How do we finish this hostile world?  We’re being seduced constantly.  The appetites of fallen man are still working in our members.  What, in this day, is the apple being offered up to us?  As I was praying and meditating on these different things, the Lord took me back to the first letter to Timothy.  In Chapter 6 and Chapter 4, he begins to tell us what many of the signs of the times are going to be in the false doctrines of the last days.  And he says he is a young pastor then that should stand and put them in remembrance and told them to “refuse profane and old fables, but rather to exercise to godliness” (1 Timothy 4:7).  Then, in verse 11, he says, “These things command and teach.”  Don’t let any man “despise thy youth; but be thou an example…” in all manner of living, “in spirit, in faith, in purity,” verse 12 says.  “Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine…Meditate…and give thyself wholly to” this young preacher, and “take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee” (verses 11-16).

That passage is what we use primarily when we go overseas.  We teach off that very passage right there.  Pastors, take heed to yourself first; amen?  Get your act together.  Let’s look at the qualifications here in Timothy and Titus of what you need to meet these requirements to even be a preacher.  “Some of you need to get out of it,” we will tell them.  “You don’t belong in the ministry.  Here are the requirements.  Your houses are out of order.  Your lives are out of order.  You’re living in covetousness.  You’re looking for fame.  You’re looking for gain.”  In these epistles that we’re looking at here, Paul was not dealing with small issues within the church.

Just like Paul told Titus, he said, “Go set the church in order.”  So, when we’re reading these things, we’re looking okay.  If we’re out of order, let’s see where we are and let’s fix it; amen?  Let’s hear the wisdom of God.  So, that’s the admonition to Timothy and Paul is continuing to write to him here.  He’s flowing down into different subjects within the church.  And then he comes to verse 17 of this fifth chapter.  And he said, “Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour, especially they who labour in the word and doctrine” (1 Timothy 5:17).  So, he’s introducing now the aspect of these that he has placed in the church, Ephesians (4:11) says: “apostles…prophets…evangelists…pastors…teachers.”  How to recognize their ministry and how to promote that ministry by giving the support that belongs to them.

Much as the Levites and the priests received of the tithe, we now no longer have the Levites and the priests.  How do we support the ministry?  How does this gospel continue on?  We follow the same Old Testament patterns and see, then, God’s purpose and wisdom here in the New Testament.  And he’s elevating ministries and those that are the primary promoters of doctrine of oversight, eldership, that these people are recognized with a double honor.  And he goes on and then quotes the Scriptures, as they always did.  “For the scripture saith, Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn.  And, the labourer is worthy of his reward” (1 Timothy 5:18).