SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/212/2025 7:42 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-4 "Intro to 2 Timothy 4:1-5)
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: 2 Tim. 4:1-5
Message of the verses: “1 I solemnly
charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge
the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: 2 preach the word; be ready in season and
out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. 3 For the time will come when they
will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled,
they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own
desires, 4 and will turn away
their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths. 5 But you, be sober in
all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your
ministry.”
We are looking at this time the introduction to 2
Timothy 4:1-5, and in today’s SD I want to continue to quote from the sermon by
John MacArthur which comes from 1988 in order for us to better understand the
introduction to these very important verses.
“Now,
let’s look specifically at the elements of the charge. They’re so very, very
important. “I solemnly charge you,” – he says – “in the presence of God, even
Christ Jesus.” Now the word in some of your Bibles is “and Christ Jesus.” In
fact I think some of them say “and the Lord Jesus Christ.” The proper rendering
of the text is “and of Christ Jesus.” The word “and,” however, can mean, but,
and or even. And according to the Greek form and construction here, it seems
best to translate it as “even” Used then to cause the terms Christ Jesus to be
descriptive of the name God.
“So
he is charging Timothy in the presence of God, the God who is Christ Jesus,
even Christ Jesus. The sentence structure favors that. Although you cannot be
dogmatic, it could be in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus both. But I
prefer “God, even Christ Jesus.” Particularly not only because of the
linguistic opportunity to do that but because of the theology of it. It says, “who
is to judge the living and the dead.” And the one who is to judge the living
and the dead is Christ Jesus. So it seems to make simple sense to say, “In the
presence of God, even Christ Jesus who is to judge.”
“Now
we know that God has ordained Jesus as the judge. John 5:22 says He has committed all judgment to the Son.
The Son, the Lord Jesus Christ is the judge. From a linguistic viewpoint we can
translate “even Christ Jesus.” From a theological viewpoint it makes sense as
well because He indeed is the judge. So there’s an affirmation here of the
deity of Christ, there’s an affirmation here of the judgment duty of Christ.
Both of those are significant. The solemn charge here parallels a common format
used in court cases.
“Let
me tell you what I mean. When it says, “I solemnly charge you in the presence
of God and of Christ Jesus,” it takes a format that was used in the typical
subpoenas, legal documents of ancient times. For example, we have found –
archaeologists have – ancient documents. One of them reads like this. This is a
document given to a person who is to come to court, it says, “The case will be
drawn up against you in the court at Heracleopolis in the presence of” and it
names the judge, very similar terminology to here.
“Paul
then is using legal terminology, the terminology of a subpoena, the terminology
that called people into court. And what he is saying here is, “The case will be
drawn up against you in the court of God, even Christ Jesus who is the judge,
and the time is at His appearing and His Kingdom.” It’s a solemn subpoena for
the preacher to come to court to face the adjudication of God with reference to
His ministry. But there’s more than that. There’s more than just the statement
that God is the judge, God in Christ, there’s more than that. Notice this. “I
charge you in the presence of God even Christ Jesus who is to judge the living
and the dead.”
“The
other added element is not only is God even Christ Jesus our Lord to be the
judge, but your ministry right now is going on in His what? His presence.
That’s very unusual. Typically, when you’re subpoenaed to go to court and you
go to court for some kind of a trial, everybody comes into court with the
perspective of trying to tell the judge what he doesn’t know. True? So
plaintiff comes in, presents a case; defendant comes in, presents the case;
everybody pleads. Judge, this is what happened, this is what happened, this is
what happened, then this happened, then this happened, here are the facts,
here’s the data, here’s the situation.
And the next group: Here’s what
happened, here’s what happened, here’s what happened, this happened, then that
happened; cross examination. Well, Judge, we think this happened. No, we think
this happened. That meant this; this meant this; this meant the other. Bring in
all the expert testimony. How does this work? How does this happen? All the
cross examination, all the argumentation, and every bit of it is to assist the
judge in a court where the judge is making the decision, to convince the judge
of what he otherwise wouldn’t know.
“Not
so with Christ. When those of us who face Jesus Christ face Him – and that
means everybody in the world, all the living and the dead; we’ll see about that
in a moment – when we face Christ there will be nothing that He does not what?
Know. Nothing! There will be nobody to come in and testify against us. There
will be nobody to come in and testify on our behalf. There will be no need to
rehearse the facts. There will be no opportunity to say, “But, but, but Lord,
You don’t understand that, see. See, the reason I wasn’t very faithful was,
well, it was my wife, or well, Lord, they paid me so little. Lord, You just
don’t understand, I mean I was having a lot of struggles over” – No, there
won’t be any need for that. “Lord, You didn’t understand this, You see, you
didn’t remember about that event over there that caused this.” And there won’t
be any of that.
“You
won’t have to explain anything; all the facts will be there. That’s really a
quite compelling thing to realize that the one who will be the eternal judge is
the one who presently is aware of every single detail of every single life of
every single human being. Nobody is going to have to rehearse anything to Him.
He knows it all. There won’t be any lawyers there. There won’t be any advocates
there. There won’t be any witnesses there. Doesn’t need to be. Nobody will
bring any information in. There won’t be any exhibits brought to the court,
nothing. He’ll know everything. He knows it instantaneously. And as He is
recording it all in His book, it’s all there for documentation.
“God
doesn’t write it in His book – the book mentioned in Revelation 20 – so
that He’ll remember it, He writes it in the book so that all eternity will
swear as to its veracity. So here we do our ministry then in full view of the
one who ultimately will judge. That’s compelling. That is compelling. God even
Christ Jesus is watching, we are in full view of Him who is very God, the
sovereign one to whom all judgment has been committed. What a compelling,
compelling thing that is to think about. I’m not serving in view of men, I’m
serving in view of God.
“In
1 Timothy chapter 5, the first such compelling charge was given to Timothy.
This is the third. The first one came in 1 Timothy 5, verse 21. Paul said
to Timothy, “I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus
and of His chosen angels to maintain these principles.” And there’s that
compelling again. Hey, what you do, you do in full view of the God who will be
your judge. He doesn’t mention that God is the judge there in verse 21. He just
says you’re doing it in view of God.
“Chapter
6 verse 13 again, “I charge you in the presence of God who gives life to all
things and of Christ Jesus, who testified the good confession before Pontius
Pilate, that you keep the commandment without stain or reproach until the
appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Now he starts to make it more compelling,
he does talk about the appearing of Christ. Then in 2 Timothy 4 verse 1,
the appearing when He will judge. This is the third solemn compelling charge to
Timothy related to the presence of God in Christ who is to be the judge. A
compelling seriousness of what we do, beloved, has reference to the fact that
God will be in Christ our judge and He will have seen everything, everything.”
Ok,
there is much to think about in this section, and I suppose that it will
continue in the next section, as I only put so much of this very informative
sermon on each day in order to give you time to think about it, and there is
much to think about in this section for sure.
Spiritual
Meaning for my Life Today: It seems that what Paul was charging to
Timothy here is also to charged to me, and to all believers, and this can only
be done through the power of the Holy Spirit of God who indwells all true
believers and is eager to work in all their lives to the glory of God.
My Steps of
Faith for Today: Be ready to keep this charge that is spoken
of in this section.
6/22/2025 8:11 AM
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