2 Timothy chapter 2

2nd Timothy chapter 2. We'll read the opening two verses. 2nd Timothy chapter 2. Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others. Now, before considering some things in the chapter, it's of note to interest Paul's words as he opens each of these two epistles to Timothy.

Let's turn back to chapter 1. We'll read the words of his greetings. Verse 1. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the commandment of God our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ, which is our hope. Unto Timothy, my own son in the faith, grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord.

Now coming back to 2nd Timothy. Notice his words as he opens the epistle. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God according to the promise of life, which is in Christ Jesus.

To Timothy, my dearly beloved son, grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father in Christ Jesus our Lord. I was struck with that in a sense that when he come to chapter 2, he's writing a personal letter, of course. The two letters that he writes to Timothy, the second epistle, is his last writings.

And it's in chapter 4 that he, as we reminded earlier today, he's ready to depart and to be with his Lord. So in thinking of this chapter, it's interesting that in verse 1 he speaks of Timothy, my son, and he ends a chapter with the encouragement as to the servant of the Lord, as to his humility and faithfulness and so on. And thinking over the chapters that in between he used figures of Christians as illustrated of our pathway here in this earthly scene.

But his affection for Timothy has always been as when he came to Lister and Derby, as the book of the Acts records, Timothy's grandmother and mother apparently were saved, possibly in the apostles meetings, and then later on it comes along and Timothy hears the gospel again. Seed that was sown in a faithful home, a faithful grandmother and a faithful mother. And so we are encouraged to recognize that as he thinks of his son Timothy in the faith, he writes the same expression to Titus, a personal epistle.

And as we ponder these matters, the very fact that he uses in the opening of the second chapter, he says to Timothy, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. He reminds them the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses. So Paul is a writer.

The truth that he's been presenting to Jews and Gentiles throughout his ministry. There's not only that Timothy had heard it, but others, many witnesses. Heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others.

The point I'm thinking in reading that over, there's four generations in a sense. The Apostle, those that listened to his ministry, those that they were as faithful men pounding the truth of God that he was given the privilege to proclaim, present them to a faithful man who shall be able to teach others. That is the way that the Word of God has been presented down through the centuries.

And when you think of the fact that here we are in 2019, you ponder that I made the statement back in the 1980s, and I swallowed those words more than once. We'll never see the year 2000. The Lord will have come.

Well, the Lord hasn't come, but the Lord is going to come. God is long-suffering to us where Peter tells us, not willing that any should perish, that all should come to the knowledge of the truth. So as he writes this second and his last epistle, he has no doubt the burden of testimony.

We learn in the first epistle, Paul had left him at Ephesus, and our brother has been reminding us of the wonderful work that God accomplished and did in that day in Acts chapter 19. When you come to Revelation chapter 2, you have the same company of people, and they charged by the Spirit of God and the writer. They had left their first love.

That first love was Christ. That was the person that reached them through the gospel and the message. And so we are pondering that we recognize that in our own day, what a wonderful blessing.

Some of us had parents that were saved and in the assembly. Others not. Some had grandparents that were saved and in the assembly.

Others not. But God was working in your heart and mine to bring us to understand the truth and our need of God's salvation. I think of my grandparents on my father's side, they were from Ireland, where our brother lives.

My grandfather left at the age of 20 with his older sister, two years older, who was married to a Nesbitt. How they landed near Dunkerdon, I don't know. But as it was, it was probably, they came in 1851.

My grandfather was 49 years when he was married. My father was 48. So there's a number of years that went by, as we think.

But the wonder of it is, as I ponder, God arranged that they would be hearing the gospel and it would be brought to Ireland. My mother's people came from England into Canada, eventually into Minnesota. Why a tent was came or the gospel came to the little community of Dundas, I don't know.

We've never, my mother never heard. She was only, she was to be born five years later, in the year 1900. But you look back and wonder at the goodness and kindness of God.

And today we rejoice, every one of us saved by the grace of God. August the 28th of this year was on a Wednesday night. I thought I'm going to go back to Western Avenue Gospel Hall in Waterloo, for it was on the 28th of August, 1950, that I came to know Christ.

I waited till after prayer meeting was over. I said to the dear saints after the meeting was over, 69 years ago, sitting in this building in a chair in that Sunday school room in the northwest corner, having asked the man that had presented the gospel, how does a person know when he has believed? He didn't answer me. He says, we'll sit down after the folks are out.

He went back to that thought in his mind and he presented scriptures that did not have the word believing in it. I was laboring to how can I believe or what is it to feel to believe? And he no doubt recognized. And I remember that moment, Isaiah 53 and 5, he had proclaimed the night before, the wounds that the Savior had bore.

And he turned over to 1st Peter 3 verse 18, Christ has once suffered for sins that just for the unjust that he might bring us to God. Pardon personal reference, one verse in the Old Testament, one in the New, told me the same person in his work. And John 1 and 12, to as many as received him.

I walked out of that room about 10 feet and I realized I just now become a believer. I received him. You know him today? You're brought into the family of God.

Timothy, a son in the faith, and he's dear to Paul. And now he writes, thou therefore my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. We learn in 1st Timothy, he's been left to Ephesus.

I don't know the years that intervened, from Acts 19 to when Paul had sent, left him there in Ephesus. But as we think of the work of God, how wonderful to realize the encouragement, as he says, be strong in the grace with a commitment, with a conviction. And that grace is a marvelous kindness of God, that not only parents would hear the gospel of his mother and his grandmother.

We don't know about the father. But do you think of that fact? He goes through now what we want to look at it for a few minutes. In verse 3, thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.

We're immediately introduced that the Christian experience in one sense is warfare. There's an enemy, the devil himself. He's a defeated foe.

In the hour of temptation, the Lord spoke to the devil, quoting the scriptures, and he shut his mouth. How wonderful we have the scriptures, the world out there and its indifference. But within us is that nature.

We're no longer seen in Adam as believers. God sees every child of God in Christ. How wonderful to know him.

Now he reminds us, he says, be, endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man that warth entangleth himself for the affairs of this life, they may please him who had chosen him to be a soldier. I think there's probably more than one of us in this room.

Remember when we got a letter, your friends and neighbors, it was a draft board. It was the army. What did we soon learn? You're no longer a civilian.

Obedience. And I remember coming into Camp Crowder, Missouri at 230 in the morning, and at 530 the whistle comes through the barracks. Time to get up.

I thought, here we are. You know, beloved, when Paul thinks of the forfeit, how easy it is to be entangled in this earthly matters. No matter what your profession of life, as far as secular or employment or whatever.

He says, no man that warth entangled himself with the affairs of this life, so wrapped up in the things of what we do. And it says, we're not to be entangled that we might please him who had chosen him to be a soldier. We think of this world so filled with violence, so filled with indifference.

And yet, the things of life, the pleasures, the affairs of this life just wraps the multitudes. So entangled. How good it is to recognize that we're not our own.

Paul moves on, verse 5. Any man strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully. That seems to be reference to the athlete. He must run according to the rules.

He must obey. There must be that which is right. And he says, yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully.

I don't know how many years ago there was a picture in the Waterloo Courier, and I know that several of them mentioned it. They were running a race. I think it was Vancouver.

And just prior to the man to the where they cross the line, the race is over, the man in lead turned to his left and looked behind him. While he's looking this way, the man who's right behind him went by him, won the race. You know, we can turn our eyes to other things.

But you can see this. Paul is showing this. There's a crown to be won, but it has to be in God's own way.

We're told in the Scriptures, we're in the race. You move on to verse 6, verse the husbandman. There's the farmer.

And of course, being the background on the farm, we remember it. The Apostle says, he laboreth, must first be partaker the fruits. What a contrast between the man laboring in the ground, and you think of the days of the athletes of this world, and all that they're involved with.

You know, as you think of these little illustrations, what is he bringing these before us? Because in verse 7, he says, consider what I say, and the Lord give the understanding in all things. Remembering that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the dead according to my gospel. Reading on, wherefore I suffer trouble as an evil day, even unto bonds, but the word of God is not bound.

You know, there's encouragement when you think of holding forth the word of life. Going back to those gospel meetings, it was a William Patterson from Scotland that labored in Jamaica. How he landed in Western Avenue, Waterloo, I have no clue.

Five souls professed to be saved in ten meetings. The next weekend was the La Crosse Wisconsin Conference. It was Labor Day in those years.

Alvin Stickford and I, my brother, we went up. If I was asked this question once, I think two dozen times or more. Five souls in ten nights of meetings, and he had a Saturday night meeting.

Oliver Smith was at that meeting. He shook my hands in the sidewalk. He never said a word, but he gripped my hand, and I knew what he was relating.

Glad to see you're here, Robert. You know, I got to pondering what happened that last Monday night. There was a testimony meeting, as they're planning this evening, Lord willing.

First man up was Oliver Smith. He says, I'm going to tell my story in three minutes, and I remember he took his watch around, I can see it yet, held it up there, and he kept his word. Lo and behold, if Alvin Stickford, about 7th or 8th, had got up, got up, it saved five nights.

You couldn't have paid me to end up there. I remember Oliver saying, Alvin, speak up, we want to hear you. The thing is this, a transaction had taken place, and struggling with thinking how did I believe right, I often tell people I was in the fog about a day and a half, and I just got to pondering what happened at about about 9 15, that Monday evening, I received Christ.

You know him today? The gospel, the word of God, is not bound. So in verse 10, therefore I endure all things for the elect's sake, that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. Now move down as we look at verse 15.

Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. So when you think of the athlete, the husbandman, the workman, he's using these, the writer, these figures of speech to show distinction in the Christian pathway. And we see there in verse 15, there's a need of diligent study, applying ourselves.

I sometimes relate this, may have told it from this behind this podium, I don't know. It was always our practice, whether in my parents' home or after my wife and I were married, to read the scriptures after breakfast. Working in construction work one morning, we overslept.

I says, we'll read this evening after supper. Meanwhile, that very day, the man that I was working for, he was a Christian in the assembly, his father was in the hospital, one of the hospitals at Waterloo at that time. I thought I'd go out and say hello to him.

I walked into that lobby and I noticed one of the older sisters. I thought she was older, she was younger than what I am now. Went over and greeted her and why she asked this question probably was a lesson for me.

Robert, did you read this morning? I says, we didn't, we overslept. She was very kind, but she said to me, you need to read every day. You know, when you ponder, God has given us his holy word and we are rightly divided.

We're thankful not only for the gospel, it's truth, and for the depravity and ruin of man revealed in the scriptures, but the work of God as the book of the Acts commences, and as you follow through, and as you think of Paul's conversion, reminded of it this morning, God and so wonderfully has chosen his own servants, and the work goes on. And so we're thankful today as we ponder, here we are in this this wondrous chapter. He makes, as he goes down through verse 19, nevertheless the foundation of God stand assured, having this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are his, and let everyone that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.

What a foundation! It's a person, and that person was God's beloved son. He came with a purpose to save. It meant for him the price of the cross, and all its shame and suffering, and yet the victory that he accomplished, and the triumphant cry, it is finished.

And so as you recognize that foundation, we have been placed upon, and now here we are, children of God, through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Wonderful to be in the assembly, reminded of baptism this morning. I remember the evening I was asked by one of the brethren, he was on Oliver Smith's milk route as a customer, saved by the grace of God.

He says, Robert, have you thought about thought about baptism? I says, I suppose I should. Fred Lincoln was his name. He put his hand in my shoulder.

Robert, you're saved. I says, yes. It's no supposing matter.

You know, you don't forget those experiences. Impressing upon our mind. So I come to this servant of the Lord, verse 24.

And the servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach patience and meekness, instructing those that oppose themselves, if God peradventure will give them repentance and acknowledgement of the truth. I'm sorry I missed the one about the vessel. Let's go back to verse 20.

That's his old age. But in a great house, there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also wood and earth and some to honor and some to dishonor. If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified and meet for the master's use, prepared unto every good work.

These figures the apostle uses to illustrate what's upon his heart. I would suggest preservation of testimony. As he writes these words, he's knowing, but in a little while, as chapter four relates, he was ready to depart.

You know, it's a marvelous work of God that we were brought to know Christ. I could name the Sunday school friends. To my knowledge, after getting out of Sunday school, they went, many went their ways.

I've often wondered how many found Christ. You know, it's a personal matter. But what a blessing as we ponder the very fact that God in his kindness and mercy.

Someone was speaking earlier about the kindness of God. And I thought of Jonathan, he had a love for David. Later on, David expressed, is there any left of the household of Saul that I might show the kindness of God to him? What a mercy, what kindness has been shown to us.

Might we appreciate today what we've been reminded. We've been brought to know Christ, the sent one of the anointed one of the Father. Joseph was told, thou shall call his name, that one to be born of the Mary, the virgin, his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins.

So we do appreciate God's salvation. Anyone here not saved, you don't know what you're missing. God grant you'll come to know the Savior.

That you'll not turn away and neglect so great salvation. God bless his word, for his name's sake.