All right, good morning and welcome to our second service.

We're going through 1 Timothy verse by verse.

And today our text will be chapter 1, verses 17 through 20. We're glad that you're joining with us online.

For those of you that are here locally, I'll ask you to stand after you've turned there in your Bibles.

If you're able, if not where you're seated is fine, you can follow along for the reading of God's word.

The Apostle Paul, by the Holy Spirit, is writing

to Timothy, a young pastor, and says, verse 17, now, to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.

Man, he could just end right there. But he doesn't. Verse 18. Timothy, my son, I am giving you this command

in keeping with the prophecies once made about you so that by recalling them you may fight the battle well, holding on to faith and a good

conscience, which some have rejected, and so have suffered shipwreck with regard to the faith. Among them are Hymenius and Alexander,

whom I have handed over to Satan to be taught not to blaspheme. Wow. Let's pray if you would join with me. Father in heaven,

thank you so much for your word and this portion that we have before us here today in your

word. Lord, we need for the Holy Spirit now to get our attention and keep our attention so our minds don't wander.

We don't want to be distracted and miss that which you have for us today here in your word.

Lord, I know that you're going to speak. You always do. You're always so faithful

to. So Lord, speak into our lives clearly, personally, if need be, very personally. And Lord,

when you do, we want to have ears to hear and hearts to receive. So Lord speak, your servants are listening.

In Jesus' name. Amen. And amen. You can be seated. Thank you. So I want to talk with you today

about how it is and even why it is that we can trust the Lord to get us through this crisis that we find ourselves facing today. Here in the text before us, the Apostle Paul

is telling Timothy how to, in effect, get through the difficulty and the crisis that he faced

while there in Ephesus. As we talked about last week, he didn't want to.

He wanted to leave. Paul commanded him to stay and deal with these people that were there.

...