Welcome to SuccessfulSavior.org, the ministry of Harmony Primitive Baptist Church in Donaldson, Arkansas. This is Elder Dan Sammons preaching in our regular Sunday morning service. I'm going to be back in 1 Timothy. We're going to look at chapter 4 of 1 Timothy today. And I'm kind of titling this sermon, Doctrine Matters. It's important The prayer mentioned going in the way that the Lord would have us to go. Well, one of the ways in which the Lord would have us to go is to promote the doctrine and the faith that was once delivered to the saints. Very important that we uphold that and not drift away from it. We'll find that when we get into this section of 1 Timothy that Paul is making much of the matter of doctrine instructing the young minister Timothy that this is an important thing. Now, I would just say as a general statement, I don't mean this, I mean this to be accurate, not unkind or hostile, but I believe that much of Christianity has downgraded the importance of doctrine. In fact, you will hear many churches almost brag in the matter and say, well, we don't really get into doctrine too much. We just want to be a family and we want to be able to have fellowship. And that's fine. Family and fellowship are good. But the fellowship of the saints is also a matter of doctrine. You can broaden your fellowship among people in your community if you'll just set aside doctrine, right? You can start building more and more fellowship with people if you just turn a blind eye to the fact that, you know, you might have a doctrine in your home that says, you know what, you don't smoke dope in my house, okay? I'm assuming that's a doctrine among most of you. Hope it is. It should be. But there's people in your community who are out there smoking dope every day. And as a result of that doctrine, they're not going to have fellowship with you in your home and among your family, provided that doctrine is important to you, right? Now, you can extend and find more fellowship in the community if you'll just say, you know, we're going to relax that doctrine. And my neighbors down the road who smoke dope every day, we'll just let them come on over and they smoke dope in the living room. Now you have increased fellowship, but you've done it at the price of doctrine. We all recognize this to some degree in our own families and how we run things in our own lives. And there's certain aspects of fellowship with people that you're not gonna be able to have just because you have a doctrine that says, I'm not gonna be a practitioner of certain things. And I submit to you that what's gone on in the broader world of Christianity among many denominations is they've just said, let's just relax the whole doctrine thing, and let's just be smoking dope in church is basically what it comes down to. Now that's a crass example, but it's one that gets your attention, right? You say, well, that's outrageous. Well, maybe it's not that particular thing, but there's many other things that they've said, you know, it's just the doctrine's not important, we just need to get people in here. By the way, if you don't understand what Jesus Christ accomplished at Calvary, if you think Jesus is trying to get people saved rather than he saved his people from their sins, this approach kind of starts to make some kind of sense, right? Because if you think we gotta get them in here to get them to heaven, well, and they like to smoke dope, so just, well, I guess we'll just let them smoke dope in church. You see, I mean, it'd be worth it, right, if we can somehow maybe get some of them to go to heaven. You can kind of see how you can justify a lot of crazy practices if you don't understand what Jesus got done. Jesus got the job done. What we're doing here is trying to have the Lord's New Testament church, which is about the fellowship of the saints, and it's about upholding the doctrine and living as disciples of Christ, following what he taught. And that involves doctrine. There's just no two ways around it. So Paul taught that doctrine matters, and doctrine is important. But this was not a new idea. This is an idea that comes out of the Bible. And the desire for false doctrine and downgrading the notion of doctrine can be seen in the Old Testament. If you look at Isaiah 30, starting in about verse 8, now this is at a time when Israel is a rebellious people. not doing as they ought to do, and you're going to see that this is the environment they're in. And what I'm going to point out is that this attitude creates a market for false doctrines. It means there's people who are eager to embrace falsehood, the falsehood of rejecting proper doctrine. Now go, write it before them in a table, and note it in a book, that it may be for the time to come forever and ever." That this is a rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the law of the Lord. We don't want to hear really what Jesus actually said about things or what His Word says about things. We want to have some kind of a nominal Christian fellowship, but let's kind of leave that whole doctrine thing and what Jesus taught out of the mix. Children that will not hear the law of the Lord, which say to the seers, see not, and to the prophets, prophesy not unto us right things. Don't tell us what's right. We don't want to hear what's right. We don't want to be part of it. Speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits. You see, there's a spirit of rebellion that rises up from the carnal hearts of men that actually says, I don't want to know the truth. I want to go somewhere and lie to me. People want to be lied to. You see it all the time, particularly in the matter of sin. The Bible speaks about the deceitfulness of sin. That's because sin lies to you, and to the degree that you buy into the lie, you're kind of saying, yeah, I want sin to lie to me. I want my sin. I want to believe it's okay. I want to be deceived by it. And it's this carnal attitude that creates a market for casting away doctrine and just saying it's just not that important. It's just not important. Look over in Ezekiel 13. Another statement is made here. Ezekiel 13, and we'll read about the first seven verses. And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, prophesy against the prophets of Israel that prophesy, and say thou unto them that prophesyeth out of their own hearts, Hear ye the word of the Lord. Now he's saying address those who are preaching falsehood, those who are out there preaching false doctrine, lies and deceits. This is what you say to them. Thus saith the Lord God, Woe unto the foolish prophets that follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing. O Israel, thy prophets are like the foxes in the deserts. You have not gone up unto the gaps, neither made up the hedge for the house of Israel to stand in the battle in the day of the Lord. They have seen vanity and lying divination, saying, The Lord saith, and the Lord hath not sent them. And they have made others to hope that they would confirm the word." Now, there's people out here preaching something they came up with on their own. It's something that they think is going to be well received by a rebellious people who's inclined to want to reject the truth. Have ye not seen a vain vision, and have ye not spoken a lying divination? Whereas ye say, The Lord saith it, albeit I have not spoken." In other words, they're out there saying things, claiming it's something I taught. I didn't say any of these things. because the actual doctrine of the truth that they should have been preaching is just not important. It's downgraded, and people don't want to hear it, and that creates a market for these things. Turn back a little bit into Jeremiah, you'll see another passage that's kind of, maybe this one's a little more familiar. Spirit of rebellion rises up, Jeremiah 5, and I'll just look at the last two verses here. A wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land. That's a pretty interesting statement. Wonderful and horrible. Wonderful in the sense, this is a wonder to behold. Wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land. The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means, and my people love to have it so. And what will you do in the end thereof? See, people love this stuff. They love it. Some of the most zealous religious people in the world, sad to say, not old Baptists actually. Now, if anyone's got cause to be very zealous for what we believe, it should be us. We believe the truth of a successful Savior who got the job done. Nothing we do is gonna make any difference in how many people are gonna end up in glory. Some things we do might make a difference in how many people end up in the visible kingdom of God on this earth. Decisions that need to be made, well, I ought to go get baptized. I've been listening to this for 10, 20, 30 years. I've never gotten baptized. Well, there's a decision. That could make a difference. Those sorts of things we can have some effect in, but we're not changing the number that are going to be eternally saved. We have nothing to do with that work. But the truth is, people love to have it so. They love to have it preached to them, something that's not true, and to believe that somehow salvation is a matter of man's personal decision. They just love this. There's an inclination in the carnal hearts of men to not only accept false doctrine, but to love it. They love to have it that way. And they can be very, very zealous about it. And we see that zeal does not ensure that your doctrine is correct. Paul said, there's a zeal of God that is not according to knowledge. You can be very zealous about religious matters and be totally wrong in what you're out there doing, and there's an awful lot of that going around today. John said in 1 John 4 and 1, he's talking about try the spirits. That means when you're hearing something declared out there, don't accept that it's just, well, this guy's a religious officiator. He is a minister and he's standing in a pulpit and he's got a Bible in front of him and he's saying a bunch of stuff. That seems to be a spiritual and good thing. Don't just receive things on that basis. I'm telling you that even if you're in an old Baptist church and you've got a primitive Baptist elder standing in front of you. You need to try the spirits to see if they are of God. And old Baptist preachers can preach things that are wrong. That's why it's important that we know the Word of God and we measure things by the Word of God. That is the standard. You can't just accept these things. You gotta try the spirits. And the reason we are to do that is because it says many false prophets are gone out into the world. Not a few, but many. That means a lot. The example I always give on this is it's not like we're looking for an albino Bigfoot. On a dark night, I was driving along and off the side of the road, I thought I saw an albino Bigfoot. That was a false prophet. They're out there. I knew they were out there, but you so rarely see them. They're not like that. It's more like finding a squirrel. They're everywhere. That's why the Bible says there are many false prophets. And there's many false declarations out there in the world of Christianity. So it's important that we maintain the Word of God. to maintain the importance and the centrality of doctrinal matters. Now let's turn over to 1 Timothy now. We see that this is a problem. We see that there's a market for it out there. A wayward and rebellious people create a market for false teaching. And who would not affirm that in the United States of America, our current context, we're just full of wayward and rebellious people? People who don't want anything to do with the truths of the Word of God, though they may want something to do with religion. particularly if that religion can conform to their sinful practice. If your religion will affirm sinful practices, that sounds like a pretty good religion to me. That's what we find. But the Lord's New Testament church is not malleable like that. It's not to be bent to the whims and carnal desires of man. It's not constantly changing throughout time where, well, that was back then, and now we've got the Internet, and we've got all these great scientific advancements and stuff. So we need to be modifying and changing with the times. It does not change with the times. It is what it is. and doctrine is important. He starts in 1 Timothy in chapter four. He tells this to Timothy. Now, this was a couple thousand years ago that this was being said. Now, the Spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter times, some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils. Now, that's a very unpleasant reality, but it's one we should not shy away from. The devil is a liar and a deceiver, and he works in churches. I know you're going to raise your hand and say, I've seen him at work in my life. I've seen times when the devil's been a hold of a situation and trying to get me to do one thing or another, something I should not do. He works in people's lives, but also within churches and religious organizations. And the devil has doctrine. You see, the devil's not going to completely give up on the idea that doctrine is of no value. He just wants it to be his doctrine. And when people take that same attitude, they are adopting the very doctrine of the devil. The devil says, I want it to be my doctrine, not Jesus' doctrine. I will have the dope-smoking, homosexual, fornicating church. How about that? That seems like a pretty good doctrine to me. That should be perfectly fine. All that stuff is okay. Just come on in. The church is perfectly fine. We will affirm you and all of that. That is the devil's doctrine. And when people say, I want a church that will conform to my sin and affirm me in it and promote it among others, They're saying, I want that devil's doctrine. I don't want the truth. I don't want to conform my life to what I see taught in the precepts of Christianity. I want a nominal Christianity to shape itself in the form of my sinful life. And that's the doctrine and the religion that I want. But it's doctrines of devils. That's a very serious matter, and it's around us, and when you consider that many false prophets have gone into the world, it should give us pause when we think about that. Speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot iron. They got no conscience in the battle. It's not like these people are out there preaching this kind of profligate sin doctrine, affirming everyone in their sin and saying, it's okay, just live however you want to. It's not like they're going home at night thinking, you know, I kind of feel bad about that. You know, because I saw some stuff in the Bible and it kind of said the opposite of that. I'm not sure I'm going to sleep too well tonight. No. They have a seared conscience. Doesn't bother them one bit. They think it is just absolutely wonderful. No conscience in the matter. None whatever. Now they list out here some examples of this. And it's evident that these things are in play in Christendom today. Forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from meats which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth." This idea of setting up things where, well, certain groups of people can't get married, and on certain times you've got to eat certain types of foods, and that's the doctrine of the devil. That's what he's saying here. Now, that is a harsh thing to say, particularly if you are one of those people, or if you know people who are involved in Christian groups who do this and say, that's what our religion is about. Paul says it's the doctrine of the devil. Forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from meats which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is good and nothing to be refused if it be received with thanksgiving. If you ever have a child ask you, why don't we pray before dinner? Well, we're receiving what God has given to us to eat with thanksgiving. Sometimes I feel like we're probably so fat and sassy that we're not as thankful for what we have to eat. There are people who were in this church around the time of the Donaldson Peace Meeting, or the people who formed this church, I suspect they did not have nearly so cavalier an attitude about eating. And I suspect that this created them a greater sense of thanksgiving when they're bowing their heads to receive of the bounty of the Lord that's been brought into their life and gonna eat something. that we've got so much to eat that we may not be as thankful as we ought to be in such things. For it is sanctified by the word of God in prayer. If thou put the brethren in remembrance of these things, thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ. This is something the ministry is supposed to speak to. There are doctrines of devils in the world, there are false teachers in the world, and they promote sin among God's people, and they tell people that's perfectly all right. Now, we're all sinners, and there's not a single one of us that doesn't still struggle with sin. That's not the issue. It's not like we're supposed to be going around, well, I heard that this person did that over there. Well, we're all gonna have some measure of sin that's going on in our lives, but there's a huge difference between having that situation and affirming in your mind, that is sin and I must continue to fight against it. It's wrong, I repent of it, and I'm not gonna do that. And continuing to be in the fight. versus saying, no, I'm going to change my religion such that it now affirms the sins that I wanna practice. That is an enormous difference. One is just the situation of discipleship. You're going to have situations in your life where you fall into sin, you're gonna have struggles with sin, you get up, you dust your knees off, you keep moving as a disciple, you recognize it, you admit it, and you say, yeah, that was wrong, I gotta keep going, I don't wanna do that again. Praise God there's forgiveness, not just in eternity, but in temporal matters, in the here and now. You can be forgiven of your brothers and sisters in Christ by your church, by your family. Confess it. Move on. Keep moving towards Christ. That's discipleship. But when you say, you know what? I'm doing this thing. The church says it's sin, but I don't really think there's anything wrong with it. So what I think should happen is the church needs to change with the times. You see, I'm a modern and sophisticated person who can't be constrained by some Jewish fables from the ancient Near East that tell me about how I should live my life morally. No, no, no. We need to redefine the moral precepts and the doctrine of the Bible so that it conforms to my sinful life. That's a totally different matter. and it's gone on all over the place. If that's offensive to you, I can only state that Paul here says that if thou put the brethren in remembrance of these things, thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ. You see, if I don't put this before you, there's a legitimate sense in which someone could say, you're not a very good minister of the Lord Jesus Christ, because you don't ever talk about that thing. And Paul says, this is what being a good minister is. It may create some friction and discomfort among us or among people in our families or whatever, but this is the importance of doctrine, and Paul was teaching it to Timothy. A good minister of Jesus Christ nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine whereunto thou hast attained. Paul thought doctrine was really important. Now this is kind of where I got to thinking about the Donaldson Peace Meeting, and I went back and read their declaration. They drafted this up as recommendations in their time, and some of them were doctrinal. By the way, when I show you something that's of a historical nature like this, what I'm doing is I'm kind of excavating a time capsule. The Donaldson Peace Meeting Declaration has no authority over you. I don't care if your great-great-grandpappy signed it and was in attendance at that time or whatever. This is a statement of what these people believed. The Word of God alone is the sole rule of faith and practice in our time. These men were perfectly at liberty to state some things that they believe. And by the way, I agree with the things that they believe. They're not going to be shocking to you because they're things that we continue to teach to this day, but they're not popularly taught in our time among Christian people. And you can see that what they were battling against in their time 70 years ago from a doctrinal standpoint, very similar to the issues we're facing even today. So this is a time capsule I'm reading here. It doesn't have authority. This is some of our old family members and people from way back, people in the PB heritage who are going to say, we're going to write some things down that we believe, right? The Word of God is the sole rule of faith in practice, but let us state some things in our words that we believe. One of the declarations, we believe in the eternal and personal and unconditional election of the saints unto glory. Is that controversial? That they were chosen in Christ by the Father before the foundation of the world, before they had any actual existence. that God predestinated them unto the adoption of sons, and that they should be conformed to the image of His Son, and they will all be finally and ultimately saved in glory." That's not controversial among us. It's very controversial among Christian people, very controversial. It was controversial among Christian people 70 years ago. That's why they were coming together and saying, we need to state this again, just to be perfectly clear. These things are essentially the same as what you find in our Articles of Faith on the wall back there. They're simple statements of things that we believe the Bible teaches in places like Ephesians 1, Romans 8, many, many places in the Scripture. But that's one declaration they made. You know why they did this? Because doctrine is important. It's important. It was important enough that they thought, let's sit down and write this down again, right? We know we have the Bible. Let's make a statement about what we believe. And it's a time capsule. It declares what we believe among people in our time. Now it's a time capsule that we're going to pick up and read and look at what they're saying here. We believe that the atonement and the redemption of Jesus Christ are for the elect only. particular redemption, limited atonement. The first one was unconditional election, the next one is limited atonement. A few weeks ago I preached on TULIP DOCTRINE and tried to explain how that TULIP acronym came about and a little bit of how we define some of the things a little differently than maybe what others do. I is usually by the Reformed defined as irresistible grace, and I made the recommendation that as primitive Baptists we ought to refer to it as immediate Holy Spirit regeneration. Because that teaching then, it affirms that grace is irresistible, but it affirms more than that. it affirms that it is immediate, which means it is Christ who is doing the work in regeneration, not regeneration being mediated through some gospel preacher so that you can be born again. Very important. But here's what they said. This is 70 years ago. We believe in the direct, immediate, sovereign, irresistible, and in all cases the effectual work of the Holy Spirit in calling, regenerating, and sanctifying the elect of God. And that in His own appointed time and way. The work of regeneration is an instantaneous and internal work and is accomplished by the work of the Spirit of God on the spirit of the sinner. That's what we believe. I mean, they even use the term immediate there. Did these people think doctrine was important? I tell you what, this whole thing about limited atonement, that's a big one. That might be the biggest thing that separates us from most of professing Christianity. It's the idea of election that God chose a people and He's going to save them. And Jesus Christ got the job done. It's just very offensive to most of the professing Christian world. It was offensive 70 years ago. It's still offensive today. But these people believed that doctrine was important. They affirmed the resurrection of the dead. That one has been jettisoned. And it's becoming more and more common that Christian churches are saying, we don't really believe that Jesus physically, literally came out of the grave. It was some spiritual transaction. Which always leads me to say, well, if Jesus Christ did not rise out of the grave, what hope do you have of ever coming out of the grave? They're affirming that. The ordinances, we believe that baptism and the Lord's Supper are the ordinances of Jesus Christ. Those who have been born again and who are true believers are the only proper subjects for baptism, and that scriptural baptism is burial in water, that the ordinance of the church are in the hands of the church for keeping, that baptism is not valid unless administered by one authorized by a gospel church to administer the ordinances, that is, a duly ordained minister of the gospel." Another affirmation that was in this, I found this very interesting when I dug it up and started reading it again. It had been a while since I had read it. Conditional time salvation. We believe that the Lord's children, those who have been born again, are under parental law to the blessed Lord, and that He has promised blessings in His Word to His children who obey Him. which he has not promised to others, and that these blessings thus promised cannot be attained or enjoyed any other way, only by obeying him, doing the things commanded by him. On the other hand, he has promised chastisement, suffering, sorrow, trouble, and distress upon their rebellion and disobedience." That's conditional time salvation. Obey the Lord and it will go well for you. And conditional time condemnation. Disobey and rebel against God and you will experience the chastening rod of God in your life in the here and now. That's a truth that's so evidently taught in the Bible. I find it hard to believe that anyone contests it, but I've had a few that have done it over the years. There are several others here, but I don't want to dive into this too much. The point I want to make is this. There's a heritage in the church here that I affirm, which is that these men believed doctrine comes from the Bible, and it should be declared among God's people, and it's important, and that we not stray from it. You don't say, well, we've got iPads and internet now, so therefore the atonement is no longer limited. It doesn't work that way. Neither does it work that way to try to modify what's sin and what is not. The Bible's pretty clear on these things, and many just don't want to hear it. Paul taught Timothy that doctrine was important, and it is important. Those who were in this church 70 years ago drafting that, they thought doctrine was important, and it is important. And those are the same things we're teaching here today. And they're still pretty unpopular in the broader world of Christianity, but it's part of why we stand where we stand today. We, too, think it is important. Let's continue on, see if we can finish out chapter four here. But refuse profane and old wives' fables, and exercise thyself rather unto godliness. Now, I think there's a lot that could fit into the category of profane and old wives' fables, but there's a lot you can listen to in this world today, and a lot of it could fall into this category. There's an awful lot of talk going on. There's podcasts and television shows and radio broadcasts and talk radio and all these various things, blogs and whatnot. And if you were to step back and assess it, you would find a lot of it is just nonsense. And some of it is profane, and a lot of it is old wives' fables. It's just silly old stories and made-up stuff. And really, we should be pushing ourselves away from that. You know, you can get kind of wrapped up in these things, and it can be very unprofitable. Exercise thyself rather unto godliness." In other words, find something else to do. Be about something profitable. Be about the Lord's work. Be about something that is serving your family or your church. Do those things instead. For bodily exercise profiteth little, but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come. So you can work your body out and become quite a physical specimen, and that's fine. I think it's okay to take care of your body. You should do that, and it's fine to do that. However, that only has profit in this lifetime, and it may be unprofitable in this lifetime, depending on how you go about doing it. You could do it to the exclusion, well, you know, I mean, I'm working all week. And I've got to have Saturday off, so I need some time to relax on Saturday, so Sunday morning is really the best time to hit the gym. You can do things in such a way, you can do a good thing and do it in such a way that it becomes very unprofitable to you. Sunday is often seen as the best time to ride a motorcycle, drive a ski boat, go fishing, hit the links, any of this stuff. any number of things that get raised up. And all of this stuff is fine in its place. It may have some profit to your well-being in the here and now. I, for one, feel less stressed when I have just gotten back from having done some fishing. It just kinda makes me calm down, makes me forget about some of the concerns that I get worked up over. I'm sure that's true of golf and other pleasurable things, but they've gotta have their place. And they only profit you in the here and now a little bit. All the bodies here, unless the Lord comes back, are gonna end up a-moldering in the grave until that last day. So we should be thinking of building ourselves up spiritually. Because that has a promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come. I don't fully understand that. I understand that coming to a better understanding of spiritual things profits us now. I'm not sure I understand how it profits us in the future. See what I'm saying? Maybe one of y'all can help me with that. But I know that we're supposed to know even as we are known, maybe what it's saying is that you can benefit from spiritual knowledge now, and you're gonna have a whole lot of spiritual knowledge in the hereafter, and it's gonna be beneficial to you then. But that's always seemed a little bit enigmatic to me. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation. For therefore we both labor and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of those that believe." We talked before about this all-men situation. I won't revisit that now. Speaking of all sorts of men, Jew and Gentile, it's speaking about the fact that God's saving work is not restricted to the Jewish people. This is one of the main themes of the New Testament. Jew versus Greek, and Jew and Greek, the whole world. It's speaking of not just confined to the old covenant people of Israel. It's talking about salvation more broadly than that, and especially of those that believe. Well, I can tell you that if you examine your own life as a Christian person, you're believing that Jesus Christ got the job done. You're one of His people. You're going to heaven. You are eternally saved in that sense. However, if you don't believe the precepts and doctrines of Christ that tell you about how to live your life, there's a sense in which you are not saved in many respects. because there's many things you could be saved from. And if you believe not only what Christ has done, and that gives you joy, you know you're going to heaven someday, and you believe I ought to live this way, you're going to be specially saved over and above the person who simply affirms the doctrines of grace and what Christ has done, and then goes out and lives a profligate life of sin. There's a timely salvation that is available to God's people provided they walk in obedience. And it's just evidently true. Anybody can go out and start practicing some new sin today when they leave this place and wreck your life, wreck your marriage, wreck your family. Anybody can do that. It's not gonna send you to hell. Jesus Christ's work on your behalf is gonna deliver you to glory, that's all there is. But you can go to hell in the here and now You can have the hell of God's chastening rod on your life as a result of disobedience. And you can be specially saved over and above your eternal salvation, provided you walk as an obedient disciple of Christ. See that? These things command and teach. Well, hopefully that's what we're doing today. Let no man despise thy youth, but be thou an example of the believers in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity. When you people act as you ought, when God's people act as they ought, and experience those attributes and express them before God's people, it is an enormous encouragement to the body of Christ. It's like pumping air into a flat tire. And the more you can do it, the more it just inflates and people begin to experience the benefits of the kingdom of God. Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, and to doctrine. I've occasionally mentioned that I don't agree with John Gill. He's probably my favorite Bible commentator, but I don't agree with him all the time. John Gill gets a little squirrely on some things. And in his commentary, he says, talking about reading, He explicitly says this is not talking about reading the scriptures in public, in the assembly. I just totally disagree with that. I mean, if you had a scripture in this time, first of all, people weren't coming to church back then with Bibles. Think about this. Now, people project their current lives. Well, there's a Bible. I got eight Bibles in my house, and most of them collecting dust. I got access to a Bible. Anytime I want one, I can go pick up my Bible. I got one in my truck and I take one to church and I leave one in the pew and there's Bibles everywhere. So why would they need to read the Bible from the pulpit? Well, people didn't have Bibles. Where are they going to hear the Bible if not at church? Reading scriptures, by the way, most of these people are illiterate too. Double down on that, they can't read or write and they don't have a Bible. This is talking about reading the Word of God. I think it's one of the things that's profitable about doing expository preaching where you're actually preaching through a book because you're literally reading everything that's in that book before an assembly of people. Now look, I don't know anything about any of your lives, and I suspect just based on demographics of society, every one of you owns a Bible and every one of you knows how to read. But I also suspect this, you don't read the Bible as much as you ought to, and therefore it is profitable in the assembly to read the Word of God before you. There are people in the kingdom of God who don't read at all. They just don't like it, whatever reason. And if you're not reading the Bible before them, they may never get the Bible read to them. They may never get it at all. So I don't think we should shy away from reading passages of Scripture. We should probably do it more rather than less and spend less time spinning yarns about what grandma did a long time ago. I'm guilty of that too, by the way. But the centrality of the Word of God has to be magnified here. And so we should give attention to reading, to exhortation, and to doctrine. You see that? Because doctrine matters. It's important. You say, ah, reading exhortation, but, ah, doctrine. It splits people. You know, you start telling people what sin is and they won't show up and they won't contribute. Then you'll have a small church instead of a mega church. That's not Paul's attitude on it. I say this just as a matter of personal preference. I would much rather be in a very small assembly of people who care about the Word of God and doctrine and think it's important because that's what the New Testament church is supposed to do. than to be among 1,000 or 10,000 people who said, eh, let's cast doctrine to the wind. Let's just modify doctrine willy-nilly to make it more popular and palatable to carnal people. The fact that that's my personal preference is really a very little consequence. I just share it with you to let you know where I stand. But the fact that Paul is essentially teaching the same thing to Timothy should get your attention. Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy with the laying on of hands of the presbytery. Meditate upon these things, give thyself wholly to them, that thy profiting may appear to all. Nothing in there about you need to go to an extra-ecclesial 501c3 nonprofit parachurch organization and pay them a lot of money to obtain a seminary degree so that then you can go preach to God's people. This is another very controversial opinion among us. We're called ignoramuses because we don't believe in going to seminary. We just believe God equips His people. And the only institution the Lord Jesus Christ ever founded was the church. And there are God-called elders who are there to teach in the church. And if there's a man being raised up among God's people, he needs to be taught of the elders in the church. And by the way, you're not gonna have to take out a Pell Grant to do that. We are not a 501c3 parachurch non-profit religious organization. We are the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that's where religious instruction is to take place. Now that is a highly offensive notion, but I'm telling you it's the truth. None of these men ever went to a seminary. This whole concept never even existed. It's never invoked in the New Testament as a means of training ministers, and we should not be ashamed of it. But there is an admonition to study the word of God given to a minister. They say, well, you don't believe going to seminary, you just don't believe, you don't need to study anything. That's not what we said at all. You should study, should meditate on these things, give thyself wholly to them, that thy profiting may appear to all. And I've seen it. I've seen it from so many elders standing in this pulpit. So many things have been revealed to me through their preaching that it was evident that they had spent time meditating and studying these things and they understood them and could impart them with clarity. What a blessing that is. Finally, take heed unto thyself and unto the doctrine. Think he thinks doctrine's important? Well, doctrine's not important. Paul thought it was important. By the way, he wrote most of the New Testament, so kind of important. If you don't think doctrine is important, you just don't think the Bible is important. You don't think the New Testament is important. And you are trying to make religion like Jell-O. And you're just the bowl. Just pour the religion in and it's gonna take on the shape of me. That's not how it works. You're the jello, and the doctrine is the bowl, and it should be shaping you to the container, not the other way around. Take heed unto thyself and unto the doctrine. Continue in them. Like, in our instance, start a church in 1903 that affirms it. In 1953, when things are getting squirrely, you come together, reaffirm them, those same things you believed. And here, 70 years later, say, yeah, we're still affirming the same things we believed then, because doctrine's important. Continue in them, for in doing this, thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee. That's not talking about eternal salvation. That's talking about being saved from all the false doctrinal nonsense that is preached among Christians in our time. And if you can hear it and believe it, be affirmed in it, walk in it, live in it, you will be saved, especially in a way that simply believing the truths of grace will not save you. There's a salvation in knowing the doctrine and in living in accordance with it. Thank you for listening to SuccessfulSavior.org, the ministry of Harmony Primitive Baptist Church. This has been Elder Dan Salmons preaching in one of our regular meetings. Come and join us as we worship God in the simplicity of Christ every Sunday morning at 416 North Hall Street in Donaldson, Arkansas. At Harmony, we don't have many things you'll find in the popular churches of our day, but we do have a successful Savior. We invite you to come and see.