Necessary Reminders — Part One
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Necessary Reminders — Part One

 (ID: 3007)

When Paul commended Timothy for his “sincere faith,” what did he mean? Alistair Begg emphasizes that faith is not about simply giving mental assent to facts. Rather, faith is a certainty in the promises of God and a commitment to the one who made them. Such sincere faith isn’t something we can manifest ourselves; it is only made possible through God’s initiative-taking grace and is grounded in Jesus. Do you have that kind of faith?

Series Containing This Sermon

A Study in 2 Timothy, Volume 1

Guard the Truth 2 Timothy 1:1–2:2 Series ID: 15502


Sermon Transcript: Print

I invite you to turn to Paul’s second letter to Timothy and to chapter 1, and we’ll read together the first seven verses:

“Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God according to the promise of … life that is in Christ Jesus,

“To Timothy, my beloved child:

“Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

“I thank God whom I serve, as did my ancestors, with a clear conscience, as I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day. As I remember your tears, I long to see you, that I may be filled with joy. I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well. For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands, for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.”

Amen.

O God, in light of all that we have said and sung, grant that the words of our mouths and the mediation of our hearts may be found acceptable in your sight, O Lord our strength and our Redeemer.[1] Amen.

Well, the verses to which I should like to draw your attention are verses 5, 6, and 7 from this opening paragraph of 2 Timothy 1. We have set the scene by acknowledging that Paul is writing from a dungeon in Rome. His authority is established in his apostleship. The intimacy of his relationship with Timothy, to whom he writes, is clear. The adequacy of the resources necessary for the task that falls to Timothy has been established in verse 2: “grace,” and “mercy, and peace.” And in and through all of that there is in this letter a sense of urgency—an urgency that is born of the fact that Paul is facing death. And his impending death is, if you like, clarifying for him the issues of life. All that remains to him is the time that he has day by day.

And so, as he writes to Timothy, he is concerned that Timothy—since Paul is about to depart, and since some have already defected from the faith and others are apparently going to do the same—it is absolutely imperative that Timothy keeps his head and fulfills his ministry.[2] And the genuine affection of Paul for this man comes out again and again. He refers to him there, you will note, in verse 2, as his “beloved child.” In verse 3, he tells him that he prays for him consistently. And in verse 4, he makes it clear to him that he misses him dreadfully. And by the time we get to chapter 4, he will be calling out to him, as it were, from his letter, “Come to me quickly. Come and see me. I’m desperate to see you.”[3]

“Sincere Faith”

Now, Paul has opportunity for reminiscing, given where he is and the time that he has to spend. And he remembers Timothy’s tears, and as he ponders Timothy’s relationship with him, he highlights one particular area—namely, in verse 5, he says, “I am reminded of your sincere faith.” “Of your sincere faith.” There was nothing flimflam about this, nothing routine, nothing that marked of hypocrisy, but it was something that went right into the core of Timothy’s being. This was not unique to Timothy, as Paul points out. His grandmother and his mother had also been converted. The possibility is that they were converted when Paul had first visited their hometown—recorded in Acts 14—but we don’t have the details of what led to them coming to trust in Jesus.

It may be that their circumstances were not dissimilar to one of whom Luke writes in Acts chapter 16, when Paul and the others have gone to a place of prayer in Philippi, and there they encounter a group of women—religious women, people who are interested in engaging with God, certainly interested in attending a time of prayer. And one in particular stands out; her name is Lydia. And Luke tells us that this lady Lydia “was a worshiper of God.”[4] Now, for some of us that is sufficient. That is, that would be fine, just to say, “Well, we worship God. And so that explains who we are and what we are. That must mean that we believe everything that there is to believe in the Bible about God and about Jesus and so on.”

But in actual fact, although Lydia was a worshipper of God, she didn’t know who Jesus was. She didn’t understand what Jesus had done. She didn’t realize that Jesus had died to be her Savior. And Luke actually tells us that as Paul explained the story concerning Jesus, “the Lord opened her heart”[5] to Paul’s message, and she was converted. She went down to the riverside as a worshipper of God; she came back as a believer in Jesus. A divine transaction had taken place. Volume one: worshipper of God. Volume two: someone who has come to trust in and follow Jesus. In fact, Luke tells us that she very quickly got baptized as a portrayal of this change that had taken place in her life.[6]

And that’s why baptism is so significant, because it is such a dramatic affair. A couple of weeks ago, when the little children were here, somebody wrote to me to say, “Thank you for allowing the children to see that, because it anchors in their minds, ‘Something very significant has taken place’”: “Why is this teenager standing in there in the water up to their chest in water with Pastor Begg?” or whoever else it is. And then listening as their story is told: “Volume one of my life: I was a stranger to God and to his grace. I met Jesus Christ. He broke into my life. And volume two, I’ve become a follower of Jesus, and I’m here tonight to let everybody know who Jesus is and what he means to me.”

Now, the way in which Paul describes this, you will notice, is by use of a verb: that this “sincere faith” has found a dwelling place in Lois, a dwelling place in Eunice, and a dwelling place in Timothy. Now, this is a favorite way that Paul speaks of what it means to be a Christian. He uses terminology about being “in Christ” and also—simultaneously, often—about Christ being in us. So, for example, when he writes to the church at Rome, as he speaks about the difference that has taken place in them being justified by faith and no longer under condemnation, he says, “You … are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you.”[7] “Dwells in you.” That God, by the Holy Spirit, comes to invade and live in and control a life.

The cause of this transformation is grace; the conduit, or the instrument, of the transformation is faith; and the ground of the transformation is Jesus.

If you’re C. S. Lewis fans, you will recall that C. S. Lewis said that when he came to trust in Christ, he did not bargain for the fact that there would be a lot of reconstruction work that was going to be done in his life. He thought that Jesus would come, and his life would just be kind of like a humble and a happy little cottage. And then, he said, all of a sudden, the Holy Spirit went to work in him with hammers and chisels and drills and all kinds of things, and he realized that what was happening was that he was going to take this humble cottage of his life and turn it into a glorious mansion, fit for the King who had come to dwell within him.[8] Now, this is something vastly different from simply saying, “Well, I believe in God,” or “I worship God.” And this was true of Timothy too. Paul actually went on to say in Romans 8, “Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.”[9] Very straightforward, isn’t it?

Now, Timothy’s sincere faith was in Christ. It was by grace. It was through faith. All sincere faith is. And I want to remind you of two well-known, very important verses regarding that, first in Romans chapter 5 and the opening two verses, and then in Ephesians chapter 2. You’ll anticipate them, I’m sure. Paul writes, “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand.” In Ephesians 2, he puts it somewhat differently but is affirming the same fact when, in verse 8 and verse 9, he says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not [the] result of works, so that no one may boast.”

In other words, the cause of this transformation is grace; the conduit, or the instrument, of the transformation is faith; and the ground of the transformation is Jesus. Do you get that? That this faith that came to dwell in Lois and Eunice and Timothy and had invaded Paul’s life was a result of the initiative of God, who in his grace came to seek them out. The instrument whereby grace became personal and life-changing was faith. And it was not faith just in something, but it was faith in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s why the great cry of the Reformation was affirming these things: “Grace alone,” through “faith alone,” in “Christ alone.” And when we speak in terms of faith, when we try and make it understandable to our children, we tell them that faith is simply the empty hand that reaches out to receive the gift that only God can give. Did you get that? We bring nothing to our salvation except the sin for which we need forgiveness. Faith is an empty hand extended to receive the gift from the Father which only he provides. For Christ is the Savior.

Now, I want to pause on this a moment or two this morning, because I’m not sure (I cannot be sure) that everybody gets this. I’m fearful that even in the rehearsing of the catechism, some may have deduced that genuine faith, sincere faith, is simply giving mental assent to facts—so, to be able to say, “What is God?”; to be able to say, “God is the creator and sustainer of everyone and everything,”[10] and so on. Say, “Well, okay, that’s good. It’s good to be able to affirm that.” But the factuality of that and our ability to affirm it and verbalize it and give mental assent to it should not be confused with genuine, sincere, believing faith.

Jim Packer puts it very helpfully when he says in genuine faith, in sincere faith, two things are crucial. One is credence—that is, believing the promises—and the other is commitment to the one who makes the promises.[11] Do you get that? So, there is the believing of the promise; there is the commitment to the one who makes the promise. Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life. [He that] believes in me, [even] though he die, yet shall he live, and [whosoever] lives and believes in me [will] never die.” And then he asks the question, “Do you believe this?”[12] And somebody could say, “Well, yes, I affirm that. Mentally, I affirm that.” But it involves not simply the credence but the commitment.

Now, at a very basic level we understand this, don’t we? I mean, I could bring to you a menu from one of the local restaurants here and tell you what’s on for the starters and what’s on for the main course and what you can get for your dessert. I suppose I could go into a whole series of descriptions of it all and never have eaten a meal there in my entire life—simply just giving mental assent to it all. I can give you the train timetables for how to get from London Euston up to Leeds in Yorkshire and never, ever go there myself. You can sit in here for a month of Sundays and recite the catechism and give mental assent to certain facts and yet never have committed your life to the one of whom the facts speak.

You see, when we pray, as we often do before we turn to the Scriptures,

Make the Book live to me, O Lord,
Show me yourself within your Word,
Show me myself and show me my Savior,
And make the Book live to me,[13]

what we’re actually asking there is for God the Holy Spirit to do what only he can do—that is, to convict us of the fact that we are sinful, to convince us that Jesus Christ is the Savior that we require, and then to convert us to bring about that divine transaction as a result of the initiative of his grace, as a result of the work of Christ, as a result of learning what we teach our children: F‑A‑I‑T‑H—“Forsaking all, I trust him.”

David Wells says when you ponder this, you realize the uniqueness of Christian faith—a uniqueness in contrast to every other religion and every other spirituality. I’m quoting him:

Faith is not simply faith in God. It is not about connecting to a power greater than ourselves in the world or, for that matter, in ourselves. It is not about [making a] private choice to be[come] spiritual. No, it is instead all about receiving God’s promises of redemption, about receiving them at the only place and in the only way that we can receive them. It is about coming through Christ to receive what the Father has for us in him … [as] we take hold of Christ, and of the promises made to us and received in him.[14]

So, what does that mean? Well, it means at least this: that the New Testament knows nothing of “faith in faith.” The New Testament knows nothing of faith as some blind leap into oblivion. The New Testament knows nothing of faith as a kind of esoteric, private, special little individualized conviction about spiritual things. The New Testament leaves no room at all for the idea that the gospel can be understood just in my own way: “I make it my own gospel; I decide how it works for me.” The New Testament leaves open to us no possibility of there being many roads that lead finally to God and to heaven. You must read the New Testament and see if I’m telling you the truth.

Timothy is going to be invited by Paul to join Paul in suffering for the gospel. If that gospel was as harmlessly accommodating and as theologically vague as so much that passes for gospel in our contemporary culture, then there would be no reason why Timothy would ever be concerned to suffer for it, because nobody would even care. Because if the story is “You find your way; I found mine. I’ve got a Jesus; you’ve got a Buddha. Who really cares? It doesn’t matter. Faith is faith”—if that’s the story, then there’s no reason to live for it, and there’s no reason to die for it. But Paul has already explained to Timothy—1 Timothy chapter 2—that “there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,” and that this God “desires all people to be saved and to come to [a] knowledge of the truth.”[15] He “desires all people to be saved.”

You see, we are such a therapeutic culture, now, that morality is virtually gone, isn’t it? There are no moral problems; they’re all therapeutic problems. It’s not that I’m a bad person; I’m just a misguided person. I just… I bumped my head, or somebody else did something to me. It can all be fixed in that way. And so, a therapeutic world wants a therapeutic gospel. And that’s what’s offered from many pulpits: “We’re so glad you came this morning. I hope you will leave feeling much better about yourself.” That’s a therapeutic story, isn’t it? “Let these songs just sort of pick you up a little bit. I hope that you will leave with a great sense of fulfillment. I hope that you will find that there is so much stuff available to you that you could rejoice in all of it whether it is that which makes you prosperous or not.” You can see: that’s Oprah Winfrey. That’s not the gospel. She made a fortune with that story! That’s Dr. Phil. That’s not the gospel. “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us”—and wants us to be really happy and wants us to be fulfilled and wants to fill the emptiness. No! “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us”—grace—“and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”[16]

Christ absorbs the wrath of God meted out against sin. Christ declares the love of God in being the very sacrifice that is so dreadfully required.

Now, this is so politically incorrect, what I’m telling you, that the ground ought to open up and swallow me: first, to suggest that “there is one God, and … one mediator between God and men,” which is what the Bible affirms; and then, secondly, to suggest that you could even use a word like “propitiation” on an average freezing-cold Sunday morning. But you’re sensible people. You want to know the right word, and it’s the right word! Christ absorbs the wrath of God meted out against sin. Christ declares the love of God in being the very sacrifice that is so dreadfully required. That is propitiation. We are alienated from God on two accounts: he is alienated from us on account of our sin; we are alienated from him. We need somebody to come in between to fix this predicament—not somebody just to make us feel better about our lives but somebody to secure our eternal destiny, somebody to make sense of this existence, somebody to explain what it means to live in a way that pleases God. And this is all wrapped up in this little phrase, “a sincere faith.” Can I ask you: Do you have this kind of sincere faith?

You know that my head is full of choruses and songs, but I’m so glad for every one of them. I think as I speak to you now of a song we used to sing as boys:

There is a way back to God from the dark paths of sin;
There’s a door that is open and you may go in:
It’s at Calvary’s cross, that’s where you begin,
When you come as a sinner to Jesus.[17]

Crossman in the seventeenth century—an Anglican cleric who was kind of a Puritan as well—wrote a majestic hymn that began,

My song is love unknown,
My Savior’s love to me,
Love to the loveless shown,
That [I] might lovely be.
Oh, who am I, that for my sake
[The] Lord should take frail flesh and die?[18]

See, the problem, loved ones, is this: that that question “Oh, who am I?” just has so many answers from our fat heads that we don’t really understand what Crossman is on about until the grace of God humbles us.

A couple of Sundays ago, I said to you that Perkins told the pastors of his day that they should keep in mind the various categories of people who are listening when the Bible is being taught. And I don’t suppose you remember any of them, but number four was this—and it may ring a bell for somebody here right now. Category number four: those who know what the gospel is—those who know what the gospel is—but have never been humbled to see their need of a Savior.[19] Credence with no commitment.

Can I ask you again: Do you have a sincere faith? You see what emerges from this opening statement by Paul? Amongst everything else, this is clear: Jesus changes lives. Jesus changes lives. Jesus changed the life of Saul of Tarsus; otherwise, there’d be no letter. He changed the life of Lois and of Eunice. He changed Timothy’s life, and he’s changed many of your lives as well. If I were to ask you, you could stand and say, “There was a volume one in my life, where I never knew any of this stuff. I never believed. I was a worshipper,” perhaps, or “I wasn’t a worshipper at all, but I certainly didn’t know this ‘grace through faith’ stuff in Jesus.”

We get lots of letters, as you know, for Truth For Life, and I read them, and I enjoy them. And some of them are daunting and challenging, and some of them are encouraging. And I picked up a cluster this morning, hoping that there would be a word of encouragement somewhere, and this was the opening sentence from a letter dated the eighteenth of January: “Pastor Begg, it was four and a half years ago that God saved me by opening my mind and heart to the truth of what I am, of who Jesus is, and of what he did for me on the cross.” I understand this. But he didn’t say, “Dear Pastor Begg, thank you so much for Truth For Life. It makes me feel so much happier.” Frankly, I get letters that say, “You’re driving me crazy, Pastor Begg. Why can’t you say something encouraging for once?”

“Fan into Flame the Gift of God”

Well, we must leave it there. We could stop here. If I was Billy Graham, we could just sing a hymn now, and everybody could come forward. But for now, let me go to my next point. I think we’ve got that clear, don’t we? “Sincere faith.” And on the basis of that sincere faith, then, in verse 6, he moves from his encouragement to his exhortation. “For this reason,” he says, “I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands.” Now, your best cross-reference on this is 1 Timothy 4:14, where it describes, I think, the same scene: when the elders laid their hands on Timothy, presumably as he was ordained to the gospel ministry. Certainly he was given some gift. The gift is not identified here, so this would be true of any gift. Whatever the gift is, this is what you’re supposed to do with it. He’s been equipped with the necessary resources for gospel ministry, and now he must see to it that, in the same way as it’s relatively easy to let a fire go out, he must make sure that this fire does not go out, but he fans into flame the gift of God.

Well, this is a fairly normal approach by Paul. He often speaks about making sure that we don’t lack in our zeal or lag in our zeal, that we keep our spiritual fervor, and so on[20]—that he must pay attention to these things; that his gift, which is a gift of grace, does not flourish automatically. I’m going to assume that this is the equipping of God for the ministry of pastoring. Therefore, he’s going to have to lead. He’s going to have to teach. He’s going to have to exhort. And so Paul is saying to him, “I don’t want you just to sit around in your study, Timothy, and just keep saying to yourself, ‘I have a gift, I have a gift.’” In fact, he says very clearly in the 1 Timothy passage that in relationship to this giftedness, he should, number one, “practice these things”; he should “immerse [him]self in them”; and he should do so in such a way that everybody would “see [his] progress.” “Practice,” “immerse,” so that people can “see your progress.”[21]

Wasn’t that fantastic last Sunday night? I’m not talking about the preaching. I wasn’t here. I’m sure it was. Five-foot-eleven-inches quarterback for Seattle. Wonderful! He has a gift. Do you think he practiced? Do you think he practiced a lot? For sure he did. Do you think there were other people even more gifted than him in some of the drafts? Yeah. Where are they, with all that giftedness? They didn’t practice. They didn’t immerse themselves in it. They didn’t work in such a way that everybody would say, “Look at the progress that that fellow has made.”

That’s what Paul is saying to Timothy here: “I want you to make sure that on the days when you’re tempted to throw in the towel—and those days will come—that you bring to mind the occasion when my leathery hands, Timothy, were rested upon the back of your neck.” I’m assuming that he had leathery hands. It doesn’t say anywhere in the Bible that he had leathery hands, but he made tents, and I would imagine that he wouldn’t have office hands like mine. He would have, like, men’s hands, leathery hands. He says, “I want you to remember when my leathery hands were on the back of your head and the others came around you and we put our hands upon you, that that was a signal indication of the enduement of the power of God upon your life in order that you might fulfill the responsibilities which are now yours to fulfill. And I want you to make sure that that sustains you and helps you. Because you’re going to discover, Timothy, that your life will be filled with sad illustrations of those who started well but who withered and who wandered, who never finished.” And that sad story is repeated in every generation.

In looking for a proper football on the TV yesterday, I came upon some athletics events. And I don’t know if you saw this—it was on the USA channel—and I don’t even know what the race was. I haven’t a clue what was going on, because I got into it about five laps in. But I realized it was ladies who were running, and it was a two-mile race. So there were a lot of laps. And it got very, very exciting. They all spread out, and then five at the front, and the rest, they had gone—basically, they had gone for a coffee. And then the five broke up again, and then there was two, and then there was one, probably seventeen or twenty meters ahead of the one girl who was coming behind. And then, all of a sudden, the girl who was behind started, with like three laps to go, to gain on her. And so she gained. Lap three, she began to catch her. Lap two, she got right up to her, and she passed her—and she stopped, with a lap to go! She didn’t realize. She’d lost track of what she was doing. And suddenly, the girl that she’d caught kept running and won. And for all the glorious charge of this girl, she had nothing to show for it.

Do you see what he’s saying to Timothy? “Timothy, you’re going to have to be like a soldier.” That’s tough. “You’re going to have to be like an athlete that competes according to the rules. You can’t quit with one lap to go. You’re going to have to be like a hardworking farmer if you’re going to do this.[22] And when you’re tempted to chuck it, remember this: fan the gift into a flame.” One commentator, in somewhat archaic language, says the reason that this exhortation here in verse 6 is so vital is because “frail flesh is prone to the lassitude which allows spiritual ardor to burn very low.” Could we have that in English, please? No, it’s a wonderful quote, isn’t it? We’re feeble. We’re prone to chuck it! The reason that the exhortation is so helpful is because it’s so necessary.

It’s necessary for me. In fact, I wrote in my notes, “Beware of becoming GLAD.” “Beware of becoming GLAD.” “You mean ‘glad,’ like ‘happy’?” No, this is this is an acrostic—or an acronym. Somebody needs to write on a card for me the difference between those two things, ’cause I never—every time, a hundred times since I’ve been here, I’ve always said, “This is either an acrostic or an acronym; I don’t know which is which.” Maybe we could settle it right now. So, if GLAD stands for four words, what is that? An acronym? Pardon? Oh, see, now you don’t even know yourselves. I feel so much better! I’m in great company. No one has a clue.

Well, whatever it’s called, this is what I meant when I wrote it down: “Beware, Begg, of becoming GLAD: greedy, lazy, angry, dirty.” You’ve got a gift? Who gave it to you? God. So are you just going to sit around and look at yourself in the mirror? He’s given you a gift of evangelism. He’s given you the gift of helps. He’s given you the gift in art. He’s given you the gift in exhortation. He’s given you the gift in encouragement. He’s given you that gift. He’s given you maybe more gifts. Then, like Paul to Timothy, we hear God’s voice: “Now fan this gift into a flame.” And let me tell you, particularly in pastoral ministry—both from experience, from observation, and from knowing my own sinful heart—that your giftedness will eventually matter for nothing if you become GLAD: greedy, lazy, angry, dirty.

Let’s pray:

God, your Word reminds us that if we hear your voice, we should not harden our hearts. So, then, let us hear your voice calling us to repentance and to faith, calling us to not only creedal statements but an unreserved, undiminished commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you for giving us gifts. Forgive us when we use them as toys rather than as tools. And please help us not to become those who started well and finished poorly because we became greedy or lazy or angry or dirty. Hear our prayers, O God, as we commend one another to you.

May the grace of the Lord Jesus, and the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit rest upon and remain with each one, today and forevermore. Amen.


[1] See Psalm 19:14.

[2] See 2 Timothy 4:5.

[3] 2 Timothy 4:9, 21 (paraphrased).

[4] Acts 16:14 (ESV).

[5] Acts 16:14 (ESV).

[6] See Acts 16:15.

[7] Romans 8:9 (ESV).

[8] C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952), bk. 4, chap. 9.

[9] Romans 8:9 (ESV).

[10] The New City Catechism, Q. 2.

[11] J. I. Packer, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God (London: Inter-Varsity, 1961), 70–71.

[12] John 11:25–26 (ESV).

[13] R. Hudson Pope, “Make the Book Live to Me.” Language modernized.

[14] David F. Wells, God in the Whirlwind: How the Holy-Love of God Reorients Our World (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2014), 74.

[15] 1 Timothy 2:4–5 (ESV).

[16] 1 John 4:10 (KJV).

[17] E. H. Swinstead, “There’s a Way Back to God.” Lyrics lightly altered.

[18] Samuel Crossman, “My Song Is Love Unknown” (1664).

[19] William Perkins, “The Art of Prophesying” with “The Calling of the Ministry”, rev. ed. (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1996), 59.

[20] See Romans 12:11.

[21] 1 Timothy 4:15 (ESV).

[22] 2 Timothy 2:3–6 (paraphrased).

Copyright © 2025, Alistair Begg. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations for sermons preached on or after November 6, 2011 are taken from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

For sermons preached before November 6, 2011, unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version® (NIV®), copyright © 1973 1978 1984 by Biblica, Inc.TM Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Alistair Begg
Alistair Begg is Senior Pastor at Parkside Church in Cleveland, Ohio, and the Bible teacher on Truth For Life, which is heard on the radio and online around the world.