WWUTT 716 Come to Me Soon?

Paul’s Reasons for Writing 2 Timothy

Paul had a couple of reasons for writing his second letter to Timothy. One was that Timothy would come and see him before he died. But the most emphatic reason Paul wrote was that Timothy would preach the word, when we understand the text.

This is when we understand the text, studying God's word to reach all the riches of full assurance in Christ. Thank you for subscribing, and if this has ministered to you, please let others know about our program.

Here once again is Pastor Gabe Hughes.

Thank you, Becky. We are inching closer to the conclusion of our study of this letter, 2 Timothy chapter 4. Let's begin reading today in verses 9 -18. The Apostle Paul writes, Do your best to come to me soon.

For Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia. Luke alone is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry.

Tychicus I have sent to Ephesus. When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, also the books, and above all the parchments. Alexander the coppersmith did me great harm. The Lord will repay him according to his deeds.

Beware of him yourself, for he strongly opposed our message. At my first defense, no one came to stand by me, but all deserted me. May it not be charged against them. But the Lord stood by me, and he strengthened me, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it.

So I was rescued from the lion's mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen. So where Paul says here to Timothy, do your best to come to me soon.

This is one of the occasions for writing this letter. Paul is hailing Timothy to come to him in Rome before he is to be martyred. Now that's not the only occasion, and probably not even the primary occasion for writing this letter, but it is one of the reasons that he is writing, because he wants Timothy to come see him before he is to be executed.

The main reason that he's writing this letter, though, is really what we've been repeating over and over again over the course of these four chapters. That Timothy would remain steadfast in the true words of the faith.

That he would not deviate from the word of Christ into myth or into speculation, but that he would preach the word in season and out of season, as we read at the start of chapter four, with complete patience and teaching.

For a time was coming when people will not endure sound teaching but having itching ears. They will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and they will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.

But Timothy, as it's instructed in verse five, is to always be sober-minded, and as I talked about last week, that means that we would not be led astray by our own minds to entertain our own fancies and wild speculations, but that our minds would remain focused on what Christ has said, that we would endure suffering for this.

For people will ridicule us for believing the truth that we hold so fast to. The only words that can bring salvation, according to Romans 1 .16, the only words even that can bring sanctification is the word of Christ.

And that Timothy, and likewise we, would do the work of an evangelist, that we would understand the call that is upon each and every one of us to believe the gospel and also to share the gospel with others, that those who hear it may repent of their sin and come to faith in Christ.

All of scripture is useful. We read this in 2 Timothy 3 .16, all scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete and equipped for every good work.

That is the main theme and occasion for this letter, that Timothy would know the word of Christ that is breathed out by God and is useful for training in righteousness. Where Paul warns Timothy that a time was coming when people would not endure sound teaching, that was certainly a time that Timothy was going to encounter in his own lifetime, which is why Paul warns him of that.

But likewise, as the Holy Spirit speaks to us today, that assault on the word of God is still on. That's still happening even now. People who are attempting to attack or malign the word of Christ, they do not want to listen to sound teaching, but they believe their words have greater weight than the very word of God.

Andy Stanley’s Assault on Scripture

One of the most influential teachers against the word of God today is Andy Stanley. According to an article that appeared in Christianity Today just a couple of months ago, Andy is one of the 12 most effective preachers alive today.

I think this was according to a Gallup poll that was taken, and Andy was listed as one of the top 12 most effective preachers. The scary thing about that is what it is that he is preaching is not effective for training in righteousness.

He might be effectively persuasive, but not in the right direction, as this is a man whose liberal theology is becoming more and more apparent with every sermon that he preaches. Earlier this week, I guess it was right before the weekend, Ken Ham, who is the director of Answers in Genesis, he posted a clip of Andy Stanley preaching, posted this clip on Twitter.

This is from a recent Stanley sermon, and you hear his assault on scripture in just this 60 second clip.

Now, is this important? It's like, it's fascinating, Andy, you're about out of time. Is this really all that important? Yeah. Here's why. Look up here. Because many have lost faith. Many have lost faith because of something about the Bible or in the Bible, the Old Testament in particular.

Once they could no longer accept all the historicity of the Old Testament, once they couldn't go along with all the miracles, once somebody poked a hole in the Genesis creation myth, once all that went away, suddenly their house of cards faith came tumbling down because they were taught, it's all true, it's all God's word, and if you find one part that's not true, uh-oh, the whole thing comes tumbling down.

Not Christianity. The Bible did not create Christianity. The resurrection of Jesus created and launched Christianity. Your whole house of Old Testament cards can come tumbling down. The question is, did Jesus rise from the dead?

And the eyewitnesses said, he did.

Well, the resurrection of Christ didn't create and launch Christianity either. Jesus did. The one who was risen from the dead. So as profound as he is trying to be there, he really falls far short of the mark and the way that he throws the Old Testament under the bus, which has been his adventure over the course of 2018, that he would try to cut the Old Testament entirely out of the Bible.

Now, it's not in the sense that Stanley says you shouldn't even pay attention to the Old Testament, not even teach it anymore, because I've heard him teach from the Old Testament, but that he would say something as absurd as he did in that statement, that when a person has holes poked in their understanding of the Old Testament, suddenly their entire faith comes crashing down.

So you don't even have to believe the Old Testament. All you need to do is believe the resurrection and then all of the rest of it will fall into place. Will Jesus responded to that very exactly? In Luke chapter 16, we read the story of the rich man and Lazarus, which is not a parable, by the way, for this is coming from one who came from heaven and who knows these things, has seen these things in a way that human eyes have not.

Not anybody was living on this earth anyway. Jesus said there was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen, who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man's table.

Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores. The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried. And in Hades, in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side.

And he called out, Father Abraham, have mercy on me. Send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame. But Abraham said, Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things and Lazarus in like manner, bad things.

But now he is comforted here and you are in anguish. And besides all this, between us and you, a great chasm has been fixed in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able and none may cross from there to us.

Abraham saying to the rich man, even if Lazarus wanted to, he cannot dip his finger in the water and cool your tongue the way that you are asking. The rich man said in verse 27, Then I beg you, Father, to send to my father's house, for I have five brothers, so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.

But Abraham said, They have Moses and the prophets. Let them hear them. And the rich man said, No, Father Abraham. But if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent. And Abraham replied, If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.

So here Andy is trying to say, if you haven't been convinced by the Old Testament, if you have left the faith because the Old Testament doesn't make sense to you, that's fine. All you need to do is believe in the resurrection.

And Jesus very flatly says, No, if they don't believe Moses and the prophets, they won't even be convinced if someone should rise from the dead. And you hear their Andy make a passing statement to the creation story is being a myth now giving him the benefit of the doubt.

Or maybe he's speaking of that in terms of a person whose faith has just crumbled beneath them. And now they're looking at the creation story, not as truth. But now they see it as a myth, giving Stanley the benefit of the doubt in that sense.

But he still nonetheless makes this passing comment, which he does not correct as the Genesis account of creation being a myth or as most liberal theologians like Stanley would say, those first 11 chapters of Genesis are a myth.

And yet it is from the creation story itself that Jesus quoted when he gave the definition of marriage in Matthew 19. And he said at the start of his answer to those Pharisees who came and questioned him, he said to them, Have you not read?

It is one of the most condemning questions that Jesus asked. Have you not read? Why don't you know this? Especially you Pharisees who are supposed to be the shepherds of Israel, who are supposed to be teaching the people the truth of the word of God.

And yet they did not know who Jesus was. Because as Jesus said in John 8 43, why is it that you do not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. And that's the fear I have for Andy, is that the reason he does not understand the word of Christ, not just the Old Testament, which is also the word of Christ, but even the very words Jesus said, he doesn't understand them.

And the reason why he doesn't understand them is because he can't bear to hear them. That's my fear. Would cause me to pray for a man like that so that he would not fall into judgment and condemnation at the state that he's in right now.

And the things that I've heard him say, I do not know what the result would be for him to stand before the judgment seat of Christ. And that's a scary thing to say, even to not be sure what the result would be.

But likewise, for you, listener, that you would do well to know that all scripture is breathed out by God, that there is not a part of this from Genesis one to Revelation 22, that was not inspired and given by the Holy Spirit.

The way Andy Stanley talks, he dismisses the spiritual inspiration of scripture, that it came from the Holy Spirit of God. He does not believe all scripture is breathed out by God. That's a frightening thing for Andy, but it would be a frightening thing for you as well.

So do not repeat these same errors. May you see all of the word of God, what we have in the Bible as being given to us by God for reproof, to call us to correction, to point out our sin. That's what we read about in the laws.

It says in Romans three, we come to a knowledge of our sin because we read about it in the law, that you would see the errors that you have committed against God and the ways that you have transgressed the law so that you would be corrected by the instruction of God's word.

You would be encouraged by the hope that we have in the gospel, which is our only hope of salvation, and that you would be trained in righteousness by following the word of Christ that has been delivered for us by the apostles.

Praise God. I mean, what a blessing and a privilege that we have the word of God so readily available to us. There are people in the world today who do not even have the Bible in their own language. And so my brothers and sisters in the Lord do not take this for granted.

I applaud you for wanting to listen to programs like this, and not because it's me, but just because you would want to hear the word of God read to you and explained to you. I'm not the only one doing this, and I'm not even the best at it, but it's it's commendable that you would want to listen to Bible teaching such as this.

But don't take for granted that you have the Bible in your own language and you can sit down and you can read the word of God for yourself. Hear God speaking to you through the pages of Scripture. Learn how to read it.

Learn how to digest it and how to use Scripture to interpret Scripture. You need to have your own time doing that as well. Don't let online Bible teaching like this be your substitute for church. You still need to go to church.

You need to sit under good teaching. You need to have regular fellowship with the brothers and sisters of the body of Christ that we may grow in love toward one another. And sometimes I know this one's a little bit more difficult, a burden to carry sometimes.

But sometimes that means in loving your brothers and sisters in the Lord that you might actually be part of a church that's not so great that you wish was more sound in their doctrine than they were, but that you are lover lovingly laboring with the rest of these brothers and sisters in the Lord that they would come to a right understanding of sound doctrine.

This is Paul's instruction in Romans 15, 1, that we who are strong would have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves, but to please our neighbor for his good. So sometimes they're in our walk of faith.

We're going to be a part of congregations who need to grow up in their learning. But even that is a labor of love for the body of Christ. Now there are certainly going to be doctrines and things that churches would fall into in which those churches would have to be abandoned because of the false things that they teach.

Northpointe Church, which is Andy Stanley's church, is one of those churches. I have talked with people who attend Northpointe and I have said to them face to face, leave that church. Do not continue there any longer for you are listening to the teachings of demons.

As Paul had previously warned Timothy in the other letter in first Timothy chapter four, Jesus said to his generation in first century Jerusalem, 2000 years ago, have you not read? And he's asking that same question.

Even now, the Jews had the Old Testament scriptures. They had them taught to them regularly in the synagogues. Today, according to the apostle Peter, we have the word of God more fully confirmed. We have a completed Bible written in our language, so abundantly available in all different kinds of styles and in so many different places.

I was just in Walmart the other day and there were Bibles on the shelf. It was a center display rack right in the middle of the aisle. It wasn't even pushed off into some corner. I'm walking by. Oh look, there's a new King James Bible right there in the middle of the rack.

The Bible, the word of God is so available everywhere to us that we have no excuse not to know what it says. And so Jesus is saying, even to this generation now, have you not read? And may we not be so in the dark that we would answer to our Lord, no, no God, I haven't read, but that we would love the word of Christ and cling to him, our savior so much loving his words that we become students of these words.

But even more than that, we would become doers of the word. The apostle Paul was not just writing to Timothy for the sake of instructing Timothy. He desired fellowship with Timothy and that they would be unified as they grew together in a knowledge and understanding of the word of Christ.

And so here in second Timothy four, nine, one of the final requests that Paul made of Timothy before he died was this, do your best to come to me soon. Even says it again toward the end of the letter, verse 21, do your best to come before winter.

Make sure you're able to get here that you don't put off coming to me. And then the seasons would prevent you from getting here. But Paul desired fellowship with Timothy. And so we desire fellowship with our Lord Christ and with other followers of Christ, the members of his body for whom he died on the cross for our sins, reconciling us to himself and to one another.

Prayer for Reverence for God’s Word

Let us conclude with prayer. Our Lord Christ, we thank you for your word, and I pray we don't take it for granted, but that we would understand it is by this word, we have been saved. We heard the word of Christ proclaimed and we believed it.

And so we've been rescued from sin and delivered into godliness. The pursuit of godliness, chasing after the righteousness of Christ and desiring to be more holy as our heavenly father is perfect. May we desire company and fellowship with one another as Jesus fellowshiped with his own disciples.

So we would fellowship with each other and display the love of Christ in the body of Christ until his coming. We pray for men like Andy Stanley, that they would stand in fear, that they would come to respect the word of God and have reverence for God.

Understand that all scripture is God breathed and is useful for training and righteousness. So that those who deviate from teaching the sound words of Christ would realize that they're actually leading people further and further away from righteousness, instead of closer and closer to the savior, which is only accomplished by hearing and following his word.

Again I ask you Lord that we would not take this for granted, but that we would be hearers of the word and doing what it says. In the name of Christ we pray, amen.

Thank you for listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. If you'd like to support this ministry, visit our website www .wutt .com and click on the Give tab in the top right corner of the page.

Join us again tomorrow as we continue our Bible study When We Understand the Text.