Well do take your Bibles in hand once again and turn to 2 Timothy, chapter 2. Under the shadow of his own approaching death, Paul is writing to Timothy to encourage him to stay the course and to finish the race. In the passage we considered, if you were with us last time you will remember, the passage we looked at last time, Paul quoted a test, probably a hymn that was in use in the congregations at Ephesus, to remind Timothy of the steadfastness of God and of our call to persevere. And now in the text before us today, 2 Timothy chapter 2, 14 through 18, Paul works out and he applies the specifics of that call to perseverance for both Timothy as a minister and the members of the Ephesian church. Here is what we need to do. Here’s what we must give attention to as we seek to be faithful to the end. Here, if you like, are details. Here’s what perseverance and stickability are going to take.
Look at the text with me please. Second Timothy 2:14-18. Notice three times. First of all, verses 14 and 15, Paul reminds Timothy that he has a faithful ministry to fulfill. A faithful ministry to fulfill. Then in verses 16 and 17, he warns Timothy of a fearful danger to avoid. A faithful ministry to fulfill. A fearful danger to avoid. Then finally in verse 18, he assures Timothy, he assures us of a firm foundation in which to trust. A faithful ministry to fulfill, a fearful danger to avoid, a firm foundation in which to trust. Before we look at each of those, let me invite you to join me as we seek the Lord’s help and blessing. Let us all pray.
Our God and Father, we come to You with more needs than I ever could identify or address in one message. In this room, there are heartaches and sorrows, there are sins, there’s shame, there’s guilt, there’s spiritual indifference, there’s harness of heart, there’s sensitive consequences, there’s a vast and complicated array of spiritual need. And so our prayer is simply that the Lord Jesus would take, as it were, the five loaves and two fishes of this message and in the power of the Holy Spirit so multiply it that it may do far more than we could ask or imagine, speaking to our needs and showing that His grace is more than sufficient for us. Would You come and work in our hearts by this portion of Your Word, for Your great glory we pray. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Second Timothy chapter 2 at the fourteenth verse. This is the Word of God:
“Remind them of these things, and charge them before God not to quarrel about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers. Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. But avoid irreverent babble, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness, and their talk will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have swerved from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already happened. They are upsetting the faith of some. But God’s firm foundation stands, bearing this seal: ‘The Lord knows those who are his,’ and, ‘Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity.’”
Amen.
Let’s look first of all at verses 14 and 15 and the faithful ministry Paul calls Timothy to fulfill. And the apostle begins, you’ll notice, by pressing upon Timothy his positive duty toward his people. Verse 14, “Remind them of these things.” So the message of the previous verses, that’s “these things,” the message of the verses right prior to this that we considered last time, Paul is saying, “That ought to be the burden, Timothy, of your preaching and teaching in Ephesus.” My wife has a thing about reminders on her phone. I think she has a reminder on her phone for everything! The whole day is divided into short bursts of relative quiet, punctuated by jaunty ringtones going off, reminding her of this or that appointment or responsibility. That is faithful ministry, isn’t it? That’s what faithful ministry is. We don’t need innovation and novelty. We ought not to expect a steady diet of brilliant insights into hitherto undiscovered truth. What we need are reminders. “Remember Jesus Christ,” verse 8, “risen from the dead, the offspring of David.” “Remind them of these things,” verse 14. “Tell me the old, old story of Jesus and His love.” That is the task. That’s what we need, isn’t it? Faithful ministry is just cellphone reminders going off again and again and again, assuring that we never forget what matters most. “Remind them of these things.”
But then along with the positive duty that Timothy must fulfill toward his congregation, there is a negative responsibility he must not shirk. Look again at verse 14. “Charge them,” he says, “before God not to quarrel about words, which does not good, but only ruins the hearers.” The danger is that the leaders of the churches that Timothy serves in Ephesus will be drawn into unprofitable disputes about words with the false teachers that were causing so much trouble. And at first glance, we might think that all Paul is warning Timothy about is not to come embroiled in trivial debates that don’t really matter. What a waste of time that would be. Is this perhaps merely a warning against frivolous debate? And certainly frivolous debate ought always to be avoided.
But that can’t be what he’s talking about here because verse 14 tells us what’s at stake. Did you see it? The ruination of those who hear their leaders engaging in this kind of debate – that’s what’s on the line. And if you look down a little later at verse 17, you can see just how weighty in fact the words of these false teachers really were. They were denying the bodily resurrection, undermining the Christian hope. These words are very dangerous indeed. Nothing trivial or frivolous about them. Now hold that thought in your mind for a moment and remember also 1 Timothy chapter 1 verse 3 where Paul told Timothy to confront false teachers directly. And recall Jude, Jude 3. We are to “contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered to the saints.” And so there is in fact a duty to deal forthrightly with error that we mustn’t sidestep.
But if that is true, what does Paul mean here when he says we are not to quarrel about words, especially words that are so very dangerous, ruinous and destructive, as the sort of words that were being peddled by the likes of Hymenaeus and Philetus? Well I think he means something like we are to avoid dignifying false teaching with a hearing, as if it was a valid and serious alternative to orthodox teaching. Don’t entertain it. Don’t give these errors a platform. After all, we are not talking about secondary points of mere theological preference. We are dealing with deadly, soul-destroying error. “And so, Timothy, I want you to handle these ideas like they are radioactive waste. Use extreme caution.” That’s what he’s saying. “Don’t give them any exposure, because otherwise,” verse 14, “we run the risk of leading those listening in, we run the risk of leading them to ruin.” And a Christian leader’s job is to protect the flock not simply ever to win the war of words.
But faithfulness in ministry for Timothy requires more even than this, doesn’t it? For Timothy to be faithful matters isn’t just what he says to others – the focus of verse 14 – but also how he handles himself – the focus now of verse 15. Would you look there please? Verse 15. Paul calls Timothy a “worker.” Do you see that? And as a worker, he is to “do his best.” That is, he is to spend his effort and his energy and he is to do it to seek approval for his labor in two courtrooms. The first is the court of heaven. “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved.” Everyone involved in any form of Christian service, Gospel work, is to labor, every Christian in fact is to labor for the approval of Almighty God. The question we must all ask of ourselves is, “What does God think of the work that I have done in my Savior’s name?” That’s the great litmus test of true faithfulness. Have I labored to present myself to God as one approved.
The other court – first is the court of heaven – the other court, notice, is the court of conscience. Timothy is to be “a worker who has no need to be ashamed.” In the quiet moments when you are alone with your thoughts, what does your conscience say about your conduct and your efforts for your Savior’s cause? So labor, so work, so serve that God will approve and your conscience will not condemn.
And don’t miss the fact that Paul says nothing about a third court, one that all too easily becomes the only court that many of us care about. It is, of course, the court of public opinion. Ministers are to love their people, know their people, serve their people, minister to their people, but they are not to minister for their people. We are not to do ministry for others. We are to do ministry for God. The fact is, the court of public opinion can exercise a terrible tyranny in our lives, can’t it? It can be enormously destructive. Haven’t you found that to be true in your own life? Before we know it, we’ve become slaves to the approval of our peers, we’ve begun to sacrifice principle for their approbation, we are elated or crushed depending on the reception that we receive from other people. Our whole lives begin to revolve around what they think of us. But Paul says to Timothy, says to us all, we are to do our best to work and to labor and toil to present ourselves to God as one approved in the court of heaven, and we are so to live and serve and labor that we stand unashamed in the tribunal of our own consciences. So much of our neuroses and our insecurities are the result of seeking a verdict in the wrong courtroom. We are far, far too focused on the court or public opinion and disregard far, far too readily the court of heaven and the court of conscience. If you can stand in those two courts, the flattery or the scorn of the court of public opinion could not matter less.
And take another look at verse 15 and be sure to notice the means by which Timothy is going to accomplish all this. “If you want to do these things, Timothy, how will you do it?” How will he present himself approved before God? How will he stand unashamed in the tribunal of his own conscience? He must do it, Paul says – look at the text – “by rightly handling the word of truth.” Now that verb translated here “rightly handle” is picturesque. Literally it means “to cut straight.” Think about a farmer plowing a field and he must cut straight furrows, or a carpenter, he’s cutting a board from a great piece of wood and he’s planing the board down and he’s sanding it. And he uses a level and he runs his hand over the surface and he looks his eye down the link of the wood to check that it’s perfectly smooth and even and straight and true. That is what Timothy is to do with the holy Scriptures. He is to handle the Bible accurately, always interpreting the text of the Word of God in a way that corresponds to the straight edge of what Paul called back in chapter 1 verse 13 “the pattern of sound words.”
So in our interpretation and handling of the Scriptures, we are not to cherrypick whatever happens to strike us in the text, nor may we simply impose our own agendas upon the text. We certainly mustn’t avoid the plain meaning of the text or bounce across the surface of the text without ever penetrating into its meaning and its heart. Rather, we are to let the text of the Scriptures rule us and govern us in all our teaching, in all our interpretation. Our guiding principle must always be whatever God intended by the text when it was originally written should become the key to our interpretation, the burden of our message. Anything less is to fail to plow a straight furrow, to cut a board with a straight edge.
And the reason all of that matters so much that Timothy’s teaching cut a straight furrow, that his teaching be true to the pattern of sound words, the reason it matters so very much, of course, is that there is a direct connection between right teaching and faithful living, isn’t there? Orthopraxy grows out of orthodoxy. The fruit of Christian obedience, personal holiness, can only grow on the branches of Biblical truth. You can’t be holy and a heretic at the same time!
And that is the point of the next part of this passage. Would you look down with me at verses 16 and 17 please? First, a faithful ministry to fulfill; notice now, a fearful danger to avoid. The words about which we are not to quarrel, the false teaching we are to treat like radioactive waste, Paul characterizes in verse 16 as “irreverent babble.” And he tells us that it is infectious. Do you see that? It is metastatic. It spreads and it “leads people into more and more ungodliness.” There is a connection – can you see it – between what we believe and how we live. Irreverent babble, toxic words, lead to growing ungodliness in our lives. You’ll notice that phrase, by the way, in verse 17, “their talk.” It’s literally, “their word.” And Paul uses that Greek word to contrast it directly with what Timothy is rightly to handle – “the word of truth.” Their word is a counterfeit word, merely their word, but we have the Word of truth.
Their false word, Paul says in verse 17, spreads like a disease. The word translated here for “spread” was often used in ancient medical texts to describe an advancing ulcer – painful and destructive. And Paul says it “spreads like gangrene.” Did you see that vivid and ghastly picture of the potency and power of false teaching – what it does to the soul, what it does to the church. It’s like necrotic flesh consumed with disease. Whoever said, “Sticks and stones will break my bones but words can never hurt me,” has clearly never read 2 Timothy 2:17. Words, Paul is saying, can lead to spiritual disease and more and more ungodliness in our lives. Truth matters. Ideas have consequences. Error is deadly. And it never stays confined to the mind. The infection metastisizes; it spreads throughout your life. False teaching and ungodly living go together.
And Hymenaeus and Philetus are singled out, verse 17, as especially clear examples of precisely that. Aren’t they? You may remember we’ve met Hymenaeus once before. He was mentioned by Paul back in 1 Timothy chapter 1 verse 20. The apostle Paul, there, was calling Timothy to hold firmly to faith and a good conscience. And he added, “by rejecting this, some have made shipwreck of their faith, among whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I’ve handed over to Satan,” Paul says, “that they may learn not to blaspheme.” In other words, Hymenaeus has been excommunicated from the membership of the visible church by the apostle Paul. He’s been put out of the assembly, handed over to Satan in the hopes that living out there in the world where Satan rules, cut off from the fellowship of the people of God, Hymenaeus might eventually learn the painful lesson church discipline is designed to teach him and abandon his blasphemy and repent his sin and be restored once again to the fellowship of God’s people. That’s the purpose of church discipline. Every other measure seems to have failed in his life, but the hope is, maybe this will get through to Hymenaeus and to Alexander and wake them up.
But here we are now in 2 Timothy 2:17 and it tells us a tragic tale, doesn’t it? We are maybe two years later and Hymenaeus actually hasn’t learned a thing. What a sorry picture he presents. Here’s a man who’s undergone the most serious censures of church discipline and still he persists in his rebellion against God – peddling lies, disseminating, poisonous, toxic error. Paul says he and Philetus have “swerved from the truth.” Picture a drunk driver on the highway, veering off into the ditch. They’ve gone careening out of control. Brothers and sisters, we need to know what we believe and why we believe it so we can be sure to stay on the straight road and the safe paths of Scriptural truth. And we ought to be sobered – I hope you are sobered and stirred to vigilance, as I think Paul intended Timothy and the Ephesians to be sobered and stirred to vigilance by Hymenaeus’ example. You do not want to find ourselves swearing from the truth, careless about the verdict of heaven, ignoring the rebukes of your own conscience, living only for the approbation of the court of public opinion. Look where it’s lead Hymenaeus and Philetus and be warned. He wandered far, and not even the formal discipline of the church was sufficient to get through to him. What a desperate circumstance we can find ourselves in if we’re not careful.
And as we noted earlier, the specific error that Hymenaeus and Philetus were teaching denied the future bodily resurrection of the believer. They said that the resurrection had already happened. Likely, they were influenced by the common Greek, philosophical dualism that was part of the air people breathed in those days that saw matter, the physical, as inherently bad and problematic. And therefore, the body was viewed by them as merely a prison from which we seek to escape, which led to the very idea of a bodily resurrection at the end of the age being viewed as something repugnant entirely to them. Maybe they knew the hymn that Paul quoted back in verse 11. “If we died with Him, we shall also live with Him.” But they interpreted it differently. They took it to mean only that there is new spiritual life for everyone who believes in Jesus but nothing else.
But as Paul told the Corinthians who were being tempted by very similar errors, “if in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.” What use is a Christianity that is merely therapeutic, a crutch to get you through the day. No, the claims of the Christian Gospel are that one day our bodies shall be raised incorruptible and made like unto Christ’s glorious resurrection body. “We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is,” and we shall dwell with Him in a renovated creation, a new heavens and a new earth. That is the Christian hope, not some vague, semi-abstract, disembodied spiritual existence. And the truth, Paul is saying that is a vital truth to which to cling, the truth has consequences, and so too does error.
So friends, let me ask you this – Do you know what you believe? Are you concerned to press toward growing clarity and Biblical fidelity in your thinking? Because there is a direct, vital connection between truth properly understood and clung to by faith and the way you live under the gaze and scrutiny of God. If you are not careful about knowing the truth and living in its light, you will be vulnerable to the Hymenaeus’ and the Alexander’s and the Philetus’ of this world. As Paul puts it in verse 17, “They are upsetting the faith of some.” That word “upsetting” I think is a somewhat unfortunate translation. It suggests, perhaps to us, that they were merely ruffling a few feathers causing some people to feel a little unsettled here or there. But actually, the word means “to overturn.” Think about those pictures of a small town where a tornado has blow right through the center of the city and there are cars turned upside-down and dumped in a field on their roof some place. That’s the picture. That’s what error can do to your life or to this church. That’s how destructive false teaching can be.
So therefore, we should ask, if that’s how destructive false teaching can be, like a tornado plowing through town, can anything and anyone withstand it? Where can we rest our security, our confidence? Well look with me in the last place at verse 18. First, the faithful ministry to fulfill. Then, a fearful danger to avoid. And now at last, the firm foundation to trust. The tornado of false teaching can overturn people’s faith. The gangrene of false teaching can infect more and more people and lead to growing ungodliness. That is all really very scary and Paul wants us to be alarmed at the prospect. “But,” verse 18, “God’s firm foundation stands, bearing this seal: ‘The Lord knows those who are his,’ and, ‘Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity.” God has laid a firm foundation by His saving grace that nothing can shake. The tornado of false teaching can howl and rage, but the building of the church of Jesus Christ will stand, built on this foundation.
And that foundation, Paul says, bears a “seal.” Do you see that language? As a younger man, my maternal grandfather operated a fine bone china crockery business. And he would always look for the maker’s mark stamped on a piece of fine china because it was the guarantee of quality, right? “This is a cheap reproduction,” he could say, “but this, this is the real thing, and this is going to last.” And that is what Paul is saying here about the foundation of our salvation in Jesus Christ. It bears the stamp and the seal of the maker and that is the guarantee of quality and durability. Nothing can shake it. The church of Jesus Christ will endure the storm because of the guarantee of God.
And look again at this divine seal. Paul tells us it is comprised of two texts of Scripture, quotations drawn from the Greek version of Numbers chapter 16, which records the rebellion of Korah against the rule of God through Moses during the days of the exodus. And those who sided with Korah in the rebellion were faced with divine judgment. And none of them could hide from that judgment because, Numbers 16:5, “The Lord knows those who are His.” You cannot hide from the gaze of God. And Paul’s point in quoting that text here is to remind us God has His elect people chosen according to the council of His will to the praise of His glorious grace and He knows them all and none of them can be lost. God’s electing, predestinating choice is the ground, actually, of the believer’s great security. It is an unshakable foundation for our hope. God has chosen me in Christ before the foundation of the world. That means there is no storm that can rip the tree of my salvation from the ground. My roots are sunk deep and held firm by God’s sovereign election and decree.
But then, Paul cites another text that represents the other side of the believer’s security, which has to do not now with God’s choice but with our obedience. Do you see it in the text? During the rebellion of Korah in Numbers 16, the way that those who had turned from the rule of God in rebellion were finally unmasked was by God commanding those who had remained faithful to separate from the rebels. And so Paul paraphrases Numbers 16:25 here and calls us to do likewise. “Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity.” We’ve seen Paul do this already back in 11 through 13 that we looked at last time. Here it is again. He brings together, do you see it, the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of His people. The one does not cancel out the other. The sovereignty of God means that the elect people of God are known to Him and are utterly secure in His saving purposes. “The Lord knows those who are His.” But our responsibility is never to be passive in light of that truth. Instead, we are actively to turn from sin, we are to flee from it, and by the grace of God, seek to love and live out the truth because that’s how the elect of God are revealed and made known. They name the name of the Lord their God and they depart from iniquity. The sovereign preservation of God is worked out and demonstrated and revealed through the faithful perseverance of His people.
Sometimes I’ll have a conversation with someone about the reasons why they are struggling with the assurance of their salvation. And there are all sorts of reasons why someone might struggle with assurance, but a common one is that though we name the name of the Lord with our lips, we are not actively departing from iniquity with our lives. The elect of God repent and believe; they live in growing personal holiness, God helping them. They hate their sin; they want to kill it. They are horrified at the cautionary tale of Hymenaeus and Philetus. They flee back to Christ seeking by His enabling grace to live for Him more and more every day. That’s the mark of those who name the name of the Lord with more than just their lips but with their lives. And if that’s not you, well then frankly you really ought not to have assurance of your own eternal security or really any confidence that God has ever chosen you to be His own because you’re not living like a child of God. Why then should you, therefore, feel confident that you are a child of God?
Well then, how can you make our calling and election sure? How can you find security and peace when the tornado of error or temptation strikes? Where is a well-grounded assurance to be found? Here’s where you can find it. Here’s what you must do. Repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and then bear fruit in keeping with repentance. So your priorities might need to change. Habits will need to change. Your daily schedule, your routine, might need to change. That is often what repentance requires. It’s not just words; it’s a reformation of your heart. Flee the wrath to come by finding refuge in Jesus Christ, in His obedience and blood for you. And then because He has loved you and forgiven you, washed and rescued you, recommit yourself to living for Him. Recommit yourself now, today; in response to His call and summons here in His word, recommit yourself to living for Him. “The Lord knows those who are His, therefore, let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity.”
There is a faithful ministry for Timothy to fulfill. There is a fearful danger for us to avoid. And there is, praise God there is a firm foundation in which we all may trust. May the Lord give us ears to hear what His Spirit says to His Church.
Let us pray.
Our God and Father, as we bow before You, we are aware of how strong the court of public opinion can be – its pulls on our hearts, our desire to please others or meet expectations or gain approval. Help us to hear Your summons and to know and live in the light of the truth that the only two courts that really matter are the court of heaven – so help us to present ourselves to God as workers approved. And the court of conscience – help us not to be ashamed. And grant, O Lord, for those of us who have been wandering, drifting, swerving even from the truth, grant that they today might hear Your call back, back to repentance, back to recommitment, Your calling us back to recommitment. May we make that step today, for Your glory and honor, in Jesus’ name, amen.