Second Timothy serves as a guiding light for Christians navigating the spiritual darkness of modern times, emphasizing the importance of holding fast to sound doctrine. The sermon illustrates the concept of spiritual darkness through a personal experience in the Carlsbad Caverns, contrasting it with the illuminating truth found in Scripture. It highlights the Apostle Paul's final words to Timothy as a crucial message for believers today, urging them to remain steadfast in their faith and to commit God's word to faithful individuals who will, in turn, teach others. The message further develops this by presenting the Christian life as that of a soldier enduring hardship, not seeking comfort, but faithfully engaging in spiritual warfare for eternal rewards.
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Here I lose my audience too quick. I'm really going home. Or we're really going home. He's only joking about time, the trailer to the tree. He's going to help me hook it up this afternoon. So this will and the will of God be the last time we'll be sharing with you this visit. But if the Lord be not come, you better watch out the old penny will roll back in sometime when you're least expecting it. And so be sure and show up to meeting or I'll talk about you. So next time I want you to be here. I thank you for being here today and for all of you who have so graciously supported the meetings we've been having here. And also for all of you who came to the conference, wasn't that a good time? I really enjoyed it.
I got fed myself and I really appreciated it very much. I really did. And so maybe, you know, if the Lord be not come next year, we'll do it again. That is, you'll have the conference again. So I want you to turn to Second Timothy this morning. Timothy please second Timothy don't spend too much time roaming around here but while you're turning to second Timothy I want to ask the question again I don't want it answered don't want any raising of hands or any embarrassment but have any of you ever been lost now the men want to admit to it I know but I believe probably to some degree every person in this room at one time or another has been lost you know you don't know where you're at and you don't know how to get to where you want to go.
That's so important. Sometimes it's all right not to know where you're at if you just know where you're going and how to get there. So being lost is not a fun thing, but what can you think that would make being lost just far worse than I'm trying to picture in your mind right now? What would be worse in connection with being lost if it were dark? All of us have a tendency to be afraid of the dark. And so I guess being lost in the daytime would not be as bad as being lost in the nighttime. Second question. How many of you in this room really know what dark is?
Have you ever really absolutely been in the dark? All light shut out. Well, a fellow and I were camping our way to California here last year out of the back end of his pickup. We were sleeping together in a pup tent. Can you imagine doing my foot sleeping in a pup tent with something? But we were, and we stopped out at White City, New Mexico. Now, that doesn't ring a bell, does it? But the next morning we got up and we went to Carl's Bad Caverns. If you've never been there, go. If the Lord permits you. Anyway, to make a long story much shorter, we got down to the lowest point that would allow us to go to in those caverns it's majestic it takes your breath away some of the sites the stalag types and the stalagmites and all those things you know that that you see down there but it was a day when there just weren't too many people there it was early in the year was march there weren't too many people there so the ranger that was with us down there at this very lowest point that they would allow us to go suddenly we were just a small group he said hey folks It's a slow day or a small group.
How would you like if I turned out the lights? Oh, man, yeah, turn out the lights. Well, he went back down the way around the corner, believe it or not, you might say, and told the other park ranger to block any people off that would be coming. And so he came back and he says, all right, now, you're going to find out what dark really is. Get close together. So we did. He said, sit down on this little wall. So we did. And then he said, are you prepared? Yeah, I'm prepared, but I wasn't. When the lights went out, it was frightening. Absolute. I could put my hand up right within an inch of my eyes, and I could sense a warmth, but I absolutely could see nothing.
Absolutely nothing. The hand within an inch of my eyes, and the only way I knew something was up there was the warmth of my chubby little hand. Otherwise, it was blackness. I've never been in blackness such as that. And I just for a fraction of a second thought to myself, what if the lights don't come back on? How will I ever get out of this place? It was frightening. For a moment, you wanted to panic and run. And of course, that would have been the most foolish thing to do. Well, in this life, we're looking at a book, Second Timothy. And I believe it is the math way, the light, the guiding beam for Christians who live in, let me say it, the dark days in which you and I find ourselves.
You say, it's a beautiful love. You're kind of, you really are blind, Glenn. Hey, there's darkness other than the physical. And that might be the most frightening darkness and that spiritual darkness. All around us today with all the so-called light of all the so-called religion, of all the so-called things today, I believe we're walking in days of real spiritual darkness. It's nice to have a map. It's nice to have a light to lead and to guide us in our Christian walk. It's so important that we as Christians have a light on the way that God wants us to go. God doesn't leave us.
to just find our way. I'm so glad they had guides and markers in Carlsbad. I would have never, ever found my way out of that place. So it is that sometimes today we need to come back to the guidebook, back to the markers that God has set before the Christian. And you know something, though Timothy was the last known message of the Apostle Paul under inspiration of God that's been written here in Second Timothy. We have the last known words of the Apostle Paul, that great godly man. And you know, there's something about the last words of a person that are so important, aren't they?
I was talking to a person last night and they told me, well, just as he was slipping into death, he said so and so. And sometimes over our loved ones, when they're passing from this life to the next, will bend over and will listen as their lips move and the breath fades to hear what they have to say. Important last words, perhaps stick with us more than any other word. I'll tell you a story and I'm taking a lot of time, but I want to build you up to this of what I have to share with you. I had an uncle and he was a handsome fella.
And it was the day of his wedding, the day he was to be wed to this beautiful girl that his heart just thrilled for. And yet she had taken suddenly, terribly ill. And on what should have been their wedding night, she called for Robert, that was my uncle's name, she called for Robert to come to her room. And as my uncle entered the room, he saw that she was fast, leaving this life and going to the next. And he knelt down beside the bed and he put his arm under her head and he raised her head up. And he said, Darling, what is it?
And I almost hesitate to tell you these last words because they're not fair to my uncle. But nevertheless, she said, Robert, promise me something. And the breath was fast going and he said, tell me. And she said, Robert, don't ever marry anyone else. Now that's a hard thing. But that uncle of mine caressed her, laid her head back on the pillow, and she went out of this line. He kept his words. Because those last words of hers meant so much to him. He went to the Indian Territory in Oklahoma, the Cherokee Strip, and he established Sunday schools for a very famous preacher, but he never married.
He remembered and carried to his death the words of the one he loved. And I hope we'll carry, as it were, with us this morning, something from the scriptures of what God has to say to us in these our last days upon earth. I really believe that for the true church of God, we're living in the very last moment Just in the twilight time, ere we see the true dawning, ere we hear the shout, and we're caught up to be with him forevermore. And we won't have to tread this veil of tears, this uncharted way, as it were, in life. We'll have him. But you know something till then, he's left us a guidebook, a beautiful guidebook, a wonderful guidebook.
I just want to touch in chapter one. We're not going to really go through chapter one at all. I just want to mention something about this, that here in Timothy, we have what God wants us to know about our personal walk. That's our personal conduct in this life for the days in which you and I live in. This book is relevant. This book is more up-to-date than this morning's newspaper. It's good for today. Some people look at chapter eleven of first Corinthians and other places in the word of God and they say, oh, that was for another time in another culture. I beg your pardon. Then you've got to throw out the whole word of God if you're going to begin to remove the pages. It's all good.
All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable and I could go on, but I need not. So as we look at this, This is for today. This is for now. This is for nineteen eighty-seven. And this is for you and I. This is for Lyman, Iowa. This is for today, the world over, wherever it may be. And we come to it. So in chapter one, look at verse thirteen with me just to grasp something of what the first chapter is trying to say to us. I love these first words. I have them in my Bible marked out.
Hold fast. Hold fast. That's a message I could stop with this morning to Christians. Hold fast the form of sound words. Where do we find the only sound words in creation? In the Scriptures. You and I really don't have any sound words because we can't back them up. Oh, we intend to. We want to. We desire to. But only God can say, thus it shall be. And it will be. And so we find that the Apostle Paul, to his son of the faith, Timothy, speaking in hard times when it was difficult to live for God, do you think it's difficult today?
It was difficult in their day. In Timothy's day, he was a young man with like passions as you and I. He had the feelings that rise up in you and I. Oh, another meeting, another day, another droll, droll, dull thing, you know. And the humdrum of life. And he also had the moments, though, when Satan would attack. But, you know, It's nice to be able to hold on, to have an anchor of the soul, to have something to go back to and say, well, I can start from here and I know I can get to there. Here's the marker for me. Here's the beacon and so forth.
You know, I was studying a little bit about celestial navigation several years ago as a hobby for me. And so as I was studying that, I necessarily, that has to do with the ocean and with ships in particular, of course, flying too. It has mostly to do with the sailing ship days and the sailing ships of today and so forth. And I found out a little ditty about a ship that's coming back into harbor. You know there are beacon lights, but some of them are green and some of them are red. And they mark the channel, and it's different going out than when you're coming in. The channel's on a different, in a different location, depending on whether you're going out or you're coming in. And the little ditty, the little saying...
that puts you straight is this. Red on right returning. Red on right returning. In other words, if I'm returning from the sea into the harbor, I keep the red lights on my right and I'll have safe passage. Just keep the red lights on your right if you're coming in from the sea. Well, God says if you're coming in from this sea of life and you're looking for the harbor and you're headed for home, hold fast. Hold fast is the red light on returning here. It says hold fast. And people today are giving up a lot that's still in God's word.
I don't understand that. I can't comprehend that when they begin to give up things that haven't changed. How do we have the license to go in there and say, that doesn't apply anymore? If we do that, we've destroyed the Word of God. We've destroyed the Word of God. He that take a thumb or adds to this book is cursed, we read in Revelation, don't we? If we add to or take away. Now, I'm just telling you this because I want you to know how important it is what we're about to read together. No foolishness. This is going to be the same tomorrow as it was today. And the day after tomorrow, it's going to be just the same again.
Whole fast. So much is changing today. So much is changing. It boggles my mind. I used to be in electronics years ago. And I'm the old tube man. Man, you know, some of you young guys are going to laugh at me and know a little bit about electronics. Tubes. What are tubes? Well, they were my heyday. Tubes were the thing. Today it's solid state. You know, the FET, field effect transistor. And all of those integrated circuits, the ICs, and all of that, that boggles my mind. And yet I was in electronics because things change. They don't remain the same. You study today and you've got to study tomorrow because it's changed. But, beloved, when you study this book, nothing changes.
It's always the same because it's all about a person. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. That's the beauty of it. Don't you see what I'm saying? Now I'm really building you up because this means something to me. I'm about to share something with you that if you don't understand where we're going, go to sleep because you're not going to enter the harbor. You're not going to stay with me. If you don't understand where I'm trying to take you and on what basis I hope to do that, you might as well sleep out the rest of the meeting because I'm telling you, I'm taking you where I want you to go on the Word of God that never changes. So what Paul told Timothy in that last written account that the Holy Spirit gave him is good for today.
It's good for today. And that's what I want to impress you with very much. I'm going to read verse thirteen in its entirety without any further comment and then we'll go to chapter two where we'll spend our time. Hold fast the form of sound words which thou hast heard of me in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. That's all I'm going to say. Turn to chapter two. Chapter two. Here in second Timothy in chapter two, I see seven pictures, but also seven duties. In other words, I see seven applications of these, to seven different aspects of our lives.
Let me repeat again so as I don't confuse you. It's as if I were going to hang up seven pictures to illustrate something that is real in our life and something that we need to be following, we need to be doing, we need to be understanding. But you know, with the picture that tells us the story that God wants us to see comes the duty or the responsibility to carry out what that picture is. is trying to tell us. And so it is we begin in verse one of chapter two. Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also. I see here the picture in verse one of a son. Now what's one of the peculiarities about a son? Well, in relation to the father, usually the father wants the son to carry on his business. He wants the son to carry on in his footsteps. So I see a picture here of something that should be present in my life today in the days in which I live.
I should be carrying on according to the Father. God the Father has left something for me as a son of his, as a son of God, coer with Christ. He's left something for me to do, not to just occupy a seat or a place in this world, but something to carry on. That's what a son does. He carries on the line. I know in a certain case of a family, There will be no carrying on of that name because there's no one to carry it on. And that's kind of sad to see a name die out, isn't it?
Say, like, but say I'd had no son and he had no children, or I had no son to carry on my name. That'd be kind of sad. Now, I don't mean to hurt anyone's feelings, but I'm just illustrating in case you have all daughters and no son. But it is kind of sad to see the name stop and not be carried on. God wants us to carry on as sons. And then he gives us a responsibility with this picture of the Son. You know, we're co-heirs with Christ. He gives us a picture, and we find that in verse two. And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou. We have the responsibility as children of God to commit the Word of God and what God has given us to others.
I wonder, are we really doing that? You say, well, I'm not a teacher. This is not talking about platform gift. This can be talking about the family circle where the parents pass on to the children that which they want them to carry forth in life and to commit to others. I wonder if we're really committing ourselves today, number one, And then I wonder if we're taking the trouble. And it takes trouble to commit. It takes time. It takes effort to commit the Word of God to others, doesn't it? Now let's draw it down into the assembly atmosphere. I believe this is where everything is done, outside the family circle, that is.
I believe this is where God put the responsibility. upon the Christian life other than the family circle now. I want to, that's really number one is the family circle, but as far as collective, this is where God puts the responsibility for training, hospitalization, comfort, and insurance, and all that goes right here. That's a sermon in itself. It goes right here. We are to commit. God wants us, and notice though there's a qualification, commit thou to faithful men. You know, God, it doesn't say smart men, does it? That'd leave me out. I wouldn't have anything to carry on for sure. But the Spirit of God is saying here, you commit to faithful men, men who will be concerned to pass it on to others because it says, who shall be able to teach others also.
Now let's get that down. Certainly we need the platform teaching gift, don't we? That's great. Most of us like that better than just most anything we get anymore. We want all teachings. And we do need teaching. Very, very, very much we need to have those who can publicly teach. But hey, that doesn't take the shoe off of your foot or my foot if we're parents or if we're just ones who don't feel like we can get up behind a platform and teach the Word of God. You know, not all elders publicly teach, I don't believe. I don't believe all elders have the public platform gift, but all elders. And let me go further than that because I really believe the Word of God teaches it.
Every Christian is responsible to teach others. And you know something? You teach with your life. Let me give a little illustration of what I mean by teaching just simply with your life. And perhaps that's the hardest thing to do. It might be easy to get up here and finally come up with a little outline, point one, point two, point three, you know, and teach it. But Leonard Linstead, and I can speak his name because he's home in heaven and I'll embarrass no one. But Leonard Linstead said he came to Wichita, Kansas. And he was kind of lost and distraught and didn't have a home and didn't know what was going to happen, but wanted to see a work really going on there.
But he was feeling kind of sorry and blue and kind of down and out. And he went out in the country with some of those good old farmers. Went out in the country and stopped this little farm store. And he's getting some gas, you know, and he's talking to the guy who owned this little store out in the country, the little country store. And as he was talking, the subject turned towards spiritual things. But all of a sudden, the guy that was putting in the gas, you know, in those days, for you young people, they actually put the gas in for you. No self-serve. Wouldn't let you serve yourself against the law. But anyway, he was giving Leonard some gas in his car, and suddenly, Polk Leonard, he says, you see that man? And Leonard saw an old farmer in his overalls, just easing across the highway.
You know how farmers do. They don't think anybody else belongs on the highway but them. and didn't care if cars were coming, he's strolling across, because that's been his highway all his life. He's always done that, you see. I know, because I come from a Texas farm, but he's strolling across the highway, and Leonard looked at him. He, you know, so former in his overall. But suddenly the man putting in the gas stop, and he looked at Leonard, and his eyes, I would imagine, almost moistened, when he said, Leonard, said, Mr. Linstead, that man's a Christian. That man's a godly man. And I understand the man, that old farmer never opens his mouth to get up on a public platform.
But the whole community knew he was a Christian. And he was teaching others what godliness was because this man putting the gas in Leonard's car was not a Christian. And there's no sign on the farmer and his blue overalls that that man who knew not Christ could say, There's a Christian and a godly man. We teach with our lives. We teach with our lives. So don't tell me, Christian, that this sonship is not for you. That you're not to commit. You're not to carry on. You are.
And you are to teach others also. You're responsible. For the light you have, the place where you're at, you don't have to go to Africa. You're responsible for the place where you're at to live daily in such a fashion that by your life and your acts, you teach others that Christ is real and He's worth following. He's worth giving up for. He's worth living for. He's worth dying for. He's worth speaking for. The hardest job I have is not to get up at this platform, although you wouldn't believe it, but even before such a beautiful audience, I'm frightened sometimes.
My knees are playing a tune. I don't dare put anything on my knees because you'd hear the claim. But you know something? The hardest thing for me to do is to live for God so that others may see Christ in me. That's old Charlie Lightfoot's boy. Was what they used to say about me. That's before my father was saved or I was saved. And I won't tell you just what they meant. That's old Charlie Lightfoot's boy. But I would to God after we're saved that they might say, There's a son of God.
There's a godly man. And Leonard ended up by saying, Oh, if only. that could have been said of me a godly man a christian walking for god that's what that old farmer was a christian walking for god so son has that duty i want us to go now to verses three and four we're going to have to move along we're not going to finish up maybe we'll finish up tonight i don't know i have something kind of eating away at my heart so better come tonight i might need all the help I can get, I don't know. But anyway, we'll see what the Lord leads in tonight. But let's look at verse three. Thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
No man that warth entangles himself with the affairs of this life that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier. My verse three. Here we have our second picture of what should be in a Christian's life, what should be evident. We all, each and every one of us, ought to be soldiers. You hear the old song, Soldiers of the Cross. But it's real. We're everyone inducted into God's army the moment we receive Christ. You don't have any say so. You're talking about being drafted. You're drafted, as it were, into God's army.
Now, whether you act like it or not, you carry yourself like it or not, you are a soldier of Jesus Christ if you are His. You are a soldier, and you should be looking and acting like a soldier. You know, we used to have to, in the drill times, tell some of these fellows that come from different places, going to have to put a rock in your right hand so you'll know your right foot from your left. you know you couldn't tell they were soldiers they never marched in step and they never did things right and all that of course later on maybe they did when they'd been trained but they you and I are called as soldiers of Jesus Christ and it says here in verse three thou therefore now here comes the rub you know we're all called to be soldiers but our duty here's one of our duties as a soldier and this is something you're not going to like I hate to have to close out on this but Probably this is where we'll close out.
Verse three says, Thou, therefore, not your buddy, but you. Remember in the army, some of you guys how we had the buddy system? You know, our buddies, that's my buddy. And you put anything off on your buddy you could, that you could get off yourself. That's the buddy system. See, put it off on him and don't take it yourself. But it says, Thou, therefore, endure hardness. Now some Christians think when they're saved, And they're in the Army of God that they'll just always wear the dress uniform. They'll smartly salute. They'll be out on the parade ground. The crowds will be clapping and the band will be playing and the clouds are fluffy and you never hear the cannons roar or anything.
You're just to be a soldier marching on the parade ground. All just on the parade ground. But God says we're soldiers to endure hardness. As a child of God, you can expect hardness. A soldier really, if he's a soldier at all, can expect to go to war. That's why you're there. You're there not just, oh, they say the army to protect the peace, but the real illustration is a soldier is equipped and trained to fight, not to sleep and eat. That's secondary altogether, but he's trained. Everything that's given to him, For these are radio repairmen or not, it's all aimed toward the point of the battle.
And so it is with a soldier of Jesus Christ, with every Christian. We should realize that God is training us for this battle. He's given us the armor in Ephesians chapter six. He tells us about the warfare, that it's not down here as it were in the earthly things, but our warfare is in the spiritual realm, in the wickedness in high places. And we need to be aware of the enemy. They used to teach us to recognize the enemy and to recognize the airplanes of the enemy and etc. God wants us to recognize Satan's ways and how Satan would allure us and trap us in. But the point in closing, and we'll touch on this maybe tonight again, because there's a lot to verse four.
Oh, I wish we had. There's a lot to verse four. But I'm just going to close with verse three. Thou, therefore endure. It's not that you like it. You know, as a Christian, I don't like the warfare, and I don't like the struggles that come into the Christian life to maintain that testimony. And God uses the word endure, though. He doesn't say you'll like it, but he tells us you endure it as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. I never fool Christians that Christian life is the hardest life in the world, but it's the best because it's eternally rewarded. You know, I'd rather have my rewards that are going to last forever and ever and ever than to get my fifty cents a day today, wouldn't you?
I really would. Because in heaven, it'll be a hundredfold and it's going to last forever and forever and forever. Isn't that nice that God has something for us if we'll be enduring? And notice it says as a good soldier, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. I'm going to close with that. Let you out so you can go get you some biddles, some groceries, and all of that. And just ask you to think about these things a little bit. Don't make them hypothetical. A soldier is real. A son is real. A war is real. And it's out there.
It's there. The battle has been drawn. The battle lines have been drawn. Are we going to be in the mess kit repair? You know, sometimes... You ever heard of the underground mess kit repairing of you fellas in World War II? That was for the guys that were behind the lines and never went to the front and they would be called the underground mess kit repair. In other words, you know, the things you eat out of, they never needed repairing. I never saw one I could tear up. But that was just a little picture of going back and hiding. God doesn't want us to hide. He wants us to be good soldiers of Jesus Christ and on the battlefront facing the foe because, again, in Ephesians, all the armor... It's for the front, not to turn and run.
God wants us to be good soldiers. I know you are. Bless you for coming. And if you can, come back tonight and we'll try to bring some of these things together. Our loving Father, in Christ's name, we do thank you for the Lord Jesus who makes all things possible. Bless now those who travel to their homes and in every way we pray for Christ's glory and in his name. Amen.