His Supreme Desire

Transcript

Alright, thank you very much. And hello again, radio friends. How in the world are you? Are you doing alright? Well, I trust so. This is your good friend, Bob Cook. I’m glad to be back with you.

We’re looking at 1 Timothy, chapter 2 and verse 4. “This is good and acceptable,” it says in verse 3, “in the sight of God our Savior; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come onto the knowledge of the truth. There is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.”

Now, ”this is good and acceptable” – the “this” that he says, it goes back to the things that God wants. He wants us to pray. He wants us intercede. He wants to be thankful. He wants us to pray, specifically for people in authority. He wants us to lead a quiet, peaceable life in godliness and honesty. This is what God wants. He also wants something else – verse 4 – He wants all who would be saved. “Who will have all men to be saved, and come onto the knowledge of the truth.” God wants everybody to be saved; that’s what He wants. John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

Has it ever come over you that the, the, the supreme desire of, of God Almighty is to, is to save people? “One God, one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” To save people by way of the Cross? The one thing God wants most of all is for you, my friend listening to me, who’s never opened your heart to Christ, is for you to come to Christ, trust Him, commit yourself to Him as your Lord and your Savior. God wants that. This is more than idle talk. This is more than saying, “Well, maybe some time when I get around to it.” That isn’t where it’s at, beloved. We’re dealing with something that is the deep desire of Almighty God. He wants people to be saved. Why? Because He knows they’re lost. Second, He knows they can’t save themselves. Third, He knows that eternity stretches before the lost soul with complete hopelessness and despair.

“This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” “He that believeth on the Son is not condemned: but he that believeth not…” – that’s you, unsaved friend – “he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” You, my dear friend, are as lost this minute as though you are already in hell a million years, because you’ve never committed your life to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

The one thing God wants is for you to trust Christ as Savior. You say, “Well, there’s hypocrites in the church, and I’ve failed, and people have hurt me, and you don’t know my background. You don’t know how hard it is,” and so on. That may all be true. I may not know, nor others may not know what you’re up against, because we don’t live inside your skin. We don’t have your background, but we do know that Almighty God knows. “There is not a word on my tongue, but, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether,” said the Psalmist. God knows and says, “I want, I want to save you. That’s the one thing I want. Want you to be My child. Want you to love Me. Want you to serve Me.”

Has that ever come over you? To realize that? God Almighty, who runs the world, who made it first and then who runs it. God, this God who loves you, wants you to be saved. Think about that as the Spirit of God brings it home to your heart. Why don’t you find a quiet place somewhere? If you’re driving, pull off the road momentarily. Bow your head and say, “Oh, Jesus save me. Make me a child of God. Forgive my sins and come into my heart.” Pray that prayer.

“As many as received Him,” it says, “to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name.” If you “believe on His name,” His name is Jesus. That means Savior. Savior. So, if you believe on His name, you trust Him to do what His name means. You receive Him. How do you receive a person? You invite him in. Two things God wants you to do: receive the Lord Jesus, invite Him into your heart, and then trust Him to do what His name means – to save you from your sins. Do that today. God wants you to. What I’m trying to tell you is that Almighty God, who runs the world, wants you to trust Christ as Savior and invite Him in your life. That’s what He wants. You do that and you’re pleasing God, and you’re getting your own soul saved for all eternity.

There’s a second thing that God wants, and that is that you come to the knowledge of the truth. That doesn’t happen all at once. I have a little granddaughter that’s not quite two. She’s just now forming sentences, and it’s interesting to see how she puts them together. She learned to say something in the negative. Her father was asking her about, about something. Rather playfully said, “You want to do that?” She answered, quite properly, “No way, Poppa.” Oh yes, they learn; don’t they, these little ones? Well, she doesn’t know it all; that’s for sure. She’s got a lot to learn as the years go by. She knows something. She knows “yes” and “no,” and she knows when she’s doing something naughty. She knows certain things, but she doesn’t know it all, obviously; nor indeed do you and I.

Now, we know in part, and we understand in part, says the apostle Paul, but then we get to know the Lord Jesus, face-to-face. Paul prayed for the people Colossae, he’s said, “I’m praying that you may be filled with the knowledge of His Will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding.” They weren’t filled with God’s Will when he prayed for them. He wanted them to be, however.

“To grow in grace,” Peter says, “grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” You grow in the grace of God by submitting to God’s grace and letting Him operate in your life. You grow in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus by meeting Him in the Word and in prayer, and walking with Him day by day. How do you get to know a person better? Spend time with him. How to get to know Jesus better? Spend time with Him, in His Word and in prayer.

So this is what God wants. It says, “will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.” Now, let me ask you then, how much do you know of God today that you didn’t know a year ago? Are you growing in the knowledge of God? Are you growing in grace? Are you growing in the knowledge of the truth? Do you know anything more of God’s blessed Word than you did before, or are you just coasting? Some people, it must be admitted, coast along for years on the slim basis of things they learned years ago. You can find them everywhere, dear. Weak, thin – spiritually thin – people who just don’t have much, but they hang tenaciously onto what they have, because they’ve just been coasting along on the knowledge they got years and years ago. That could be you, perhaps. Oh, are you growing in the knowledge of the truth? See, that’s what God wants. He wants you, He wants you to grow in His truth. Now, God’s truth is absolute, your knowledge of it and mine is relative, and you may know more or less of it, but you can grow in your knowledge of the truth. Jesus our blessed Lord, in His high priestly prayer, said, “Sanctify them through Thy truth: Thy Word is truth.” Where do you look, then, if you want to grow in God’s truth? You look into His Word, the Bible. God’s inerrant, infallible Word, the Bible; that’s where you look if you want to come to the knowledge of the truth.

And so, how do you go at it? Number one, read it. Number two, meditate on it. Number three, pray over it. Number four, memorize it, so that the Word of God can bring it back to your mind what it is needed. “Thy Word have I hid in my heart,” said the Psalmist, “that I might not sin against Thee.” Jesus our Lord promised that the Holy Spirit would bring all things to your remembrance, “whatsoever I have spoken unto you.” God does remind you of His Word if you put it in there. If you don’t put it in the computer, the Holy Spirit can’t bring it out, but if you do put God’s Word into the computer of your memory, God’s faithful Holy Spirit will bring it out just when you need it.

That is a precious truth and I rejoice to pass it along to you, because anything I tell you, I’ve been there. The Spirit of God will remind you of Scriptures that you have hidden in your memory if you put them there. “Oh,” you say, “I can’t memorize.” Oh yes, you can. You know your own telephone number? You know your Social Security number? You know the telephone number of a son or daughter, or in-laws? Yes, you do. You know a great many things that you memorized, and you’ve memorized them by repetition and use. Repetition and use.

What you do with the Word of God is you take one verse with the reference, you say it over, carry it with you, repeat it over several times a day, and use it in conversation or in prayer. You’ll find that it’s fastened into your memory and the faithful Holy Spirit of God can bring it up to you just when you need it. Hallelujah for that! The knowledge of the truth.

Now, what does God want? He wants you to be saved. He wants you to grow in your knowledge of the truth. That knowledge is found in His Word, it’s implemented by His Holy Spirit, and it is brought to you by remembrance so you can use it as the faithful reminder of the indwelling Holy Spirit who does exactly what Christ promised that He would.

Now, he says, “For there is but one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; Who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time. Whereunto I am ordained a preacher, an apostle, a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and verity.” He said, “there’s one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” Now, here you have one of the great differences between New Testament faith and the other religions of the world: “One God.”

Well, we share that concept with others who proclaim the same thing. “There is no God but God,” say the Muhammadans, “and Allah is his prophet.” One God. Our Jewish friends say, “Here, oh Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all your heart, soul, strength and might.” We Christians have the same, the same basis for faith. We’re Trinitarians, however. “One God, eternally existing in three persons; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” We are not “three God” people. We are one God.

But there is a way to know this God, and that’s through the Lord Jesus Christ. Our Lord Jesus is just as much “God” as God the Father or God the Spirit. And the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, is just as much “God” as God the Son or God the Father, but they each have their own function, and they form one Godhead, one glorious God whom we serve and worship and adore.

Now, he said, “There’s only one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” This, I think, is something that, that, that for many may be a stumbling block; for others it’s a glorious truth. When you find that the Lord Jesus Christ has satisfied the holiness of God on your behalf, suffered in your stead over the broken law of God – paid your penalty – “God commended His love toward us,” we read in Romans 5:8. “God commended His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” He put Himself in our place. And so when you realize that that’s true, and that now as He’s ascended and risen, and seated the right hand of God the Father, He makes intercession for us. “He ever liveth,” it says, “to make intercession for them that come unto God by Him.”

David Morgan said to me one day – quizzically – said, “Bob, you know what Jesus is doing this minute?” I said, “No, I don’t, really.” “Well, look it up,” he said. “He ever liveth to make intercession for them that come unto God by Him.” Said “He’s naming your name before the Father right now.” Well, praise God for that!

Now, that’s a blessed truth for us. It may be a stumbling block to others who say, “Do you mean I have to come through faith in Christ?” All I can tell you is the Bible says, “there is none other name under Heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” Why don’t you believe God and take it His way instead of fighting? Good idea. Why don’t you just believe God and do it His way, and you’ll find Him rewarding you with peace and joy, sins forgiven, and a home in Heaven?

Dear Father God today, may we be faithful to our blessed Lord Jesus, may we be growing in the knowledge of the truth, and may God, our blessed God be glorified, in Jesus’ name, I pray, Amen.

Till I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!