To Have and To Hold
by Pastor Ricky Kurth
"Holding faith, and a good conscience, which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck" (I Timothy 1:19).
Those
who teach that salvation can be lost use this verse to say that unless
we maintain a tight grip on the faith that saved us, we will make
shipwreck of the faith and lose our eternal life. But when we compare
Paul's use of the word hold here to how he told Titus to be "holding fast the faithful word" (Titus 1:9), we understand "the faith" here to refer to the body of truth committed to the Apostle Paul.
The context here is not salvation, it is warring a good warfare (I Tim.
1:18) against men who teach false doctrine (cf. v. 20). The way to war a
good warfare in the dispensation of grace is, as Paul later told
Timothy, to "hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me" (II Tim. 1:13).
We
must maintain this tight grip on Pauline truth in "good conscience."
People say to "let your conscience be your guide," but Paul "lived in
all good conscience" (Acts 23:1) from his forefathers (II Tim.
1:3). That means that even while persecuting God's people "unto the
death" as Saul of Tarsus, his conscience was clear! That's because he
"did it ignorantly" (I Tim. 1:13). That is, he didn't know he
was persecuting God's people. He thought His people were heretics and
that he was serving God in killing them (John 16:2). Does that tell you
how dangerous it is to let your conscience be your guide? A conscience is only good if the light of God's truth is shining on it!
A
conscience is like a sundial in that respect. A sundial only gives the
correct time when the right light is shining on it. If you check a
sundial under the light of the moon, you are going to get a faulty
reading. And if you go out at night with a flashlight, you can make it any time you like. The
terrorists who flew those planes into the Twin Towers did so in all
good conscience. People are born with a conscience that tells them that
murder like that is wrong, but a conscience can "seared with a hot iron"
by "doctrines of devils" (I Tim. 4:1,2). When that happens, people
become "past feeling" (Eph. 4:19), and no longer feel the pricks of a
conscience enlightened by God's Word.
Many
people say that doctrine isn't important, but the people killed by Saul
of Tarsus know better, as do the victims of 9/11. The mistakes you make
in life may be nowhere near as heinous, but unless your conscience is
enlightened by "the faith" committed to the Apostle Paul, the light from
some other source will cause your conscience to give a faulty reading,
and you won't be able to "war a good warfare" for the Lord in the
dispensation of grace.
Some in Paul's day had "put away" the faith, a Bible phrase for divorce
(Mt. 5:31). But God has given us the body of Pauline truth to have and
to hold. Let's hold it for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer,
in sickness and in health, till death do us part.
SO GREAT SALVATION!{Click}
SO GREAT SALVATION!{Click}
Les Feldick Ministries
30706 W. Lona Valley Rd.
Kinta, OK 74552
Posted By Cecil and Connie Spivey
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