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The message you're about to hear was preached at Liberty Baptist
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message from God's Word will be a blessing to you.
First Timothy chapter #1 This evening, as we look this week
and next week by the Lord's grace at this issue of spiritual
warfare, the title of my message is this.
Spiritual warfare is real. Spiritual warfare is real.
You know, I found that there are two extremes when it comes to
the issue of spiritual warfare. I found there is one group that
is completely and totally as Christians focused on spiritual
warfare in every element of their life.
And I'm not saying that it's not important for us to recognize
spiritual warfare. After all, it's what we're
preaching on here tonight. But they are so focused on, it's
almost as if they are afraid to even be able to move outside of
their own little bubble because they were so afraid of Satan and
the demons and those types of things that I would say that I
would categorically reject that line of thinking.
That we are so focused on it for every moment, for every day that
it gets us to the place that we're paralyzed.
Because again, as I mentioned this morning, greater is he
that's in us than he that is in the world.
And so we should be living from a place of victory, not from a
place of fear and defeat. So I think that is one side that
I sometimes see Christians on, but the other extreme is what I
see far more Christians on. I see a lot more believers that
that will tend to this direction.
And that's the thought process of, well, it's not even really a
thing. Or maybe that they give lip
service to acknowledging that spiritual warfare is a very real
thing, but it really doesn't affect the way that they live
their daily life. Let me remind you, just as real
as the Lord is, Satan is real as well.
Just as real as the angels are the demons, that fallen angels
are real as well, that spiritual warfare is real.
Listen, God has been victorious, God is victorious, and God will
be victorious. But that does not diminish the
fact that Satan desires to be able to take you and to be able
to take your life and to be able to have you, to be able to
forfeit that joy, that peace, that testimony of which you
have. It's His desire, as the Bible
says, to sift you as wheat. This is what He wants for your
life. And spiritual warfare is a very
real thing. Just this morning, obviously we
saw how the Lord worked here at Liberty Baptist Church this
morning, but I was talking with my wife before service in
between the services, Sunday school and church, and I just
felt agitated in my spirit. And there were reasons for that.
But really as really to do more with myself than anything else.
And my wife being the godly one of the two of us, said, you know
what we ought to do. We ought to pray.
And I thought, you know, I'm the pastor.
I should probably be thinking of something like that.
Amen. But in that moment, what was
needed? Well, we really just needed to
take a moment to be able to pray and ask the Lord to protect and
to help and to have my mind and our minds to be what it needed
to be. And well, why would Satan want
the preacher to be agitated on a day like today?
Well, maybe it's because someone needed to accept Jesus Christ as
their Savior. Maybe it's because there were
lies that were hanging in the balance.
You say, oh, I see, pastor. Well, this is all about you.
This is spiritual warfare is about the preacher.
Well, I'll be honest with you. When Paul is talking to Timothy
tonight and first Timothy, it's Paul the apostle talking to a
young preacher. So there's no doubt there is an
element of the fact that Satan does want to attack the preacher
because as the pastor goes, so can go the church if that's not
the case. But let's be honest, Satan's not
just after pastors, he's after people.
Satan's not just after Adam Rivero at Liberty Baptist
Church, he's after Diane Rivero of Liberty Baptist Church and
Kaylee Rivero of Liberty Baptist Church.
I almost said Bethenny Rivero, but Bethenny Folger.
That used to be of Liberty Baptist.
Church, and he's after all of you as well.
He doesn't want any of us to be successful in that life.
He can't take your salvation. Thank God for that.
He'll try to take everything else that He possibly can.
And so tonight, what I want us to look at, at the beginnings of
the reality of spiritual warfare and how it affects our life and
how we really should live in a way where we're more cognizant
of this battle so that we can be prepared for the fight that is
ahead. Would you stand pleased for the
reading of God's Word? We're going to read 3 verses
just as we did this morning. First Timothy chapter #1
beginning in verse #18. And the word of God says, This
charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy, according to the
prophecies which went before on thee, that thou by them might
just war. A good warfare, holding faith
and a good conscience, which some having put away faith, or
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 blasphemy. Verse #18 tells us where to war
good warfare. Verse #19 tells us that if we
don't, we'll go shipwreck In verse #20 gives the examples of
two men who did not heed that warning, and ended up having
dire consequences of their lives.
Spiritual warfare is real. We at least be seated.
Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, thank you again
for this evening and thank you for your word.
Help us to see the gravity and the serious of this.
Let us not live in fear, Lord, Help us not to look at these
things tonight and to have it to paralyze us, to be able to look
around every corner and to live in a way that just is, I don't
believe honoring to you either. But may we also just be very
aware of the reality of this and know that we can have victory
through Christ because Christ, the Spirit of Christ, lives
within us and we're thankful for that reality.
So be with us as we go through this message tonight and we do
ask it in Jesus name, Amen. Timothy was a young man whom God
had called to preach and as a preacher, as I just mentioned,
he had a big target on his back. Why is that?
Because Satan tries to get in deep into every church as he
possibly can. He tries to take from the
periphery. He tries to take from those who
are of the membership, but he tries to take, yes, even the
pastor and the pastor's family. He tries to attack in any way
possible because he knows the deeper he can go into the
church, the more havoc he can cause within the church.
And so here is Timothy. He's a young pastor.
He's been given a task by Paul that seems to be monumental, and
certainly there's a great deal of fear within him and that is
talked about within the book itself.
And so he wants him to understand.
He wants Timothy to understand the stakes of what is ahead, and
he wants him to understand the reality of spiritual warfare.
And so here it says that Paul is giving him a charge.
By the way, do you know his verse 18?
This charge I commit unto thee, if you're here at men's prayer
and you say, well, why do we call it the men's charge?
Well, that charge is like an announcement or a command or a
mandate. And when you stand up,
gentlemen, at 9:00 on Sunday morning, you give a charge.
What are you doing to the other men?
You're making an announcement to command a mandate of yourself.
No, from the word of God. And so here is Paul who says I'm
charging you. I'm going to commit something to
you, Timothy. There's something that you need
to know. There's something that I have
some knowledge that's within me that I need to pass to you
because you need to be understanding of it.
And listen tonight, you may not be a preacher, but the reality
of spiritual warfare in your own life is just as applicable to
you as it was to Timothy over 2000 years ago, almost 2000
years ago. So in our text, there's several
things that I see in the first is this.
I want us to look at the reality of war.
The reality of war. Did you notice it says in verse
#18 It says this charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy,
according to the prophecies which went before on thee, that
thou that by them. Let's try that again, that thou
by them. Midas war a good warfare.
So those 3 words, thou mightest war.
Now we might take that at first this idea, well, hey, maybe you
will have spiritual warfare, but that's not what is being said
here, that you might come across spiritual warfare in your life.
You might come across it, you might not, you never know.
That's not what it's saying at all.
Basically what it's saying is that when the battle comes, that
you might handle yourself in a way that is becoming as a
believer that you might just war a good warfare.
It's it's not that it could come, it's that it shall come.
And when it does, Paul is saying that you need to equip yourself
and you handle yourself in a way that is becoming of someone who
is a soldier. Listen, the reality of spiritual
warfare is clear. It's found all throughout the
New Testament specifically, but you see it play out in the Old
Testament as well. You can go all the way to the
book of Job. You can look at the book of
Daniel where we see both of them very graphically described for
us in both of those books. But consider First Timothy 6,
verse 12. Fight the good fight of faith.
Lay hold on eternal life, where unto thou art also called, and
has professed a good profession before many witnesses.
Second Corinthians 10, verses 3 and 4.
For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh,
For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty
through God to the pulling down of strongholds.
Second Timothy 2, verses 3 and four that thou thou.
May I'm having trouble tonight. Thou there 4 endure hardness as
a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man that woreth entangles
himself with the affairs of this life, that he may be pleased,
that he may please him with chosen him to be a soldier.
Ephesians 612. We wrestle not against flesh and
blood, but against principalities and powers,
against the rulers of darkness of this world, against spiritual
wickedness in high places. Listen, spiritual warfare is
real and a lot of people take from Ephesians chapter 6, verse
12 of the very first words of that.
We wrestle not and they say, oh, I guess that's all there is to
it. Well, I guess we wrestle not
against those things. No, no, what it's saying is, is
that you have to understand that when it comes to the issues of
this life, it's not about the things we see often times.
It's about the things that we cannot see in the background.
And that's why we need to fight in a way that has the Lord Jesus
Christ front and center. And we'll look at Ephesians 6
next week and see what those weapons of the faith are, the
armor of God, as it's called. And we'll look at that in more
detail next week. But most Christians don't live
in the reality of that. Again, they leave lip service to
it, but nothing more than that. You know, as a teenager and even
as an adult, I guess, but I think of it more as a teenager.
There's a big craze going on during that time.
And that was laser tag. You know what I'm talking about
laser tag. You know, you got these big
battery packs and these guns and you go around in this black lit
room and there's this, you know, music and you're, you know, you
know, get to the home base, get to the home base.
Pew, Pew, Pew. You know you have to actually
make that sound when you know you don't make that sound.
But anyway. But you understand what I'm
saying. And people are rolling around,
and I remember you. Listen, look, there's no branch
of the military that would have wanted me.
But I was going around the laser tag arena, rolling around, you
know, thinking that this was like, you know, some kind of a
battle. But you know why it was so easy
to be so brave during that? Because you knew after 5 or 10
minutes, however long it was, you walk out.
Nobody's hurt. You might sprain an ankle.
I guess that's the worst thing that could happen to you.
But nobody's going to die. The stakes aren't real.
It's a game, that's all it is, and a lot of.
People treat this issue of spiritual warfare as a big game.
Like, they know it's out there. They know it's real.
Pew Pew. Pew.
Pew.
But there's not really.
Anything more to it than that and it never even crosses their
mind as Satan desires to devour them in the Christian life.
Could you imagine being on the battlefield?
And say I don't like this. This is insane.
I'm talking about a real battlefield.
I'm not talking about my fake laser tag tag battlefields of
the 1990s in Tampa. I'm talking about a real
battlefield and saying I don't like this anymore.
I don't want to be here and just closing your eyes and saying
there's no more battle. Well, you and I both know not
only with the fact that you closed your eyes not make the
battle go away, it would actually put you in more harm
than it would if your eyes were open.
Listen, you can close your eyes to the realities of spiritual
warfare. It doesn't take the reality of
spiritual warfare away that Satan wants to destroy you and
again, he can't take your salvation.
I want to be so very clear about this tonight.
But he can and desires to take everything else from you.
By the way, he can't take it by force.
We forfeit it. We forfeit these things because
he can attack us. He can tempt us, but we are the
ones that give into those attacks.
We're the ones that give into those temptations.
And that's why we need to be aware of what spiritual warfare
is all about. Listen, if a strong man comes up
to you and says give me all your money, you're probably going to
end up giving them all your money.
At least I'm going to because it's like, I don't have much.
I'm like Peter said, you know, silver and gold.
Have I none? That's how I feel.
Take my wallet. That's fine.
Why? He's stronger.
I don't want to get hurt. Listen, when it comes to
spiritual warfare, you say, well, Satan's going to, he's
going to harm me because he's strong.
But listen, the Holy Spirit lives inside of you.
He can't take anything from you from what you forfeit freely.
I think that's an. Important thing for us to
remember tonight. Well, Satan's just going to come
in. He's going to, he's going to
ravage my life and take everything away.
Listen, he may say that he will take it away, but he can't take
it away without you giving in to that temptation, without you
giving in to those issues. We have to open our eyes to
what's around us. Listen, even if it causes you to
fear you, open your eyes. The reality is spiritual
warfare. Satan's trying to warn your
life. He puts things into our life
like fear of the future, doubts about our health, money,
trouble, false doctrine, love of self, bitterness, arrogance, the
lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life.
And that's not even talking about some of the specific sins
that we could name tonight. And again, as I've mentioned
before, some of the sins that you deal with I probably don't
deal with, but some of the sins I deal with, you may not deal
with it. It's not because I'm a pastor
and you're not. It's because we all have sins
that does so easily beset us, The Bible says.
And what may tempt you may not tempt me, and what may tempt me
may not tempt you. But listen, we all have
temptations in our life. There's none of us that are
without them. And Satan knows which
temptations works on who and when they work and what times
they work and what times they're not as effective.
He knows what to do. Understand the reality of this
spiritual warfare. Wake up to what is going around
you here tonight, that thou mightest war, a good warfare.
It's not that it might come, but then when it comes, you might do
it in a way that's pleasing to God, which speaks of this number
2, the quality of the war. Not just the reality of the war,
but #2 the quality of the war. So what kind of response to war
should we have? I just mentioned to you it's a
good warfare. But what does that mean?
Well, interestingly enough, if you were to look at that word
good in the Greek, it's literal sense is this beautiful that it
is a good warfare, but it is a beautiful warfare.
Now ask yourself this tonight. How could warfare be beautiful
now? Again, I speak as one who is
ignorant tonight, and I won't pretend to be anything
otherwise. In most ways, it's not
beautiful. I would even pretend that it
was. But I can maybe find some
commonality with an example like this.
When we were on deputation, one of the things that I really
enjoyed us being able to do as a family, and of course this was
13 years ago, was going to see places that likely we'd never
normally would get to see and taking the children to be able
to go see those places. And one of those places I was
really excited about, ironically, it's not incredibly
far from here, but was the Gettysburg, Gettysburg, PA.
To be able to see the area where that great clash of the Union
and the Confederacy together. The Confederacy, one of the few
battles in which they tried to wage into the North, into
Pennsylvania and was able to go there for a day.
I kind of wish I could take the children again, because they
were so young. They really couldn't have
understood the gravity of what we were seeing.
But I remember standing at a place, we, we went to a museum
and looked around through the museum and that was really
interesting. But then we just got in the car
and drove and there were places and markers where you could
look. But I've done some reading on
Gettysburg and I enjoy Civil War history and those types of
things. And so I remember getting to a
place that historically is called The Angle.
The Angle is the place where really some would consider to be
the high mark of the Confederacy, meaning that was as
close as they ever got to winning the Civil War was on the
third day of the Battle of Gettysburg.
And as the men of Robert E Lee led by none other than George
Pickett came out of the tree line and went across this large
grassy expanse that slowly sloped upward toward a wall
known popularly were part of that wall was the angle because
it changed into a 90° angle. And it was at that point where
the Confederacy was able to breach that wall for a very
short. Period of time, but then will
rappel back and really that was as close as they ever got to
winning a Gettysburg, which is close they ever got to winning
the Civil War. And so some people even believe
that right there at that spot, at the angle.
Was literally the moment where the tide turned for the entire
Civil war. And so I remember standing there
and again, the the children didn't understand this, but I
remember standing there and just looking, it was a rainy day.
It was about 3233°. It was just not a very pretty
day by any stretch, but certainly kind of added to the
mystique of what was going on that day.
And I was just looking through the mist at that tree line.
I just imagined the rebels coming through with that rebel
yell that they said that they would have yelled and how
harrowing it would have been. And imagining the men standing
right where I was standing shoulder to shoulder, guns out,
bayonets are fixed, ready to defend this nation, ready to
defend this nation and the ideals of the Constitution of
the United States. And you just stand there and
it's there's no bodies. There was nobody there but us.
And the calmness, the stillness of that moment, there was
something beautiful about it. What happened?
No, what happened was horrific. I couldn't even imagine what
those men had to do and to go through on that day.
But what was beautiful was what was represented by what took
place that day, The ideals of what it meant to be an American,
the ideals of what it meant to be free, what took place there.
It was something that, man, I don't know that I'll ever forget
the rest of my life. I'm almost afraid to go back
because the memory that I have of that and that moment, I don't
know could ever be compared if I went back to it again.
It was, can we put it this way, a good warfare.
It was beautiful what you saw there, you know, not the things
that had to take place. They would have been atrocious
to imagine to our senses. I wouldn't want to bring that
before you tonight, but to consider.
What took place? And what it stood for, the honor
of those men standing for a just cause as the enemy swarmed, is
one of the most heroic, selfless, and yes, even
beautiful things that sinful humanity could ever accomplish.
That Romans 5 talks about that. That really, we don't like to
die for one another, do we? That that's not something that
we truly want to do. It's even difficult to be able
to do for those that we love. Romans 5 talks about this.
But Jesus, knowing who we were. Willingly gave himself for us,
but the beauty of the sacrifice that day.
So you say what? What does this have to do with
me, pastor? Well, the.
Warfare that we wore spiritually should be good.
Meaning this we need to stand up straight and tall against the
enemy. Do you realize that the enemy
that attacked us, the enemy that attacks us, is the same enemy
that attacked our savior. The enemy that attacked us and
attacks us is the same enemy that attacks your family, that
attacks your friends. That attacks your church.
Do you know what we need to do? We need to war.
A good warfare, you say, Well, if he attacked Jesus Christ,
then then what am I going to do if he attacks me?
Well, what did Jesus Christ do? He could have snapped his
fingers and banished Satan away forever.
But what he did was, well, what he showed us that we can do when
Satan attacks us. What did he do?
He quoted scripture after scripture after scripture, the
living Word, quoting the Word. He showed us the way that we can
have victory through him. Yes, that is a good warfare.
And that we need to stand up and say no.
I don't want to warm myself by the fires of the camps of the
enemy. No, no, I don't want to be with
what he is or what he wants to present himself as.
No, I want to stand up and I want to say no to these things
because I know that even if Satan whispers in my ear that he
has something good for me, that he's a liar and there's nothing
true within his mouth. And I don't want to follow him.
I don't want to listen to him. I want to stand up strong and
listen if I see one of my brothers in Christ who has
fallen in their battle, What I'm going to do is what a man would
do in the battlefield when someone fell.
I would pick him up and I would render aid and I would help them
any way I could because I would hope if the situation was
opposite that they do the same for me.
Because we're all going to fall in our spiritual life.
You know, I'm not talking about falling all the way down or, or
having to go to the depths of depravity.
I'm just saying this. We're all going to have times of
weaknesses, but we all have times of difficulties.
This is why you need to be in church.
This is this is reason 1000 out of about 5000 why you need to be
coming to church, because you need brothers and sisters in
Christ to be able to help you. 1 lone Union soldier standing on
that wall against thousands would not have been able to
repel them, but together they won the day.
And I'm not saying that we can't have spiritual victory because,
listen, you and Christ make up the majority, just the two of
you. But God in his sovereignty and
in his wisdom, gave us each other to be able to link arms
one with another, to be able to join.
Arms one with another and there's something beautiful
about that and that's why we must work to restore our
Christian brethren. That's why first Corinthians
chapter 5 and 2nd Corinthians chapter 2 are so important.
Here's a man who had to be removed from the church, but
what happened? They work to restore that man.
In fact, Paul says, listen, get with him and help him, because
if if you don't help him, he's going to be overtaken in
sorrows. Far too often, Christians are
willing to shoot each other in the back instead of being able
to help one another. You say, pastor, you're saying
we shouldn't deal with sin. Who said that?
You better believe. We have to deal with sin.
Paul made that pretty clear. First Corinthians chapter 5.
But why? Because we want him to get right
so they can get back in the fight.
We want him to get patched up and cleaned up.
To get back in the fight. And by the way, that part of
that patching I'm cleaning up doesn't mean that you pretend
like they're not shot or they're not hurt.
But listen, we don't need to have friendly fire between us
either. We need to have good warfare.
The quality of our warfare must be right.
There's the reality of war #1 there's the quality of war #2
and then there's the tools of war #3 what are the tools?
Well, next week we'll be looking at Ephesians chapter #6
Ephesians chapter #6 talks about the armor of God.
And it talks about how we can build that armor of God within
our own life. And we'll take more, more time
to look at that next week, along with the practical steps of
things we can do to be able to help us through spiritual
warfare. But yet we see 2 main tools here
in our text as we go into verse #19 it says holding faith and a
good conscience, which some, having put away concerning
faith, have made shipwreck. So it says in the second-half of
the verse that some having put away these two things have gone
shipwreck in the faith. Well, you don't have to know
exactly what the metaphor is that Paul is saying here to
understand this. That's not good because if
you're in a ship, you don't want it to wreck.
I know that's deep stuff right there, isn't it?
All right, you are in a ship, you want to stay afloat, don't
you? So it says this, there's a
couple things. If you don't have them, you
could go shipwreck. So it seems like to me we need
to know what those tools are so we can be aware, so we don't go
shipwreck. And it says the first is this,
holding faith. Holding faith.
If you think you are too weak for this battle, I have good
news for you. Your primary tool is faith.
Ephesians 6 says this. And above all the shield of
faith. Exodus 14 verses 13 and 14.
Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand still and see the
salvation of the Lord, which He will show you today for the
Egyptians whom he have seen today.
You shall see them again no more forever.
The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace.
Listen, when it came to the issue of spiritual warfare, if
it was me against Satan, I would lose 100 times out of 100.
It would be the Harlem Globetrotters against the
Washington Generals every single time.
In fact, the Washington Generals would have a better chance of
beating the Harlem Globetrotters than I would against Satan.
Why? Because in myself, I am weak.
I am fleshly. I mean well, no good thing.
My heart is evil and desperately wicked.
Who can know it? If it's just me and myself, I
lose every single time but have faith.
So what do you mean have faith? Well.
Have faith in God. Let me ask you, do you trust Him
enough to save you? No, no, I'll ask you a real
question tonight. This isn't even being sarcastic
or anything like that. Do you trust Him enough to save
you? Yes.
That faith will serve you well in the day-to-day life as well.
Do you not have faith that He can deliver you from the sin
that does so easily beset you? Do you not have faith that He
can deliver you from from the things that you struggle with in
your life? Do you not have faith that He
can deliver you? When Satan tries to throw his
fiery darts at you, do you not have faith?
If we can trust him with our eternity, then why can't we
trust Him with the battles we have now?
God says that He will help us. God says He will protect us.
God says that He will strengthen us.
He has given us these promises. Remember, He never forgets his
promises or every single time He always gives his promises to us.
Most Israelite battles in the Old Testament are a great
example of how we're to war a warfare of faith.
You know, the Old Testament is not just there to give us some
bedtime stories for our children.
They point to Jesus Christ and they also point to our
relationship with him now And in the Old Testament, what was the
pattern? Israel was against
insurmountable odds. They had no way of winning on
their own. They call upon God, God delivers
them, and they win in a way that no one can explain.
But saying this but God. Now you can mix that up however
you want, but that happens dozens of times in the Old
Testament. But there are also times when
Israel said this. You know what?
God. We don't need you.
We're on our own. We're doing pretty well.
We can handle ourselves, that we've won a few battles in our
life so we can take care of this ourselves.
And every single time they fell flat.
Is this not a picture of our spiritual life?
Is this not a picture of what we deal with on a day-to-day basis?
That yes, you are against insurmountable odds on your own
against Satan and his opinions, but with the Lord, with you
giving yourself completely and totally to him?
What can I put it this way? You can't lose.
You say, well, it seems like I'm losing in the situation I'm in.
Listen, have faith. If you are doing what he wants
you to do, you may think you're losing, but he's still going to
bring it all to good in your life.
You have to trust him. And that also requires what
faith to be able to see what is ahead even when you can't see
it. That's what faith is, the
substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
That's how Abraham could see I'm going the right way even though
he didn't know what the way it was.
That's how Moses could say, well, I guess we're doing right
even though I don't see how we I'm doing the right thing when
none of these Israelites are even listening to me because
they had faith that yes, the Lord who called us is the Lord
who's going to bring us through spiritual warfare for the
Israelites meant that God used Mulberry trees took.
Pools of water to simulate blood, made 300 lanterns to
scare 10s of thousands of people and made the sun stand still.
None of those things make sense, but God did it and more.
And listen, He'll deliver you as well.
Say, well, I'm tired of struggling, I'm tired of
fighting, I'm tired of listening.
Is God the one who gives the victory or not God has made
provision for victory in your life that who is free.
He who is free, Jesus said is free.
Indeed, you can be victorious in Jesus Christ, but you have to
understand that there's a battle you have to fight a good warfare
and understand the tools of war of faith.
But then also this a good conscience and a good
conscience. Now what does that have to do
with anything Pastor? A good conscience.
Well, actually Harkins back to the beginning of the book.
To go back to the beginning of the chapter first Timothy
chapter one look at verse one Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ
by the commandment of God our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ,
which is our hope unto Timothy mine own Son of the faith,
grace, mercy and peace from God our Father and Jesus Christ our
Lord as I besought thee to abide still of 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 what do we find that Timothy was in his job and being
able to strengthen the churches of which he came in contact
with. He was coming across people who
are teaching false doctrine. He was coming across people who
are not teaching right things. And so verse 5 says this.
Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart
and of a good conscience and of faith unfeigned.
Well, there it is right there. What does it say?
The end of the commandment? How is he supposed to deal with
this? Paul says, let me just jump to
the end. Here's what you need to do to
deal with this. He says you need to have
charity. You said, well, how are you to
combat false belief with charity?
Well. I don't know you could.
Probably go to 1st Corinthians 13 where it says this basically
that without charity, even with knowledge, even with the truth.
Listen, you are sounding brass and a tinkling symbol that you
need to be able to operate with love in your heart that it's not
just about I know the truth and so I can act however I want know
that you need to make sure that you war.
Can we put it this way, a good warfare and that you have the
right spirit through it, or that you have charity out of a pure
heart that the motivation is right?
Well, you know what? I'm going to see that someone
else is doing right in their life.
And the reason? Why?
Is because I want to knock them down a peg.
That's not a pure heart, and neither is it what a good
conscience and a faith unfeigned.
To have a good conscience means to fight in a godly manner.
So we're in this warfare. But listen, it's not no holds
barred. It's we had to fight as
Christians and as Christians who are fighting, we need to look
like Christians. I got to know my grandfather
only knew one of my 4 grandparents, my grandfather, my
dad's father and he passed away when I was in 8th grade.
My grandfather, Alvio Rivero, listen, you don't mess with a
guy named Alvio Rivero, you know what I'm saying?
Alvio, Tulio Rivero, his middle name was Tulio.
And he, he was a man that was, he was a very interesting man.
He really was in so many ways. And I, I say that not even to be
sarcastic. He was a very interesting man,
but he was also a amateur boxer and he kind of did that on the
side, you know, just for fun, you know.
And so one of the things that I remember hearing him say, I
heard it from my father and I heard him say it before as well.
He said there's only one rule when it comes to fighting.
You know what that is when And it seems to me that when it
comes to boxing, there's a lot more rules than just when
because you know, there's you can't pull out weapons.
You know, you got to get out of steel chair.
I've heard that people try those things and other pursuits, but
you can't just hit someone with a steel chair.
There are certain punches that are illegal.
You can't punch certain body parts because it's supposed to
be could. We put it this way, a fair fight
they were real fighting is not fair.
Well, listen, we can take that attitude into our Christian
fight. And why do people not fight
fair? Usually because they feel like
they're at a disadvantage and that's the way that they have to
even the score. If I remind you that we're at a
great advantage against Satan, what is that?
Well, we have Jesus, so why would we need to fight in a way
that was unchristian? Like, why would we have to put
away our good conscience? To be able to fight and listen,
he says this. There are some Timothy, he says,
that are going to fight. And they put away the faith, and
they put away good conscience, including, if you go back to
verse #20 it says Hymanius and Alexander, whom I've delivered
unto Satan, that they may. Learn not to blasphemy.
Now, I don't know who these men are with their thoughts about
who they are. We don't know exactly.
But I do know this, that these men got themselves in a bad way
against Satan because they put away faith and a good
conscience. God's given us these tools.
Listen, believers ought to fight like believers.
Which means what? That we use the tools of a
believer? Like what?
Kind of like an armor of God that we'll look at next week.
There's the reality of the war. There's the quality of the war.
There's the tools of the war. Then also #4 and finally,
there's the stakes of the war. What's at stake?
Well, the end of verse #19, which some, having put away
concerning faith, have made what shipwreck.
Paul knew a lot about shipwrecks, didn't he?
He had some problems with, listen, if I was on a boat with
Paul, I'd say this, hey, I'll grab the next boat, you know,
because it seemed like he had some problems getting from point
A to point B in some of the ships that he got into.
But he said this, he says if you don't have faith and you don't
have good conscience, you will end up going shipwreck.
The idea is this without faith as the rudder, without a good
conscience as the till, what do you find that it?
There's no telling where you could end up.
That you are literally at the mercy of the Seas, that you are
up and down and up and down. Listen, I'm not talking about
you losing your salvation. I'm talking about you making a
mess of your life. You ever?
Wonder it says, Pastor, it seems like I'm out of control.
It seems like my life is just, it's just out of control.
I don't know what to do. Listen, could it be that you've
put away faith and a good conscience as God has asked you
to? Listen, you can be in
tempestuous seas and still be in control.
You know, I'm not talking about the the you are in control in
and of yourself, but I'm talking about if your faith is what it
needs to be and if you are fighting the fight properly with
a good conscience that even in the midst of the storm, God can
give you peace. He can give you help.
Listen, it it, it's not just that you are bobbing up and down
the water and you have nothing to do and you were just at it at
His mercy. Listen, He's given you the tools
to be able to cut through the water even in the toughest seas,
but we can't do it our own way. And here's the issue.
Here's the real issue when it comes to spiritual warfare and
we're almost done. The real issue comes down to
this is that we want to fight our own way and then when it
doesn't work, we go to God and ask Him to fix our press that we
made in the 1st place. Now listen, thank the Lord that
when we do make a mess of our lives, we can go to Him and He's
faithful and just to forgive us our sins in the cleanse of all
righteousness. I'm not trying to discourage you
from going to the Lord for forgiveness.
Heaven forbid. I want you to run to Him for
forgiveness if you need it tonight.
That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying wouldn't it be better
that we just started from a place of saying, Lord, since I
trust You that you'll forgive me for the sin, maybe I should just
trust You to deliver me from the sin in the first place.
Part of the problem when it comes down to the issue of
spiritual warfare and temptation and all of those things is that
we say we want victory and we do want victory, but we also want
the sin as well. And sometimes we just want the
sin a little bit more. You say, well I feel very
confused about that. What's because of double minded
man's unstable in all those ways and like a man as I've told you
before, has 1 foot on a boat and 1 foot on a dock.
Listen, that's a very precarious place to be because that dock
won't move, but that vote, that vote eventually will.
And you're going to go somewhere and it's probably not going to
be on the dock or in the boat. It's going to be in the drink.
Listen, not taking spiritual warfare seriously has incredible
consequences, far more than you can even imagine.
You know, I think not necessarily of 911, but I think
of 912. So what do you mean?
Of course we're all almost here, old enough to remember the
horror of 911. But do you remember what it
looked like at the end of that day and the next day on 9/12?
The absolute destruction that was there, Blocks and blocks and
blocks of rubble and steel and bodies.
Absolute wreckage. I, I can't even fathom.
We've been before to the 9/11 memorial where there's these
pools that just mark the space where the tower stood.
And you can't even wrap your head around how immense those
buildings were and what took place on that day.
You know, I think of 912 and I think of what was left over.
And you know, in the ministry, myself and, and I would even
include my wife in this in ministry, we've had to go
through a lot of 912 moments with people say, what do you
mean? We've had to walk through the
wreckage with them and look around and it's bad.
It is so very bad. In fact, it's sometimes far
worse. They can even imagine you pull
up one layer and you realize there's more layers below, and
then you pull up those layers and you find even more below.
And there are times I could say just as a pastor, a pastor's
wife, it could be spiritually exhausting to be able to try to
help somebody because you so badly want to help them.
But you look at this and you say, what is this?
What has happened? Listen, if you don't fight
spiritual warfare, you could end up looking at the rubble of a
life, of a family, of a child. Of a church, of a relationship,
of a situation, you'd say, how, how did we?
How do we get here? Well, because there was a threat
that wasn't identified in time. And before you knew it,
something happened that you never would have anticipated
would have happened. And who would have on 9/11?
Who would have anticipated it? But it came.
It came and before you know it, that's what's left.
Say, pastor, you're laying it on real thick.
I would dare say that what we're talking about are matters not
even of life or death. We're talking about eternal
matters here. I'm, I'm not trying to belittle
what happened that day. Not at all.
An atrocity doesn't even begin to cover what took place on that
day. That's that's not even a strong
enough word for what took place that day.
But I want you to understand that not fighting spiritual
warfare can lead to greater results that last for eternity
in your own life. But here's the good news.
The Lord will help you pick up the pieces.
But wouldn't it be better? Instead of picking up the
pieces, wouldn't it be better to prepare yourself for when the
next attack comes? Because even if you do pick up
the pieces and you clean up and you get everything back to where
it was before and you said everything just right, another
attack will come. So how long is this going to
happen? How long are?
You going to be here? I'm not talking about tonight
because we're like, we're not going to be here much longer.
I'm talking about as long as we're here on this plane that
we're on, on this earth, the attacks will keep coming.
Got to be ready. You got to be ready.
Don't wait to just pick up the rubble because there'll be
another attack again. Just say, hey, I'm planting my
flag right here. The battle is real.
I'm going to war a good warfare. I'm going to use the tools that
God has given me because I don't want to go shipwreck and I want
to stay right where God has me. Thank you for listening to the
sermon from the pulpit of Liberty Baptist Church.
If this message was a blessing to you, or if there's any way we
can serve you, please let us know by contacting us at
info@mylibertybaptist.org. Or you can visit us this Sunday
at 800 Washington St. in Easton, MA.
May the Lord bless you as you grow in His Word.