Believers are called to diligently study and rightly divide the Word of God to be approved workmen, avoiding unprofitable arguments. The sermon emphasizes the necessity of constant reminders of divine truth due to human forgetfulness and the world's distractions. It highlights that a Christian's primary focus should be their relationship with God and their testimony, urging believers to ensure their thoughts, words, and actions are approved by God. Ultimately, this diligent study and adherence to truth will equip believers to stand firm and unashamed in the darkening days.
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Greetings, radio friends, in the ever-precious name of the Lord Jesus, our lovely Savior. And inviting you once more to turn to the eternal truth of the precious Word of God, we ask that you will listen. And if you have your Bible read with us the second epistle of Timothy in chapter two, verses fourteen and fifteen. For after Paul's exhortation in relation to our responsibility to be a good soldier, to be a good athlete, to be a good laborer in the vineyard of our Lord, and to be faithful in suffering for him whatever the cost might be, Paul says in these two verses, of these things put them in remembrance, charging them before the Lord that they strive not about words to no profit, but to the subverting of the hearers.
Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. Now the beloved apostle tells us very explicitly that these things must be brought before the remembrance of the people of God. As he tells them to Timothy direct, They are given to him for the purpose of bringing them before the mind and heart of the people of God. And my beloved believer, may I say, that the truth of God needs to be repeated over and over again to the hearts and the minds of God's saints in every age.
When Peter wrote his second epistle, he very carefully declared that he was not writing anything that was a new truth. but he was writing what they already knew, but he would stir up their pure minds in way of remembrance. And there is no apology needed when one repeats divine truth. But there is a great necessity for the people of God to be reminded of the Word of God. I say it without hesitance. that you and I, myself included, together with all believers in our Lord Jesus, we need the constant reminder of the Word of God day by day and moment by moment.
There is not a day in our Christian experience that we do not need to be reminded from this precious book, The Word of the Living God. And Paul declares, of these things put them in remembrance. God's people have good forgettories. You know it, so do I know it. And how we need to be reminded. The world and the flesh and the devil, so great as being our enemies in this present scene, are certainly efficient in their effort. To put the things of God out of the mind and out of the thinking of Christians.
May God help us to be awakened. And that our minds may be centered where they ought to be, in their importance, upon the eternal truth of God. Now I'm going to make a statement that I know is true. The things of God are more important to a believer than all the things pertaining to his and her life. You might have important events in your life. You might find important problems in your life. You might find important things even in the range of your natural life. But I say frankly that the most important thing in the life of a Christian is his relationship and her relationship to God.
And the conduct and the character of his and her testimony in this present thing for God. Why? Notice why Paul says we need to be reminded. We are very susceptible to strive about words that are of no profit. Charge them before the Lord that they strive not about words to no profit. And what a solemn charge the Apostle is saying, Listen believer, before the Lord Jesus Christ himself and God. I beg of you, don't talk about things and waste your words in your time with things that are unprofitable.
And they are not only unprofitable, he says, to you, but he says they don't even help the hearers, to the subverting and the corruption of the hearers. Now here are three things that we should realize. We are to be put in remembrance of the things that have gone. We are not to be striving over things that are not profitable and putting our attention upon unprofitable things in this life. And third, we are not to be guilty of turning aside the blessing that God wants the heroes of our conversation to receive. For we should be a blessing.
What an important challenge. Oh my fellow believer, how important it is what you and I say. Your words will justify you, or they will condemn you. My words will justify me, or they will condemn me. And how important it is to realize the necessity of speaking, when we do speak, words of prophet. God give us that conscious exercise that when we open our mouths, the Lord will indeed enable us by His grace to speak to the prophet of others and the blessing of many.
Now in order to do so, there is a verse following that is important. It brings before us another occupation that belongs as well as a characteristic feature that belongs to the Christian in the last days. We have seen that he should be a soldier and a good soldier. He must and should be an athlete that is temperate in all things, and thus going according to the rules. And we have also noted that he is to be a farmer or a laborer, one who toils, constantly, faithfully, in order to partake of the fruits that are inevitable.
But here we have a verse that tells us the child of God in the last day should be a student. and the student of the Word of God. Now may I read the verse from a translation that is clearer, which says this, And listen carefully. Strive diligently to present thyself approved to God, a workman that is not to be ashamed, coming in a straight line the Word of Truth. Now let me point out the three facts. as well as the three responsibilities that the Apostle set before us in this one verse. First we are told to give diligent.
Strive diligently. Give all your effort to this endeavor to be approved of God. What a responsibility. Not to be approved of men, but to be approved of God and to God. Oh, my radio friend, my fellow believer, for I cannot speak thus to an unbeliever. But to those of you who are believers in the Lord Jesus, I bring before you in the faithfulness of this precious truth that I am responsible to give. I bring before you the responsibility of living a life that is approved to God, and that you are to strive diligently, bend every effort to make your life in its conversation, in its action, and in its character of all in every way, in word, indeed, in thought, approved to God.
Now I know this is searching, but are your thoughts approved of God? All your words, the conversation of your lips, is that conversation approved of God? The conduct and behavior of your life, is it approved of God? Now you might say, this is going pretty close. Well, beloved, why not? You and I have a responsibility to God. And I'm sure that every Christian should be anxious to be pleasing to God. Oh, may God help us to give diligence to that end, and know what follows. The second thing that is required, and this will be the result of the first, when it is fulfilled, you'll be a workman that needeth not to be ashamed.
If you diligently give yourself to be approved of God according to the revelation of the truth of his word, you'll be a workman that needeth not to be ashamed. Now we shall see in the later chapter, at the end of chapter three particularly, that it is the word of God that qualifies as well as fits and finishes the workman to be what he ought to be for God. You cannot be the workman that God wants you to be unless you let him prepare you through the school of his word of truth. And to study that word of truth and to follow in obedience its teaching will make you a workman that needeth not to be ashamed.
Again we remind ourselves that the word ashamed is repeated more than once in this epistle. For in the days, the last days of Christianity, men are ashamed of the Gospel. Men are ashamed of God. Men are ashamed of Christ. Men are ashamed of the Bible. And unfortunately, we have too many Christians in that same category. Oh, my beloved, are you ashamed of Christ? Are you ashamed of God? Are you ashamed of the Bible? Are you ashamed of the Word of Truth? God says you should not be ashamed. God help us to realize the responsibility that is ours. Need us not to be ashamed.
The old Him writer wrote, Stand up for Jesus, ye soldiers of the cross. God help us to stand up for Him. And then third, you will have the final thing that will bring you to be a good workman that need us not to be ashamed. Rightly dividing the word of truth. Give diligence. Study the Bible. Study the book that is called the Word of Truth. And in studying this book, cutting in a straight line is the meaning of the original text, cutting in a straight line, hewing to the line of the Word of Truth. Hewing to the Word of God. Don't deviate. Don't depart from the Word of God.
But in a straight line, walk, live, and act according to that precious word and give diligence to do so. Now that's the kind of people that God needs in the last days. Oh my fellow believer, what a responsibility for you and for me to see that in the darkening days of the end time, when the truth of God is straight from, when it is resisted, and when it becomes unwanted, what a responsibility for the believer to have more spiritual energy than ever before. Energy. spiritual energy and you can only get it from God through his power the indwelling spirit from the holy word of God and dividing that word and have the understanding of the word of God to enable you to go on for his glory and never to be ashamed of him oh may God the Holy Spirit speak to every believer shall we pray father in heaven We leave with thee and with thy sovereign spirit the eternal results of this, thy precious spoken word,
for the glory of our Lord Jesus in every light. Amen.