Alright, our text is 1 Timothy 6. We're going to be looking at the last two verses as we consider this final portion here of Paul's letter to Timothy. I'm going to ask that you pray with me. Father, I am just very aware of my mortality today. I feel incapable of clearly, accurately conveying and explaining Your Word. And so I just ask God that you would work by means of your word and your spirit to do what I cannot do. I pray that you take a few loaves and a few fishes and multiply them. I pray that you take the seed that's planted and watered and that you would make it grow. God, these are things that only you can do. And so we look to you, God. We desperately need to hear from you. And so as you speak to us through your word, God, I pray that we would be attentive and that we would be changed. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. So the film National Treasure came out in 2004. It happens to be one of the favorites of one person in my family who will remain nameless. But the general plot is that George Washington and Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson and some of the founding fathers hid a vast cache of gold and other artifacts in the waning days of the Revolutionary War. The future of this country was very much in doubt. The well-being and preservation of all these things of this national treasure this American treasure were threatened and so They saw fit to hide this so that it would be preserved regardless of the outcome of the war and one individual in particular a man by the name of Gates was entrusted with a being a guardian of this treasure. And generation after generation within the Gates family were responsible to care for this national treasure. Over time, the whereabouts, the location of the treasure was lost, and that's where we are introduced to Ben Gates, the eighth generation in the Gates family. who sets out to discover the treasure and preserve the treasure so that it doesn't fall into the wrong hands. Of course, somebody's concerned about spoiler alert back there. No spoiler alert. You'll have to watch it if you want to see how the story ends. But that's kind of the gist of the plot. And as we look here in 1 Timothy 6, there is a treasure that Paul has in mind that is of much greater, infinitely greater value than that described in that movie. It's what I'm calling an international treasure, not some parochial collection of important artifacts, but the gospel, the fountain of youth, The Holy Grail. The key to eternal life. The one thing that we want and long for more than anything else. God has placed eternity in the hearts of men and we want to live forever. And the Gospel unpacks for us how we can come to peace with God. How we can experience eternal life. And this is the treasure that Paul has in mind as he closes his letter to Timothy. So let's look at these two verses. 1 Timothy 6, verse 20. Hear the word of the Lord. O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you. Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge, for by professing it, some have swerved from the faith. May grace be with you. May God add His blessing to the reading of His Word. Opening exclamation, a single omega right at the beginning of verse 20, O Timothy. Not even translated or brought across in all of the English translations, but just a word of emotion. You kind of feel the sigh. Oh, Timothy. At the end of all that he said, we have Paul here pouring out his heart. Oh, Timothy. reflecting the seriousness of the task that he had in mind. Again, the treasure of the gospel itself. Now, throughout our study here in this letter, we've had to wrestle with the distinctions between Timothy and the church. Timothy was a pastor. He was a church leader. And even more than that, he had been given apostolic authority. I mean, Paul sent him. The Apostle Paul sent Timothy to the city of Ephesus to carry out a very important task. So we have Timothy and his unique circumstance, and then we have the congregation, right? We have the rest of the believers. And how much is this text directed merely to Timothy and how much implication does it have for the church? That's an important question that we need to think through. There's no doubt that Timothy had a very acute responsibility when it came to preserving and guarding the gospel. Timothy and any elder or pastor in a local church is responsible to teach and convey God's truth, to teach it accurately. And so Timothy stood in a position of great influence. Undoubtedly, he had a very important responsibility to be a gatekeeper in the church, to make sure that God's truth was preserved. But I would suggest to you, based on a number of different texts, that that responsibility for guarding the gospel is not limited to pastors or elders or missionaries. I think we're going to see that borne out in this very text as well. But if we were to go back to chapter 3, we would have Paul here writing to Timothy. He says, I hope to come to you soon. This is 1 Timothy 3.14. I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these things to you so that if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth. So Paul says, I hope to come to you. I'd rather talk about this in person, but the matter is so urgent that I'm gonna include it in a letter. It is so important that the church understands how they're to live because they are the pillar and the buttress or foundation of the truth. Responsibility, again, given to the church to hold forth the truth, to guard the truth, to proclaim the truth. not just a responsibility of some elite class. Now, I have a picture here I've shown you I think before earlier in our series. This is a picture or a rendering of what the temple of Artemis or Diana would have looked like in the city of Ephesus. This would have dominated the landscape there in this very city where Timothy was ministering. It would have sat up high on the hill. And as you can see, it's just exalted in the way that it's put together, right? At the very top, you have the roof there. And on the facing of that roof, on that gable end, you have the depictions and the carvings and the beauty of that architecture that's depicted there. And then, of course, holding that up is the pillars. And even below the pillars and the formal foundation, you have what is referred to in the text here as the buttresses. These retaining walls that help to just kind of build this whole temple up really high so it's visible. And so that gable end up there, that part of that temple that was so beautiful and ornate is the gospel. And the church is the pillars. And even more than just the pillars, it's the buttress, it's that foundation, it's all of those retaining walls that are put together to make this prominent. That's the church that has that responsibility to make the Gospel known. Now, I also wanted to put up here a portion out of Jude, a very small little letter of Jude. And here we read, "...Judas, servant of Jesus Christ and a brother of James, to those who have been called, who are loved by God the Father and kept by Jesus Christ. Mercy, peace, and love be yours in abundance." Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints. I've just underlined all those portions where it's clear he sees this as being the responsibility of the church. He's writing to those who have been called, who are loved by God the Father and kept by Jesus Christ, to Christians, to believers. He writes to them as dear friends. He talks about the salvation that we share. He says, I felt that I had to write and urge you, that's a plural you by the way, you all, all of you, to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted, not to the elders, not simply to the apostles, but entrusted to the saints. So we all have a responsibility. Timothy had an acute responsibility, a particular responsibility as he was in leadership within the church. but we all have a responsibility to guard this international treasure of the Gospel. And so I want to reflect in the moments that we have on what that looks like. What is our responsibility as it pertains to this treasure? Number one, we should exert constant vigilance and strenuous effort. We should exert constant vigilance and strenuous Effort. So we have terminology here, a banking terminology, a deposit. You think of establishing a trust, right, where something is preserved and there are certain instructions as to how that trust is to be carried out. So we have that language there. But what I want to draw your attention to is the word guard. O Timothy, guard." Or some translations say, keep. This is a very active word. This is a military word used to describe soldiers or sentries who are in a position to keep watch over a particular place or a particular person. It's the word that's used to describe shepherds and their responsibility to watch over their flocks. This takes us back to King David, right? Before he was King David, while he was little boy David. And he's watching the flocks and he's driving off the lion and the bear, right? Very real threats. This is a strenuous type of word. Reflects a great deal of energy. Shepherding was not for cowards. If they had those most dangerous jobs, if they had that reality show in the first century, the shepherds would have been one of those jobs. This was not for the faint of heart. And so Paul chooses this imagery, this terminology, to talk about Timothy's responsibility and how this is just going to take really hard work. The US bullion depository just south of Louisville, Kentucky contains, reportedly, about $270 billion worth of gold. It's also known as Fort Knox. And it is one of the most secure facilities on the face of the Earth. four foot thick granite walls able to withstand an atomic blast, has a main entryway that weighs 22 tons, and not able to be accessed by any one individual, but requires a series of biometrics and various codes entered in by a number of people to gain entry into the facility. Foundation is comprised of several layers of concrete topped off by a 10-foot layer of granite to prevent any tunneling into the facility. Pretty impressive. Stop and think about it. But I found myself musing about the fact that It's one thing to guard a physical object in a secure location. It's another thing to guard something that's sort of out there and open to attack. It's one thing to guard the president in that vault at Fort Knox. It's another thing to try to guard the president on the streets of Dallas, Texas. It's one thing to guard a thing, an object. It's another thing to guard an idea, or a message, or intellectual property. Talk about piracy laws. How do you guard something that isn't just contained to a box? And that's really the task that we have in guarding the Gospel, is it not? You talk about identity theft. You talk about how to keep your credit card numbers which are out there in cyberspace from getting into the wrong hands, right? How do you guard the Gospel when it is accessible and known? How do you keep it from being distorted and twisted and lost? It's going to require with constant vigilance and strenuous effort. Number two, we should exercise careful discernment. We should exercise careful discernment. Oh Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you. Here it is. Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge. So the main threat to the gospel is not overt opposition. The main threat to the gospel, in Paul's mind, is not Muslims who are killing Christians. The main threat to the gospel is not governmental policies that are meant to silence religious conservatives who believe the Bible. It's not the greatest threat to the gospel. The greatest threats to the Gospel are generally not overt, but much more indirect. Paul lists two of them here. The first is what I'm calling petty distractions. And he wants Timothy to avoid these things, to steer clear of them, to recognize how dangerous they are. Avoid petty distractions. Translated here in the ESV as irreverent babble. NIV translates it as godless chatter. There's two words here. First word is irreverent, godless, profane, worldly. It doesn't describe in anything really heinous or vile. but just something that's godless, that is not really directed or oriented around God. We might say secular. Something that's purely secular would be sort of crafted and constructed and put forward without any awareness of God and His authority. So it's just something that's sort of detached from God. And then the word chatter or babble, literally empty speech. Something's coming out, but nothing of substance as my assessment of much of social media. Not that it's bad necessarily, but there's a lot of stuff there that's just rather fleeting. It's not very substantive. And that's okay at times, right? But I think Paul here is concerned, again, not about overt opposition, but just distraction. Just how the truth of the Gospel could get lost in the static, in the background noise, and lose its sense of clarity. I'm on record, at least with my wife, of really despising all of these Hollywood award shows, you know, the Emmys and the Grammys, and watch these people get up there and accept their award, and then it's just drivel. You know, it's just so shallow, you know. These inside jokes that the Hollywood elite share, and I'm just like, oh my word. But you know, these things happen sometimes, you know, where we just lose sight of what is significant. What is real? What is true? How many good books go unread? because of video games. Nothing wrong with video games. Entertainment, recreation, these can be good things. There's a place for those things. But if given over to all of that, then what better things do I miss out on? Do I fail to focus on? Do I fail to give thought to? If all of my quiet moments are filled with other voices and all of this chatter, There's a danger there that I come to lose sight of and I stop hearing the Gospel, the truth, the reality. So avoid petty distractions. Don't allow it to be crowded out by things that don't matter. The second thing here is that Timothy was to avoid subtle deception. Avoid subtle deception. This is a very interesting word here. ESV translates it as contradictions. They're to avoid irreverent babble and contradictions or opposing ideas. It's the only time this word is used in the New Testament. And we get our word antithesis from this word. So a thesis is put forward, right? In this case, the Gospel. And an antithesis is the opposite. But here's the catch. Avoid contradictions or opposing doctrines that are falsely called knowledge. Avoid opposing doctrines that look pretty good. That have some measure of truth in them. That seem to agree with human sensibilities and the cultural prevailing winds. This doesn't seem that bad. This seems like it has some merit to it. But in reality, when you unpack it and you pull off the veneer, It's opposed to the Gospel. No matter what it looks like. No matter the spin that is attached to it. It is an opposing message. And it needs to be avoided. It needs to be called out for what it is. This is counterfeit money, right? They run that bill under the ultraviolet light and there's certain watermarks in there and the ink that they use and the particular fibers that are part of that currency are very distinct and a person with a trained eye can see that this is counterfeit. I couldn't see it. This is what he's concerned about. He's concerned that they would fall for some opposing doctrines that look really good, that have the appearance of knowledge, that are clever counterfeits. So, not a frontal attack. That's not the greatest threat to the gospel. It's the subtleties, distraction and deception. When the children of Israel entered into the promised land, Joshua was their leader, right? God used Joshua to lead them in, and they experienced tremendous victories. They had that great defeat over Jericho, and God was driving out the Canaanites, these wicked people, bringing his judgment on them, and establishing Israel in the land. The city of Jerusalem was an outlier. They were unable to take the city of Jerusalem. It was occupied by the Jebusites. And Jerusalem was well fortified. It had a high position in the mountain area there. Its walls were strong. They were unable to take Jerusalem. And this went on for hundreds of years until King David comes along. And it made David mad. As a matter of fact, the Jebusites came to a point where they would taunt the Israelites. And David determined that he was going to take that city and claim that part of God's promised land. And so he put out a challenge. Chronicles tells us this. He put out a challenge to his military officers and he said, the one that can devise a strategy and give me Jerusalem will be named my military commander. and Joab stepped forward and provided a strategy and led the army and he would from that point forward serve as David's head military commander. The text in 2 Samuel gives us some insight as to how that victory was won. We have to piece it together between Chronicles and 2 Samuel. But here it is. The king and his men went to Jerusalem against the Jebusites, the inhabitants of the land, who said to David, You will not come in here, but the blind and the lame will ward you off, thinking, David cannot come in here. Nevertheless, David took the stronghold of Zion, that is, the city of David. And David said on that day, whoever would strike the Jebusites, let him get up the water shaft to attack the lame and the blind. So they said, hey, anybody could defend this city from you guys. And David said, we'll see about that. And Joab apparently devised a plan to access the city through the water shaft. And David gathered his officers together and his soldiers together and said, anyone who's with me to take this city, we're going to enter through the water shaft. I think we have a picture here of what is called today Warren's shaft. You're looking down a 40-foot vertical cut in the rock. Not man-made, apparently a naturally formed crevice in the rock that goes down 40 feet down to a spring. And they accessed that spring from outside the city and came in and scaled this 40-foot shaft, some other accompanying tunnels, into the city of Jerusalem. And that's the way that the enemy works. Not generally in a frontal attack, but seeking to infiltrate the church in indirect means. Spurgeon, in the 19th century, in the United Kingdom, began to encounter what would come to be called the downgrade controversy. There were three primary doctrines that had begun to be eroded in the church. One was the inerrancy or the infallibility of Scripture. Was Scripture true and trustworthy? There were some who were casting doubt upon that. There were some who were drawing into question the substitutionary atonement. It had become fashionable to talk about Jesus' work as a great teacher, as an inspirational leader, but to deny the fact that He had come to die on the cross for the sins of humanity. And Spurgeon began to be concerned about these doctrines. And the last few years of his life were spent responding to some of these compromises. His wife said that these things contributed to his death. Spurgeon gave himself over to this in defense of gospel truth. They seemed to be very subtle shifts in movements. It wasn't radical, but Spurgeon could see where these doctrines were going if they were allowed to persist, and he contended over them. He observed what most people in his generation didn't see clearly at the time. The frontal attacks we see. It's the subtle twisting of Scriptures and doctrines that we are much more prone to. And I believe we have those in our day as well. Probably one of the biggest is what's being called the prosperity gospel. That God exists to prosper us. Think of Peter and his conversation with Jesus. As Jesus is talking about the cross, that was coming. His death that was imminent. And Peter says, oh no, Jesus, not You. And Jesus says, get behind Me, Satan. Peter wanted the Kingdom without the cross. And I think there's a lot of people in our day that want the Kingdom without the cross. They want to view God as a genie who gives them what they want, who makes their life easier. We are not inclined to suffer to recognize the path of the cross. Yes, it's a path that ends in glory and victory. But it's a path that causes us to experience rejection just as our Master was rejected. So we will be rejected if we follow in obedience to Him. It's a twisting of the Gospel, that somehow the Gospel is about me, and about advancing me, and about advancing my purposes and my agendas, instead of about the Gospel. And if that means I suffer, if that means that I die, so be it. It's not the way we think. And there's a twisting of the Gospel in all of that. So we need to be aware of these subtleties. We need to exercise careful discernment in guarding over the Gospel. Finally, we should learn from the example of those who have lost their way. Paul says here in verse 21, "...for by professing this false teaching, some have swerved from the faith." He already listed two individuals, Hymenaeus and Alexander, back in the opening chapter. These individuals had the same terminology. They had swerved from the faith and they had shipwrecked their lives. They had destroyed themselves because they had departed from the faith, from the gospel, from the way of life. You know, we should learn from our experiences. My wife and I didn't always see eye to eye on that as it related to our kids. I was the one to let the kids take a little risk. They're learning to ride their bike. They might fall, but OK, a few times. But they'll get the hang of it and sure as wanting to protect them from falling. That's probably a pretty common dynamic with parents. We certainly ought to learn from our own experiences, and we inevitably do. It might take us a little longer sometimes, but we learn from our own experiences. But Scripture says you can also learn from the experiences of others. You don't need to make every mistake in the book to learn and to grow and to develop wisdom. So you have a passage like Hebrews 13 where the author there urges them Verse 7, remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the Word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. So this is what Paul is telling Timothy. Take note of those who have departed from the path and see how it has ended. Consider their destruction and guard yourself from it. Malaysian Air Flight 370 left from Kuala Lumpur on March 8th of 2014, going from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, China. Lost radio contact after about an hour. It tracked the radar, watched it veer westward, deviating off course across the Malay Peninsula And it was never heard from again. They've never found this plane. They found one piece of equipment that was identified with this plane. But otherwise, they've not found anything. They don't know what happened to it. It disappeared. It veered off course. It's one of these occasions when deviating is not a good thing. Crossing the center line in your vehicle is generally not a good thing. And when you have the path of life, the gospel, that points out and lays out the way, the truth, and the life, to deviate never ends well. We ought to take note of those who have deviated from that course. Paul offers a very concise benediction, a closing here to this section. Grace be with you. Undoubtedly, Timothy would need grace for the task that was ahead of him. And Paul wanted Timothy to be mindful of God's grace, the grace of the Gospel. The text here is very specific. The grammar is very clear. that this you is plural. Grace be with you all. So I find it interesting. Paul's writing to Timothy. But he's writing and he intended this letter to be read aloud to the church. Timothy, this is what I want you to do. And grace be with you all. That this letter, this call to defend the Gospel was yes for Timothy. But it was the task of the entire church. They all shared in a responsibility to guard this international priceless treasure.