word and the simplicities of the early church to get back to the word of God and to the presidency of the Lord and the Holy Spirit in the churches. But that said, should we not listen to the suggestions that sometimes are made that if we in our generation give too much attention to epistles like First Timothy and Second Timothy and Titus, with all their admonitions as to how the churches should be run, we too might be in danger of losing the spontaneity of life within the church and end up with a kind of legalism that cripples and becomes in the end, lifeless. How should we avoid such a thing? How can we know to follow the clear teaching of the Word of God as to how an assembly should be run, and at the same time, manage to maintain a vigorous, active life within the church. It seems to me that the answer to that question lies on virtually every page of this epistle, and is well summed up in the middle of the epistle when Paul is describing how we ought to behave in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, pillar and ground of the truth. Catch with me that very important adjective. The house of God, says Paul, is the church of the living God. Oh, thank God for that reality. Behind the churches of God's people stand not just a collection of rules, nor codes of practice. At the heart of that dwelling place that is the Church of God stands the living God. That living, divine, infinite, majestic, and awe-inspiring power and person, a personality, and not just a code of rules. If we would behave ourselves well in the house of God, which is the church of God, then it seems to me obvious that our first and fundamental and constant need is this, that we should become ever more acquainted with that glorious living person, the living God, who dwells at its heart and center. I think it was for this, wasn't it, that Paul admitted that he constantly, day after day, bowed his knees in the presence of God on behalf of his converts and prayed for the believers that God would give them a spirit of wisdom and the revelation in the knowledge of, of God. You'll see, my brethren, knowing God is in part knowing the words that stand upon the page of Holy Scripture. We cannot know those words too well or too many. There's something beyond it. Oh, these Ephesian believers to whom Paul wrote the letter had received the Holy Spirit when they trusted Christ. There was no doubt about it. Yet after they trusted Christ, did he constantly pray that they might be given by God a spirit of wisdom and knowledge, in the knowledge of God, that they might know what was the hope of his calling and what the exceeding riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints? And what is that infinite power that he set loose when he laid our Lord Jesus from the dead, and set loose a power that streams to us still in this present day? We need our hearts illuminated. I was reading a very interesting book the other day, a title written by a scientist and an artsman. His theory, his theme was light, light physical, light moral, light spiritual. And he gave in his book the testimony of certain eye surgeons to the effect that when sometimes when they have performed an operation on the eyes of somebody hitherto blind and restored the mechanism of eyesight so that the light can come into them, and in that sense they see. Yet often that is not enough. As well as the sight of the eyes, the mind has to learn to see. They quoted the example of a man long blind, and when they had successfully operated on his eyes, and they thought he could see. The surgeon waved his hands in front of the man's face and said, what do you see? He says, I don't see anything. I said, sure, you must do. Now he said, see sort of a difference of light and shade, but that's all I see. No, said the surgeon, it's my hand I'm putting in front of your eyes. Oh, is that what it is? He said. I didn't know what it was. They were taking a man who had recently been, uh, uh, uh, uh, given his eyesight. They took him to an engineering museum and showed him a bit of a machine and the grey corkscrew thing that it worked the machine, and they showed him this. They couldn't see what it was, didn't know what it was. The surgeons were very disappointed. The brain hadn't learned to see what the eyes were seeing. The innermost heart of the man, the mind had to be taught. They said you'll feel it, so he felt it. Oh, he said, I see it now, I can see it with my eyes. Yes, had to learn to see. Oh, my brothers. My dear sisters, if our assemblies are going to maintain that delightful spontaneity and vigor of spiritual life, we too surely shall need to pray with Paul that the eyes of our hearts be illumined, be given a spirit of wisdom and revelation indeed, in the knowledge of him, so that our very hearts may see what the words that we read are trying to tell us. That God become the reality to us. He's the living God, says Paul. In the Old Testament, when Solomon was allowed to build God the house of God in Jerusalem, God had it, of course, decorated and supplied with all kinds of furniture and installations. And there in the holy place was the Ark of God, of course, with the cherubim on top of the ark. And then God had two great olive wood cherubim standing behind the ark with their wings outstretched, one wing to that wall and to the middle, another wing to the middle and to that wall on that side. The cherubim that are called in scripture the living ones. And when those cherubim looked out, so to speak, in symbol on the walls of the house of God, they saw the walls decorated with flowers and palm trees, another others other cherubim. Everywhere when you went inside that house, shouted to you in its symbolic decorative language. This is the house of the living God. There's a living presence in this house. Elijah, though he never went near that house as far as we know, the great prophet Elijah, who lived in the reality of these things, was in the habit of opening his address to way, uh, uh, uh, rebellious monarchs and say, as the Lord liveth, before whom I stand. Yes. What shall save us from losing the spontaneity and vigor of spiritual life as we faithfully seek to carry out the directions for the running of the church? I suggest it starts here with a vigorous personal and then collective experience of the reality of the living God in our midst. Let me take one example for the moment. If we have caught sight of the living God, and God is pleasing to reveal the reality of his character to us, it will affect the way we teach in the church, won't it? We'll see. And in chapter one, in order to correct certain faults in the teaching of the church at Ephesus, Paul eventually comes round to talking to them as God, uh, of God as king. Verse seventeen of chapter one: now unto the king eternal, incorruptible, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. God as King. How much do we know of God as King? Did somebody say, did I hear? Well, there's nothing in the church to do with God as King. We're in the church, we're not in the kingdom. Say some, you know, it is nowhere said in scripture that our blessed Lord Jesus is king of the church. Mister preachers, you ought to know that in your supposed fifty years. You ought to have observed that Christ is described as the Lord of the church, not the king of the church. King is for Jews. It's the lordship of Christ for believers in the church. Oh yes, so that may be. But, uh, we're not outside the kingdom of God, are we? Is not God king to us? Certainly we're in his kingly rule. Listen to Paul talking to the Corinthians, one Corinthians chapter four in the end. Now watch out, says he, I'm coming to you shortly, and if you don't repent and mend your ways, you will know, I will know not the words simply of those who are puffed up, I will know the power of them. For the kingdom of God is not in word only, but in power. Yes, surely, in the church, we are meant to experience God as king and his kingly rule. And the question arises, what is the rule of God like as king? How does he run the church? As I said, it will affect the teaching in the church. In chapter one, Paul points out that they had a difficulty in the teaching that was going on in the church. For there are some, he says, who desire to be teachers of law, though they understand neither what they say nor whereof they confidently affirm. They want to teach law. Now, the commentators disagree, don't they? What law, said they? For it's obviously obvious, yes, that Paul doesn't approve. In this sense, teaching law is not right. What does he mean by teaching law? Some say he must be talking about a lot of silly man-made laws. He can't be talking about the law of God, surely. He must be talking about man-made laws, and that's stupid stuff. But surely it is right to teach the law of God. Well, yes. Certainly we should never teach anything that comes below the standards of our majestic king, should we? Who is here described as eternal, incorruptible, invisible, the only God. Nothing should be taught that would de- derogate from his glory and his majesty and his holiness. Yes, Paul himself would teach the law, but the position is this. The law, says Paul in his epistles, is holy and just and good. Nothing wrong with the law. It is God's intention that the righteousness of the law should be fulfilled in us. Of course it is. The question is how? How does the great King eternal, whose law it is, get that law obeyed and fulfilled in the hearts of his subjects? We need to get that straight, don't we? Our concept of God as king and what kind of a king he is, and how he governs, will affect the way we teach in the church. You know, it's possible to teach assembly truth as though it were law, a set of rules and regulations that, however uncomfortable, have to be grimly followed and won't batide you if you don't, if you go astray. That's how the old Pharisees used to teach their law. Wasn't very successful, and it turned very few of them into holy men and women. It turned many of them into proud folks, thinking they'd kept all the rules. No, we're not supposed to teach assembly truth, are we, as law? It's... How would you preach it? I say I want to preach it, a veritable gospel. Yes, it's gospel. It's surely the best news you ever heard. It's part of the gospel. You take the question of the exercise of gift in the church. How does it ever become possible? Well, Paul explains in one Corinthians twelve, doesn't he? He says, how did you get your gifts? Well, it was that when you trusted Christ, Christ himself baptized you in the Holy Spirit and made you to drink of the Holy Spirit, with the result he formed you into the body of Christ, each one of you with a gift. It's part of the very saving work of Christ that forms us into the body of Christ. What is it glorious stuff? It's a glorious gift of salvation performed by Christ through the medium of his Holy Spirit, forming us into one body and, uh, and, uh, giving us gifts to exercise. Good, isn't it? Marvelous. That's assembly truth, you know. The basic, uh, basis of church truth. It is not just law, it is positively gospel. How does God get, as king, get people to obey his law? Well, you know, law by itself can't save. We're clear of that, aren't we? By the deeds of the law shall no man be justified. Oh, my brethren, here we discover the very root of the gospel and the secret of the success of the gospel. It is the power of God unto salvation to everyone but that believeth is the gospel, because it proceeds not by our doing the works of the law, but by the hearing of faith. Yes. But you know, it's true that the law cannot justify, the law cannot sanctify, can it? We learn that from chapter six and seven and eight of Romans. As Paul, giving perhaps his own experience, has to admit, oh, wretched man that I am, there is God's holy law. I, I, I want to keep it, I delight in it, I do my very best to keep it, I screw up my will and determine to keep it, and yet I can't keep it. Now that's the... Law cannot justify. Law cannot sanctify. Well then, what is the secret of, of getting believers to fulfill the law of God? Says Paul, sin shall not keep you down because you are not under law, but under. The secret of sanctification is not just screwing up my will to determine to keep God's law. God help me to keep it. But true sanctification is that gracious union with Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit within us, that we walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. Died with Christ, buried with Christ, risen with Christ, and led by his Holy Spirit. This is the secret, isn't it? And we see it evidenced in the life of the man who wrote this letter, as now he looks back, uh, eh, eh, on his own years of experience, in particular on his conversion. You want to teach law in the, in the church at Ephesus? Oh dear, says he, dear, dear. He himself had tried it, didn't he, all those years to follow law and to make himself acceptable to God and to make himself into a holy man, had abysmally failed. What is more, he tells us he was a blasphemer and a persecutor and injurious, and persecuted the church of God, and in his religious zeal stood over young men and women as believers and had them tortured until they cursed God and cursed the name of Jesus Christ. You say, however did the king change him? How would you change a man like Saul of Tarsus and make him keen properly and in the right sense into a holy saint of God in whom the righteousness of the law could really be fulfilled? And he tells us in that glad message, oh my brethren, he said, this is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. And he says, to see the grace of our Lord abounded exceedingly with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. Yes. For Christ singled me out to make an example of me, he said. I am the very chief of sinners. And he made an example of me as a pattern to all those that should hereafter believe on him unto eternity. You know, in the old last century, when armies rebelled against their general, the general would teach the army a lesson. He would muster the troops, and he'd ask them to number one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten down the ranks, and every tenth one that stood forward, he would command to be shot. What they call decimating the army. I did it to put all the others in the right frame of mind. Now don't you rebel again. And here was Saul of Tarsus. What an enemy of God! What a persistent rebel! What a defiant blasphemer and torturer! How would God deal with him? How would you have dealt with him had you been king, eternal, immortal, and omnipotent in power? How would you have dealt with him? Squashed him out with your little finger, wouldn't you? My God, how would he convert him? Oh, says Paul, the grace of our Lord Jesus was exceeding abundant with faith and love that is in Christ Jesus. What, the very Christ Jesus, whom he'd been persecuting. Would he have mercy? Would he put up with it and have mercy on him still? Ah, that is the very heart of the gospel, says Paul. He had mercy on me, and what is more, not only mercy on me, and forgave my sin. And then put me some back seat in heaven? Certainly not. He had mercy on me, and daring to count me faithful, and daring to trust me, says Paul. He put me into his service. Would you have done that? I don't think I would. What, Paul? Well, I'm glad he's converted. We'll give him ten years to see whether he's genuine. Pa. And then we might consider allowing him to take an inference class in the Sunday school, maybe. What, takes all of Tarsus? Get him converted and put him into the ministry. You'll need a lot of faith to do that, wouldn't you? Yes, says Paul, you would need a lot of faith. And you see the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love that is in Christ Jesus. And the result? Turned into one of God's choicest saints that ever walked in boot leather. And never did he lose the sense of that initial love for Christ that had so redeemed him. You know, my dear brethren, it is gospel. The gospel of God's grace that justifies us, and the gospel of God's grace that sanctifies us, and therefore shows us the right way in which God will achieve the fulfilling of his law in us individually and in the church. God forbid we ever lose that sense of our love for Christ and of the grace of God and of the mercy of God. Lest we should feel ourselves people that keep rules and are therefore superior to everybody else. Oh, God forbid it. This church of Ephesus suffered a sad result, didn't they? Eventually they became skilled at discerning error and excommunicating transgressors from the church. For that they are commended, but they lost their first love. Their very correctness squeezed out their love for Christ, their first love of salvation and conversion. So may the Lord help us ever more deeply to discover the God of grace, not only in our distant past conversion, but in our present and ever deepening experience. So that not losing our love for the Lord, we gladly bow to the kingship of God and delight to do his will, for his commandments are not grievous. His commandments are not some stern, irritable law. His commandments are veritable gospel. We should take one more example before we finish. But let's break at this point and give ourselves some oxygen and some relief to our aching bones and sing a hymn to the praise of God. And we have been thinking together then on the secret of how to value and obey the dis- the directions given us in the pastoral epistles for the running of the church, and taking seriously God's law and his commandments, and yet not falling into the trap of becoming rigid- rigidly legalistic and thus crushing spontaneity and vigor of life in the church. And we suggested that the secret is based in this, that the church is the church of the living God, and at its center is not just a code of laws or rules, but the living person of God. And therefore, our aim should be to get to know God ever more deeply and pray that we may be given a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, that ever more open wide our minds might be illumined, our hearts illumined, so that we might know the purpose of his calling, his inheritance in the saints, and the power he has towards us. So that we must, if we would teach rightly in the church, remember what the Christian doctrine is based upon. The word of the king is a word of salvation, not law as such that can neither justify nor sanctify, by the grace of God and the mercy of God that teaches us to deny all ungodliness and to live soberly and righteously in this present age. So then our concept of God will determine how and in what spirit we teach God's word amongst his people. It will also, says chapter two, affect the way we look upon the world, will it not? For this too is a solemn responsibility given us by the Holy Spirit of God and our risen Lord, that we have to represent God to the world. That was no easy thing for the believers at Ephesus. They lived in a multicultural, multi-ethnic society, with all their different cultural practices and behaviors, with all the multitude of their different religions, and all the possibilities for strife, civil strife, amongst the ethnic groups of the peoples that they lived among. And here were the Christians coming. How should they rightly interpret God to the people that lived around them? There is one God, says Paul, one mediator between God and men. And you know, sometimes when, uh, you preach that gospel, people of different religions take offense. Who do those Christians think they are? Our religion is as good as theirs. Yes, my brothers and sisters, and if life goes on in the United Kingdom as it's going now, within twenty five years or more, you may find it to be an offense against the law to stand up and say there's only one savior. Because the UK is becoming multi-ethnic, and to say that there is only one saviour is liable to offend Muslims. To say, not likely to offend Hindus, they like their thousand among gods. It's likely to offend Muslims, and offending Muslims might become an offence under the law of the state. How do we rightly represent God in a multi-ethnic situation? Well, there's a simple answer to that, of course. We preach there's only, uh, one God. That isn't, uh, offensive s- as culturally, is it? There's only one law of mathematics that I ever heard of, arithmetic, for instance. Two and two makes four in most parts of the world, do they not? There are some rules that are applicable to everybody. There's only one sun round our, uh, that our world goes round, isn't there? There's only one of them. Why should I, as an Englishman, be offended if somebody says that their moon is the only moon? I say, well, it's our moon as well, you see. Yes, there is only one God. There's only one mediator. That's not arrogant either. Thank God there's only one. Do you know why there's only one? For this reason amongst many, that his sacrifice is good enough. Yeah, you don't need anymore. He has paid the price of sin. Oh, thank the Lord. If somebody has paid your mortgage for you, ma'am, you don't say I object to that. I don't like one person paying it. I'd like everybody to have their own go at paying it. No, you wouldn't, would you? You say if he's paid it, well, I don't have to thank the Lord for that. Do you see? There is only one mediator who gave himself a ransom for all, and the ransom was big enough, and you don't need any more payment or any more sacrifices. Isn't that a glorious message? That oughtn't to be offensive to anybody. We are to pray for all men, whatever their political color. We are to pray for all governments, whether they be democracies or autocracies, like imperial Rome was. Nero was no saint, the Roman emperor, alive when Paul wrote this. We're to pray for all that are in authority, of whatever kind. Why must we do that? Because, do you see, this is good and acceptable in the sight of God. Because God's attitude to men is what? He will have all to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. And if that's God's attitude to men and women, we must show it. We must not be party spirit, must we? We must, in our conduct, show that we represent the God who will have all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. But just here, of course, if we go rightly to represent God, we shall have to do a little deeper thinking. For there are many men and women, they're godly men and women, who nonetheless are persuaded that we should not take these statements just at their face value. This, there's one God and one, uh, you'll see, uh, uh, uh, he willeth that all men should be saved. And they say, be careful how you understand that. What do you mean? Well, he doesn't really, there's a sense in which he doesn't will all men to be saved. Well, no. Really? Yes. Oh. How's that then? Well, they say, you see, before the creation was made, God decided in his sovereign will that all men being sinners, he would save some, and they would be saved, irresistibly saved, in fact. And he decided to bypass others. They would never be saved because he decided to bypass them. Oh, well, if that be true then, God doesn't will all men to be saved then and come to the knowledge of the truth. So what is Paul saying? I thought he said he wishes all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. I know they said you have to be careful how you understand all. It is all, uh, without distinction, but not all without exception. You say that's a bit too difficult, that one, for ten to nine at night. Well, perhaps it is. It means this, they say, he will have all kinds of men to be saved, not every single man and every single woman. No, no, no, no. He will have all kinds of men, black men, yellow men, white men, red men, Irishmen, Englishmen, and even Australians, you see. Some of each, all kinds of men, but not every single man and woman. No, no. You see, there are many that he never did intend to save. He didn't choose them. They can't be saved unless he gives them the faith to be saved with, and he's already decided never to give them that faith. I see. Well, if that be true, my brothers and my sisters, it seriously affects, doesn't it, our attitude to the world of men and women at large. What is the truth of it? Does it really mean he willeth all kinds of men and women to be saved. English, Irish, anything they like, some of every tribe and nation, but not he wills every man and woman, boy and girl to be saved. How should we understand it? I think I've made my point. That our concept of God not only affect the way we teach in the church, it will affect our attitude to the world and how we preach the gospel in the world. How shall we decide it? For myself, I find it easier to listen to God himself speaking and acting. I take, for instance, as my, one of my chief guiding posts, signposts, the words of God recorded at the end of Romans chapter ten. You remember the passage? Paul is discussing this fact. Why is Israel not saved? He preached his heart out in many a city to Israel, the Israelites, expounded their prophets, taught them about the Lord Jesus and his sacrifice, and the very people that you might have expected to get saved, were they not Jews brought up on the Bible? Now, when he's finished preaching, the majority refused to believe. How would you account for it? Is it that, well, God never, you see, intended to save them? That's why they don't believe. Well, listen to God himself. As at the end of that chapter, he is described through the words of Isaiah, speaking to these folks that have rejected the gospel and are rejecting it. Listen to what he's saying to them. All day long, says he, I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying, arguing people. Oh, what a magnificent gesture is that by the living God. To face a nation, his children that had grown up and rebelled against him, as Isaiah says. A nation that in the end had taken his darling son and nailed him to the cross. A nation that when they heard the gospel so very frequently of God's mercy, in spite of their crucifixion of the Savior, turned their backs and stood back and argued and refused to believe and be saved. What is God's attitude to them? All day long, says he. I stretched out my hands. What kind of a gesture is that? I've seen parents do it, I don't know about you. When a little toddler is learning to walk and you're not quite sure whether he can make the distance, and mum gets down, you'll see, to his level and stretches out her hands, encouraging the infant to come till her hands are nearly touching the infant. He's only got to step a centimeter, and mum's hands will grab him. Mum wants him to come. And because she wants him to come, she stretches out her hands, yes? So that the infant taking that step, but the infant's got to take it. Got to learn to walk, you see. And the infant's got to decide to do it. But she stretches out her hands, pleading with the infant by that very gesture to come. And here is God's al- God Almighty. Did you ever hear such a gospel? God Almighty! Maker of heaven and earth. Faced with rebellious men and women, he's not only given his son and sent his spirit and preached the gospel a thousand and one times to them, but now he stands all day long, says he, he stands. Is there no end to the patience of God? All day long, says he, I have stood and held out my hands. Tell me, my brothers, tell me, my sisters, what is the truth about God? Did he want them to come? Would he have them saved? Or is all this a charade? There are some who say... that you see, God has two sets of counsels. There's his open counsels that everybody can see, and according to his open counsel, he wants people to come. But there's another set of counsels that he took behind the scenes, his hidden counsels, and according to them, he doesn't want them to come, for he's chosen to bypass them, so that even as he stands there openly, publicly appearing to want them to come, behind the scenes he knows they can't come unless he gives them the faith to come with. And he's not prepared to give them the faith to come with, so they can't be saved. And why doesn't he give them the faith to come with? Because he decided long before they were even born that he was going to pass them by and let them perish in their sins. Two sets of counsels. Do you believe it? That God is double-faced. He will stand pretending he wants people to come, and all the while he has decided to pass them by and doesn't want them to come. Oh, my brothers and my sisters, I know this, I touch a very vexed topic. From time to time, these things resurrect themselves in the history of Ireland, don't they? They do in other parts of the world. The great and famous Archbishop Ussher, marvelous scholar he was, how much we owe him. We even owe him the date four thousand and BCE that stands at the head of the Book of Generation to tell us that creation was done in the afternoon, uh, uh, I think it was a Wednesday, four thousand and BC. But in spite of that, he was a magnificent scholar. Author of the hundred and three articles of the Church of Ireland, marvelously evangelical they were, more evangelical than the thirty nine articles of the Church of England. We owe a lot to him. And yet, man of the Reformation that he was, he was an extreme follower, if not of Calvin, then of Beza that followed Calvin, and taught that God's salvation was not for everybody. And from time to time it resurfaces, doesn't it? We have to make up our minds, difficult as subject as it may be, it's a cornerstone, at least in my thinking. We judge everything by how it reflects upon the character of God. As you see him there with hands outstretched all day long. He surely isn't being hypocritical. He knows that they couldn't come without the faith to come with, but he's decided not to give them the faith and still plead with them to come. How can it be? Now, if God stands, bidding people come, it is because he willeth all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. And as we finish, let's think again how superbly our blessed Lord expressed the heart of the Father. For if God would have all men and women to be saved, so did Christ give himself a ransom for all. It is not true to say that Christ only paid enough so that certain ones could be redeemed, and he paid nothing for the others so that they never had a chance of being redeemed. No, no. If God would have all men to be saved, Christ gave himself a ransom for all, that all might be saved. And we who owe our salvation and shall owe it till all eternity to the God who would have all men to be saved, us included. Let us learn to magnify his grace and his truth as we preach to the world he will have all men to be saved, if only they would be. God help us in our conduct and our prayers for the world to express God's attitude to men correctly and without party spirit or politics or ethnic prejudice or anything else, to love all men and do our best to see that God's love for them shall be successful and that men and women might be saved. So may God bless his work for his name's sake.