-Transcript-
00:26 Amen, Glory to God, welcome to the program. Welcome to the cafe, Pastor Clark Covington, here with another episode of KJV Cafe. Thank you for joining me today.
00:35 You enjoy these episodes? If you’ve heard them before, join our podcast. Be a member. Subscribe.
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00:58 And as always, we are here to get into God’s Word. So without delay, let’s get into God’s Word. He is so good.
01:05 He is so wonderful. And His wisdom is so far beyond anything that man can comprehend. The Bible says that His ways are higher than our ways.
01:16 I mean, it’s just unbelievable, you know, how much more God knows than we know. To say it just like that, Isaiah 55:8-9. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.
01:37 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. That’s Isaiah 55:8-9You know, His ways are so high.
01:51 I mean, the heavens is quite high. It’s a very big difference there. Us low down creatures, God’s wisdom.
01:57 Let me tell you a story. There was a lady, it’s a true story, lived not far from here, worked her whole life and saved money and saved for retirement, just worked a regular job, didn’t have all the riches in the world, but she saved and saved and saved and said, I’m going to go to the beach when I retire. I’m getting out of here.
02:18 I’m going to the beach. And she did. She saved all her money.
02:22 She retired. She bought a house right on the water. And guess what? She, you know, the plan seemed to be coming together.
02:31 And that water kept creeping in and creeping in off the ocean before she knew it. Her house was literally underwater, literally underwater. Her house, the ocean just came up and the house is gone and her retirement’s gone.
02:46 And she’s suing the real estate agent. I think the real estate agent might be suing the seller. We don’t, you know, I don’t know all the details, but I know there’s no peace and quiet.
02:56 The whole plan was to have peace and quiet. And the whole plan was ruined by this act of God. And here is the point I’m making.
03:03 When we try to plan for our peace and quiet, we try to plan for our serenity. What we end up doing is ended up in the mud. Amen.
03:15 We end up in the mud and the mire and the dirt. We end up in all kinds of trouble. And in that lady’s life, there’s no peace and quiet.
03:21 There’s worry and frustration and disappointment. And that could happen to anybody. Could happen to you.
03:27 Could happen to me. And I will pray for her that it all works out. But I’ll tell you this, when we look to the Lord and His ways, which are so much higher than our ways, that’s what we can have, peace and quiet.
03:40 And He gives us some instructions on how to have a peace and quiet life here on earth. 1 Timothy 2:1-3, I exhort therefore that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings, and for all that are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior.
04:13 And so we see here in 1 Timothy, we see a number of things to give you some context here. Number one, we see Paul writing to Timothy at the end of his earthly ministry. And so Paul, the apostle Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, he is about to be martyred, and I’m guessing two to three years after he wrote this.
04:33 I did some research. And of course, you know, there’s 1 Timothy, then there’s 2 Timothy. So 2 Timothy was even closer to his martyrdom.
04:39 But I hope I said that right. Him being martyred. Okay, I can say that.
04:51 All right. It’s closer. He’s kind of wrapping up his life.
04:56 And he’s saying, in his earthly life here, and he’s saying to Timothy, I want to tell you some things. I’m going to tell you what God wants us to do. What’s good and acceptable in the sight of God our Lord and Savior.
05:01 And this 1 Timothy is one of three pastoral letters. 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus. These letters that Paul wrote to these young men were to help these young pastors understand what to do since he soon would no longer be around.
05:17 You got to remember that Timothy at this time was at a church that Paul founded, the church of Ephesus. And so this letter is instruction to Timothy, ideally to deal with the whole church, but certainly with that church at Ephesus. Titus was at a church in Crete.
05:32 And so we see here these books, you know, they’re very important for learning what to do in the ministry. Remember years ago, a young believer went to the pastor and asked him, how do you know who could be a deacon? And he said, oh, you know, who could be a deacon?
05:47 And he said, you mean the qualifications for a deacon? I said, yeah, that sounds official. He said, okay, let’s turn to 1 Timothy 3. You know, and you look in 1 Timothy 3, say through 13, you start seeing the qualifications for a deacon.
06:00 I mean, even in 1 Timothy 2 here, we see instructions for the church. We also see instructions for women in the church and their role. And by the way, this isn’t old stuff.
06:15 This is what the church should be based off of, amen. When we look at our doctrine at Heartland Community Baptist Church, we look at these principles. This is how we are to live, amen.
06:25 And we see here that one of the kind of themes of this chapter here is that God wants all to be saved by and through Christ and that men should pray all the time without anger or lack of faith.
06:43 That’s kind of the crux here of this chapter. And so what we have is Paul telling us, look, you need to pray, you know, and here’s how you pray, your supplications, prayers, intercessions, giving thanks and so forth.
07:01 And you need to do it for the leadership, especially, okay? And because you’re praying for the leadership in such a way, then you can have a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.
07:12 And this is good and acceptable in the sight of God, our Savior. And so we’ve got here kind of on one level, a very simple, straightforward passage of scripture.
07:22 And on another level, it’s kind of like these are the instructions for how we are to live here on earth, both to be praying for a peaceable life and then what it means to live that life and to be good and acceptable in God’s sight, right? And we see that God really does desire all to be saved, right?
07:44 And so if God desires all to be saved, then that means that we should be fruitful. And I preached recently on being fruitful. And if we are to be fruitful, we kind of need the ability to do that.
07:56 And that comes from God alone, of course. We see great examples of Paul being in jail and still winning souls and winning even the house of Caesar, amen. But at the same time, how we need to thank God when we’re able to evangelize in public, when we’re able to live out our faith without fear of persecution.
08:18 Jesus tells the disciples, you know, in the latter part of Luke 24, and Luke 24 is the last chapter, I believe, in the book of Luke. And he tells his disciples that he desires all to be saved, right? And so we look at Luke 24. We’ll look down here as I go in here.
08:37 Let’s see here, maybe verse 44. And he said unto them, these are the words I spake unto you while I was yet with you that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses and in the prophets and in the Psalms concerning me.
08:55 Then he opened their understanding that they might understand the scriptures and said unto them, thus it is written, and thus it is behooved to Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem, and ye are witnesses of these things.
09:15 And so Jesus, this is the ascended Lord. This is Jesus in his resurrected body. And he’s speaking to the disciples.
09:21 He’s speaking to them directly. And they’re afraid and they don’t know what to think. And he opens their understanding of the word.
09:29 And he helps them understand through, at that time would have been the Old Testament, right? The law, Moses and so forth and the Psalms and everything to understand that all of it had pointed to him, right?
09:39 And all of it, this prophecy, this great scripture that we use all the time, amen, all the prophets, they pointed to him, right? Elijah, Isaiah, on and on, Moses, they’re all pointing to Jesus. And he’s saying, okay, now I’m gonna let you understand this.
09:57 And then once they understand it, they understand why he had to suffer, rise from the dead on the third day, why he was there in front of them and why he was about to ascend up to heaven.
10:08 And that this is his instruction to them and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations. And then he says, beginning at Jerusalem. And we understand that Paul is the apostle to the Gentiles and that the other apostles were there for the Jewish people and so forth.
10:24 That was their mission. That was their witness, amen. And so we see here some great truths and this idea that like, okay, if we understand what God wants us to do and we are to be fruitful for God, then look, number one, we need to pray for everybody.
10:38 Number two, especially those in power so that we can then do what God wants us to do and have that peaceable life. And the implication here is if the power, if we don’t pray for those in power and the power goes wicked and we are restrained and can’t bring the gospel to all nations like God wants us to, then what happens?
11:01 We don’t just roll over and give up. It just means that we’re not gonna have that quiet and peaceable life.
11:10 I always think of the Chinese church. They’re under communism. They’re under great restriction.
11:15 There’s all of these mock trials and fools trials and fools courts saying, oh, you printed up materials without a tax ID. We’re gonna throw you in jail for 20 years. It’s ridiculous.
11:31 They don’t like the evangelism and they’re gonna shut them down. Now, many in China, well, things I’ve heard of the Chinese church, that that affliction and that suppression and persecution has kept the church on fire and I believe it. And so it can, but you’re gonna tell me that those believers aren’t stressed out, that those believers are leading a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.
11:43 No, they’re having to hustle and bustle and hide and all these things. They’re having to go ahead and open the floorboard to put the Bible in there. Amen.
11:51 They’re gonna have to talk to someone 10, 15, 20 times and make sure they’re not an authority before they’re able to tell, hey, come to church. Now contrast that with America where we can freely, openly worship. And in some states it’s better than others.
12:06 But generally speaking, we’re very blessed to be in America. And so here it’s not that the Lord would be telling us don’t do it if the law says don’t do it. Although we are commanded to obey the laws and to live, we’re not commanded to riot, so to speak.
12:18 But we are to pray that we are able to live out our faith with leaders that are friendly to our belief, that are friendly to our belief. You know, God loves us so much. He loves us so much that he wants us to take part in this ministry.
12:34 And when we do, we find a purpose, a purpose that is so beautiful because it’s not like an earthly purpose that will eventually let us down or lead us high and dry. But we find a true purpose and we find the person of Christ in the midst of that purpose. And we find joy and peace in pursuing that purpose.
12:52 And we can live out a life that is full of just happiness and joy unspeakable and peace. You know, like real peace, like you’re not worried every day about what’s going on. You’re just praising God because you’re trusting God.
13:09 And you know, hey, I’m in the center of his will. I’m serving God. So you’re not running from him.
13:15 You’re running to him and you’re living for him. And you have a peace that surpasses all understanding. Now, notice I didn’t say easy.
13:22 It won’t be easy. We know that. But you have a great peace.
13:29 And that, I believe, is what the Lord is exhorting us to do through Paul writing to Timothy. Paul’s getting ready to check out, move on to heaven. Amen.
13:35 For his eternal reward and to be glory there and to live it up with Jesus Christ without having to, you know, think about heaven. He’ll be in heaven for good. Amen.
13:44 And Timothy saying, look, you know, teach the church this. Pray for the authorities. You know, pray heartily in all these different ways that God will give you those in power that allow you to preach the gospel, to teach the gospel, to share the gospel, to grow in knowledge of the word without persecution.
14:07 Because when you’re persecuted, it will be painful and hard. Not when you’re persecuted, you stop. It’s just going to be a lot harder if you don’t have that peace.
14:14 And so that is something that we still deal with today. If you can believe it, all these thousands of years later, we still deal with this today. And this week, we’re going to look at the next few episodes, specific examples of how we are to do this.
14:27 Thank you for listening. Tune in next time. Take care. God bless and amen.