It will be getting better a little further down the road, but evil days are going to wax worse and worse, until the Lord takes His church out and then God judges the world for its unrighteousness and ungodliness. One must try disorders and prove profession. They should remember that, in this respect, they are treated as the Master was, and are in the goodly company of the prophets, apostles, and martyrs; for they were all persecuted. There is no part of John's doctrine more strikingly characteristic than life in Christ. Persecution and hardships will come, but of two things Paul is sure. Finally, we have his assertion of the blessed Lord's care, and his confidence in Him that He would preserve him from all evil to His heavenly kingdom; closing this solemn and touching epistle (it would seem the last words he wrote) with salutations to various saints. In the Jewish pictures of these last terrible times we get exactly the same kind of picture as we get here. 442.]. (2.) He had fought the good fight of faith. He did not pull down by his living what he built up by his preaching. To many a man and woman has a little bit of dress done no small injury, just because they think it is too little for the Spirit of God to direct them in. Let me remark, that there are comparatively few indeed that receive truth without help of others directly from God. And a less confession than this God never permitted the church to accept; nor in fact in Jerusalem itself was less ever accepted than the naming the name of the Lord. Nowadays we have to restate these old pictures in modern terms. "True," said the other, "but he kicked it to a goal." We usually try to avoid it on Friday evening if we can, but sometimes our schedules are such that we just don't have time to. Whatever therefore may be right in certain cases, the assembly of God ought never to be forced to put every case on the same dead level ought never to be bound by any special process, as if it were unalterable. If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the master's use, and prepared unto every good work." 1. What am I to believe about angels or the future? The nature of its doctrine was no way likely to command success: (1) it condemns all other religions, some established for ages; (2) it enjoins precepts ungrateful to flesh and blood, the mortifying of the flesh, the love of enemies, and the bearing of the cross; (3) it enforces these seemingly unreasonable precepts by promises seemingly incredible; not good things such as afford complacency to our senses, but such as cannot be obtained till after this life, and presuppose what then seemed impossible, the resurrection; (4) it predicts to its followers what would seem sure to keep most of the world from embracing it, persecutions. The Greek moralists wrote much about this word. We've just experienced a tremendous demonstration of that in the Los Angeles basin in the last couple of weeks. Verse 1. At that time Timothy was just a very young boy, probably in his mid-teens and yet he was attracted to Paul the apostle because of the message that Paul bore. It means to follow a person mentally, to attend diligently to his teaching and fully to understand the meaning of what he says. It is beautiful to trace this double working and current of the apostle that is, what is imperishable, above and beyond nature; and, along with this, the utmost value put on everything that he would own in those naturally bound up with him those of either family that feared God. (2 Timothy 2:1.) At first these magicians were able to match the wonders which Moses and Aaron did, but in the end they were defeated and discredited. He had fully known his conversation: Thou hast fully know my doctrine, and manner of life; his manner of life was of a piece with his doctrine, and did not contradict it. He is the man whom God resists, for it is repeatedly said in scripture, that God receives the humble but resists the man who is proud, huperephanos ( G5244) ( James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5; Proverbs 3:24). Even a dog may be sorry when he has hurt his master, but there are people who, in their treatment of others, can be lost to human sympathy and feeling. In certain of these books Jannes and Jambres figured largely. First, there are the duties of an apostle. The Greek word literally is fully matured or of full age, fully matured, that the man of God might be fully matured. It was thus Paul treated the proud reasonings and speculations of man; withal briefly touching on those that had gone entirely astray Hymenaeus and Philetus. One of my most unfavorite promises in the Bible. So the same Greek is used of the same thing, Lu 14:28, 33, "intending (Greek, 'wishing') to build a tower counteth the cost.". Men will be savage. The alazon ( G213) was a mountebank who wandered the country with medicines and spells and methods of exorcism which, he claimed, were panaceas for all diseases. They're profitable. For, if we do not believe their truth and goodness, they will do us no good. She had waded through book after book and laboured with philosophy after philosophy in an attempt to find satisfaction. "To Timothy, my dearly-beloved child: Grace, mercy, and peace, from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. 2 Timothy 3:12, NASB: Indeed, all who want to live in a godly way in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. By this general statement, therefore, Paul classes himself with the children of God, and, at the same time, exhorts all the children of God to prepare for enduring persecutions; for, if this condition is laid down for all who wish to live a godly life in Christ, they who wish to be exempt from persecutions must necessarily renounce Christ. Now it is interesting that as Paul is referring to the Scriptures here, he is, of course, referring to the Old Testament Scriptures. He knew what care God had taken of him: Notwithstanding out of them all the Lord delivered me; as he never failed his cause, so his God never failed him. All who will show their religion in their conversation, who will not only be godly, but live godly, let them expect persecution, especially when they are resolute in it. He is sure that in the long run it is better to suffer with God and the right than to prosper with men and the wrong. Salem Media Group. thoroughly furnished unto all good works ( 2 Timothy 3:17 ). A whole collection of stories gathered round their names. shall suffer persecution; it is the will of God, and the appointment of heaven; Christ has foretold it, that so it shall be; and he the head has suffered it himself, and it is necessary that his members should, that they may be conformed unto him; it is the way Christ himself went to glory, and through many tribulations his people must enter the kingdom; and this is the common lot and certain case of all the saints, in one shape or another; for though all do not suffer confiscation of goods, beating, scourging, imprisonment, or a violent death; yet all are more or less afflicted and distressed by wicked men, and are subject to their reproaches and revilings, which are a branch of persecution; and that for professing Christ, and living a godly life in him and under his influence: and since such suffer as Christians, and not as evildoers; and this is the common condition of the people of God, in this world, it should not be thought strange, but be cheerfully endured; to encourage to which is the apostle's view in this passage. She doesn't have the time to prepare the meal on Friday evening and we'll go out on Friday night. Shall we turn now in our Bibles to Second Timothy chapter three? When trouble fell on the Thessalonians, Paul wrote to them: "When we were with you, we told you beforehand that we were to suffer affliction; just as it has come to pass, and as you know" ( 1 Thessalonians 3:4). I refer to this just to remark that such links as these, which are connected with nature, all come before the apostle's mind, at the very moment when a spurious feeling would have judged it precisely the time to banish and forget them. Ephesus was the town of a prosperous, materialistic civilization; it was the kind of town where a man could so easily lose his soul. "If religion gives no quarter to vice, the vicious will give no quarter to religion and its professors.". But we must exclude that which is contrary to His name; and the very same desire to prove one's love, one's faith, one's appreciation of Christ, will make one anxious not to be dragged into that which is not for His glory. The kind of guys that went around selling snake oil or cure-alls, deceiving, defrauding people. Description of His Past Curriculum 2 Timothy 3:10-12. To the Greek it was anosios ( G462) to refuse burial to the dead; it was anosios ( G462) for a brother to marry a sister, or a son a mother. He must maintain this confidence, knowing that the Scriptures are divinely given and that they are Gods means of instructing people in right belief and right living. (iii) The Scriptures are valuable for reproof. "The Lord give mercy unto the house of Onesiphorus; for he oft refreshed me, and was not ashamed of my chain; but, when. That will = Who will live ( ) to desire, to want to, to wish. Those who deceive others do but deceive themselves; those who draw others into error run themselves into more and more mistakes, and they will find it so at last, to their cost. It is our duty to use our minds and set them adventuring; but the test must ever be agreement with the teaching of Jesus Christ as the Scriptures present it to us. The moment a man makes his own will the centre of life, divine and human relationships are destroyed, obedience to God and charity to men both become impossible. Just to go line upon line, precept upon precept, plodding right straight through the word of God. "She then makes the effort to reward Marcus, not only by the gift of her possessions (in which way he has collected a very large fortune), but also by yielding up to him her person, desiring in every way to be united to him, that she may become altogether one with him." "Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ." God wants you to be complete. The prophets and apostles did not speak from themselves, but what they received of the Lord that they delivered unto us. The strange characteristic of ingratitude is that it is the most hurting of all sins because it is the blindest. We must not be afraid of a manifest duty because it has been abused. The scriptures we are to know are the holy scriptures; they come from the holy God, were delivered by holy men, contain holy precepts, treat of holy things, and were designed to make us holy and to lead us in the way of holiness to happiness; being called the holy scriptures, they are by this distinguished from profane writings of all sorts, and from those that only treat morality, and common justice and honesty, but do not meddle with holiness. Now these seem to many very difficult indeed to combine. He flung the New Testament on it. The coming of the Lord will in no way manifest the faithfulness of the servant; His appearing will. The best way to overcome and to banish the false is to live in such a way that the loveliness and the graciousness of the truth is plain for all to see. THE VALUE OF SCRIPTURE ( 2 Timothy 3:14-17 ). He lets Timothy know that while he laid this on others, he must look carefully to his own ways. Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. Now what is it that Timothy had so fully known in Paul? Timothy was from Lystra. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1977. A word altogether unbecoming in one mouth might be most proper in another. [ See verse text ] Persecution against godly people is to be expected in this world; it's one of the few constants in life (2 Timothy 3:12). " Rejoice ( present imperative) and be glad ( present imperative ), for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. It is said that, after hearing an evangelical sermon, Lord Melbourne once remarked: "Things have come to a pretty pass when religion is allowed to invade the sphere of private life." We should be asking: what, if any, is the unifying purpose which binds all this activity together? Then he points out the two principal guards for the faithful, in such a perilous state. "Blessed is he who will come in the name of the Lord" ( Psalms 118:26 ). In the Old Testament they are not named, but they are referred to in Exodus 7:11; Exodus 8:7; Exodus 9:11. Because the true child of God brings the worldly person under conviction. At Ephesus some of the greatest roads in the world met. For "all scripture is given by inspiration of God. It is the attitude which bears with everything men can do and refuses to be either angry or embittered, and which will never seek anything but their highest good. Here the apostle, to confirm Timothy in that way wherein he walked. So you see, I'm not inerrant in all, but the scriptures are. Here is one of the most terrible pictures in the New Testament of what a godless world would be like, with the terrible qualities of godlessness set out in a ghastly series. And Jesus himself had said: "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake" ( Matthew 5:10). It is the sign of a supremely decadent civilization when youth loses all respect for age and fails to recognize the unpayable debt and the basic duty it owes to those who gave it life. That good thing which was committed unto thee keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us." . Given the right conditions, such oppositions would be just as deadly as the great Roman persecutions. It is a duty in the present state of confusion to use scriptural means; and here we have our warrant, as in the epistles we find more. You've made a covenant and there are so many broken covenants. In the days between the Old and the New Testaments many Jewish books were written which expanded the Old Testament stories. ii. 1. The Christian life does not consist only in knowing something; it consists even more in being something. We have the practice and treatment of true Christians: they live godly in Jesus Christ--this is their practice; and they shall suffer persecution--this is the usage they must expect in this world. (1) it teaches the only way to the Father is through Jesus; (2) it teaches a morality (a way of life) unpopular with the world; (3) it teaches a miraculous creation, a miraculous end; and a miraculous Savior who was resurrected; (4), Why does the world hate Christians? He would not have him to be spreading doubtful opinions; but what he had heard from the apostle himself he need not scruple to give out freely. Paul contrasts the conduct of Timothy, his loyal disciple, with the conduct of the heretics who were doing their utmost to wreck the Church. (2) they who are persecuted for their opinions, should consider that this may be one evidence that they have the spirit of Christ, and are his true friends. There are still Church dignitaries whose main thought is their own dignity; but the Christian is the follower of him who was meek and lowly in heart. You have no authority.So if I tell you that some scriptures are not really inspired of God, then I become the authority, not the Bible anymore, because you can't just read the whole Bible and trust it because not all of it is inspired. (1) To exhort Timothy in his ministry at Ephesus; (2) To warn Timothy of trouble both inside and outside the church; (3) To request Timothy to come to Rome to visit him in prison and bring certain personal effects to him (4:5-13; 21); and (4) To instruct all the churches in Timothy's territory. When Carlyle's father was discussing the kind of minister his parish needed, he said: "What this parish needs is a man who knows Christ other than at secondhand." 2. menin the professing Church. THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL Then the apostle brings out most important directions for the days that were then coming in, but now come, and more.
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