“The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church? He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil.”
1 Timothy 3:1-7 ESV
Paul’s pastoral letter to Timothy is all about sound doctrine because that’s the only path to faithfulness. The problem Paul is addressing in Ephesus, the thing he’s trying to accomplish, is to help Timothy fight off false teachers. And you’ve probably noticed that the same challenge confronts us today. We’re in a battle, just as Timothy was, with the doctrine of demons (1 Timothy 4:1 and these false teachings don’t come in mysteriously. They come in through weak men who aren’t standing guard against sin. That’s why God appoints elders in His church. Oh, and elders aren’t meant to be special agent Christians incidentally. All Christian men should be developing the virtues of biblical manhood so as to serve the Lord and His church.
We repeat: all Christian men are to be strong and courageous in the Lord. The Lord does not have cowards in His army/church. What this time needs is not morally weak boys with fuzzy doctrine, nor loudmouth legalists who major in minors of doctrine. We need men who will stand up against sin in their personal lives and refuse to back down when the world demands compromise.
Yes, we need men who will not compromise with sin. Period.
In our time we know that the feminists and leftists hate the things the Devil hates. This shows how deceived they are. They’re doing the Enemy’s bidding without recognizing it. Think of what the left rallies around. They advocate for the destruction of the biblical family. They champion radical sexuality in contradistinction to the Word of the Lord. They reject personal responsibility and simultaneously blame “society” instead of criminals. Therefore, in contradiction to the Lord’s command that criminals be punished, they weaken the civil magistrate and don’t, in fact, punish evil, but good. They demand that the church obey culture, not God. And they hate manhood and men. Yes, that’s all true, but the thing is, the left isn’t the enemy in the purest sense of the truth. Instead, they’re the victim of the sin. They literally know not what they’re doing. We must not get distracted and fall into easy opposition habits wherein we rail against the sins of “those out there” and hold all the right opinions on doctrine but are personally picked apart by this sin or that. Disagreeing with the left isn’t necessarily obedience to God! We have to understand the difference because it’s this upon which we stand or fall.
Personal fidelity to the faith, that is, obedience to a life of faith, to the law of faith in Christ alone, is the battle itself. Revelation 21:8 says, But as for cowards who are devoid of character and personal integrity and tolerate immorality, and murderers, and sorcerers (those who use drugs), and idolaters and occultists (who practice and teach false religions) and all liars who knowingly deceive and twist the truth, their part will be in the lake that blazes with fire and brimstone…” And didn’t our Lord say, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter into My kingdom, but only he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven. (Mark 7:21)?”
Or consider Psalm 15:
“O Lord, who may lodge in Your tent? Who may dwell continually on Your holy hill? He who walks with integrity and strength of character, and works righteousness, and speaks and holds truth in his heart…he keeps his word even to his own disadvantage and does not change it for his own benefit.”
And didn’t the Lord tell Joshua “The book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”
You see? This is strength and success. This and this alone is manliness…and all the battle. Obey the Lord. Holiness is success and peace and joy and there is no other way because God will not be mocked. To defeat sin, or the left, or whatever else Satan throws at us, requires the obedience of faith (Romans 1:5).
Opinion and consent isn’t conviction! And without conviction we won’t have courage. And without courage we won’t stand in the faith. As Isaiah 7:9 says, “If you are not firm in faith, you will not be firm at all.”
So, like Timothy, we’re in a war against sin and godless culture. And like Ephesus we need not an army, but a true church. And the true church must be full of faithful men and women. More still, it must be led by faithful men (elders) who guard against the evil of false doctrine and tolerance of sin. The modern church, to its shame, is full of appeasers who are generally more worried about personal ease and fitting in with the world than they are with obeying the Lord. And that’s the problem right there. Elders are to be men of God, not men of the world. And to be men of God they must be faithful. And that faithfulness will shine through a character that displays honor and skill and truth in all they do.
Christian men must be built up upon the foundation of faith and faith without sound doctrine isn’t biblical faith. The two are inextricably connected: faith and doctrine. This is biblical manhood. A biblical man is a man who has conviction and courage. To have conviction means you fully accept as true the apostolic teachings. To have courage means you fight sin on the basis of that conviction. This is faith and only true faith yields true manhood. The goal of Christlike character is the goal of biblical men. Period. To want that above riches and ease is the path of godliness. All other paths will seem right to a man but the end is disaster. A Christian man’s life will show the obedience of his conviction that the Word of the Lord is true. The Spirit filled character doesn’t compromise God’s truth (doctrine).
Thus, the Spirit filled character is biblical manhood and such men will produce the fruits of honor, excellence, and personal holiness in Christ.
A man who doesn’t have sound doctrine will be blown around by error. But a man who knows Scripture but is disobedient – who compromises with the world and/or sin – is a false believer. True faith leads us to greater and greater obedience to His law/word. Real faith eradicates the problem of weak men because it’s sin that makes men weak. That’s the foundation of today’s passage. A true elder is a man of godly character. We notice the inextricable and inseparable connection between men of sound doctrine and life skill. Godly men live obediently to sound doctrine.
The problem is that biblical character isn’t easy since it means hand-to-hand combat with the world, the flesh and the Devil. Time and again the Lord commands his “elders” in Israel’s history to “be strong and courageous.” God does not want weak, vacillating men who shirk from the battles of obedience. God will not command an army of cowards; He will condemn them. Again, on that Day, many will say to Him, “Lord, Lord…” but those false believers will be sent away because their lack of courage showed that their convictions were never real.
Adam doubted the word of the Lord and lost paradise.
Abraham compromised and lied about his wife, Sarah, and nearly lost her to a king’s harem.
Moses compromised and lost the privilege of going to the promised land.
Samson compromised his vows and lost his strength, his eyesight, and then his life.
Saul doubted the Lord, refused to wait on Him, and lost his kingdom. Then he tried to kill the man who obeyed the Lord and so the Lord had him executed. In shame.
David compromised his work ethic and honor, took Uriah’s wife and then ordered him murdered. For that David lost his newborn baby and his family – and Israel – were plunged into conflict and civil war.
Solomon compromised and married hundreds of foreign wives and so he lost the unified kingdom.
Judas compromised the Lord Himself and for the loot of silver. That’s all. Just some money. He ended up alone, dangling from a tree. Christ died for us, Judas died for Satan and that’s the way it goes in this world because it’s God’s world.
Godly men need to hear this. Pressure will come. Pressure will test us but we must be strong and courageous. We must act like men and stand firm in the faith. The pressure will be from two areas always.
Personal temptation to compromise the standards of the Lord. That is, to sin in lust, greed, laziness, or poor workmanship. All Christian men should be literal works of art in their homes and vocations for the very simple reason that they are the Lord’s man!
The second is the persecution of the world. Those that the Devil can’t get privately – that is, by hooking them on personal sins – he will pressure through the social and political systems, to compromise and capitulate.
Temptation and persecution. The man of God knows these pressures are coming and he must get in the ring. The man of God is the warrior against sin and false teaching. He chooses, as they say at West Point, the hard right over the easy wrong. This should be our focus, not putting a new man in Washington. We need new men in Christ and then that will take care of itself.
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