SALVATION, WARFARE AND TESTIMONY
[p. 178] SALVATION, WARFARE AND TESTIMONY
I think that young believers are generally attracted by Paul’s epistles to Timothy. I remember reading these epistles with great interest soon after my conversion, and I expect others have done likewise. There is something very remarkable and touching in the bond that subsisted between Paul and Timothy. The apostle in his closing years seems to have had but one confidential friend on earth, and that was his son in the faith, Timothy. There is great encouragement in this for us who are young, for it shows that youth is no barrier to godliness, and that even a young man can be so spiritually matured that he becomes the bosom friend of the apostle to whom was committed the declaration of the whole counsel of God.
If our hearts are simple and devoted to Christ we may have that place today. The epistles are a direct link with the apostles. We have their own inspired words, and in that way we are directly linked with them. Every young believer here has the privilege of a personal link in this way with Peter, or John, or Paul. If we entered more into this we should better understand what it is to be “built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone”.
There are three things in the scripture before us, about which I wish to say a few words at this time — salvation, warfare and testimony.
You will notice that those who go on happily and brightly in their souls always retain a deep sense of the grace by which they are saved. Paul certainly had a vivid consciousness of the grace that had been so abundant to him. He could not mention the glad tidings of the glory of the blessed God which was committed to his trust, without speaking of himself as the crowning trophy of divine mercy and of grace. It is a profitable thing to remember what we were. God calls upon us to remember what we were in time past (Ephesians 2: 11, 12), that our appreciation of grace may be thereby enhanced.
A blasphemer, a persecutor, and insolent, over-bearing man, the chief of sinners, has become a blessed trophy and witness of divine grace. There was everything in Saul of Tarsus that was most offensive to God — religious pride, self-righteousness, hatred of Christ, cruelty to the saints. His sin was [p. 179] great, but he found something greater than his sin. “The grace of our Lord surpassingly overabounded”. If we remember all that we were, it is not to dwell upon it, but that it may be the background to show off the lustre and glory of the grace of our God — grace that not only provides an Object for faith, but bestows faith itself. Faith as well as love is the gift of abounding grace (1 Timothy 1: 14).
“Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”. Nothing could give such assurance of God’s love as this; nothing could make blessing more certain, nothing could so effectually remove every doubt and misgiving from an exercised heart as this great and divine fact. The Man in whom all God’s counsels have centred from eternity has come into the world to take up our liabilities, and to glorify God in our condition and under our judgment, so that He might “save sinners”.
“Christ Jesus” is a name of the Saviour which is almost peculiar to Paul, and it indicates the Man of God’s counsel and purpose (see Ephesians 3: 11). So to get a proper idea of salvation we must in thought go back into eternity. God “hath saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began; but is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel”, 2 Timothy 1: 9, 10.
God has had from eternity a resource equal to all His blessed thoughts of love and grace. What wonderful things men would do if they had resources equal to their thoughts! Men sometimes think they have resources, but some unexpected obstacle turns up, and having begun to build they are not able to finish. But God’s resource is more than equal to everything that could arise. Sin did not prove too much for God’s resource, nor did it alter His purpose. Nay! it is sin that has brought out the fulness and blessedness of God’s resource.
Before Adam was created, God had a Man before His heart — the Man Christ Jesus — and it was God’s purpose and pleasure that we should be before Him in the condition and acceptance of that Man for ever. Get hold of God’s purpose first, and then you will understand His grace. For what could be more contrary to God’s purpose than our condition as children of Adam? Fallen, corrupted by lust, alienated from God, guilty,
[p. 180] and under death and judgment as the righteous consequence of our sin, how could we ever be with God in the condition and acceptance of the Beloved? Ah! this is where grace comes in! We may put that one blessed word — grace — over against everything that is true of us as children of Adam. If we have many sins, there is “forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace”, Ephesians 1: 7. If we are far away from God and lost, “the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men”, Titus 2: Il. If we are helpless, like the poor man who was left wounded and half dead in the parable of Luke 10, there is all the grace of the Good Samaritan for us. If we are under death and judgment, Jesus “by the grace of God” tasted death for everything. The more I prove my utter ruin the more I show myself to be a proper subject for grace. Our wretched and guilty condition brought the Man of God’s counsel into the world to die that He might “save sinners”. If you could put all the sin there ever was in the world in one scale, and the death of Christ in the other, you would see that “where sin abounded, grace did much more abound”.
The “salvation which is in Christ Jesus” is a present salvation. That is, it carries with it present deliverance from sin, the world, and Satan, Not only are the believer’s sins forgiven, but he receives the gift of the Holy Spirit, so that the love of God may be shed abroad in his heart, and he may come under the teaching of grace. As being under grace he is delivered from the dominion of sin, and as he walks in the Spirit he does not fulfil the lusts of the flesh. The love of God known in his heart preserves him from loving the world. He is thus practically delivered from the power of evil and darkness.
Then as to the future, the “salvation which is in Christ Jesus” necessarily carries with it “eternal glory”, 2 Timothy 2: 10. The Man of God’s counsel has become “the first-born among many brethren”, and God will bring all the “many sons” to the same glory which He has entered as Man. The completeness of the “salvation which is in Christ Jesus” is set forth in Him — the risen and glorified Man, and we shall not be in the completeness of it until we are with Him and like Him in “eternal glory”,
Before leaving this I may remark that the apostle Paul is put before us as an object lesson in grace. The true character of divine mercy and grace has been fully shown in connection [p. 181] with him. He had a deep experience of sin, and he entered into grace in a wonderful way. We may have had a comparatively mild and feeble experience both of sin and grace, but the grace which was expressed towards him is the grace that has come to us. We may learn in him what sin is, and the surpassing over-abundance of grace, even though we may not have proved it so fully in our own experience. Who can wonder that the chief of sinners — saved by sovereign mercy and grace — breaks out in this ascription of honour and glory to the blessed God who reigns in such wondrous grace? “Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen”.
Souls very often go through many exercises before they learn the blessedness of God’s salvation; they are very often harassed by doubts and fears under the oppression of the enemy, and it is sometimes supposed that these exercises are the proper warfare of the believer. But this is not the case. The salvation of God must be known as a blessed reality before Christian warfare begins. The children of Israel had no warfare until they had passed through the Red Sea. On the contrary, the word to them was, “Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord ... the Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace”, Exodus 14: 13, 14. But they had not been long in the wilderness before they came into conflict with Amalek.
It is of the greatest importance that we should know what is the object of Christian warfare, and it is plainly declared in the scripture before us. “That thou by them mightest war a good warfare; holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck”. The “good warfare” is for the maintenance of “faith, and a good conscience”. In the world nations go to war to maintain their supposed rights. Now “faith and a good conscience” are the rights of a Christian. Every believer is entitled to maintain “faith and a good conscience”, and under no circumstances whatever is it right for him to surrender these two things.
We must not put a “good conscience” before “faith”. Some will contend earnestly for their crochets and whims under the plea of much talk about their consciences. “Faith” must come first — the condition of soul that recognises God, and that makes the will of God supreme in the heart. Two [p. 182] things are essential to faith; the soul must be in the light of God’s revelation of Himself, and it must be in continual dependence upon Him. Timothy was left at Ephesus by Paul that sound doctrine might be maintained amongst the saints “according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God”. This is the first thing that “faith” takes account of — that the glory of the blessed God has shone forth for men. “Faith” is in the light of the glory of the blessed God, and cannot settle down with anything that is inconsistent with God or unsuitable for Him. Then “faith” continually turns to God to know His pleasure, and is maintained in dependence and confiding intercourse with God. Hence the apostle says, “I will therefore that men pray everywhere”.
It is this that we have to maintain, and for which we “war a good warfare”. The one who beguiled Eve by his subtlety is ever seeking to divert our souls from that blessed revelation of God in the glory of grace which has shone upon us in the glad tidings. And he is ever seeking to remove us from that personal and confiding intercourse with God in prayer which is essential to faith. We have to maintain “faith”. Christians are looked at as depositaries of the faith — as entrusted with the maintenance of what is of God in this world. The house of God is this collectively, but the house is made up of individuals. If we make shipwreck of faith the deposit is lost so far as we are concerned.
“Faith, and a good conscience” must go together. If we neglect to do something which we know we ought to do, or hold back from some step which we know we ought to take, or if we go on with what we know is contrary to God, we get a bad conscience. A man with a bad conscience is spiritually powerless. He is not going on with God, nor with that which God has wrought in him. He becomes unstable in all his ways. He is in the condition of a ship which does not answer his helm; he is at the mercy of the wind and waves. Which ever way the wind and tide are running he will drift, and presently he will get on to the rocks. What a solemn word: “concerning faith have made shipwreck”! This is what any of us are liable to if we put away a good conscience.
It may be asked, What is it to make shipwreck as to faith? Well, the scripture before us speaks of two men who got so far from God as to become blasphemers. Have you not known men who once seemed bright and happy in divine [p. 183] things who are now gone quite away from the Lord and His saints, and are now immersed in business and the things of the world? They have made shipwreck as to faith. We cannot tell whether they ever were really converted or not. God only knows. Instead of going on their course richly freighted with the “good deposit”, they have made shipwreck. This awful spectacle is presented to us that we may see the solemn necessity of warring the good warfare for the maintenance of “faith and a good conscience”.
The history of Jehoshaphat presents a solemn picture of a saint who failed to maintain faith and a good conscience. This is the more sad, because in his early days “he walked in the first ways of his father David, and sought not unto Baalim; but sought to the Lord God of his father, and walked in his commandments, and not after the doings of Israel. Therefore the Lord stablished the kingdom in his hand; and all Judah brought to Jehoshaphat presents; and he had riches and honour in abundance. And his heart was lifted up in the ways of the Lord”, 2 Chronicles 17:3-6. But in the next chapter we read that he “joined affinity with Ahab”. That is, he allowed his son to marry a daughter of Ahab. Then “he went down to Ahab”; and when Ahab said, “Wilt thou go with me to Ramoth-gilead?” he answered, “I am as thou art, and my people as thy people; and we will be with thee in the war”.
Where was “faith” in all this? If the light of God’s revelation of Himself had been controlling him, such an alliance, and such associations with the wicked and idolatrous Ahab, would have been an impossibility. Indeed, he was conscious that God was not with him in it, for after he had decided his course, he said, “Inquire, I pray thee, at the word of the Lord today”. If faith was given up, conscience still retained some activity. He had acted without God, and yet his conscience would fain have some divine sanction. How often is it so with us! We take a course that is quite inconsistent with the light in which God has made Himself known to us, and we take it without any reference to His mind and pleasure, and then we cast about for something which our deceived hearts can regard as divine sanction and encouragement!
Jehoshaphat only escaped death by special divine mercy, and when he returned to his house at Jerusalem “Jehu the son of Hanani the seer went out to meet him, and said to [p. 184] king Jehoshaphat, Shouldest thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate the Lord? therefore is wrath upon thee from before the Lord”, chapter 19: 2. He had thus a distinct testimony that his course had been displeasing to the Lord. Yet “after this did Jehoshaphat king of Judah join himself with Ahaziah king of Israel, who did very wickedly. And he joined himself with him to make ships to go to Tarshish: and they made the ships in Ezion-geber”, chapter 20: 35, 36. There can be no doubt that in this matter Jehoshaphat failed to maintain “a good conscience”. He did that which he knew was displeasing to the Lord. And the result was shipwreck. “Eliezer the son of Dodavah of Mareshah prophesied against Jehoshaphat, saying, Because thou hast joined thyself with Ahaziah, the Lord hath broken thy works. And the ships were broken, that they were not able to go to Tarshish”, chapter 20: 37.
The knowledge of salvation, and the maintenance of faith and a good conscience, would inevitably result in testimony. In 1 Timothy 2 we find the testimony of grace that properly belongs to the house of God. It finds expression in prayers, preaching, and behaviour. God’s attitude towards men as a Saviour God, and all that is suitable in those who are called to know Him in His grace, thus finds expression in His saints. They pray for all men, because God “will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth”. And they rejoice to render the testimony that “God is one, and the mediator of God and men one, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all”.
As to behaviour the men are to be characterised by dependence, holiness, and the simplicity of confidence in God which excludes “wrath and doubting”. The women are to be marked by modesty in deportment and dress, by good works, and by quietness and subjection. These are the characteristics which respectively mark men and women who have come under the influence of the knowledge of God in grace.