The Charge

1 Tim. 1:18-20 (ESV)
This charge I entrust to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you, that by them you may wage the good warfare, [19] holding faith and a good conscience. By rejecting this, some have made shipwreck of their faith, [20] among whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme.

“This charge I entrust to you, Timothy.” The gospel is a charge for pastors. It was a charge to Timothy. A charge a duty. Pastors have a duty, often shirked, to preach the gospel faithfully. But in keeping the charge, we hold to faith, and a good conscience.
I do marvel though that Paul is so blunt as to name a couple whom he has handed over to Satan, Hymenaeus, and Alexander. You wonder if these are two of those who went unnamed earlier, or if these were merely notorious examples. I don’t think they were the only ones, perhaps these were two that particularly vexed Timothy. I think Paul would have named them out right at the beginning if these were all the “certain persons.” I also think it is safe to say that they are among those certain persons. And what are they guilty of? Blaspheme! Why? They have begun to teach different doctrines. They have swerved from that which is trustworthy, rejected the true doctrine. They have forgotten about holding faith, and a good conscience through the forgiveness of sins, the trustworthy statement that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save Sinners.” Rather, they have been delving into myths, genealogies, and quite frankly Chiliasm at its finest. Chiliasm is just another term for Pre and post millennialism. You know, the “Left Behind” series.
I think we need in this day to take this very seriously. For a long time Chiliasm was dead. But yet it keeps raising its head. It is the most persistent of heresies in the church. It Infected the church even in the day of Paul. I have never been able to get Chiliasm. I don’t understand its draw. I don’t understand why people are gripped by it. It offers no hope. It supplants the gospel, and breeds fear. What I do know is that it keeps coming back in one form or another. It dies hard. People are convinced that this is what the Bible is about. I’m convinced nothing could be further from the truth. I can’t understand how you would preach or teach this. The fact that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, is enough to occupy anyone’s entire and complete ministry. People need to hear it. They often don’t. When they do they need to hear it again. You never get past Justification by faith alone, if you ever do, realize your people haven’t. People who think they can stop teaching justification by faith alone, and focus on something else, and here I’ll name a few of the more popular replacements: missions, tithing, sanctification, inevitably lose sight of it all together. It is the problem with the church today, even the LCMS, we are no longer focused on forgiveness, we want to move on to other things. If we just returned our focus to Justification by faith alone, we might again get some mission work done the way we did in the past. We just might overcome our financial problems too. But if we don’t return to justification by faith alone, then we have ceased to have reason to exist.