Dennis Tuuri

To the end that God may answer that prayer of ours. Let us turn to his holy word. Today’s sermon scripture found in 1 Thessalonians 5:19-22. 1 Thessalonians the 5th chapter verses 19-22. Please stand for the reading of God’s law word. Quench not the spirit. Despise not prophesyings. Prove all things. Hold fast that which is good. Abstain from all appearance of evil. You may be seated.

Continue in 1 Thessalonians.

We’re in the last chapter in the concluding section where there are a great deal of individual exhortations given to the church at Thessalonica and then to the church to the ages that read this epistle. While these are individual statements and in many ways, they also are linked together in various ways. And I’ve decided that one way to examine the verses we just read is to treat them as a unit.

I think they are united in many ways. And so we’ve talked about now for two weeks, this will be the third week on the spirit of evaluation dealing with these five verses. I’m taking as the center of these five verses the phrase prove all things. Be approved moneychangers—uh, an apocryphal saying of our Lord but certainly true throughout the scriptures—that we are to evaluate all things through the spirit of God who creates all things for proper use to him.

So quench not the spirit has to do with his proving his evaluation. Quench not the spirit of evaluation. Despise not prophesyings—the relationship of the spirit to individuals in messages from the scriptures, relating to individuals and relating to every fact of our lives. Prophesying has to do with that. And then finally today we’re going to talk about hold fast that which is good and abstain from all appearance of evil.

So we’ve talked about the need for continual evaluation, the means of continual evaluation. That means being the grace of the Holy Spirit and the standard of the word. We talked about the need to feed the grace of the Holy Spirit through the oil of communion with our neighbor and with God and also not to quench that grace of the spirit through discouragement, personal sin, fear of men, or envy. And that the standard of the word is a word that relates not simply to doctrine, but to doctrine and life.

Orthodoxy, orthopraxy, faith once delivered. The orthodox faith given in the scriptures are not to be contradicted by prophesyings of any type that flow throughout history. And additionally, that the word is an efficacious word to all of life. And we mature in our ability to understand the word as it is ministered to us by the spirit to the end that we might properly evaluate all things in our life and understand the implications of God’s law and all these things.

Now, today we’re going to move on. I had a teacher once, won’t school the Bible, who said kind of a cute little thing. He said that experience is not the best teacher. Evaluated experience is the best teacher. The need for evaluating the experience that God gives us. I think if you did a study of wisdom, you’d see that it has a lot to do with evaluation of the world around us through the lens of scripture.

As one matures and gets older—in other words, you can’t be real wise, real young. So evaluated experience is very important, but I think I’d probably want to add a qualifier to that statement. And I know that it’s a good one in and of itself. But the evaluation of experience does no good unless we evaluate it according to the standard of the spirit of the word. And that evaluation—even that, which we’ve talked about last week—we apply that in our lives.

But if we forget this final part, it doesn’t do any good either. So it’s evaluated experience by the word and by the spirit that is then active upon our lives—our lives change as the result of that evaluation. That is proper teaching according to the scriptures and we’re going to talk about that today. Then the actions to follow proper evaluation—the third point in the outline. So what we’re going to do here is go over briefly these verses and then look at some more specifics in terms of what various aspects of the word of God instruct us in terms of the good to be tightly held to and the evil that is to be held far off from us.

So we’re going to kind of go over an overview first and then look at some specific applications of this relative to various areas of our lives, both good and bad.

Okay. Also one thing I wanted to do before we get too far along here is retract one thing I said last week. I made a general statement that charismatics have an improper—well, the implication was that charismatics as a group have an improper view of prophecy.

And of course, generalities like that are always uh bad, improper to make. I meant that some charismatics, those who don’t hold to an ethical perspective based on God’s word and who instead rely upon supposed visions and foretellings of the future apart from God’s word and the evaluating power of God’s word—those are the ones I was criticizing last week. I think most people in our church know that we’ve worked in various activities with charismatics in the greater Portland area and many times they’re much more perceptive about evaluating things on the basis of God’s word than many of the reformed people in this particular area as well.

And that’s not to put down the reformed faith, but I didn’t want to somehow leave you with the impression that we thought here that charismatics as a group are improper in their understanding of prophecy or evaluation of prophecy according to the word of God. So I shouldn’t have said that, made that general statement last week and so I wanted to correct that this week before we go on.

I might just say in passing that I think that there is much work to be done in the area of the charismatic stress upon the operation of the spirit in the everyday life of the believer. I think that’s one of the great areas that will be important for the church to understand, develop and apply in the centuries to come. The work of the spirit in the life of the believer is I think in many ways a very underdeveloped area of theology in the Christian church.

I anticipate—and I know it’s maybe somewhat kind of an example rather than—I’m saying this by ex. Jesus. So when the scriptures say that God visits the sins of the fathers to the second and third generation but is gracious and merciful to thousands of them that love him—that “thousands” refers to generations—and I anticipate God, you know, is sovereign controller of history, but I would anticipate that in all probability we will see thousands of generations to come before the consummation of all things when the Lord returns.

If that being the case, it’s not, it’s not that we shouldn’t despair as we see areas for instance of the work of the spirit in one’s life and see a diversity of opinion in the Christian church today and think “how come we don’t know more about this.” I think in many ways the church is still very young.

Okay. Today I’m also going to try to—I was essentially trying to elevate our understanding of the spirit’s work in our life through the preached word, also through the exhortative word we give to one another about specific areas of our lives, and then also the promptings of the spirit as he deals with us in such mundane things as the picking up of our socks, writing the law of God to order, love for our family and our neighbor, etc. upon our hearts—rather than trying to disdain people that can actually sometimes predict successfully future events in the power of the spirit. I believe the spirit can work that way if he so chooses. I was trying to elevate our understanding of these other things up to that same level rather than trying to say that it was improper at all times to be foretelling in that sense.

So I was trying to correct what I think to be a common misperception of prophecy today, not just in the charismatic churches, but other areas of Christian church as well. And today I’m going to try to correct a statement also about the appearance of evil. We’ll get to that a little bit later. So that’s part of what we try to do here is evaluate what we’ve heard about various aspects of the scriptures and what they mean according to the word of God analogically.

The word interprets the word.

Okay. So again, what we’re doing here is we’re talking about—again by way of review—that the scriptures tell us to prove all things. That proving is related to the law of God and the spirit of God. He ministers that law in the life of the believer. And we see that in various verses. Part of this, of course, is the evaluation of ourselves. In 2 Corinthians 13:5, we’re told to prove or examine ourselves, whether we be in the faith.

Galatians 6:4 says, “Let every man prove his own work, evaluate himself, what he’s doing according to the light of scripture as ministered to him by the Holy Spirit.” And that this is part of the mechanism that God has for advancing his kingdom in our lives, in the life of the greater community as well. Indeed in 1 Corinthians 11:19, we’re told by Paul that heresies arise among us that those which are approved may be manifested among you.

So even God’s methods of evaluating us can include things such as heresies in the context of the local church. Lots of things.

Now we’re going to talk about the actions that follow that evaluation of our life. What do we do then once we determine what is good and bad? And that of course is a growing thing, a maturation and understanding of what that means according to the scriptures and it’s fairly simple I suppose—the action that follows evaluation: you do good, you don’t do evil. But I want to point out the importance of that as the characteristic of who God’s people are. In Job chapter 1 for instance, God says to Satan, “he says have you considered my servant Job? There’s none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God and hateth evil.” He does good things, he’s perfect and upright.

And part of that is hating or keeping far from evil.

Isaiah 1:16, “Wash you, make you clean. Put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes. Cease to do evil. Learn to do well. Seek judgment. Relieve the oppressed. Judge the fatherless. Plead for the widow.” This two-fold nature of hating the evil and doing the good are characteristics throughout the scriptures of his people. And that’s what we see here repeated again.

There’s lots of many portions of the scriptures say the same thing in various ways. We have here first of all a strong adherence to the good. Approve all things, hold fast that which is good. In the King James version of the text, testing results in two actions or two evaluations, good and bad. And there’s no in between in all of this. Many things that we understand as neutral often times upon further evaluation and maturation of the faith, we’ll see we’re not so neutral.

And increasingly, we’re going to see ethical actions—that which we do in life—increasingly I think as we mature in Christ we’ll see them as evaluated either good or evil and understand then which of these two they are and what we have to do—grab a hold of them, hold them far off from us. The good here is like the coin we remember. We talked about the analogy here—is the coin. The coin was found to be genuine; the good also that is found to be genuine and good in its nature, pleasing in its nature, is to be grasped, hold of the particular word here that is translated “good” signifies that which is excellent, fair and pleasing in its nature itself.

It is thus distinguished from the earlier word where we said don’t render evil for evil but do good, seek good for all men. That word had more to do with the effect or the benefits of a particular activity. This good instead stresses—and while these two are used somewhat interchangeably in scripture—this word does indeed stress more the nature of the thing itself. And so what in its nature is good and proper and holy according to God’s word.

Now again just to stress the point—again and but to bring it out a number of times—this evaluation and this trying to discern whether something is good or bad relates to every area of life and thought. Probably the most devastating impact of public schools in our land today are teaching that things can be evaluated or understood in isolation from God. And so it’s not necessarily good how you build something for instance.

That’s a neutral fact. But the men of the scriptures in Romans 1 hold down the truth of God in unrighteousness. The revelation gives us a complete true picture of God. Well, not complete, but it gives us an accurate picture of who God is. All men know God. The created order does indeed prove God’s very existence. Okay? To all men. They know it and they know that it is the God who is described in scripture as being owed thanks to.

But then hold down that truth. And how they do that is they take the very things that God has created to image him, to remind us of who he is, the whole created order. And they treat it in isolation from God. And so what impact does that on us, once we’ve been redeemed and saved, but having gone through most of us the public school system and even into a private Christian school—they don’t understand this either.

We tend to see almost many things in our lives as isolated from God, seen in isolation from him. And what this text is important to us is in saying is that there are no brute facts. There’s no things we understand that are in isolation from God, his creation, his providence undergirds everything. And so every area of our life and thought, our amusements as well as our work, our politics as well as our church activities, all these things be evaluated and understood in relationship to God’s word.

And that evaluation process continues in all that we do and say, as I said last week, even getting to things such as picking up your socks. Okay? So all things based upon an understanding that all things have been created by God for his purpose.

Now again the good is understood only in relationship to God’s law. We read in 1 Timothy 1:8 that the law itself is good if it is used correctly. And so this good is understood in relationship to God’s law.

This again permeates all of scripture. Deuteronomy 32:46, “Set your hearts into all the words which I testify among you this day, which you shall command your children to observe, to do all the words of this law.” That’s the thing we’re supposed to be grabbing hold of—is God’s law. Proverbs 3:1, “My son, forget not my law, but let thine heart keep my commandments.” Proverbs 4:13, “Take fast hold of instruction. Let her not go. Keep her, for she is thy life.” That image—or that—relates back to Deuteronomy 32:46 when he said that your children should observe to do all the words of this law. He says “it is not a vain thing for you because it is your life.” Our very life is involved with the doing of good understood by God’s law. And so God’s law is absolutely essential for understanding and evaluating things and that is what we’re to hold on to.

Isaiah 8:20, we said last week, “to the law and to the testimony if they speak not according to these words it’s because there’s no light in them.” And as we said it is a maturation process. Romans 12:2—the offertory we perform every week, the verse of scripture at the top of it—talks about the renewing of our minds with the transforming of our minds through the word of God we might prove, understand, test, evaluate, and then hold to what is the perfect and acceptable the will of God.

So it’s a maturation process where we grow in understanding of the law of God and then an understanding and evaluating things in relationship to that. And so when we want to hold on to that which is good, the first thing you want to do is you ought to hold on to the standard, the law of God. Very important that much of our lives are spent reading the scriptures and understanding how they relate to our lives.

Now, uh, the word “hold fast” here means that it is not simply—it’s a combination of two words. One is to hold and the other is a word that adds energy to that concept of holding on to something. They must not only approve that which has been found to be good. But they must actively lay hold on it. And so must we. We must firmly retain it. Cling to what is good is the concept here. Hold on to it real tight.

Don’t let it go. Hold fast. Take the message to heart if it’s a prophetic message in terms of that specific application. Whatever the spirit is ministering to you from the word, take that message, hear it, believe it, and act upon it. Thus, you’ll profit from prophecy and be upbuilt by it. So the idea is to grab tight onto something, to take hold of it.

In Luke 8:15, we read that the good seeds are the ones that—having heard the word—the good ground rather, the ones that hear the word, accept it, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience.

So the model in scripture of the sower of the seed—the good seeds, rather—is the ones that takes a hold of the word and keeps it, holds it tight. That’s what that word means. And then as a result of that holding it tight and keeping it, brings forth fruit in relationship to it.

So in 1 Corinthians 11, Paul says to “keep the ordinances that I delivered unto you.” And again in 1 Corinthians 15, “ye which are saved, you are—let’s see—but which by which also you are saved if you keep in memory what I preached unto you.” Hebrews 3, “hold fast, grab tight onto this confidence, the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.” These are general statements of the same basic principle to hold on to what is good. Hebrews 3, “hold the beginning of your confidence steadfast to the end.” Hebrews 10:23, “let us hold fast the profession of our faith.” So the whole of our Christian life, the profession of faith, the word we been saved by—we are instructed throughout the scriptures that is what we’re to hold fast on to in the general sense of the term.

So our Christian calling is to be held on to and firmly grasped according to these words and that’s the first side of the actions to follow proper evaluation. This is a proper evaluation of the life change that God has brought to us and a holding fast of that confession, that assurance, that joy and confidence to the end. And that is the general usage of that term.

Now on the other hand, we’re not only supposed to hold on to what is good. We also are to have an equally strong aversion to what is evil, to what is evil. Job did what was upright. He feared God, but he also hated evil. Isaiah 1 said, “Hate. Put away the evil from your doing, from before your eyes.” So, while it is important to understand that we need to stress what is good, we also need in our Christian lives to understand and evaluate and know what is evil so that we can keep it far away from ourselves.

It is interesting this word “evil” has its origins in a word that means pain. And here instead of the good, which is essentially talking about the nature of the thing, the term evil here that is beheld far off from us are the things that are evil, disastrous, destructive, injurious in effect. In effect. So we can use good things to the wrong end and the effect of that is evil for us and that is part of what we’re to hold far off from us.

The word here is very similar to the word to hold on to. In fact, it’s the same root word. And so in the Greek, it’s very marked. One thing you hold fast. In our English, you could say the other you hold far away from yourself. You give it the stiff arm. You get it as far away from you as possible.

Again, there’s an activity involved in this. It isn’t simply “well, you do what’s right and you don’t do what’s wrong.” You actively cling to what’s right and you push off as hard as you can what is evil. You know, its affect in terms of your life.

Now, when it says here to avoid all appearance of evil, this is frequently a misunderstanding that people mean think this means that whatever looks like evil, that’s what you’re supposed to stay away from. But that’s not what this word means. This word means the actual appearing of evil. It doesn’t mean a semblance of evil. And indeed, frequently, one can avoid to can avoid doing the correct duty that one owes to God or to the Christian church because you think it might look bad to other people and you say, “Well, I don’t want to do something that might have the appearance of evil to it.”

Now, there is a proper sense in which we want to be sensitive to how our actions are perceived by others. But that’s not what this verse is talking about. This verse means the very first appearing of harmful activity in your life, that things can have a harmful effect in your life. That’s what you’re supposed to stay away from. The first appearing or any appearance of evil in your life. This is the thing that we pray in the Lord’s prayer in Matthew 6:13 to be delivered from: “deliver us from evil.”

And we have an active part in that deliverance. The spirit of God, part of the spirit of evaluation, is the spirit of empowerment to keep us delivered from evil by holding those things far off from us as far as we can.

While the good fruit is that fruit that holds on to the word, the good seed or the good soil—the one that holds on to the seed—and the good fruit comes from the good tree that holds on to the knowledge of God. The scriptures say that it is bad trees that bring forth evil fruit and indeed the scriptures relate that evilness to the wicked one himself. And we read about the wicked one in Matthew 13 for instance, verses 19 and 38, the “children of the wicked”—for instance that’s this concept here of evil. Really, it’s an imaging of evilness and effect is imaging the devil or Satan himself.

And so then later on they’re said to be wicked in the final judgment in Matthew 13:49. Those that instead of escaping all the works of the devil and evilness and instead begin to emulate those works—they themselves are identified with their father, so to speak, as we are with the Father of righteousness—and they become wicked in and of themselves.

Now in Proverbs 5, we read that the foolish shall not stand in God’s sight. “Thou hatest all workers of iniquity.” Psalm 5:5, “Thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness, neither shall evil dwell with thee.” Psalm 119:104, “Through thy precepts I get understanding. Therefore, I hate every false way.” Verse 128, “Therefore I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be right, and I hate every false way.” These verses tell us that God hates evil and hates wickedness. He hates all workers of iniquity.

I remember years ago when I first started becoming more reformed and explicitly Calvinistic in my understanding of the word, I remember this paper that put out by a group that Javad Brooks was actually identified with, and it said, “Who told you God loves you,” and underneath that, on this big paper that they put out thousands of copies of, it had this verse: “I hate all workers of iniquity” from Psalm 5:5.

Quite startling in our day and age when the four spiritual laws were the primary method of evangelism back then. “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.” In fact, they had a cartoon in the front of this thing. I probably told many of you about this, but on one the first panel of the cartoon, this guy is telling another fella—he’s saying, “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.” And the next panel, he’s saying, “And if you don’t believe, he’s going to send you straight to hell.”

Well, you know, the fact is God hates all workers of iniquity. God discriminates. As Dan Rothstein talked about in his communion talk a couple weeks ago, there’s a great discrimination that’s going to come in the future at the final consummation, the left hand and the right hand, the goats and the sheep. And God hates all workers of iniquity. And as a result of that, we’re supposed to read God’s word. His spirit communes with us and instructs us in that word. And he causes us also to hate every false way.

Psalm 119. If we understand God’s precepts, they give us understanding concerning what’s right. But they also teach us to hate every false and evil way in ourselves, but also in others. And so as a general principle, we’re to hold ourselves far off from anything that is evil. And that is the result of our evaluation through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Now, what this means is that in a way this is a general principle for all of life, right? Evaluate all things of the power of the spirit with the word and then cling fast to what’s good and push what is evil far from your life.

In a way, it reminded me as I was studying through it of Micah. Remember when Micah said the characteristics of God’s people are to do three things: “to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God.” Now, those are all positively stated. To do justice, to love mercy, to walk humbly with God.

But what these verses tell us as the rest of scripture is that these things—to do justice, to love mercy, to walk humbly with God—have a negative side to them as well. And that is to hate injustice. Okay? And to hate the evilness that doesn’t have compassion and shows mercy to people and to hate pride as well. So there’s a necessary and important negative implication of the Christian life and the world absolutely hates this.

Absolutely hates it.

Now it is a necessary thing though. Throughout the scriptures I’ve listed some references from Acts 15:20 onward that what we’re instructed to do in terms of our sanctification is to abstain, hold far away—that’s the same word in the Greek—from certain things. Pains, pollutions of idols, fornication, things strangled. Indeed, in 1 Thessalonians 4:3, earlier, many months ago, we preached on this.

“For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that you should abstain from fornication.” Paul could actually say at that point in 1 Thessalonians 4:3 that if you want to look at what sanctification is, it is to hold off far from yourself—that’s what that word abstain means—all fornication. So, you can state it in the negative. Now, the positive is you do what’s right. You understand it, to cling to it.

But the negative side is absolutely critical as a proper action to follow evaluation.

Now, it’s interesting because the only other place this word is used in a negative sense is in 1 Timothy 4:3 where there are some that command us to abstain from certain foods. And we’ll talk about the relationship of that to what God wants us to abstain from relative to our mouths in a little bit. But these two commandments must not be separated in our Christian experience. Both of these—hold to the good, hold far off that which evil—both of these are absolutely necessary for the development of true Christian character.

Christian growth requires not only the assimilation and act of obedience in the good, but also the act of rejection of the evil. The intensity of our adherence to the good will be measured by the strength of our rejection of the evil.

Romans 12:9, “let love be without dissimulation. Hate that which is evil. Cleave to that which is good.” Same thing in a little more vivid language as our text tells us—uphold what’s evil, cleave to what’s good. Psalm 97:10, “if you love God, ye that love the Lord hate evil.” This I thought about as I was preparing for this—what Mark McConnell has talked about in the past: how the pro-life movement, which used to be an anti-abortion movement until the pro-choice movement declared itself to be pro-choice.

Then the pro-lifers kind of said, “We need a positive thrust to our message as well. So, we became pro-life,” and I can understand that there’s a rationalization. It’s a good one for that. But it is really true and it needs to be stated that we are against abortion. See, that’s the evil that we actively are to hate and oppose. And the world system wants us all to always affirm the positive and never talk about the negative.

But these verses say no, that these both things must happen in terms of our Christian walk, our Christian experience, and our Christian evangelism. We must teach the hatred of what is evil. The negative side is absolutely necessary. If we are going to transform our minds according to God’s word, it will wash us and cause us more and more to reject this world system, which is the affirmation of everything.

It’s what we’re all about today.

I was watching Joseph Campbell on TV Friday after Friday at lunchtime. He’s I think he’s dead now unless he repented in hell for the terrors of hell, but he’s one of the great prophets of the new age movement or whatnot. I guess you could call him that. He was into comparative religions and he’s sort of useful to look at if you’re wanting to understand a particular religious system because he does a very good job of tracing Egyptians or the gods of India or whatever and puts him in real simple teachable form.

He’s an excellent teacher. But it’s always interesting watching him because he almost always, as he did this last Friday, talk a little bit about the God of Jehovah or Yahweh, and you know, he’s very accommodating to every other religion, but when he talks about either Judaism of the Old Testament or Christianity, he hates it. He always makes fun of it. He affirms everything else in the world, but he hates Christianity and the Old Testament religion of the Israelites as well.

And why? Because they’re exclusive. Everything else could be understood in relationship to a greater organizing principle that is positive. So he said that Zeus, for instance, is like Jehovah. They’re both gods of lightning. You know, Zeus would make war and whatnot. But Zeus was a subset of gods, beyond which was a greater organizing principle to those who believed in him. But in the scriptures, we declare that Jehovah, who as we just read in the response of reading in the Psalm, does indeed bring his lightnings to bear on the earth—we declare that there’s no other god above him. There’s no principle or god above. He is the god of all creation. And the result of that is Christianity faith cannot be syncretized, brought into and mixed with all other religions the way that the new age movement wants to do. All every other religion can be, but ours is exclusive. And so people hate it. They hate the fact that it says that there is this great discrimination, this ultimate principle of good and evil, that the evil are judged by God.

You know, that Psalm we just read responsively, I think what it’s talking about there is that these strange children that Christ ultimately is being delivered from by the Father, those strange children are judged by God and eliminated, cursed, sent to hell and taken off the face of the earth. That’s the old race that we talked about before. We talked about abortion. It’s fallen humanity of the strange children.

And the redeemed humanity in Jesus Christ historically are exalted by God. And we’re supposed to be part of that process. And we’re supposed to hate what’s evil and love what’s good. And as a result of that, rejoice when God’s just judgments come upon fallen humanity to the end that they’d be removed from off the face of the earth. So this negative side to it is absolutely essential. It’s essential in our own individual evaluations as well.

Let’s talk about some examples of this. First, we’ll look at the good—some of the goods that the scriptures teach us should be tightly held on to.

The first is a proper sense of toleration and love in the church. And I just did a concordance study here where the scriptures say this is a good thing, that this is a bad activity. And that’s where I got these lists. I think they work. I was selective about them. I think they’re very good in their basic summation of these things.

Romans 14:21, “It is good that’s this word. It is good neither to eat flesh nor to drink wine nor anything whereby thy brother stumbleth or is offended.” So that’s a good thing. See in the context of the Christian church to love somebody else to the end you might give up something that you know is okay for you to do to the end that they might not be stumbled. They might not stumble or be offended. Okay, that is a good thing. It is something that we’re supposed to hold on to actively, understand, and cleave to in the context of our church and in the context of our family as well. It’s very important with little ones. Little ones stumble real easily and parents should be sensitive to that. What they may require the child and they may speak to them may be proper but it may cause them to stumble unnecessarily and it is a good thing to be self-sacrificial the way our Lord was to us, to lay down our lives and our rights and privileges for the sakes of others.

That’s a proper sense of toleration.

On the other hand, in 1 Corinthians 5:6, you got to understand the corollary to this. They gloried, rejoiced in what is not good. It wasn’t good that they had sin in the context of their church and they permitted it. Okay, that is improper toleration. That’s not what I’m talking about. But proper toleration and love in the church is a good thing to hold on to and to cleave to.

Secondly, piety and honor in the home is a good thing that we should grasp a hold of strongly. 1 Timothy 5:4, “if a widow had children or kinfolk, let them learn first to show piety at home and to requite their parents for this is good and acceptable before God.” The MacArthur translation I think does a good job of interpreting this verse for us. It says they must learn that the first duty of religion is to their own household and that they should make some return to those who have brought them up.

A sense of proper piety in the home, religion in the home, and then also showing some return to those that have brought us up. This is a good thing to God and it’s something we should grab a hold of, apply in an everyday sense in the context of our homes and our extended families as well.

Again, in 1 Timothy 5:10, widows that can be put on the roles of the church—there, they’re supposed to be well reported of for good works. And what are these good works? If she’s brought up children, if she’s lodged strangers, shown hospitality, if she’s washed the saints feet, and if she has relieved the afflicted, if she has diligently followed every good work. So see there’s good work—listing of the good works and then—has she been diligent in doing all these good works. And again, one of those—one of the first things she’s supposed to have done is to have brought up children. Bringing up of our children is a good work that God tells us to do, that we should cleave onto that job, that task, and it is a good thing to have piety in the context of all of that.

Okay. Again in Proverbs 6:20, this talks about the relationship of parents to their children in terms of mothers but it would apply to fathers as well. It is a good thing to develop religion in the home. And if we’re attempting to develop religious service primarily in the church or in the state and neglecting our home, then it’s a bad thing. We’re supposed to cleave on to this piety at home and honoring those who have gone before us as well.

Now, the other way around is in Proverbs 6:20, “My son, keep thy father’s commandment, and forsake not the law of the mother. Bind them continually upon thine heart and tie them about thy neck. When thou goest, it shall lead thee. When thou sleep, it shall keep thee. And when thou wakest, it shall talk with thee. For the commandment is a lamp, and the law is light, and reproves of instruction are the way of life.”

For children, one of the first things they want to hold on to and hold on to it well are the commandments of their parents. The father’s commandment, the law of the mother. Now, ultimately, of course, this is because these parents are teaching the children based upon the scriptures. But the point here is very much stressed that the children folks just sort of say, “Yeah, I got to obey my parents.” No, no.

Verse 21, “Bind these commandments upon your heart and tie them about thy neck.” Literally, it can be figuratively speaking, but it’s a good thing to hold on to these things, the commandments of your parents. And so, the children should cleave onto those things. Hear with the attention of ears, hear what they have to say, write it down in a journal or something if need be. Maybe even put something around your neck, a lock or something to remind yourselves, walk in obedience to your parents.

So piety at home is an important thing to be grasped onto and applied. God’s order in the world. Proverbs 6:22 said that “when thou goest, it shall lead thee.” The implication is the commandments of the parents imaging the commandments of our Father in heaven shall lead you wherever you go outside of the home now into the world. That is a good thing to be held on to.

1 Timothy 2:3, “for this”—and he’s talking about prayer for all men, particularly those in authority. This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our savior. Prayer for all men—to what end? This does not mean they chose to pray that God would bless all those in authority. If people in authority are walking in disobedience to God’s word, they cannot be blessed by God. Now, they can be blessed in the sense of being brought to conviction and repentance. They might do things that are in conforming to God’s word they don’t understand perhaps, but I think if you—and I don’t have the time to talk about today, I’ve preached on this before—but I think that this verse properly understood means you pray for the salvation of men. You pray that they’d be left standing in terms of God’s judgments upon the earth, that they wouldn’t be one of those strange children ultimately, that they’d be brought into the faith if they’d govern righteously and so be blessed by God. So prayer for God’s order—peace being the rightly ordering of all things under King Jesus Christ—this prayer is an important thing. It is good and acceptable in the sight of God our savior. How much time do we spend in prayer for those in authority that they be guided and directed by God’s word or for all men. And yet the scriptures say hold on to this. This is a good thing. And our passage says to hold on to what is good. These prayer activities.

And then fourth, holiness in all thoughts and actions. 1 Corinthians 10:31, “Whatever you eat or drink, whatsoever you do, do all to the glory of God.” Repeating this principle that evaluation affects all things, including what we eat and drink.

And then Philippians 4:8, “whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, if there be any praise, think on these things.”

These are good thoughts. So the good things we’re talking about here, generally stated, apply to the home, to the church, to the state, and to the workplace. They apply to what we do in each of those spheres, but they also apply to our thoughts and all of our actions in these spheres as well. This is very important, this last one, Philippians 4:8, because it means that God wants us to be evaluating our very thoughts themselves.

We’re supposed to think God’s thoughts after him, reflectively after him. And that means that we’re supposed to be evaluating what thoughts we have. Are these good thoughts or these bad thoughts? What does the word of God say about what I’m thinking about this person or this activity or this thing? And based upon that evaluation, then I evaluate that thought and I either hold on to it. I think these things according to Philippians 4:8, or we’ll see on the negative side, evil thoughts are to be cast far off.

But the good thoughts are to be held on to and grasped and held. This is important because I think so often today people think that their thoughts are just things that happen. You know, chemical reactions of the brain. You just kind of think things you have no control. But the scriptures say you are to control them. And if you understand that these are part of the good things we’re to hold on to, God has given us his spirit that we might evaluate our thoughts correctly, that the spirit might empower us to hold on to good thoughts and to fill our minds with these good things.

And if you don’t do these things, then you’re going to have big trouble trying to apply the actions because you know these thoughts are the beginnings of actions in our lives. This is important. What it means is that when we see good things that cause us to think good thoughts, these things are the things we held on to and cherished.

Okay, but let’s look at some of the negative things now. And the list is longer. You notice that? And they’re more specific. And it’s interesting that in scripture it seems that the good and some people have commented on this—we’re supposed to hold fast that which is good and abstain from every appearance of evil. Appearance of evil tends to make appearances in a great variety of activities. Lots of different manifestations.

The good is more united than that somehow. It’s more holistic if you will. But any event, here are some of the specific negative things we held far off from us.

Envy. Matthew 20:15, “Is it not lawful for me to do with what I will with my own? Is thine eye evil because I am good.” We’re talking here about evil things. And if they’re evil, they’re supposed to be held far off. And the term evil eye in the scriptures relates to envy.

What’s going on here is people saying, “Well, you paid him more than you paid me. I worked the same amount of time. Therefore, I’m upset.” And he’s saying, “Hey, what are you doing envious here for what that guy has? You want me to take away what he has? You know, I’m only going to pay you this much. And you know, he got more, so you want me to take away from him what he’s got.” That’s envy. Envy says, “You have what I can’t get. I don’t want you to have it either.” And the Bible says that is one of the great evils that we are supposed to hold far away from ourselves. Evaluate interactions to see if perhaps one of the things we’re doing is we’re reacting against something that somebody else has that we can’t have. And if we get even close to that kind of activity in our life, shun it. Get far from it. Push it far away from you. Those sorts of thinking.

You think, “Oh, this guy has this money, this job, this whatever it is, this position in life. I can’t have it. Maybe he shouldn’t have it either.” Get far away from those thoughts. Envy is one of the evils to be held far off from what we do.

Sloth. Matthew 25:26, “His Lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and faithless slothful servant. Thou knowest that I reap where I sowed not and gathered where I have not strawed.” And what’s going on here is he’s given people talents, gifts. He comes back and one of the guys said, “I better keep this safe.” So, he hides it in a hole in the ground. Essentially, he doesn’t add value to what the master has given to him. God gives us things to add value to. And if we don’t add value, we don’t exercise dominion, we are slothful. But worse than that, we are evil. This is the same word wicked here. Slothfulness is not just a little problem in our lives.

It is a wickedness and an evil according to God’s word to stays far away from. And if you find yourself not engaging in the task God has given to you, whether it’s a church or in your home or in your business or relative to the civil magistrate, if you find yourself becoming slothful and not adding value to what God has given to you, that is an evil. Get far away from that kind of attitude and action.

And of course, the only way to get far away is to do what’s proper and right, to exercise dominion, to take a hold and engage in whatever it is.

I’ve mentioned this before. I know it can be some people are saying, “you know, it can produce a lot of guilt.” I’m sure it can. I’m sure it should in my life and other people’s lives as well. Our families is an immediate area of application here. We must take what our families give to us as talents. And if at the end of that time we haven’t added value—when our Lord returns, either when he returns or when we go to him in death and the judgment happens—and he tells us “you had a nice family there and you did an okay job. You got them to read their Bibles occasionally, but basically all you did is you put that family and you just sort of let it happen and you didn’t actively work to increase the giftings and abilities of that family.”

And if you do that or you fail to do that, actually better way to put it, then God says that is an evil activity and he’s liable to tell you “you’ve been a wicked and slothful servant” in that area of your life producing many tears, much pain, much pain for us. The word of God says we’re supposed to keep far away from a failure to be adding value to the talents that we have or our family has, the church has, etc.

That’s an evil that’s to be greatly avoided. And the only way to avoid it is to do what’s right in terms of those callings.

Third, improper toleration and love. “But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore, put away from among yourselves that wicked person.” To place the priority of friendships obviously above the priorities we have to God is evil. It’s not just a problem in your life. It is evil according to God’s word. And to fail on the basis of friendships or whatever it is or a misguided sense of grace, whatever it is, an improper sense of toleration or supposed love, quote unquote, to fail to deal with people that are wicked in the context of the church is wickedness and evil in and of itself. And so God wants us to hold far off from that kind of improper toleration or love one for the other. It’s an amazing thing the friendships we can have with the kinds of people that sometimes we have those friendships with.

We have a tremendous ability as the world does for toleration of all kinds of wickedness in the scriptures. But God says don’t be tolerant in that case. Don’t be tolerant in that sense. Put it far off away from you.

Ungodly discrimination. James 2:4, “Are you not then partial in yourselves and have become judges of evil thoughts?” What’s going on here? And this is talking about the church. You got poor people coming in. You got rich people coming in. The poor person, you say, “Well, go ahead and get a seat in the back.” The rich guy, you usher him in, say, “Here, get a real nice seat up front here so you can be part of this worship service and hear the word of God preached.” An unhealthy and ungodly discrimination between poor and rich is an evil thing. God says that if you’re partial in relationship—