Download Faithful in Tough Times 5-7 - Palma Sola Community Church

December 11, 2016
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Being Faithful In The Faith In Tough Times
Intro: II Timothy 1:1-12.
Let’s pick up our study of specific people that the Apostle Paul is led to mention that are examples
of “all they which are in Asia be turned away from me”. -- II Timothy 1:15.
“be turned away from” -- apostrepho (ap-os-tref-o). It’s a compound word beginning
with “apo”, a primary particle meaning “off”, in the sense of “away from something near”,
to put it off, and “strepho”, meaning “to twist” or to turn around, to reverse. So
“apostrepho” means “to twist” and to “be turned away from”, and “to turn back.”
That’s one characteristic of apostasy.
I. In this immediate text, Phygellus and Hermogenes are identified for Timothy as two men, of the
many, that are guilty of having “turned away from” the Apostle Paul, and the truth of the gospel of
the grace of God in Christ, that he was given to preach. They are guilty of defection and disloyalty
to God’s Apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the Gentiles. -- II Timothy 1:1.
Note: We are not directly told what teaching these two men, representing “all they that be in Asia”,
have twisted and turned away from. But I think we would be accurate if we look at Paul and the
message he was given to preach as laid out in the previous verses.
II Timothy 1:8-10.
II. The apostasy of the next two characters is that of denying and diverting the truth concerning the
resurrection. -- II Timothy 2:1-2, 7-18.
Note: This is not a reference to the resurrection of Christ. It rather refers to the resurrection of
believers. So what were these two teaching? They also probably represent many others who were
committed to the same false doctrine. The apostasy about the resurrection of believers at that time
was expressed in two ways:
A. There were teachers that were teaching that the meaning of an individual resurrection was
nothing more than that a person lived on in their children. This teaching had its roots in the
teaching of the Sadducees who did not believe in the resurrection of the body.
Acts 23:1-8.
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Being Faithful In The Faith In Tough Times
B. It was claimed by some that the real resurrection of the believer took place at baptism. It
happened in that moment of baptism when a person came up out of the water (i.e. the grave), and
at that moment the believer was resurrected to new life in Christ here and now, not after death.
It is tragic that even today, with the thorough teaching of the Apostle Paul in his Epistles
concerning the resurrection of the believer in his identification with Christ, that people are taught
that the baptism in Romans 6 involves water. -- Romans 6: 1-5.
Note: Can you see how either one of these false teachings could “overthrow the faith of some”?
This is a good example and warning about how necessary it is to a diligent workman, “rightly
dividing the word of truth”, which literally means “to cut rightly”.
The Greeks used the word “orthotomeo” (or-thot-om-eh-o) in three descriptive ways:
1. They used it for driving a straight road across country.
2. They used it to describe ploughing a straight furrow across a field.
3. They used it for the work of a stone mason in cutting and squaring a stone so that it
fit into its correct place in the structure of a building.
The Bottom Line: Can it be any clearer than the descriptions above about what God meant
through our Apostle on how we must handle the word of truth?
How important is this principle in handling the word of truth?
This is so important that the Apostle Paul was inspired to include it in his last letter just before he is
led to pen Chapter 3:1, 7 ; 4:1-4, and 6.
Not cutting straight the word of truth, i.e., doctrine taught in error, leads to apostasy and the
overthrow of the faith of many. We can trace it back to the Garden with Adam and Eve. I’ve seen it
happen over and over again in my many years of ministry. The time is here that Paul warned
Timothy about. -- II Timothy 4:3-4.
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Being Faithful In The Faith In Tough Times
HOMEWORK: The absolute necessity of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and why we need to
understand this basic doctrine.
1. In order to hold the official position of being an Apostle of Jesus Christ, a man must have seen
the risen Christ. -- Acts 9:1-6; 22:1-10; I Corinthians 15:1-8.
2. If Christ was not raised from the dead, we are still in our sins. -- I Corinthians 15:12-17.
3. If Christ was not raised from the dead, then all those that have fallen asleep in Christ have
perished. -- I Corinthians 15:18.
4. If only in this life now we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied. -- I Corinthians 15:19.
Why? Because then, we like Paul, if we by God’s grace have lived a Christ-centered Godly life, we
will have suffered persecution because of our faith, but with no hope of eternal life. And then we
die. -- II Timothy 3:10-12.
5. The resurrection is part of the eternal wisdom of God in answer to sin and death.
I Corinthians 15:20-23; I Corinthians 2:6-9.
6. Part of the “mystery”, (a sacred secret), that God had never before revealed until He revealed it
through the Apostle Paul, is that these corruptible earth suits will be changed and be made
incorruptible, “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye”, and death is swallowed up in victory. -- I
Corinthians 15:51-58.