Grace OPC Sewickley PA

Sermon Series: II Timothy

  • The When, How, and Why of Timothy

    The When, How, and Why of Timothy

    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, August 7, 1988.

    About this sermon

    This closing sermon organizes both letters to Timothy around three questions: when, the importance of real history inside Scripture rather than timeless ideas; how, the actual bond of love between Paul and Timothy that carries the instruction; and why, the hope of Christ’s resurrection that grounds everything else. Taken together, the two letters answer all three at once, woven through rather than kept in separate sections.

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    Sermon transcript

    I would like to read selected passages from the letters to Timothy as we make some final remarks, make some final observations with regard to these letters of Paul. First of all, 1 Timothy chapter 3, verses 14 through 16. hear the Word of God. These things write I unto thee, hoping to come unto thee shortly.

    But if I carry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. And without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory. And then from the fourth chapter, beginning with verse 13. Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine.

    Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery. Meditate upon these things. Give thyself wholly to them, that thy profiting may appear to all. Take heed unto thyself and unto thy doctrine. Continue in them. For in doing this, thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee.”

    Turning to 2 Timothy, the first chapter. Beginning with verse 8. Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord. This is in the first chapter of 2nd Timothy, verse 8. Be not therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me, his prisoner. But be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God, 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 hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, whereunto I am appointed a preacher and an apostle and a teacher of the Gentiles.

    For the witch cause I also suffer these things. Nevertheless, I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and then persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed under him against that day. Chapter two, verses eleven through thirteen. It is a faithful saying, for if we be dead with him, we shall also live with him. If we suffer, we shall also reign with him If we deny Him, He will also deny us. If we believe not, yet He abideth faithful, He cannot deny Himself. 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 is a theory. Pray with me, briefly. Teach us again, our Father, concerning your Word. Your Word is given and that with your presence by the Spirit through whom you authored this Word. So, and therefore, our God. Our relationship to this Word is not as if we were merely engaged with ink on a page, for surely we are engaged with the Living God. Train us, our Father, that we might appropriate the truth of Your Word and as well the fact that you are present in and with your word to bless the heart of faith and to convict the heart as well that is weak or has no faith at all. We pray this through Christ.

    Amen. when, how, and why. Those are considerations for us as we come to these final remarks with regard to the letters of toll to Timothy. When pertaining to the whole question of where it is these letters, where these letters are set for our good, for our instruction in the plan and the economy of God. Where are these letters set in the history of redemption? for our good and for our instruction. The when is of great importance to us for our consideration of the matter of the faith and the content of that faith. The appropriate ground of our lives. The how pertains to how are we to live in the circumstance that is defined by the providential and saving activity of our God.

    Especially in light of those remarks that are made by Paul, to Timothy this pastor and through him to the church which he serves at Ephesus. Here we move from the matter of the faith as it related to the when of which we have already spoken to the issue of love. The issue of love and how that love then is expressed by Paul and becomes a norm as much as a norm as is the content of faith for the way of Christian life. The why? the why pertaining to what does in fact lie beneath the surface, the motivation, the drive of this man who speaks in the fashion he does to this pastor in the first century, the why then connected with hope, so we have moved from faith to love to hope, as we have moved from the when to the how to the why. In our final reflection, concluding remarks on the Timothy letters. First of all, the when. The question of the place of these letters in what we have come to call the history of salvation.

    Giving that strength, I have to look upon my years at seminary as something of a second conversion. Now you might be surprised about the content or the character of that second conversion. This was my second blessing. I was never particularly impressed with the importance of history.

    I was a person who was very much impressed with ideas. So put me in a room, closed the door, let me think out all these wonderful things that relate to the doctrines of the faith. their orderliness, how they hang together in systematic fashion. Let me teach the confession and the catechism, considered from that point of view. Or put me in a room with a bunch of idea people and let’s go at it. tooth and nail, and argue and debate about the ideas which we all give.

    But I went to seminary, and there I discovered history. In effect, there’s a sense in which I discovered life. Well, you see, life is historical. Strangely and oddly enough, Sadly as well, our education as we are growing up does not do a great deal to put us in touch with the history, the development of things. But you see, the Bible is essentially a book not about ideas, but about history. We progress from creation to consummation. from the beginning to the end.

    Creation, then the fall, then God’s program of redemption. So at the center of things is what we have come to call the history of redemption, the history of salvation. And all that God does has a context. All that God does has a context in this History of redemption, this history of salvation. The big picture, as it would relate to these letters to Timothy then. The structure of God’s revelation of himself as it moves historically towards its perfection and consummation. Let’s think about that for just a minute. that big picture and the structure of God’s redemptive activity. In the Old Testament, we have that central redeeming event accomplished by God for his people. We all know what that was. The Exodus. God delivers his people from bondage.

    And there comes with that a recording, a recording of those events for the purpose of the people of God being strengthened by the knowledge of those events so that they might understand their place with regard to them. the central event, the circumstances surrounding that event, then the narrative account, you see, given with regard to that event and the circumstances.

    But following on the heels of that, we have an explosion of what we might call charismatic power. For after the time of the great redemption, there comes the period of Joshua and the judges, in which God’s spontaneous power is manifest for the sake of his people, that they might be delivered from their periodic enemies, and they might be established, as it were, in the land. And following upon that, As that charismatic period wanes, for it doesn’t last, you see, as that charismatic period wanes, it doesn’t last, there comes the period of settlement and establishment as God builds for himself, as it were, a house. In the midst of his people, we remember the passage from the time the times of Joshua and the judges into the period of the Kings, and particularly David and Solomon, and in Solomon, the building of the house for the Lord in Jerusalem. So that’s the pattern of things, the great redemptive events, the charismatic period that follows, and then the period of establishment and the building for the house, building for the Lord, a house in which he can abode there with his people. Now, do you notice the parallel that we have to that in the New Testament? First of all, the great redemptive events and the narrative account that goes along with it.

    That’s what we have in the gospel. Then we move into the charismatic period, that period in which God seems to be working almost haphazardly, spontaneously, this explosion of power and that in order that the people of God may be established, just as it was in the Old Testament. But that Charismatic period doesn’t last. It wasn’t intended to last. It moves on to the period of establishment.

    And that period of establishment sees, then, the building of the house of God. Sound familiar? 1 Timothy 3. I’m writing these things to you, Timothy, so that you might know how to behave yourself in the house of God. See, God has built for himself the house. And what’s the house? The house is the church. Where do the pastoral epistles fit? Where do Paul’s letters to Timothy fit?

    Why, they are part and parcel of that latter end of things, in the economy of God, when the house-building enterprise of God is manifest and clear. And that’s their intention. And that’s why we short-circuit the intent of God if we fail to see the sensuality of that house of the Lord. that new temple of God in the pastoral business in the letters. Now there is a particular focus. There is a particular focus for us in this history of redemption consideration as we look specifically at the past.

    For you see, that great master builder, the Apostle Paul, is about to depart. And the period is dawning when the Apostles will no longer be present. Paul will no longer be on the scene. And those who remain, pastors like Timothy, are going to have to get along in this world without the physical presence of the Apostles. So, Paul writes these letters, you see, as something of a Last Will and Testament.

    So that all Timothys, since Timothy, all pastors since that pastor, might know how to conduct themselves until Christ comes again. That means that these epistles, so debated, Having become so controversial, rejected by many in the church, rejected by even some conservatives in the church, these epistles are so important because they are a norm for pastoral behavior and for church conduct until Christ comes again. Now, we all want to fight, and we all have our pet peeves.

    Paul is very strong about matters concerning officers of the church and church government structure of the church, and we think we can pass that off willy-nilly as if it weren’t important. Don’t see yourself. It is important how the temple of God looks, how it is run, how it is organized. We’re not dealing here with just another organization. It seems that many people take more or more concerned. It seems that many people are more concerned as to how. Let’s use an organization I’m familiar with.

    How little it is. Then they are about how the church is. You get the point. Now, if you’re concerned about Littleleg or something else, how much more should you be concerned about how the temple of God is run? Well, any number of issues. I know the women’s question is a controversial issue. And there’s a lot of bloodletting going on about it right now. You see, what Paul has to say about that question is very central to his message in these epistles. Is it just a cultural thing? Please, please, I plead with you, don’t allow yourself to slip into that. Why? Because this is normative until Christ comes again. This is the place which these epistles have in the history of redemption.

    Well. That’s the winner. And the matter of our faith in connection with it, we’re talking about the faith here, not so much my subjective faith, but the faith. the faith. In these epistles, then Paul can speak about the tradition. He can speak about what he is handed on. It has a content to it. One can define it. It is the faith. These are the things that we believe. the great redemptive activity of God culminates in Christ Christ’s spirit has been present in the world a demonstration of charismatic power but on from that God has established himself a royal habitation in which he dwells with his people his house, the church. Until he comes again.

    Don’t you neglect these things. Alright. Well, there is also this matter of the how. Relating oneself to the house can possibly, though wrongly, operate at an abstract level. Relating oneself to the house-building activity of God can become somewhat detached. Talking about the faith can leave us, in some ways, distanced from my faith, your faith. faith and faithfulness.

    So what else do we see here in these epistles? As we look at Paul in his relationship to Timothy, we see a bond being expressed here, being described, being portrayed for us. that is still full of the deepest, the richest love the world can know. A love which is found nowhere else but in God and in His Son. Now, in order to get that across, what does Paul do when he speaks to this young man?

    Does he whip him off a memo that is formed and couched in the language of some of the letters I received from insurance agents, for instance? No. Something that is passing over the desks in the office. the greatest amount of emotion, the revelation of a heart, a bond here, expressive of the deepest and the richest love which this world can know. So when he speaks to Timothy, he calls Timothy, My beloved son. My only beloved son.

    You understand what Paul’s doing here? He’s rather bold in all of this. You see, so much as he informed by the power of the gospel and the love that is found there, that love which we observe in the relationship between the Father and the Son, so much as he informed by that, that it begins to mold and shape the way he talks about Timothy, as the Father loves the Son. the only begotten son, his only beloved son. I love you, Timothy. So all the chiding, all the correcting, all the encouragement is strained within the context of that love which Paul, the father, bears towards Timothy, the son.

    Now, it’s not a love that’s merely reserved for this unique relationship of apostle and pastor. For the apostle describes for us the mystery of godliness in the 16th verse of that third chapter in verse 10. And we’ve spoken about those verses before, and I’ll just say here briefly with regard to them that at the heart of them, you see, is that wonder of the mystery of godliness, namely the condescension of the one who was above, to touch down in that which was below, in order that that love may be demonstrated, and that unmistakably, the Lord became the servant, that the servants might become more.

    The Lord becomes the servant that the servants might be treated as. And so through the pastoral cities letters to Timothy we find example after example of how someone has behaved in that fashion, and we cannot pass over the man with a long name mentioned in second chapter one on a. The one who proved servant. And was exalted by way of that service.

    To be seen as something of a war. And there’s a norm for even Timothy speaking here. Now the thing that you must understand with regard to this how, when we start speaking about love, is that this is as much an axiom to the content of our faith as the faith which we spoke of formerly. So that you do not disregard this expression of love concretely as you see it in Paul’s relationship to Timothy and in the church when you are looking for true biblical Christianity. Finally, why? It is true that Jesus rose again. How many times did you think about that this last week? How many times did it cross your mind this last week, Jesus rose again? How many times did it cross your mind this last week, Jesus is coming back?

    From the time Paul gets up in the morning to the time he goes to bed at night. I think you know something about this fellow. Just from reading his letters. Here, in his letters to Timothy, it is most obvious. It is most obvious. What is informing this man? What is driving this man? What’s motivating this man? It’s the fact that Jesus rose and is coming again, and that is perpetually on his mind. His hope. Why does he behave the way he does? Because of his hope.

    It isn’t because he has a nice family and wants to do good things for them. You see? I mean, all these kind of remedial things almost become immaterial, irrelevant. All the things that become the motivation and the drive for us are not motivation and drive for Paul. Paul starts with the resurrection and with the hope of the return of Christ.

    That’s where he begins. And that’s why he’s so different. And that’s why you cringe when you read him. And that’s why he becomes an embarrassment to the Church. The Church is convicted by this man. because the church does so poorly in maintaining the same hope.

    The very first verse of the first letter to Timothy speaks of Jesus Christ who is our hope. Repeatedly through that first epistle he tells Timothy, fix your hope on God. not on the things of this world. And that’s why we read in conclusion that portion from the fourth chapter of Second Timothy, where, indeed, the rubber meets the road. In the future, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will reward me on that day And not only to me, but also to all who love His appearance.

    If you know what drives you, motivates you, that’s it. It’s not the comfortable life, the better life, the good life. It’s eternal life. It’s the hope of glory. It’s the hope of the appearance of Christ. And all of my behavior is in light of that expectation. I know he’s coming back. So this is how I live and why.

    Final thoughts on Paul’s letters to Timothy. I hope that there is some material here for you that will stay with you, lodged in your hearts, so that you have it as something of a reservoir to draw upon in the years to come. How marvelous, Lord, things fit together. How wonderfully they are fitted together by you. Again, an affirmation, declaration of your sovereignty that you are powerful over all things.

    And in this regard, May we understand the flow of salvation history, and where various things fit, not just these letters to Timothy, but ourselves as well. And may it please you, Lord, to cause us to grow up into the full stature of Christ our Savior, especially as we are encouraged to that end by Paul as he is so wonderfully expressive of that love born of the gospel and may there be a proper and appropriate motivation in us not the good life, not the comfortable life but eternal life may we have that hope fixed a hope that is fixed truly upon our God and that truth that Christ will come again And we shall appear before Him. We pray this in Christ’s 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.

  • 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.

  • Paul’s Last Words

    Paul’s Last Words

    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 1, 1988.

    About this sermon

    2 Timothy is Paul’s last letter, and it joins a biblical pattern of last words, from Jacob and Moses to Christ himself. Paul’s closing words work in three specific ways. The death of Christ, and in a lesser way the death of the apostles, means life for those who come after.

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    Sermon transcript

    This morning we are going to look at Ephesians, the second chapter, some verses there, then some verses from the fourth chapter of Ephesians, and then some passages from 2 Timothy. So, a little bit different than what appears in the bulletin, but taking something of a breather so that we can catch ourselves up on what we have been speaking about in second Timothy. So this is Ephesians, and you will remember that Timothy is the pastor of Ephesus, so this is the same congregation that is in view in Paul writes second Timothy. So Ephesians chapter two, verse nineteen will lead to the end of that chapter.

    Now, therefore, ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens of the saints and of the household of God, and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom all the buildings fitly framed together groweth unto a holy temple in the Lord. in whom we also are builded together for the habitation of God through the spirit.

    And then chapter four, beginning with verse eleven and reading through verse sixteen. And he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the saints. the work of the ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ. So we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. That we henceforth be no more children taught to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the slight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie and wait to deceive, but seeking the truth in love may grow up into him in all things which is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth according to the effectual working of the measure of every part make it increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love. And 2 Timothy chapter 4, verses 6 through 8.

    For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I lost the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. And forth 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 is appearing.” And then verse sixteen through eighteen. 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 the glory forever and ever.

    Amen. Father, servants have been raised up in keeping with the prayers of your people for the harvest which you have ordained. Now, Lord, be pleased to strengthen those servants of yours so that they, with true humility and awareness of how weak they are, may present that word which, after all, is the hope and vitality of your children. O God, to the ends of the earth, we pray that specifically in the pulpits of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and in the mission activity of this denomination, and of other Reformed and Evangelical bodies, there may be that truth that is declared, and that for the calling of your elect and for the perfecting of your faith unto the day. We ask it in Jesus’ name.

    Paul’s second letter to Timothy is not the last position letter from the apostle in the New Testament. It is not the last position. Letter. Appearing in our Bible. Both Titus and Philemon, and some have suggested even Hebrews come afterwards. But second Timothy. Is in fact. The last of all letters on a lot. It is in effect. All last will. And. It is to be seen. Therefore in relationship to his coming death. This letter that.

    A last will and testament from Paul, and as such, to be taken with greatest seriousness. Not that you not that we should take all other letters left seriously. Here in this letter are Paul’s last canonical word, his last recorded inspired word. And they gain a certain weight because they are last spoken, last recorded. And last spoken, in some way, is best spoken. Also, it would be well for us to keep in mind that this letter is a summing up. It is a summing up of Paul’s ministry and life. It is of inestimable value.

    Therefore, in judging, understanding, and interpreting what Paul has done and said earlier and elsewhere, and in less extreme circumstances. How strange and how sad, then, that Paul’s letter, his second letter to Timothy, should fare so poorly in the church. remain so ignored and unused by the church, and even in some places be rejected as sub Pauline, as hardly a genuine letter of the apostle. For some in the church have rejected and said that Paul did not write it at all. Second Tennessee becomes a great important.

    As a testimony, a concluding testimony by this great apart. And underlining the importance of this is the way in which it fits so well a pattern we observe elsewhere in Scripture. You will recall in this regard other famous last words in the Bible. Think for a moment about Jacob. Think about Moses. And there are other examples in the Old Testament. Think most especially about our Savior. For each of these, Jacob, Moses, our Savior, Jesus Christ, the Scriptures record a closing soliloquy.

    Jacob’s words appear in Genesis 49, and how important they are, forecasting as they do the destiny of all the sons For most of the last will and testament goes on for an entire book. Deuteronomy. Famous last word. As he prepares the children of Israel for possession of the promised land.

    And thinking about Jesus. Thinking about where before his departure, we turn to the latter chapter of John’s chapter thirteen through seventeen, where he gives his disciples that matchless parting service. But in each of these instances, With regard to Jacob, with regard to Moses, with regard to Jesus. In each of these instances, we notice more than just the similarity of circumstance.

    Yes, it’s obvious the one who is speaking is about to die. And before he goes, he delivers a message appropriate for his accident. his exit from this world. However, in each of these instances, the speaker speaks recognizing at work a monumental change in the life and in the history of the people of God. That a monumental change is about to take place. but underscoring the significance of their word.

    Jacob’s last words signal a move out of the patriarchal and especially nomadic times for the children of Abraham into the times of settlement and those of the rise of a dynasty, a kingdom in keeping with the promise given Abraham. When Moses gives his closing address, in view in much detail and extended exhortation, is the end of the times of imprisonment, judgment, and wayfaring, and the beginning of that time of blessedness in the inheritance promised by the Lord to the children of Israel. As you well know, the departure of Jesus Christ signals the greatest transition in which the eye of the faithful beyond and above the provincial dynasty of Judah that Jacob had envisioned, and the territorial inheritance for the nation of Israel which Moses had envisioned. The throne of glory belongs to the Christ.

    The inheritance is the eternal regions of life, these procured by Christ for us through his own death on the cross for our sins, through his resurrection by which we are given newness of life unto eternity. Now it is because such great change Well, the people of God is bound up in the death of these individuals, supremely Christ.

    That’s the parting word recorded are so significant. When I die. I may utter some poignantly phrase even for the party were. But my word spoken on that occasion as memorable as they may be will not cannot rival the word spoken by the strategic figure in the history of redemption. My last word Your last word may be very interesting. They may even be inspired, but they are not essential and they are not fine. The words that are offered here by these strategic figures are essential to the history of redemption, and they are inspired words from God. That’s the difference between their words and yours, their words and mine. Now the apostle Paul is a strategic figure in the history of salvation, and his departing words are both essential and inspired, inspired of God.

    Just how strategic is he? You see, Paul must be understood as more than just a solitary figure. He must be viewed as representatively. And his departure must be viewed representative. Now in this is a certain formal similarity between him and crime. But there is also a mark different. Paul’s departure. His death is not vicarious. And his dying saved no one. Yet his death is representative. That is, when Paul passes away, it is as if all the other apostles are wrapped up in him and they are passing away too. The whole lot is gone.

    When Paul does. So again, the people of God in this instance, the Church of Jesus Christ, is witnessing the end of a particular period in the history of redemption and the commencement of another for no longer will be the church have in her mid living breathing teaching preaching about. You won’t be able to reach out and. Despite the claims of Rome. despite the claims of the charismatic. With Paul’s letter and his second letter to Timothy, we not only have Paul’s final words, his final inspired recorded words, but We have here a testimony to the closing of the times of the impossible. And the beginning of a time in which there will be no apart.

    How easily it is for us to underestimate the trauma of this radical loss to the church. Radical transition. For the church, generally, in the day of Paul, then, as the church witnesses this transition, the loss of the apostles would be like the loss of Christ to those original disciples. Remember how traumatic it was for them that Jesus should go? You’re not going to leave them.

    Well, for the Church generally, the loss of the apostles was, for them, similar to the loss of Christ experienced by the original disciples. Now, to be sure, the Holy Spirit comes and supplies comfort, and I don’t mean to minimize the significance of the Spirit’s presence. Still, The fact remains that the church was now facing a future without the apostles. She was facing a future without the presence of these who had been directly commissioned by Christ by the Risen Christ, these who had been in direct contact with him.

    And the sense of loss must have been overwhelming. Think of it yourself, personally, as it comes home to you. You are not strangers to the trauma of loss. Having experienced the loss of someone near and dear to you, you know well of what we speak. For that time in the world, and that time following the loss is one in which there rises within your heart manifold fear and tremendous doubt. The church as a body is not immune to such fear and inner doubt.

    You’ve asked yourself in your loss the question, how will I continue? How will I go on? What will I do without this person here in my life? How is life possible for me? And the church asks the very same question. Just as those disciples asked it with regarding Christ, so now the church asked it with regard to the apostles. Without them, how will we continue? To whom will we turn? How, in fact, can we go on? How will life for us be possible? Is there a future for us without them?

    But you that have experienced the severity of grief and that attack upon your hope, realize that there comes to you a comfort in your sorrow and a determination, nonetheless, born of the provision of the Father God, who rules and reigns and lives for the sake of his church, and no less for you.

    And so it is for the church as a body. For she, too, in her grief, she, too, in that attack upon her home, received comfort and determination through the provision of her sovereign will. In it all she will face not just the inevitability of death, but the necessity of death. For you see, Jacob had to die, Moses had to die, Jesus had to die, and the apostles had to die. Why?

    Because out of the church’s loss of Jesus of Nazareth, there would come for a certain date with regard to him for giving that would come out of that lost the joy of resurrection glory and the blessedness of the spirit. And now you see it here. They’re bringing down the eyes of the Christians in the first century. at the thought and prospect of the loss of her apostles, the loss of Paul the Apostle, and all of the apostles with him. There comes with that a certainty that is underscored by the Word, namely the completion of the Church’s only foundation, that foundation being the Apostles and the Prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone. You’ve got to complete the foundation, because if you don’t complete the foundation, there will be no superstructure, there will be no building on top of that foundation. And without that foundation, as it testified by Paul to the Ephesians, the church will not arrive at that measure of the stature that belongs to the fullness of Christ. Their going means your maturity. Their departure means your gain. The pruning away effected by God of the apostles means your death. Their death means your life.

    But we’re dealing with. And Timothy introduces a strange twist into this comparison. Between the original disciples lost Christ and now the church is lost. For as we read through second Timothy. We do not seem to get a sense of Timothy’s power over this loss. There doesn’t seem to be any address to Timothy with regard to Timothy’s sorrow at the departure of Paul, as if the tears are restrained. They’re not there. Instead, and I hope I’m not being unfair to Timothy here, We get only a sense of embarrassment, shame, and severe disappointment.

    What a rotten break. What a rotten break. Why did I invest in this thing anyway? I mean I had attached myself to Paul because it had a huge. Attached to it that was right and promising look at the guy even in jail in Rome and he’s about to be executed now what kind of a huge. The embarrassment, the shame, and the severe disappointment. Well, you remember those disciples that had attached themselves to Jesus, and how disappointed they were, too.

    They were going to Jerusalem, remember? They were tripping on their way. They couldn’t get there fast enough, because at Jerusalem there was going to be the unveiling of the kingdom, and they were going to be in power. Nothing but glory and light awaited them.

    So now, Timothy, as the drama is worked out here in Ephesus, it’s almost as if you’re reliving the scenes of the earlier parts of that century, and Jesus is there encouraging his disciples with regard to his departure, and they can’t understand any of it, seemingly. Now, if there is, Paul takes up the role of Jesus in Timothy’s and the role of the Bible, and Paul is finding what Timothy and Christ is discerning. Why, what a great excuse it is in Jerusalem.

    Utter humiliation. A promise. Death. Yet a waking in us. utter humiliation across them. But I tell you from experience, don’t be disappointed. There is laid up for me a crown of righteousness. And not only for me, but for everyone who loves his appearance.

    2 Timothy, a last will and testament from the Apostle Paul, but from all the apostles, concluding the apostolic page. And in its extended more than comfort, a charge, a charge comes to that those like Timothy be faithful, and all who receive expectantly for the coming of Christ, they be faithful as well. What will that faithfulness mean? It means suffering, atonement, death for the sake of the truth, and the crown of righteousness, laid up for everyone who loves Jesus Christ. O Lord, would you take us into the depths of the words which Paul spoke, that we may see beneath them and within them the wonderful drama which works itself out in the life of Christ and His relationship with His disciples.

    And may we Lord. Remain faithful. As surely Timothy became. The father keep us from. The air that stopped him. Lord. The air. That threatened to undermine him and to destroy him. So as the disciples were they supported in Christ, seemingly pinnacled at the time in prayer. But Lord, remind us, if we suffer with Him, we will also reign with Him. And if we endure by Him, we will also be glorified. 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.

  • Sonship, Christ’s Central Mission

    Sonship, Christ’s Central Mission

    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, April 24, 1988.

    About this sermon

    Across these chapters Paul keeps returning to sonship, and believers receive their sonship and inheritance by grace. Christ’s central mission was sonship itself, securing it for others by first possessing it perfectly. The pastoral epistles focus on resurrection, and that focus follows from the same emphasis.

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    Sermon transcript

    Our reflection upon Second Timothy continues. We will be reading once more this morning from the fourteenth verse to the end of the chapter. All these things put them in remembrance, charging them before the Lord that they strive not about words to no profit. but to the subverting of the hearers.

    Study to show thyself approved unto God a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. But shun profane and vain babblings, for they will increase unto more ungodliness, and their word will eat as death a canker, of whom Hymenaeus and Philetus whom concerning the truth have heard, saying that the resurrection is past already, and overthrow the faith of some.

    Nevertheless, the foundation of God standeth firm, having this seal. The Lord knoweth them that are his, and let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity. But in a great house There are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth, and some to honor and some to dishonor. If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified and useful for the master’s use, and prepared unto every good work.

    Flee also youthful lusts that follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart, but foolish and unlearned questions 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, in neatness 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.

    Pray with me briefly now. O Lord, there are servants of your word today in the world, and the number abounds and increases. But Lord, we ask that you will give to your church servants of the word in truth, that your people those whom you love would be fed, that they would be led aright, that they would be taught faithfully, and that not to stray. Father, for the sake of your people, do grant the request we make this day, and may it please you, Lord, may it please you to strengthen those who already speak, that they may speak with Christ in view, and with your glory in view as well.

    May nothing obscure you and your Son in the proclamation of your truth. We pray it in Christ’s name. Amen. What is beneath the surface of all that Paul says to Timothy? What is it that is beneath the surface for all that Paul has to say to this pastor? Well, interestingly enough, It is something that concerns us all very directly. It is the matter of sonship. It is the matter of sonship. Yes, it’s true. Timothy is a son. But so also are you?

    What do we know about sons? What do we know about the children of God? Can we determine a pattern as we survey Scripture on this matter? How do sons become sons? How do children become children? Do they become children because they do what we say? Or are they children to begin with? and does their obedience follow upon flow out of their identity? Why, of course. They are children by birth. They are children by creation, if you will. They have an identity as such So they are not becoming children, they are not becoming sons because they do what we say. Rather, they are children who are then obeying, who are behaving in keeping hopefully with their identity.

    What you are precedes what you do. Now, that which we can observe generally is true with regard to the specifics of the gospel and the specifics that pertain to the history of salvation, in order that grace may be grace, and you might understand the full character of that grace.

    For are you made sons, are you made children by the things that you do? Or have you been made sons, have you been made children by a special work of God? Have you been created and so identified as sons and children of the Lord? What you are then by virtue of God’s grace, what you are by virtue of His working, precedes any workings by you, any doings by you, any obedience that you may render. so that your identity is not based upon what you do, it’s based upon what God has done for you.

    Now that’s gospel. That’s gospel. Now we expect obedience from our children. We expect it from them because they are our children. That obedience, then, is not insignificant, nor is it unimportant to us, much less to them. The fact that we are children by the creative work of God, indeed, that foundation there playing for us to see. Our obedience, our behavior then flowing out of that. Our identity and our obedience being then the specific aspects of our sonship.

    But there’s another aspect. As we survey scripture, as we think about life in relationship to what we know to be true out of scripture, as we look at the general fabric of life itself, the whole question of sonship The whole matter of us being children of God is tied up with that issue of promise. Promise of inheritance. And once more, what is it that is essential to that promise of inheritance or that promise of reward?

    Is it so much what we do or what we are? Well, in the first instance, it is a matter of who we are. In the biblical times, the firstborn was the one who was entitled to the lion’s share of the inheritance. But what had he done in order to deserve that? He was merely born first, not by any doings of his own, not because he willed it, but because he was so designated, you see.

    This matter of sonship This matter of us being children of God then involves promise of inheritance, the prospect of reward, and that, too, a measure of grace, so that the promise is heard at the outset, and the promise of reward is conferred when we begin our lives as sons of God, as children of God. If you were to look, then, at the history of the children of Israel, what would you find? They were called the Son of God. Exodus, chapter 4. God calls Israel, My Son, My firstborn. Hosea, chapter 11, verse 1. Out of Egypt I have called My Son, referring to Israel as a nation. That identity for Israel as son of God conferred upon Israel by God’s grace, not based upon what she had done.

    The promise of inheritance, the promise of reward, granted her of grace at the outset as part of that constitution of her sonship. You may well think of Jesus Christ himself. Let’s take, for instance, his position as servant of God with a specific ministry to perform before he has done anything. He has his sonship underscored and reaffirmed. He comes up out of the waters of baptism.

    He comes up out of the Jordan, and there, at the Jordan, he hears those words out of heaven, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. his sonship, then the foundation of his mission, his task. Reward promised to him, and in light of that promise, he endures every test and proves himself to be son all the more. Into the wilderness he is driven, and there he undergoes those three temptations. And in each of those temptations, he is tried with regard to that identity which is his as son and the promise of inheritance that is his. Will he sacrifice that? Will he abandon that? For the sake of something much more immediate, something much more instantly gratifying to him.

    Well then, the pattern of sonship that we find in Israel and the pattern we find in Christ, and we have said that that pattern is the foundation for what we find in Paul’s dealings with Timothy. Timothy, in fact, is called my son. Paul speaks of Timothy as his son. Paul loves Timothy. And that love precedes even any obedience that Timothy may render.

    There is the promise of reward, specifically as it comes to Timothy. in his calling as a minister, as a pastor, as an evangelist in the early church. His identity as son, the promise of an inheritance, a reward in keeping with that ministry that is his, these things come to him at the outset of his labors as a son.

    As we run back over the territory that we have covered so far, we realize that after there was this declaration of Sonship to Israel and the granting of that promise of reward, her Sonship was proved and she was found to be washing. Likewise with Christ, His Sonship spoken of, underscored but then his sonship proved, and he demonstrates that he is the son indeed.

    The reward of the inheritance is his. Timothy will be tried also, as every servant and every son will be tried. So he finds himself in a first-century congregation there at Ephesus and undergoing the severest of trials. The test is with regard to his sonship. Yes, a sonship to Paul, who is his spiritual father in the faith, but even more than that, his sonship to God. That is in the balance. For he in this distress and in this predicament must prove himself to be the son, with all of the implements provided him for his sonship, all of the tools that have been granted to him in order that his sonship may be vindicated in the course and through the duress of life. So Paul himself, a son, is sorely tested in a Roman jail, and now Timothy is sorely tested in Ephesus because of the difficulties and the offenses and the problems that have arisen. Paul says to him, suffer hardship with me.

    I didn’t think sonship would be like this. I didn’t imagine that being a child of God would be like this. But the question arises, for Israel, for Christ himself, for Paul in a Roman prison, for Timothy in the Ephesian church, how will I survive? How will my sonship be confirmed through this distress which I experience? Surely I am called upon to obey, but I have already understood that I am a sinner. I am given over, it seems, to wickedness. I don’t have the strength within myself to hold out. What hope is there for me?

    Of course, we remind ourselves of God’s grace. We remind ourselves of his power present within us. But we need to remind ourselves of something more. We need to remind ourselves again and again of the significance of that promise, that promise of the inheritance given to sons at the outset of their journey.

    It is specifically that which is being countermanded and denied at Ephesus. The resurrection is already past, so say some. Now, you take stock of your spiritual well-being. You take stock of your spiritual temperament and temperature. Ask yourself, how often do I remind myself of the promise of the reward? How often do I remind myself of the promise of the inheritance? How much has that become the foundation of my life? Do you lack strength? Is there a lack of power in you to resist temptation? Do you find yourself continually caving in? Are you wandering from the truth? Is there a lack of zeal, a lack of enthusiasm? Well, just how excited about heaven are you? If you are not excited about heaven, then you’re going to have a very difficult time living properly for the Lord. If the inheritance does not interest you. If you could care less. If you haven’t thought about it since last December. If then.

    People get upset with the pastoral disciples. They look through them, they say we have no exposition of the cross of Christ here. Well, there’s a reason for that, because Paul does not want Timothy concentrating so much upon the sufferings of Christ. He wants him concentrating upon the glories of the inheritance. Because when we get into difficulty, our help is not found in looking at our sufferings and analyzing them endlessly, and getting ourselves more and more depressed.

    If anybody had a reason to be depressed, it was Paul. But what did Paul remember? I am a son. Now he didn’t think about that because it promised him great things in this world. It was so important to him because it promised him great things in the world to come. Now Paul starts with that promise of inheritance, and his whole theology, if we can use that word, his whole doctrine of the Christian life is built upon it. Take it away, there’s nothing. Absolutely nothing. You might as well go be a Buddhist. Unfortunately, there are a lot of Buddhists in the Christian church today. They don’t know it.

    You come to that conclusion, then, of 2 Timothy 2, verses 22 through 26. And you’re asking yourself, are these just disassociate disassociated postulates and axioms for the moral life, wise words to live by in the first century in Ephesus, or wise words to live by in the twentieth century in Pittsburgh. Everything that Paul says to Timothy is undergirded by the reality of sonship and the promise of an inheritance. Why should you flee youthful lusts?

    Because you are son of God. That’s why. Not because it makes good sense. Not because there will be a better social equilibrium in our society. Not because you can avoid social diseases, but because you are a son of God. That’s why. And so it goes. Sonship, promise of inheritance. Becoming the motivating factor for all of the moral life. All of our behavior. all of our actions. To the degree that you see that inheritance meaning more and more to you, to that degree, you will see your sonship confirmed and all the assurances of it. Oh, the inheritance.

    Can anything be compared? with what is promised and we as sons and children of God how are we to live in light of that which is given to us you have the living Christ as your guarantee that the inheritance is sure Let us pray. Our Father, remind us so that we will remind ourselves that we are sons that we are the children of God, and that we are heirs, heirs of glory, heirs of the kingdom, heirs with Christ, yes, heirs of God. Lord, may it be plain to us that if this truth is removed from our lives, truly nothing of Christian value remains. So continue and more, build us up in this certainty. We are sons, children of God, who are living for our Father in Heaven, who has granted us an inheritance in the regions of light, and we shall dwell with Him there.

    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.

  • From Babel to Babylon

    From Babel to Babylon

    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, April 17, 1988.

    About this sermon

    The city of God and the city of man stand opposed throughout Scripture, and the spirit of Babel’s tower runs forward into Babylon and on into the present day. Genesis 11 records the founding moment of that spirit’s resistance to God. A weakened doctrine of creation lets Babel’s spirit take root again.

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    Sermon transcript

    Now scripture begins with a reading from Genesis chapter 11. Genesis chapter 11, the first nine verses. And the whole earth was of one language and of one speech. And it came to pass as they journeyed from the east that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there.

    And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick and burn them thoroughly. And they made brick for stone and slime had they for mortar. And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven, and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.

    And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the children of men builded. And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one. And they have all one language. And this they began to do, and now nothing will be restrained from them which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down.

    And there confound their language that they may not understand one another’s speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from fence upon the face of all the earth, and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babylon, because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth, and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.”

    You will read from verse fourteen to verse twenty one. These things put them in remembrance, charging them before the Lord that they strive not about words to no profit, but to the subverting of the heroes. Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. But shun provain and vain babblings, for they will increase unto more ungodliness, and their word will eat as doth a canker. Of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus, who concerning the truth have heard, saying that the resurrection is past already, and overthrow the faith of some.

    Nevertheless, the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal. The Lord knoweth them that are his. and let everyone that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity. But in a great house there is not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and of earth, and some to honor and some to dishonor. If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor sanctified and meet for the master’s use, and prepared unto every good work. Our Lord, it is well that every servant of yours who proclaims the word remember that he is but a servant, and that your glory is foremost, that the well-being of your people is at the heart of the ministry of the word. Therefore, Lord, may your people be encouraged by the preaching of the word today and may you in fact strengthen them so that they in service to you would be all that you have intended them to be. We pray this through Christ. Amen.

    There are only two building enterprises. There are only two building enterprises. One building enterprise is that which concerns the city of man. The other is that which concerns the city of God. The city of man. It has its foundation in man. It is a house built, an edifice constructed upon sand. Its strength no greater than the word of man himself.

    The city of God, however, has its foundation in and from God. Here is a house, an edifice built upon the rock, as sure and as certain as God’s word. that city of man has expressed itself variously throughout history. We see occasions of its formulation even in the scriptures as it rises up in opposition to God himself. I suppose that the city of man has a clear foundational and fundamental expression in the story that we have read in Genesis 11. The story of Babel. Over against this expression of the city of man, there is in time expressed in the world that work of God is building enterprise where love and obedience to God is demonstrated. We see it principally in the Old Testament in the construction of the tabernacle under Moses and Aaron. and in the construction of the temple under Solomon, the son of David.

    When we move into the New Testament, this city of God, this edifice that has its foundation in and from God, is seen all the more clearly. For from the New Testament, it becomes plain to us that the fullness of the building enterprise of God is now at hand. It is accomplished in and through Jesus Christ, for by him there has been prepared for us, the people of God, an eternal and heavenly dwelling. Yet, while God is in fact building for us this eternal and heavenly dwelling, there is a visible manifestation of that dwelling in the world, and it is localized in the Church of Jesus Christ. So when we speak about the city of God, or the foundation of God, as Paul speaks of it in 2nd Timothy, We have in mind the sweep of God’s activities by which he is bringing to expression his work, the end of which is a habitation for his people.

    The end of this enterprise by God. is, of course, glory. It is a dwelling place, the dimensions of which and the particulars of which exceed our wildest dreams. It is a region of perpetual delight and joy, blessedness to the full, a habitation that is unthreatened by sin, corruption, death, diminishment, or end itself.

    On the other hand, Babel stands as a monumental warning to man and his pretense The end of the city of man, the end of that foundation that is found with him and for his sake, the end is ruination, destruction. Babel lies in ruins, and her leaders are scattered in confusion. What was intended as a monument to the unity of man’s enterprise, what was intended as a monument to man’s ingenuity, his strength, his power, his importance, is now a witness to chaos and to the calamity of man’s foolish errors. But while the tower, the proud tower, lies in ruins, the spirit of that tower lives.

    It lives in such a way that in its pretentiousness, it even sets its sights upon the city of And if we think, then, of the church of Jesus Christ as the visible manifestation in the world of the city of God, then Babel sets the church of Jesus Christ in her sights. The spirit of Babel lives.

    She comes with the boast of clear speech, as if God’s curse had not occurred, as if there had been no confusion at all. She comes as if with clear speech to make her point, to prosecute her case. She enters into the Church of Jesus Christ with promise. She makes her stand. Her boast is communicated through her leaders. Her leaders seem articulate, well-versed, quite competent.

    Who could argue with the servants of Babel in Israel? Moses, the meekest man in all the earth, with his brother Aaron, stands before the congregation and prosecutes the case of the city of God. But there is a Levite who feels left out. His name is Paul. He joins forces with two sons of Reuben Nathan and a Byron. And who is Reuben? Why? That poor son of Jacob, who was first born but lost everything because of his indiscretion, will now this come a time for him to regain it all. Two sons of Reuben and this son of Levi stand before Moses and Aaron.

    They prosecute their case now, and it seems so logical. Aren’t all of God’s people priests unto the Lord? Who do you think you are that you have some sort of special measure of the spirit? Why do you set yourself apart? Isn’t God in the midst of the assembly? aren’t we all the same? Why they sound like good Protestants. Moses falls down on his face He recognizes that this clear speech isn’t clear at all, it’s just the babblings of babble.

    It is the confusion and the chaos from that ancient city still living on. It is intruding itself upon the city of God, the order of which is given from heaven. He arises. He says in the morning, you’ll come. The Lord knows. Those who are here. The spirit of Babel lives.

    And it lives, especially in the articulations of those who are leaders for that city, and they come prosecuting their case, and they sound so sensible. Is the church in Ephesus a very articulate man by the name of pioneers is prosecuting the case for a theology in which the resurrection has already occurred. Paul, however, is equated to this man’s words, as articulate as they are, with vain babblings. You hear the echo of Babel in that, don’t you?

    But that’s not all. He then turns on Hymenaeus and Philetus so that he might encourage Timothy and all those who might yet stand for the truth. And he says, the foundation of God standeth sure. And on its cornerstone, it bears the seal, the Lord knows those who are his.

    And this is stealing a chapter right out of the book of Numbers. Babel comes in, and the confusion and chaos follows. Night all sound very good, but in the end it proves to be confusion. It is the undoing, or the would-be undoing, of the city of God. It’s not just the vocabulary. It is the life as well. These leaders from Babel claim that they are known by God and their approach to life has his imprimatur.

    Yet, as you observe them, they become the advocates of every kind of depravity. Every kind of deviation from the truth, every desertion of godliness imaginable. Paul goes on to match that one seal spoken of on the cornerstone of the foundation of God. He goes on to match it with another statement, which says, Let everyone who names the name of Christ abstain from wickedness.

    Babel, of course, you know, takes form and shape again. In time, it becomes known as Babylon, the city of man personified. And how is that city viewed in the book of Revelation? Not just as a city filled with apostasy, that is, wrong belief, but a city filled with every kind of immorality imaginable. The foundation of the Lord stands sure. The city of God is ultimate and eternal, and she shall prevail.

    There is a large house. In the large house there are vessels of gold and silver. There are also vessels of wood and earthenware. some to honor and some to dishonor. The spirit of Babel would tell you that really the valuable vessels are those of wood and earthenware. The vessels that are worthwhile are actually in fact the vessels that they mark out. And these vessels are vessels of dishonor, because they are the vessels that have imprinted upon them the name of Babel itself.

    Leaders, then, for the city of God, standing over against the leaders of the city of man, How is it that they are to live? What are they to say? What are they to do? They are to cleanse themselves from these vessels of dishonor. These vessels of dishonor are a contagion, a disease, infectious, and they will corrupt. Where does the church stand? The visible manifestation of the city of God in the world. Where do her leaders stand?

    In many instances, the leaders come to the people with fine speech. They come with a well-developed program. they come giving you promises of glory promises that are calculated to appeal to your ego that in fact you will be made important by your adherence to their philosophy and their doctrine. Though they sound as clear as a bell. They are babbling worthless worldly words. And in the end, the message that they preach will fall to the earth. The Church is in fact now facing a severe crisis. How we progress from a principle of doctrine to open acts of immorality, justifying them in keeping with the theology of the city of Adam.

    For instance, does it matter that God created man? Does it matter that you hold to the truth of the biblical account of creation? Does it matter that you perceive in that story of creation an order? An order which is essential to the biblical message? Does it matter? that you hold to a doctrine which says to you that man was created first and woman was created from man. Does it matter? What if it doesn’t? What if it doesn’t matter? As many leaders in the church now are telling us, it doesn’t matter.

    Attack the order of creation at that point. What happens at other points? If you destroy the distinction between male and female in the creation, what other distinctions are then put in the balance? Is it any wonder that in those denominations where the doctrine of creation has fallen, that we now observe the most energetic efforts with regard to the destruction of distinction between the sexes altogether. Is it any wonder that where the doctrine of creation falls, that homosexuality rises? The spirit of Babel lives, and there are many in the Church today who are Babylonians. Now this passage that we have in front of us is about leaders in the Church. What is a leader to do?

    He is to cleanse himself. from the dishonorable. That he might be. A vessel for honor. One sanctified useful to the master. Prepared for every. Good work. And as it is for the leaders, no less for the people. That you also. may purge yourself of the spirit of battle, which surely spells destruction, not glory.” Well, the foundation of God stands pure. The Lord knows those who are Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from evil. Honor God. The sound. May well be clear, the words well formed for the argument well presented.

    But the Apostle Paul is not deceived. He sees it only as a wrangling about words, vain babblings, ungodliness abounding. For surely the spirit of Babel lives, it lived in the church at Ephesus, and it was to be resisted. It lives today. It is to be resisted no less now. May I please you, Lord, to make your church strong, that she may after all reflect the glories of the city of God, for surely she is to be that manifestation of the eternal dwelling where you meet with your people and abide with them 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.