Faithful Men & the Good Soldier

So we're in 2 Timothy, and we're getting through the first five verses of chapter two. You, therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others. suffer hardship with me as a good soldier of Christ. No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier. Also, if anyone competes as an athlete, he does not win the prize unless he competes according to the rules."

So those are the verses we're talking about. And I don't know if you've spent time reading 1 and 2 Timothy. 2 Timothy is really personal to Timothy. There is not a lot of laying out of doctrine and that kind of thing. It's a letter written by a man to another man that he loves and is a spiritual son of his. that he knows that he's about to leave and he wants Timothy to pick up the mantle.

And he wants him to do it correctly and accurately and with the same sort of enthusiasm that Paul had. Well, that's hard to duplicate. Paul was a firebrand, you know. So as we go through verse two, the things that you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses and trust these to faithful men that will be able to teach others also. And so I asked the question, what are the things? I think that's, the things are just that Paul received from the Lord Jesus Christ directly the doctrines that he teaches in his 13 epistles. And he laid them out exactly as he received them. He didn't edit. He didn't add opinion. He didn't do anything.

He laid them out like that, because he knew that this was God's word. And so that's what he's telling Timothy. The things that I've taught you, teach them to other men, faithful men. So we're down to the point about who are the faithful men. This word means, in the sense of believers, OK, they are believers, but this word really means that these are trustworthy men. These are men that you can count on. If you give them the information, you can count that they will hold on to it and communicate it exactly as it's been presented.

The same thing we do today. We have God's Word. There's probably 10,000 commentaries on God's word from every possible subjective opinion, but there's nothing like God's word. in and of itself, because it's the only thing that the Spirit of God will reveal to you. He doesn't care what Louis Barry Chafer said. He cares what the Apostle Paul said, and the Apostle John, and the other writers. So these men are trustworthy. And Timothy, or Paul and Timothy, they have an incredible responsibility here. They have to decide who the trustworthy guys are. That's an interesting job, isn't it?

So able means Paul is here contemplating an apostolic succession in respect to teaching and not administration. I know we talked about that last week. Administration is kind of where the church in general has gone to over the centuries. from hierarchy to popes to priests to whatever, and pastors, but really the succession is the doctrine. That what I learn from somebody who taught me, who taught them, who taught them, it's the same. That's where the hierarchy is, and that's where the succession of the information is. So I should be teaching the exact same thing that Ron Merriman taught 40 years ago, the information, because it's the same, same book.

The verse is describing a true apostolic succession. you know, people laugh around here about the infamous 75 questions that a man who desires to be an elder goes through. What do you think those questions are about? Doctrine. That's what they're about. And they're, you know, they're asked in such a way that that if we're going to pass the mantle to somebody, they better be on the same page that we are. Because when I went through it with Hal and Vern, I better be teaching the same things they were teaching. You OK with that? Does that make sense? Apostolic succession is not a succession of office, but a succession of the message. See that?

Teach salvation, the gospel, grace, identification, position, condition, all of that. That's all part of it. In other words, the composite of the New Testament epistles, that's where it is. And you know, how much, what are the 13 epistles and then John, and James and Revelation, how many pages do they take up? 40 pages maybe at most, that's it. Not that you're to disregard the Old Testament, you're not, but the doctrine that speaks directly to us in the church are the epistles. We are the true apostles only when we are faithful to their doctrine.

No. Somebody sent me something in the email this week that said, oh, I've read this, and I really like this, but this other person, I think you ought to study that person. So I did. I went and I studied that person, and I thought, they're not saying the same thing. So I'm not going to mentally pay attention to it. I read it, and I thought, no, they're not. They're trying to convince me that these two people are saying the same thing, but they're not. They're not. And it's not because this person's trying to trick me, it's just this person doesn't get it. You know, I think about this, and when you say faithful man and all that, it's, and the word, so the 10,000 people who listen to Joel Osteen, or, you know, some of these people, in their minds they're following faithful men. Yeah, they are.

And it's really sticking to what Paul taught us is who we are in Christ and all that. I think it's just interesting how you have to determine who is the the faithful man with the correct doctrine. And it's very important on that, because you can be a very, quote, spiritual man, but not have the right doctrine. And it's incumbent upon us to, one, you know, check out even your teaching or my teaching or anybody's teaching against the Word. And, you know, I'm thinking Timothy here had to really go after men who new Paul's teaching. Yeah. And specifically Paul's teaching. Well, you know what's crazy is that within the next couple classes, Paul's going to say that all in Asia have abandoned me. Who are the all? It's the teachers. You know?

So, anyway, I find it interesting that How do I say this? What's the security that we have if I aspire to be a teacher of God's Word, and Courtney does, and JD does, and Miles does, and Roger does? How do we know what we're doing is the right thing? Because you trust us, you showed up today. I think it's the fact that we study this, the word, and we pay attention to it, and we talk about it, and we debate about it.

One of the marvelous things about the Greek language is that it's so expressive in terms of grammar. And I'm not a grammarian, but oh, I have to tell you, the grammar, it says what it says. It says what it says. You can't say, well, it says something else, because it doesn't. English is like that. You can misinterpret. And lots of languages are like that. But Greek isn't like that. Koine Greek is pretty exact with all the tenses. All of us being indwelt by the Holy Spirit, you have the barometer within you that sets up the red flag if you don't hear the right thing.

Not to say that somebody going to Joel Olsteen's church isn't a believer. They may well be. I think that's the point. They're believers but unable to grow. just because the message is not to God's Word. So, it's more probably following on man's logic and knowledge than God's Word, so they don't grow. And again, I think it's just, I mean, they feel they're very spiritual, they feel that they're growing, they're doing, but again, I think to us sometimes when I was here. Are we a cult?

Because we are so different. No, that's true. But you check it against God's Word and we are, I think, spot on to God's Word. Multiple checks between all of us. There are Bible studies. I challenge you, you challenge me. Sure. All the time. Is that what it says?

And then we debate it. you know, and we go to God's word to do it, not trying to find even, you know, Lewis Perry Chafer or J.B. Stoney or whoever. That can help us, but it's ultimately looking at God's word. I really admire a guy like Lewis Perry Chafer, but I was reading something during the week. I read at bed at night. Sometimes I wake up an hour later and the book is still on my chest and I've been sound asleep. But in the middle of this, Schaefer says something, and I said out loud, no, that's not right.

Well, that's even like, you know, Jan Darby. Darby was amazing, but he also was off the track on some stuff. Oh, yeah, some of the stuff. It's like, really? But 80% or 90% is rock solid and amazing. It really is. But there are those that, you know, you don't Again, it's the checks and balances. Just because he said it doesn't mean it's right. Like John Darby is a good example. Sometimes I read him and I think, what is he saying? Because I don't understand 1850 English. What is he saying? So on Word Search, there's a synonym button. And a lot of times they say they don't know. Anyway, let's move on. We'll be here for a month. So the next question is, what is Timothy's responsibility here? So I'll read the note that I have.

It's natural in the circumstances of a young church, the building up of converts in the faith should have occupied a larger part in the Christian consciousness. than the functions of official ministry. But the historical continuity of the ministry of order is, of course, involved in the direction here. So Paul would have been surprised if any other conclusion had been drawn from his words. In any case, the providence of God sees further than do his servants. So teaching Answer this, Timothy's made responsible for seeing that the right doctrine is taught to others.

1 Timothy 1.3, somebody look at that, 1 Timothy 1.3. And read it, and then 2.2 here. If you got it, read it. As I urged you when I went to Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain men not to teach false doctrines any longer.

So this is an awesome responsibility that Paul is laying on Timothy. He's responsible for the clarity and the veracity of the doctrine. And so what Second Timothy is gonna tell us is how does he do this? First, Timothy's own understanding of the truth must be correct.

It is to consist of the things which he has heard from Paul, and this alludes to First Timothy 1.13, where Timothy is commanded to retain the sound words that Paul has taught him. Okay, that's the number one responsibility. And then the second one is Timothy is not to be a creator of doctrine, but a protector of the doctrine.

Timothy does not receive direct revelation. You understand what that means? Paul got the direct revelation. Timothy didn't. He got it from Paul. And second, there is to be no addition or modification of the Pauline doctrine. That last part is Chester McCauley. So where does the focus go?

It goes on the doctrine, the word of God in the Bible that you have, that you read it and understand it. And I think every time you open up your Bible, you should ask the Lord for clarity and confirmation that what you think is being, you're reading is in fact sound. What do you think about that comment? I think it's just what we were saying, the checks and balances. You have to make sure what you're teaching or bringing forth is from God's word, you know.

Again, we have Bible studies and like this, we can challenge, ask questions. Where is that? What's the basis of it? What's, you know, is there, you know, corollary verses that say, you know, support that? So it's always, I think it's interesting here.

I think what you said, what was, Excuse me Timothy's What was his response but in in the NASB in in verse 2 it's in trust Entrust these that's what he would that's what his job was was to entrust this to Faithful men. Yep. So I think that's the you know, you bring forth the message, but you also check these men and make sure they're teaching, you know, entrust that they're saying what's right. So I think it was, you know, a duty for him to give it, but also to kind of check and balance and make sure they're saying what Timothy taught them and from what Paul taught Timothy. So I like that it's entrusted. He's entrusted to make sure that these faithful men are teaching what Paul taught him. Yeah, isn't it interesting, in two verses here, the whole understanding of how the Word is to be transmitted and held faithful is all right here. And he calls that the succession of the church. That's the issue of the passing down.

It isn't, you know, any other thing. It isn't the gifts of the person or any, it's the doctrine is the issue with them. And doctrine is one of those words that sort of sets you back because you can't, you're not supposed to opinionate what doctrine is. I think it doesn't matter what you think, really. It's going to line up.

Actually, one other thing on that that I think of just mechanically is they didn't have the Bible. They just had Paul's letters. They had passing on the teachings verbally of what Paul told them. We probably only have a small percentage of what Paul was actually probably teaching them. But God has allowed us these scriptures that remain. And I think of just the veracity of that message through verbal passing on to ultimately the canonization of these as the Bible and what we use.

And I just think the only way that happens is the Holy Spirit. I agree. It's the only way it can happen. Because the old game, the telephone game, when you get in a circle and somebody says a sentence and see what it says by the end of the group. It's totally different. It's totally different.

But the Holy Spirit has maintained this for 2,000 years. And what He wanted saved is our scripture. But it's just, you know, I'm just overwhelmed by the fact that it has to be the Holy Spirit guiding this word through thousands of years. Well, and that's why believers are indwelt by the Holy Spirit.

The primary purpose is so you can understand the things of God, the teaching, the doctrine. All right, question six. What is the main qualification for a teacher of God's word? Pretty simple answer. What do you think it is? Chief qualification for a teacher is faithfulness to the word, not succession, not outreach. You get that?

I mean, there are whole churches that are built on outreach. or like Catholicism is based on succession. Pope so and Cardinal so and so and Archbishop so and so and all the way down to the local priests, just like Judaism was. And look what a great job they did by the time they crucified Christ. The high priest was within one family. The dad would appoint the son, and then the son would appoint the dad back, and they were the high priest for that year.

It's really kind of Ananias. It's faithfulness to the doctrine. That's the number one thing. So to be faithful means to be the one who can be dependent upon to teach accurately and consistently regardless of the circumstances. The problem with that is, that's why I think what the Lord would have us do in most cases, he'd raise somebody up within the body of believers to be a teacher.

Well, how do you know? Because we've been watching them and listening to them. One guy that was here for a while, he said to me one day on the Tuesday men's Bible church, he said, I know you guys are watching me. I said, yes, we are. He said, I'm watching you too. I said, fine. So first street. Now he changes horses.

After laying importance on sound doctrine and not varying from it, the next thing that comes up is, suffer hardship with me as a good soldier of Christ. Oh, gee, we'd have to bring up suffering so quick. Have we seen this exhortation before? Endurance, hardship, sunt cacopatio, to endure hardship together with someone else. Yeah?

The command to suffer hardship with me repeats exactly the verb join with me in suffering in 2 Timothy 1.8.

We haven't even gotten to that verse yet. So for us to think in 2026 to be a faithful person to the doctrine that there isn't going to be suffering involved in that is to miss the point. You know, I do think, I'm more and more convinced that our country for 250 years has been spared so much persecution and suffering. And I don't know why God has done it that way, but I mean, people around the world are getting murdered for their being Christians, and they're probably not real strong doctrinally. They're just getting murdered because they say they're Christians.

So it makes it interesting that we don't suffer much. I mean, have you suffered for the gospel? Raise your hand if you have. Second Timothy 1.8 says, therefore, do not be ashamed of the testimony of the Lord or of me, his prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God. And this can be outside the world, outside the Christian world, or inside, because you have a lot of detractors who say that they're Christians. One thing about this word, endure the word sun kako pathio the first part of that words sun means with and if you go to the authorized version which is with isn't there so it should be there okay again why did why does Paul exhort Timothy why is he doing it He's exhorting Timothy to endure hardship with him. Paul's in prison in Rome. And he was in what we know as the Mamertine prison.

You saw it. I didn't see it because I wasn't walking fast enough. Was it just a hole in the ground? It was closed, wasn't it? Yeah. It was off the beaten path. But it was underground. And once you went down in there, He only came out to be executed. So it's cold and damp.

So if, like if Timothy went to visit Paul, he had to get permission to go see him, which put his name. And at this point, persecution was in the Roman empire, a lot of persecution and Christians were beginning to die because of their faith. And so It's almost like he's saying, well, Timothy, you need to take your part in the suffering of hardship. Well, he can't lighten the load that Paul has. But if he's going to be bold like Paul is encouraging him to be bold, suffering is going to be part of it.

I used to think, well, who would sign up for this job? The exhortation, I think, is needed because Timothy was a rather timid guy, reserved young man. He was not cast in the historic mold of Paul. There's no question about that. But Paul was a unique guy. I think he'd walk in the middle of our group, and right away he'd make us angry. Or we'd be challenged by him, and he wouldn't back down a minute. Yet he was a really loving man.

Paul uses the military metaphor as a soldier. The Roman legionaries suffered hardship in the service of the emperor. I've got a couple of things about the Roman Empire. The Roman legions were divided up, well, basically there was the one segment that was in Rome and around Rome and their whole job was to protect Caesar. That was their job and they were known as the Patorian Guard.

Paul knew a lot of them because he was chained to them. I think it appears as though he converted a lot of them because when you're chained to a military guy, you go where he goes. He's not going to go where you go. But Paul must have been talking. I can just see him. Hook him up to this guy and by five o'clock when he drops him off at home, this guy's converted so tomorrow we get a new guy.

Anyway, they were elite. this Roman guard, and they were immediately under the emperor's control. The second was an army made up of legions. And the historian I read, they thought there were 28 to 30 legions. But there are only 5,500 men in a legion. That meant that there were 165,000 soldiers. I'm sure that the Roman army was bigger than that, because they controlled the whole Mediterranean basin. There's 195,000 Marines. There's two or three million men in the Army, plus the Air Force, that kind of thing. So if it is only 165,000 men, that's a pretty small army. But they were the army. You didn't mess with them at all.

So I think what he has is that the Praetorium Guard is probably what Paul had in mind. Under the Praetorium Guard was aware that Paul was in prison for preaching the gospel. Philippians 1, 12, and 13 says that. I'll read it to you. Now, I want you to know, brethren, that my circumstances have turned out for the greater progress of the gospel so that my imprisonment in the cause of Christ has become well known throughout the whole Praetorium Guard. and to everyone else.

So here he is, chained to a praetorium guard every day, different guy. And within the praetorium guard, everybody knows who he is and what he's about. And that's all those guys are talking about. So he says, the gospel gets spread out because of my being chained to a guard every day.

It's kind of cool how God did that. Then he says, no soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life so that he may please the one who would list him as a soldier. I thought this metaphor was just fabulous, the way it works out.

If you're a recruit in a military organization, what is the number one thing or purpose for boot camp? What's the number one thing? They're trying to take the civilian-ness out of you and implant that with the military mindset. Because the military is different, okay?

So if you enlist in the military, you say to them, I belong to you. And you know what they say back to you? Thank you very much, come with me. And we're going to do it my way, not your way. And so that's what boot camp's for. It's to teach, to start the process that there's a, like when I was at boot camp in the Marine Corps, they said there's the right way, the wrong way, and the Marine Corps way. We're working on the last one. We don't care about right and wrong. We care about Marines. That's it.

Well, the Army's the same way. The Air Force is the same way. They want you to think and act and function like whatever branch of service you're in. And when you enlist, you say to the military, whatever service you want me to do, I'll do. Raise your right hand. You swear. OK. So now, this is active service to make a military expedition, to do a military duty, to be on active service, to be engaged in warfare.

It's like in our country, the liberals in Congress want American soldiers to say, well, if you don't get a lawful order, you don't have to do it. Really? In my platoon, if we were in combat and we didn't get a lawful, or if I told the DI I'm not doing it, guess what? Oh, that was gonna be painful for me.

You know, you obey orders. Entangles means to be interwoven or to be involved, to be entangled with that service. Your son-in-law's in the military. Anybody who's been in the military knows this is how it is. You don't go in the military to give them your opinion. They don't care about your opinion. So affair is the prosecution of any affair, business, occupation, with addition, necessities of life. Your life changes. Why do you think military people live on bases? They live together. They go places together. You know, you guys stay at the Holiday Inn and some of you guys go over, no, we're going to the barracks. That's where we stay. So when you go into the military, you really do, for however time you give them, you belong to them.

Chosen as a soldier, no soldier, means to list one as a soldier, to raise your right hand. Are believers exhorted to adhere to a different life than civilian life? What do you think? I mean it's real simple, it's either yes or no. Answers, yeah, we are called to a totally different life and we enlisted.

You see that? We said that we would do. We got saved. A recruit must dispose of civilian pursuits as time belongs to the military and he is to be constantly available for any and all service that it demands. Is that appropriate for a Christian? Yeah, it is. Yeah, it is. Boot camp starts the process.

So more and more, when I was 18, I had to do selective service. And when I went to college, the Vietnam War was just starting up, and there was a draft. And everybody had a draft number. And if your draft number was 365, you probably weren't going to get drafted. But if your draft number was 25, so you got a college deferment. And the day you graduated from college, guess what? Your name went to the top. And so you really kind of had a choice. You were either going to wait for the induction letter from Uncle Sam that said, you will report to such and such a place, or you could enlist, which meant that you could kind of pick what you were going to do in the service.

So most guys that I knew would decide where they wanted to go and what they wanted to do, and they would enlist. But there hasn't been a draft for 30 years now, and so a lot of A lot of people don't understand how the military works and how it works in every case. But now, I guess the Army is overwhelmed with people wanting to be in. The enlistment quotas have all been surpassed in every one of the services.

But it is a different life. And that's the metaphor that Paul's using. Military life and Christian life are the same in that they, you're not a civilian anymore. And as a matter of fact, if you're, we'll tell you one story. How am I doing time-wise? Am I over? One more story and then I'll quit. We were at, I was at Camp Pendleton one time, which is a marine base in California.

And we were over here in a tent city, my unit, 140 guys. And about a mile over there on the top of the hill was a barracks and really nice barracks with showers and stuff, and we're in tents. So they told us when we arrived there, you see the barracks out there, don't go up there. You risk your life going up there. You know who was housed up there?

Guys that had just come back from 13 months in Vietnam. They were dangerous guys. Because they were so military and in combat, they needed to downtime, to actually fit back into civilian life again. And so we had one guy who, an idiot, he went up there and he shouldn't have done it, because he wasn't one of them. And they made sure that he knew he wasn't one of them. All right, we'll close. Father, how we thank you for your word. Thank you how careful you are to teach us, and the responsibility we have as belonging to you. that we, and we're thankful for that. We pray in your son's precious name, amen.