Advice No.4 Be Prepared

Is the key to love? Is the door without love? I am nothing and now my speech Is the best and my faith stands the test My knowledge is rich My possessions are his Without love I am nothing Am nothing at all Love suffers long Keeps no record Has no end to its trust Ever hope, always lost Profits will cease Other tongues may decrease When learning has waned Hope will remain Without love I am nothing Am nothing at all Love is the key Love is the door Without love I am nothing Am nothing at all Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the gift of your Son. The gift of love coming from the loving heart of God Directed to an undeserving world.

We thank you for the gospel of grace which rescues men and women And turns them by grace into what they were not by nature. We thank you for evidence even in seeing that alpha class of your grace here in our church. We praise you for those numbered beyond the alpha group but including them Who have more recently turned to Jesus Christ And discovered in Christianity not a religion but a way of life Not something that's oppressive But something that adds texture and meaning and purpose and value and goals to this earthly pilgrimage.

Bless our continued time around your word And in a little while later around the table Help us to understand the former and as a result enter into the latter With even greater dedication and sense of indebtedness. We thank you for all your love to us. Bless this church not because we deserve it Our town, our county, our country, our world Remember men and women in their pitiful state Remember us and bring the knowledge of salvation Through the glorious dissemination of the gospel by literature, radio and the spoken word Bring it to men and women in our world For Jesus Christ's sake, Amen Well it's our practice here at the tab to take our address based on the word of the Lord That is on the Bible And we've been making our way through the second epistle of Paul to Timothy Timothy is a young man, Paul is an older man And it's sometimes good to listen to what all the people have to say in terms of their experience of life And in the fourth chapter of second Timothy, if you don't have a Bible You'll find the natives are relatively friendly, if there's one sitting alongside you who does And in this last chapter of Paul's letter He shares some very important things Not only with a young man But also with those of us today who recognize in the inspiration of scripture That what is recorded here is as contemporary and even more relevant than today's newspapers Incidental in the planning, our time this morning around the word of God gives a framework for this evening When I have someone coming in to interview and will be speaking again myself to the subject Of what happens at the point of death I'll be interviewing a young man who years ago I married here to his lovely wife It's many years since I've seen him But he's a funeral director And I'd like to ask funeral directors a thing or two Maybe you would also, well there'll be an opportunity this evening But funerals and death are very much part and parcel of the phenomenon of life And if there's any question that you need to put to a man who has lived Assuming that you have access to the diaries or to the books that he has written or she has written It truly is this, did your belief help you at the point of death? You see, entry into life was an accident in one sense You didn't intend it to yourself You suddenly found that you were here And gradually over a period of years you developed in your maturity Your ability to relate to life and so forth You enjoy it, you make a success Sometimes you're sad, sometimes you make a failure The entry into life is completely different from the departure thereof Departure, well, how do you cope with that? The terminus, the exodus from life Now it seems to me that when you look at a man like the Apostle Paul Who in this particular letter and a previous one that he wrote to a man called Philemon Gives every indication that he's old And he's actually instructing some other younger person how to continue to live Then what he has to say is of great relevance indeed You see, this is, let me lay this down for those of you who study the Bible regularly This is probably the last letter that the Apostle Paul ever wrote The last chapter is the last part of the letter The last verse is the remains that we have of Paul Before, possibly some weeks after writing it, he died I think the tradition is right that he died beheaded in Rome So here is a man who has faced death And is not as a result surprised at what is going to come And he speaks to a young man He sends him his last letter I would never have let go the last letter of my father Well here is an old man who has sort of adopted the recipient of this letter And he tells him a thing or two As he, the old man, faces death Let's work our way through the overhead And at the same time I'll read the passage of Scripture Because first of all he speaks about his personal circumstances And they're from the 6th verse through to the 9th So I'll read those verses now For, says Paul, I am already being poured out like a drink offering And the time has come for my departure I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness Which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day And not only to me But also to all who have longed for his appearing You see, the concept of martyrdom, it throbs through that verse Or those verses It's there in between each line There is a sense in which Paul's departure has already commenced I am already being poured out like a drink offering Martyrdom is something we've had to cope with in the 20th century As far as the Christian church is concerned Did you know that everyone who was martyred in the previous centuries Since the death of Christ If you took their tally They would not amount to the number of people who have been killed for the faith In the 20th century Martyrdom is not some historic pursuit In which we chase after stories from Fox's book of martyrs We had interest expressed in this subject only a couple of weeks ago here When I brought you some Iranians From whose family, family's martyrs had been produced Here is the apostle And he knows that the time is ready for him to leave this world I'm being poured out like a drink offering, he says And the word is spendestai Which presumably is the one from which we get the English word to spend Now, when you think of the apostle Paul And him facing death It's a completely different approach that he has to the majority of people Who perhaps have laid down their life at a time of war Or suddenly found themselves robbed of life as a result of an attack on them The apostle does not think of himself as going to be executed He thinks of himself as going to offer his life to God His life is not so much being taken from him He was laying it down I'm already being poured out like a drink offering In a Roman meal at the end After they'd had all the wine, there would be one glass left The Romans as they left the room would take the glass And they would pour it out as an offering for the gods The last part of the meal for the gods Says, Paul, that's my life I'm an old man The last part, I'm ready to pour out In the service of God I'm ready The time has come for my departure And as he makes reference to his departure He actually uses a nautical term It's the idea of casting away the ropes of the boat And sailing out into the future Here is Paul and he is prepared Already the anchor is weighed, the ropes are slipped And the boat is about to set sail for another shore And what he does He reflects over his ministry Of three decades What to God at the end of my life The end of yours You could be as ready as that The ship prepared to sail The ropes having been cast over The words you remember of that hymn that we sang together Just a few moments ago They become quite relevant at that point Jiju, lover of my soul And the thought is Till, Jiju, lover of my soul Let me to thy bosom fly While the nearer waters roll While the tempest still is high Hide me, O my Saviour, hide Till the storm of life is passed Safe into the haven guide Or receive my soul at last Paul looks back He's ready to go And he looks to the past And he'll tell you three things I fought the good fight The language of the athlete I finished the race I've kept the faith As he gives us a little cameo Of what he's like at the end He doesn't seem to have any regrets He speaks of the marathon And the word marathon actually comes from Greek history The battle of Marathon When the glory that was Greece was in jeopardy As the Persians were trying to ransack the Grecian army And eventually the Greeks withstood And they conquered And a man from the front line runs all the way back down Greece to Athens And he gasps out in front of the Athenian elders That Greece has been preserved As the nation of that time And as he declares his news He drops down and dies Happy if with my latest breath I might but gasp his name Preach him to all and cry in death Behold, behold the Lamb This is what Paul has been doing This is your challenge too In the living out of your life Fighting the good fight Finishing the race Keeping the faith That's the past, ah yes But look there's a future now Now there is in store for me The crown of righteousness Which the Lord, the righteous judge Will award to me on that day He's still with the marathon Those leafy wreaths that were placed On the ancient athlete As the applause of the people resounded around the stadium That wreath was taken back to the village or the town From which the athlete came And it became his token of his victory So the apostle envisages Having lived that sort of life in the past Fighting the good fight Keeping the faith Finishing the course So he will be given The laurel wreath of Jesus Christ's commendation Aye, says Paul, but not only to me But also to those who have longed for his appearing Now look, if that's the framework If that's your conviction Look how much easier it makes Facing this concept of death Now I'm not in any way suggesting That death isn't something of a human level to be feared There is a sense in which the physical Running down of the body Is the most unpleasant thing Sometimes you might suggest That the person who has the heart attack Actually gets the easiest of the options But when you've gone beyond the idea Of the physical process of dying The actual act Rather than something that is to be feared It is something that can be looked forward to So the apostle speaks about his personal circumstances The present, well, he's waiting for the sentence of death The past, he's lived his life for the glory of God And in the future there is for him A reward to which he looks forward Now, if those are his personal circumstances What is his greatest concern? And really it's quite obvious But let me read it through Because I'm jumping back to the beginning of the passage For he'll tell Timothy And therefore he'll tell us This man who is at the point of departure from this world He says in very strong language In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus Who will judge the living and the dead And in view of his appearing and his kingdom I give you this charge, Timothy You see, he's speaking to this young man Who's going to continue What does he want him to do? He wants him to do exactly the same as he's done Preach the word, be prepared in season and out of season Correct, rebuke, encourage with great patience and careful instruction For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine Instead to suit their own desire They will gather round them a great number of teachers To say what their itching ears want to hear They will turn their ears away from the truth And turn aside to myths But you keep your head in all situations Endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist Discharge all the duties of your ministry What's his greatest concern? What happens when the Queen of England dies? The Queen of the Commonwealth dies? The Queen is dead? Long live the King You see, there is never in the British tradition A time when you don't have a monarch The King dies, there's a new King Well, don't you see, it's exactly the same as far as the Christian ministry is concerned The preacher is dying Long live the preacher Paul has run the course Timothy is there to take on the baton Long live Timothy You see, as far as the Christian gospel is concerned And the message of the kingdom is concerned The work continues The day thou gavest, Lord, is ended The darkness falls at thy behest To thee our morning hymns ascended Thy praise shall sanctify our rest What happens to the kingdom when you go to bed? What happens in the East? Where the sun is just beginning to have its ascendancy As o'er each continent and island The dawn leads on another day The voice of prayer is never silent Nor dies the strain of praise away So be it, Lord, thy throne shall never Like earth's proud empires pass away Thy kingdom stands and grows forever Till all thy creatures own thy sway You see the point? Paul goes, but Timothy continues So what is the greatest need? The greatest need is for faithful proclamation of the gospel There is a charge that Paul gives to Timothy There is a charge that any preacher has From the Lord in the presence of God And of Christ Jesus Who will judge the living and the dead This is strong language One of the reasons why we revere the pulpit Not the person in the pulpit Here in the tavern in all evangelical churches Is because the gospel that is proclaimed Is the gospel of God This is why you can keep your jokes on preaching As far as I'm concerned I find them almost blasphemous The preacher has an holy act I'm speaking not just of myself I'm speaking of anyone who stands To declare the word of the Lord In the presence of God and Christ Jesus That man will be judged for what he says And he is to preach the word effectively In season, out of season Correct, rebuke and encourage He's not just to be a bombastic Bible basher He's got to be a man, a woman With patience, with concern Who research and study And bring the fruit of what he has considered Fleeting for the inspirations of the Holy Spirit And declaring that with power and with authority This is what Paul has done For three decades and more And the light of his life is about to flicker To a conclusion But he doesn't despair Because he'll take the candle of his life To be as a flame that lights up The life of another man Who will continue This is apostolic concession Now, Timothy, to this I call you Not that everyone will approve of what you have to say He warns that later on The time will come, verse 3 When men will not put up with sound doctrine Instead to suit their own desires They will gather around them A great number of teachers To say what their itching ears want to hear John Stott refers to itching ears As that strange, pathological condition I think he had tongue-in-cheek when he said that It's the concern of some people For the church to say what they want to hear No, says the apostle, that's wrong You are to teach what God wants you to say Now, I have many failings as a preacher Many failings as a pastor But one thing I do declare before you And before God That my goal has always been As best as I have understood it To declare His word The goal of this church is to do just that That was its past history That is its present activities That is its future goal In order to do what? In order to convince men and women of the truth So, you, Timothy Here is an appeal You be different from contemporary society You keep your head Verse 5 In every situation, endure hardship Do the works of an evangelist Discharge all the duties of your ministry You see what I mean when I say that The apostle Paul Although he's an old man He's got his act together He's fully gifted with all his senses He's worked this whole thing out For three decades and more He's preached this gospel He's seen churches grown up throughout Asia Minor He's been one of the most remarkable men That history has ever known This small, hook-nosed little Jew Who could hardly address a crowd when he started He said his tongue was stammering He didn't really have the natural gifts of oratory And yet God took this weak little man With this tremendous intellect And used him to be one of the most sensational people That has ever lived This is the end of his life But don't feel sorry for Paul He's going to pour out the final part of his life As he poured out those previous years As an offering to his God And around the corner Mr. Timothy Paul is gone The preacher is gone But the preaching remains The apostle is with the Lord But Timothy is there When Timothy is through Then someone else will come That's always been the case That is apostolic succession That's why we dare to declare That we stand in the tradition Of the preachers, the reformers And men and women of the early centuries Right back to the acts of the apostles Because the gospel they embraced is our gospel The preaching that they knew Is the preaching that we hear His great concern He gives forth staccato comments Instructions to Timothy Fires them as from a gun And tells him Keep your head Endure hardship Do the work of an evangelist Discharge all the duties of your ministry Now that applies to us today Not just to the preacher To the ordinary Christian Because actually there is no such thing as an ordinary Christian Ministry is something that we share There are various facets of it There are various ways of communicating the gospel Not only just from a pulpit to four or five hundred people So here is Paul, this veteran And he tells us of his personal circumstances And of his great concern But he's a human A human being So he also informs us about his personal needs Look at verse 9 through to 13 What are they? Well, do your best to come to me quickly For Demas, because he loved the world Has deserted me He's gone to Thessalonica Paul gives us a little cameo Of the comings and goings Of people who have been with him And have once visited him And worked with him Crescens has gone to Galatia Titus to Dalmatia Only Luke is with me Get Mark, bring him with you Because he's helpful to me in my ministry I send Tychicus to Ephesus When you come bring the cloak That I left from Carpus at Troas And my scrolls Especially the parchment What does he want? Well, he wants people This man who has fought a good fight And who is looking for the appearance of Christ He still wants the appearance of human beings I love that He longs for Jesus to return But he also longs for Timothy to be with him Because Christian people Because they are Christians Are never for one moment denaturalized by grace I like that expression We are not denaturalized You stand in front of the mirror When you get home and say I am not a denaturalized person Probably I haven't got a clue What I'm talking about at the moment I mean by that we need company So here is Paul He's on his own He's got this great theology And he's got this great experience of God He says, hey Timothy Things will be a jolly sight easier If you come along He wants his brethren He wants his books And so he sends this little note to Timothy He wants warm clothing An outer garment of heavy material In order to help him with the cold He needs provision for his body He needs provision for his mind He needs provision for his spirit And so he says Bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas We don't know who Carpus was We don't know what the circumstances were But Paul was arrested It would seem And in the hurry He wasn't even able to take his overcoat That long circular garment of thick material With just a hole in the middle That you would place around your head And drop down onto your body And if the temperature got to below zero As it could do in the winter in Rome Then, well, you needed that So Paul indicates his personal needs For assistance in this area And not only clothes for his body But books for his mind Bring me my scrolls Especially the parchments Hey, if you were in prison What would you want? How could you cope on your own? What would be the sort of bottom line? I think I'd go with Paul I'd like my friends to be able to get to me And I'd certainly like my books And I'd like to be reasonably warm I'm just wondering if I could have a Walkman I mean, life without Beethoven and Mozart You can keep all the other stuff As far as I'm concerned That would really be intolerable So here is Paul And you see how human this is This is the glory of Paul It's the glory of the New Testament This is no book that's manufactured for people Or classicists People who are special This is for ordinary people Here is the apostle And he's facing death He's looking at death In the jaws And he writes encouragement to Timothy And he says Timothy, you come along And bring some of my friends And do come before it's winter Look at that for a lovely little comment Come before it's winter Because, well, verse 21 When it gets to winter It's not easy to sail And to come across from where you are In Ephesus to me In Rome Let's move on If those were his personal needs What is his compelling testimony? Well, it is this That he's been fairly roughly treated He's been disappointed People can let you down There were those who had been close to Paul And they no longer are And there was one by the name of Alexander The metal worker Who did Paul a lot of harm But perhaps the greatest disappointment Paul had Is that when he was first brought Before the magistrates For the preliminary trial No one else came to his support Look at verse 16 At my first defense No one came to my support Everyone deserted me He was lonely Maybe the Christians Couldn't get to him in Rome Maybe there were reasons But Paul did feel very much isolated Do you remember that psalm? Psalm 22 Which speaks about the Messiah When he comes And how lonely he will be Do you remember another verse In the Old Testament Speaking of the Messiah I looked for someone To have pity on me But there was no man When Paul is on his own He nonetheless discovers He's not really on his own Because, well The Lord is with him At my first defense No one came to my support Everyone deserted me May it not be held against them But The Lord stood at my side And gave me strength For what? So that through me The message might be fully proclaimed And all the Gentiles might hear it I'd love to have heard that sermon Perhaps the greatest sermon The Apostle Paul ever preached Was just before his death In front of the magistrates When he's got no one else present But Gentiles Unbelievers And with majesty Paul stands up as the preacher And with the unction of the Holy Spirit He declares The unsearchable riches of Jesus He speaks of the cross And the resurrection And the hope of glory And he does all this on his own This little man This man who does not have Natural charisma Nonetheless Is used Right to the end of his life To proclaim the gospel In the heart of Rome And when he looks back He says the reason I was successful Is this The Lord Was with me And the Lord, he says Will continue to rescue me Oh, he's not going back on his tracks He knows he's going to die But you see, the point of death Or the approach to death Can make you very vulnerable I've often been with all the friends Who, just in the days of the weeks Leading up to their own departure Sometimes feel so depressed and despondent Not all of them Sometimes the devil comes And he accuses you And he brings back the past He ploughs it all up Oh God, can you be a Christian Do you know what your future is And do you need skills To be able to help someone Who's going through that condition Oh, says the apostle The Lord will rescue me From every evil attack Of the enemy He will bring me safely To his heavenly kingdom Nero may expel me From the earthly kingdom But there is a greater than Nero Who will welcome me In the heavenly kingdom To him be glory forever and ever Amen I tell you This is the way to face death And don't tell me It's only for the first century As I mentioned We've had people here Who can testify to loved ones Who faced a similar sort of death Perhaps even more difficult In China at this very moment The Christian church Is under tremendous threat In the Sudan They've crucified Christians upside down Thousands and thousands and thousands And hardly a protest From the United Nations When one of the civil rights charters Is violated in that part of Africa Well, these brothers and sisters Who are an inspiration to us They can look to this experience The apostle Paul And find great comfort To him be glory forever and ever The end of my life Is not the end of me I'm moving on Into the glory that lies beyond And so Paul Far from being melancholic In his last few lines He bids a fond farewell To whom? Well, to friends Who he's met Who are in various parts of the empire Priscilla and Aquila And Anesiphorus and Erastus And Trophimus And so on and so forth And then that other little comment You come along as quickly as you can, Timothy And incidentally From here in Rome Eubryllus greets you So does Prudence Venus, Claudia And all the brethren Timothy The Lord be with your spirit Grace be to you There's a man in Darwin in Australia Who got himself into the medical books In terms of history Because as a practicing doctor He's worked out a system It's linked into a computer And I don't know just the precise mechanics of this In which you can dispatch yourself At the end of life In other words It's a concept of euthanasia And when you follow his particular program You press the right buttons Eventually on the screen Just before the final injection comes in There are Or there were Two phrases that popped up One was Goodbye And the other is Good luck Facing death Goodbye Good luck Here is Paul Facing death What does he say? The Lord be With your spirit The grace that I received throughout my life Be with you And live your life in such a fashion That the end to Him be glory Forever And ever Timothy Goodbye Do you ever say the word goodbye? Of course you do Probably you'll say it several times today What does it really mean? God Be With You Paul is going Timothy continues God be with you Timothy God be with you brothers and sisters at Worthington God be with you these people who've come on the first occasion into our churches Is always the instance for some people God be with you Here I say again Is the way to approach the final hour To ensure that you are right with your God That you are living your life in such a fashion as brings Him honor And where you've messed it up and where you've failed Come back to the old rugged cross And ensure that your sins have been confessed That you've known the blood of Jesus cleansing you Absolving you Here is a veteran Writing to Timothy Here is the word of God to you and to me Live your life So that when you slip away You can slip into the presence of God With an enthusiastic faith Looking forward to the time When you are with Him You start to play the old rugged cross Just very quietly The hill far away stood an old rugged cross The emblem of suffering and shame Let's just think about the words as they come through We're going to prepare to take communion You can slip out of this stage if you wish to Can you take communion? Well any bread and wine that's offered in the name of the Lord Jesus Is for those who recognize who He is As Savior and Lord And you can make that commitment at this very moment Which will qualify you The bread speaks of His body And the wine of His blood It's the death of our Lord Jesus That was the glory of Paul and His resurrection That prepared Him for a future in eternity And it's that same death and resurrection That prepares us We bring you these emblems Not because you're a member of our church But because you're trusting the Lord Jesus as your Savior Take them and hold on to them for a little while And you'll be given some instructions When to take the bread and to eat it and drink the wine For the old rugged cross so despised by the world Has a wondrous attraction for me For the dear Lamb of God left His glory above To bear it to dark Calvary It's 536 in Mission Praise We'll sing that verse, verse 2 For the old rugged cross so despised by the world Has a wondrous attraction for me For the dear Lamb of God left His glory above To bear it to dark Calvary So I'll cherish the old rugged cross Oh, and my trophy at last I'll endow I will cling to the old rugged cross And exchange it someday for a crown of thine The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack And will bring me safely to His heavenly kingdom To Him be glory forever and ever So we thank God for the Savior to whom the Apostle gives such eloquent testimony.

We come back to the heart of our faith. The Telegraph ran a lead article yesterday by one of the wardens of Holy Trinity Brompton as to why the Millennium should celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The article was quite right.

Whatever they put in that dome, that doesn't concern me. The most important thing in life, in the history of mankind, is the coming of our Lord Jesus and Him taking upon Himself the consequences of our sins and making our absolution possible as His life, death and resurrection and what they've achieved are credited to us. So we're now thanking God in the taking of this bread for the broken body of Jesus our Savior.

This is my body which is broken for you. This to you as oft as you eat it in remembrance of me. Let's stand in the presence of the King.

Our Lord Jesus took the final Passover cup and having given thanks, He gave it to His disciples and said, This cup is the new covenant in my blood which is shed for many for the remission of sin. This to you as oft as you drink it in remembrance of me. Those of you who know the verse, let's say John 3.16 together as an affirmation of our faith.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. Father, we thank You. In the name of the Savior, Amen.