Well, good morning, brothers and sisters. Praise the Lord.
Have you ever prepared for something, or meditated upon something for months and months, and God, at the last second, came to you and changed it? “No, you are not going to share this.”
Well, that has happened. I have been meditating upon one of these thoughts for about eight or nine months, since the conference. Wherever I see that phrase or word, I quickly go back to my meditation, or note it down and see what God is trying to speak to me, or how I can include it in that message.
But sometimes that kind of meditation is important for you, not to teach or preach, but for your own sake. I thank and praise God that He has given me the chance to meditate upon it.
Today, I want to share a little testimony of how God turned me back to share this message today.
About two or three weeks ago, I had a dream. In that dream, one of the sisters from our fellowship, Betian—I took her permission, so she knows I am going to mention her name—we were gathered in a small gathering, and she was saying, “There is something in Acts. You need to study about this, but the main focus is in 1 Timothy, the letters to Timothy.”
I woke up that day and read a couple of chapters of 1 Timothy. I said, “Lord, if this is the topic You want me to speak on, I am not sure how I can include it in the topic I am already meditating on.”
With my human power and everything, I tried to include it or fit it into the topic I was trying to share, but it never settled. It never gave me comfort. I had been unsettled. I did not know what to do. I was asking my wife to pray for me, and I was praying for myself in my daily prayers. It never settled, even until last Friday, the day before yesterday.
On Friday, I usually fast in the morning. I woke up and texted my team that I was not going to work that day. By God’s grace, it worked out because it gave me some free time.
I woke up and read the Bible. That day, my daily portion was 1 Timothy again. I started reading it and completed the six chapters, and God gave me the thought. Then I continued into 2 Timothy; I did not stop at the first letter. God gave me thoughts, and the thoughts were pouring out. Within ten or fifteen minutes, my whole message framework had been built up. Praise the Lord.
So that is the message. I am sure that God wants to speak to every one of us today, including me, through this message and this thought. Let us commit this time into our Lord’s hands and ask Him to help us hear His voice.
Living and loving heavenly Father, we thank You for giving us this day and this time to gather around Your name. We thank You for the time You have given us to worship, O Lord.
We commit this time into Your hands. Open up all our senses, Lord, so that we can hear Your sweet, still voice and understand the burden that You have for us today. We commit this time into Your hands, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Let us turn our Bibles to 1 Timothy 6:20-21. I am sure we all have Bibles, so let us open them and read.
O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you.
Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge;
for by professing it some have swerved from the faith.
Grace be with you.
Let us also turn to 2 Timothy 1:14.
By the Holy Spirit Who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you.
I am sure you may have heard on this topic—“Guard the deposit entrusted to you”—many times. But God wants to speak with us again today on this subject.
Let me give you a little context. In what condition was Paul when he wrote these two letters, 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy? Let us try to understand Paul’s situation when he wrote them.
I did some research, and there are different timelines suggested between these two letters, but there may have been a gap of about three to seven years between 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy. Paul was in very different circumstances during these times. In those three to seven years, much had changed in the ministry life of Paul.
When Paul wrote the first letter, he might have been imprisoned, or he might have been released from his first imprisonment. He was writing to Timothy, mainly focusing on the church at Ephesus and how Timothy needed to lead the church. Even though Timothy was experienced, Paul was guiding him to lead the church.
Paul personally knew that he had a future to look toward when he wrote 1 Timothy. In those circumstances, he wrote, “O Timothy, guard the deposit that has been entrusted to you.”
In 2 Timothy, Paul was in anguish. He was suffering. He did not know whether there would be a future, because he had been imprisoned. His own people had abandoned him. He was alone, suffering, and he knew death was coming for him. They were going to martyr him because he was following Jesus Christ.
Even though he was suffering like that, he said again, “O Timothy, guard the good deposit entrusted to you.” But the second time, notice the difference: through the Holy Spirit, Timothy was to guard the good deposit entrusted to him.
Today, as we look into this, let us look to the Holy Spirit Who has also been given to us, and ask Him to help us understand this burden that God has for us.
Paul was in two different circumstances, but his message to Timothy was the same: he needed to guard the good deposit.
Now, what is this good deposit that Paul is speaking about? Brothers and sisters, this is how the Holy Spirit works. I was really struggling to explain in one sentence what this good deposit is that has been entrusted to you and me.
If it was entrusted to Timothy, it has also been entrusted to us, right? Paul is teaching every one of us—the whole church, the universal church.
This morning, Brother Kenny stood here and said, “The redemption of the soul is costly.” That is it. That is the good deposit.
Through the gospel, through the blood of Jesus Christ—which is very costly—He has bought us, and He has given us the good gospel to save and guard. That is the good deposit.
The redemption of the soul is costly. If something very costly has been given to us, and we know that it is costly, how careful we have to be!
If America is storing gold somewhere in a bank, what is the security for that? It is very tight security. No one can enter. But the gospel, the blood of Jesus Christ, is even more costly than all the gold and minerals on this earth. It is costly, and we need to protect it. We need to guard it, because it has been entrusted to us.
What is a deposit? It is something that one person has placed in trust for another person’s safekeeping.
God not only shed His blood for us and cleansed our sins; He also entrusted this deposit to us: the gospel, our salvation through that gospel, and the Christian faith and truth that have been given to us.
But the current world situation is abnormal. It is very difficult for us to guard this good deposit given to us—the gospel, the Christian faith, and the truth.
We know Whom we have believed in: the Lord Jesus Christ. We are fully convinced that He is able to keep us until the day He comes back. He is able to keep us blameless until the day He comes back for us. But it is difficult to live in this world, in this fleshly body, and guard the good deposit given to us.
Our Lord Jesus entrusted this good deposit to us, knowing who we are and what we are. This good deposit becomes part of ourselves because it is living in us. God’s truth is living in us. The good news is living in us.
That means we need to protect ourselves from this abnormal world around us: our faith in the Lord, our life, everything that concerns us, our love for Him, and our total, complete commitment to Him.
Paul knew that his suffering was for this deposit entrusted to him. That is why he earnestly asked Timothy again and again, in both situations, to guard that deposit.
Many people were ashamed of Paul’s sufferings. Many abandoned him. But Paul was faithful to the Lord because he knew the importance of this good deposit—the truth given to him through Jesus Christ. He instructed Timothy, and us as well, to guard that good deposit.
The good deposit is not only the gospel or the truth in Christ Jesus. It also includes the word that God has given to us. John 1:1 says that Jesus is the Word. The Word comforts us; it speaks livingly and reveals things concerning us personally, as well as concerning the church.
It is very important to guard the good, sound word in this world. In this abnormal world today, everyone is speaking. Everyone is uploading videos online. Everyone is doing some kind of ministry, whether it is good or wrong.
It is very easy to get lost in that kind of world and lose the way—to be unable to see what is correct and what is wrong. It is especially difficult for younger ones.
That is why I want the younger ones here today to listen to this. It is very easy to get lost in the online world, and you may not be able to decide what is correct and what is wrong. You need to be careful. You need to understand, and you need to follow your elders. Take guidance from those who are older than you.
The third aspect of the deposit is the revelation that comes through reading the Word. Not only is reading the Word important, but so is the revelation that Jesus Christ gives us through the Word—the revelation as the Holy Spirit opens the Word to us.
We need to understand the revelation. We need to protect it. We need to know whether it is coming from the Lord or from another source.
So we have seen what the deposit is:
We need to protect these things.
But what is contrary to this deposit? There are several contradictions to it, and one is knowledge. This is what Paul clearly mentions in 1 Timothy 6:20:
Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge.
Adam and Eve wanted this knowledge. They disobeyed the Lord to gain it. This knowledge is very dangerous.
If the knowledge we have is only about doctrine, traditions, teaching, or preaching, then it is only good for normal times, when everything is going well. It will not help you or keep you closer to God when conditions are bad and when you are going through suffering.
We need to be aware whether what we have is the good deposit given to us, or merely knowledge that we are acquiring for ourselves. In abnormal and difficult times, we are bound to fall into pitfalls if we are drawing closer to knowledge rather than to the good deposit God has given us.
Why is this deposit important and essential to us? Yes, it is costly, and the gospel is important because it keeps and protects us. But why is it essential for us to draw near to this good deposit?
It becomes vital in our lives so that we are not shaken when God shakes the things that are not His.
Brothers and sisters, God is going to destroy what is not His in this world. If you are not close to Him, and if you do not know what is good and what is wrong, you will be shaken.
Instead of knowledge, we need to be sure about the deposit. If God is shaking this world, we should not be shaken. We should stand strong so that His kingdom stands strong on this earth when other things are falling apart.
Let me give you an example of how standing strong relates to every one of us, especially those who lead a flock and minister to others.
This is an actual event, though I am using it as an analogy. In 1962, in India, a dam was built. It was a large dam, about thirty to thirty-five feet high, built to hold rainwater so that it could be used.
In those days, after a dam was built, they usually waited six months for it to settle down and become strong before using it. But the engineers who built this dam were so confident in their work that they began using it right away.
At first, everything was good. Everything seemed strong, and it was being used properly. But when the heavier rains came, the dam began to crack, and water started to leak.
They tried everything to stop the leak, applying cement, iron sheets, and so on. But they were not able to stop it. They went to have lunch, and within five minutes the whole dam collapsed. We do not know how many people lost their lives.
We should never be confident in our own work for the Lord. We need to be sure that we are doing it according to the will and purpose of the Lord. If it fails, not only we will be damaged, but also all the people around us to whom we are ministering.
That is the greater responsibility we have. This is why it is essential to get closer to the deposit rather than to knowledge, so that the people depending on our ministry and service will not be affected.
As the coming of the Lord draws near, the whole world will be shaken. To withstand that, we need to be sure of the deposit entrusted to us, so that we will be prepared. As a result, His kingdom will not be shaken.
We have talked about the deposit for some time. Now we need to understand why it has been entrusted to us. God is so powerful that He can guard it Himself. He can keep it. Why, then, does God desire that we work with Him and entrust that deposit to us?
Let us turn to 2 Timothy 2:4.
No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him.
As a soldier, the soldier’s aim is to please the one who enlisted him. But the soldier must first be enlisted.
God enlisted us to protect the deposit given to us. He is able to keep it and protect it by Himself, but He is looking for fellowship. He is looking for us to take up responsibility. So He enlisted us as believers in Christ.
If you believe in Christ Jesus, you are enlisted. It does not matter whether you are serving, speaking, or doing something visible. If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, you are enlisted to keep this deposit, understand this deposit, and draw closer to it.
Once you are enlisted and have accepted that responsibility, there should be qualifications for that soldier. Timothy is an example, or a kind of role model, of a soldier who was enlisted.
Let us look at Timothy’s qualifications and understand what we can gain from his example.
In 2 Timothy 1:5, Paul says:
I am reminded of your sincere faith.
Paul is speaking about Timothy. Timothy had sincere faith, like his mother and grandmother. He was sincere enough that Paul wanted to give him the responsibility of leading the whole church.
Are we sincere in faith as Timothy was?
The second qualification is found in 1 Thessalonians 3:2:
We sent Timothy, our brother and God’s coworker in the gospel of Christ, to establish and exhort you in your faith.
How does Paul describe Timothy? As God’s coworker in the gospel of Christ. Are we coworkers in the gospel of Christ? Yes, we should be. That is the responsibility given to us. But are we acting in sincere faith to work for the gospel and for His kingdom?
I want to take this time to challenge especially the younger ones.
Let us turn to 2 Timothy 4:2.
Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.
Are we ready in season and out of season? Let me give one example. God forbid, if something happened to me and I was unable to come here today to stand before you and preach, who among you would be ready to come here and share God’s food? Can I see any hands? Are you ready?
Perhaps not to preach, but what about breaking bread or opening the time? Are you ready? Are you prepared to share God’s Word if something comes up and the brother who was planned to serve cannot come?
We are so dependent on our planning that we do not even think about this. But our plans are bound to fail unless the Lord keeps those plans. Let us not be so confident in our plans.
I was listening to one of Brother Khan’s messages, and he shared a testimony. When he was young and working with Brother Nee, Brother Nee was sick. Every Sunday, Brother Khan had to go prepared with a message because he never knew when Brother Nee would say, perhaps thirty minutes or one hour before the meeting, “Brother Khan, you are going to share the Sunday message.”
So Brother Khan had to be prepared every single Sunday.
You can understand how difficult that training was. But we have reaped the fruit of the training Brother Khan received because he was ready every single Sunday.
If you and I are prepared like that, how much more fruit can we bear when we go into this world? You may not get an opportunity right here, because God is gracious and may bless our plans. But what if you are moved to another place?
We are comfortable here, where believers surround us. But what happens if there are no believers around you and you have to take responsibility to lead a flock or the younger generation?
This is the challenge given to us, brothers and sisters. Are we being prepared? Are we taking the good deposit and accepting the responsibility of a soldier enlisted to please the One Who enlisted us?
As we serve, are we examining ourselves? Are we serving merely as normal service, or are we serving with reverence, prepared to take responsibility whenever it is needed? You never know when that responsibility will come.
I am not saying this only about preaching or teaching, and I am not leaving out the sisters who are sitting there. For husbands to come up here and share, the work of their wives is very important. They are taking care of them.
For a husband to be prepared every Sunday, his wife has to pray for him so that he can be prepared. It is a collective effort. It is not just the brothers doing all the work. A lot is going on behind the scenes.
It is a collective responsibility given to us so that we can draw closer to the deposit, keep that deposit, and take up the responsibility entrusted to us.
Why do we need to guard what has been entrusted to us? Because it can be lost, snatched away, or misused. A thief can come and take what has been given to us.
I will give you three reasons, though there may be many more.
The first reason is to protect ourselves from ourselves. We, as human beings living in this bodily flesh, need to protect ourselves from our flesh.
In 2 Timothy 3:1-9, Paul instructs Timothy about the self-love he sees among people:
Lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control.
All these things relate to ourselves, not somebody else. We need to be very careful and protect ourselves from ourselves.
It is easy to follow the Lord and love the Lord when you are surrounded by believers. They can be your protection. They can see what is happening in your life. That is what fellowship is. Those relationships draw close to you and can warn you when the time comes.
But what happens if you go to college, or if you move to an island as John did? Who is going to keep you from falling? It is God.
We need to understand that we ourselves are enemies to ourselves as long as we are in this bodily flesh, on this earth, until the Lord comes. But God has given us the ability to look to Him so that the Holy Spirit can protect us when we are going wrong. We need to be sensitive to respond to the Holy Spirit.
The second reason is so that we do not swerve from the truth, and so that we protect others from falling.
In 1 Timothy 6:21, Paul says:
By professing it some have swerved from the faith.
By professing knowledge instead of the deposit, some have swerved from the faith. If you read the opening chapters of 1 Timothy, you can see false teachers, wrong doctrines, and wrong teachings going on in Ephesus.
We need to protect ourselves from those kinds of teachings, including the online teachings that are everywhere today. Do not consume everything you find. Validate it. Take guidance from your elders, who have gone before you and have experience.
You might think you know it all, but that is not correct. Experience matters because God has taught them through the years. We need to respect that experience and take that guidance.
Do not consume everything in the name of knowledge and think you have gained everything or know everything. It is dangerous. Guard yourselves and guard the deposit entrusted to you.
It can also bring the downfall of people around us. As soon as we learn something, the human tendency is to share it with someone. Until you share that knowledge or new thing, you may not be settled, because you want people to think, “Oh, he knows so much. She knows so much.”
We need to protect ourselves from that. That is humility. Validate whatever you are learning, and take the help of the elders around you.
Then it will not result in the irreverent babble Paul mentions in 2 Timothy 2:16. Those who follow this kind of knowledge can cause irreverent babble, which is not good at all. We need to draw closer to the sound doctrine given to us.
Please do not misunderstand me: I am not saying doctrine is wrong. Doctrine is not wrong. As Brother Dana Congdon said in a conference message last year, doctrine is important as long as it brings light—so long as you see the light doctrine brings instead of remaining under its shadow.
We have seen the importance of the deposit, what the deposit is, why it has been entrusted to us, and why we need to guard it. Now the question is: how do we guard it, and what happens if we do not?
As I said, we will swerve from faith. We will not know what truth is, what is wrong, and what is correct.
The most dangerous thing is found in 1 Timothy 1:20. Paul speaks about people who have rejected a good conscience and made shipwreck of their faith:
Among whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme.
“Handed over to Satan” is a very serious phrase. We know what happened when Saul in the Old Testament was handed over to Satan. He never came back.
But our Lord is gracious. Even if people have been handed over to Satan, they can still come back if they recognize what they have been doing wrong. God will never say no to those who repent, confess, and understand their mistakes. He has opened the door for everyone. He can bring them back.
But we should not be in that position in the first place. We should not be handed over to Satan. So we need to be careful. That is what can happen if we do not guard the deposit entrusted to us.
There are many things you can study about how to guard the deposit. If you read 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy, you can find ten different points, not only the points I am mentioning now. If you study it yourself, God may reveal many things.
But I want to touch on a few things.
Submit yourself to the Lord. Period.
In everything you do, submit yourself to the Lord. Ask God to teach you: “Lord, is this correct or wrong? Am I going in the right direction or the wrong direction?”
When God speaks to you, there is no spectrum. It is not, “It might be this, or it might be that.” No. There is no “might.” It is black and white: yes or no.
In every decision and every single thing, ask the Lord, “Lord, is this correct? Is this what You want me to do?”
The second thing is found in 2 Timothy 1:12:
This is why I suffer as I do, but I am not ashamed; for I know Whom I have believed, and I am convinced that He is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me.
Paul was not ashamed. He was going through suffering. Everyone had abandoned him. The whole of Asia had abandoned him, as he says later in that chapter. But Paul was not ashamed of his suffering.
Whenever you are going through difficult times, brothers and sisters, you should not be ashamed, because God is preparing you. God is preparing you. He is mending you so that you can work for Him as He intends.
We should not be ashamed of suffering, and we should not be ashamed of the gospel in us. We should not be ashamed to share with people and boldly say, “I am a follower of Jesus Christ.”
No matter what kind of persecution it brings into your life, do not be ashamed to say that you are a child of God.
The third thing is found in 2 Timothy 1:13:
Follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.
It is not faith and love in Paul, your spouse, your friends, or your elders. It is faith and love in Christ Jesus. You need to hold the pattern of sound words given to you.
First, concentrate on the Word. Second, concentrate on the teachings of the elders around you. As I said, we need to follow our elders so that we can be prepared, trained, and mended according to the will of the Lord.
The fourth thing is very important. At the beginning, I mentioned the difference between 1 Timothy 6:20-21 and 2 Timothy 1:14: the Holy Spirit.
By the guidance and leading of the Holy Spirit, we can guard the deposit given to us.
By the Holy Spirit Who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you.
If the Holy Spirit is dwelling in you, He is readily available whenever you ask. “Lord, teach me. Show me what is wrong and what is correct so that I can guard the deposit You have entrusted to me.”
We need to depend on the Holy Spirit and His leading. All we need to do is cooperate with the Holy Spirit instead of quenching the Holy Spirit through the deeds and habits of our fleshly body.
We need to yield ourselves to the Holy Spirit and give Him complete control so that He can speak to us. The Holy Spirit is God. He connects us with the Lord and shows us the Lord’s purpose for our lives.
Let the Holy Spirit rule over our lives—in every decision and in everything given to us.
The final thing is this: never trust our flesh, in which there is no good. Never trust the flesh.
The fleshly desires may say, “This might be correct. This plan might work out. This decision might be correct. It is okay if I do not know what God intends me to do here. It is okay if I go there because it will help my salary, my future, or whatever it is.”
But you do not know what will happen tomorrow, and you do not know where you will be tomorrow.
Never trust your flesh or the decisions you make in your flesh. To understand what is a fleshly decision and what is the decision of the Holy Spirit, you need to draw closer to God. If you are not close to God, you will never be able to understand what is correct and what is wrong.
That is why it is most important to walk by the guidance and leading of the Holy Spirit.
You may say, “Brother, this is all good. If I wake up tomorrow, get closer to God, and follow all these things, will everything in my life be smooth? Will I walk on a smooth road for the rest of my life?”
No, it will not be. If you draw closer to God and try to guard the deposit given to you, your life may become tougher. Let me say it plainly: it may become tougher.
You will face challenges in guarding the good deposit. The first thing is spiritual warfare. If you try to do the good thing, or the right thing according to the will and purpose of the Lord, Satan will attack.
If you are not willing to accept that, that is fine with me, but that is what will happen.
That is why you need the fellowship of the Lord around you. That is why you need the church. If you are alone, you are bound to be attacked.
God has given you brothers and sisters, young and old, wise and knowledgeable, who can pray for you. That is why we need to understand the work of fellowship and why the church is important in our lives. We fight this warfare not by ourselves, but with the support of the church.
You may be abandoned by your own people for doing the correct thing. That happened in the life of Paul: the whole of Asia abandoned him, as recorded in 2 Timothy 1:15.
But that is where our brothers and sisters in Christ help us through fellowship, prayer, accountability, helping one another in need, and praying whenever we are in difficulty.
You may face challenges and spiritual warfare, but you have the church to support you. Start trusting your church and lean on the church God has placed you in.
Let me close with this thought. We have seen what the deposit is, why it is important to us, and the importance of guarding it. Every one of us is enlisted to receive this entrusting from God.
It is not just one person’s job, or a couple of elders’ job, to guard this deposit. When we speak in terms of the church and fellowship, it is not the job of one person or a few people. It is everyone’s collective effort—young and old, everyone in the church—to guard the deposit entrusted to us.
Older brothers and sisters should learn how to entrust the younger generation. Younger brothers and sisters should be ready to learn from them. There is a mutual connection and a shared responsibility among every one of us and every generation in the church.
It is a collective responsibility. Our responsibility is to guard the deposit entrusted to us.
Let me close with this prayer. I request everyone to turn to Jude 24-25. Let us read these verses together.
However difficult it is to guard this deposit, God has promised us and given us living, eternal hope. The good deposit may be costly, but God has given us His support. He has promised that He will keep us and protect us until the day He returns.
Now unto Him that is able to keep you from stumbling,
and to set you before the presence of His glory without blemish in exceeding joy,
to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord,
be glory, majesty, dominion and power,
before all time, and now, and for evermore. Amen.