If we have died with Christ, we shall also live with him, and if we endure suffering, we shall also reign with him, but if we deny him, he will deny us the glory we could have received. The sermon explains that while salvation is by grace, the measure of glory bestowed in the future is commensurate with our faithfulness and endurance in this life, using Peter's denial as an example of lost commendation. The core lesson is that our present faithfulness to Christ and his truth is crucial for eternal reward. The closing application urges believers to be faithful to the Lord until they see him face to face, remembering his unfailing faithfulness to us.
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Greetings in the precious name of our Lord Jesus, radio friends. And another hearty welcome to a program of Bible study once more as we turn to the epistle of Timothy, the second letter, reading in chapter two, please, from verse eleven down through verse fourteen. These are the words of the beloved apostle, is he right, saying, It is a faithful saying, For if we be dead with him, We shall also live with him. If we suffer, we shall also reign with him. If we deny him, he also will deny us.
If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful, he cannot deny himself. Of these things put them in remembrance, charging them before the Lord that they strive not about words to no prophet but to the subverting of the heroes. May God bless the reading of this section from his precious word and may the Holy Spirit illuminate your heart, my heart, your mind and mine so that we can receive from it the needed instruction for our eternal blessing and for our present usefulness in this world for the glory of God.
Now to repeat with emphasis, the epistle of Timothy, the second letter in particular, brings before us the need as well as the character of moral and spiritual energy in the last days of Christianity. I'm sure I do not have to emphasize or to clarify in any way to any Christian believer that we are living in days when Christian character and conduct is as is at a minimum. There is not the moral and the spiritual energy to the divine testimony of the Church upon the earth as should be.
We are far from the early days of the early church in its character and in its divine power. But the Holy Spirit has given us In the Epistle of Second Timothy, the responsibility of seeing there is divine provision for moral and for spiritual energy for those who are willing to pay the price. This spiritual energy is in relation to the truth of God. We are told in chapter one, as we have seen, we must maintain or hold to the truth of God. We have been learning in chapter two, we must also teach it and be faithful to it in our conduct and in our character.
But we have also learned in the second chapter, we need the enduring quality of a good soldier. We need also the enduring characteristic of a good athlete. We need also the endurance of a patient laborer who works from early morning till late at night, seeking to kill the toil, till the soil, and carry out his labor in the vineyard of God. We come to a section that Paul would remind us of divine principles of the very precious. He begins by saying in chapter two and verse eleven, it is a faithful saying.
For if we be dead with him, that is with Christ, we shall also live with him. Now may I read a translation that is more correct, saying, The word is faithful. For if we have died together with him, that is with Christ, we shall also live together with Christ. Now this is an unchanging condition belonging to the people of God. God recognizes and acknowledges that judicially every believer has died with Christ. In the death of Christ, for he died for our sins.
As a believer, I see my death. I see that God put my sins upon his beloved son when he was upon the cross of Calvary. And I say with thanksgiving and praise, I died in him. before God. But God also adds, For my edification and blessing, I not only have died with him, I shall also live with him. And what joy it is to recognize, I am alive with him and shall forever live with him also. Praise be the name of the Lord. And then the apostle goes on to state another divine principle.
If we endure, now the word endure has been found in our scripture portion more than once, we shall find it again as we go further on in this book. For it is the question of enduring patiently, faithfully, bearing the hardships in the days of spiritual declension that require the faithfulness of the believer to the truth of God. But if we endure, if we take our share of suffering, since the Apostle, if we do so, we shall also reign with him.
Raining together. Now, beloved, may I give you this principle? You and I will, according to the measure of our faithfulness for Christ upon the earth, share the measure of glory that he will give us in that coming day. Now every child of God will reach heaven. Every born again believer is a child of God in the family of God. But every born again believer may not necessarily share the same equal amount of glory in the coming day of our Lord's return. The measure of that glory, the quantity of that glory, will depend upon our present faithfulness and our endurance for the name and for the honor of our Lord Jesus in this present scene.
My beloved believer, may I remind you again, if you and I will be faithful to our Lord and to his truth, We shall indeed receive the suitable, as well as the eternal compensation that he will give in that coming day. And we shall reign together with him. Now there's another principle that the beloved apostle goes on to state. And this is important. He says, if we deny, if we deny, he also will deny us. Now may I remind you that the Lord Jesus will never deny his true children as being his.
The Lord Jesus will never turn away. One child of his that he is redeemed with his precious blood. For our salvation is by grace and by grace alone. But from the context of this scripture, the preceding verses particularly, We have seen that someday we shall reign with him. But there is the possibility, and there is the unfortunate probability for many Christians, that the Lord in that coming day of his glory may find it necessary to deny many of his children the glory that he desired to give them, the glory that they could have won.
by their faithful service to him in this present scene. Now again let me clearly emphasize, he will never deny us the salvation that he has given to us by grace. But when our Lord Jesus Christ bestows the glory of his reign upon his children and measures out, meets out to them, Whatever glory they will have, it will be commensurate with what they have done and what they have been for him in this present scene. Now let us make a very clear supposition. Beloved Christians, It may be possible that you and I will have our Lord say, I must deny you some of the glory that I wanted to give you because you denied me when in the earth below.
Oh, my beloved Christian, it does not take to be ashamed of Jesus. Ashamed of Jesus, shall it be that mortal man be ashamed of thee? My radio friends, my fellow believers, do not we bow our hearts, do not we bow our heads in shame, and humbly and penitently confess there have been occasions when we have denied our Lord. Now let me give you an example from Peter's denial of the Lord Jesus. And what a sad experience that was for dear Peter. And you know as well as I do, Peter has lost something.
He has lost the commendation. He has lost an eternal compensation. He has lost some measure of eternal glory that would have been his if he had stood up for the Lord Jesus in that day of the crucifixion. Now don't blame Peter, and don't think you're any better than Peter either. For God forbid that we should take such an attitude. But there is the example which you and I may have also in our experience manifested. But says the Lord, and this is precious as we close with these words in the tenth, twelfth verse rather, he says, or thirteenth verse, If we are unfaithful, and I quote another version clearer, if we are unfaithful, he abides faithful, for he cannot deny himself.
My beloved fellow Christian, may I point out to you as well as to my known heart, though you and I may be ashamed and frankly would confess that shame and that humiliation when we are unfaithful to Christ, Here are words that tell us, though you as a believer may be unfaithful, the Lord Jesus says, I will never be faithless to you. He abideth faithful. What a tremendous truth. My fellow Christian, the faithfulness of Christ to his people is unquestioned. And though you and I have saved him, He never has failed us, for he faileth not.
Oh, my fellow believer, is not this sufficient for you and for me to realize how in the last days of Christianity, days of decline and departure from the truth of God, you and I have every reason, not only for time, but for eternity and its glory, to be faithful to him. May God wake us. by the power of the Spirit, and by the power of his word, to be faithful to the Lord, till we see him face to face. Shall we pray? Father, we thank thee for thy word. It searches our hearts.
It probes our consciences. And we ask it to do so that we may be faithful to the one who in faithfulness to us went to the cross of Calvary and will bring us yet to heaven for his name's sake. Amen.