WWUTT 706 Preach the Word? (Part 1)

The Warning Against Sound Teaching and Itching Ears

The Bible says that a time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions. Well, that time is here and now, 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. This week I am at the Southern Baptist Convention in Dallas, Texas, and we're coming off a week in which we were doing our VBS program at church. So I've been very busy lately, and I don't have time to sit down and pre-record these lessons before I'm hitting the road to Texas.

So I've recorded some short introductions to the lesson this week, and you're actually going to hear from Votie Bauckham, teaching on 2 Timothy chapter 4, verses 1 through 8. This is the last sermon that Dr. Bauckham delivered at his church in Houston, Texas, before he left for Africa, where he is currently leading African Christian Academy, or African Christian University.

What had happened in 2015 when he recorded this sermon is the Supreme Court had just recently made gay marriage legal in the United States, so you'll hear him make some references to that in this sermon, but also caution against some things that are coming up in the future, and some of the things that he cautions against are things that have already transpired in the last few years.

So I'm going to go ahead and read 2 Timothy chapter 4, verses 1 through 8, and then turn the teaching over to Dr. Bauckham, who is going to lead the teaching in this passage today, tomorrow, and Wednesday.

The Apostle Paul writes to Timothy, I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom, preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season.

Reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.

As for you, always be sober-minded. Endure suffering. Do the work of an evangelist. Fulfill your ministry. For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come.

I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing.

Here is Dr. Voti Bakum. I want to share a number of different things with you today. I want to give you an understanding of this letter. I've been living with this letter for a while, and have been amazed, and continue to be amazed as I dig into this letter and see the way that this letter is put together, and how understanding the significance of this letter and the way that it's put together gives greater insight and understanding to the particular passages in this letter.

So I want to sort of give you an understanding of that. And then I want to look at this particular text, this particular paragraph in 2 Timothy chapter 4, those first five verses. And then I want to apply this to a very particular set of circumstances that we're dealing with here in our culture today.

And as I do that, I said to someone not long ago, I feel... Someone asked me, as the Supreme Court decision came down about marriage and as a number of other things have been happening, and as it just appears that the deterioration in our culture is happening more and more rapidly.

And there are people who say, well, I bet you're glad to be getting out of here now. To which I've responded, actually, no, I feel more like a player who's being pulled out of the game in the fourth quarter.

And I'm going, you sure, coach? Because it seems like we need some points right now, you know? But I have to be constantly reminded that America is not the game. And I think we all need to be reminded of that.

That the kingdom of God does not emanate from D .C. Amen. Or from Austin, for that matter, you know? Because I know a lot of you could say amen to that. Yeah, amen, that's right. You know, Washington, D .C.

You know, I say, no, not even from Austin. That's even harder. Because, like, America might not be the kingdom, but, you know, Texas? No. Not even Texas. This is not the headquarters of the kingdom of God.

The United States is not the headquarters of the kingdom of God. The United States is not, also not the headquarters of what God's doing in the world. Amen, somebody? So there's much more going on in the world than just the things that we see.

And then I want to say this, by way of rebuke and encouragement for us as Americans. The rest of the world looks at us in amazement. Because the rest of the world is dealing with things like, I wonder if they're going to kick my door down and take me to jail.

There are churches that are meeting today in some parts of the world that are praying and hoping that nobody puts chains on the doors and sets their church on fire. And our Supreme Court made a bad decision, and we act like the world is over.

If you can't say amen, you ought to say ouch. This is still the freest place on planet Earth. By far. By far. And there are still people who are willing to do any and everything within their power to get here.

And the overwhelming majority of Christians in the world would do just about anything to have the level of freedom and liberty and even resources that we have here. So as we are upset with things that are going on, let's not lose ourselves.

Amen? Let's not lose ourselves. That being said, our text here in 1 Timothy chapter 4, let's look at it and then we want to do those three things. One, understand this letter and put this text in its context.

Two, understand this particular passage. And then three, apply that to some particular situations and circumstances that we're dealing with. It's already been read. I'll read it again. I charge you, before I read it, let me do it this way.

Kill two birds with one stone. To understand this letter, you have to understand the theme of the letter. And there is a two-pronged theme of the book of 2 Timothy. In every chapter, these things happen again and again.

In every chapter, you find these two ideas. Idea number one, preserve and protect and proclaim the gospel. That idea that the gospel has to be preserved, the gospel has to be proclaimed. You find that in every chapter.

That's what Paul is writing to tell Timothy to do. Preserve this gospel. Proclaim this gospel. This is of the utmost importance. Paul is in prison. He knows he's at the end of his life. He's been in prison a number of times before.

He's what you call a repeat offender. And he knows that this is about his last time. Because in 4 .6, we know that he alludes to his impending death. He's already being poured out like a drink offering.

And the hour of his departure has come. He knows this. He tells Timothy to come to him quickly. Because he recognizes that he has not longed for this world. And in the midst of that, he writes this letter to his young protege, telling him to preserve and to proclaim this gospel.

In chapter one, look at verse 13. And if you have a way of maybe highlighting these things differently, that would be great. Or maybe you just make a notation to do that in your private time. One of the things I love about these sort of technology doodads is you can do all that kind of stuff.

And when you do this kind of stuff, you begin to see patterns. And so if you have a way to do that, I'll help you here quickly to see this pattern. In verses 13 and 14, I have this one color. Follow the pattern of sound words that you have heard from me in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.

By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you. In chapter two, verses one and two, we have this same admonition. You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

And what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. So there's preserving and proclaiming in that same verse. Later on in verse 18, do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

You can handle it rightly and you can handle it wrongly. Amen? Then you go down to chapter three. Chapter three, look at verses 14 through 17. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you've been acquainted with the sacred writings which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching and reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. And then there in chapter four, in the text that we're looking at, I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus who is to judge the living and the dead and by his appearing and by his kingdom, preach the word.

Be ready in season and out of season to approve, rebuke, exhort with complete patience and teaching. Now, in every chapter, we see that same thing, the idea of preserving and proclaiming. This is what Paul is about.

And the reason that he is about this is because he recognizes not only his own impending death, but that the apostles, one by one, are dying. See, we look at our Bibles and we take for granted the fact that we have copies of the word.

We take for granted that, you know, you show up and my Bible's in one of the suitcases. That's fine. Just grab my iPad. If I can't grab my iPad, I'll grab my iPhone. If I couldn't grab my iPhone, I come in and I say, David, hey, my Bible's packed up.

Fine. There's probably extras just floating around here. We just want to take that for granted. Most of us have several copies of God's word in our home. Most of your families brought several copies with you today.

We just, we understand, we take it for granted. We walk into the bookstore and it's not, is there a Bible up there that I can read? But which translation do I prefer? Amen? I mean, you just stand in front of a wall like this.

What are you doing? Trying to decide which one of these Bibles I'm going to get. Which one of these Bibles I like the best. We take it for granted, but that was not the case for the apostles. This gospel that was being proclaimed wasn't bound with leather.

Wasn't in the possession of every believer. Wasn't even in the possession of every church. Some churches would have copies of various letters, but again, they would have copies of various letters. Nobody had the entirety of the New Testament.

We know that. We definitely know that, because right now he's writing what would become the New Testament. Amen? So in light of that, understand the fear that he had to live with. Here's the fear that he had to live with.

We're all being killed off. The gospel is already being perverted. If we don't make it, this thing could die in one generation. And so there is the urgency. Hold firmly to this pattern of sound words.

These things that you've heard from me, don't just hold on to them. You give them to faithful men who will be able to pass them on to others as well, because that's the only way that this is perpetuated, and that it's perpetuated rightly.

So here's the one fear that he's dealing with, and the one fear that he's dealing with is the perversion of the gospel. That the gospel might be perverted, because a perverted gospel is no gospel at all.

It has to be preserved. Its integrity has to be preserved. So he didn't want the gospel to be perverted, because the gospel could be lost if the gospel was perverted. But there is another fear. And the other fear is that, well, maybe the gospel won't be perverted, and we won't lose the gospel because it's being perverted, but it will be held on to, and it will be held rightly, but it won't be proclaimed.

That's the second way that it can die in one generation. One way that it could die is that the gospel is perverted, and it's out there, and it's out there wrongly. There's this wrong gospel, and people still don't know who Jesus is.

They're still lost. They still don't know who God is, because they've got a perverted gospel. The other problem could be the gospel is preserved, it's preserved rightly, but it's preserved rightly among and within a community of people that hoards it.

Guess what? The end result is still no gospel one generation later, because it was hoarded, and it was not released. But what would cause people to hoard it? The number one thing would be persecution and fear.

Here's the second thing that you find in every chapter of 2 Timothy, at least once. In every chapter we have, preserve and proclaim this gospel so that it won't be lost. And then the second thing that we find is endure the suffering that will follow inevitably as a direct result of doing the first.

Timothy, I want you to do two things. One, I want you to preserve and proclaim the gospel. What's the second thing? The second thing is I want you to endure the suffering that's going to happen because you did the first.

Okay? Chapter 1, verse 8. Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me, his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God. Amen. Look in chapter 2 and verse 3.

Right after what we looked at in 1 and 2, what does it say in verse 3? Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. Look at chapter 3 and verse 1. But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty.

Let me pause right here. This term, the last days, is a reference to the time between Christ's first and second coming. I always love it when people go, you think we're in the last days? I go, no. No, I don't think we're in the last days.

How can you not think we're in the last days? Because I know we're in the last days. Oh. Well, how do you know? Well, because when the New Testament uses that phrase, it means the time between Christ's first and second coming.

He hadn't come back yet, so we're still in the last days. Now, usually you know what people mean by that. It's some sort of, you know, dispensational, premillennial, you know, where you think we are on the chart.

Okay? That's not the way the New Testament uses the term. So we are in these last days. In these last days, times of difficulty will come. Chapter 3 and verse 10. You, however, follow my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life.

My aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions. Let me just pause right here. I just need to pause for a moment right here. I'm going to deal with this in a little bit when we apply this, because this is one of the dangers.

But one of the greatest dangers that we face is the prosperity gospel. Various forms of the prosperity gospel. That is the most accepted perversion of the gospel today. The prosperity gospel. Okay? And the prosperity gospel light.

All right? When we see full-blown prosperity gospel, you know, name it, claim it, believe it, receive it, you know, this, that, and the other. You know, the, you know, the life and death is in the tongue.

So don't say things like that scared me to death, because then you're speaking death into yourself. And if you speak death, then death will come. Right? Your words create reality. This is, we see this and we understand this perversion of the word of faith movement.

But the lighter versions of it, we're not so aware of. And we tend to walk in without even thinking about it. One of the things I love is right here, he says, no, let me, let me look at it again. My conduct, my aim in life, my faith.

He has faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, faith, patience, love, steadfastness. Next phrase, my persecutions. Why do I love that so much? Because prosperity gospel thinking says, if you have those first four, you won't experience the fifth.

If you can't say amen, you ought to say ouch. Basically, the prosperity gospel says, you know, if we're really exercising faith, and we're really exercising patience, and we're really exercising love, and we're really exercising steadfastness, that that's how we have access to this life that doesn't include the heartache and hardship and persecution.

The Bible looks at that and says, not. That's wrong. That's wrong. That's not true. That's a lie. It's a lie. It's a lie we believe. Because when bad things happen in your life, immediately you start going back trying to see what you did or what you didn't do for God to do whatever it is that he's doing, because we believe that God is kind of a quid pro quo God, right?

You do this, he owes you that. Well, he didn't give me that, so I must not have done whatever was necessary for him to owe me. So let me find out where I went wrong so that I can fix it. My persecution and suffering that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra, which persecutions I endured, yet from them all the Lord rescued me.

Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. When we're claiming promises in the Bible, we always miss that one, right? That's an ironclad promise from the Word of God.

While evil people and imposters will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived, again, I have to pause here, because I get this question all the time. People will look at prosperity preachers, they will look at false teachers, the liars out there who twist and pervert the gospel, some of whom have huge churches, even right here in this town.

Some of the largest churches in America are right here in Houston, and some of the largest churches in Houston are filled with prosperity preachers. Chief among them, Joel Osteen, right here in town, that everybody knows.

Everybody knows Smiling Joel. Smiling Joel perverts the gospel. He couldn't preach the gospel if his life depended on it. He perverts the gospel. All day, every day, and twice on Sunday, he perverts the gospel.

And yet, he had to buy a basketball arena and have multiple services to get the people in here who are dying to get there. And they are, spiritually, shriveling up and dying because of the regular diet that they're partaking of.

And I have people come all the time and say, why? Why? Why is it that someone like that, who preaches that kind of perverted doctrine, will have all of those people, and there are people out there, faithfully preaching the solid meat of the Word of God.

And it's hard for them to sometimes even gather a crowd. Why? Well, because the Bible's true. Look at verse 13 again. While evil people and imposters will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.

That's why. Because the Word of God is true. Look at chapter 4. As for you, verse 5, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. So in every chapter, there is preserve this gospel and proclaim this gospel.

And in every chapter, there is endure the suffering and the hardship that will come inevitably as a result of doing so. This is the two-fold theme of 2 Timothy. You've got to get this in order to understand this letter.

And when you understand this two-fold theme, you can understand our text.

This is When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. There are lots of great Bible teaching programs on the web, and we thank you for selecting ours. But this is no replacement for regular fellowship with a church family.

Find a good, gospel-teaching, Christ-centered church to worship with this weekend, and join us again tomorrow as we continue our Bible study When We Understand the Text.