The Warfare of the Church – 1 Timothy 1:18-20

INTRODUCTION:

“We may not be interested in this war, but it is interested in us. I’m not trying to sell it to you, but no one can evade the fact that we are in the path of the storm.”

Those words come from a 1941 Freedom Day speech delivered by the popular author Fannie Hurst.

Before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, American were incredibly divided over our responsibility to Europe during the Second World War. Franklin D. Roosevelt held regular correspondence with Winston Churchill and contrived ways of supporting the British efforts that still allowed the nation to publicly deny official involvement. But as the Wehrmacht & Luftwaffe blitzed to the shores of France, it was becoming clear to many that American involvement in the war was inevitable. The conflict would not remain overseas. Either, Britain would be defended, or Hitler would rule the world.

And ultimately, even those who were not interested in the war would not be able to escape the path of the storm. Everyone would have to fight.

And the same can be said of you and I today as a Christian church. On a week in which we have seen the attempts of one nation to invade and conquer another, we turn our Bibles to 1 Timothy and hear about another kind of inevitable war.

Get your Bible out… look at it. Follow along.

READ THE TEXT:

¹⁸ This charge I entrust to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you, that by them you may wage the good warfare, ¹⁹ holding faith and a good conscience. By rejecting this, some have made shipwreck of their faith, ²⁰ among whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme.

EXPLANATION OF THE PASSAGE:

¹⁸ This charge I entrust to you, Timothy, my child

Paul has resumed his challenge to Timothy. I left you in Ephesus. There are some people and circumstances in the church there that you must set right.

And he says Timothy is to do this…

in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you,

What does that mean? Well the word prophecies is another way of saying proclamation or preaching. In other words, at some earlier time, Timothy was being commissioned into the work of ministry. In fact, if you turn over to 1 Timothy 4:14 you see Paul give more detail:

¹⁴ Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you.

And then again in chapter 6:12

Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.

So Timothy had converted to Christianity and had been discipled by the Apostle Paul. He had read and studied the scriptures. He had grown in obedience and character. Timothy had likely begun teaching here and there within the church. I’m sure he had begun to care for the spiritual lives of some fellow church members, he prayed for those who were sick and shared the gospel with unbelievers, and it had become clear to Timothy that God wanted him to be more fully committed to the health and growth of the church.

In other words—Timothy was sensing God’s calling upon his life to shepherd the church as an elder. So, what happened? The elders of the church poured themselves into him, trained him, and after observing his life they laid hands on him, and charged him, and he publicly declared his faith and calling to the church, so that the church could encourage him and hold him accountable.

Friends, this is how God calls men in the church to become pastors. This is the natural progression: conversion to faith in Christ, growth in knowledge and obedience to Christ, and ultimately, spiritual service within the church.

So, Timothy is being charged by Paul, in accordance with his commission and ordination into the ministry. And what is the charge?

that you may wage the good warfare, ¹⁹ holding faith and a good conscience.

Paul likens the ministry Timothy is entering at Ephesus to a war, a battle. Some translations read “fight the good fight.” It’s a phrase Paul would apply to himself at the end of his life. In 2 Timothy 4 Paul wrote:

⁷ I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

And how is Timothy to fight successfully? Holding faith and a good conscience. Holding faith refers to Timothy’s commitment to faithful doctrine. He must stay true to the truth.

A good conscience refers to Timothy’s behavior. There are two ways to wreck a ministry. First, abandon the truth in your teaching. Second, abandon the truth in your living.

By rejecting this, some have made shipwreck of their faith,

And then Paul names names:

²⁰ among whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme.

We can’t be certain who these two men are. But Paul does mention a Hymneaeus in his second letter to Timothy:

¹⁶ But avoid irreverent babble, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness, ¹⁷ and their talk will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, ¹⁸ who have swerved from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already happened. They are upsetting the faith of some.

If this is the same person, then Hymenaeus typifies a leader in the church who abandoned true doctrine.

The name Alexzander occurs several times in the New Testament, and is also named in Paul’s second letter to Timothy.

¹⁴ Alexander the coppersmith did me great harm; the Lord will repay him according to his deeds.

Thought Paul does not specify the nature of the harm most scholars believe this is the same Alexzander mentioned in Acts 19. Paul had been preaching in Ephesus, and the preaching of the gospel there was distrupting the local economy. All of the blacksmiths and coppersmiths weren’t selling as many of their idols as they once were and Alexzander instigated a mob against Paul and essentially helped arrange Paul’s arrest.

If this is indeed the same Alexzander, then he typifies someone who was a troublemaker. He caused Paul harm, and therefore typifies someone who did not have a good conscience.

Paul tells us that he handed that he:

Handed [these men] over to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme.

You say, what does that mean? Did Paul call the hotline to hell and strike a bargain with the devil? How does that work? Is this the Christian version of the nuclear option?

Not quite. Let’s break this down, because Paul is actually giving Timothy a constructive way to handle troublemakers. It’s similar to Paul’s instruction to the Corinthian church in 1 Corinthians 5. There was a man in the church who was having an incestuous relationship, everyone in the church knew what was happening—and it was so flagrant that even outsiders in the community knew about it. In other words, this man’s actions were giving the church and the name of Christ a black eye.

Here’s what Paul wrote them:

³ For though absent in body, I am present in spirit; and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing. ⁴ When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, ⁵ you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.

Same language—handing someone over to Satan. What is this? Friends, it’s excommunication. It’s removing a stubbornly unrepentant person from membership within the church. It’s the church’s statement to that individual that even though they claim to be a Christian, their lifestyle is not in accordance with the gospel.

And notice this: the goal is restoration. In both cases. Both in 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy:

In Corinth, Paul wants this person to be saved in the day of the Lord. In 1 Timothy Paul says he handed them over to Satan – SO THAT—they may LEARN not to blaspheme.

Friends—why would a church remove someone from membership? Why would a church bar someone from taking the Lord’s Super. Ultimately, it’s because they love that person. They want that person to live in the truth, to live in humility, to live in repentance. And the most unloving thing we could possibly do is allow someone to identify with Christ’s body who habitually and continually denied Christ by their actions.

The most unloving thing we could do is allow someone to take the Lord’s Supper – the signs that they are in fellowship with God—if by their actions the demonstrate the opposite.

APPLICATIONS:

The Christian Life is a Fight

G.K. Chesterton once said, “The Christian ideal hasn’t been tried and found wanting. It’s been found difficult and left untried.”

The theme of warfare and militancy are found throughout the New Testament:

Ephesians 6:12

¹² For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

2 Corinthians 10:

The weapons of our warfare are not physical weapons like swords or missiles, but the weapons of worship, preaching, prayer, and communion.

As we saw in Jude, we are to:

contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.

The moment you begin walking with Christ you enter a battlefield. When did that battle begin? It didn’t begin 20 years ago… it didn’t even begin 2,000 years ago during the earthly life of Christ. The battle in which all of the world is engaged began in Genesis chapter 3, when the first humans revolted against the authority of the Creator.

And after God had covered Adam and Eve’s sin, he said there would be perpetual enmity between the offspring of the woman and the offspring of the serpent.

In other words: you and I are not born in neutrality. We aren’t like Switzerland—choosing not to take a side. We born are at war with God. We begin life taking up the rebellious weapon of idolatry—we love created things more than the Creator. We love ourselves more than we love God. We’re willing to neglect and even hurt others to our own benefit.

And, the moment that we are made new in Christ, and the weapon of idolatry drops from our hand, the fight isn’t over. We just change uniforms. We begin marching, immediately, under a new banner.

So, the reality is that you are in a fight, whether you like it or not. And, as one pastor said, if you can look at what is happening in the world today and you are not hunting around in your spiritual armory, then there is something profoundly wrong.

Jesus said that he would build his church and the gates of hell would not prevail against it. And you and I must remember that this is a call to the offensive front. The church isn’t never called to retreat.

We are to go to war, first with our own flesh—our own sin which so easily besets us. We are to mortify and mollify our unrighteous anger, our bitterness, our pettiness, our stinginess.

And God promises us that when we confess our sins, he gives us victory over our sins:

Micah 7:19 says

He will again have compassion on us;

he will tread our iniquities underfoot.

You will cast all our sins

into the depths of the sea.

Next, we go to war against what the Scriptures call “the world.”

God said there would be perpetual and unending enmity, or strife, between the offspring of Eve and the offspring of the serpent in Genesis 3. Between the authority of Christ and the rebellious authority of this world set against him.

And we are to take every thought captive for Christ. We are to destroy arguments and lofty opinions raised against the knowledge of God.

Let me simplify that: you and I are to take our Bibles, with a humble and courageous heart—and go to war against the lies of this world.

Finally, we are at war against a real, personal, devil. A fallen angel who was created by God, who stood in God’s presence, and who rebelled and led a host of other angels in rebellion.

Can you look around at what’s happening in this world…

• Authoritarian government officials who act like they are gods to be served…
• Fighting like we saw in Afghanistan this Summer and now in Ukraine…
• The 3,000 babies being aborted every day in our nation…
• Sexual abuse running rampant even in churches…

Can we look at all of that and deny that this world is in the grip of cosmic evil?

And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us,
 We will not fear, for God hath willed His truth to triumph through us:
 The Prince of Darkness grim, we tremble not for him;
His rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure,
 One little word shall fell him.

What needs more maturity, your doctrine, or your actions?

All of us need to grow somewhere…

Ladies… Titus 2 groups.

Join one of our men’s groups.

Come to Equipping Hour.

Gather with one or two Christian friends and ask them to speak truth into your life.

English Reformation:

• Hugh Latimer & Nicholas Ridley were burned in 1555
• Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop who wrote the Book of Common Prayer was forced to watch the execution of Latimer and Ridley and was pressured into signing a number of recantations… in fear, he abandoned the truth.
• Nonetheless, one year later in 1556, Cranmer was sentenced to the same fate.
• On the eve of his execuation, he stood in St. Mary’s Church in England and he repudiated all of his recantations:

And now I come to the great thing which so much troubleth my conscience, more than any thing that ever I did or said in my whole life, and that is the setting abroad of a writing contrary to the truth, which now here I renounce and refuse as things written with my hand contrary to the truth which I thought in my heart, and written for fear of death, and to save my life, if it might be.… And forasmuch as my hand hath offendeth, writing contrary to my heart, therefore my hand shall first be punished; for when I come to the fire, it shall first be burned.

Foxe’s Book of Martyrs records that:

When he came to the stake the next day, “Then it was, that stretching out his right hand, he held it unshrinkingly in the fire till it was burnt to a cinder, even before his body was injured, frequently exclaiming, ‘This unworthy right hand!’ ”