By Pastor Ed Evans, by virtue of Pastor Ray C. Stedman
Tonight
I listened to a quote used on a TV drama that intrigued me, wrongly attributed
to Aquinas. In fact, it was Augustine of
Hippo who said, “The truth is like a lion; you don’t have to
defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself.”
The computer search for attribution led to a
marvelous sermon by Pastor Ray Stedman, given March 14, 1982. Prescient, I would say, sitting here in
September of 2015, nearly benumbed by the evil I see swirling around my beloved
nation, stunned by the misinformation and misadventure surrounding my beloved
Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, and Almighty God.
Join
me in a worm hole visit back through time and space to March 14, 1982, and
Pastor Ray Stedman, sharing how the great preacher Charles Spurgeon used that
quote, as Stedman was holding forth from behind his pulpit to his congregation
regarding the Word of God in that place and time. It speaks to us yet, today.
Scripture:
2nd Timothy 1:14 – 2:2
“By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you.
“You are aware that all who are in Asia turned away from me, among
whom are Phygelus and Hermogenes. May the Lord grant mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains, but when he arrived in Rome he searched for me earnestly and found me—may
the Lord grant him to find mercy from the Lord on that Day!—and you well know all the service he rendered at Ephesus.
“You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ
Jesus, and what you have heard from me in the presence of
many witnesses entrust to
faithful men who will be
able to teach others also.”
Almost
every Christian alive has heard the famous quotation from Charles Spurgeon, the
great English preacher, about defending the Scripture. Spurgeon said, "Scripture is like a lion.
Who ever heard of defending a lion? Just turn it loose; it will defend
itself." That oft-quoted word has a great deal of truth in it. Notice that
it does not deny that lions sometimes need defending; it merely recognizes that
the best way to do that is to turn a lion loose and it will defend itself.
The
Apostle Paul, in his second letter to Timothy, suggests a similar approach.
Writing from his prison cell in Rome to Timothy, who is left all alone in the
great, pagan city, Ephesus, Paul tells his young son in the faith
(Chapter 1, Verse 14):
Guard the truth which has
been entrusted to you by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us. (2 Timothy. 1:14
(RSV)
I
would like to give you a slightly different, perhaps more accurate, version of
what Paul wrote, because that translation suggests that the phrase, "by
the Holy Spirit," is linked with the entrusting, i.e., the Spirit has
entrusted to Timothy the truth. Actually, that phrase goes with the word guard: "Guard by means of the
indwelling Spirit the good deposit," is what Paul wrote. The "good
deposit" is the gospel, or the Scripture of truth. Though the word truth does not actually appear in
this verse, it is not inaccurate to render it as this version has, "guard
the truth by means of the Spirit."
The
great claim of Christianity is not that it is a religion, but that it is the
truth; it is the way things really are in life. Dorothy Sayers said, "The
test of any religion is not that it pleases us, but that it is true." That
is what marks the character of Christian faith -- explaining life the way it
really is. That is why, when Jesus taught in his day, every time people heard
him say something, inwardly they thought, "Yes, of course. That's right,
isn't it?" Jesus was speaking to their experience, even to their
unconscious, unarticulated experience, which they felt deeply and which his
words explained. The glory of Christianity is that it is knowledge, knowledge
that can free us from the lies that the world in its blindness is following to
its own destruction.
Arnold
Grunigen, a well known Christian businessman and leader in the early days of
this congregation, used to put it this way: "The Bible is God's
instruction book which goes along with man." When you buy a new car you
get a book with it that tells you how it operates and what to do if it does
not. When you get a new washing machine or a new toaster you get a book with
it. When you buy a personal computer you get a big book with it. God sent us
into the world, complicated beings that we are, so it makes sense that he would
give us a book that goes along with man. That is what the Bible is, and Timothy
is to "guard that truth by means of the indwelling Holy Spirit."
It
is very important that we understand what the apostle means here. It is not
merely the words of the Book that make it powerful, rather it is the presence
of the Spirit enlightening the words of the Book. The Spirit illuminates the
Book; he brings it home to the heart. He makes these words living words,
penetrating words, powerful words, words that enlighten the mind, pierce the
heart, words that produce profound changes in attitude and behavior in mankind.
It is true that the words are truth, that this is the Word of God, without
error as God gave it to man, but it is the Spirit who makes this Book a living
word, and transforms it, if you like, into a powerful lion which is capable of
defending itself.
How
do you turn the lion loose? That is the question we are facing in this passage
and throughout this section. In fact, the first thirteen verses of
Chapter 2 will detail for us four ways by which Timothy was expected to
turn the lion loose to let him defend himself. We will trace these four things,
taking two of them today and two of them next week.
First,
the apostle would remind Timothy, and us, of what the times were like in which
this "guarding of the truth" was to take place. Verse 15:
You are aware that all who
are in Asia turned away from me, and among them Phygelus and Hermogenes.
(2 Timothy 1:15 RSV)
It
would not have been news to Timothy that there had been a great turning away
from the authority of the Apostle Paul in Asia. Timothy lived in Ephesus, the
capital of the large Roman province of Asia, which was about the size of the
State of California. Timothy was expected to teach and to preach the gospel of
Jesus Christ in Ephesus, so he faced every day the problem that Paul mentions
here.
In
fact, Timothy was running into increasing opposition to what Paul taught. I do
not think that implies that there was a widespread turning away from
Christianity -- a denial of Christ. Rather, there was an attempt to separate
Paul from Jesus. This is always the beginning of apostasy -- to deny the
authority of an apostle as opposed to that of the Lord himself. This, of
course, was something Paul faced everywhere he went because he was not one of
the twelve. Jesus had not called him in the days of his flesh. Many people took
advantage of that and accused Paul of making himself an apostle. They suggested
that his were invented words, that his teachings went beyond what Jesus taught
and added to it things that Jesus never intended.
You
can still hear that argument on every side today. Even Christians who ought to
know better are suggesting that Paul was an encrusted old bachelor who had no
use for women. His writings with regard to women ought to be disregarded, they
say, because he was speaking out of his own soured experience. These people
suggest that we need to pick and choose in Paul's writings as to what is from
the Lord and what is not. That is exactly what Timothy was experiencing, and
that is what Paul is referring to here.
We
do not know exactly who Phygelus and Hermogenes were. They evidently were
prominent leaders whom Paul expected to support him. As I read this account, I
wondered if they were not among those people, described in Acts 19, in
that time of riot and uprising in Ephesus, whom Luke calls "certain
Asiarchs" (Acts 19:31 RSV), i.e., of Roman authorities. Luke said these
were friends of the apostle who would be expected, perhaps in a day when Paul
was under charge by the Roman government, even facing possible death, to come
to his defense, yet they refused to do so. It may be that these were people
whom Paul had looked to to support him, but they had refused to do so, and he
was left alone to defend himself.
At
any rate, it is clear that it is hard for Paul to write the statement,
"all in Asia have turned against me." Luke records in the book of
Acts that just a few years earlier, as a result of Paul's teaching in the
rented school of Tyrannus in Ephesus for five hours a day, all the residents of
Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks, (Acts 19:10), What a
wonderful awakening that represented! That was a time when the whole province
seemed to be alive with the power of the gospel, and thousands were turning to
Christ. Yet, a few years later, Paul has to write, "All in Asia have
turned against me."
That
brought to my memory the scenes, less than ten years ago, when this room was
jammed with young people on Sunday nights. They would sit in the aisles and up
here on the platform because we had no room to seat them elsewhere. That was
part of a great spiritual awakening which we now call the Jesus Movement.
Without any apparent reason thousands of young people left the drugs scene, the
world of the occult, and the world of profligate sex, and turned to Christ.
They began to read their Bibles, and seek after the truth. The whole of the
West Coast was electric with excitement as we saw the power of the Word at work
in young people's lives. But today, apathy is apparent on every side. Many of
those young people who welcomed the Word with such excitement in those days
have faded into the background. There is resistance to the truth, and a turning
away from the authority of the apostles. An apostasy has set in.
That
is exactly what the apostle is experiencing here. In the words of Dr. E.M. Blaiklock,
professor of classics at the University of New Zealand (a wonderful Christian
scholar who preached at PBC in the early days), "Of all the centuries, the
twentieth is most like the first." It is evident that you and I are living
through similar times to what Paul and Timothy are facing here. Even the
Christian community is turning away from Christian standards, morals and
ethics. Divorce is epidemic among Christians, who ought to be manifesting the
ability of the Spirit of God to keep a family united in love and grace and
growing in truth and righteousness. Instead, Christians are succumbing to the
ways of the world around. Immorality is rife among us; famous names are turning
away and forsaking Christian standards. That is what Paul and Timothy were
facing.
In
the Roman world of that day when this letter was written, (about the
year 67 or 68), the whole Roman East was aflame. Like
Mt. St. Helens, it was giving evidence that it was about to erupt and
explode. Just two or three years later, the Roman armies under Titus would
surround Jerusalem and attack the city. They destroyed the temple, killed
hundreds of thousands of Jews, and led others off into captivity. All this was
about to happen, so that the world of that day was being shaken as the world is
being shaken today. Paul's word for such an hour is to "guard the truth by
means of the Holy Spirit which has been entrusted to us."
By
contrast, there was one man from Asia, Onesiphorus, whom Paul describes as
having found a way to "guard the truth" in his day. Here is what Paul
says about him (Verses 16-18):
May the Lord grant mercy to
the household of Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed me; he was not ashamed of
my chains, but when he arrived in Rome he searched for me eagerly and found me
-- may the Lord grant him to find mercy from the Lord on that Day -- and you
well know all the service he rendered at Ephesus. (2 Timothy 1:16-18 RSV)
Onesiphorus
means "bringer of help." Here was a man who lived up to his name. He
was, evidently, a businessman. Paul had known him and his family when he
himself was in Ephesus. There the family and the man had ministered to Paul
many times, so he prays a blessing upon them.
In
his business travels, Onesiphorus had come to the city of Rome after Paul had
been captured. Painstakingly, at great effort, he sought and found the apostle.
That was not easy to do. The Romans were not telling everybody where Paul was
imprisoned, but Onesiphorus kept looking until he found him. And he was not
ashamed of Paul's chains. He found him at great risk to his own life, for, to
befriend an enemy of Caesar in those days was to put one's own life in peril.
Nero would eliminate anybody for the slightest deviation from a manifestation
of loyal support of him and his plan.
Onesiphorus
ministered to Paul and refreshed his spirit. He did not come gloomily wringing
his hands, beating his breast and talking about how terrible things were all
through the Empire. He came with confidence that God was still in charge and
upholding things. Here Paul prays for him now that he is still away, probably
on another trip somewhere, and he asks Timothy to support his family there and
prays that God would bless him "on that Day."
By
his life and his actions, here is a man who found the way to turn the lion loose
in his own time. Onesiphorus was fearless, he was faithful, and he was
cheerful. He reminds me of that favorite definition I have used many times of
how a Christian ought to be: Completely fearless. Continually heerful.
Constantly in trouble.
Paul
now returns to Timothy and gives him step-by-step instructions on how he can
guard the truth, how he can turn the lion loose in a day of widespread
declension and apostasy. This passage runs on through Verse 13, but we are
only going to take two verses this morning. Chapter 2, Verses 1-2:
You then, my son, he strong
in the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me before
many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.
(2 Timothy 2:1-2 RSV)
The
first thing you have to do when things start falling apart, Paul says, is to be
strong yourself in the grace that is in Christ Jesus; that is a fundamental
principle of helping anybody. You can only pass on to others what you yourself
have received. Head knowledge is of no value. If you merely pass on a knowledge
of the truth -- teaching people the various doctrines of Christianity -- you
have done nothing to help them at all. Unless they can see that that truth has changed you and
made you different, that you speak out of the experience of having been altered
by the truth you believe, you will never do anything to help someone else stand
in the hour of danger. If you want to strengthen others, Paul's advice is,
start with yourself: "Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus."
That is the way to guard the truth. That is what Onesiphorus had done. He was
strong, he was able to withstand the fear and the pressures of his day because
he had found that Christ could strengthen him. So he becomes an example to
Timothy and to us of how to stand in an evil day.
That
which strengthens is grace, Paul says, "the grace that is in Christ
Jesus." A peculiar thing about grace is, it is never available to strong
people. That is what makes it difficult for us to get hold of it sometimes. We
are continually assaulted today with a barrage of propaganda teaching us that
the way to be strong is to develop some quality about ourselves, some hidden
power, some reserve of personality, some right that we need to demand and stand
on and insist upon that. But if you believe your Bible, that is the way to be
weak -- and that is what proves to be the case. God's grace alone is strong
enough to handle the pressures of a fallen world, but the only way you can lay
hold of the grace of God is to acknowledge that you are so weak you do not have
anything else that will hold you. So the first thing that grace demands is that
we admit our weakness, not our strength.
Many
today are unable to be strong and unable to stand in the day of pressure,
although they give great testimony about how they are going to follow Christ
and stand for him. In the moment of pressure, however, they go down almost
instantly. They have bought the lie of the world that if they just make up
their mind, that if by their will or their effort they display their tremendous
natural gifts, or if they develop some power to ride over the rights of others,
they can stand. Not a day goes by but we are exposed to invitations to send
away for this course or sign up for that one that will teach us how to stand up
for our own rights. There is even a course offered today on how to intimidate
others. That is the spirit of the age. But Paul's word is that the way to
strength is to discover "the grace that is in Christ Jesus."
Recognize your own weakness and then accept God's promise to work with you and
through you in your weakness to make it strong. That is how it works.
Christians
are to be forever learning to say, "I can't live up to this demand, I
can't do this thing that is asked of me, but he can, therefore I can."
Take the action based upon the expectation that God is in you and he will
enable you to do what you otherwise cannot do. That is authentic Christianity.
It is supernatural. Natural strength is its greatest enemy. When we learn that,
we can be "strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus."
J. Hudson
Taylor, founder of the China Inland Mission, was a marvelous exemplification of
what we are talking about. Here is a quotation from his writings:
It makes no matter where he
places me or how; that is rather for him to consider than me. For the easiest
positions he must give me grace, and in the most difficult, his grace is
sufficient. So, if God places me in great perplexity, must he not give me much
guidance; in positions of great difficulty, much grace; in circumstances of
great pressure and trial, much strength? As to work, mine was never so
plentiful, so responsible or so difficult, but the weight and the strain are
all gone. His resources are mine, for He is mine.
That
is a Christian response to the pressures of the day. I love to hear a
congregation sing the hymn, "Amazing Grace," especially when they put
the emphasis upon the "zing." That is what grace does: it puts zing
into life. "Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me."
That
is what Paul is writing to Timothy. So if you want others to be pure, learn to
be pure yourself, by "the grace that is in Christ Jesus"; and if you
want others to stand, then learn to stand yourself by "the grace that is
in Christ Jesus." That is the place to start. If you cannot demonstrate it
in your own life, you will get nowhere trying to communicate it to others.
But
if you start there, then the next step is, as Paul points out, "what you
have heard from me before many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be
able to teach others also." Pass it on; communicate it; let them see what
you have learned. Let them see the struggles and the temporary failures that
you went through in the learning of it.
That
is why Paul adds these words, "before many witnesses." Timothy had
accompanied Paul on many journeys. He had often heard him preach and teach; he
was with him when he addressed pagans and at times when he addressed
Christians. He heard the marvelous truths that the apostle understood which fleshed
out all the words that Jesus had said. He saw the tremendous impact these words
had made upon various people, both for good and for bad; some words that led to
life, and other words that seemed to lead some to death. He must have discussed
this frequently with Paul. He saw the hurt and the opposition that introduced
into the apostle's life, the struggles Paul had as a result of faithfully
proclaiming the truth. Timothy also saw the fantastic blessing that spread, the
tremendous changes that were introduced, and the lifting of a whole level of a
community's life because of the truth as it is in Jesus. So, Paul says,
"What you have heard and seen and learned from me, pass it on to faithful
men."
How
do you tell a faithful man? (That is a generic term that includes both men and
women.) How do you tell faithful people who can learn truth? Let me share with
you four qualities I look for in someone in order to pass on what I myself have
learned.
First,
I look for a searching mind, a mind that is ready to learn, a mind that has
given evidence, both in secular and sacred ways, that it wants to know
something. Such a mind is not content to pass through life with a radio
blaring, or a TV on, being entertained all the time. It wants to learn, to
search out truth, to listen to what is going on around; it is willing to think
about it, to meditate on it and explore its application. That is the first
thing: a searching mind.
Then
I look for a humble heart, for somebody who has already learned that truth is
bigger than he is. He will have learned that we are to set aside our own egos,
that truth is not given to us in order to build up our image in the eyes of
people, that we are not to manipulate people to gain standing or prestige among
them, but we are to be willing to submit ourselves, to put ourselves down and
not seek credit; a humble heart.
The
third thing is an evident gift. That is what Paul says here. Look for someone
who is "able to teach others also," somebody who has a gift of the
Spirit that can communicate and impart to others what he himself has learned.
That is a process of duplication and reduplication that will rapidly spread
truth throughout a body of people; an evident gift.
The
fourth thing I look for is a faithful spirit, somebody who has demonstrated by
a track record that he does not quit when the going gets tough. He is not ready
to leave when some more enticing thing comes along, when the skiing gets good
or the sun is hitting the beach, but he is willing to stay with what he has
committed himself to; a faithful spirit.
A
searching mind, a humble heart, an evident gift, a faithful spirit; when you
find such as those, commit yourself to them. Paul says to Timothy, "Give
yourself and everything you know to such men because they will pass it on to
others, and soon the truth will spread."
I
was recently in touch with a church which, when it was founded a couple of
decades ago, had great understanding of the truth about the church, about the
gifts of the Spirit, about the nature of elder leadership, and the authority of
the Lord Jesus in the midst of his people. Because of its commitment to truth,
for a long time that church made a tremendous impression in the area in which
it is located. But of late it has been going through severe struggles. It has
had one serious split, and now it is gradually becoming more and more an
ordinary church, merely fitting itself into the usual plan and program of the
church. I asked one of the elders of that church what had gone wrong. His
answer was, "It was our (the elders') fault. We did not pass on to the
newer elders what we ourselves believed."
All
of us live just one generation away from total apostasy. The work of the church
can fall apart in one generation if we do not faithfully pass on what we
ourselves know -- parents to children, elders to the younger ones, leaders to
those who follow; "faithful men and women who are able to teach others
also." That is God's process of supporting and spreading truth and helping
it to stand in the hour of attack.
I
do not think there is any greater testimony to that than what has happened in
China. When the missionaries were thrust out of China in 1950, Christians
everywhere wrung their hands and said, "This is terrible. China will go
back into the dark ages under the Communist heel. The poor Christians there
will be reduced to nothing." But the truth has now become evident. The
door is open to China again, and Christians who went back in found that the
church had increased numerically sevenfold over what it was when the missionaries
left.
I
have always maintained that God's most significant approach to evangelizing a
city is to begin by locking all the preachers up in jail. Remember that Paul
wrote to the Philippians, "Many of the brethren are much more bold to
preach the gospel because of my imprisonment," (Philippians 1:14 RSV).
That is God's method of spreading the church. When you and I look around and
see the apostasy that is setting in, in our day, among Christians in the
church, we must remember, as the poet James Russell Lowell put it:
Though the cause of evil
prosper,
Yet 'tis truth alone that's strong.
Truth forever on the scaffold,
Wrong forever on the throne.
Yet that scaffold sways the future,
And behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadows
Keeping watch above his own.
"Truth
crushed to earth shall rise again," is a famous, oft-quoted saying. How
true it is.
What
then do you do in the day of declension, when people are turning away from
Christianity? How do you let loose the lion that he might defend himself? Paul says
there are four steps which we can take. We have looked at two of them: Practice
a daily communion with the Lord Jesus yourself; and then communicate that to
faithful men and women around you.
In
the remainder of the passage Paul goes on to speak of the necessity for an
earnest, dedicated commitment of the will, and of a confidence in the power of
God that will continue to stand in the midst of pressure. We will look at that
next week.
In
the meantime, let us start to put into practice what he exhorts us to here -- a
daily communion with Jesus himself, and a communicating of it to those with
whom we have influence.
Prayer
Lord, we thank you for
calling us to stand in this evil day. We know we are not living in a world that
is going to minister to our comfort and please our indulgence very long; for
that which can be shaken is about to be shaken. All the world seems about to
fall apart around us; we cannot avoid it by hiding our heads in the sand. Grant
that we may be faithful Christians who have learned how to guard the truth by
means of the Holy Spirit in order that the lion of truth, made powerful by the
Spirit, may be loosed among men and women in our day; and we will see the truth
surmount its enemies and rise up to bless the world yet. We ask in Jesus' name,
Amen.
