2 Timothy 4:1–6

Paul wanted to put forward God Himself and the risen Man, who is to deal with mankind supremely in the coming day.

These are solemn and weighty words. They need to be weighed reverently in God's presence, especially by the Lord's servants. They set Timothy, and with him the worker in every age, in full view of his responsibility. At the same time they remind him of the judgment seat where the character of all service will finally be tested. It is, in fact, a searching appeal to the conscience. Everything that has to do with responsibility, government and judgment is gathered here into one view.

That solemn testimony which Paul speaks of is before God and Christ Jesus, who is about to judge living and dead. This judging is always near. Another apostle puts it this way: Christ "is ready to judge the living and the dead" (1 Peter 4:5). Only our text speaks of the judgment as a continuous process, while the other sums it up in its conclusion.

He will judge the living at His appearing, as the Tribulation comes to an end. He will judge the dead a thousand years later, at the Great White Throne. The Son of Man will be reigning in His kingdom, bringing every enemy into subjection before He delivers up the kingdom to the Father (1 Corinthians 15:24-26).

"…and by His appearing and His kingdom, proclaim the word." We have had the equipping of the man of God, and now we have his active engagement. Service is connected with the future, and so Paul charges him by His appearing.

Christ's appearance and His kingdom are therefore fitting and most impressive grounds of appeal. On that ground he was solemnly charging Timothy, or others like-minded and responsible, to preach the word. It is these that gave the charge immeasurable weight and awe.

The rapture is grace to all the saints equally caught up to Christ on high. The appearing will manifest the fidelity or the failure of each saint. That is why the apostle presses His appearing and His kingdom on Timothy still more closely, in preaching the Word and in all his other service.

The charge is given before God, and before the Lord Jesus Christ as Judge. His appearing and kingdom are the great limit of all responsible service… It means standing for God and proclaiming His grace with energy, while all the weight of the trials of "the last days" presses on the servant, and all the power of the enemy is set against him.

Two things will give him urgency. First, the judgment that will come on those who refuse the gospel. Second, the glorious results for those who receive it at the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ. Here, too, the appearing goes together with the Kingdom of Christ, for the appearing introduces the Kingdom.

Having stated the grounds of his appeal, the Apostle delivers his charge to serve. Men are responsible to God, so "proclaim the word; be urgent in season and out of season." Christ is going to judge, so "convict" and "rebuke" those who live in a way that calls for judgment. Christ will reward the saints at His appearing, so "encourage, with all long-suffering and doctrine."

That is why the command comes: "Preach the Word." It is not merely to go on preaching, but the Word is the word of God — the full revelation given to us of His mind. There must be more activity than ever. In season and out of season, we must seize every opportunity to set the great truths of Christianity before people.

"Be ready in season" is said to the saint. The time will come when they will not receive sound doctrine. This applies to the dealing with the saints. People often apply it to the gospel. The trouble is that they take verses without reading the context… Timothy was to keep pressing on, because soon they would not listen to him. Whether it was seasonable or not, he was to go on with it, because very soon there would be no season at all.

This was his one responsibility, whatever the state of things around. Indifference, decay, and corruption were increasing, and would go on increasing. Timothy was not to lose heart or treat this as a reason to do nothing. For this very reason he was to proclaim the Word all the more… He was not responsible for the effect of his testimony. Signs of blessing, or the lack of them, were not to sway him.

All times were alike to Timothy. His work must never stop. He must always watch for a chance to carry out his calling. No time would be wrong for a man who carried a "burden of the LORD" on his heart. Like the prophet Jeremiah, he would find the Word in his heart like a burning fire. Holding it back would wear him out, and he would not be able to keep silent (Jer. 23:38; 20:9).

Both saints and sinners may need conviction and rebuke. But this can only be by the preaching of the word, for it is only the word that produces conviction. We may seek to convict and rebuke by our own words and arguments, only to find that we irritate people and stir up resentment. Rebukes only work if they rest on the word of God. Those willing to bow to the word and accept its conviction and rebuke then hear the word of encouragement.

Whatever form the service takes, the servant must carry it out with all long-suffering and according to the truth, or "doctrine". The word will stir up opposition from the sinful nature. That opposition calls for long-suffering in the servant. The only answer that works is the doctrine, or truth, of Scripture.

The form of each verb implies prompt action… Proclaiming the word comes first. Urgent attention to the work, in season and out of season, follows the preaching. Then comes convicting — pressing the truth home. It is a healthy duty, even though it is painful to a tender spirit… Who was sufficient for these things? Timothy's sufficiency, as the apostle's, was from God. So may ours be in our little measure!

It is worth noting that the word translated "sound" comes up again and again. It is the word from which we get "hygienic," which is so often on people's lips today. It means healthful. Sound doctrine is in every sense doctrine that makes for spiritual health.

Notice, though, that this corruption begins with the hearers. It is they who "will not endure sound doctrine" (teaching). It is they who "after their own lusts … heap to themselves teachers" to satisfy a diseased and itching ear… Plain scriptural teaching only explains and applies the mind of God as contained in the Scriptures. That is not enough for such hearers. Neither are the teachers whom the Lord sends, since they prefer to "heap" up, to choose, their own.

Whether teachers fail or not, the time will come. The people, "having itching ears", will not endure sound doctrine. Following their own lusts, they will heap up teachers for themselves. This does not describe those who have never heard the truth. It describes Christendom, where people have heard the gospel but will no longer endure it. Even so, they do not give up the Christian profession, for they still heap up teachers for themselves. But those teachers must be ones who will not get in the way of their worldly desires by preaching the truth.

New, sensational things deceive even Christians — things that leave out the sound doctrine of the Word. But notice that this happens because "their own lusts" are involved: it is what the flesh desires. They become like people in love with a diet of wine and pastry, and they turn away from the healthy, solid food of the Word.

One danger for Christians at the present moment is the desire for stimulants in teaching… But stimulants are not food. Worse, in the end they create a distaste for it. They only stir the imagination, the intellect, or the nature. They never reach the conscience or the heart. The evidence of this desire is the itching ear (2 Tim. 4:3). Christ, and Christ alone, is the food of His people.

Here the time had not yet come for such widespread evil, but the Spirit of God speaks of it as close at hand: "For the time will be when they will not endure the sound teaching." It assumes people who were used to hearing the truth. But now the truth is hard to swallow, and its sound teaching cannot be endured — a frightful time for men who bear the name of the Lord. Sound teaching is always welcome to those whose desire is to grow in grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

And the result? Timothy would never be a popular preacher… There is no shortage of preachers now, but there is a shortage of those who preach the Word. It is one thing to preach about the Word, and another to preach the Word itself. There is a great danger in trying to please the popular ear. The people's ear is about as false as its voice is uncertain. Happy is the man of God who keeps preaching the Word to the end, when the crowd has turned away and listened to fables.

This is not about people who have never heard the truth. It is about Christendom, where men have heard the gospel but will no longer put up with it. Even so, they do not give up the Christian name. They still pile up teachers for themselves. But those teachers must not preach the truth and get in the way of their worldly desires.

Notice that this kind of corruption starts with the hearers. They are the ones who will not put up with sound teaching. They pile up teachers for themselves to suit their own desires and to satisfy a diseased, itching ear... Such hearers are not satisfied with plain teaching from Scripture — teaching that only explains and applies the mind of God as found in the Scriptures. Nor will they have the teachers the Lord sends. They prefer to heap up, to choose, their own... There could be only one outcome. They turn away from the truth and turn to fables, because only fables can feed their unhealthy appetites.

In the New Testament the word does not carry the meaning it often has today: a made-up incident that teaches some moral truth. It means myths, false stories — one passage calls them godless old wives' tales.

Imagination is never faith. Faith delights in knowing God and His will, and so trusts nothing but His word... Imagination is where people turn when they do not know the truth. The truth in Christ is the only perfect guard against it.

Satan's usual way is to stop the ear from hearing sound teaching first, and then to open it to take in corrupt teaching.

From the structure of the phrase, one writer of fine judgment draws this. They have already turned aside to fables, and that is what leads them to turn their ear away from the truth.

Here is the fatal result. Who can measure the dishonour done to God and His word? Who can tell what they lose in their own souls? They are not only cut off from the truth; they now have a real appetite for imaginative falsehood... The conscience is no longer governed by the sense of God's presence. Grace is unfelt, and so the constraining power of Christ's love no longer works. The holy fear of displeasing God disappears.

But the greatest fable that ever existed, or ever could exist, is still to come. That lawless one will bring it in. Christendom is preparing itself today to receive it, and it will fall under its power. The Lord will consume him with the breath of His mouth and destroy him with the brightness of His coming (2 Thess. 2:8).

Truth may look as if it has fallen in the street. The crowd may "turn away from listening to the truth" and "wander off into myths." Still he preaches the Word all the more earnestly and insistently.

A workman and leader needs more in a day of widespread and dangerous decline, when intoxicating influences were as common as they were varied: "But you, be sober in all things." The word does not mean vigilance, as the Authorized Version has it, nor a sound mind, though that sense is close. It means sobriety of judgment. Timothy was to keep clear of anything that excites or dulls the mind. Others were drifting with the crowd, away from the truth and into fables.

He is to "watch," or rather "be sober" in all things. The word used means "that sober clearness of mind that comes from being free of false influences — not muddled by the influence of what intoxicates." This is a very important word for all of us. Nothing so intoxicates the mind and muddles the perceptions as the false modern teaching we have just mentioned.

He is called to "suffer evils," or hardships, and this in the most general way. In 2 Timothy 1:8 it was to suffer evil "with the gospel"... In 2 Timothy 2:3 the thought is different. There Timothy takes his part in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. Here all idea of "sharing" is left out. Readiness to endure ills in his place and service is what the apostle claims. Paul did not lay a burden on his young colleague which he himself had not long and fully borne.

The enemy watches for any chance to spoil the testimony given to Christ. Afflictions are not sent to turn us aside, but to be endured.

People often misunderstand the next call. They read it as if the apostle meant Timothy to do an evangelist's work when he did not have that gift, and so was not really an evangelist! There is not the shadow of a sound reason for such a reading. The real danger was different. The growing difficulties and troubles of the church might distract the young and sensitive worker. Demands from inside might make him give up the gift he truly had for work outside, though it was not his only gift.

Do the work of the evangelist. People ask me, "Are you an evangelist?" "I don't know," I reply. I do not know or care whether I am one or not, if only I can do the work of one. The work of the evangelist is to bring Christ before souls, and to bring souls to Christ. In a day when everything is out of order, the servant of Christ is to be a "man of all work."

The very last instruction of a public nature given by the apostle Paul was that Timothy should "do the work of an evangelist"... He was about to drop his pen forever and lay down his life for the sake of Christ and the Church. With his parting breath, and in view of all the coming ruin that would fall on the Church, this devoted servant charged his son in the faith to attend to the work of the gospel. It was no question of gift, but of heart for Christ's interests.

Lastly, Timothy is told "fully to perform" his ministry (v. 5)... It means filling his service to the full measure. Evangelizing binds the one who has the gift. Even so, it was not the whole of the ministry Timothy had received in the Lord, and he is told here to fulfil all of it.

The Lord's work is not to be half done. We are to seek to finish to perfection what He gives us to do.

The Authorized Version does not give the form correctly. "Now ready to be offered" differs in several ways from "am already being poured out," which is the exact sense of the original. This is not the first time the apostle uses the picture of a drink offering. A little earlier he wrote to his dear friends at Philippi, "But if also I am poured out as a drink offering on the sacrifice and service of your faith …" (Phil. 2:17). Now he drops every condition, because his release is in view. He speaks as though the drink offering were already being poured out.

The word "offered" in Philippians 2:17 is "poured out," as the margin shows. Paul uses the same word in 2 Timothy 4:6, when his death as a martyr was close. He was pointing, of course, to the drink offerings the law required. A "fourth part of a hin of wine" had to be poured over certain sacrifices, before the Lord.

It was as though he was a drink offering, poured out on the far greater offering of his Lord. This showed his joy in the One who was the true grain offering, whose perfection and beauty shine out even in suffering and death. For the drink offering was poured over the grain offering (Ex. 29:40, 41).

The end of his devoted life, and of the persecution from the world that came with it, was so near that he could say, "I am already being poured out." He speaks of his departure as the time of his "release." Leaving this scene released him from a body that kept him from Christ. Yet he uses it as a reason for Timothy to fill up the full measure of his ministry. How often since that day has the Lord used the removal of a devoted servant to stir up those who remain to active service.

Only a special, personal word from the Lord could have enabled Paul, like Peter (2 Peter 1:14), to speak with such certainty about his own death. But the very fact that he was an exception here confirms that the general hope of believers was not to depart and be with Christ, but the Lord's coming to receive them to Himself.

So the absence of apostolic ministry — a serious thing for the position of the church — makes the duty of the man of God more urgent. Paul's absence is a reason for working out our own salvation with fear and trembling. In the same way, it is a reason for anyone doing the work of the gospel to give himself to his ministry more than ever.

We cannot be apostles, or lay the foundation of the church. That is already done. But we can build on that foundation: with the truth we have received from the apostle, with the Scriptures God has given us, and with a tireless love in the truth for souls. The foundation is not to be laid a second time.

Paul was about to be poured out as a drink offering — a precious ending to a devoted life, and a wonderful privilege. His life on earth had come to its close. Before he left the arena where his very life went up to God as a sacrifice, he could say that he had fought the good fight, finished his course, and kept the faith. It is a wonderful passage, and it should wake us up to ask whether each one of us is finishing his course as the Lord wants.