Buzzles chapter sixteen and we read from verse one then came he to Derby and Listera and behold a certain disciples there named Timothy is the son of a certain woman which was a Jewess and believed but his father was a Greek which was well reported of that is Timothy was well reported of by the brethren that were at Lystra and Iconium. Him would Paul have to go forth with him, and took and circumcised him because of the Jews which were in those quarters, for they knew all that his father was a Greek. And as they went through the cities, they delivered them the decrees for to keep, that were ordained of the apostles and elders which were at Jerusalem. That refers, of course, to what had taken place in chapter fifteen when they came together to discuss the whole matter of uh jewish rights and ritual as to whether the gentile believers should be obliged in effect to become jews before they could be full-fledged christians now this was immediately put in its proper place and perspective but at that time the jewish christians the elders of the churches Jerusalem, gave Paul and the others a letter to the Gentile believers, liberating them from any bondage to Rome in the sense of these formalities and rites and rituals of the Jewish religion, but at the same time asking them to observe certain things, in the meantime at least, being strangled and from blood and such like things. Now these are the the decrees that were ordained by the apostles and elders which were at Jerusalem. And so were the churches established in the faith and increased in number daily. Now when they had gone throughout Phrygia and the region of Galatia and were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia, that is the province of Asia, after they were come to Messia, they assayed to go into Bethania, but the Spirit suffered them nuts. And they passing by, Missia, came done to Troas. Now, the subject for tonight's study is Timothy's. As you know, we have been looking at these biographical studies in both the Old and the New Testament. We have not particularly been looking at them typically, nor prophetically, nor any other way. And many of these personalities, of course, have both the typical and the prophetical meaning, or at least side to them. We have been looking at them in a very down-to-earth way, looking at these men as men. And the lessons we can learn from them, the title of the whole series has been lessons in the life of faith. So we looked at Abraham as a man. We looked at him as someone learning to obey the will of God. We looked at Isaac, learning patience, Jacob, learning under the disciplining hand of God, and so on, all the way down. And we'd like just to look at Timothy in the same way. in the very simplest possible way, just trying to glean from the surface things that would be useful to us as Christians. Now one or two things, just before we start into the actual references, his name means honored by God. I think this is a very striking thing, and this is something that we can all take to ourselves. For whatever we may read and learn about Timothy, and Timothy's obedience and Timothy's call and Timothy's gifting by God Timothy's service for God and everything connected with it I think over the top of the whole thing we could easily write honored by God all the Bible names of course have meaning we stick names on people and I imagine the only meaning they might have is that maybe your father your grandfather somebody was called that and of course the name might have have very little to do with your personality, I can think of some. Now, in the Bible, however, a God who knew these people from eternity and who chose them, and these names were applied, in fact, in many cases, by parents who had an insight into the ways of God, and sometimes even changed the name of a child after its birth and gave it a different name. Moses, it would appear, did not get his name immediately upon birth, but he got his name apparently because of the episode of drawing them out of the water. And there are other examples, but the names all have meaning. And here is this young man's life, and no matter what phase or facet of it we may look at, I think we can, all of us, write over it, honor it by God, no matter what. Now some of the things we're going to read about Timothy are connected with suffering and separation and sickness, learning from the failure of other servants of God. But even in this we can see and see very clearly that every time we can say he still was honored by God. And this is where we can start off paralleling ourselves, can't we? And if we do that I think we begin to get the whole message of honor by God. No matter what, no matter where God may ask us to go, no matter what God may ask us to suffer. If we are disciplined, if we are trained by God as His children, aren't we honored? To be dealt with as part of the divine family, part of God's family, not to be thrown overboard, not to be given up as the Gentiles were in Romans chapter one. not just to be considered as something that God became angry with and threw away, but that we can look into the Scriptures and believe that we were chosen in Him before the foundation of the Word, and that no matter what testings and trials we may be asked to go through, we can look at them and say, it still is an honor to be trained by God. It still is an honor to be asked by God to do anything for him, no matter how simple, no matter how insignificant, no matter how it may impress the world, how out, how offbeat, how completely humiliating even the world might consider some of the things that the Christian considers it an honor to do. And I think this is our first approach. His mother was a Jewess, a believer in Christ. His father was a Greek. and probably not a Christian. We don't know anything really about the father, except that the mother is singled out by Paul in writing to him when he says that you have a faith which was in your mother and in your grandmother as well, and you were trained and taught in that, and there isn't any reference to the father. However, we are not judging. That is in the hand of God. We're simply trying to draw a picture and get this young man's focus. We somehow or other tend to get the picture of these men as something very special. Somebody who stood up on a pedestal, you know, one of those people in a Roman toga with a scarlet collar on it, and quite different from ordinary mortals. This young man was what we would call a person of mixed race, a Greek father, a Hebrew mother. There may have been all kinds of complications of it. And if this Hebrew mother... was like some others who knew God, who have known God, and who married somebody that was not a believer. We can imagine something of the background of the home. Here he was, a half-breed person, neither belonging quite to the Greek world nor yet to the Jewish world, and with the family, leaving perhaps much to be desired. The reference to having been trained and helped in the Scriptures by his grandmother, is also significant. He lived in the Lystra Derby area of Lycania, an Asia Minor, which is now Turkey, a very insignificant kind of place, and apparently a very wild kind of place, too. These are the people you remember who, first of all, wanted to worship the apostles as gods and ended up by stoning them for food. Now, this is the kind of place it was, a very rambunctious, emotional place. kind of area. Timothy was converted to God on Paul's first missionary journey. When Paul went through that part, and Acts fourteen, six, seven, at least as usually, assumed that that was the case, Paul calls him his own genuine child in the face. So there is no doubt that Paul led him to Christ. And since he was through the obvious inferences that that's when it happened. And that was after the trouble over Mark and the separation from Barnabas. You'll remember that Mark left Jerusalem with them and started out to go on that second missionary journey. And when he got as far as the coast of Asia Minor and the other man started pushing up into the hills inland, Mark thought it better go home. We don't know what the reasons were, and we're not judging Mark at all. But it certainly was a sufficiently serious business that a man of Paul's spiritual insight felt that Mark had in some way or other disqualified himself. There we leave it. Now, going from that, there was, of course, the trouble and the friction, and now into that part of the picture comes Timothy. He was singled out by prophetic utterance. You all know that these passages, First Timothy chapter one, verse eighteen, maybe it wouldn't hurt just a glance at these so that we won't take them too much for granted. First Timothy chapter one, verse eighteen. This charge I commit unto thee some Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on thee, that thy by them mightest war, a good warfare. And then chapter four of the same letter, prophecies which went before on thee, chapter four, and verse fourteen, neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given me by prophecy. And by the laying on of the hands of the presbytery, presbytery being purely and simply the plural of the word elder, and therefore would be elderhood, the elders. The elders in the plural laid their hands on him, and at that time he was separated out by some special indication from God. We look at this line by just enough to accept that for the moment. He was well spoken of by the Christians in general. That is, in chapter sixteen, verse two, which was well reported of by the brethren that were at Listera and Iconium. I think this is worth noticing for the very simple reason that some people these days in pulling away from what Paul calls man-pleasing, you remember in First Thessalonians, he said, we never did anything in the spirit of pleasing men, but rather of God. And some people take the attitude, well, if we're to please God and not men, then this means that no matter what anybody thinks, just tell them to go and take a race to themselves. We're not going to alter our actions or our thinking for anybody because we're not here to please people. We're here to please God. And I know I'm right and I know everybody else is wrong. And I couldn't care less what people think of me. Now when we study the scriptures, I think we'll find that this, even as a practical thing, even from its very lowest viewpoint and aspect, is a totally wrong and unchristian kind of mental attitude. In the first place, someone very usable and very gifted with a job that God has for him to do in the future can so discount himself by foolish, careless actions and saying, I don't care what anybody thinks about me, that their evaluation of him might be such that he's actually closing doors for himself and frustrating, or herself, and frustrating the very purposes that God has for us. For let there be no mistake, every one of us is being quietly, unconsciously, or subconsciously evaluated by God's people. And I think this is as it should be. And so, folk get together and they're going to discuss something even within young people's affairs. Let's ask so-and-so, oh, no. Oh, why? Well, forget it. Pass it up for the present. We don't want to talk about it. But somehow or other, we have been watching and evaluating, and we have arrived at the conclusion that that it wouldn't be wise. Now, somebody say, well, you know, he's very able. And, you know, underneath that queer kind of carry-on, he's a real good fellow. She's a real good guy. Well, maybe so. But if they start acting like that to other people, they're just going to tangle everything up for us. So let's not run the risk. Let's just sideline them for the president and forget it. We won't say no. We just won't bring it up. Pretend that it wasn't even mentioned. Now, I think you know what I'm talking about. Not only that, but sometimes in more serious things later on, someone's looking for somebody to do work in Sunday school or something else. No, let's not. Let's not bother asking so-and-so. Because she's always so completely thoughtless about other people, so rebellious, so careless, does this and that. Now, maybe this is a false evaluation, but he or she happens to have left themselves wide open to it. I know a missionary... You don't, so don't worry trying to figure out who it is. Long, long way from here in a totally different set of circumstances, and I'm going to say things that will deceive you. Emily, so you won't know who it is. A brother who was tremendously able and capable and useful, but had a certain air, an almost devil-my-care kind of way of approaching everything, to stir up, always to throw the cat among the pigeons kind of thing, And I know for a fact that again and again he was passed over and sidelined and undervalued and wrongly valued simply because he himself acted the way he did. He would have been very much wiser to have kept some of his provocative opinions. And oftentimes he didn't even believe what he was saying. He just said it to stir up a good bit of a shindy, you know, that kind of thing. There is a scripture in First Timothy chapter three, which refers to someone, you better turn to it, and we'll get it again. First Timothy chapter three. And verse twelve. Let the deacons be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children on their own house as well. Now, he has been mentioning a number of things back up there, but then in verse thirteen he says, For, because they that have used the office of a deacon, or they that have used this position and work of a deacon, well, purchased to themselves a good degree and great boldness in the faith which is in Christ Jesus. Now, the great boldness in the faith which is in Christ Jesus would seem to be that confidence in God which comes from a trust in Him, but that word of purchase to themselves a good degree. They simply by doing a job well have had themselves evaluated to be asked to do bigger jobs, knowing that they have proved themselves. If you're running an office or a store, a business, no matter what, And there are two people in that office, and one of them doesn't care, and he's forever telling you he doesn't care, too. If you just keep quiet, I wouldn't do that. But he's forever telling you he doesn't care, and I'm telling everybody else, and yet he's very capable. And something comes up for a promotion. You yourself know perfectly well who you would promote. Even though you know he's very capable and very able, you're a little bit frightened. Why? Simply because his way of behaving... has led you to evaluate him and you pigeonhole the kind of report to yourself on him. And maybe he has done himself or she has done herself a gross injustice. I think that we all need to consider the impact of our behavior on other Christians and on the work of God. We can't say that we live to ourselves. Scriptures say so. And we are every moment of every day having people evaluate us. Maybe they would never think that, and if you challenge them about it, say, no, I never gave it a thought, but they did. Underneath, there is a silent, subconscious evaluation going on all the time. And I hope that we'll think of this. Timothy was chosen by God, but he was readily commanded by these men, and very loyally supported by them, no doubt, because he had so behaved himself that he had gained their confidence, their esteem, their trust, and their praise. He was well spoken of. Then he was committed to God by the laying on of the elder's hands in a token of total and complete identification. He was circumcised before going away with Paul to make him acceptable. I don't know why that sense was broken off there to the Jewish people and the pagan Jewish people. Round about, we'll be talking of that more in detail a little further down. He was given by God's special and suitable gifts for his work. First Timothy, four, fourteen, which we've read. From this moment, he was the most constant and most intimate friend, companion, and co-worker of the greatest of all the apostles. His name occurs in nine of Paul's epistles. And Paul appears to have written fourteen, if you include Hebrews. In six of these epistles, his name is deliberately or officially associated with that of Paul as senders. That is, Paul and Timotheus, too, such and such, and so and so. So he is officially associated six times with Paul, so he grew to be a tremendously important figure in the things of God. And let's never forget that. Though he was relatively young... physically not robust first Timothy five twenty three take a little wine for thy stomach sake and thine off recurring illnesses nervous be not ashamed of the Lord nor of me his prisoner pull yourself together take your share of the afflictions which come with the gospel God has not given us the spirit of fear the word there is timidity it's not craven fear that cringes it's a shy fear which shrinks back from responsibility there are many indications that he was a retiring and perhaps unduly overawed by these things that is by his youth by his physical ailments or weaknesses and by his nervous perhaps more introspective kind of spirit now you can compare for yourself these many references we've given but one for example the apostle reveals a little bit of this when he writes to the Corinthians and he says when Timothy comes to you see that he is among you without fear a rather striking expression one of the translations has put it make him feel at his ease in other words don't you start pushing him around the way you do to me I can take it You can call me not an apostle, you can do anything. But if Timothy comes, put him at his ease. He is a younger man. He isn't a pushing type. He didn't particularly want the job. So see that he's among you without fear. Treat him gently. He needs it. Now, he didn't say that kind of thing about Titus. Yet he commended Titus to the very same people. And it would appear that this and other references seem to indicate that Timothy was of a shy, retiring disposition. Do you think you see some of perhaps your own personal characteristics here? We're all perhaps a little low, a little slow, to step forward into the light of, or perhaps into the shadow of greater men. We shrink. We don't like this. We don't particularly want to assume responsibilities that we may feel inadequate to meet. We too may have things in our home background that give us cause to pause, as this young man had. And here he was, very much younger. Perhaps he might have thought ahead of his time being pushed into very alarmingly responsible positions and places. As we'll see at the bottom of that paragraph, look on where we were reading there. He was entrusted by Paul with the most important jobs to various local churches at moments of great crisis and need. He was sent to Thessalonica, First Thessalonians three and one and two. He was sent to Corinth, First Corinthians four, seventeen, sixteen, ten. He was sent to Philippi, Philippines one, nine. He was sent to Macedonia. Now Macedonia is a country, it could have been Philippi again, or it could have been any of the other places there, but still it's mentioned separately in Acts, and he was sent to Ephesus, First Timothy, one three, or taken to Ephesus and left there. For this cause left I thee at Ephesus, that thou mightest charge some, that they teach no other doctrine and so on. So five times over, this young man is thrust into places of tremendous responsibility. Naturally, he would shrink from it. And he would say, well, you know, they're expecting Paul. Paul can get these things over. But what about me? And perhaps we wouldn't have blamed him if he had got an attack of what we would call today cold feet and had moved back a little bit, as he appears to have done in Second Timothy. Can't we see just a picture in so many ways of ourselves? They were very critical days. False teaching was coming in. Churches were breaking up. whole areas had turned against Paul. The Lord's people would seem to have been divided in Asia Minor and possibly in other places as well. Many of them were dying, some by violent death, Stephen, James, and others, even at this early day. And here he is, faced with difficult times, division among God's people, sorrow, suffering, persecution, martyrdom, And he's not well. He's got an upset stomach, possibly the prototype of preachers with an ulcer. Here he is, Timothy. Take a little wine for thy stomach's sake, and for thine oft-recurring illnesses. Nice to think that these things go so far back, isn't it? At the end of his life, he is the man Paul most wants with him, and for whom he sends. Second Timothy chapter four. Do thy diligence to come unto me quickly. Come on, hurry up. Get to me before winter, if you possibly can, because I just long to have you with me. I think this is one of the most stirring, what would you call it, one of the most favorable things that ever could be said about anybody. I have thought about it, thought about it, and thought about it. You know, after all, when a man like Paul is in prison and he's faced with death, who would I like to be here with me in this last bind, this last dreadful crunch? Now, there were thousands of Christians, probably by this time hundreds of thousands. We know of a score or so of the preachers, but this doesn't mean we know of them all. Every once in a while, God pulled one of them out of a bag just like something that never existed before. Ananias, go and talk to Paul. I don't think God sent some drudge from around the corner who didn't know a thing about him and who was unemployed, one of these unemployed Christians, to go and talk to a man like Paul. I think Ananias must have been a real man, a very real person. We don't read about him either before, I think. So there may have been scores of able men. Certainly there was a great band of very intimate friends. Only Luke is with me. Please come, Timothy. I want you more than anybody else. Now, every once in a while you hear people saying, if you were going to be abandoned on a desert island, what three books or what two books would you most like to have? If you are going to be... If you were going to be abandoned, who would you like to have with you? Who is the person you would most like to be abandoned on an island with? Well, keeping this in its focus here, if you were faced with execution, if you were days from death, if everything seemed to be breaking up and you were so desolate in some way and in some angles, the terrible things that were happening among God's people. And there was someone, some close friend, that you would like to have with you. Think it over. What kind of person? I don't think you would necessarily choose the fellow who was always the life of the party. I don't think you would necessarily choose the good storyteller. I don't think you would necessarily choose the prankster, the fellow who had so many funny things that he always did. All this is now way outside the picture. We want somebody who's a man of God. We want somebody very close and very firm and very strong, very trustworthy. And Paul's eye ranges over them all. He says, Timothy, my genuine child and faith, come to me before winter. I want you to be here. Would you measure up to this kind of thing? That's another jumping off point. Now, necessary lessons for such a life of usefulness what we have seen actually is a young man from conversion rapidly rising through a whole series of steps and becoming next to the apostle paul probably one of the most prized and one of the most notable men of the apostolic age i don't think there's any doubt about this how did he get that way now it didn't just happen True, true, of course, God chose him prophetically. True, the elders put their hands on him, and he was given very special gifts from God. But that's only one side of the story. No matter how many gifts were given him by God, he is told, stir up the gift that is in me. Now, I think there, in that one little sentence, you have a wonderful solution of this nagging thing that comes up all the time, where do the sovereignty of God and the will of man where do they meet well there's one verse where they meet he had divinely given gifts that were bestowed apart from his worthiness of that we can be sure God saw down the ages and God had planned it all but but Paul says stir it up stir it up don't let it gutter down don't let that flame go down and down until you've got nothing but ashes work on it keep it up where God wants it keep it up the way God wants it And so there were lessons to be learned. There was a life of self-discipline. It would be a very interesting thing for you to take some of Paul's exhortations to Timothy and see how they fit in. Don't neglect the gift. Stir it up. Don't be ashamed. Don't be afraid. Don't stagnate. Don't shrink away from suffering. Be an example to the flock. Don't let people despise your youth. And he didn't say, go around with your chin sticking out and look important so they won't despise you. He says, let no man despise thy youth but be thou an example. In other words, I think the implication is, never do anything that would give people an opportunity to despise your youth. And this is very important. So he had lessons to learn. And I would like just that you would glance down these. He was called by God, but there was an immediate obedience. Now, the very first man, this is the last of our theories in this study, the very first man was called Abraham, and he too was called. But you remember what it said? By faith, Abraham, when he was called, obey. Now, again, we have the sovereignty of God and the will of man meeting in that mysterious crossroads. And the fact that God is sovereign never, never, never absolves man from the moral responsibility of his own choices. God will be justified, completely justified in punishing the man who disobeys him because that man is free to make a choice as to obedience or not. He's not a bottle, he's not a machine, he's not something with a label on it that has to just go for it. He's set and never moved. And so he was called by God, but there was already obedience to that call. There never seems to have been a question about it in his mind. If we were called by God to do something, not necessarily to go millions of miles away, to evangelize the moon or something like that, but if we felt called by God to do anything for him tomorrow or the next day or the next week or the next year, would we be obedient? Here is lesson one. Without obedience, all other lessons are bound to fall short. You've got to go back to that in absolutely faithless. Then there's the lesson of subjection to elders and senior workers. Now, we have that in chapter says, Jesus. Paul, it says, him would, Paul, have to go with him. Now, we know, of course, that Paul wanted him to go with him, not just of a kind of what would you call impression that he had not just because he liked the young fellow God had prophetic we made a revelation to him but let it let boil it down to its present day denominators Paul was convinced from God that this was the man of God's choice now Paul that convincing came through a prophetic a prophetic communication but we can be just as sure today God can confirm his will to us. And this came, this call came, and they were all convinced about it. But will you notice that though the call of God comes as a result of a divine, a clear and divine revelation, just the same. Elders and Paul, the senior worker, are both involved. And they seem to be, actually, the leading active members in this high angle. There is the missionary candidate, there are the elders of the home assembly, and there is the worker already on the field. He's called him senior worker for one of the better terms. Now here is this young man, and he is actually subject to this, for we have in the very next one, let's put these two together. In number three, there is a lesson of acceptance of the unpleasant for the good of the work. Paul knows what he's talking about. He was not doing this through near human expediency. You see, when the Jews tried to force him to have Titus circumcised Gentile, Paul said, no. The answer is no. And he says this. We didn't give place to them not for so much as an hour when they wanted to compel us to circumcise Titus as a matter of obligation. The answer was no way, because he would not jeopardize the liberty of the Christian. But here he's talking about something different. This young man's mother is a Jewish, not his grandfather. His father is a Greek, a Gentile. And Paul knows that this young man is going to be zeroed in on by these people who were Christians but with a Jewish conservative background. And any little trifling thing is going to be taken advantage of. And now not as a matter of legal obligation or legalistic obligation, but as a matter of spiritual wisdom, a matter of yielding, as he says in First Corinthians, is it nine? Or it will come anyway. You know the passage. He came all things to all men that he might gain the more. There's a perfect example of it. yielding his own right. He could have said no, but this time there was no pressure on. He simply said, this young man is going to be more useful if they can never hurl at insult in a speech. You'll pay them. The Jews referred to Gentiles or to people like this, half and half, as uncircumcised dogs. And it would have been a barrier. It would have posed a problem. Now, we look at it today. Sometimes young workers go into, for example, a foreign country where there's a slightly different culture. And maybe senior workers say, now look, while you're here, just remember that this is Toronto. Remember that it's very, very easy to cause events. Remember that while you have a perfect right to do A or B or X or Y, it really is why they're not to, because you can alienate people. Oh, this is a lot of study done. I wouldn't be bothered listening to this, because after all, I'm a free Christian before God, and I think this is just bringing myself into bondage to a lot of old folks. I don't think so. I think a person who is learning from God will always be willing to accept advice from others, and even accept an unpleasant beauty or restriction until they prove by experience and waiting on God that it isn't necessary. But while you don't know, I think it's always a good thing to accept leadership, guidance, and godly counsel from those who are. And here we have subjections to elders and the senior worker in this thing, and in others, of course, and then the acceptance of this unpleasant thing for the good of the work. These are all lessons. Can't you see Timothy learning? He's coming on. That's grade three. Number four, he learned the lesson of the supremacy of God's guidance. He was no sooner commended to the work, and he saw this awesome struggle in the minds of the apostles, to me, one of the most mysterious portions of Scripture, why? Why, for example, were they, as they went through, look at verse six, when they had gone through our fridgen, that just immediately on leaving Lister and Derby, and the region of Galatia, and were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia. Now, they were right in the province of Asia at that time. It wasn't that they were forbidden to go. They were there. But it says very carefully they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the word. Why? I don't know. Later on, the word of God was preached, thoroughly preached, and multitudes of people were saved. I think the only thing we can say is, it obviously was not God's time. Now here's a younger man, and he's watching these older workers, and he's learning lessons, and this lesson is, guiding through God. God does die. Let's not be impatient. But look at all these millions of people getting lost. Man, we can crank this through a computer and come up with one million to one. And before you get through such and such a period of your life, waiting your time there are going to be so many million people in hell. Therefore, you should be preaching today and not tomorrow or not next month. And over all God, right, they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. We need to learn to be guided by God. And he learned it right in the same chapter as an absolute neophyte, a first-termer, a young worker, here he is. Then they tried to go, when they came into Misnia, they essayed to go into Basinia, but for it suffered them not, and so on. So they learned. Then they came to Troy, and there they saw the vision, and they went over into Europe for the first time, and all the time, this young man is watching, watching, watching. and he's learning the lesson of guidance from God. Number five, he's in the phrase five now. The lesson of anonymity, so that's a big word, a rather annoying kind of a word, it just simply means working without having your name mentioned. Anonymous. Without your name and the headline. All this period, Timothy must have been with these men in Philippi, in Berea, in Thessalonica, and through that whole period, he doesn't want to get his name in seals or echoes or the missionary service. And that is not what. No newspaper mentions him, no record of his name in Acts fifteen and right through in seventeen, not what. I may be a younger person, but well, you're all these other people hugging their headlines. You know, why am I not taking notice of You know, young Christian, the safest place you can ever be is the place of obscurity. That's the very safest place. Low, up I seek, Lord Jesus. That's the place where you'll never fall. And it takes a very, very steady hand to carry a full cup. And once you get out in the headlines, and once you get out in the limelight, You'll find those old arrows twinkling around your ears, not only from the devil, but from everybody who's doing the devil's work. And you'll be very fortunate if you don't get one of them in your ear. Don't covet the limelight. Be prepared to take the place of quiet shadow working. Wasn't it Spurgeon who said it takes more grace than I can tell to play the second fiddle well? And it does. It does. You know, the old top tenor gets out there and everybody can hear him soaring up above everybody else and they forget that there are three others and that if they all stopped and left that top tenor, he'd sound like a spooky hinge all on his own. It takes the others to make the background for him and for all the parts to work together. Never mind the anonymity. Learn to work quietly and obscurely. Timothy had to learn that. Then in grade six now, he had to learn the lesson of separation from Paul and working with Silas. Now that's Acts chapter seventeen. He was sent back, you see, with Silas to Thessalonica in chapter seventeen. And in second Timothy one, Paul, we have the same kind of thing. Some people become obsessively attached to a Christian companion worker. They, I work with him, but Don't ask me to go and work with so-and-so. Maybe it's a dream for you to go and work with so-and-so. Maybe he knocked some corners off you that the other summers isn't. And maybe you need to knock off me. We all ought to learn to work with God and to be able to work in harness with X just as well as with A and with B just as well as with Y and with C just as well as with C. Let's not make up our minds and say, well, if I'm in the Lord's work, I want to be in the Lord's work. But with so-and-so, on so-and-so's station, in so-and-so's assembly, preaching with so-and-so, but don't ask me to go and preach with somebody else. I think if you say that, you have one or two lessons to learn, at least Timothy has. So he was separated from Paul, and it would appear that he worked just as happily, just as well, with Silas. Now, this doesn't mean that Silas and Timothy loved each other. the way Timothy and Paul did. And I am not at all dying grading the values and the enormous worth of close and intimate companionship. Not for a moment. Surely they must be among the most beautiful things on all God's earth. These beautifully warm, close companionship. Happily are the people who are in circumstances where they can help raise them. But learn, like Timothy, to do God's work with whoever God may ask you to work with, and to do it equally well with the one as with the other. Then in grade seven, number seven, there was suffering, just the suffering connected with the work at Philippi, Thessalonica, and so on. Acts twenty, verses three, four. Hebrews thirteen, twenty three. In Hebrews thirteen, twenty three, maybe you never even notice it there, but it says, I want to tell you that our village Timothy has been released. He's out of jail. So Timothy finally did make it into jail, all on his own. And there he is now released, and it's hoped that he will come to them. The people who say that Hebrews is an anonymous thing are really not quite accurate. There's no name attached to it. The name of the writer was very well known for the people who received it. personal indications at the end that would indicate this. Number eight, the lessons of working with an older man. I won't go into that, but you'll certainly learn a lot to work with an older man. I don't mean always either in an easy way, but older people sometimes are more difficult to work with in your eyes than people of their own age. But you can learn a lot, even in the unpleasant thing. And to work with an older person means a considerable amount of adjustment on both sides. But isn't adjustment something that you would want to be able to do? You don't want to get set in a cast iron mold. You don't want to become solid, congealed, frizzily arthritic with your joints frozen in one position. You want surely to learn to adapt. You want surely to be able to change your mind in the right direction. Because of course learning is a process of progressively thinking hardening. Really, truly absorbing newer and bigger and better things to add to what you already know. So working with an older man was one of the lessons we had to learn. The lesson of sharing the love and friendship of Paul. Not quite the same thing. One is working with an older man is a kind of difficult problem. in a way. The other is learning the lesson of sharing the love and friendship of Paul. I think that must be an instrumental experience. Then the lesson of sickness. We've already referred to this. First Timothy five, twenty-three. We learn a lot in sickness. And I think that Paul put his finger on it when he says that we would be able to comfort others with the consolation for which we ourselves have been comforted in all our distresses and so on. This is what God is saying here. Paul had a deep and serious and degrading illness. Second Timothy chapter twelve. Timothy had one, two. These men had to learn to handle that. And then there was a lesson in grade eleven. I didn't get them up to grade thirteen. It may be in the discussion groups you'll find grade twelve in grade thirteen. Maybe you'll get up to grade twenty in four years of university as well. But I just got as far as eleven. The failure of Mark and Demas at the beginning and the end of his full-time career. I think that's rather a remarkable thing, that when he started the work, he really started it to some extent on the wreckage of another worker who has been there before. That would shake a man, wouldn't it? Some people might say, oh no, I don't want to change this job like that. Well, look what happens to Mark. Keep me out of that kind of thing. And then at the end of his career, the very last letter written to him, do thy diligence to come unto me quickly, without delay, before winter, because demons have forsaken me, having loved this presently. He's gone to Thessalonica. And I don't think Demas has necessarily been guilty of some gross and heinous sin. And I don't think he's gone tearing off the Thessalonica into a life of debauchery or something like that. I think in all probability that he was so great around Paul in Rome and he decided to be a convenient time to have a short series in Thessalonica and just get out from underneath the heat. That's all. But he failed. He abandoned his post and his job. And here is Timothy standing. At the very beginning of my life, Mark told me. Now here at the very end of Paul's life, when everything looks so bad, Junus has told me. Maybe the easiest thing for me to do is to just retire quietly before something happens to me too. But nothing of the time. You've had to learn the lesson of plotting on for God even bracketed between the favor of other workers. Now listen, young friend, or older friend too. You may, you just may, have to say something. Some people become embarrassed and say, well, if that's the way it goes, keep me far from it. Either they'll say, look at the way he was treated. Or you just need to make one slip and the old patch aside for it. Or they might say, no, the whole thing's just not worth it. After all, look at so-and-so. He was so-and-so. Look at so until she was so promising. Look what happened to them. If it happened to me, the best thing for me to do is just retire into my shell and just stay there. Don't rock the boat. Don't bother me. I don't want any danger, so I don't want any anything. I'm just going to pull back. If you do that, you will be marring your life. You will be doing yourself the greatest injustice. Learn lessons from the day you survive. but neither become dispirited, discouraged, nor in bitterness. Put your hand in God and learn Timothy, greater than that. Undoubtedly you can find out is, I think that these are some of the ingredients that go into the making of a man of God. And I hope we can take them from one life through, face up to them ourselves, and may God make of many of us too, men and women of God.