Standing Against Apostasy, Part 1
2 Timothy 3:10-13
And the privilege is ours today in our on going study of 2 Timothy to come to chapter 3, a new section, the second half of the chapter from verse 10 through 17. This is a great section of Scripture, a rich section of Scripture and one which deserves more than one week's attention and so I'm sure you'll agree with me as we begin, we'll be looking at it for a number of weeks. It's one of those passages that includes a favorite text, the familiar verses of 16 and 17, "All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching and reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness that the man of God may be adequate equipped for every good work." Those two verses alone are going to demand a great deal of our attention just so that we will understand the essence of the inspired Scripture and its sufficiency for our lives. But that's for a couple of weeks away.
For this morning we want to take a look at the first part of this section, verses 10 through 13. And then in the weeks ahead we'll look at 14 through 17 as the Lord directs. Let me give you just a little bit of a feeling for what is going on as the Apostle Paul writes to Timothy. Timothy is at Ephesus, as you know if you've been with us, he is assisting in setting that church straight. It had deviated doctrinally and it had deviated in terms of its living patterns into ungodly living. Paul left Timothy there and told him to set things right in the church. He writes back to him two epistles, 1 and 2 Timothy, to assist Timothy in knowing what to do and how to do it and challenging him to stick with the task no matter how difficult it might be.
As he begins chapter 3 the key is really in that first verse where Paul reminds Timothy that in the last days, that is the church age from the first coming of Christ until His Second coming, that's all the last days as we saw, perilous times will come upon the church. Timothy should not be surprised that he's enduring some perilous dangerous difficult times in Ephesus. That is to be expected throughout the whole of the church age. The church always lives in dangerous times. And the reason is given, the reason is because there are wicked men who attack the church who are impostors, who are spiritual frauds who endeavor to deceive and destroy the work of God. The church is always in danger from wicked men who are seducers and frauds and charlatans of religion who come against the work of God.
Now we have been noting the perilous times in which we live even today. Last week I gave you a little bit of a look at church history and we saw some of the things that have been a great danger and continue to be a great danger to the church today. The onslaught against the church is just about endless. We talked about the danger of sacramentalism, that's the religion of ritual...the danger of rationalism, that's the religion that reduces everything to what the human mind can understand and explain...the religion of orthodoxism, the encroachment upon Christianity that has a dead, cold belief in biblical data that never touches life...we talked about the danger of politicism, where the church becomes the center of political activity rather than spiritual activity...we talked about the danger of ecumenism where doctrine is set aside and the crucial truths of God's Word are not the issue getting together and some kind of superficial unity is...we talked about experientialism where truth is determined by own experience...we talked about subjectivism where the focal point of all of Christian experiences to look inward and see what's going on in your own life and extrapolate out of that what is truth and what is important. We could add to those things cultism, the ever increasing bevy of cults that call themselves Christian that continue to add to their number. You are familiar with things like Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons and Christian Science and Unity Cult and things like that but you can hardly keep up with all of the wave of the new ones. I made a little list of new cults that are moving rapidly in our society like The River of Life Ministry, The Body of Christ is another one, Mispa(??) Brethren, The Community Chapel started in Seattle, The Family of Love, The Alamo Christian Church, the Church of Bible Understanding, The Love Family, The Church of Armageddon, Faith Assembly and The Church of the Living Word. And then The Christ Family, which is interesting because everybody changes their last name to Christ and so they're Bill Christ and Joe Christ and Mary Christ and so forth.
The onslaught of these kinds of isms is unending against the church. Now what Paul is saying to Timothy is, "It's true in my time, it's true in your time, it will be true through all the times and the seasons of the church that the church will be in grave danger and peril from the onslaught of those wicked people who come along masquerading as representatives of Christian truth but who deceive people.
Now Paul knows that it takes strong men to stand against that. He was one, he wanted Timothy to be one and certainly this became Scripture so that God might call us to be among those who take strong stands.
There are very few who do, to be honest with you. There are a lot of people who are Christians relatively. There are a lot of pastors and leaders but there seem to be few who want to get involved as stalwart soldiers with an uncompromising resolute commitment to stand against the tide that flows against the truth. There seem to be so few. And if you take strong stands and if you're a non‑compromising resolute kind of defender of the faith, the enemies of the faith attack you but some within the faith who are weak can't understand what you're so exercised about. They don't even understand the nature of the spiritual warfare and they treat the real fighters as if they were off‑ balance fanatics.
Now Paul knew that Timothy was to be a key leader in the church and that it would fall on Timothy to be the general of the army that would defend the faith. Beloved, in every generation God has to have people like that who hold the line who call for the preservation of the truth to get it passed on to the next generation. And there's never been a generation that has more need for that kind of character than this one. We're so far down the path of the last days toward the coming of Christ that evil has escalated and we have accumulated so many aberrations that this is a time and a season for strong men and women to take strong stands for the truth. It's always been vital to the life of the church, never more so than it is now.
Now Paul was that kind of a fighter. In fact, the whole epistle of 2 Timothy is a call for Timothy to be loyal and defend the faith...there in Ephesus and anywhere and everywhere else he might find himself. And Paul reminds him repeatedly in this epistle of his own strong stand of how he stood and suffered and was persecuted and endured for his uncompromising character when it came to the Word of God. He wants Timothy to be strong. He wants Timothy to hold the line. He wants Timothy to guard sound doctrine. He says that to him in the first epistle and again in the second epistle. He wants Timothy not to be influenced by the encroachment of false teaching. He wants Timothy not to be bought off or intimidated. He wants him to stand as a strong soldier against the attacks that come on the church.
In the first half of 2 Timothy he articulated the fact that taking a stand is going to mean suffering. In the second half, the part we're in right now, he says a great deal of that suffering comes because of the false teachers and the false doctrine in the church. As he moves now toward the end of the epistle in verses 10 to 17, he calls for Timothy to be strong. And then in chapter 4 he says in that strength, go out and preach the Word, be instant in season and out of season.
So as we look at verses 10 to 17, Paul's focus here is on Timothy being strong and loyal as a defender of the faith. And what he does here implicit in this passage is give to Timothy and to us the three necessary ingredients in the character of a strong soldier of the faith. Okay? If a person is to be a strong soldier of the faith, there are three things that are usually true about them. Number one, they have a strong example as a mentor. Strong men tend to be the producers of other strong men. To reverse it, strong men tend to be the product of other strong men. And what Paul wants Timothy to recognize and us as well, is that Timothy has had a pattern of a strong man on which to trace his own life. That is vital to the building of a strong man.
The second thing he says in this text is that the kind of men who stand true in an uncompromising way for the faith not only have a strong example as mentor but secondly, they have strong convictions built into their spiritual foundation. They have convictions built in to their spiritual foundation. Paul will refer not only to his own input into Timothy's life but the input of Timothy's mother and Timothy's grandmother which were all a part of building the strong foundation that gave him strong convictions that really are the reason why men stand strong.
And then thirdly, those who are the strong soldiers who defend the faith have a strong confidence in Scripture. They understand that Scripture is inspired by God and profitable and can make the man of God adequate, fully outfitted for every good work.
Those are the three ingredients to tend to build strong men...a strong pattern to follow, a strong spiritual foundation and a strong confidence in the Word of God. We're going to be looking at those over the next couple of weeks. We'll also digress a bit when we get to verses 16 and 17 and I may prepare a message or two on the inspiration of Scripture so that we can understand fully what it means when it says "All Scripture is inspired by God."
Now what is Paul saying to Timothy? Timothy, you're going to have to be a general in the spiritual army. In other words, you've got to stem the tide, fight the battle, lead the troups. You have what it takes. You have had a strong spiritual example in me. You have had a strong set of convictions developed in your spiritual foundation by your mother, your grandmother and by me. And you understand by personal experience the tremendous sufficiency and authority of God's Word. When those things are part of your life, there is much to commend you to be a general, as it were, in the army that defends the faith. Let me say again, there are a lot of pastors, there are a lot of Christian leaders, there are a lot of good Christian lay people in the church but they're not many warriors for the truth who guard right doctrine, who cry out for uncompromising holiness. They are few and far between, certainly in this generation. And yet the church desperately needs them if we are to pass on a legacy of truth and conviction to the generation to follow.
Now for our time this morning I just want to look at the first point, verses 10 through 13, that tells us that strong defenders of the faith usually are produced by strong examples as their spiritual mentor. Verse 10, "But you followed my teaching, my conduct, my purpose, my faith, my patience, my love, my perseverance, my persecutions and my sufferings such has happened to me in Antioch, at Iconium and at Lystra, what persecutions I endured. And out of them all the Lord delivered me and indeed all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, but evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived."
Now the key thing that I want you to note there and underline, two words in verse 10, "you followed...you followed." And I want to expand on that as the major concept and thrust in this particular text. Timothy had a tremendous spiritual example, the epitome of patterns to trace your life on was Timothy's pattern, namely the Apostle Paul. And as I said, uncompromising champions of the truth usually have learned that at the feet of a stalwart defender of the faith. That was Timothy's case. Paul himself was the model. You followed...and then Paul lists all those things about himself that Timothy followed. You patterned your life after me. You followed the demonstration of uncompromising loyalty that was true of my life and you set your life in that same pattern. You saw that I suffered and that didn't deter me. You saw that I was persecuted and that didn't deflect my goal. You saw that I made the commitment whatever the price, you have had that pattern for your pattern. And several times in 2 Timothy he says you've got to suffer like I suffered, you've got to endure like I endured, you have to expect persecution like I got it...that's the pattern. You've seen it, you've followed it, you've traced your life on it, you know what it means to have a strong example.
And let me say just in a general sense before we look specifically at the passage, I am absolutely convinced that this is a tremendously important point. We are all copiers, we are all mimics, we are all imitators and who you pattern your life after is going to be who you turn out to be in great measure. You are marked by your models. You are marked by your mentors. You are marked by the patterns you choose to follow...your heroes, your examples mark you. That's why I tell young people all the time, it's so important whose ministry you sit under, what school you go to, particularly what seminary you go to because the people who influence your life will do that. They will mark you. They will mark you with their set of convictions, with their perceptions and perspectives. If Timothy is to be loyal and strong against apostasy, if he is to stand against heresy and all attacks on the church then he is going to be able to do that if he has learned to do that by patterning his life after someone who is like that. That's the challenge.
And Paul is concerned with Timothy's loyalty. And he is concerned that Timothy make the most of his privilege of having been patterned after the Apostle Paul himself.
Now in verses 1 to 9 as you remember, there is a blistering exposure and indictment of the false teachers who teach error and live in ungodly ways and how masquerade as if they belong to the church. But in contrast to that, coming to verse 10, Paul says, "But you," and that's in the emphatic position in the original language, "But you," on the other hand, in contrast to all the deceitful false teachers and wicked men, "You followed," and we'll just put the word "me" in there to sum up everything Paul says in verses 10 and 11. You had a pattern to follow to make you different. "You" is emphatic, pointing out that Timothy has had a very distinct training.
Let me talk a little about the word "followed," it's very important. It's not just a simple word that means to follow in some generic sense. It's a rich word that has some profound insight, parakolouthen(?) literally is to follow alongside. That's simply its literal meaning. But as you see how it's used in ancient times, it begins to open up in incredible ways. For example, the Stoic philosophers used the word as a technical term for the relationship between a disciple and his master, a student and his teacher, a very close relationship was expressed in this term. You followed not from afar, not at a distance, but you followed in an intimate relationship as a master and a disciple are connected. Some have translated it, for example, like this, "to study at close quarters," or "to carefully note with a view to reproducing," or "to take as an example." So let's take that middle meaning and read it this way, "But you carefully noted my life with a view to reproducing it." That's the essence of the word. You patterned after me. You began to think like I think, talk like I talk, walk like I walk, react like I react. You patterned your life after me.
It was Paul the Apostle and Timothy the disciple, Paul the father and Timothy the child, Paul the leader and Timothy the companion, Paul the head and Timothy the associate, Paul the leader and Timothy the follower, Paul the example and the friend. That's the way it went, Timothy the submissive learner and servant. Timothy was ever at his side, always at his side learning, learning, learning to imbibe the spirit of an uncompromising defender of the faith. There has never lived a greater defender of the faith than Paul. And Timothy had an inestimable privilege that none of us will ever have, to walk alongside that incredible man.
The aorist tense is used here which sums up all of Timothy's experience. You followed from the beginning of our time together to the present time you patterned your life after me. And, beloved, I want you to know that that is part of the necessary ingredients in a person who is a champion of the faith. You look for someone who has had a pattern to follow like that. And this really summarizes the whole of Timothy's experience. So much was Timothy in one sense a clone of the Apostle Paul that in 1 Corinthians 4, Paul...of course...is very upset with the Corinthian church and he says to them, "I exhort you therefore be imitators of me," verse 16. You need to pattern your life after me. Then he says, "For this reason, because I want you to be like me I have sent to you Timothy." Now if Paul wanted them to be like him, why did he send Timothy? He says, "Because he will remind you of my ways." He was a clone of Paul. He was a stalwart, he was strong. He was courageous. He had had that exposure and that opportunity. And yes he had moments when he was weak and when he struggled and when he vacillated and so did Paul. But nonetheless the pattern for that young man's life was this strong resolute uncompromising man of God, the Apostle Paul. And that kind of patterning tends to produce the same kind of person. And if you want to be that kind of person, you need to be with those kinds of people because they will mark you with their life. They'll mark you with their convictions.
Now I want to talk a little bit about the word "my," you have followed my teaching. I read it to you a few moments ago and you probably noted that even though it wasn't in your text I read the word "my," the possessive pronoun my, before everyone of those things in that list. Why? Because that's what the Greek calls for. In each case there is a definite article, the possessive pronoun at the beginning and then the definite article before each one of those qualities indicates that the repetition of the possessive pronoun is called for. And so it should be emphasized this way...my teaching, my conduct, my purpose, my faith, my patience, my love, my perseverance, my persecutions and my sufferings, such has happened to me. And what he's emphasizing is you patterned your life after me, you did what I did in this point, this point, this point, this point, this point.
Now sometimes you hear people say, "Oh man, that guy is just another clone of So‑and‑so." That's right. There's nothing wrong with that. Paul, as I read a moment again in 1 Corinthians 4:16, said to the whole Corinthian church, "Be imitators of me," that is to be expected, we will imitate somebody or somebodies, we might as well imitate people worthy to be imitated. It is not wrong to be a reproduction if you are a reproduction of the right person. And that was the case with Timothy. He had followed all those attributes of Paul. He was the pattern.
And, beloved, again I say this is what makes for strong spiritual leaders. They have to have strong spiritual leaders as patterns and models. That's been our goal in the church, that's our goal at the college, our goal at the seminary is to provide that kind of strong leadership so that we produce not just nice Christian people but defenders of the faith, defenders of the truth who are willing to live in dangerous times and at any cost hold up the banner of God's divine revelation.
Now we could divide this list, Paul loves lists and every time you come across a list of Paul it's helpful if you can kind of divide it up and get the flow of this thought, and there are really three areas in this list that Paul covers. And he says you have followed me in all these three areas. The first one is ministry duty...ministry duty. And that's the first place where you learn how to pattern your life after someone. How do they carry on their ministry? He divides his ministry duty into two things...teaching and conduct. You have followed my teaching, my conduct. Teaching, didaskalia simply means what it says, doctrine, teaching, divine truth, the basis of everything. He says, "Timothy, you followed my teaching of truth, you followed my instruction, God's revelation. You followed apostolic doctrine, you followed my doctrine. In chapter 2 verse 2, "The things you heard from me in the presence of many witnesses you are to pass on to someone else." You learned from me, someone else needs to learn from you. The passing on of the apostolic doctrine was vital.
So Paul had learned and imitated...rather Timothy had learned and imitated Paul, first of all, in the area of ministry duty with regard to teaching. He had learned and followed Paul's doctrine. When he taught, he taught what Paul had taught him. That's what he was to do. The things you heard from me, teach faithful men and so they'll teach others also and will keep passing down the unmitigated, unaltered truth. That was absolutely vital.
In chapter 4 he says to him in verse 2, "Preach the Word...preach the Word. The time is coming...verse 3...when they won't endure sound doctrine but you preach it. Pass it on just as you have received it." That was vital.
It's so important to have the right mentor because at the bottom line of that teaching process is the content. I say this so often to people, be careful who you listen to, be careful what you read, be careful who you learn from because that all goes in to the foundation of what you assume to be truth. You must be very cautious with what you expose your mind to. And what a privilege to have had the Apostle Paul whose teaching was not only true but it was inspired teaching. Timothy had a tremendous privilege...so important to have the right teacher. It does no one good service to sit under people teaching error, to listen to people teaching lies, to be exposed to things that aren't true, rather to follow that which is true, the Word of God. So Timothy then followed Paul in the area of his ministerial duties by teaching the very things that Paul had taught him, he followed that pattern.
Secondly, he followed Paul not only in teaching but in conduct. That word agoge means manner of life, pattern of behavior, life style. It's a simple word used only here in the New Testament, but it has to do with your daily living. Now what was wonderful about Paul, and this is a good good thought to keep in mind, what was wonderful about Paul was that his doctrine was in perfect harmony with his living. And that has such tremendous integrity that it has an overwhelming impact on someone. When you live what you teach, you have a powerful influence. And here was a man who taught truth and lived truth consistently. That is great integrity. Timothy followed the pattern of ministry.
Now ministry in its simplest way can be described in these two things...your ministry is what you teach and how you live. Those are the duties of ministry...to teach truth and live truth, to teach what is right and live what is right. And Timothy followed Paul. He knew the pattern of how to teach truth and how to live truth. Those basic duties of ministry Timothy followed. And those things are essential in the patterning process. What any of us in leadership communicate to people first and foremost is what we teach and the way we live.&n