Morning Manna | 2 Timothy 4:1-8 | I Charge Thee

2 Timothy 4:1-8 I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; 2 Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. 3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; 4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. 5 But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry. 6 For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. 7 I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: 8 Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.

 What we have is the weathered apostle coming to the end of his duty and is passing off the baton of service to his son in the faith, Timothy. They have been together for many years now, at least 20 years or more, and what we have are the final words to, by what we can tell, Paul's dearest companion in the faith and also in this world. He calls this a charge in verse one, “I charge thee” and look who he calls to witness such a charge “I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ.” This lets us know this is not just another casual conversation between friends. The weight of these words must have been enormous upon the heart of Timothy, and they ought to bear heavy on the hearts of all men who hope to follow in the footsteps of the men who followed in the footsteps of our Lord. 

What was the charge that he received? To preach, “Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.” Of all the things Paul could have charged him to do, it seemed that preaching was the one thing that took precedence in the ministry. No wonder, the gospel is the power of God unto salvation and its primary means of communication is preaching. Preaching, as Paul told Titus, is how God has decided to manifest His word in this hour (Tit 1:3). Preach the word, that is the Logos. That is Christ, the embodiment of the written word, the living word! If you will preach the written word, people will see the living word, Jesus Christ. Without a doubt, we have been commissioned above all things, in our labor, to preach the word. Preach it when the sun is shining and people are responding, preach it when the clouds hover over and people despise it, preach it in the good times and in the bad, as He said, “Be instant in season and out of season.”

Preaching the word will involve reproving, that is convincing by admonition, rebuking, that is outright confrontation of wrongdoing, and exhortation, that is encouraging men to do what is right. Are these the attributes of our preaching and of the preachers to which we lend our ears and hearts? Most of what takes place in this hour is nothing more than a motivational speech about how to better our lives and feel better. If the preaching you subject yourself to doesn’t from time to time rebuke you, reprove you, and exhort you to turn from the wrong to the right, then you need to find yourself a preacher somewhere who has taken this charge of the Apostle seriously.

Reproving, rebuking, and exhorting are the components of preaching, but look at the companions of preaching: “with all longsuffering and doctrine.” Rebuking, reproving, and exhorting must be accompanied by longsuffering and doctrine. Longsuffering because most likely the first 15 times you preach something, people will not hear it; only after long seasons of faithful preaching and longsuffering on the behalf of the preacher does the flock begin to take the words of reproof and rebuke and exhortation, so don’t be surprised or discouraged when you have to suffer long under seasons of no seeming change in the lives of those to whom you preach.

Then our preaching must always be doctrinal, not psychological, cultural, or any other thing. We must preach the word according to the word; we have heard preachers open the Bible, read a text, and go on a 45-minute rant about their preferences and irritations with none to little Bible to give any force to what they were saying. Doctrine is so important that the first letter written to Timothy was mainly about keeping the doctrine, and in so doing, you are promised to save yourself and those who hear you. 

Then he warns Timothy (and us) that a time is coming when preaching of this sort will be desperately needed but also desperately despised. Instead of God-sent preachers, men will get for themselves teachers. Notice how careful he was to say that they would heap to themselves, that is an indication that they were not sent by God and they know nothing about this preaching ministry the Apostle just spoke of. These are like the hired priest from the book of Judges who, for ten shekels and a shirt, was willing to serve his master as a priest, albeit an unauthorized priest performing unauthorized ceremonies for his wages. Sadly, we are living in the hour spoken of; the evidences are all around us. Pulpits have become lecterns, pastors have become rock stars of personality, churches have been turned into an entertainment venue, and men have turned away from any preaching or ministry that operates by the charge we find in this verse.

We have labored the first few verses just to get to where my heart was for this morning. The final fourfold instructions of this charge, “But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.” He starts with the conjunction but, that is to say, in spite of all those who reject this sort of preaching and ministry, in spite of compromise on every hand. This word, although small, has a great lesson for us; we must have the mentality that in spite of all the compromise and ear-tickling that is going on in the “church” today, we are going to keep the charge committed unto us. This requires watchfulness, which is the first instruction, as he said in 1 Tim 4 we must watch ourselves and our doctrine, but here he goes further to say all things. The word watch is also translated as sober, and that gives us the picture of someone alert, not intoxicated by the spirit of this hour, not sleepy from the labor of ministry, not distracted by the cares of life, but watchful, sober, vigilant, like Solomon's guards in the night who are all expert in war. Dear commissioned men, let us watch ourselves, our families, our ministries, our doctrine, let us watch all things; these are the final words of the charge that the Apostle gives us, and we must keep them.

Then as soldiers of the cross we must “Endure afflictions.” Notice he does not specify what type of afflictions, because all are encompassed in this charge. In the ministry there will be afflictions of heart, endure them. There will be afflictions of mind, endure them. There will be afflictions of health, endure them. There will be afflictions from family, brothers, lost people, and Satan's fiends. What do we do? Do we retaliate? No! “Vengeance is mine saith the Lord, I WILL REPAY.” We simply endure, that is, bear it, but thank God when the afflictions become too much to bear we have a reprieve in our Lord Jesus Christ, “Cast all your care upon me!” It may look like we are bearing a load, and we are, but underneath are the everlasting arms! He bears us up whilst we bear the load of service to him! So not if, but when afflictions come, endure. 

Now we get to the laborious bit of this charge, the boots-on-the-ground frontline action, “Do the work of an evangelist.” Timothy was not by his calling an evangelist, he was a pastor, but this was no excuse for him not to do the work of an evangelist. Any preacher who has ceased to do the work of proclaiming the gospel of Jesus to the lost world, and bringing souls before Christ for him to do his saving work in them, has ceased, at least in part, to keep the charge that Paul has given us here. We can’t save them, that is true, but how shall they hear without a preacher? Did not Jesus preach on the streets? Did not Paul? And Peter? And Timothy? Do we have any example of a NT preacher who did not have the boldness to stand up and preach the gospel to all? So why do we find in our hour so many who have excused themselves from this work? Perhaps because it is work. It is laborious on the will, it is laborious to your pride, it is an exercise that renders you a fool, but the results are worth all the labor. Preaching the gospel to the lost world brings people face to face with the Gospel that is the power of God unto salvation. This was actually how Timothy died, preaching to a crowd of Diana worshipers in Ephesus. He died carrying out the great commission and the charge given to him by Paul. 

Lastly, he tells us, “make full proof of thy ministry.” How often are we satisfied with close enough? Men have a saying in the construction field, “Looks good from my house,” meaning if it isn't exactly right, who cares, we are going home at 5. It seems that this mindset has invaded the church, to make partial proof of the ministry given to us. Truth can be twisted, conscience can be laid aside, doctrine can be ignored, and before long, anything goes! No! We must make full proof, that is, carry it out in the way God has commissioned us to and not half-heartedly. If your eye be single, then your whole body is full of light, meaning be focused on one thing, and the minister cannot afford to be focused on anything more than this charge God has laid on his life. So make FULL proof of thy ministry. 

In closing, Paul leaves us with an encouragement of sorts. He has commissioned us to the work and then lets us know that his race is run, his work is finished, and he is ready to go. What an encouragement! To know that the man commissioning us has, by the grace of God, run this race before us, come to the end, and is handing off the baton. If he has run the race and finished the course, then so can we! So have thousands upon thousands run a faithful race and passed down the baton that Christ handed to his Apostles, and the Apostles to their protégés until this very hour.

Oh, to be a part of this line of faithful race runners and faith keepers! To reach the end of life on earth and say, “For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.” This can be our end if we take this charge he has given us and run with it and by it.