322 FORSAKING PAULSeptember 28, 1975
Henry F. Kulp
II Timothy 1: 6 - 11 Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands. For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God; Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel: Whereunto I am appointed a preacher, and an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles.
In II Timothy we have an apostolic charge, given by Paul to young Timothy. The believers had all forsaken Paul when he was in prison. Religion and the worldly government combined to put Paul in prison, and it was very costly to be seen with, to be in harmony with Paul.
1/ This Apostolic charge was given to Timothy in the face of a departure. Paul was about to die, he was about to depart from the field of battle. Timothy himself had forsaken Paul, he had become a sniveling coward, and had counted the cost, and it was too great.
2/ Paul says in verse 8 Don’t be ashamed of me or the testimony of our Lord. The word, ashamed, is an interesting word. It is in the Greek EP-ICE-COON-AH-MY. What it really means is IF YOU ARE ASHAMED, YOU OUGHT TO BE ASHAMED BECAUSE THE FAULT IS WITH YOU.
3/ Notice two things that he is not to be ashamed of:
(1) The Lord’s testimony, and that means evidence.
(2) The Lord’s prisoner, Paul. But notice, Paul is more than a prisoner, Verse 11
a prisoner. Verse 11 Whereunto I am appointed a preacher, and an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles. He is a preacher, apostle and teacher. So to turn away from the Lord’s prisoner, is to turn away from the Lord’s testimony. So when all these believers forsook Paul and turned away from Paul, they turned away from the Lord’s testimony and we will see more about that in just a moment.
4/ Paul calls on Timothy to suffer alongside of him. Suffering is taken for granted. To stand with Paul means to suffer.
5/ The word, partaker, is very interesting, and it means TO SUFFER EVIL ALONGSIDE SOMEONE ELSE. So, what Paul is saying BUT JOIN ME IN SUFFERING DISGRACE FOR THE GOSPEL IN ACCORD FOR GOD’S POWER.
6/ Paul was about to pay the supreme price—death. Paul and Timothy were not in a genteel profession. He was engaged in a calling that is associated with affliction, prison, and death. We, too, may not suffer prison and death, but when we stand with Paul we’ll suffer disgrace.
7/ Notice the Lord’s testimony and the Lord’s prisoner go hand in hand, and we came to the conclusion without fear of contradiction that those who turn away from Paul turn away from the Lord in this present dispensation.
II Timothy 2: 12 If we suffer, we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, he also will deny us:
Notice what he says here, if we suffer, we shall reign with Him. We shall talk about this in the future, but if you suffer with Paul, you will reign with Christ.
8/ But he is telling Timothy, if you suffer with me, you will have at your disposal in all the trials, the power of God, so that you can be victorious.
9/ Notice the affliction of the Gospel. What Gospel is in mind? Any intelligent student of the Scriptures, will know and teach there is more than one Gospel in the Scriptures. But the intelligent student will know that there is but one Gospel by which men are saved in this day of grace.
10/ Ephesians 1: 13 In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,
Here it is called the Gospel of your salvation. So this Gospel for our day, saves, but did the twelve preach it? Did Jesus Christ preach it upon the earth?
No, Matthew 3: 2 And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
Matthew 10: 7 And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand.
One last Scripture will tie it all together.
Matthew 9: 35 And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.
It is the Gospel of the kingdom. And it is not the Gospel that is here in the 8th verse.
Notice, II Timothy 2: 8 Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the dead according to my gospel:
And then, I Timothy 1: 11 According to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust.
This is Paul’s Gospel that was committed to Paul’s trust. Let’s analyze this for a moment and see what Paul means.
11/ II Timothy 2: 9 Wherein I suffer trouble, as an evil doer, even unto bonds; but the word of God is not bound.
In the beginning of this verse we have an echo of Ephesians 2: 8, 9 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.
And this phrase, in the beginning, ought to be—the one having saved us, and this is in the Ariost tense, and it means once and for all. And it is not according to our works.
12/ But we come to a very important part of this verse, that we better spend some time with. It is according to His own purpose. The word, purpose, in the Greek is PRO-THACE- US and it means, pre-designed plan, and that immediately catches our attention. His own pre-designed plan. And grace which was given us in Christ Jesus.
13/ Which was given us, notice, it was not earned by us. That is not what it says. It was given us before the world began. What does this mean? The word, world, here is interesting, and we must be careful because the word, is not cosmos. The word for world is KRON-NOSS and it means before history began. We get our word, CHRONOLOGY from it. The word, began, is EE-ON – ages. And so it means before the history of the ages. This plan of salvation was conceived in the mind of God. In an eternal-life conference when only God existed.
14/ This is the message that verse 10 is now being manifest by Paul the preacher, the Apostle and the teacher. It was hid in God.
15/ I Timothy 2: 5, 6 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.
And in verse 4 the important part I want you to see, it is to be testified in due time, in God’s time, according to His own clock, His own timepiece, when it was decided in this conference, to be revealed, and it was through Paul.
16/ II Timothy 1: 10 But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, But now is made manifest, by the appearing—that means the shining forth of our Saviour, Jesus Christ, Who has abolished death.
17/ The word, abolish, means, wear down, work down, to render powerless. Now let us turn to Hebrews 2: 14 Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;
Here we have the same word, here we read that by the first coming of Jesus Christ, Satan has been destroyed, which is the same word. It is by dejure, and not by defacto. These are legal terms.
18/ Dejure means BY RIGHT OF as opposed to defacto. Defacto means ACTUAL OR REAL. At the first coming death was rendered powerless for us, but is will not be a reality until the absolute destruction of death will take place for us, and we will have our resurrection bodies.
I Corinthians 15: 26 The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.
In the same way, we should not fear Satan, he has been made powerless for us, useless by the cross. We do not fear the power of the devil, he has been rendered useless by the death of Christ on the cross.
I am amazed how many people who are saved have been fooled by all this talk and teaching on demonism and the activity of Satan. He is a defeated foe.
AMEN
Ref: 09/28/1975/ 322 FORSAKING PAUL / 09/11/2020
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