Pauls Advice to His Son Timothy — Leonard Ravenhill

Paul’s Advice to Timothy: Life, Death, and the Gospel

Stone to Paul, 2nd letter to Timothy. That's a fabulous hymn, I could sing that all night I think. Sometimes I do, when my wife is asleep. I yield my flickering torch. What does it mean? This little flimsy thread of life I have, I yield my flickering torch to thee.

If we owned a million woes and gave them to God, it wouldn't be enough anyhow. O light that followeth all my way. O joy that seeketh me through pain. I thought as we sang that, you know, we're trying to find joy without pain and you can't find it.

We're trying to find life without death. I had some preachers in my office the other day. They were going to come tonight but they didn't. They must have got scared, I told them too much. But I reminded them, I said, you know, there are only two kinds of people in the world.

Not rich and poor, not black and white, not educated and illiterate, just those who are dead in sin and those who are dead to sin. There's no middle ground. Either we're dead in sin, it's sin, the world has dominion over us, or we have dominion over sin and over the world.

The Authorship and Setting of Second Timothy

2nd letter to Timothy, okay. Let me just give you a brief introduction about this thing, you know. The biblical scholarship quarrels about how many epistles Paul wrote. I think he wrote 14. And if I get that number, I have to say he wrote Hebrews, which some people are not sure about.

People say, do you know who wrote Hebrews? Yeah? Well, Dr. So-and-so doesn't know, surely don't. That's why we have a Friday night meeting. That's why all these boys have driven all the way from Below.

How long? Three hours? Three hours to come to a prayer meeting. Isn't that wonderful? Where are you young ladies from? Dali. You've been before, you've been before. Yeah, that's good. Good. We take anybody here.

Isn't it great? Young men coming all that way to a prayer meeting. Praise the Lord. That encourages me. But going back to that, yes, I know who wrote Hebrews. Who wrote it? The Holy Spirit. I don't know who used the pen, but that doesn't matter.

We're not talking about penmanship, we're talking about authorship. And this wonderful book, Holy Men of God Speak as They Were Moved by the Holy Ghost. And I'm sure that when the Holy Ghost is present, there's always a movement somewhere.

Well, anyhow, this is the last epistle that Paul wrote. Scholarship agrees there anyhow. It's the last epistle that he wrote. You could call it, if you like, his last will and testament. You know, when a will and a testament are being read, everybody's ears go up in case there's something left for me in it.

Well, there's a lot in this for you if you want. Where's it written from? Well, it was written from the 14th floor of the Waldorf Astoria in Rome. No, that's my version. That's the Purr version. Where was it written?

It was written in a dark, damp, distressing prison cell. With no amenities of life. Where they put slaves, where they put criminals. And Paul never asked for anything else anyhow. In the Epistle to Philemon, is it in chapter one or the last chapter?

Jack would know that. It's verse 9, either in chapter one or the last chapter. Well, it's in chapter one, because there's only one chapter. And so that's the first and the last chapter. But in verse 9 he says, Paul the aged.

Here's a young, blistered, battered, broken-bodied man, bloody and bent. I think you'll see creases in his face, where rocks had split his face. And then they healed up. I think he limped. This man's been through deaths often, he says.

He says, for Christ I died daily. That means dying in his choices. Well, here is an old man. He's writing to a young man. Some years ago I was preaching to a lot of young people. I don't get to preach to too many now.

And the preacher said to me, you know, you get a bit too strong. You discourage these young people if you say, take up your cross. But Jesus says you can't be a disciple without taking up your cross. But Paul doesn't in any way pull punches here on this young man.

He calls him his son in the gospel. Why? Because Paul never assumed anything. He never said, listen, I have the greatest theological mind in the world. I have the most vivid history. I've out-suffered everybody, out-preached everybody, out-fasted everybody, out-travelled everybody.

Never said a word about it. He's so consumed with Christ, there's no room for Paul. He's nothing to promote. He's no church. He begs no money. He wants to give Christ the preeminence. He says that in all things he might have the preeminence.

Forget all the riches I've brought you. What's he saying now? I'm an old man, I'm in prison, I've no friends. It's spent two years in prison. You know, it's the best place for some people to go. I know a lot of preachers I'd like to put in prison, for a number of reasons.

But Paul is there for Christ's sake. What does he say? He says, you know, Timothy, I've just been thinking, if I could relive my life, I sure would go a lot easier than I've been going. I'd get longer vacations.

I wouldn't sacrifice. I've worn my body out. As I look back, I see I should have changed things. No, he doesn't say a thing about that at all. He has no recriminations. He doesn't blame those who beat his body.

He has no apologies. He has no regrets. He says every inch of the way has been just gorgeous. There's a poem written by F. W. H. Meyer, if you can find it. I wish somebody would reprint it. It has about 72 stanzas, and it's called Saint Paul by F. W. H. Meyer.

You won't find it in his shop. If you do, tell me and we'll get 20 copies. It was written somewhere around about 1889. I said to a friend, if ever you see it, buy it. So he bought it, and it was autographed by F. W. H. Meyer.

And on the inside, his wife had autographed it to Lady Campbell of Scotland. My boys have it somewhere. But it's a fantastic interpretation of the life of the Apostle Paul. He lived and moved and had his being.

What in God's name does he mean? Do you live and move and have your being in God? Or do you switch something on Sunday morning and get devout Saturday night so you'll get something for Sunday school next morning?

How many of us live and move and have our being? In other words, in modern language, he orbited all the time in eternity. He wasn't time conscious. He wasn't suffering conscious. He wasn't personality conscious.

He's conscious only of the indwelling Christ in him. And so I say, here, he has no regrets. He's no regrets and he has no apologies. I love this wonderful epistle. Do you know what an old saint said about it?

That the two epistles, particularly the second epistle of Paul to Timothy, is the most beautiful writing in the whole of the Word of God. It really is a love letter. He's talking to his son in the Gospel.

I say he didn't assume because of his knowledge. He didn't assume because he said, I'm different from every man on earth. I've been to heaven for three days. I've lived in eternity. I've seen Christ face to face, even as Isaiah saw him in Isaiah 6.

He doesn't boast about anything like that at all. He's concerned only that he can deliver the goods to this young man. And he said, he can say, what things you've seen and heard in me do, and the God of peace be with you.

Christ Formed in the Believer

Peace be with reality. I had a man in my office. He'd been through Africa, West Africa, East Africa, a lot of places, two months ago. He just laid back. I don't have a couch now. It sounds like a psychiatrist's office.

He just leaned back on the couch. I had that. And he said, Brother, tell me one thing. Tell me one thing. He's in tears almost. I said, I will if I can. He said, Brother Rainer, is there a reality anywhere in the Church of God today?

Is there a reality? Is it all professionalism? These TV things are productions now. There's no instantaneous breathing of the Holy Ghost. You turn the knob, it's exactly a blueprint of last week. It starts there, it finishes there, and in between, folk bob up and down.

You don't get that in revival. When God the Holy Ghost moves, there's no pattern. There's no blueprint to revival. But there's one thing that's always there, and it's what the Apostle Paul, he said, my little children, for whom I trod ale in birth.

For what? That you become evangelists. You become missionaries. No, he says that Christ may be formed in you. I ask you again tonight. I wouldn't ask you if you're saved. Everybody's saved. I say that facetiously.

From the White House to the Beer House, the Jailhouse. My question is, does Christ live in you? Oh, he said, I got saved. I didn't ask you if you got saved on a certain night. No, the preacher asked. I asked you, does Christ live in you?

If he doesn't, we're not saved. We may be good. You know, lots of people turn over a new leaf, but what they want is a new life. And you can change your own life, radically, psychologically. You can cancel your habits and so forth.

But Paul, battle-scarred, is saying to this young man, well, maybe I stoop and I limp, but my face is pleated. I've endured hardness, a night and a day in the deep, in weariness, in fastings, in painfulness.

Once I was stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, in perils of the deep, in perils of my non-country. He goes on. But he says, listen, I want to tell you, there's an excellence in Jesus Christ. He found life.

Through all his batterings and persecutions and suffering, I've got life. So much so, he says, you know what? As I told you before, I used to think that Paul's secret was in, what was it, 2 Corinthians 5, 14, where he says, the love of Christ constrains.

I don't believe that's true anymore. I believe the text is true. I believe the secret of his life is this, that Christ may be magnified by my body, whether I live or die. I've used that before. I noticed that the dandelions are out, so get one and look at it that way.

And with your 20 -20 vision, it's not very pretty. You don't go to church with a dandelion in your coat usually. You take a magnifying glass, oh, it's gorgeous. In other words, your 20 -20 vision cannot see that beautiful flower.

And Paul says intellectually, you look on Christ, you don't see anything. But Lord, let people look through my life, through my body, through my brain, through my being, and Christ will be magnified. I got again this morning a wonderful little letter I have on my desk.

We used to say facsimile, now we say xeroxed. But they know xerox is in 1734. But Jonathan Edwards' little daughter says, you should see my mother when she comes out of her closet in the morning. She needs a veil over her face.

The grace of God, the glory of God, is on her face every day when she comes out of the chamber, where she's had intercession with God. You think there's anything on earth like that? You think going to Hollywood would make you like that?

You think a boom on the stock market would do anything for us? Or your intellectual expansion? This man, as far as I'm concerned, had the greatest intellect in the world. And God used that intellect. He wrote the epistles, the Ephesians and the others.

But again, here he's concerned. What does he say? He says to Timothy, my son. That's in chapter 2, verse 1. Thou therefore, my son, be strong. Strong why? Because he's going to say in another verse, in a third verse, be a good soldier of Jesus Christ.

You need to be strong. But go back a moment there into the sixth verse, or verse 5, when I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith which is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice, and I am persuaded in thee also.

Somebody said about this, this epistle, it begins in the nursery. And it ends up in the armory, because he ends up by saying he's a good soldier of Jesus Christ. But he says, wherefore I put thee in remembrance, that God stirs up the gift in you.

He doesn't say that. He says, you stir the gift of God up that's in yourself. This is chapter 1 again, and verse 6. Stir up the gift of God. We're all prone to laziness. When Mr. Baldwin was the Prime Minister of England, I guess that was in my day, a good few years ago, maybe, well maybe 50 years ago, Baldwin was the superman in the world, wizard in politics.

Prime Minister of England, Prime Minister of British Empire. Somebody handed him a life of John Wesley, and he read it. He said, I've just read about a man, and though I've all the affairs, the affairs of this great empire to handle.

He said, John Wesley makes me feel I'm unemployed. Did you ever sing a hymn, give every flying minute something to keep in store? Work for the night is coming, when man's work is o 'er. Wesley redeemed the time.

Even when he was on horseback in the moonlight, jogging along, he'd be reading a Greek primer, or Latin, or something. You know, one day he was going through the woods, and he'd been declaring, what's in this same epistle?

God hasn't given us a spirit of fear, but of love, and of power. He said, I'm not afraid of anyone on earth, or hell, demons or men. He's going through the forest on the back of the horse, jogging away in the moonlight, trying to read his primer.

Suddenly a man jumped out of either side of the ditch, in a white sheet, and he got some cans, and he rattled them and shouted. And Wesley drew his horse, stood in his stirrups, he's only five foot one.

He looked over the head of the horse, and these men were growling, making horrible noises, rattling these cans. He said, well, who are you? One of them said, who are we? We're the devil's brothers. He said, let me pass by, I married his sister.

That's a historic fact. That precious sanctified, you know what she did, the biographer says, when he was in Ireland, he knocked at the door. Mrs. Wesley came to the door, and in her fingers she had the grey hair, she pulled him across the room by the hair of his head.

Boy, you've got to bleed an entire sanctification to go through that. You think you could stand that, sonny? Your wife won't do it, she's blushing. But you see, we want to be strong in the grace of God, without adversaries.

Step up the gift of God which is in thee. I keep looking at a motto on my desk, on a side table there, every day. Lord, keep me eternity conscious. This precious man lived in eternity. Like the marvellous Puritans, those men of staggering intellect, but with a greater concept of the holiness of God, which the church has lost today, and the righteousness of God, and the majesty of God, and eternity, than anybody else in history.

As I say, they lived six days in heaven and came down to earth to preach. Do you wonder if people went to meetings and stayed for four hours, no backs on the chairs, no lighting in the building, no heating in the building, no choir, no music, nothing.

What do you mean nothing? They had nothing of preacher comfort. They had no transit system to get them there. They walked through the rain, they walked through the snow, and yet they'd listen to a man preach for two hours, and then walk home 10 or 12 or 15 miles.

But dear Lord, our people won't come out this Sunday if it keeps as cold as this, and the heating system's gone off the car, they'll be at home, expect to have a house visitation from the pastor. We're so pathetic, aren't we?

Enduring Hardship as Christ’s Soldiers

Look at chapter 2 verse 1. I'm just giving you some thoughts tonight, not preaching really. Chapter 2 verse 1. Thou therefore my son, be strong in the grace in Christ Jesus, and the things that thou hast heard of me amongst many witnesses, the same thou commit to faithful men.

Verse 3. Thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. Okay, he's calling him to be a soldier. Some very common things about being a soldier. First of all, the sacrifice. In World War I, pardon me, well I remember World War I too, but World War II, you know, lots of the upper class and people that could do it, they shifted their families into desk jobs in the Admiralty or somewhere else.

They sheltered them, protected them. But it didn't matter what you were doing. At a certain period when the country was in a jam, they withdrew medical students, they withdrew young preachers who'd been hiding in seminaries.

And everyone had to go. It's no good arguing about it. You see, some men, when we had depressions in England, men would sign up to join in the army. They'd join up in the reserves. So they only went about three times in a year for a weekend, for training.

But other men signed up. And if you signed there, you took out your pen, and they said sign here, you signed. And then suddenly you thought, oh goodness, my wife's expecting a baby. And, oh, I couldn't pay my expenses in the army.

And you said, excuse me, sir, but I decided. He said, no, you haven't. You made your decision. You go. Once you put that ink there, you know rights. You can say, I'm in the middle of my medical career.

They might have said that to you, and it doesn't make any difference. But I'm studying law. I may be called to the bar. Well, it makes no difference. You signed. The country needs you. And so they say goodbye.

There's separation there. There's sacrifice there. And Paul says the same thing. No man, in the next verse, that woreth entangleth himself with the sins of this life. He doesn't say that. He says, with the affairs of this life.

You know, Paul had a marvelous team of men. Dear Lord, I'd love to have been with them. I guess you would, Sonny, too. Wonderful men within. Four or five men. And one of them got fascinated. With what?

Wealth. And Paul says, Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world. And then he goes on, and I skipped up there a minute, and then he says, all men forsook me. You'll never know your strength in God until you're deserted by everybody.

The only time you can say, Christ is all I need, is when he's all you have. You can say, Christ is all you need, while you go to a fancy church, and a nice group of people. Christ is all I need, when he's all I have.

Other refuge have I none, says Charles Wesley. Hangs my helpless soul on thee. We don't hang on God, we hang on newsletters for money. We hang on popularity. Ernest, I'm glad you're going home. I'm sorry, and I'm glad.

If you stay here, they'll have you on TV, 700 Club, or PTA, or some other, one of these Christian menageries. So many men come to this country and get spoiled. You say, well, you can't get on 700 Club, they've been after me for months, and I won't go, but that's by the way.

No man want, that warth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life. Not the sins of this life, the affairs. What did Paul do? Paul says, you know that towering figure, Demas, one of my best students, one of my best preachers.

There's a great future for him. But Demas hath forsaken me, having what? Committed adultery, stolen money. What did he say? Having loved this present world. Remember what Paul says in Philippians? There's a certain group of people, I've told you, Roman Catholic Church, the Mormons, all the others, they do not oppose Jesus Christ, they oppose the cross of Christ.

He says, I tell you, even weeping, they're enemies of the cross. The Church of Rome makes its money out of plastic crucifixes. The Mormons say that it's the Church of the Latter-day Saints. They don't hate Jesus Christ, they hate the cross of Jesus Christ.

And what does he say? He says, I tell you, even weeping, listen to the group, they're enemies of the cross of Christ, number one. Number two, whose God is their belly. Number three, they mind earthly things.

He doesn't say they've gone into adultery and wickedness and vileness. They got fascinated, mesmerized. The Church of Jesus Christ tonight, on the average, its people are as mesmerized with money as the people outside.

Mesmerized with fashion and style. I love that phrase in Hebrews 11 again, of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered around in sheepskins and goatskins. Those are the only fur coats you should have.

Sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, and tormented. And yet they were in a sense of God's will. What does Paul say here? Endure hardness. How can you be a soldier without getting bloody?

How can you be a soldier without adversity? He says, endure it. You may not enjoy it. Endure it. I got such a wonderful thing out of that the other day. It doesn't seem connected, but it is. I told you about the lady who asked me when I preached.

I preached very well one night. I do that about once a year. And this lady enjoyed it. And she said, what university did you go to? I said, Bush University. She said, Bush University? Do I know anybody who went there?

I said, yes, Moses. She said, Moses who? If you read the seventh chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, it says of the Apostle Paul, pardon me, it says of Moses, he was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.

He studied astrology. He could maybe speak a dozen languages. He's a scholar. He's an intellectual. What does it say of him? It says, even when he was in Egypt, he, what does it say, he? Yeah, you can sit down and report to me, for sure.

But wait a minute, what's the scripture there? As I told you, I'm not losing my mind, I'm just losing my memory. Trying to get the whole context there. Pardon? Yeah, well, it was partly that, that's true, wasn't it?

But this, oh, he was mighty in what? Pardon? What version have you got? The nasty imperfect. You should burn it. As you go home through town, there's a goodwill box. I'm like the old lady in England who said the King James Version was good enough for the Apostle Paul, it's good enough for me.

What does the Apostle Paul, what does the scripture say? That's right, he was mighty in word and deed. And that's when he was in Egypt. He was mighty in word. He made the, oh, yeah, yeah, partly that, yes, thank you.

But he was mighty in word and deed. He got all the scholarships, all the degrees. What happens? Endure hardness. If he'd said in Pharaoh's court, they would have bowed down to him every day. He'd have gone down the street, they would have saluted him.

They'd have got royal robes, a crown, that have made him like a deity. And God Almighty says, the only thing for you to do is cancel all this stuff and get on the backside of the desert. For 40 weeks?

40 years? Boy, that's a slice. Somebody cheered me up the other day and said, well, you're 80. Yes, I'm 80, almost 80 now. I said, well, Moses didn't start preaching till he was 80. And he died at 120, so I have a good way to go, yeah.

But you know, his life is divided into three 40s. The first 40, he learned a lot. He learned the wisdom of the Egyptians. In the universities of Egypt, Alexandria and whatnot. And he learned a lot there.

First 40, he learned more the second 40. He lived with his mother-in-law. And if you can't learn there, why could you learn? And then at 80 years of age, think of him. Don't you think the devil tormented him and said, I'm just tired of these stinking sheep.

You could be sitting at a banquet with the kings of the earth. You could have been in parliament right now, showing your power, your wisdom. And here you are. What have you done the last 40 years? Shear sheep, eat sheep, eat mutton.

What are you doing here? He's enduring hardness. If he hadn't stayed 40 years out of the desert, he'd never made it 40 years to the wilderness. It would have been too frothy. God says, get along. That's a hard place, isn't it?

Get along. Now that's good preaching. If you don't know, I'll tell you. No, it's that just thought really gripped me today again. If he hadn't stayed 40 years on the backside of the desert, he'd never have made it.

God started stripping him of all the crutches he could lean on. He's no self-confidence now. He's enduring hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. You see, a man may join the army, but sometimes there are some guys called deserters.

And that was the kind of person that this other man had, by the name of Demas. Suddenly the world began to pull. It had a magnet. And he wasn't rooted and grounded. Imagine a man living with the apostle Paul, hearing Paul praying, seeing Paul's tears, his extravagant love for the Lord Jesus Christ, his recklessness.

He's no regret about it. He's an old, bent, broken, bleeding man here. But he doesn't care. He says, Timothy, come on. I want you to be a good soldier of Jesus Christ. Let me jump over some of these things.

We're still in what? Chapter 2 and verse 3. Therefore, endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life. With the affairs of this life.

Go down to verse 16. 15, which is well known, of course. Study to show thyself approved. What did he say? He said, be strong. Be strong in what? Do you remember what he said in another place? I forget the scripture for a moment.

He said, I keep my body under. The body didn't take sleeping time. The body didn't take eating time. He controlled his appetite. He controlled his sleeping time. If somebody steals your purse, they could do that like our day brother got his bible stolen.

I got mine stolen in Japan. If somebody steals your purse, you can make the money up. But if somebody steals your time, it will never come back. One of the tricks that the devil pulls on young people, you have plenty of time.

No you haven't. Nobody has plenty of time. If you have 40 clocks in the room, you've only the same time as a man that's one. You can't buy it. Time is the most precious thing. Why do you want to be a good soldier?

What does a soldier's life involve? Number one, I say sacrifice. Number two, suffering. Number three, discipline. Boy, that's an abominable word these days. Discipline? Whose discipline? What people will endure for sports?

I don't watch much TV, but I do like to see some interviews. I showed one a few months ago. A young fellow, he's still in his 30s. He climbed Mount Everest. I think it's 29 ,000 feet high. There's an Englishman nearly at the top.

In the 1932 expedition he died and he's over there frozen till the judgment morning. These guys went up and it's 29 ,000, I think they got to 26 ,000. And they camped for the night. Just a smoothest storm, I was going to say, no snow.

And they put some kind of a blanket and they slept. But the wind got up and the frost was so keen that when he woke up in the morning all his toes were frozen. They had to get him down the mountain. Not only were his toes frozen, his ankle was frozen.

So they said, well your days are over as a climber. We have to take that foot off right by the ankle. He said, go ahead. They took his foot off. He must be the only man in the world with three feet. He's one made of flesh.

He has a wooden foot in a shoe that he walks with. And they made him a special one to climb with. He has a wooden foot and then he climbs up 10 ,000, 20 ,000 feet. He said, I'm not going to let a thing like that, a thing like that.

Dear Lord, most of us would almost die. We'd expect the whole neighborhood to get an offering for us or something. He said, I've lost my foot. I haven't lost my love for climbing. I haven't lost my zeal.

In other words, I'm not subservient to circumstances, I'm master of them. As I said to you often, we're born with dispositions, but we make character. You make your character. You know, I hear people say sometimes, oh I asked John to come to our house.

He said he'd be there at nine o 'clock. He came at half past eleven. A young fellow called me a few months ago. He said, I'm coming now. I'm actually coming to see you. I said, wonderful. He said, I'm leaving California.

I get in New York. I get in Dallas about nine. I can make it to your house for eleven o 'clock or just after. He didn't come at eleven. He didn't come at one. He said, oh I'm late, but I guess I'll be there at two.

He didn't come at two. I'm delayed again. I'll come at four. He didn't come at four. He came at six at night. I said, you wouldn't dare do that to a psychiatrist. He'd charge you a minute for every moment you've held up.

You can't waste my time. I won't give it to you. You know, I hate to hear young people say when they've done something, oh that'll do. In other words, it isn't them right. Come on, have some character.

Our precious principal in the little school I went to, thirty-five students, he said there was a turning point in his life. His daddy used to wear those boots up here, you know, and they didn't have that spray paint to put on them.

They had some stuff like black mud. And you mixed it. In other words, say, well, mix it under the tap. So you go to the tap and stir it. And when she wasn't there, you just spit in it. But you mixed up that black mud and stuck it all over the boots and you'd wait till they'd dry.

And it was murder. It'd take you two hours to clean the pair of boots. And he said, well, these were very bad. They'll do. He said, a voice said, if those were the shoes of Jesus Christ, would you pass them on?

Oh, no, no, no, no. I'd do them perfectly. Well, you're doing it for a preacher. And as much as you do it to the least of these, you do it to him. He said, it changed my life. I never said that will do.

I made up my mind. Everything I did will be done properly as it was expected of me. It builds character. Get your body under discipline. Paul says, I keep my body under. It didn't mean under the clothes when he should be up either.

It didn't mean under the table when he should be fasting. This man has such vast fastings, such balance. One of the things we need to get over in our minds today, particularly in doctrine and teaching, there's a thousand different things, is balance.

Paul says, I'm in fasting. He said, I know how to abound. I can't find where he abounds. Where does he abound? You better tell me after, Jack. Where does he abound? He abounds in grace. He abounds in courage.

He abounds in strength. But abounding as we know it, no siree. What did he say? He says, be strong. Be strong in what? Body? Endure hardness. Be strong in your mental powers. Verse 15, chapter 2, study to show thyself approved unto God.

A workman that needeth not to be ashamed. Come on now, supposing you die before twelve o 'clock tonight. Would it be okay? You say believe in the rapture. Well, you're not going to get any notice about it.

It's going to happen instantaneously. I think a little boy years ago in England, he was at his granny's knee saying his prayers. And he prayed the usual, you know, bless daddies and mummies and aunties and uncles and grandmas.

Grandma said, go on. No. Well, you've said this a hundred times, say it. And if I die tonight, excuse me, granny, he said. And he ran off to the nursery and he came back and she said, what's wrong? He said, granny, I couldn't die tonight.

I took Mary's things and I buried them out in a place where she couldn't find them. I took a dog and I buried it in the cupboard under all the stuff. I would like that was that was naughty. That was wrong.

I shouldn't do that. In other words, I want to be living straight. Process, endure hardness. Study to show thyself. Let's go back to verse four for a moment. No man that walleth and tangleth himself with the affairs of this life, that he may chose him, that he may what?

Please him. It's not a case of me being the smartest man on earth, the smartest preacher, smartest something. Am I pleasing him? That's my one continual goal every day of my life. It should be. It explains the life of Jesus.

I do always those things which please the father. They don't please me. They don't please my flesh. They don't please other people, but they please the father. And since I've signed up to be a soldier, come hell or high water, prosperity or adversity, liked or disliked, it makes no difference.

I'm going to do this one thing. I'm going to please the father. What do you do to please the father? Pull from the joy that was set before him, endure the cross. You know, the artists all cover Jesus.