Grace OPC Sewickley PA

Sermon Book: 2 Timothy

  • The Doctrine of Scripture Alone

    The Doctrine of Scripture Alone

    About this sermon

    Protestant means to protest Roman doctrine as well as being “pro” foundational truths.

    1. The origin of Holy Scripture: It is “breathed out” by God (v. 16).
    2. The profitability of Holy Scripture (v. 16b).
    3. The sufficiency of Holy Scripture (v. 17).

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    Sermon transcript

    Please remain standing for the reading of God’s Word. My sermon text today taken from Paul’s second letter to Timothy, 2nd Timothy, chapter three, verses 10 through 17. We take a little break from our foundations series where we’re considering foundations of the of our most holy faith with the Apostles Creed as our guideline, a Bible based study in that. But as Reformation Day is approaching and we’re in this season where we remember that mighty move of God. through Martin Luther and Calvin and other reformers, we consider one of the important doctrines, one of the foundational doctrines of the Protestant Reformation, the doctrine of Scripture alone. So let us hear God’s word. Second Timothy, chapter three, verses 10 through 17. Paul writes to Timothy, you, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium and at Lystra, which persecutions I endured.

    Yet from them all, the Lord rescued me. Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and imposters will go on from bad to worse. deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. Dear friends, the grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Let’s pray for God’s blessing upon the preaching of his word.

    Gracious Lord and Father in heaven, We beseech you to open our minds and our hearts to behold wondrous things from your word. We pray that by the illuminating power of your spirit, you would help us to understand and grasp that which the spirit is speaking to us in this portion of your God-breathed, inerrant, infallible word. We thank you for the scriptures. They are indeed a light into our feet, a lamp into our feet, a light into our path and a guide to our way. We ask, Heavenly Father, that as we consider this passage of scripture, that your word would find a lodging place in our souls and grant me the grace to speak forth your word with clarity and power and with the assistance of your spirit. We pray these things in Jesus name and all of God’s people said, Amen.

    Congregation, you may be seated. Well, friends, as you can see from your bulletin and your sermon outline, if you’re following along, the title of my sermon this morning is The Doctrine of Scripture Alone. And four key words that the children, children of all ages, can listen for if you find that helpful. The words scripture, authority, inspiration and sufficiency. Well, dear ones, we in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, we are Protestant Christians. And as a church, we are a, in spite of our church’s name, which includes the word Orthodox, in spite of that, we are a Protestant church. What exactly does it mean to be a Protestant? Think about the term itself. Obviously, the term itself conveys the idea of protesting against something. The Protestant reformers and their followers indeed protested against various corrupt and unbiblical doctrines and practices that were found in the medieval Roman Catholic Church.

    Practices such as the doctrine of the mass, indulgences, relics, and so forth. But friends, the term Protestant can actually be a misleading term because it can give the impression that Protestants are only against something. We are Protestants. So the question is, what are you protesting? What are you against? And certainly we are against certain things. But Protestantism not only stands against the false teachings and practices of Rome, of the Roman Church, although it certainly does that. More importantly, Protestantism, historic, biblically grounded Protestantism, also stands for some very important things. It stands for the pure truth of God’s word, and it stands for the biblical gospel. The good news of justification by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, apart from works of the law. The foundational truths of the Protestant Reformation are the solas or the onlys of the Reformation, and they include sola scriptura, or scripture alone, They include also sola fide, faith alone, sola gratia, grace alone, solus Christus, Christ alone, and soli deo gloria, to God alone be the glory.

    Well, friends, this Lord’s Day morning, I want to have us consider the biblical basis for the historic Protestant doctrine of sola scriptura. Now, when we come to the issue of Scripture alone or Sola Scriptura versus Scripture plus something else, whatever that something else may be, whether that be holy tradition or religious experience or alleged new revelations of the Spirit or current cultural views on things, whatever it might be, This issue between Scripture alone versus Scripture plus something else. What is it at heart? Well, it’s an issue that arises out of such questions as, what is our ultimate religious authority? And where can we find God’s clear word revelation? What is the ultimate standard, not only in our private Christian lives, but also the ultimate and final final standard for Christ’s church? Now, friends, historically, the Roman Catholic Church has answered these questions by basically saying that, well, the ultimate authority is sacred scripture and holy tradition, as infallibly interpreted by the magisterium of the church headed by the pope in Rome.

    That is viewed by them as the final authority. So it’s typical to think of the differences as, you know, scripture alone versus scripture plus tradition. But actually, when you take the Roman view to its logical end, what you end up with ultimately is what has been called sola ecclesia, in other words, the church alone. Because after all, in the Roman view of things, it is the church that decides what is and what is not God’s word. It is the church that decides what is and what is not authoritative holy tradition. It is the church and the church alone which defines what are dogmas binding upon the consciences of the faithful. So that is the Roman view, whereas historically Protestant churches, whether they be Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican Baptist, or what have you, have affirmed that the Bible alone is the only infallible rule of faith and practice in Christ’s church.

    And so when there are issues of doctrine or issues of ethics in the church, the final standard that we go to and appeal to is nothing less than God’s inerrant, infallible, authoritative word. We go to the Bibles. But friends, here’s where, if you’ve ever had a conversation with an educated Roman Catholic, with a Roman Catholic who knows their faith well and knows their reasons for believing their views, educated Roman Catholics and Catholic apologists will often challenge the Protestant view of sola scriptura, or scripture alone, by claiming that the Bible nowhere teaches it. If you’re ever in a conversation with a Roman Catholic who knows what their church teaches, and there are some of those out there, they will often say, well, where does the Bible teach sola scriptura? You’re kind of reading that into the Bible, they would say.

    The Bible itself doesn’t teach sola scriptura. How would you answer that objection? How would you interact with someone who is bringing that claim to you? And it is a claim that has convinced some folks to swim the Tiber, to join Rome, some from the Protestant fold. Well, friends, as I hope to show today, passages such as the one that we are considering today clearly imply the truth which we Protestants call sola scriptura. Now, as we approach this text of scripture, I need to give credit where credit is due. In my preparations of this sermon, I need to credit Dr. James White’s excellent little book entitled Scripture Alone, exploring the Bible’s accuracy, authority, and authenticity. I use that resource for the basic outline of my sermon points. It’s not the only resource I consulted, but I found Dr.

    White’s book on this subject very helpful. So I just want to give credit where credit is due. Let’s consider the context of our passage for today. Second Timothy is a very significant portion of scripture, a very significant letter of Paul’s. Paul wrote Second Timothy to Timothy, his son in the faith, towards the end of Paul’s life. In fact, Second Timothy is Paul’s last epistle before his martyrdom. at least his last canonical epistle that we are aware of, before he was martyred. And Paul writes to Timothy, his son in the faith. Paul had actually mentored Timothy as a gospel minister. And so here is Paul writing to his intern, if you will, the one that he had mentored, in order to encourage Timothy. And why did Timothy need encouragement? Timothy, we get the impression from the scriptures that Timothy had somewhat of a timid personality.

    So Paul had to encourage him not to be timid, but to be bold in the Lord. And at this particular time, Timothy was facing a very serious pastoral challenge. Timothy was serving as a pastor in the church of Ephesus, a church which at the time was facing many problems from false teachers. So Paul writes to encourage Timothy to stand fast for the faith against these false teachers. He is encouraging Timothy in his pastoral ministry. Now. Again, it’s always important when we study the scriptures and interpret them to understand their context. And in the context of this passage, in the first nine verses of chapter three, what Paul does is he describes the character, the tactics, and the attacks of these false teachers. In fact, let me just read the first nine verses of 2 Timothy chapter three.

    Paul writes to Timothy, he says, But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty, for people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power.” Again, as Paul writes this, he very likely has in the background of his mind these false teachers that threatened the church where Timothy had pastoral oversight. And Paul says, he goes on to say, avoid such people, for among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.

    Just as Janice and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also opposed the truth. Men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith. But they will not get very far, for their folly will be plain to all, as was that of those two men.” So, friends, these are the kinds of folks that Timothy is having to contend with and deal with. Well, then in v. 10-15, Paul goes on to encourage Timothy, as I said, to stay faithful in spite of opposition and persecution. He says in v. 10, you, however, you, Timothy, You have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium and at Lystra, which persecutions I endured yet from them all. The Lord rescued me here again.

    Paul is speaking. Paul, as the mentor of Timothy, is speaking to Timothy, reminding Timothy of his of his modeling of a faithful life in Christ in his apostolic ministry. Again, Paul did not. Obviously, he’s not claiming to be sinless, but he’s saying, Timothy, you know me, you’ve you’ve observed my life. You’ve seen all of these aspects of my ministry. And he’s trying to encourage his son in the faith. to follow his example insofar as he followed Christ’s example. And then he goes on to say in verse 12, Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. Again, this is a general statement. This does not mean that if you are not at this moment suffering overt persecution, then you must be ungodly or something of that sort. But if you study church history and even if you look at the the church today, throughout the world, the norm for Christ’s church throughout the ages of church history, the norm for the faithful church of Christ has been suffering persecution for the sake of the gospel.

    And he goes on to say that all who would live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution while evil people and imposters will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being Again, he probably has in the background of his mind these false teachers that Timothy is having to contend with. But then again, he brings this encouragement. Look at verse 14. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it. From whom did he learn? From whom did Timothy learn his faith? Considering from whom you learned it, Timothy must continue in the sound doctrine that he had learned. Let’s go back and look at chapter one, verse five, very briefly. Chapter one, verse five, Paul says to Timothy, 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. These godly women in his life, a godly grandmother, a godly mother. Apparently, Timothy’s father was a pagan, an unbeliever. But nonetheless, Timothy learned the faith from his mother, Eunice, his grandmother, Lois. And as it goes on to say in our passage for today in verse 15, Paul reminds Timothy that from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings or the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation. by faith, through faith in Christ Jesus. Now, let me ask you, at this particular point in time in redemptive history, what are the sacred writings at this point in redemptive history? This would refer to the Old Testament. At this point in time, the New Testament scriptures were not completed. They were in the process of being written.

    And so, even the Old Testament scriptures are sufficient and able to make us wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. Why? Because all of Scripture centers on Christ, points to Christ. The Old Testament prepares us for the coming of the Messiah, Jesus, and the New Testament reveals Christ. But in any case, Timothy had been acquainted with the scriptures from his childhood as he had been taught the scriptures from his godly grandmother and godly mother. Notice, by the way, the function of these scriptures. What is their function? Their function is to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. The scriptures are primarily concerned with making us wise unto salvation, not serving as chicken soup for our souls or serving as marching orders in culture wars, but serving. spiritual function of making us wise for salvation in Christ Jesus.

    And then getting to the specifics of our passage for today, he goes on to say these familiar but glorious words, all scripture is breathed out by God. Some of your translations say inspired, but breathed out is actually, as we’ll see, more literal and correct. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness. Now, this brings me to the first point of application I want to make today. Let us, first of all, brothers and sisters, consider the origin of Holy Scripture. Its origin is that it is breathed out by God. The origin of Holy Scripture. It is breathed out by God. breathed out by God. What’s breathed out by God? How many of the scriptures are breathed out by God? Just the parts of scripture that that we resonate with or that we like or that we enjoy.

    I mean, you know, there are certain portions of scripture that to be honest, there’s certain portions of scripture that I appreciate and enjoy reading more than other portions of scripture. It’s all God’s word. But, you know, I love Paul, for example. I love the Gospels. I love the Psalms. But there’s a whole lot of other books of the Bible. Remember, the Bible is not just a book. It’s a collection of divinely inspired or breathed out books. But how many scriptures are inspired or breathed out? It says all or every scripture is God-breathed. In the Greek, that word for God-breathed is the word Theopneustos. Theos means God, pneuma means spirit or breath, and that’s why God breathed is probably the more accurate, it is the more accurate translation. When you think of inspiration, inspiration sometimes carries with it the idea of God putting something into the scriptures or breathing into the scriptures.

    But actually, the scriptures are not breathed in by God, but breathed out by God. This points to their origin. This speaks to the divine origin of scripture, though the scriptures were obviously and clearly penned by men. God sovereignly overruled their writing in such a way that they wrote precisely what God wanted them to write. Again, this is not the so-called mechanical or dictation theory, but that the Holy Spirit organically and supernaturally guided the writers of Scripture so that they wrote precisely what God wanted them to write. The ultimate divine author of Scripture and thus the originator of Scripture is God himself, not the men that he used. Although, again, the scriptures were penned by men. The great theologian, Presbyterian theologian, Dr. B.B. Warfield, the great defender of the inerrancy and authority of Holy Scripture, writes this about the Greek term theopneustos.

    He says, it does not express a breathing into the scriptures by God. What it affirms is that the scriptures owe their origin to an activity of God, the Holy Ghost, and are in the highest and truest sense, his creation. It is on this foundation of divine origin that all the high attributes of scripture are built. And then Dr. James White says this about the scriptures. He says they are not first and foremost in a primary sense human in their origination. He goes on to say a solid view of the Bible begins with the recognition that God is its principal author, the origin and source of its very essence. This book that you hold in your hands, this is not man’s word, although men were employed by God in writing it. This is ultimately God’s word.

    It was breathed out by God. The contents of this book were breathed out by God. Dear ones, What does this have to do with Sola Scriptura or scripture alone? Well, friends. The Bible’s function as the only infallible rule for faith and practice in Christ’s Church, the primary and highest and final standard to which we as God’s people are to appeal. In other words, the truth of Sola Scriptura, Scripture alone, necessarily arises out of the fact that the Bible has its origin in supernatural, divine inspiration, in God’s activity of breathing out His Word. Why should we Protestants believe in Scripture alone? Well, first of all, because the Bible alone has been breathed out by Almighty God as His inerrant, infallible, authoritative Word. Do you believe, dear listener, in the Bible’s divine origin? There’s plenty of internal evidence supporting that.

    Hundreds of times the Scriptures say things like, thus saith the Lord, or this is what the Lord says. And the New Testament scriptures acknowledge Jesus himself, acknowledge the final authority of the scriptures. And in the New Testament, the New Testament authors were aware of speaking under divine inspiration. So do you believe in the Bible’s divine origin? If you do not believe in the Bible’s divine origin, you’re not going to have a clear understanding of Scripture, and you don’t understand the purpose of the Scriptures. It comes from God, and it is for the people of God, and it is the very truth of God. But not only does Paul encourage Timothy by reminding him of the origin of Holy Scripture, next, He points out the profitability of Holy Scripture, not in terms of financial profit, but in terms of spiritual profit.

    He goes on to say in verse 16, he says, all Scripture is breathed out by God. That’s the origin of Scripture. It comes from God. It is breathed out by God. And it is what? Profitable. Profitable for what? For teaching, for reproof. for correction and for training in righteousness. Now, Paul says that all or every scripture is profitable, profitable. That term profitable could also be translated as valuable, useful or beneficial. What is God’s word profitable, useful, valuable, beneficial for? Well, the first thing that is listed is for reproof. When you think of the term reprove or reproof, what comes to mind? My suspicion is that for many folks, something cruel and hard and harsh comes to mind. This is a term that, yes, correction sometimes needs to be sharp and direct and blunt. But again, to quote from Dr.

    White, he says that the scriptures are for reproof, that is for reproving slash refuting, can refer either to refuting false concepts slash teachings or to rebuking sinful actions slash attitudes. It probably carries with it both ideas, as both are the responsibilities of those who minister in the church. Paul is writing this to a fellow pastor. Paul, obviously, is more than just a pastor. He’s an apostle. But he’s writing to this man of God, giving him instructions. And he’s saying, look, the scriptures are profitable for reproof. And reproving means correcting false teachings and correcting false living as well. And that brings me to the next statement. He says it is sufficient or rather sorry, profitable for reproof for correction. Again, to quote from Dr. White, he says, for correction is found throughout Paul’s letters, wherein he rebukes false living and false activity on the part of believers.

    Sound doctrine and sound living go hand in hand. An error in one normally leads to an error in the other. And Paul’s speaking to the element of fault or error also speaks to the restoration of the one being corrected. You see, in the scriptures, reproof and correction are, while they may be blunt and direct at times, The motivation is not to crush people. The motivation is not to knock people down. The motivation is to come alongside an erring brother or sister and to help them get back onto the straight and narrow path. The ultimate goal is restoration for the glory of Christ and for the good of his church. But not only does it have these, if you will, these negative functions of reproving and correcting, and not only is it profitable for those negative activities, but also for training in righteousness.

    Training could also be translated as instruction or discipline. Again, to quote from Dr. White, he says, training in righteousness follows for those who are learning to lay aside the old ways of the flesh and to walk in newness of life. He quotes, he references Romans 6, 4. Hence, the entirety of the Christian ministry in life finds its origin, its foundation, its lifeblood in that which is God-breathed. Dear friends, The spiritual value and profitability of the Bible is a natural outgrowth of its divine origin as God breathed scripture. The Bible as the word of God is the unique and ultimate source of spiritual profit, ultimately because the Bible reveals the Lord Jesus Christ and the full and free salvation that Christ offers to us sinners in the gospel, a salvation which we receive by faith in Christ. and Christ alone.

    Again, going back to what Paul said at the end of verse 15, the scriptures are able to make you wise for salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus. You don’t need the scriptures plus something else to lead you to faith in Christ. The spirit of faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ, we are told in the scriptures. The Bible is also spiritually valuable and profitable because it shows the Christian believer how to grow in discipleship and how to live a life that is pleasing to the Lord. In other words, it is profitable for teaching, reproving, correcting and training in righteousness, as we’re told in verse 16. We not only need instruction in our sin and instruction in how to be saved, we also need instruction in how to live out the implications of our faith, how to live as disciples, as followers of the Lord Jesus Christ.

    And the scriptures are sufficient for that as well. While the spiritual value and profitableness of Holy Scripture are not in and of themselves proof of the truth of Scripture alone, They are certainly consistent with this truth. In other words, think about it, friends, if the Bible is indeed God breathed scripture, and it is and therefore of supreme spiritual value and profitableness, which, again, it is. We would naturally expect it to function as our only infallible rule of Christian faith and Christian living, just as biblically Protestant sola scriptura teaches. Dear listener, again, do you see the spiritual value and profitableness of the Holy Scriptures? Of course, Pastor, I believe the Bible is God’s word. Very good. Make sure it doesn’t stay on your shelf collecting dust. Be in the word. Be in the word. So we’ve seen the divine origin of Holy Scripture.

    We’ve considered the spiritual profitableness of Holy Scripture. It is profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, training or instruction in righteousness. But then we see in verse 17, the sufficiency of Holy Scripture, the sufficiency of Holy Scripture. All Scripture is breathed out by God. and profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. Now, in the context of this passage, This particular verse is a crowning evidence that supports the biblically Protestant doctrine of scripture alone. So think about it. If scripture is completely sufficient to thoroughly equip the man of God for every good work, as this passage clearly teaches, then why would scripture need to be supplemented by other sources of religious authority as additional rules of faith and practice? Now, Paul says that it is sufficient to equip whom?

    Well, he mentions in particular the man of God. And by the term man of God, he’s not speaking generically of believers in general, at least not in this context. He’s thinking of church leaders in particular, men of God like Timothy. However, that doesn’t mean that this only applies in the case of those who are in positions of Christian leadership in the church. Christian ministers like Timothy are in view in particular. But the scriptures, if the scriptures are sufficient to equip ministers, to equip those who are called to shepherd the flock of God, if the scriptures are sufficient to equip them for every good work, then certainly they are sufficient to equip all other believers as well. But this raises the question, OK, so, pastor, the scriptures are sufficient to equip the man of God that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

    And by inference that that applies to all believers, the scriptures are sufficient for all of us in our particular callings and vocations. But the question is, what about these other authorities? Well, you know, we’re an Orthodox Presbyterian church. We have a catechism. We have creeds and confessions. We we believe in in ministers and assemblies of the church. This solus scriptura scripture alone mean that we can ignore all that other stuff, that that other stuff is is not significant or important. Well, it’s important to understand, friends, that the Apostle Paul in this passage is not advocating and historic Protestantism has never advocated an unbiblical hyper individualism, such as the solo scriptura distortion of the Protestant view, which completely rejects the historic creeds and confessions and councils of the church, and which advocates a completely isolated, just me and my Bible in my prayer closet, mindset which reads scripture in isolation from the historic church.

    Let me just say, in many, today, in many Christians’ minds, the idea of scripture alone is often misinterpreted to mean, oh, The Bible alone, this alone is the Word of God, which is true. This alone is the only infallible rule for faith and practice. Yes, that’s true. Well, that means I don’t need the church. That means I don’t need teachers and pastors and theologians. And that means that I can just, you know, it’s me and my Bible and the Holy Spirit in my prayer closet. That’s all I need. You know, that’s not what Sola Scriptura means. We need to understand, brothers and sisters, that Paul is not denying the existence of other God-ordained but subordinate or secondary authorities like the organized church and its ordained ministers and elders. However, because the Bible is God-breathed, it alone is infallible and ultimate in its authority.

    It is the only infallible rule of faith and practice. Bible based creeds and confessions and church councils that are faithful to the scriptures lawfully ordained church officers. These are fallible and subordinate authorities but real authorities nonetheless. But but they are fallible and subordinate. They are subject to the correction and guidance of Holy Scripture, and thus they are authoritative only insofar as they conform to the teachings of God’s word. And so the scriptures come from God, the scriptures are spiritually profitable, and the scriptures are sufficient. Therefore, sola scriptura, scripture alone, the Protestant, the correct understanding of the Protestant view, not unbiblical, hyper-individualistic solo scriptura, but sola scriptura is supported by the Word of God, contrary to what some of our Roman Catholic friends would contend. But I would have us closed by considering, too, with regards to the secondary authorities that I’ve mentioned, I’d have you turn to the back of your Psalter hymnal to our confession of faith, the back of this Trinity Psalter hymnal.

    Look at Confession of Faith, chapter 31, sections 3 and 2. We’re going to read them in that order. Confession of Faith, chapter 31. This is page 938 in the back of your Psalter hymnal. This is the chapter of synods and councils. Let me first of all read section 3. Section 3 says this. All synods or councils since the apostles times, whether general, general or particular, may err and many have erred. Therefore, they are not to be made the rule of faith or practice, but to be used as a help in both. You see the distinction? They are aids and helps to faith and practice, but they are not the rule of faith and practice because as Luther discovered in the Protestant Reformation, as Luther discovered, synods and councils did err at times. And they are not to be made, therefore, a rule for faith and practice.

    But going back to section two, we read this. What is the purpose of those synods and councils? And we just had an assembly in the last two days here at Grace Church, a presbytery assembly. It says it belongeth to synods and councils ministerially. which means in a servant role, to minister is to serve. It belongeth to synods and councils ministerially to determine controversies of faith and cases of conscience, to set down rules and directions for the better ordering of the public worship of God and government of his church, to receive complaints in cases of maladministration and authoritatively to determine the same, which decrees and determinations, notice this phrase, if consonant to the word of God, are to be received with reverence and submission, not only for their agreement with the word, but also for the power whereby they are made as being an ordinance of God appointed thereunto in his word.

    The Bible itself teaches us that God has given a government and officers to his church. So you can’t hold to solo scriptura and ignore the church while at the same time saying that I just follow the Bible. Well, the Bible itself talks about elders and deacons and a church structure and councils and things of that sort. And so, friends, again, the Bible and the Bible alone is the word of God. The Bible and the Bible alone is the only infallible rule for faith and practice. And that’s why the Bible can be studied corporately and collectively by the Church of Jesus Christ. And that’s why we can learn from past ages of faithful ministers and elders and theologians that God has raised up to study the scriptures and to help lead the people of God to a deeper understanding of His Word.

    May we, brothers and sisters, may we ground our faith in Scripture. May we live in the Scriptures, both as individual believers and as a covenant community. Amen. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank You and praise You for this precious gift, the Word of God, the Holy Scriptures. We would pray, Heavenly Father, that You would help us, Lord, to trust in your word, to hunger and thirst, to know your word and to be grounded in the scriptures. And we pray that by your spirit, that your word would bear much spiritual fruit in our hearts and lives and in this congregation of your people. We pray these things in Jesus name and all of God’s people said, Amen. Let’s close our time of worship today by rising and we’ll sing as our closing hymn, 171, A Word of God Incarnate, 171.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Unstoppable Grace

    Unstoppable Grace

    About this sermon

    Writing from prison, Paul tells Timothy to be strong in grace, to entrust the gospel to faithful men, and to endure hardship like a soldier, athlete, and farmer. He is bound in chains, but the word of God is not bound. Throughout Acts the word grows and the church multiplies, even under persecution. God’s grace in the risen Christ cannot be stopped, for it was impossible for death to hold him. If believers are faithless, he remains faithful, and his purpose calls his people to life and service.

    More sermons from 2 Timothy · Browse all sermons

    Sermon transcript

    is from 2 Timothy 2, 2 Timothy 2. And in particular, our sermon will be from chapter 2, verse 9, and its final phrase. By reading 2 Timothy 2, 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, share in suffering, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.

    No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. It is the hard-working farmer who ought to have the first share of the cross. Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.

    Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel, for which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal. But the word of God is not bound, therefore I endure. everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. The saying is trustworthy, for if we have died with him, we will also live with him. If we endure, we will also reign with him. If we deny him, he also will deny us. If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.

    Remind them of these things, and charge them before God not to quarrel about words which does no good, but only ruins the ear. Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth, but avoid irreverent babble. For it will lead people into more and more ungodliness, and their talk will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have swerved from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already happened. They are upsetting the faith of some. But God’s firm foundation stands, bearing this seal.

    The Lord knows we are His, and Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity. Now, in a great house, there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, He will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work. So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies. You know that they breed quarrels. and the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil after being captured by him to do his will. Unstoppable grace. Unstoppable grace. Of course, we talk about the five points of Calvinism, right? Irresistible grace is one of them. You have tulip, right? Total depravity. Untraditional election. Limited atonement. Irresistible grace. Perseverance of the saints. But irresistible grace, yes?

    God, in a wonderful way, brings His Word and Spirit. The Spirit working by and with the Word, and awakens our heart. That’s effectual calling. He enlightens our minds. He renews our wills. So that we just voluntarily accept the Lord. That’s where our minions come from.

    They’re dear brothers and sisters in the Lord. who go by virtue of their experience instead of the explanation of it in the Bible. They say, I chose the Lord, it made sense to me and I believed, I mean, so I guess we choose the Lord. Well, it’s sort of a naive way of looking at things. But experientially, that’s the way people experience it.

    We love him, of course, because he first loved us from all eternity, he loved us. And he said, his only begotten son that died for us, we had nothing to do with that. And in time, when we didn’t care about him, we couldn’t choose to believe, we didn’t choose to believe, we wouldn’t choose to believe, nevertheless, he saw us. And he found us. And he laid a hold on us. And he drew us to himself.

    By the gospel, he wooed us. that we would love Him? And who can help it? You know, when the Spirit of God opens your heart and you begin to see Jesus for who He is, don’t you love Him? Aren’t you thankful for all He’s done? Isn’t He a wonderful Savior? And on the Lord’s Day, to rest in that, we have a wonderful Savior. Just to rest in that is a wonderful thing. You know, Psalm 23 is so wonderful.

    I never get tired of it. I went to the hospital one time. I was standing over a person in the bed, they were dying, and I started reading, and they looked up, and they were angry with me. And they said, this isn’t my funeral. Do something else. I got a million of them.

    What a life. Once you become a pastor, you find out something very soon. You can’t do anything right. It’s sort of like marriage, right? And that’s good, too. The Lord gives us our most faithful, loving critics in marriage. Also people who go get books for you when you forget. But you see, that set me back quite a bit. And read something else. This is not my funeral. I love Psalm 23. People don’t just read it over me while I’m dying. The Lord is my shepherd. I don’t lack anything. I have everything that I need.

    And he makes me to lie down in green pastures. A satisfied sheep does not lay down. But a sheep in green pastures that eats to its full, they get so full that they can’t stand up. At least, that’s what my sheep do. And they just lay down there. Now, that doesn’t mean they’re done. They lay down, and they eat whatever’s around them. You know, I say, you know, sheep believe everything in moderation, even moderation.

    But I’m not talking just about irresistible grace, but it’s a very big part of this unstoppable grace. And that unstoppable grace is a grace that is inseparably bound up with the preaching of the Word of God. And here in 2 Timothy, the apostle Paul is writing in a situation where he, being in chains, is not widely able to proclaim the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. We find the same or similar situation in Philippians. And there he rejoices in others’ preaching of the gospel. He’s not able, in that case, to preach. And yet, Philippians is one of the most joyful books in the Bible. Several times, he instructs us there to rejoice. And in the fourth chapter, he says, rejoice again, I say. Rejoice. He can’t contain it.

    But when he’s talking about his own imprisonment in Philippians 1.12, he says, I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel. That’s an amazing statement for an apostle to write from prison.

    In all human institutions, the leaders, the governors, the promoters, the people who are the movers and the shakers and the identifiers of the direction for a movement, the one who set the pace, you lose all of those and everything dies out. You know, it just all fizzles out.

    This was the advice that one gave when, after the, The death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ and the apostles were a recipe. So don’t worry, you know, Jesus is dead. We had people like this before. False Christs, they died, the movement died out. But if this is of the Lord, you’ll be found opposing God.

    There is something unstoppable about the progress of the determination of God to save his people. Pharaoh pursued the Israelites into the Red Sea. What was he going to do? There’s a blindness to evil and to the opposition of the Gospel that’s phenomenal. You know, you read the Gospel of John. And they decide, oh, man, he’s just raised this guy from the dead. He opened the eyes of a blind man. That was bad enough. Now he’s raised Lazarus from the dead. We’re never going to be able to stop him. What do we do with Jesus? Ah, they said, we’ll kill him. Somebody has the power over life and death. You raise a man dead for three days, and you’re going to kill him?

    What is this kind of thinking? It is the perversity of the evil that belongs to the blindness of sin. Sin doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t have to be rational. There’s such opposition to Christ and to the kingdom. And we look at that sometimes and we say, where do we fit in all this? Nothing can overcome that. And then a leader falls. And we feel exposed. Now what? Everything’s shut up.

    Especially if it’s a minister of the word, a faithful preacher. We live in a world where there are very few faithful preachers, where there are very few exemplars of steadiness, faithfulness in the word of God. These men who stand each week and feed their flocks, saying the truth, not caring what the world thinks, They are few and far between. And when they fall, they are oaks in the forest that have been felled.

    And for me, I feel a keenness when it happens. Like we’re lined up in the battle against the evil one. It’s such a struggle. And then a compatriot falls. Of course, the older you get, more and more fall. And all my professors almost are gone. All the people that taught me the gospel as a child growing up in the church, they’re all gone. My pastor, when I was a young man, I called him on the phone. Pastor Adlai, what should I do about this? One time I called him and I asked him, how do I know when I go to a new church? How do I know when it’s time to leave?

    And he said, well, he said, out of all the church, and they used to joke that Bob Ebel had served in every church in the OPC, and he inflicted himself on Westfield twice. I said, how do I know? And he said, well, he said, of all the times that I went on to a new church, I was only right twice. And he said, neither one of them was Westfield.

    And that’s where I’m from. So he was my pastor by mistake. It’s not very Calvinistic. But then you know the luck of the Calvinist. He doesn’t have it. We don’t believe him. Such opposition, and one of them called. But now you see, I’ve got no one to call. Now they call me. That’s a very strange turn of events in just a very few years. How soon they go. And Paul is in prison.

    And he says, I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard And do all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ, and most the brothers, having become confident in the Lord in my imprisonment, as much more bold to speak the word without fear.

    Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from goodwill. The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. The former proclaim Christ out of rivalry, not sincerely, but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. What then? only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.”

    Two things, for Paul, make the Gospel go on. He’s in prison, and he’s in proximity to the Imperial Guard, and they’ve all heard the Gospel, and people are getting converted, left and right. The Gospel’s spread at the heart of the Roman Empire at its pinnacle. And other people are preaching the gospel. He’s in prison.

    He can’t carry the gospel. Others who have heard it from him, they’re not always well-intentioned. They don’t always agree in everything with Paul. And they’re not doing it to extend his ministry. It’s a rivalry. That is, it’s distinguished from the Apostle Paul and his work. And yet, because they are preaching Christ, then this is an extension of the word of God. And in that, the apostle rejoices.

    Now in 2 Timothy 2.9, which is our text, at the end of that verse, seeming as if it were maybe an aside or an exclamation, but the word of God is not bound It is at least those two things to which Paul is referring. He says, remember Jesus Christ risen from the dead, the offspring of David is preached in my gospel for which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal, but the word of God is not bound, but it’s not an aside. And much of what follows proceeds from it to give some explanation, some exclaiming of how the word of God is not bound, as far as the Apostle understands it, and that very much beyond just the matter of the fact that even though he’s in prison, people who guard him, people they have contact with, people they have contact with, will come into contact with the Gospel, or that others bold by the fact that he’s in prison who will preach the gospel. Beyond that, he looks to a verity which roots the gospel and the fact that the word of God will not be bound. And that is that enduring everything He endures everything for the sake of the elect, that they may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.

    Both ends of the story, you see, being understood. Having been called by his gospel, that’s the middle, it is clear then that the ends are already determined. If you look all the way in eternity past, They’re God’s electing love. They were chosen in Christ from before the foundation of the world. And those who are the objects of God’s love are those for whom Christ died. And they will not be lost in time.

    He calls them by his word, working by his word, the spirit working by and with the word in their hearts. He gives them new life. They rise to faith out of that new life. and they are joined to Jesus Christ in their effectual calling that unites them to him. And they become those who are justified in God’s sight, adopted as children of God, sanctified by that spirit of life, and now they belong to him.

    And that’s all determined by the fact that the living Savior is deceptively bound up with all of that. In verse 11, he says, the saying is trustworthy. If we’ve died with him, we will also live with him. If we deny him, he will also deny us. But he’s already preceded by saying, if we endure, we will reign with him. And if we’re faithful, that’s good. But if we’re faithless, what then?

    He never denies himself. The Lord knows who are his. He calls them to himself. That’s the foundation. People may even invest themselves in all kinds of falsehoods and arguments, squabbles that mean nothing, but there is a foundation that cannot be shaken. The Lord knows that everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity. God is determined. He’s elect. He knows them. He loves them. He calls them. And he causes them to persevere. He causes them to leave iniquity. God takes care of his people. They’re his.

    And in that sense, you see, he is saying the word of God is not bound. That suggests, then, that we look at this phrase, but the word of God is not bound, as something that is rather large in its understanding. It’s embracing something more than just saying, well, the Bible doesn’t fail, where the Bible is adequate. That’s what we think of as the word written. It’s speaking, rather, about not only, not just simply the word as written, but the word as used, the word as it might be thought to be bound, because Paul is bound.

    Now what would do that? That would be his preaching. And of course, we remember that when he writes in Romans 10, that he reminds us faith comes by hearing, and hearing by what? Well, he’s talked about they’re not going to believe unless they have preaching. They’re not going to have preaching unless someone has said. So then when they hear those who are sent as they preach the message of the gospel and the Spirit is supplied, they will believe. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.

    He says, what does he mean by Word of God there? Very similar to what he means here. The preaching of the Word of God, as it is attended by the Holy Spirit, to accomplish the purposes of the administrative rule of the Lord Jesus Christ from the right hand of God. The Word of God, then, is a very active idea. It contains the purposes and the ministry of the Savior from the right hand of God, sending that living Word to beget life, his church from the dead, to join them to him in his resurrection, and to carry out his great calling in the world, to be the body of Christ. He is the head, but he communicates life from glory, and how does he do it?

    Well, you see it in something expressed in 2 Corinthians 4.6, the process of the Word being preached, the Spirit of God attending that Word, that connection to the Savior that goes all the way back to the beginning when we realize that how was it that all things came into being? Well, John says in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God. How did the world begin to be? God spoke and it was.

    Or as it says elsewhere in the New Testament, he called the world into being. And that’s exactly what happens in the gospel. God sends forth his word and he calls the church into being. Paul writes to those in the church and says, you’re called to be saints. It’s a very powerful expression. But there in 2 Corinthians 4, verse 6, for God, who said, let light shine out of darkness, has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

    How does that happen? Well, he who called the world into being by saying, let there be light, now has spoken into his church. Paul compares it in Romans chapter 4, And verse 7, in this way, he speaks of the blessing to Abraham. And let’s see here. That’s not the right verse.

    417, as it is written, I have made you the father of many nations in the presence of the God in whom he believed. And who was that God? Who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. Nothing was, and God spoke to it as if it was. and gave it existence.

    Let there be light. And there was light. Basically, God said, light! And light showed. And now, God calls you. And what happens? He’s shown in our hearts to give the light of knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus. He says, Bob. He says, Sue. He says, Eileen. He says, sure. Come to me. And the answer is, yes, Lord, I come to you. Where did that faith come from? He calls us from death to life. You were dead in your trespass.

    That’s the power of the Word of God that’s being spoken of here. You see it in the way it’s spoken of in Acts 6, 7. There’s a number of places in Acts where things happen and then things start all over again and move along. And the transition phrase is not as you move from one episode to the other and they live happily ever after. But it has to do with the Word of God. You see it in Acts 6-7.

    These they set before the apostles and prayed, and the word of God continued to increase. I like another translation. The word of the Lord grew. The number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith. What does that mean? The word of God was preached. The Spirit attended it. People were converted.

    They were saved by the Gospel of a light shown in them. They were called from darkness to light. They were called from a situation in which they did not believe in the Messiah to the situation in which they surrendered to the Messiah or joined and gathered into the Church.

    And you have that repeated in one form or another in 1224 1928, and then as the book of Acts closes, in a way that some think of as enigmatic. I don’t think it is. It’s just precisely what it is, a beginning, not an ending. But in chapter 12, verse 24, you see that you have Barnabas and Saul returning from Jerusalem, they completed their service, they’re bringing with them Mark, and then they’re going to set off on a journey. What happens?

    The Word of God increased and multiplied. The Word of God grew, and it grew over and over again. These were after days. When at first the church is persecuted, it has to scatter throughout the Middle East. And then Saul and his persecution travels about. And then he’s marvelously saved, brought into the church, and then they’re sent out for a great missionary work. And then you have Chapter 19, verse 20. Chapter 19, verse 20. So the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily. This is Paul in Ephesus.

    And he was opposed by the exorcists and those who worshiped Artemis of the Ephesians. They’re going to ruin our trade and a heavy persecution arose. But also there were many who believed. And they burned the magic books. And the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail.

    All the ancient gods and goddesses of the ancient world were overcome by the gospel. Nobody worships at the temple of Artemis in Ephesus anymore. The pagan world fell before the gospel. It’s not a popular conception of history today, but it’s the truth. The pagan world was destroyed by the gospel.

    Now, it doesn’t mean secularism hasn’t arisen. It doesn’t mean that Islam isn’t present and these new threats But there are no more people worshipping Jupiter and all these other people and the laws of their land are governed accordingly. Rulers don’t stand up in Rome and say, we can’t govern the world without the worship of the gods. That was true then, but it’s not true now.

    What happened? Jesus Christ prevailed. They murdered thousands upon thousands of people. Nero. lit the road with Christians crucified and set on fire as torches. Did he stop the church? He didn’t stop the church. They can make us illegal. They can put us in prison. They may kill some of us. Paul’s in prison, and he writes, the word of God is not bound.

    We need to realize that. Your pastor has fallen. He has been stricken with a stroke. He’s suffering. We need to pray for his recovery. We need to look forward to the day when he’ll stand in the pulpit. He spoke very clearly this afternoon. I could understand everything he said. That’s what it takes to preach, you know. He can single-handedly preach if he has to, because his left one won’t work. Well, he can preach with his right one.

    And he can preach with the mouth that God’s given him and the mind that seems to be perfectly well-attached. But even if that were not the case, the word of God is not bound. This church has suffered a trial, but the word of God that is here for you He will supply and continue. And you are the products of that word of God.

    And it will increase and prevail. The Savior who sends it by his command from the right hand of God will see it do its work in you and through you. And there will be others, if Dan cannot, who will stand in the pulpit. There’s already one man who was scheduled to come and to assist and to work with Dan. The word of God did not suffer a stroke. The word of God has not been stricken.

    The unfortunate thing is that a sermon like this is necessary and helpful because the evil one does funny things to us, to our thinking, to our minds. And people take up odd arguments, funny quarrels, when they feel afraid or disoriented. Old unhappinesses may arise and cause trouble. Immediately, this is what Paul is talking about to Timothy.

    The word of God is not bound. And he’s saying that to Timothy so that he’ll pay attention to it, put it to work in those congregations where he’s been left to follow up Paul’s ministry, to proclaim the word of God faithfully, And he’s being urged to apply it with clarity. That’s why you get chapter 3, in the end of chapter 3, all scriptures breathed out by God and promptable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent. equipped for every good work, so that Timothy can know, you are not ill-equipped.

    The Spirit of God, by the Word of God you possess, you can take and you can apply and you can deal with these things, but watch out. I’m bound, the Word of God is not bound, but that doesn’t mean there still won’t be troublemakers who take advantage of the situation.

    That’s just the nature of life. And I’m sorry, that’s just the nature of life in the church. The elders have to be ready for that. And you as a congregation have to be ready for that. And you can stop it dead in its tracks, in your own heart, in your own mind, in your loved ones around you. Dear souls, let’s not let this thing bring division or unhappiness or lack of activity or doubt or fear or laziness to the church. See the work that needs to go on. There’s Darla. She’s got to go out to Uganda. See the work of them.

    There are still those being received into the church. The grace of God continues among us, directed by the gospel. This is that powerful word, the word from heaven that calls us, that sends us forth. And it is not bound. It shall not be bound. And so Timothy was told, if you possess that, the spirit of God works through you and you preach that. The word of God is designed for that preaching. I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is judged of the living and the dead by his appearing in his kingdom, preach the word, be ready in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, and exhort with complete patience and teaching. And you will have those no matter what the Lord will send.

    And while Dan is down, others will stand with him to hold his arms up, to encourage him to get up, And they will fill that place, not to replace him, but to support him until such time as he’s able to return himself. But grace makes it inevitable, that flows from the throne.

    It is the power of God’s unstoppable and inevitable purpose. It was impossible, the scripture says, that death should hold him. So he arises to bring the word to us, and to make that word call us to life, to sanctification, to service, to fulfill the purposes for which he called us. Those good works which are determined from before the foundation of the world, and we’ve been created in Christ Jesus to do those things. That’s the word of God, it’s unstoppable. But the gospel, the word of God is not bound. God’s grace is not only irresistible in the heart of the believer, its purposes are inevitable. In the church of Jesus Christ, we sang it, it will never perish.

    You shall achieve God’s purpose for you. He’s loved you from all eternity. Christ died for you. He called you by the gospel. He will make you holy. And at last, you will stand incorruptible in glory. And I want you to hear this with all the seriousness that I can say it. Nothing can stop that now. The Word of God is not bad. Grace is unstoppable. And it has a real purpose and content. Let there be no mistake about it.

    An oak can swallow it. Unlike trees, oaks cannot get up again. I am looking for God to hear and answer. I am hoping against hope that in the state of affairs of men, hope will rise again. And Jesus is in the resurrection business, isn’t he? Haven’t we staked our lives on it?

    Then don’t let that cause any dissembling, any foreign spirit, any sense of discouragement, effect. But you know, nothing is automatic. I want to close with that thought. Nothing is automatic. Whereas Calvin says, God doesn’t deal with us as stocks and blocks.

    He calls you to know Him, to love Him, to suffer in Him, that you might know Him all the better. And therefore, sanctification is a process, it’s a painful process. We suffer now for a little while, and then and inestimable weight of glory, but it is suffering, nevertheless, and it is a matter of casting ourselves upon it.

    There’s real content to be learned. He wants your heart. He wants your mind. He wants you to take up and say, yes, all right, if the church is to be one, if the church is to be united, if the church is going to be bound together in love in answer to this challenge, that we may know and realize this unshakable truth. The word of God is not bound. His grace is unstoppable.

    What do we do? Well, you take up. And you join in what God is doing, and you don’t be the grumblers, the doubters, those who are discouraged. And what does the scripture say? Don’t allow your arms to hang down. Strengthen those weak knees. Stand up and get busy in the household of faith. The pastor’s down, he’s not out. But it’s time for you to step up.

    What can you do now? to be of particular use to one another and to the work of Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Zewickly? Who haven’t you invited? What thing haven’t you done that you thought, wouldn’t it be nice if the church did it? What do the elders need? What does Pam need?

    Yes, it’s going to take time to find that out, but as things are known, as things need to be done, The Lord will supply the strength. The Word of God is not bound. What He calls forward, what He calls forth, then you give yourself to. It’s not automatic. But it’s not of your own strength, your own wisdom. It is of the Lord’s doing. And it’s wonderful in our eyes. Give yourselves to it. Sacrifice.

    It’s not automatic. Jesus said to the disciples, they’re going to kill you. And you’re all going to be scattered. And then they’re going to kill you. Very encouraging, I’m sure. What did he ask them to do? Take up your cross, deny yourself, and follow me. Can I ask less of you if I am his servant? An oak is fallen. The minister of the word is down. Is the word of God bound? He’s still calling to you. What you have been taught, take up and do it now with greater zeal than ever before.

    And that will take sacrifice, take up your cross, your offering of yourself. Jesus didn’t say, take up my cross. He said that the disciples take up your cross, your difficult obedience, the opportunities that are afforded to you. And you give yourself in a selfless way, not for your comfort, not for your well-being, what needs to be done, regardless of the cause.

    That’s what it takes. And let Dan come back to a pulpit with a fuller congregation, with a larger set of duties on his plate, that he may rise to the challenge and do well, which he will, if he’s able. And he’ll have help, as you’ve already called, sacrifice. It’s not automatic. It’s Jesus’ work. It’s the word from heaven. Nothing can stop it now. It’s not an automatic sacrifice. Let us pray. Lord, help us. Have mercy on us. Let us take up the labors. Let us help one another.

    Let us love with a love that doesn’t come from our affinity our sameness, but rather our commitment to you and to dying to self and to seeing your crossword pressed through as what is clearly taught in your word becomes the desire of our hearts. Help us to sacrifice to the end that that which you love, we love, and as you gave yourself for it, the church, for us, your people, may we so give ourselves for and to one another. For your sake and for your namesake that we pray, in Jesus’ name, amen.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Van Til’s Analysis of Barth

    Van Til’s Analysis of Barth

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Misc. NT sermons” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, January 21, 1996.

    About this sermon

    Karl Barth held a particular view of inspiration, and Cornelius Van Til analyzed his theology at length. Van Til’s charge is specific: for all his orthodox-sounding language, Barth gives in to Enlightenment rationalism and naturalism. Barth’s own speech shows how familiar theological vocabulary can cloak real heresy, a warning that reaches well past Barth.

    More sermons from 2 Timothy · Browse all sermons

    Sermon transcript

    Tonight we are reading from 2 Timothy 3. We are beginning at verse 14. 2 Timothy 3.14, give your attention to God’s infallible Word.

    You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom, preach the word.

    Be ready in season and out of season. Reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and instruction. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths. Be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

    For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith. In the future there is laid up 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 loved his appearance.”

    O God, as this word of your unique servant Paul went out to Timothy, a pastor in your church, so, O God, may it by your Spirit continue to convict and strengthen those who would preach your word. even as they receive that word from you. We thank you, our God, for the apostolic word inspired, given to your church, that yes, your servants who proclaim that word may in fact do so in the very power of that word and with the truth of that word firmly in their grasp. But Father, we all would receive this word and be blessed by it, even as we are encouraged with regard to it through the proclamations and the teachings of those whom you have raised up. May we be pleased, O Lord, to pray for those who are given to the church as servants of the word. We ask this through Christ, who is himself the living word. Amen.

    You will notice that this is not the Gospel of John. Yes, I’ve done it one more time. I departed from the plan, and I do so this evening in the interest of the reading of the Confession which we have begun, and its opening chapter that has to do with the doctrine of the Holy Scriptures. You may not be all that familiar with the name Karl Barth. Karl Barth, B-A-R-T-H. He is truly one of the gargantuan theological personalities of this century. There are four others.

    Rudolf Bultmann, Friedrich Gogartin, Paul Tillich, and Cornelius Van Till. Of these names, That of Cornelius Van Til is most likely the one that you recognize, since he was a long-time professor of apologetics at Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia, and for over fifty years a minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. If you didn’t know it, Dr. Van Til carried on a career-long battle with Karl Barth. In 1946, Dr. Van Til published a remarkable study on Barth’s theology entitled The New Modernism. it was a very, very high-level analysis of the philosophical underpinnings of Barth’s position.

    Barth had become very popular after the First World War because he had voiced sharp criticism of the full-party liberal optimism that had in no way prepared European Protestantism for the incomprehensible devastation of that war. But as if with willful blindness toward the potential evil, and that evil in reality within This European Protestantism actually, in so many ways, not only aided and abetted that war, but caused it. proposed a return to the simple, realistic truths of Scripture as taught by the Protestant Reformers. He proposed, over against the liberalism of his day, a return to the language of Orthodoxy. desperate, devoured Barth’s writings, beginning with his commentary on Paul’s letter to the Romans, which Barth published in 1918. Europe, very much interested in this theologian, subsequently and quite consciously followed Barth’s career. especially as he later resisted very bravely, I might add, the rise of National Socialism in Germany. In 1934, Barth served the confessing churches in Germany as the chief architect of the Barmen Declaration. a document announcing the Church’s right over against the state, to individual judgment with authority over its own affairs, hardly subject to Hitler and to the Third Reich.

    This did not make Barth a very popular fellow in Germany with the ruling elite. Barth’s salvation was that he was a Swiss citizen. So he was removed from his theological chair at the University of Bonn and sent packing back to his homeland. he spent the war years teaching at Basel.

    From what I have said, you may be now wondering, what could be possibly wrong with this man? An enemy, self-proclaimed enemy of liberalism, an enemy of the Third Reich, a champion of the Reformation, he sounds like my kind of guy. How could Van Til possibly object? Is this not another example of OP contrariness? Of OP nitpicking?

    What Van Til discovered in Barth’s theology, however, was an essential commitment, a commitment at base, to the same ways of thinking that had informed the liberalism and the modernism that Barth said he was opposing. According to Van Til, Barth knew less than modernism. was dependent upon Enlightenment thinking from the 18th century.

    Now, what do we know about Enlightenment thinking? Well, we know that Enlightenment thinking was committed Above all, to the autonomy of the human mind. Autonomy means self-law. The autonomy of the human mind, that mind then standing independent of the judgment of all others, not coerced by tradition not coerced by former history, former attitudes, former judgments. In other words, the human mind, on the basis of proper observation, is the source of all definition and the final arbiter of truth.

    But beyond this, the Enlightenment mind was committed to the proposition that we can know nothing—we can know nothing—beyond the range of the human mind and intellect. Therefore, we can know nothing about anything supraphysical or metaphysical. we can know nothing about anything transcendent or anything up there in heaven.

    But if these commitments of the enrichment mind are true, what then are people to do? Well, many, of course, as you know, abandoned belief in God and in heaven. Others, claiming for themselves a Christian identity, presented their answers, answers which took various forms. Hang with me now. Immanuel Kant, the famous German Lutheran philosopher. He engaged in his philosophy as a confessed Christian.

    Immanuel Kant said, that we must postulate a higher world of meaning beyond our sensory and rational perception as a matter of moral necessity, in the interests of ethics, in the interests of human behavior. Let me state that one more time for you. Immanuel Kant said that we must postulate a higher world of meaning beyond our sensory and rational perception as a matter of moral necessity. Friedrich Schreiermacher, later than Kant, said that we must intuit the higher reality of meaning, or the higher world of meaning, by way of our deep religious feelings, generated by a natural sense of dependence in us. Hegel said we find the higher world of meaning by the forces inherent to history, forcing us then to an openness to the future. And Slytherin, Kierkegaard said that authentic existence is found by an irrational leap of that rejects all objective certainties and defies all mathematical and scientific absolutes.

    The odd thing about all these famous so-called Christian philosophers is that none of them ever challenged the fundamental position of the Enlightenment. Each one of them was committed to the autonomy of human consciousness, and they all began with the primacy of earthly existence, proposing their philosophies in the interests of living life in this world and coping with existence as we found it, hardly in the interests of eternal life in glory with God. In fact, eternal life in glory with God was something in which these philosophers had very little interest, and in some cases, something for which they had outright disdain. They couldn’t have cared less.

    It was Van Til’s conviction that Barthes, despite all his use of Orthodox language, despite all his dependence on the Bible, despite all his attacks upon rationalism of every kind, was actually committed to an Enlightenment frame of reference. So convinced of this was Van Til that he charged Barthes with the construction of a new liberalism in 1946, and then in 1962, he went further and indicted Barth in his book, Christianity and Barthianism. Now, I want you to note the significance of the title of that later work. The significance of the prior title is clear to us—the New Modernism, 1946—but I want you to note the significance of Van Til’s choice of a title for his 1962 book, Christianity and Barthianism.

    Do you remember J. Bresson Nation? Do you remember his book in 1923, his most famous book, Christianity and Liberalism? Mentioned by that title meant to juxtapose Christianity to liberalism. In other words, liberalism is no variation of Christianity, but an entirely different religion. Do you see then what Van Til is saying in his choice of title for his 1962 book. Barthianism is no variation on Christianity, it is an entirely different religion. That’s a bold claim. That’s a rather brassy accusation. What specifically leads Van Til to say this?

    Had not Barth spoken with conviction in light of the devastation of Europe in the early part of this century about human sinfulness and the fall of humanity? Had not Barth spoken with fresh zeal about the incarnation and about Christ’s resurrection Had not birth awakened, so he said from his dogmatic slumbers, to rejoice in the triumph of God’s grace in Christ? Had he not then awakened to rejoice with beautiful wonderment in the word of God? Had he not rediscovered the depth of religious expression in the Reformed tradition and the depth of religious expression in the ancient ecumenical councils, especially Chalcedon? Is this not then proof that Barth was free of the corrupting bondage of liberalism and modernism?”

    The tragic truth of the matter is, the answer to all of those questions leaves us in a negative position. For all the fine words, for all the brave appeals to the Bible, for all the signs of orthodoxy, Karl Barth had subjected the language of orthodoxy to a radical shift of consciousness so as to make orthodoxy a new orthodoxy or a neo-orthodoxy. Everyone who says they are orthodox is not orthodox. Van Til was saying this new orthodoxy is but the old liberalism dressed up in a new suit of clothes.

    But doctrine of human depravity and divine grace is in the interest of his commitment to a cosmic universalism, a doctrine accepted, received, widely because it proclaimed, according to Barth’s exposition of it, universal judgment and election in Christ. All men are reprobate, and all men are chosen. And thus, God’s final word to humanity is, If God’s word to man in man’s sin and reprobation is no, the final word to man through election is yes. All men are reprobate and all men are elect.

    One of the ironies of God’s position is that he was peddling this nonsense while he was fighting the Nazis. Is God’s final word to Hitler yes? Then he’ll further point it out. that Barth’s view of Jesus Christ and of the Bible is thoroughly informed by the philosophical thought emanating from the Enlightenment. For Barth, the man Jesus of Nazareth is not God in the flesh. He is not God in the flesh. At the same time, neither is the Bible the Word of God. However, says Barth, we are able to use such language about Jesus and about the Bible because each of them becomes the occasion for meeting the divine Word.

    Now, if this is very confusing to you, let me tell you a little story. A number of years ago now, my uncle, Robert Ruth, died. Uncle Robert was a lifelong Presbyterian, and he passed away as a member of the mainline Presbyterian Church in Alliance, Ohio. In those days, pastors being generated by mainline Presbyterian seminaries, if they had any interest in the scriptures whatsoever, were Barthians. I remember the pastor of my uncle’s church very well. I remember him rising at the funeral service to read from the Bible and introducing his reading with these words, Listen for the Word of God.

    There it is. That is classic Barthianism. Listen for the Word of God. Do you catch it? Do you hear it? The minister did not say, listen to the Word of God. He said, listen for the Word of God. You might catch it. You might have the necessary religious experience to encounter it. You see, the Bible is not the Word of God. But it may become the occasion when you hear the Word of God.

    In the same manner, Barth reasoned with regard to the man Jesus of Nazareth. Hearing his story, hearing about him, becomes the occasion for an encounter with the divine Word. But you must not think that Jesus of Nazareth was God-made man directly. I might add that this is what keeps Barth out of trouble when it comes to historical details in Scripture. Of course the Bible is full of mistakes. Pay it no mind, after all, the Bible is merely the fallible words of men in which we have opportunity to hear the higher divine word through a religious encounter. In Barth’s scheme, clever as it is, so than till perceived. The autonomous mind rules.

    First of all, in accepting reasons dictates about what can and what cannot be true in Scripture, but secondly, in postulating a divine word that is known only by the experience of the individual believer or in the collective experience of a group claiming faith.

    In actual fact, Barth has deepened the effect of the Enlightenment, and has offered the people of God no alternative to Enlightenment on belief. Van Til, on the other hand, will be charged with being a fundamentalist. Van Til is no fundamentalist. He is a representative of true orthodoxy.

    He points us towards the inspired and infallible scriptures, not the word of man, but the not a word that rises out of the experience or consciousness of man, but a word that sovereignly enters humanity’s consciousness and experience from beyond this universe. As Paul tells Timothy, all Scripture is God-breathed. That is, it issues forth from him who is above and apart from this creation, and it enters this world to teach, reprove, correct, and train in righteousness according to the counsels of heaven.

    And as Paul goes on to say to Timothy, this word is to be preached so that we all, like Paul himself, might fight the good fight, finish the course, keep the faith, and in the future receive the crown of righteousness which the Lord will give to us, despite what the sons of the Enlightenment say, in a transcendent heavenly world That is really there Let’s pray Our father it is apparently more and more difficult for those who would be known by your name and by the name of your son to figure out the complexities of modern religious and so-called Christian thought.

    It is increasingly difficult for the person who sits in the pew to be able to discern the nuances of expression, to be fully alert to the kinds of duplicity that have overtaken the world of theological thinking and expression. And Father, how difficult it is sometimes for your children in dealing with these matters, to side with those who are telling them the truth, and discern those who are not. For ourselves, O God, we pray that we might be patient with the many who are having trouble, even those who are in the mainline church. which has been so much influenced by the new orthodoxy. But Father, we also ask that we would stand our ground and be vigilant, always laboring with your word, with your truth, that we might see things as they are. To this end, O God, may we fight the good fight, finish the course, keep the faith. May we be finally brought to that transcendent heavenly world that is truly there. This by your word and in Christ, our Savior, who lives and reigns

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Paul’s Last Words

    Paul’s Last Words

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Considering the Church” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, May 1, 1994.

    About this sermon

    Biblical writers’ last words mark a transition, and 2 Timothy holds Paul’s, summing up a ministry the church is about to lose. Paul consciously follows the pattern of Christ’s death without claiming equality with it. The church loses much in losing Paul, and Scripture weighs that loss honestly.

    More sermons from 2 Timothy · Browse all sermons

    Sermon transcript

    Rather than 2 Corinthians this morning, as you find in the bulletin, we are in 2 Timothy. This morning, 2 Timothy chapter 4, and we are reading the first 18 verses. Let’s give our attention to the reading of God’s word. 2 Timothy 4, verse 1. I charge thee, therefore, before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom, preach the word, be instant in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.

    For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts shall they keep to themselves teachers having itching ears. And they shall turn away their ears from the truth and shall be turned unto fables. But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.

    For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day, and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearance.

    Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me, for Danus hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica, Cretans to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia. Only Luke is with me. Take Mark, and bring him with thee, for he is profitable to me for the ministry. Antiochus have I sent to Ephesus. the cloak that I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest, bring with thee, and the books, but especially the parchments.

    Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil, the Lord reward him according to his works, of whom be thou rare also, for he hath greatly withstood our words. At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me. I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge. Notwithstanding, the Lord stood with me and strengthened me, that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear, and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion. And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom, to whom be glory forever and ever.

    Krishnamurti. Our God, stir up our interest in your word, thereby confirming in us our interest in you. As we have a zeal for your word, may it be known that we have a zeal for you. Father, encourage your children. And may those who are young, as well as those who are older, benefit as best they might from your word and its proclamation, here and also throughout the extent of Christ’s church. We glory in him, the one who is the word incarnate. Amen.

    Paul’s second letter to Timothy is generally regarded to be his last letter. Now, it may not appear that way, since as you look at the ordering of things in the New You notice that there are two remaining letters still, the letters of Titus and Philemon. But we keep in mind the fact that the books of the New Testament are not chronologically ordered. They do not appear in the order in which they were written. may be good and proper reasons why, in the providence of God, Titus and Philemon appear after 2 Timothy, but taking up that matter is a concern that would interest us at another time. 2 Timothy, then, is generally recognized as the last of Paul’s letters. Although not positioned last in the canon, it is in fact the last one that he pens.

    Now, something of a confirmation of this appears for us in what we read this morning, if you will note that sixth verse of the fourth chapter, where Paul says, I am already being poured out as a drink offering and the time of my departure is at hand.” So it is that before his departure, before the end comes for him in his earthly sojourn, that end being administered by the Roman authorities, we believe at the hands of the Emperor Nero in the mid-AD 60s, Paul then writes this letter to Timothy, one whom he has described elsewhere as his beloved son in the faith.

    Timothy is presently at work in the church at Ephesus, a church that has a prominent place in the development of the Church throughout Asia Minor and even beyond into Europe. So Paul here is writing to this one who is especially dear to him, and he is writing to him facing the end, and also addressing the situation which Timothy faces a situation in which Timothy is not doing all that well. The words of this epistle then are meant as encouragement to Timothy.

    They are meant also as a means for redirection for this young pastor. They are meant as a gentle and kind, compassionate rebuke, even. Adding weight to all of these dimensions in this letter is the fact that Paul now seems to be penning something of his last will and testament. This gives what he has to say added weight and an increased degree of urgency. Now, it’s not as if these words written here are any more inspired than the words that we find in Paul’s other letters.

    At the same time, let it sink in to you, these are his last canonical words, these are the last recorded, inspired words from this monumental figure in New Testament history. This means, then, that they are not merely the last things that Paul has to say to Timothy, per se, but they serve as something of a summing up of his entire life and ministry. If you want to get to the heart of Paul’s narrative, if you want to see into the soul read 2 Timothy with all the concentration that your mind and soul can muster. There is here, then, not then merely a concluding word to Timothy, but a summing up of this man’s life and ministry.

    We can say, then, that these words are of inestimable value in assessing and interpreting what Paul has done with himself throughout the course of his service to Christ, and we can say that these words are of inestimable value in assessing and interpreting what he has said previously.

    What is last spoken is best spoken. What is last written is best written. But adding weight, further weight, to Paul’s communication to Timothy in this fashion is the deliberate character, the deliberate character of the way in which Paul has framed this communication, and particularly the last chapter of this epistle. For you see, The way in which Paul approaches this, his last will and testament, fits so perfectly the pattern that we observe elsewhere in Scripture.

    You know, you and I may utter some poignantly phrased, even quotable parting words as we leave this world. It’s even conceivable that something that we say might find its way into one of those books of quotations. We may even write something down, as many have, leaving behind a powerful statement with respect to our life, with respect to those things that we hold dear as we depart from this world. We take note of words from dignitaries, important individuals, as they depart from this world.

    But as memorable as these words may be, they cannot rival those words spoken or written by the strategic figures whom God has raised up within the history of salvation. Our last words, or the last words of some dignitary, may be interesting and even inspiring, given by God’s servants within the context of the history of salvation are essential and inspired by him. Important because of the place they have within the flow of salvation history. Unique because of the role they play within God’s plan. Think of Jacob, one who gave, in fact, some famous last words. Or think of Moses. Think also, especially, of our Saviour, Jesus Christ.

    For each of these, the Scripture records a closing, as it were, soliloquy. in Genesis chapter 49. Jacob forecasts the destinies of his twelve sons. Remember how the book of Genesis closes? But now take stock of the intention within God’s plan, within the history of salvation, with respect to this speech, this parting speech, which Jacob honors. You see, it’s not just the close of the book of Genesis that is in view, it is the close of one era and the beginning of another in the history of the development of God’s plan. Jacob’s speech, then, not only forecasts the destiny of his twelve boys, but it also forecasts and declares even a monumental change and shift in the life and in the history of the people of God. Jacob’s last words signal the passing of the age of the patriarchs and the commencement of the times of Israel as a nation. Not simply then twelve born, but twelve tribes and a nation even.

    Think of Moses. Moses takes an entire book of the Bible to deliver his last will and testament. It is the book of Deuteronomy. Again, in view, we have forecasts, we have admonition, we have them in detail. But of greatest importance, you see, is the fact that that last will and testament signals the end of one age and the beginning of another. Deuteronomy is not, then, a book that simply signals the close of the Pentateuch. It is a book that signals the close of an era. Closing are the times of tent dwelling. and wilderness wanderings and wayfaring, beginning our times of blessedness in an inheritance promised by the Lord to the fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”

    Then, of course, we have those all-important last words of Jesus Christ himself. these words marking the greatest transition in the history of redemption and in the history of the people of God. In mind, particularly here, are the latter chapters in John’s Gospel. You remember the extended comments Jesus makes at the close of that Gospel. I have in mind particularly chapters 13 through 17. In these chapters, there is the especially fine focusing of the significance of that grandest transition of all.

    Jesus speaking then for the faithful, whom he loves and loves to the end. He, with his words, trained the eye of the faithful so that they might look above so that they might look beyond the provincial dynasties that have even characterized the kingdom and the people of Israel, so that they might look beyond even a territorial inheritance in this world to the regions that are transcendent, where there is a throne enshrined in heavenly glory. that they might look to an inheritance in the eternal regions of life. Jesus says that he is going away, and that he is going even into this place which he has described. But the purpose of Jesus’ departure is not so that he might enjoy something by himself, but that all who in faith are united to him might in fact come to enjoy the very region into which he has gone. We believe in God. Believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many mansions. I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also.” We have then, with Jesus’ last will and testimony, these words. that signal for the people of God the great transition.

    As one era closes and another opens up, this present age, as it were, extends itself, and the age to come makes its appearance. But although our Savior has brought about this great and final transition for the people of God, this determinative transition for the people of God in the history of salvation, there remains yet another important subordinate shift that is brought into view in the remainder of what we are given in the New Testament and its testimony. This is not to upstage what Jesus Christ has done. It is not to suggest that there is anything imperfect in what Christ has accomplished, that the transition that is effected in him is anything less than determinative and final and full. Yet at the same time, there arises for the people of God, in the plan of God, that situation that demands yet one more shift, transition, subordinate, though it be. And in this transition, as you move, as it were, from one age to another, the figure who stands centrally to it is the one whose words we’ve read this morning, the Apostle Paul, thus underscoring his importance in the history of salvation.

    You dare not minimize the importance of this man. Who else writes as many epistles? Thirteen, they are told. And you would judge that the ministry of Paul is the crown, is it not, of the book of the Acts? From the ninth chapter on, we are concerned with this individual whom God has called in such a dramatic way, and set for the ministry so that the Gentiles might hear the gospel and be gathered in.

    We are dealing here with a monumental figure in the history of salvation. So when we come to this minor shift of which we have been speaking, it is not strange then that we find at the center of it the figure of the Apostle Paul. Just how significant is he? When we see him in this expansive light and in this circumstance and situation, as we look at him now, as he is preparing to depart from this life, it is as if we are witnessing in his departure departure of more than just a solitary individual, or even a very important figure in the New Testament.

    Paul, you see, according to God’s design, becomes representative, and his departure becomes representative. It is as if we are able to see all of the apostles in Paul, in this particular man, so that there is that sense in which, with Paul’s passing, you are witnessing the passing of the times of the apostles.

    And you are moving from the apostolic to the post-apostolic era. It may not register on you with the weight that it registered upon the Church of the first century. As the Church comes into form and shape through the events of the day of Pentecost, There had not been a time heretofore when there was not, in the midst of the Church, a living, breathing, teaching, preaching apostle. And now the apostles are dying.

    It is very easy for us, then, to underestimate the extreme distress that the Christians of the first century felt as they were face-to-face with the departure of the apostles. The distress that Timothy must have felt himself as he was face-to-face with such a radical loss. These Christians were not immune to fear and to inner doubt. How about yourselves? All of us here have lost someone quite dear. We might even say that with the departure of this loved one, this one so dear, there has been a loss of direction for us. Even a loss of a sense of security. maybe even a loss with regard to a sense of authority.

    If you can then sense, through your own experience, something of what these Christians were feeling, given just how important these apostles were, to the first century Christians. The apostles, you see, represented a living link with the resurrected Lord. To be an apostle, you had to have seen the risen Christ. That’s what qualifies Paul. In part, he sees the risen Christ on the road to Damascus. The Church looks to the Apostles because they are the link, living testimony to the risen Christ. And now the Apostles are being taken away from them. They are dying.

    So the questions now come rapid fire. How can we continue? How can we go on? What will we do without them? How will we function? Who will answer our questions? We’re so confused anyway. How are we going to make it through? Are we left just to muddle through? What about the promise? We were hoping that Christ would return. And that any time prior to his return, we would always have these apostles, these living testifiers, with respect to him in our midst.

    For the Church then, for the Christians of the first century, for Timothy now, as he faces the loss of this father in the faith, this great apostle, the loss of the apostolic band would not be unlike the loss of Christ to the original disciples. You recall the scenes in the Gospels, the disciples themselves utterly bewildered, completely saddened, without comprehension, faced with the Departure of Jesus, and now they’re struggling. They can’t understand how this is going to happen in the first place, but once they’re faced with the reality of it, they’re just completely overcome. So utterly overcome are they, and so thoroughly disappointed that they are actually ashamed of Christ, and they deserve Him.

    But as the apostles now depart, as if by design and plan, as if it were deliberate, as Paul makes ready for his departure, interestingly, the same sort of tragedy looms. It becomes then a matter not just that Paul is going, but the manner in which he is going. And in order to lay before us then the subordinate character of the departure of the Apostle, the Apostle, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, will describe his departure in language that parallels the departure of Christ. Did you pick it up as you were moving through that fourth chapter? It’s as if he’s patterning his own departure after the departure that Christ had taken himself.

    He’s on trial, we’re told that. We’re told that when he was on trial, everybody deserted him. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? His departure is surrounded by shame, the shame of those who have become embarrassed by Paul and his change. They’ve run away, they’ve deserted him. His situation is overlaid by suffering. He is undergoing, as it were, a crucifixion.

    And even because of this offense that is found in Paul, namely he is in change, Timothy is having trouble in his allegiance to Paul, and that has created the crisis for Timothy at Ephesus. If you want confirmation of that, I ask you to look at chapter 1, verse 8, where Paul speaks specifically about the offense that his imprisonment has become to Timothy, his own faithful dear son in the faith. Timothy is even stumbling. The tone of the letter, though, that Paul writes is comparable to the tone that we find in Jesus himself as he appeals to his disciples before his departure.

    Oh, there’s the rebuke, there’s the reminder. It is firm to be sure, but it is gentle, it’s loving, it’s compassionate. His words, Paul’s words like his Savior’s, are comforting. And why not? Are they not born by the very Comforter, communicated by the very Comforter whom Christ promised to his disciples in his departure? Will Timothy be afraid? Who am I going to ask? Where am I going to get advice? How am I going to stand? What am I going to do? Well, might Paul say. It is necessary that I depart.” And what confidence is instilled by the Apostle with regard to that departure itself.

    He speaks of his imminent death, but he also preaches the resurrection, does he not? Note verse 8 of that fourth chapter, he here calls upon Timothy to remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead according to my gospel. Why in the world would he have to remind Timothy of the resurrection of Jesus Christ? Well, why indeed? Why must you be reminded of it? On the basis of that resurrection, Paul proclaims the certainty of his own resurrection. Verses 10 through 12, and the resurrection of all who are united to Christ. What does it matter in the final analysis how much we suffer in this world for the sake of Christ?

    Is there not laid up for us all a crown of righteousness? which God will give us when he delivers us from every wicked deed in this world and brings us safely into his heavenly kingdom, you should memorize 2 Timothy 4.18. And you should feel it in your souls.

    It is because of this, you see, that Paul also stands tall as a man, regardless of his apostolic status. It is because of this that Paul is not ashamed. He is so absolutely certain that though there is suffering, though comes, though there is privation, though others deserve them, the resurrection is assured and the crown of righteousness shall be given to him. All of that then becomes the basis upon which you base your own confident walk and obedience, whether there are living apostles around or not. And it is because of this that you also are not ashamed.

    For as Paul says at the opening of this letter, For we know him whom we have believed, and are persuaded that he is able to keep that which we have committed unto him against that day. But having said all of that, and taken stock now of the departure of the Apostle and what that means, Please understand this also.

    Just as Jesus departed, he is still here by his Spirit. Now, I am not going to suggest to you that Paul is here by his Spirit. You know how theologically foolish that would be. But I am going to say to you that the Word of the Apostle is still here, and this is a living Word.

    Timothy received this word, and you have received it. Timothy is to live by it, and all of us are to live by it too. Until Jesus appears. Until each of us receives our crown of righteousness. Won’t you then persevere? And as you persevere, don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid.

    Lord, it is your plan that your son would come and that he would then depart. And Father, it was your plan that the apostles would stand upon the earth for time and then they also would depart. We would ask you, Lord, that as we, the Church, are faced with these departures, that our confidence would even increase, knowing that the provision of our Savior and of our God is full and complete. And may it be, O God, that we are able to say with that early Church, in complete and absolute confidence, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Paul’s Humanity, Devotion, and Glory

    Paul’s Humanity, Devotion, and Glory

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “II Timothy” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, July 17, 1988.

    About this sermon

    Paul’s closing notes in 4:9-22 move in three steps: his plain humanity in 4:9-11, his devotion to ministry despite it in 4:12-15, and the glory and confidence of 4:16-18. Believers face death the way Paul did, in that order, with humanity first. No believer may skip any of the three.

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    Sermon transcript

    We are in 2 Timothy chapter 4. We are at verse 9 this morning. And we will read to the end of the chapter. Hear the word of God. Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me. For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica. Crescens to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia. Only Luke is with me. Take Monarch, and bring him with thee, for he is profitable to me for the ministry. And Tychicus I have sent to Ephesus. The cloak that I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest, bring with thee, and the books, but especially the parchments. Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil.

    The Lord reward him according to his words. Of whom be thou ware also. for he hath greatly withstood our words. At my first defense, no man stood with me, but all men forsook me. I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge. Notwithstanding, the Lord stood with me and strengthened me that by me the preaching might be fully known and that all the Gentiles might hear. And I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion. And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil word, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.

    Salute Prisca and Aquila, and the household of Onesiphorus. Erastus abode in Corinth, But trophanous have I left at Meletim’s sake. Do thy diligence to come before winter. Jubilus greeteth thee, and Prudence, and Linus, and Claudia, and all the brethren.

    The Lord Jesus Christ be with thy spirit. Grace be with you. Amen. pray with me briefly how we would ask father for the strengthening of servants called of you to proclaim the word of salvation for surely life from the dead is not found anywhere else but in Christ and in that gospel which is heard from Him. And Father we pray that we might ourselves be found diligent that our gifts as well as our prayers may be active in the encouragement of that ministry of the Word to the ends of the earth. Be gracious to this congregation and in the days to come May its vision for the harvest nearby be excited. And Lord, may that vision also become a wonderful reality as many are gathered for even this church. We ask this all in Jesus’ name. Amen. That’s called divestiture.

    This conclusion of 2nd Timothy is a great autobiographical statement from the Apostle Paul. In fact, it may be the greatest of his autobiographical statements. There are those who would contend, I suppose, that Romans 7 is the greatest of autobiographical statements. That’s that passage that says something along the lines of, the good that I would do, that I don’t do, and that which I would not do, that’s exactly what I end up doing.

    I believe that many of us in reading that passage have thought of the struggle of the apostle and felt comforted because we felt in some ways we could certainly identify with him. But there are those who have suggested that Romans 7 isn’t as autobiographical as we might think. There are those who have suggested that Romans 7 is not so much speaking about Paul’s own inner conflict as a conflict hypothetically considered. As if a Jew were speaking about his struggle with the law and his inability to keep that law and the indictment that comes upon him because of that law. And there are others who have pressed even further with that Roman 7 passage.

    And they have suggested to us that no, it’s not a psychological account that we have here of the Apostle Paul. Rather, the Apostle Paul is speaking in what we call a redemptive historical manner. And with the use of the first person pronoun, he has, in a sense, seen something of a corporate personality at work.

    As if then, in that passage, you could read the history of the entirety of the people of God from Sinai to Calvary. Therefore, running through Romans 7 is not an account of a man man’s own internal struggles, it is an account of the religious struggle of the people of God as that struggle culminates in the work of Christ. The question rings out, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ, my Lord. That, the response to God’s great redemptive activity.

    So while some have suggested to us that Romans 7 is the great autobiographical passage from Paul’s writings, yet I believe that there are questions about it that suggest to us possibly that it isn’t as autobiographical as has been imagined. There’s something else that gives the end of 2nd Timothy an edge. That, of course, is its accountings of Paul’s interactions with other people, something that is completely lacking from the Roman 7 text. Well, whether 2nd Timothy 4 is the greatest of the autobiographical passages or not, It is certainly a revelation of the man. And it comes appropriately at the end of his ministry, at the conclusion of his life.

    And oh, what it reveals. It reveals to us a great deal about Paul’s humanity. Now I know that there are those who contend that Paul really wasn’t a man. He was some sort of machine. He was a being without feeling. He was all head and no heart. And yes, he hated women. Well, you know, that’s not true.

    This passage reveals to us the greatness of the man’s humanity. In addition it reveals to us the greatness of the man’s devotion. And finally it reveals to us, if I can speak in this way, the man’s glory. His humanity Specifically verses 9 through 11.

    Are you surprised at how weak he appears? Why, there is no one as strong as Paul. There is no one who sort of rises above the common law, demonstrates the power in himself, placing himself at a level far above the rest of us, but no. In his humanity, with all of the frailty of that humanity, that revealed to you here, and certainly, of course, elsewhere in his writings. But note, there is that tone of desperation. Now, he’s not frantic, nor is he overcome with anxiety, but there is that tone of desperation.

    Verse 9, make every effort, make every effort to come to me soon. I do so need to see you. Need? This man expresses need. He is in need of the company that Timothy promises. Here is one who is in need of others. why Paul is one who stands alone, and we have thought of him as standing alone. Not so. Paul is a man who, in his life as well as in his doctrine, expresses the truth of the Church. Paul needs to just as we need each other.

    Have you thought of yourself as a person who does not need others? Have you found yourself to be a person who cannot receive the help of another because somehow it’s an insult to you? So that kind of thinking is far, far from the Church, from the truth which the Church is. And if Paul the Apostle can express his need, then should we not also?

    And he’s not embarrassed about it. Neither should we be. The reason why the need is so accentuated is because Paul has been deserted by a number. For instance, he has been deserted by Demas, verse 10. A crucial desertion in that this one has loved this present world. and has gone off to Thessalonica. Now, we might have the wrong idea about Demas. We might think of him as one who has virtually abandoned the faith in his trip to Thessalonica. All that may not be at all. And the reason why it might not be is because he is mentioned in the company of Crescens and Titus.

    Others who have gone off to do honorable service for Christ. Demas may well be on a gospel tour. His ministry, so important to him, and he knows very well how important it is to God. In fact, it is indispensable to God. But such high thoughts from Demas are judged by Paul, as being worldly. In fact, a sellout to the world. But in light of this, the need is accented. Paul’s need of fellowship and company, that which Timothy will supply. His need is suggested by something else here.

    Verse 11, and the mention of Luke. Is Luke’s presence with him, as some have suggested, because of his frail health? That Luke, in effect, attached himself to Paul because Paul was a man in need of constant medical attention? Again, Paul’s need accented very possibly by this mention of Luke at this point. His humanity underscored here. And then, verse 11 as well.

    Pick up Mark and bring him with you. For this one Mark is useful to me for service. We need not think that Mark is on his way to Rome in order to conduct some sort of ministry for the gospel there, some sort of preaching ministry at that. No, rather we might better think of Mark’s appearance at Rome with Timothy as being for the specific purpose of caring for Paul in some way, bringing through him some comfort, which will be especially precious to Paul in these, his last days. Paul in need of company, of fellowship, but Paul also in need of comfort, And how wonderfully this one Mark may well administer comfort to Paul. For you see, Mark, John Mark, was one who formerly deserted. He didn’t abandon the gospel, maybe. He was one like Demas has become. But this one Mark is now capable, it seems, of giving to Paul a special comfort in these His last days.

    The humanity, then, of the Apostle, coming out loud and clear, a need for fellowship, for comfort, a frailty, a weakness evidenced here, a common want with us all. But then there is his devotion, demonstrated verses 12 through 15. And notice how that devotion to the gospel, to the ministry, to his calling, is expressed.

    He directs the efforts for the strengthening of the church, even from his prison cell. Verse 12, “…but Tychicus I sent to Ephesus, I have dispatched him to Ephesus. He is on an errand. He has business there for the king, for the sake of the gospel. Even while I am in these circumstances, I do not neglect this very important matter, which is of the essence for the strengthening of the church.

    He gives specific commands with regard to Carpus, the one at Troas, one possibly with whom he has left his books so that Carpus may study, so that Carpus might be improved in his knowledge. But now he’s asking for the books that he might have them and that he might have them before he died. Well, what good are they going to do you for? Why not just leave them with carpet? This man studies to the death. He’s involved in his studies to the end.

    And what an indictment this is upon the Church. How many graduates of seminary launch themselves into careers in the past and close their books, having gone out of those halls and received their diplomas, never to open them again in any serious fashion whatsoever. You talk about the closing of the American mind. Let’s talk about the closing of the Church’s mind. Now let’s talk about the closing of the mind of ministers and pastors who do no serious study from the time they leave seminary to the time they die. Paul says, bring the books.

    To the day I die, I’m going to be at it. And he is astute. He knows who Alexander is. He knows all about Alexander. Verses 14 and 15. Here’s not one who has mellowed in his old age and decided, well, you know, when I was young, I was feisty. I used to take them all on. But when I got old, I saw things a little differently. Why bother?

    Whose is big enough to hold us all? even good old Alexander the Coppersmith. He is astute to the end, and he presses the issue to the end. A judicious warning goes out to Timothy. Beware of Alexander. Well, here’s a strange one. In this devotion that he exhibits. Not age. Not infirmity. Why I’m a sick man. I can’t do these things. I’m in prison. God will understand. Don’t I deserve a vacation? Look. I’m supposed to be retired! Oh, aren’t there a list of excuses? But not for Paul. Not for Paul at all.

    For in his devotion, he is adamant to the end. And I might add, in this regard, even though the circumstance is desperate, and there’s a tone of desperation even in the words of Paul, he finds in his circumstance and in that desperate condition no excuse for inactivity due to self-pity. But what if Timothy doesn’t come? Even if Timothy doesn’t come, Paul will continue to demonstrate this perfect devotion.

    His humanity his devotion and his glory or what you might call his confidence now here Paul Paul is as extraordinary really as they come for as we read these words and understand their review of his closing days, especially as we look at verses sixteen through eight, we understand that this man is not going to depart this world with a bunch of hand-wringing, with a whole list of regrets.

    All the things I could have done, or should have done, This man is going to depart this world with a tremendous sense of satisfaction. The deepest kind of satisfaction. Now, I would suggest to you that it’s not merely a matter of when you’re leaving this world that satisfaction becomes a problem. I would judge that everyone here this morning has a problem with satisfaction. And each of us could bring out our list of regrets. And each of us, if left to ourselves for a bit, could sit there in the pew wringing our hands for quite some time. But that kind of attitude and that kind of behavior is not apparent in Paul whatsoever.

    What makes the difference? What is his glory and his confidence? Read it. Verses 16 through 18. What do you see there? Do you see simply a man sitting in Rome waiting for trial and execution? If that’s all you see, you need to be born again. I’ll be perfectly blunt. If that’s all you see, you need to be born again. Do you understand what Paul’s doing there? Read that 16th verse.

    At my first defense, no one supported me. Sound familiar? At my first defense, everyone deserted me. Sound familiar? Then what does he say? He goes on in that verse. But all deserted me, may it not be counted against them. Sound familiar? Of course it does. It sounds like Jesus. It sounds like Jesus. That’s the man’s glory. That’s the man’s conscience.

    For me to live is Christ, to die is Daniel. And that’s how he’s able to go to his death without regrets and with the deepest sense of satisfaction, because he understands that in his life he is being conformed to the image of Christ, and that, remarkably, literally. But just as it was for our Savior, so it is for the Apostle Paul. The Lord stood with me, he said, strengthened me.

    Unto what end? That through me the proclamation of the gospel might be fully accomplished, and that the Gentiles, all the Gentiles, might hear. Well, there’s an aspect to this satisfaction that you’ve got to grasp here. And it’s not going to be brought out to you by ordinary exegesis of this passage.

    You see what Paul is doing here. He is so projecting himself into the person of Christ that just as the work of Christ is complete and finished and full and in need of nothing, so his own work is due in the same fashion. The completion and the fullness of the work of Christ is now something that is expressing itself in the consciousness of this man. And therefore, he faces his end without regrets and with the deepest satisfaction.

    Hang with that language for one minute. I know it’s hard. And I know we’re wearing out very quickly. But hang with that language of that 17th verse for a minute. You see how Paul speaks. He talks as if all the Gentiles have already learned. It’s already done. And nothing remains to be done. Did you know he uses the same language in Colossians chapter 1 verse 23? He has the audacity in that chapter, in that verse to say that the gospel has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven already.

    And then that great hymn in 1st Timothy 3.16, in which he explains to us the mystery of godliness, he tells us that the gospel, or Christ, has been proclaimed among the nations, in all creation under heaven, as if it were an already accomplished fact.

    Well, that’s simply not true. Oh, yes it is. And if it’s not true, there’s no salvation for anyone. And if it’s not true, there’s absolutely no grace, and there’s no promise of fulfillment for any task, let alone the task of the apostles. It is only because Christ has accomplished all, and Paul can enter into that accomplishment, that anything is accomplished at all.

    You see, the perfection is in Christ. The glory is in Christ. And that deep satisfaction which you lack is found only, only in Christ. when you come to the end your needs will be evident your humanity blatantly obvious but will your devotion also be evident and will your glory and your confidence be clear to you in such a way that you face death with no regrets and with the deepest satisfaction imaginable. Our Father, may this moving autobiographical statement by the Apostle wonderfully move us, that as this one was molded and shaped by Christ, we would be as well. For our Christ was also one who demonstrated his humanity and revealed that weakness inherent to the human condition. And our Christ was perfectly devoted until the end. And our Christ’s glory and confidence was rewarded so that he came to his end without regrets and with the deepest satisfaction. So it is with this man, Paul, for his own life is read into the one that he loves the most, Jesus Christ. and all of those benefits found in Christ availing for him so that despite the circumstances, his devotion remains and his glory shines.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Confidence Outside Ourselves

    Confidence Outside Ourselves

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “II Timothy” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, July 3, 1988.

    About this sermon

    Paul grounds his confidence in his ministry entirely outside himself, in Christ’s redemption, and he extends that confidence to Timothy. Two pillars of education pass that confidence on, and neither is self-reliance.

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    Sermon transcript

    Timothy three. And we are reading from verse ten. Here, the word of God. But thou hast fully known my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, charity, persecutions, afflictions, which came unto me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra. But persecutions I endured, but out of them all the Lord delivered me. Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution, but evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned, and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them, and that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.

    Paul is confident. Now he’s confident not because he has discovered some new thought. A bright new idea has occurred to him. And this bright new idea has become the source of his confidence and put that kick back into his step. Paul is confident, but not because he has discovered some new philosophy of life that seemingly has made sense of all of the distressing features of life and given him then a sense of well-being.

    It wasn’t for the purpose of presenting to the world a bright new idea or a wonderfully developed philosophy of life that Paul navigated the Mediterranean world, or traversed the territories of the Middle East, of Asia, Macedonia, Achaia, Italy, even Spain. Paul is confident But neither does his confidence arise because he was possessed of a natural optimism. He was one of those people who always seemed to be bubbling over, inherently effervescent, if not forever effervescent. A sort of spiritual version of Mary Lou. No, that wasn’t the source of Paul’s confidence.

    Paul is confident because God has done something. God has been at work. And what God has begun, He will complete. And of that, all is absolutely certain. What is it that God has done? God has sent His Son into the world. He has sent his Son into the world for sinners, and by root of the Son, those sinners have been reclaimed. Jesus Christ has died. He has been a sacrifice acceptable to God. And now, for the sake of Christ, God receives these sinners. into his fellowship. God has been at work in Jesus Christ, his son, for the removal of sin and also for the bestowal of eternal life on all who would trust. For Christ has not been left in the grave, he has been raised up, and he has become the source of life for all who would believe in him.

    Paul’s confidence then is in God. It is because of what God has done, and because of what God will do, in bringing to completion that which he has started. Paul says in this very letter, I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to guard that which I have committed unto him against that day. This confidence that Paul has is well grounded, then, in the person and the work of our God, as that is manifest in Jesus Christ, our Savior.

    But this confidence which Paul has is not blind to the difficulties of the times in which we live. It is not as if he has passed into some sort of blind optimism, so that now he simply looks on the bright side of things regardless. Paul, you see, is confident, but he is also a realist, and he understands the times. He knows that these are the last days. he realizes that in the last days there will be difficulties, and that these times that are ours are perilous, that is, they are dangerous. So his confidence is not the sort of thing that looks away from the difficulties, away from the hardships, away from those things that may in fact be judged as negative and counterproductive. Instead, Paul, in his confidence, looks these things squarely in the face. And his confidence remains while he, in his integrity and in his honesty, sees life as it is.

    And certainly as it has become, because now we have entered the last. You know. The expression of the apostles confidence in the opening verses. Of the third chapter, verses one through nine. He certainly realizes what time it is as far as the world is concerned.

    The severity of circumstance that now has come to the world because Satan is, as it were, in his death throes. And thus, you see, in the world and also in the church, there are those who are demonstrating the most wicked of characteristics in their opposition to God and to his truth. But despite the onslaught, despite the severity of that wickedness that is in the world and even in the Church, The apostle Paul is confident. The kingdom of Satan will not have the final word.

    It cannot. Why? Because God has sent his son. Christ has died, has been raised again. That is why. The kingdom of Satan will not triumph, and those who associate themselves with that kingdom will fail and fail utterly. That is the significance of that ninth verse. After reviewing the severity of that wickedness abroad, Paul makes the statement concerning those who have associated themselves with it. They will go no further. Their father, their father, Paul, he will be obvious to all. The following will become apparent.

    The source, then, of Paul’s confidence is not a new thought, not a philosophy which he has discovered. It is not something that arises out of a natural optimism. It is rather something that comes to him from God and is based upon what God has done and will do.

    It is the matter of your own confidence. There is that question of confidence that plagues us all. Distressing uncertainty with which you battle continually. There is a market for those without confidence these days. Many people are into what is called self-esteem. What do you think is the source of Paul’s self-esteem if we can speak that way with regard to him? Is it really something that arises out of himself or is it something that comes to him from outside?

    What about your own struggles with regard to confidence? Your own problems? And your own self-doubt? Where are you going to look? What foundation will you see? Will you turn to yourself? as has been suggested by so many, and find resources within yourself to resolve the problems that seem to dog you persistently.

    Paul is looking at the big picture, and he sees things in light of what God has done and will do, and that is the focus of his life. He is not looking to himself, he is looking away from himself. He is looking to God and to Christ, and he is looking to the certainty of those things which God has done, and the certainty that God will in fact complete what he began. Because of that, Paul has an unshakable confidence, because the God that Paul believes in is himself unshakable. Paul is confident then. He is confident about the general picture, the big picture. and the outcome of the affairs of life. In that big picture. But as we move towards the end of. Second Timothy three.

    We find that this confidence of Paul is even more extensive. It is a confidence that extends to this one to whom he writes. For Paul is not only confident about God and about Christ and about the conclusion of all matters pertaining to this world, he is confident about this young man, Timothy.

    And that’s what verses 10 through 17 are all about. Now, Paul is not confident about Timothy because he is possessed of an inherent goodwill towards everyone. And he has somehow understood Christian grace along these lines. Christian grace, so say some, demands that you become blind to people, and you look at them exclusively in the very best light possible, ignoring their weaknesses and their frailties, their shortcomings. Paul is not blind concerning the circumstances of the church, you can’t read through the opening part of that third chapter without being convinced of this, neither is Paul blind with regard to the problems and the deficiencies of Timothy.

    Timothy is especially weak at this time. You read through that second epistle and you find a man here who is shaking, spiritually shaking. And he is shaking because he is beginning to realize just how much this gospel costs. Paul, for instance, is in chains as he writes. He is in prison. And Timothy is at the point now where he is ashamed or tempted to be ashamed of Paul in chains. This suffering of Paul has become offensive to him.

    So it isn’t because Paul is possessed of an inherent goodwill towards all people that he is optimistic with regard to Timothy, confident about Timothy. Nor is Paul insincere. He isn’t patronizing the boy in this passage. speaking condescendingly to him, using a bit of psychology, if you will, a bit of that psychology which we’ve come to call positive reinforcement. Paul is not blind to the weaknesses of the man, yet he expresses a confidence with regard to him. And what is the source of that confidence?

    Well, you may be surprised. I’ll give you one word. Education. Now, it’s not what you might think. I know that the spirit abroad today is that education is our savior. We all know that. That’s why we send our kids to school, isn’t it? Education is going to save our children, right? I mean, we were denied in our lives, but our children will not be denied, so we’re going to send them to school. We’re going to deny them nothing in education so they can get the best, make a lot of money, and make us proud.

    That’s the way we redeem ourselves. And that’s the way we intend to redeem the world. When everybody has achieved this, we’ll all be happy, right? No, we’ll still be fighting over who gets the biggest piece of the pie. We’ll just be a bit smarter about how to do it.

    But the word is education. And there are two pillars of education as Paul understands it from a divine point of view. The first pillar is living example. Why have many Christian schools reacted so much against learning by computer screen? Learning from a machine. Is it just that they’re old-fashioned? They really haven’t joined the modern technological age? They really are stuck in the mud. Now you see, from the divine point of view, education demands a living example.

    A living relationship. Communication. A bond. And that’s exactly what Paul is speaking of. This bond that exists between him and Timothy. So that it’s not just a matter of Paul communicating information to this young man, it’s a matter of him communicating a life. Paul is bound to Timothy. And as far as Paul is concerned, he is utterly transparent to this young man.

    He doesn’t hold on to certain knowledge in order to have the advantage over the young disciple. Paul teaches by this ancient honor. Divinely graced method. The living example. But the beautiful thing that you observe here as you go down through Paul’s description of the instruction which Timothy has received in this manner. Is how the description that Paul gives of himself nears Jesus Christ. For Timothy is learning from Paul as Paul learned from Christ. He imitators of me as I have been an imitator of Christ. That’s the method of instruction. That’s the pillar of education as Paul understands it.

    It is because Christ has been so wonderfully portrayed in this man who has been so willing to be conformed to him It is because Timothy has latched on to that, that Paul is confident now with regard to Timothy. Timothy, you won’t let it go. I know you won’t let it go. You see it, you understand it, you know it to be true, and you will not forsake it. That’s the first pillar of the living example. The fact that Christ is evident in the apostle and Timothy knows that. And he is to hold on to it. I could go on here at some length. About the problems in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, if there is one severe problem facing our denomination. Now I know the response, oh that we would have a church that was filled with young. That’s a sign that the church has a future.

    But you see, a church possessed by the young doesn’t have any of the older people to look up to. We don’t have the living examples in whom you can see Jesus Christ. And that essential pillar in the divinely ordained education process is marred, scarred, obscured, if not lost. Tragically, so many in the older generation, and I want to speak gently here, have not distinguished themselves in their lives. But those lives are not particularly or uniquely conformed to Jesus Christ at all. but rather to the world. The second pillar is honored tradition. Don’t misunderstand. It is the record of your past. It is the account of your heritage, that which has become yours because now you are a part of it.

    That which is recorded, says Paul, in Holy Scripture. But note again, as all cultures and civilizations of the world could claim some sort of honored tradition, it is this tradition that Paul places here before Timothy, which is utterly, completely unique because this tradition alone, the tradition of the Holy Scriptures, is that which is able to give you wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Jesus Christ. So, at the center of the living example, that one pillar that Paul places before Timothy, is the Lord Jesus Christ. And at the center of that second pillar, which Paul places before Timothy, the Holy Scriptures, is the Lord Jesus Christ.

    And once more, Paul is confident with regard to these young men. It is true that both are being attacked. For Paul is now one who is himself being attacked by those who are offended at his suffering. But he tells us, indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer. That’s not a disqualification.

    And there are those who, in deference to the Scripture, have gone off in the direction of what is called worldly and empty chatter, purveying profane and perverse fables and myths. But over against them, Paul says, all Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for doctrine. reproof, correction, instruction, and righteousness. Paul is confident, generally with regard to the circumstances we face in the world in these last days. And he is confident with regard to Timothy, as Jesus Christ himself is mediated unto Timothy through the living example of the Apostle’s life and through the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments which is able to make us wise on salvation.

    Again, I ask you about your confidence, how easily you are shaken, bewildered, distressed by life? How quickly your confidence dissolves? Would you look to Christ? Would you hold fast to the scriptures? And would you pray that God would give us many living examples in whom we could discern Jesus Christ at work in our midst?

    We do ask you, our God, that wherein our confidence has been shaken, it would be restored. Not because we have found something in ourselves, but because we have found you to be true. May you therefore bring us through all the storms of these days. May we stand strong against the onslaught of evil. May we be blessed by the obvious impact of Jesus Christ upon us, upon our lives. And may we see that one whom you have sent to be a sure and certain foundation for us and knowing that he is secure and you are true may we ourselves be at rest

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • A War Already Won

    A War Already Won

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “II Timothy” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, June 26, 1988.

    About this sermon

    The church’s war, Christ against Satan, is already won in Christ, and its outcome is not in doubt. The catalogue of sins in 3:2-7 describes present conditions. Believers share in Christ’s victory now, in the last days, before its final unveiling.

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    Sermon transcript

    We are in 2 Timothy, the third chapter, this morning, and we are reading the first nine verses. Hear the word of God. This know also. In the last days, perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own self. Covetous. Boasters. Proud. Blasphemers. Disobedient to parents. Unthankful. Unholy. Without natural affection. Truce breakers. False accusers. Fierce. Despisers of those that are good. Traitors. Petty. High-minded. Lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God. Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.

    From such, turn away. For of this sort are they that creep into houses and lead captive, silly women laden with sins, led away with divers’ lusts, ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth, men of corrupt minds. reprobate concerning the faith. But they shall proceed no further. For their following shall be manifest unto all men. As they that his Jan Janice and Jambres also was.

    Did you know it? You are living in the last days. Now, the last day has not yet arrived. But these are the last days. And they have been since the time of Paul, the apostle. They have been since the time when God gave his spirit out of heaven to his church. They have been since Christ came died and raised again. These are the days between Christ’s first coming.

    And his second come. And these days in the Bible are called. The last day. It doesn’t make any difference how far in time you are removed from the events of the first century. from the events of Christ’s death and resurrection and the giving of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, it doesn’t matter how far removed in time you are, whether it’s the year A.D. 50 or it’s the year A.D. 1988, these are the last days.

    And because that is true, it’s important for you To understand. That there is a battle. Going on. There is a war. Raging. And this war is more significant than any of the wars which the world has had. For the state. In this war are eternal. It isn’t for a better share of the market. It isn’t for economical reasons. It isn’t for the purpose of wrapping up more real estate or asserting your will over others. It isn’t like the wars between nations. In the balance in this war is eternity. life and death. Eternal life and death. So there is a war on. There is a battle that is raging.

    But I don’t want you to look at this battle as if you didn’t know the outcome of it. You are the people of God. And God in the last day. Has been pleased to make known to you. In fact, he has been pleased to build your lives upon the certainty of the battle. And it’s outcome. The certainty that in fact victory. Is given. Already. The outcome of this war has been determined.

    Will evil prevail ultimately. Will the kingdom of Satan. Will it have the final word. As the last days of themselves have come so also has come that certainty with regard What do you imagine Christ was doing on the cross? Can you look to the cross and the outcome of that cross and their surmise, the outcome of the war? Can you see the war already resolved?

    Jesus Christ In dying, inviting again. Has told us that the outcome of the battle is certain. God will try. He shall surely win. During his ministry. Jesus spoke to his disciples. He said that the significance of his ministry, and certainly as that ministry came to focus upon his death and resurrection, he was at work binding the strongman so that the strongman’s house might be spoiled. That strongman is Satan.

    And Jesus has already entered into the strongman’s house. He has bound him, and now he is taking from Satan that which Satan thought was his. The outcome is already determined. And the power of the victory of the sun is already exerting itself in the world when a sinner comes to repentance when a sinner embraces Jesus Christ.

    Satan’s house. Has been ransacked. And Satan himself has been robbed of a treasure. When the seventy come back from spreading the word at Jesus command. Jesus says to them, I saw Satan falling from heaven like lightning. The outcome, as it were, already determined. Satan, a beaten throat. Yet still raging. Still waging war.

    Now, I know that there are many arguments about Revelation chapter twenty. And the mention of the thousand years of the millennium there and what it says there in those verses about Satan being bound. There are those who believe, yes, that even already the work of Jesus Christ has meant a binding of Satan, so that the nation may be wrong. For Christ’s sake. The nations that were deceived. Under the power and the dominion of the evil. Those nations now being robbed. So that out of them out of every tribe nation and there comes a new fellowship.

    Of those who belong to God. These are the last days There is a battle. There is a war. But the outcome of that war is already known to us. Christ is the victim. The kingdom of God. Second Timothy three. Is about the war. Now There’s something here that you should realize. As Paul writes. You may well think that his concern is for the world out there. Over against the church in here. As if it was always us against them. But that’s not how all right. Yet honestly. If not. Brutally. Frank.

    Paul makes it abundantly clear to this pastor Timothy. That the war is not between us and them only. It’s between us and us. Those he describes here are not pagan reprobates. They’re not crude barbarians who have no knowledge. They’re not those who haven’t been introduced into the matters of faith, who don’t know who Jesus Christ was. In fact, they do. Those that he describes here are in the church. You’ve heard the favorite excuse. I don’t go to church because it’s full of hypocrites. Paul agrees with you. Just read 2 Timothy 3. There is a war between us and us.

    Yes, there are those who, though professing the name, don’t understand, who claim to have the faith and don’t know what they’re talking about, who boast of their position and really, before God, have no position whatsoever. So here’s the catalog. In the last days, there are men who are lovers of self. Where is God? Always behind that one most important. Lovers of I’m reading from the New American Standard now, not the King James. And if you have the NIV, you may have a bit of a different rendering as well. Lovers of self. Me first. Lovers of money. Why not? Money is merely the expression of my glory, isn’t it? My importance. It’s merely an extension of my. It tells everybody else just how important I am.

    Money in the church. Even among those who would presume to teach. Creatures who love money. Oh no. Preachers who love themselves? Well, I know that that is a battle that I have to fight personally. Boastful. Not willing to wait for the acclaim of others. Always advertising themselves. Arrogant.

    Striding through the earth like a king. even stepping on whomever in order to get where they are destined to get. Would you sell your mother? Would you sell your cherished belief? Here is an evangelist who believes firmly in the word of God, so he says. But for the sake of achieving an end which he has held to be his professional dream, he even sacrifices his commitment to the Word of God in order to get what he wants. Revile it.

    Utterly oblivious to any kind of authority. And surely ministers are not the only ones guilty of this. It’s sort of a law unto themselves. What about Christian folk? Am I not a law unto myself? Can I not decide what I will do and when I will do it? It’s my business and no one else’s. Don’t you dare tell me what God wants me to do. Not only do you have no right, not even God has the right. So what do I do in order to keep myself in the good graces of God? I invent my own God, the kind of God who tolerates my vices. He still likes me, even though you say your God doesn’t. of all authority, extending it a bit disobedient to parents.

    Children think that it’s part of growing up and parents, unfortunately, think that it’s part of growing up. Children have inalienable rights. They have the right to disobey their parents, not according to God’s law, according to God’s law, children who disobeyed their parents were executed. You’re talking about life and death issues here. This is serious business. Ungrateful interestingly coming after disobeying the parents.

    Saying thank you. Maybe even screwing up a bit of that courage within you to go to your father or your mother and say, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being tough on me. Thank you for insisting that I show respect. Thank you for insisting that I go to church on Sunday and that I honor the Lord. Thank you for being who you are.

    Unholy. Moving from ungrateful to unholy. Living without any respect to the authority of God in such a way that now there’s a moral collapse. and loving. Obviously, since I love myself best. Irreconcilable. Impervious to intriguing. Conflict between us. Ask if there can be reconciliation between us, not on your life. I will die first. probably. But then comes.

    Malicious gossip. Spreading rumors securing your games. At the expense of others weaknesses. Making. A life. time profession out of the affairs and business of everyone else. For the purpose of making yourself look good. Without self-control. Out of control. Moving into those relationships with others in which violence is a possibility.

    Verse three, towards the end, brutal. We’ve heard a great deal about love in our generation, haven’t we? But yet it’s still a society out of control. We hear a great deal about love in the church yet the church can find within it a within its membership. Those who lack self-control who are brutal. Who are cruel and vicious. Haters of good treacherous. Truth break. Reckless. Conceited.

    And what is it that they serve? Ultimately, it seems, yes, themselves. Yes, their advancement. But most of all, they serve the world and the pleasures that the world offers. For that reason, they cannot see clearly. They can never penetrate the mystery of life. For everything is always on the surface. It’s always an issue of immediate gratification. I have to have it now. My drinking is very important to me. So is my gambling. So is my marijuana. So is my cocaine. So are my women.

    I cannot see through. The externalities of life. I live perpetually at the level of the surface. I never see eternity. I can’t see things in terms. Of the internal significance of things. I’m a lover of pleasure, and because of that, I can’t even as much see God, let alone love Him. In fact, I must admit to you, He doesn’t even occur to me at all. may even hold to a form of godliness. Strange as it may seem.

    Despite all we have read. A form of godliness that is sheer hypocrisy. Because their life is a continual contradiction of that godliness. They deny the power of that godliness a power in it that is at work in them to transform. For that is what godliness is all about. What does the word mean? It means god-likeness. Godliness is god-likeness. The power of godliness is denied because there’s no transformation.

    Instead, in this war that is going on between us and us, it seems that these people are on the side of the enemy. They produce their teachers. They take advantage of the week. They enter into houses, they creep out the way and captivate weak women, so it says. Don’t think that. Paul here being particularly chauvinistic in his remark about women and weakness. This is a passage about men. and the reprobate character of men who in their teaching function. Set themselves to. Capture those who are weak. In the army. Making an army for themselves. But again. In this war. You are not to be discouraged.

    If you are clinging to your Savior and holding fast to the word of life. If your heart is melted before him in order that you have received restoration through him. He being your life and your power now, you knowing whose side you’re on, you’re fighting with the Lord. And that not out of self-righteousness, because you’ve abandoned all hope of righteousness except to come through Christ and Christ alone.

    And you holding on to those things now are given assurance even by this apostle as he concludes his remarks here towards the middle of this chapter. There were those in that former day When Moses came as something of an earlier Christ, if you will, through whom the people of that day would be redeemed.

    There were those who stood up against him, Janet and Jamborance, two magician who sought to overthrow the fate of the House of Israel, and they were unsuccessful, and so shall all those who have placed themselves in the company of the of hell. The deceivers will not win. They cannot win. Why? Because Christ died and was raised again. That’s why. Because Christ is coming again. That’s why.

    And victory belongs to him. And that victory is even serving itself now in the church it may not be apparent to you you might belong to a church that is gone clear off the face of the world clear off the map in terms of disobedience to the Lord Jesus Christ. But Jesus Christ keeps a witness to himself yet in the world. That witness. Is still. from the world. As a testimony to the victory that is Christ.

    They will make no further progress. The last days as its terminus in the last day. Their following will be obvious to all. In the last days and. And when the last days end, you don’t want to be standing with them. You want to be standing with the Apostle, and with Christ, and with God. Father, we thank you. That our God is a warrior. Who has gone forth? To wage war on behalf. Of his beloved church. And we thank you that the victory that he has won is one. Because. Jesus Christ has appeared.

    And even though there may be distractions and terrors and great ungodliness that arise within the church, we will not despair. For our God reigns and our Christ has triumphed. Lord, give us grace not to live self-righteously, but also to resist every form of evil.

    And to practice the good. As it is found in Christ. In the gospel. And Lord build us up in the knowledge. That our hope is secure. For Jesus Christ. Is the testament of your grace whereby For your own name’s sake, you have procured for yourself a people that shall praise you forever and ever. Lord, we thank you for this.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Pastoring in the Last Days

    Pastoring in the Last Days

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “II Timothy” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, June 19, 1988.

    About this sermon

    Pastoring is hard, and 2:24-3:9 ties that difficulty to the troubles Paul names as marks of ‘the last days.’ Other passages on the last days fill out the picture. Churches absorbed in their own serenity, expecting ease in place of the soldier’s life Paul describes, labor under a real fallacy.

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    Sermon transcript

    I think we are in 2 Timothy 2, beginning with verse 24, and we will be reading through chapter 3, verse 9. This is 2 Timothy 2, verse 24. hear the Word of God. And the servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves, if God for adventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth, and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.

    This know also, that in the last days, perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, petty, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God. Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof. From such turn away. For of this sort are they which creep into houses and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away by divers lust ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth. Men of corrupt minds reprobate concerning the faith, but they shall proceed no further, for their folly shall be manifest unto all men as there is also one. with me briefly now.

    Our hope, our God is in your word. You have sent your servants to the ends of the earth that that word may be proclaimed. Salvation is found through the proclamation of that word through the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We confess this Lord. We know it to be true. We ask that we may well participate in the harvest that is set by you unto the end of the age. We pray these things in Jesus name. Amen.

    You are not to feel distant. From what you read here in Second Timothy. You are not to allow yourself the thought. Well, this was written centuries ago. What does it have to do with me? Paul is writing. To Timothy. And Timothy is serving a congregation. In Asia Minor. The church at Ephesus. But the relevancy of this writing for us. Is underlined by the fact that you see all in effect is writing for all the apostles.

    As if they were all in him. In hearing him you hear them all. And Timothy the pastor. Is as if he were in the place of all past. Regardless of when they live, whether the first century or the twentieth century. Or if the Lord carries the twenty-first century. All pastors are in Timothy, all the apostles speaking to all the past. Well, that’s the fossils and pastors. What about the church? The Ephesian church. Is in this instance, as if it were all churches. As if this very congregation here in Switly were in the church at Ephesus. So all possible speaking to all pastors. to all congregations until Christ comes again.

    That is what makes this word of such great importance, and this is what brings to light the authority of this word. It truly is normative for the people of God until Christ returns. the relevancy. The relevance. We find it then. Ourselves, particularly. Pastor and people, me and you. In this text and that by divine design. That in keeping with what God has intended. So, if it’s news to you this morning, you are in the Bible. Have you ever thought of yourself that way? You are a figure in the Bible, and God is speaking to you in the Scripture.

    Now, Paul is progressing in his instructions to Timothy this task. And he has told him, Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. The first verse of the second chapter. And he has gone on to say to him that what you have heard from me what you have observed in me and in my ministry that I want you to communicate to others. And throughout the course of the second chapter, then Paul is making clear to Timothy.

    What constitutes a good servant of the Lord? And what then makes for a dishonorable serve. Thus we move through the second chapter. We come to the conclusion of that second chapter, and we’re faced with somewhat of a difficulty in which spoken about that difficulty before. And I read the appropriate verses this morning for you versus twenty four to twenty six.

    The Lord’s bond servant writes Paul. must not be quarrelsome, but kind to all, able to teach, patient when wrong, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth. They may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been led captive by him to do his will. Now, part of the difficulty which these verses present us with is this. Looking at them, one pastor, Timothy, others may well imagine that their word, their ministry, their efforts will meet with uniform success.

    Why, if I just master these characteristics, these qualities of personality, If I am determined not to be quarrelsome, if I major in kindness, if I pay attention to the gift of teaching and am patient when wronged, if I am gentle and cultivate that gentleness, why, all men will call me blessed, and when I present my case, they will immediately recognize the force of it and repent on the spot. just like a chapter out of father knows best. Correcting the children. At the end of the half hour episode everything was just fine. But of course we realize.

    That there are difficulties and there are even problems that remain unresolved. A minister may look optimistically upon a circumstance. He may look optimistically upon an entire congregation and be expected of good and wonderful things his word received as it should well be conveying the message of God, directing people’s attention to the Scriptures and to the gospel of Christ.

    The disappointments, however, come and Paul has not been a stranger to those difficulties, and neither has Timothy. But now, Paul wants to place those difficulties in perspective. So we move on into the third chapter. And Paul opens up that third chapter with these words. But realize this. Now, even though, Timothy, you are to be a man of peace and gentleness, realize this.

    Don’t be surprised Don’t be surprised by many of the things that take place in the church, because, as he goes on to say, in the last days, difficult times come. Here is the explanation that Paul gives to this pastor and to other pastors. Here is the explanation that Paul the Apostle gives to the church.

    The struggle, the severe difficulty, the severe disagreements, the anguish, the presentation of the truth, and the fact that people can even blind willfully walk away from that truth when it is presented to them. How can they do it? You may well ask yourself, given the gospel and the power of God and the power of Jesus Christ, how can they do it? The reason that is offered here by the Apostle is this.

    The gospel ministry, as the apostle understands it, participates in and is a sign of the last days. The last days are difficult times, and the preaching of the gospel And the gospel ministry are participating in and are a sign of. The last day. So what are the last days in the estimation? Of Scripture. But first of all, the last days are not the last day. The last days are not the day of the Lord, and there’s been a great deal of confusion about this whole matter. The day of the Lord is set. The last day is set by God.

    And Jesus himself speaks about that last day and tells us that the last day overtakes us like a thief in the night. What is necessary for us is that we be prepared. Paul makes the same point in his first letter to the Thessalonians, the fifth chapter, the second verse. And he warns the Christians there about speculations about the last day when it will occur.

    But the last day is a future event, it is the culmination of human history, the history of the world as we know it. It is in the future and ever draws nigh, and we are to be prepared for it. But you see, in contrast to the last day, which is future, and yet to come, are the last days, which are here and now. you are living in the last day. And the people of God have been living in the last day. Since the coming of Jesus Christ. Think of.

    How the last days are described in Scripture. Do you remember, for instance, the sermon by Peter on the day of Pentecost, recorded in Acts 2. He quotes from Joel’s prophecy, and he quotes it in this fashion. It shall be in the last days, God says, that I will pour forth my spirit upon all flesh. Peter, in preaching that sermon, is declaring that God’s activity, which is inseparably bound to the last days, God’s activity has commenced in keeping with the arrival of the last day.

    The last days are here. They are not future, they are present. In other portions of scripture, Peter, for instance, In the third chapter of the second epistle speaks of the last days in a similar vein to what Paul is speaking of here. In second Timothy. Jude eighteen along the same line. And. In first Corinthians, the tenth chapter, the eleventh verse tells those Corinthians, you are those upon whom the end of the ages have come. The end of the ages came. Then you see, in that first century context and situation.

    We can’t pass over the beginning of Hebrews. God, after he spoke long ago to the fathers and the prophets in many portions and in many in these last days has spoken to us in his son. When he appointed arable things through whom also he made the world. So the last days are not days for which we wait. They are days that have come already and we are living in them. The last days are that period of extraordinary activity by God.

    When he sends his son, when he sends forth his spirit for the sake of his people, but simultaneously, and this is why the conflict and the struggle is so severe, the last days are also pictured as that period of extraordinary activity, not just for God, but also for Satan.

    Satan is at work, you see, actively seeking to confound the Church in her progress, to confound the Church in her message, to confound the Church in her life. and the severity of that struggle is coming to expression around the ministry of the world. And that is why there will not be uniform success for Timothy at Ephesus or any pastor anywhere before the coming of the Lord.

    It will be a struggle because that conflict is raging. There is a war on, a holy war, said John Bunyan. That is in progress. A severe struggle in which the truth is asserted against falsehood, against evil. Now note, as Paul goes on to describe the decline, the sin, the rebellion. In the subsequent verses, we may well be tempted to place what he’s speaking of out there in the world. As we think about the conflict that exists between the people of God and the forces of evil, we are liable to think that Evil is something that exists out there, but you will know that as Paul goes through this rather extensive catalog, that the force and power of it is that this evil is not out there, it’s in here.

    So that the struggle in great measure is an internal struggle. And that is why the church and why ministers of the gospel must always be on the alert. They must always realize this, that in the last days, difficult times come. Because God himself is at work now, as he’s never been at work before. And Satan is busy to confound that work, destroy the message, and upset the life of the people of God.

    You may well be tempted, as you fly off into a bit of rebellion, Did you cultivate in your heart some of the things that are listed here by Paul? You may well be tempted to think that I am making decisions for myself. I’m my own person. I’m doing it for me. Don’t you understand?

    You’re not free. You’re not acting for yourself. You are in the service of hell. And you have become a slave of Satan. The last days presents you with the urgency of your circumstance. These are the last days. There are no more opportunities. This is the prelude to the end. The offer is being extended. You must turn now. You must repent and embrace the truth and live for God. But please, don’t be naive about your circumstances. Your rebellion is not some sort of expression. Of yourself. It is an expression of. The kingdom of faith. Which is involved in mortal conflict. With the kingdom of God. The last days that.

    Bring before us the urgency of the message. But wonderfully they convey to us the comforts of the gospel. For it is in these days that Christ has come he has died for sin. It is in these days that the Spirit has come to give us life that we might live forever. Yes urgent. flee or sin, but find the comfort that is found nowhere else but in the gospel.

    I remember the days of my childhood, halcyon days to be sure, in many respects. I remember sitting in a very, very large church, which was my home church in the old United Presbyterian Church of North America. Second pew to the far right of the pastor. Right in front of the Logan’s right beside the Coopers and over my right shoulder, the Every week. They were all there. In those wonderfully serene days of the 50s. When we were all so happy. Even the littlest among us.

    I used to fight my brothers and sisters. Yes, there was conflict in the church in those days. I used to fight my brothers and sisters for that seat next to my father. It’s his father’s day after all. And the reason that I fought my brothers and sisters for that place, and I think you’re ahead of me, is because during the sermon I could lay my head down on his lap and go to sleep.

    And no little lamb rested more peacefully than I. But I also when I was awake. The delight to look across the sanctuary to that grand stained glass window. And trace. In the pewter outline. The form of the angel. that visited the shepherds on that night so long ago. And again, the serenity, the peace. And when I was 12, I was stung by the music that I heard that morning. I didn’t know what it was. I asked my mother, who knew everything, and she told me that it was a piece by Bach called Jesu Joy of Man’s Desire.

    Well, here I was, beautifully enfolded in the arms of that grand church with all of those comforts and all of those securities around me, completely ignorant of the fact, as was that church that there was a war on, for the souls of men and women. There was no sense in that church that we were, in fact, living in the last days. And there was no sense of urgency whatsoever to the message that was preached week by week. Instead, it was, relax, forget about it, don’t worry about the world and the struggle between the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of hell.

    The emptiness of all of that has been exposed, yes, to this fellow who grew up, not very easily either, and to many others who now understand just how hollow all of that was. For all of the country, for all of its beauty, It was a deception in the end. Paul has a different message for a bunch of people that beat in somebody’s house in the city of Asia, in the city in Asia Minor, Ephesus. They didn’t have the stained glass windows. They didn’t have the wonderful pipe organ. They didn’t have everybody sitting well and wonderfully all in line in queues every morning there, every Sunday morning there for you to see.

    And he tells them, as he tells their pastor, look, realize this, won’t you? Don’t be naive, don’t be foolish, don’t be stupid. In the last days, difficult times come, and the struggle is on. Don’t forget that. You have been enlisted into an army. and you are a soldier of the cross.

    Let’s pray. Lord God, we ask you that we would realize that the last days have come because Christ has come and the Spirit has come. We ask, Lord, that we would remember, as Timothy was encouraged to remember, the significance of the coming of those last days. And let us not forget the urgency that then comes to us because these are the last days. But, Father, we pray that in the midst of the struggle and in the midst of the disappointment that may well heap up to us The comforts as well are extended by the Savior and we delight in those comforts, the eternal comforts and the eternal peace and security that comes to us from heaven, our home. We pray these things through Christ.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • A Stubbornness That Is Meek

    A Stubbornness That Is Meek

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “II Timothy” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, June 5, 1988.

    About this sermon

    Paul seems to contradict himself, urging peace in one breath and naming false teachers in the next. The result is a proper stubbornness that stands firm without losing meekness. Christ himself shows how to take a real stand and remain meek.

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    Sermon transcript

    Our scripture reading this morning is again from 2 Timothy, the latter part of the 2nd chapter. We are reading from verse 22 to the end of the chapter. This is what Paul says to Timothy. Flee also youthful lusts that follow righteousness, faith, love, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart. that foolish and unlearned questions avoid, knowing that they do gender stripes. For the servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves. if God, peradventure, will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth, and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will. There are those who, in treating these later verses in 2 Timothy 2, there are those who have concluded that Paul here has surrendered to something of a contradiction, and that his spirit, for whatever reason, has been compromised and he has given in to an insincerity. We note his words and how they are certainly overlaid with that message that is intended to bring peace.

    Paul speaking to Timothy, a pastor in the church in the first century, and his message to him being one intended to bring peace, to bring harmony, to advance unity. These words, however, as intended for harmony as they may be, seem to be undermined by what Paul has said in other portions in this letter. And because of this apparent contradiction, questions have arisen as to Paul’s genuineness or his consistency throughout his ministry and the testimony that we have concerning him in his letters in his dealings with the church as a whole. You see, Paul seems here quite ironic.

    But if you back up a bit in the chapter, you will notice that he has some rather harsh things to say about a few people. He isn’t all that kind when it comes to Hymenaeus and Philetus, mentioned in verse seventeen. Neither is he all that kind when he makes mention of Phagellus and Hermogenes in the first chapter, the fifteenth verse. And what do we do with his statement concerning Alexander, in the last chapter, the fourteenth verse, Alexander the coppersmith, did me much harm. And almost as if this apostle could forget the words of Christ from the cross, or Stephen, while he has been stoned, he goes on to say, the Lord will repay him according to his deeds. How does one take seriously these words of Paul at the end of the second chapter? Pursue peace, he says. Don’t be quarrelsome, he says. Refuse to fight. Be gentle. Paul seems to be, at points, anything but gentle. In fact, he seems at times to be downright argumentative, combative, feisty. You might even say that at points Paul seems to be intent upon picking a good fight.

    He certainly is not going to let the point at which he has been opposed pass unnoticed. So obviously there is a stubbornness in this man that The Lord, by His Spirit, has it has yet dealt with. Obviously, this man has not progressed in his sanctification far enough to be delivered from this sort of railing, combativeness.

    Oh yes, Paul is a stubborn man. and he would wish Timothy to be a stubborn man too but stubborn as heaven is stubborn stubborn as God himself is stubborn not that there isn’t a stubbornness that is rightly judged foolish and wicked a stubbornness that is truly an evil and undebatable. But we must be careful when dealing with this matter of stubbornness to exegete it right and categorize it properly. We best ask about what, in fact, this person who is exhibiting such stubbornness is stubborn about.

    And whether that stubbornness is born of God or the Earth. You see, there is a stubbornness for the sake of the truth. There is a stubbornness which glorifies God. A stubbornness that is for our good. A stubbornness that is commendable. But that stubbornness which is evil. It is pervasive.

    And we are familiar with it. We are even familiar with it in ministers of the gospel, those who have assumed the office of preaching the Word. Many times, ministers have arisen throughout the history of the Church, no less in the first century when Paul preached, who were no better than willful children and acted like willful children, seeing the world no bigger than their selfish hearts. We’ve all witnessed the stubbornness of that wrong sort, the stubbornness that is found in the child.

    The child spoiled rotten, if you will. Maybe not spoiled, rotten, but nonetheless immovable. I don’t know about you, but when I became a parent, I became something of an expert in child rearing. Not only with regard to my own children, but everybody else’s. But I have noticed a few things. I became a bit more observant, if not a bit more critical. But I can remember sitting in a doctor’s office And watching this adventure develop in front of my eyes, now it’s probably not unlike what some of you have witnessed.

    It was one of these classic encounters between the iron-willed child and the helpless, hopelessly, what shall I say, inept parent. Now in this particular adventure, as it unraveled, it seems that in this specific relationship, this mother and child had gotten beyond the point of bribes with sweets. It was down to the matter of hard cash for money.

    If you will but comply, my dear child, I will pay you handsomely. Now, if you’re like me, not necessarily of course, but if you’re like me, you’re sitting there ready to pull your hair out. You want to go right over and grab the kid. Tell him you have a few things to say, you’re going to take him outside and get him. Well, it wasn’t just the doctor’s office. I’ve witnessed the same things in supermarkets, ball games and choreopolis, any number of circumstances. I expect that you have witnessed similar things.

    The self-absorbed child turning a home literally into a slave camp in which parents are reduced to servitude, bowing to every whim and desire of this midget-sized Pharaoh. It is too bad that many parents are unaware of the devious and blatantly depraved nature of their children and are incapable of dealing with it. And some are falling prey to a bribery system, the message of which is from the child, if you do not do as I wish, I will hate you. Well, when it’s painted for you in those stark terms, you are deeply offended.

    But adults can do the same and ministers can do the same. But when it comes from them, it is not always perceived by the church. Nevertheless, at work is a wicked, persistent, stubbornness, not of the sort of which Paul held, advocated, endorsed. The kind that literally terrorizes a congregation. The kind that holds up, as if at gunpoint, a church. We are not here dealing with the Lord’s bond servants.

    We are actually dealing with children in men’s bodies. And these infants in adults bodies are as it were frozen in a sort of perpetual adolescence. What do you think of that opening phrase? from Paul in verse twenty two. Three youthful lusts. Do you really think that the apostle at this point is limiting his discussion to those kind of activities that we associate with the lusts of the flesh, a sort of carnality the sensuality that has received all too much press space in the last few years with regard to ministers, preachers of the word. I don’t think so at all. I think that, yes, those things may well be included, something much more comprehensive is in view. What about this perpetual adolescent who is always making his needs, his agenda, his hopes and dreams, his ministry, his vision for you, the focus of your life?

    There is a wider application, you see, to these words from Paul to Timothy. Over against, then, a proper stubbornness which the apostle will insist upon, that wicked and immature stubbornness that is born of selfishness, the exaltation of the self, for the sake of which we are all left breathless. But how glorious, how glorious the stubbornness of Paul over against this petulance, this adolescent petulance.

    Stubborn for righteousness, faithfulness, love, peace, insisting upon these things, quarreling against the quarrels, fighting against the fighters, Adamant in it, kind, yes, stubbornly kind and masterfully kind. Gentle, yes, but a gentleness that doesn’t contradict a strength exhibited and the propriety of that strength asserting itself because, you see, it’s reflective of the certainty and the absoluteness of heaven. And for the sake of that, there will be no compromise. How might we judge this proper kind of argumentativeness? The appropriateness of the kind of fighting that the Apostle Paul would be engaged.

    We’ll think for a moment. And if he doesn’t fight for you, you’re lost. You think for a moment of Timothy. Paul doesn’t fight for him. He’s lost. We came in. As the spirit exhibited in the criticisms of Paul writing out of a passage like this, Tell us we cave in and imagine that the meekness of our Savior contradicts his stance. We believe that his soft answer contradicts the propriety of his might. And that is not true. For even in these verses, laid as they are in the message of harmony and peace and gentleness there is a deliberate feistiness and Paul insists upon that and for the sake of it for the sake of it he would even die your God stubborn.

    Rightfully so. Your Savior. Stubborn rightfully so. The Apostle the same. And for the sake of the truth. Any minister with his son. May God grant us mature men for his church. May you pray to that end, and they with wisdom from God, understanding these things, may they lead you in good and proper paths. Let us pray. Our Lord, we are mindful of the immovability of your purpose and how we rejoice in your steadfastness may we be found to be of that same spirit that when the truth is in the balance we are as adamant as you and certainly as adamant as the apostle whom you have sent and encourage us Lord in the knowledge that this stand by us after you is no contradiction to the gentleness and meekness that is prescribed by the apostle and by you and your son. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • The Sufficiency of the Word

    The Sufficiency of the Word

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “II Timothy” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, May 15, 1988.

    About this sermon

    Paul embodies the whole apostolic age in his own person, and he stays close to believers today. The Word of God is sufficient, against a modern impoverishment in practical theology and application-driven preaching that quietly assumes the Word alone is not enough. Believers come close to Paul through the text.

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    Sermon transcript

    to the end of the chapter. And then we will be reading from the first chapter as well. 2 Timothy 2, verse 22. Please also useful love that follow righteousness, faith, love, with them that fall on the Lord out of a pure heart. The foolish and unlearned question of all, knowing that they do gender strife, and the servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient. Uniqueness instructing those that oppose themselves is God for adventure. will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth. And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil. You are taken captive by him at his will. And then the first chapter, reading from the eighth verse through eleven.

    He not found there for a shame that the testimony of our Lord, be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God, who hath loved us, who hath saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, but is now made manifest by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and have brought life and immortality for life through the gospel, whereunto I am appointed a preacher and an apostle and a teacher of the Gentiles. Our last message on 2nd Timothy called this letter from Paul, his last will and testament. Before Paul departs this world, he sends word to his beloved child in the faith, Timothy. A man presently pastoring the church in the city of that. The last word. Are most important. Not simply because they express his tenor. Is part of the one well-loved by him. but because they mark the end of an era, the end of an age.

    It is as if Paul were speaking here for each of the apostles. As if he were speaking for all of the apostles. As if all of the apostles were in him. As if, as Paul wrote and sent this letter to Timothy, Paul and all those who bore the title and office of apostles were passing from this world and the apostolic age were coming to a close. A monumental, if not dramatic, change and shift for the Church. The Apostles were passing away and now the Church would have to survive without them.

    Without them being physically present on the scene. So here we are, living 1900 years after the last apostle breathed the air of this world, far removed in time from those great foundational figures, having become accustomed to their absence. accustomed to a world without them. But… But… Do you not realize at the same time While the apostles are dead and gone, yet they are proximate to us, and we live in their proximity. That though dead, they still live and speak.

    Now, whether you can fully grasp it now or not, the fact is this. There is a sense in which those apostles are as proximate to us, as proximate to us as Paul was to Timothy when he wrote this epistle. Now you didn’t come to church this morning to shell your brain. I want you to think of it. I want you to hang with it. There is a sense in which the apostles are as proximate to us as Paul was to Timothy when he wrote. Think of it. Think of it. Work it through.

    Let’s take the case of the pastor, since, after all, we are dealing with 2 Timothy, and Timothy is a pastor. You will remember what we said about Paul, how all the apostles were in him, as if he embodied them all, and they are all speaking through him. as he gives these his parting words. Well, along the same lines, it is as if all pastors are intimate and being abreast as Paul speaks to him. I am a pastor.

    Let me speak. I find myself living in second synod and being equally addressed by the apostles. No, so it is for all. We all find ourselves living in second. We are addressed by all as continually living in the circumstances in vision in this letter. Look at the pattern of things as they are worth as it is worth out for in that second chance.

    Paul, the apostle, is charging Timothy, the pastor, with his responsibility. And as part of that responsibility, especially as it comes to expression in this chapter, Timothy is to see to it that the message of the gospel is entrusted to faithfulness. I have just explained for you the first two verses of that second chapter. But, as we consider then the sweep of the chapter and the sweep of the things we have been dealing with here this morning, what we see is that there are three different figures put before us. They are presented to us. The apostle, the pastor, and the faithful man who is potentially to be a pastor himself. Now hold on to that, the apostle, the pastor, and the faithful man who is potentially a pastor himself.

    Do you now see it? Isn’t that the way it always is? Doesn’t the apostle, through the inspired word of God, to this day, continue to address the pastors who have their ordination, and isn’t the pastor that the message of the gospel is entrusted to a woman after him. That’s the way it always is, and we will be until the end.

    We see. As I have been I find myself living in Second Timothy, no less than Timothy himself lives there. And as this fact comes to register upon me, I begin to realize that there is a marvelous, biblical, and I underscore that word, biblical, immediacy and relevance to the whole matter of the Word of God. Such as it brings us to live in the twentieth century, right up to the apostles who lived in the first. All of that distance, all of that time, overcome. Biblically speaking, I, living in the twentieth century, live in the immediate presence of the apostle who lives in the present. In a very profound sense, then, I, the pastor of this congregation here in Swiftly, and no more distant from all of it.

    The pastor. We were well. to acknowledge and recognize that the Bible I’m talking about the Bible I’m talking about only really I’m talking about fired word and communication here from the Apostle Paul God and the world. We would do well to acknowledge and recognize that the Bible, the living Word of God, possesses in and of itself a radical relevance that cannot be improved upon. There is a dynamic at work in the Word of God that draws the yet future times and personages into There is a dynamic at work that simplifies our vision of life and our relationship to God so that that word, the word from God, establishes for itself a sufficiency and an adequacy for life.

    Now you may not understand why I am so emotional about this forum. But if you grew up as I did, you would understand. I was subjected to one great youth, director after another. And every one of them, without fail, told me that it was his purpose to make the Bible relevant and make it meaningful for my life.

    The Bible is not in need of being made. It is not in need of being made practical. It is relevant. It is practicability in its essence. And I doubt if this could be said too loudly or too often these days. For sadly, the Bible is approached now by many conservative or liberal, evangelical or sacramentalist, Reformed or Arminian, as if it were an anemic book, almost as if it were influenced by a platonic soul that had to be liberated from its tusks of mortality by the modern day masters of the practical, the modern day practitioners of relevance. Without them, so it seems, from what they are saying without them the Bible would be useless and remain mute. It could not speak.

    So thank God that he has given us these wizards of modernity. No. A thousand times no. The Bible does not stand back there as a volume in need of your operations in order to make it meaningful. The Bible stands back there beckoning you to be enveloped with it. So that you would live There. That’s God’s approach to life. And you see, if you understand His approach to government, you’re never a hero. The Bible, therefore, has an inherent usefulness by its very definition, by its very existence. It has an inherent usefulness that is ignored in the detriment of the Church, her pastors, and her people.

    But there’s another aspect to this immediacy of which I disagree. For on the one hand, you know, the Church is put off because she lives 1900 years from the actual events and things are getting a little stale, are they not? How am I expected to hang in there all this time? But on the other hand, going the other direction, what about all these promises about the end of the world? You know what Paul does in writing to Timothy?

    He takes up that matter, moves into the third chapter, and I know that you were fearful that he would never make it to the third chapter. But, in a bold move this morning, We are crossing that boundary. Look at that first verse of the first chapter that realizes that in the last day… You see how Paul is seeing things, how the Word of God is presenting things? We look at them in terms of the personalities involved. The pastor and those who aspire to be.

    The situation is never any different. But likewise, now if we move here into the third chapter, this matter of immediacy gains a new aspect. moving in one direction, the last days are brought up against us coming from the other. So the last days are always the same. And it doesn’t matter whether you live in a hundred, two hundred, five hundred, sixteen hundred A.D. or in nineteen eighty-eight.

    There is no circumstance that the Church can encounter between now and the end of the world, between the time of Timothy to the end of the world, that has not been addressed by the world. Absolutely not. There is a perfect, complete adequacy for life, for the Church, for me, four years in the Bible. In the Bible. Now many people who are even religious are consent to live without the Bible. And if you witness the funeral at Richard College area this last week you saw a whole crowd of people who are living without the Bible. LITURGY has been placed on the Word of God. LITURGY! Completely sufficient in and of itself. Having a life all of its own. Completely capable of explaining life and all reality. But without the Word of God. But what about you? And what about me? Why have you come here? Oh, what’s the story? Why have you come here? Out of habit. It’s a nice place to spend 20 minutes. Look, there’s better shows in town.

    I can guarantee you that. The Word of God. And the encouragement that you receive from this pulpit to this ministry should be that you avail yourself of that gift. Both corporately as a congregation and individually as members of the body. Well, there’s a great deal that could be said about these matters. It’s keeping in mind the immediacy and the relevance of the universe. It’s adequacy. It’s completeness, sufficiency for life.

    Father may we not lose track of where we are may we not lose track of the fact that we in a very deep and real sense live in the immediate presence of the apostle who writes and addresses even us. For surely he wrote to Timothy that Timothy pastored a congregation and Ephesus sent him. Though the pastors may feel especially addressed, still that message comes through loud and clear to the people that were congregated in the assembly gathered in Ephesus so many years ago. No less so, we who gathered here. So let us take up residence in the world. Let’s dwell there and live. And that’s by the power of your spirit, for the glory of your name, for the good of the church.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.