Oh, Father in Heaven, I thank You so much for this morning. God, thank You for Your grace and Your mercy. God, thank You for a church that wants to come and worship You and to hear the preaching of Your Word. Father, I pray this morning as Your Word goes out, that we would lay it upon our hearts, that we wouldn't just walk away and forget, but that we would remember who Christ is, that we would remember our salvation, that we would make it our own, and that we would look to Christ and glorify Him and magnify Him and exalt Him this morning. In Jesus' name, Amen. Alright, we are in 1 Timothy chapter 2. We'll be looking at verses 5 through 7 this morning. 1 Timothy chapter 2. Verses 5 through 7. Last week we looked at verses 1 through 4 and discovered that it is right for us to pray for the peace of church underneath the rule of tyrants. It's right to pray that they would, like the rabbi said in Fiddler on the Roof, may God bless the czar and keep him far away from us. so that we can have the freedom to preach the gospel, so we can have the freedom to proclaim that truth and to see the people in the church grow in godliness and in dignity. And that's what the text is saying. We're encouraged in the text to pray for all kinds of people. from kings and dignitaries right down to the average Joe Blow, right? Everybody. It's right to do that and to pray that they would all come to Christ. Now, we know that they all won't, but we should pray for people's salvation. We don't know who the elect are. God does know who the elect are, and he will work that way. Now, the question could come up, on what basis are we to pray for all kinds of people in our corporate prayer? In fact, during John Calvin's day, this was a debate, whether or not you should pray for all kinds of people. As I mentioned last week, he said the view that you shouldn't is perverse. That was Calvin that said that. Might surprise some people to know that, but he did take that position. You should pray for all kinds of people. And so there is a theological basis. And so the question might be rephrased this way, what theological truths do you base this command on? In the text, and what we're looking at today, in verses 5 through 7, there are three truths that this command to pray, and I'm going to use the word promiscuously, Now, you guys know that we think of the word promiscuous. Generally, it's not a positive context. But the word just means a lot. And do, you know, pray a lot for all kinds of people. So three truths of this command to pray promiscuously for all kinds of people, from politicians right down to the average person, it's based on these three things. The first truth is in verse 5. And in verse 5, we learn that all the people of the world have one God. I'll say it again because it's controversial to say it. All the people of the world have one God. It's not like the Christians have one God, and the Muslims have another one, and the Buddhists have another one, and the Hindus have... how many ever, right? We all... Have one God is what the text says in 1st Timothy chapter 2 in verse 5. For there is one God, there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. All the people of the world have one God. There are several characteristics of this one God that we can learn from the text, verse 5, and from the context. This one God that is the God of the entire world is predisposed to save. This is part of his character. He is a savior. It's like an attribute of who he is. He saves. Aren't you glad for that? I mean, you wouldn't even be here today if it wasn't for that. He is predisposed to save, and he loves to save all kinds of people. Aren't you glad for that? I mean, even look around the room here today. We're all different. We've all got all kinds of differences. But he is predisposed to save all kinds of people. And so you look at the first part of verse 5. He's one God. But you go back to the chapter, well, go back a couple of verses, just to verse 3. Remember how God is described. This is good and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior. In the very beginning of the book, in chapter 1, verse 1, The Apostle Paul refers to God as Savior again, back there, right there in verse 1. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by command of God our Savior, and of Christ Jesus our hope. So he is a God who saves. Salvation truly, as Jonah says in the book of Jonah, salvation belongs to the Lord. Look at 1 Corinthians chapter 12, verse 13 for a moment. 1st Corinthians 12 verse 13, Doesn't matter whether you're Jew or Gentile, whether you're slave or free, that's what the church is made up of. All kinds of people from all these different backgrounds. Romans chapter 3 verse 29 is another example. This is just Bible that we're looking at here. Romans 3, 29. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also. Is he the God of the United States but not the God of Mexico? Is he the God of Israel but not the God of North Korea? He's the God of all the earth. He's one God. There's not two. There's not any other besides him. And this God is predisposed to save. Do you believe that? Do you believe that for your family members that are lost? Do you believe that for your friends and even your strangers that are around you all through, you know, Texas, whatever? He's predisposed to save. And since he is predisposed to save, you go out and preach the gospel promiscuously. Speaking of promiscuously, you go out there and you preach it like an Arminian. My dad is not a Calvinist. My father is definitely not a Calvinist. One time I was speaking at a conference with James White, and my dad found out about that, and he was like, why are you speaking at that conference with James White? He's a Calvinist! I'm like, Dad, I'm a Calvinist. And he's like, I don't understand that. It's like, as a Calvinist, you go out and you preach the gospel all over the place, passing out gospel tracts everywhere you go. How can you do that as a Calvinist? Because of what the Word of God says. And right here, he's predisposed to say, I don't know who they are. So I'm going to go out and tell everybody, so I might hit one. Right? It's a target-rich environment out there. You know? Billions of people. You can go out there and preach to all of them. And you know what's amazing about the power of the gospel? It has the ability, through the effectual call, to call those who are elect. And that's what we see. That's what you see. You see it on the streets. I'm so tired of it. People are like, oh, public open-air preaching doesn't work. Doesn't work. That's why I post on Facebook every now and then when we see fruit from the ministry. I said just does open-air preaching work? It just did. Like those billboard ads that you see. It just did. It works. Because God, why? Not because of us because we're so clever. We figured this thing out. Absolutely not. Because God is predisposed to save. So all the people of the world have one God. And then in the next part of verse 5, there is one mediator for all men. And again, there's not two. One. There is one mediator between God and men. The man, Christ Jesus. According to 1 Timothy 2, verse 5. The man, Christ Jesus. What do we know about this? Well, what's a mediator? Well, he's one who stands in the middle. Literally, in the Greek, that's what this means. He stands in the middle, basically arbitrating between the two parties. In the book of Hebrews, and we're not going to look at all these references, but Hebrews 8, 6, 9, 15, and 12, 24, in each one of those references, it's emphasizing the fact that Christ is a mediator of a new covenant. Okay, so he mediates the covenant. But in this case, what we're talking about is mediation just between God and man in terms of salvation. We're going to talk a little bit more about that here in just a minute on how that works. But R.C.H. Lenski, who is not a Calvinist, but he's very good with the Greek. What's really interesting about reading his commentaries, he's Lutheran, not a Calvinist. He'll exegete the text, say what it says, and then deny it. What are you doing? So frustrating to read stuff like that. But I appreciate what he does with the Greek. And here's what he says about the Greek here in this context. He says, we get close to the context when we say that Christ mediates the will, the desire, as I mentioned earlier, of our Savior God for Him. That Jesus is mediating on the behalf of our saving God. And by this realizes the saving of men. so that through him there is salvation for them." What's he saying? He's saying Jesus—it says earlier that it is pleasing in verse 3. This is good and it is pleasing, or it's a desire of God in the sight of God our Savior. It pleases him to save all kinds of people, right? And so what he's saying is that Jesus is mediating that desire. It's God's desire to do it, and Jesus saves whom he wills. And I agree with Lenski there, but then like in the next paragraph he denies that idea. But he's saying it in the text. The mediation, I want you to notice here, it's accomplished by God. Jesus is the mediator. Jesus is God. You don't get to mediate the terms of the contract. Jesus is the one that's doing that. You are completely dependent on him to do the mediating. So, it's all about him and his glory. Now, this is important to point out, because although in Calvin's day, right, they were having this huge battle of the Reformation with the Roman Catholic Church, and the Catholics, the philosophers of Calvin's day were saying, well, no, it's not just one mediator. You can have the saints as mediators. You can have Mary as a mediator, and that hasn't changed in 500 years. It has not changed. You don't believe that? Come to the abortion clinic, because a lot of Roman Catholics will go out to abortion clinics. And when you're out there and you're preaching the gospel, they will do things like run up into you, like chest bump you, when you start preaching the gospel. When you start quoting verses like 1 Timothy 2.5, it hasn't changed. Listen to what Calvin said about the Roman Catholic doctrine of mediation. Here's what he says, The name mediator is so hateful to them that if anyone mentions Christ as mediator without taking notice of the saints, he instantly falls under the suspicion of heresy. Hasn't changed in 500 years. It hasn't changed. They'll get mad at you. Don't think that something has changed, by the way. There's this idea in evangelicalism that there's been some great change somewhere along the way, maybe with Vatican II or something, and now they're much more open to the gospel. Hogwash. Hogwash. It is not true. Because as soon as you come back to the text, they get mad. They get mad. Because they're denying this, and don't lose sight of it. Jesus is your only hope. He's your only hope. You've got no church in Rome that's going to help you with this. He is it alone. Christ alone. Sola Christus. Christ alone in this regard. And so this mediator, we learn at the end of verse 5, is a man. It's emphasized here in the text. It says there's one mediator between God and man, the man, Christ Jesus. Now Paul could have said God, right? Jesus Christ, and he is God. I'm not denying that. But what Paul's emphasizing is that our mediator knows something about what it means to be a man. That's what Hebrews is all about. When you're reading Hebrews, he's a great high priest. He's tempted in all points, even as we are, yet without sin. He knows what it's like to be a man. That's why he's the perfect mediator. 100% God, 100% man. He is our mediator. Hebrews chapter 4 verse 15. Let's just look at it. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are yet without sin. He knows not only the temptations. He knows what it's like just to be frail human flesh. He knows what it's like to be hungry. He knows what it's like to be thirsty. He knows what it's like to be in pain, right? Without sleep. He knows about weakness, all kinds of weaknesses. This is our Savior. He knows. He's a brother. A friend that sticks closer than a brother. So Calvin says this. The other point was kind of negative, so let's see what Calvin has to say positively. He said, "...if this fact were deeply impressed on the hearts of everyone, that the Son of God holds out to us the hand of a brother, and that we are united to him by the fellowship of our nature, In order that, out of our low condition, He may raise us to heaven, who would not choose to keep by the straight road instead of wandering in uncertain and stormy paths? This ought to motivate us. Think about your Savior. He knows what it's like to be tempted and tried and have even physical pain and stuff like that, and sorrow, emotional pain. He knows all about that. And what that ought to do for us now is that we ought to just stay on the right path. Walk in obedience to him out of love. Because that's an amazing Savior. And let me tell you, there's no other religion or philosophy that offers you anything close. Go to Islam and see what they say about God. Go to Islam and see what they say about the atonement. They've got no atonement at all. He's capricious. Allah is capricious. But here you've got love that would sacrifice that way. That's amazing. So all the people of the world have one God, and there's not two. There's only one God, and we need to hammer that home. The second truth that this promiscuous prayer for all the world, all kinds of people, is based on, not only the fact that there's one God, there's only one gospel. There's only one gospel in the next verse, in verse 6. "...who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time." There are several aspects of the gospel here that I want to point out to you. The first aspect is that Jesus was given. He was given. He gave himself, is what the Scriptures teach. He gave himself. Remember, he said, no one takes my life from me, but I lay it down. Even while they're nailing him to the cross, he cried out over and over again, Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. He willingly laid it down. He had the power to wipe out Rome at that moment. But he willingly laid it down for the sake of us, for the sake of our sin, and so that we could be made right with God. He was given and he gave himself. Galatians chapter 1, verse 4. who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age according to the will of God our Father. And then another reference from the pastoral epistles, Titus chapter 2 verse 14. Titus chapter 2 verse 14. Remind them of these things and charge them before God not to quarrel about words. What am I doing? This is the wrong verse. Huh. Am I right? My brain is not working. Yeah, that's the verse I'm reading, but it's not the point that I want to make. Never mind. Moving along. Must be a typo. But anyway, Galatians 1 verse 4. Jesus was given. He was given. He gave himself. He laid down himself for our sins. Imagine that. Talk about what we talked about with Calvin just for a second. Doesn't that do anything for you? Doesn't that do something at all for your heart? Just say, man, I want to just obey him and love him. It's not a burden. It's not a burden. If you've got this idea that following Christ is a burden, you need to check your salvation. Because he has paid this incredible price so that you could be made right with God. He was given. He gave himself, and according to the text, he gave himself as a ransom. Gave himself as a ransom for all. Now this idea, this is the second aspect of this gospel. He was given as a ransom, and this idea has to do with substitution. The context is pointing to it, but it's also in the actual Greek term itself. This verse, this word, is the only time in the Greek language it appears in the New Testament. There are other times where redemption is spoken of. But this particular word is something that, this is it. And it's the word anti-Lutron. It's two words smashed together. Now, what you usually see in the Gospels, there's two other places in the Gospels where redemption is mentioned this way. And in that spot, those words are separated, anti and Lutron, but they're reversed. Lutron, anti. So what's he doing with this? By putting the anti first, it means instead of. Instead of, a payment instead of. It's emphasizing the fact that Christ is our substitution. Now that might not, you know, you've been in church long enough, that all sounds like Sunday school. But if you go to like a seminary or something, you'll hear this idea attacked. The fact that Jesus died on behalf of sinners is made out to be some form of divine child abuse by these liberal scholars. I say it's my only hope. It's my only hope. It's not divine child abuse. I need somebody to pay the payment that I would need to pay apart from Christ. I don't want to die for my sins, but Jesus died for sinners. He died in our place. You must wrap your mind around it, and you must hold on to it. Robertson's grammar of the Greek New Testament, he says the anti-emphasis here has a resulting notion of instead, and only violence to the context can get rid of it. You've got to do violence to the text to remove that idea here in 1 Timothy chapter 2. And it's implied in the context. You go back to Mark chapter 10 verse 45. Bible scholars think that Paul got this idea of ransom from the Gospels. So you go back to one of the examples, Mark chapter 10, verse 45. So if you read Mark 10, 45, it says, This is that Lutron anti thing I was telling you about. Bible scholars, when they get to Mark 10, 45, go, well, where did Mark get that idea from? Like, where did that come from in the Old Testament? Well, you go back to Isaiah 53. Isaiah chapter 53 verse 10. Isaiah 53 verse 10 says, yet it was the will of the Lord. Please, don't just hear this as words, right? Just, yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him. He has put him to grief. When his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring, he shall prolong his days, the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul, he shall see and be satisfied. By his knowledge, the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion of the many he shall divide the spoil with the strong Because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors Yet he bore the sin of many and makes intercession for the transgressors Honestly, how can you deny? substitutionary atonement when you're reading Isaiah 53 and And it pleased God to crush him. It wasn't dividing child abuse. It's because it was the only way that it can happen. That God could remain just and a justifier of those who have faith in Christ. So Jesus was given as a ransom payment. What does that mean? You've been bought. You've been purchased. It's the language of being purchased. You don't get rights over your own life. King Jesus has crown rights on your life. He's king and he bought you. This idea, this American dream thing that we've got, where we get to determine our own destiny, you know, is nonsense. As Christians, we give all that up. When we come to faith in Christ, he has purchased us. Please wrap your mind around that. Because when it gets hard, you think it's hard now, it's gonna get worse, right? When it really gets hard, you better understand who owns you. You better understand who has control in that situation. Jesus, King Jesus, has paid for us. I gotta quote it. What? Know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Ghost, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? Why? For you are bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's. He owns you. You're his slave. Well, that's not popular to say anymore. But that's the teaching of the Bible. You are the slave of Christ. Every apostle saw himself that way. And they saw themselves rightly. Because Christ has paid the ransom. And now you come to the end of verse 6, and this is the part where everybody loses their minds. Okay? In verse 6, people say, well, we got to deny limited atonement. Am I looking right here? Yeah, he's giving himself as a ransom for all. Okay, not the end of verse 6, right there in that phrase. They lose their minds. What I'm saying, well, the text is very clearly saying, and I'm hoping you get this from last week and today, that the context very clearly is saying all kinds of people, All kinds of people. There's not this big discussion whether or not Jesus died for everybody. The context is very clearly saying you can pray for kings with confidence. And you can pray for dignitaries with confidence and all men with confidence. Because God is a saving God who intends to save people. That's what it's saying in the text. And in verse 7, this can be referenced to Gentiles. So it emphasizes it even more that salvation is not just limited to a particular kind of person. Whether you're talking about race, whether you're talking about money, whether you're talking about class, social class, status, whatever. We're not talking about that. We're talking about all kinds of people. It can't possibly mean that Christ died for every single person. Because if he did lay down his life as a ransom for everyone, then everyone would be saved. And by the way, that's where you go with that doctrine. Universalism is based on that interpretation of 1 Timothy 2.6. You can't deny the fact that there's a hell, and that people go there, right? So if Christ died for all, then all are saved, because his blood is efficient. It's effectual, and it does what it's meant to do, and his blood is meant to save. So that's what the text, clearly from the context as you go through here, that's clearly what's being taught. To take that phrase, or even two words, for all, lift it right out of the context, and say, yeah, see that? He died for everybody. That is like hillbilly hermeneutics 101. Like, come on, man. You know, hey, we're hillbillies here. We don't even do that. Right? So this is Briar. We don't even do that. So what we're saying here is... Jesus was given as a ransom for all kinds of people. It's implied in the context. You cannot come to another conclusion. If you do, you're denying the plain straight reading of the text. In spite of all that, this gospel is ready to be proclaimed at the end of verse 6. Look at the end of verse 6. It says, it's the testimony, this ransom payment is the testimony given at the proper time. What's he saying? Well, testimony is a word that's connected to the message of Jesus. That's what it's referring to when it says testimony, because it's a noun, okay? And so it's talking about the message itself. He says this message, essentially in verse six, is ready to be proclaimed. Now is the time, it has come, it should be proclaimed. Jesus came at the right time, right? He was announced and revealed at the right time. It was predestined, even before eternity, before time began. In Ephesians chapter one, verse 10, It says, "...as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth." And so this, now he's been revealed, Paul's saying. He says, it's been revealed in my time, and he's about to explain how God has sent him to go proclaim this message. And so the gospel is ready to be proclaimed now. Listen to me on this. Do not fritter your life away, waiting for a better time to proclaim the gospel. Do not fritter your life away. And that's what happens with our time, by the way. We fritter it away. A little bit here, a little bit there, with this and that. The next thing you know, it's gone. The older you get, the faster it goes. I don't even know how that works. But it's true. The older you get, it seems the faster that it goes. And don't find yourself, as you approach the end of your life, saying, man, I wish I would have done it different with my time. Time is the one thing that you do not have. You can have a lot of things. You have keys to the car in your pocket. You have a few dollars in your wallet. The one thing you don't have is time. You can manage your retirement. You can try to manage your daily schedule. But you cannot plan on future time. You can't. I've been catching myself doing this lately. Just turned 50 this year. Big 5-0. So how am I thinking? Oh, you know, I'll probably live to be about 70. I got about 20 years. That's what I'm gonna do. That's stupid. It's idiotic. I don't know if I'm gonna live to see tonight, much less 20 years. Are you kidding me? It's the one thing that I don't have is time. And none of us have. Don't make any mistake. None of us have time. The time for gospel proclamation is now. Some people think like this. When I retire, I'll be able to do more for the church. When I retire, I could do this or that. I got this fantasy in my mind. This is what I'm going to do. And you hear about these people all the time. They're waiting for retirement to do something, and like they die the day after they retire. Or they get sick the day after they retire. Everybody was waiting for something to do something else. I'm saying, don't do that. Do it now. Make time. Make time. Once you spend time, you never get it back. You can lose millions of dollars and earn it back. You cannot do that with time. So there is only one gospel. There's only one God. There's only one gospel. And what a gospel it is. Jesus laid down his life for sinners. That's us. He died for sinners like us. He gave us—redeemed us. He purchased us. We're his. And we get to go proclaim this thing? And so the third truth that this promiscuous prayer for all people is based on is that there's only one game plan. There's only one God, one gospel, and there's only one game plan. to reach all kinds of people. And so we have three strategies in verse 7. The first strategy is that he sovereignly chooses his representatives, people that he calls to ministry, in the first part of verse 7. He was appointed, but he was not self-appointed. Point that out. He didn't say, you know, I'm just gonna do this myself. Even look at his conversion in Acts chapter 9. He had his own thing going on, his own plan. He had his 10-year plan worked out. He was going off to persecute Christians. And then he runs into Jesus on the road to Damascus. Isn't that great? He runs into Christ and Christ basically arrests him. He arrests him. So you're coming with me. You're coming with me and you're going to be... He tells Ananias in 15 and 16, you got to go talk to this guy. He's got to learn how much he's going to have to suffer for my name. He's going to preach to the Gentiles and the kings, he says in Acts 9, 15. Jesus says to Ananias. He's appointed, but he's not self-appointed because in Acts chapter 13, the church at Antioch sends out Paul and sends out Barnabas. Don't be a self-appointed preacher. That ends in train wreck. Let God do the sending. And he does it through his church. He sovereignly chooses his representatives. And you have two words here. You've got—what do you have here? You've got preacher, in verse 6 or 7, and apostle. Preacher and apostle. The word preacher only shows up three times in the New Testament. But the other form of this word that's talking about the message of the gospel, it's all through the New Testament. So what's that teach us? It teaches us the very valuable lesson that the gospel survives preachers. That the preacher isn't the one to be elevated. That it's the message of the gospel that's meant to be the big thing, the thing that's elevated. That's what is supposed to be emphasized. So Kittel in the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament points out that we're not talking about celebrities here. He says the messengers of Jesus are like sheep delivered to wolves according to Matthew 10 verse 16. As the Lord was persecuted, so his servants will be persecuted according to John chapter 15 verse 20. The servants of Christ are, as it were, dedicated to death, according to Revelation 12, verse 11. But the message does not perish with the one who proclaims it. The message is irresistible, according to 2 Timothy 2, verse 9. And it takes its victorious course through the entire world. 2 Thessalonians 3, verse 1. Hence, the message is more important than the messenger in the New Testament. Man, we got to get a hold of that. The message matters more than the messenger. I went to G3. This conference has been going on for a few years now, G3 out in Atlanta, and I got no criticisms at all for the church that organizes that. Great brothers. I have dear friends there in that church and who work for G3. So it's no condemnation of G3, what I'm about to say. But I got to say that there seems— there is a problem in the Reformed world right now. And the problem is we're putting these men who have gifts that are given to the church, ultimately, for the glory of Christ. But there's an idolatry that's beginning to develop amongst these guys. And it's not their fault. I don't believe it's their fault. Maybe some of it is, but not that I can observe. But what I see is disturbing. I mean, they ought to be able to go into the exhibit hall. We had a booth there in the exhibit hall for our company that I'm working with. And they come into the hall and it's like everything stops. There's 6,000 people at the conference. At any given time in the exhibit hall, you just had hundreds and hundreds of people there. And if Votibakim walks out to a booth out there, you have a line that goes like out the door and snakes through the hall, right? To see Votibakim, to get their selfie with Votibakim, to get the autograph. And I understand having genuine appreciation. Because beautiful are the feet of those that preach the gospel, right? So there is a sense in which, yeah, I really want to meet this guy and thank him for his ministry. But let's be careful. Let's be very careful. that we don't begin to put these men on a pedestal that they can only fall off of. There's nothing else that can happen. Now God, by His grace, can keep them. I understand that. I pray that that's the case. I don't want to see any of these men fall off that pedestal. But let's not put them there to begin with. Let's be thankful to God that God has given them gifts. But in the end, If they have the right attitude, and I don't know their hearts at all, they'll be willing to be forgotten. They'll be willing to be forgotten. I think most of them are that way, to be fair. But let's be careful that we don't put them in a spot that could cause them to sin, that we don't place them in a spot that would be ultimately destructive to the church. So he sends these, he chooses his representatives, and his representatives are really, if you read the New Testament, are just supposed to be a bunch of nobodies who are willing to die. Somebody put it on Facebook this week, if you're gonna be a street preacher, you better figure out that you're willing to die. We might be getting to the place finally in this country where we become biblical in the way that we look at ministry, and it might be that way for all pastors very soon. You better decide that you're willing to die because that's what the scriptures call us to. So he sovereignly chooses those representatives and then he sends them. He sends them out to all kinds of people. We see that in the term apostle. It means someone who is sent out. But we also see here in verse 7 with reference to the Gentiles. A teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth. Even the Gentiles. which the Jewish people couldn't even wrap their minds around. What? You're gonna go preach to the Gentiles? That's why they had to have a council in Acts chapter 15. It was controversial even for the church to send people to the Gentiles to preach the gospel. But he sends those representatives to all kinds. The question is, are you willing to go to all kinds? Or are you really only interested in people that look like you, you know, or have the same status as you have? Are you willing to go anywhere? and talk to anyone, because that's God's heart on this thing. And that's what Paul grasped here. And when he says, I am telling the truth, I'm not lying, I believe that's in reference not to the first half of the verse, but to the second. He's saying, I'm not lying about being sent to the Gentiles. Believe it or not, they need to be saved too. So he sends those representatives to all kinds of people, and when he sends those representatives, he doesn't send them out with their own good ideas. He doesn't say, just be creative with this, you know. Get the spirit of what's going on in your community and give them what they want. It's not at all what he says at the end of verse 7. A teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth. Faith represents the whole body of doctrine passed down by the apostles, and truth, it's just reality. And everything that comports with reality is revealed in the Word of God. So you preach the whole counsel of God, and you preach the doctrine of salvation, this doctrine that he just referred to, of one God, one mediator, and Jesus Christ as the ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time. Therefore, because all of these things are true, we pray, as it said back in chapter 2, verse 1. First of all then, I urge supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people. We can pray for that because our God is, we have one God, we have one gospel, and there's only one game plan. And therefore, we pray. We pray for God to work. You can pray with confidence for those in government and all kinds of people. There is one God over all of them, and he is a saving God. There is one gospel for all people to respond to in repentance and faith. And there is only one game plan to reach them. God sends his heralds to proclaim this gospel to all the world, Prayer for those that go out and do it, and prayer for those that are hearing it, is of a supreme importance. Let's be people of prayer, seeking God that he would save all kinds of people, not just the people that we think deserve to be saved. Let's close in prayer. Lord, you are an amazing