Last Will & Testament
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Scripture Reading
Scripture Reading
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, according to the promise of life in Christ Jesus,
To Timothy, my beloved son: Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.
Paul’s Plight
Paul’s Plight
To Timothy, my beloved son: Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.
Paul’s Plight
Paul’s Plight
Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the commandment of God our Saviour, and Lord Jesus Christ, which is our hope; Unto Timothy, my own son in the faith: Grace, mercy, and peace, from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord.
Paul, who was formerly Saul of Tarsus, who was a pharisee of pharisees, was a blasphemer of Christ and was zealous for the law to the extent that he was persecuting Christians until that famous Damascus Road Experience in the book of Acts where he had His dramatic conversion that Changed His life forever.
And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do.
I wonder, Did your conversion change your life as it did the Apostle Paul, or are you the same today as before you came to know the Lord Jesus ?
Paul’s life show the evidence of his own salvation and I wonder if, for those of you here this morning, can also say that your life was changed by the Lord Jesus or if you look the same as before you came to know Christ.?
Paul’s Plight
Paul’s Plight
Around the year 67 AD, In the City of Rome near the eastern border of Italy, there is a Pit in the ground. The Deep, Dark, and Damp hole is about 30 ft in diameter, it is made in a circular shape out of stones along with stones in the floor. It has a huge door on one side that can be lifted up and let back down as desired. On the other side of this door is a sewage line and so the door is the only thing that keeps the sewage out of this room. Now this Pit in the day of Paul was in fact a dungeon in which criminals of the day were held. This dungeon would hold about 30-35 prisoners at one time. Now the door we mentioned earlier was actually in place there to administer executions, and so they would lift up this door filling the room with sewage and then closing the door cause them to be drowned and would re-open the door, draining the room making it ready for the next batch of criminals.
As horrifying as this seems, perhaps the most stunning of things is to realize that the man we deem to be one of the most prolific teachers and writer of a great portion of the New Testament spent the rest of his last days in this very hole in the ground, his name is the Apostle Paul. Now in a very public display of hatred for the message of Paul, he was not drowned but rather, publicly had his head placed on a block and had his head severed from his body as the Romans declared that they would not tolerate the Christian teaching. This was the fate of someone who spent his entire converted life bring the message of salvation to all people he encountered, a message of hope and love and grace and peace and when you consider that life, it’s makes his ending seem all the more unjust. He had endured so much for the sake of the Gospels, in 2 Corinthians he says :
Are they servants of Christ?—I speak as if insane—I more so; in far more labors, in far more imprisonments, beaten times without number, often in danger of death.
Five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes.
Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I have spent in the deep.
I have been on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren;
I have been in labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.
All of this was endured for the sake of reaching people with the Gospel of Jesus Christ and this is how his days come to a close. In a dark, damp, stuffy, smelly pit, like a criminal.
Traveling back in time in last 5 years or so, Paul had enjoy freedom and was able to move around and preach the gospel in several cities, so what happened that all of the sudden changed this freedom that Paul enjoyed? The emperor, Nero, who was known to be a cruel and violent man, a few years back, set Rome on fire, being a madman and rather than taking the blame and public humiliation he blames the fire on the Christians and out of this a mass hysteria and hatred for christian spread throughout the Roman land and christian were being captured, tortured, and killed and this is the setting in which Paul is arrested and placed in this dungeon, the prison of mamartine, awaiting his own execution and so we might say, in some sense, that this letter, this last writing, is Paul’s last will and testament to Timothy.
Some may ask, is there any importance to this being Paul’s last inspired letter and to that I would ask you to now imagine your dearest loved one on their death bed, calling for you to tell you something, in that moment what they have to say is more important than anything else going on, perhaps the most important thing they’ve said to you and that is the case with the Apostle Paul, he had one last chance to speak and so he choose Timothy and the words of this letter and so it should be with great eagerness that we take to heart what the apostle Paul had to say.
Now imagine your dearest loved one on their death bed, calling for you to tell you something, in that moment what they have to say is more important than anything else going on, perhaps the most important thing they’ve said to you and that is the case with the Apostle Paul, he had one last chance to speak and so he choose Timothy and the words of this letter and so it should be with great eagerness that we take to heart what the apostle Paul had to say.
Furthering the picture of Paul’s current predicament, we see, from verse 16 ,that Paul is now is in chains and from Chapter 4 he knows there is no hope of escape as he says, “For I am already being poured out as a drink offering and the time of my departure has come.”
In addition to being in a dark pit, lack any comforts one would need for survival and knowing his death is imminent, The Apostle Paul also finds himself alone abandoned by those dearest to him for fear of persecution. He states in Chapter 1 vs 15 that “You are aware of the fact that all who are in asia turned away from me, among whom are Phygelus and Hermogenes. In Chapter 4 he goes on to say “Make every effort to come to me soon; for Demas, having loved this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica; Crescens has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia, Only Luke is with me. Paul is lonely, awaiting his death and likely cold as he asks timothy to bring his cloak later on along with his books and parchments. It’s a sad place to imagine such a faithful minister of the Gospel of Christ Jesus and yet we see that Paul, even in his suffering, is thinking of the furthering of the Gospel and the Growth of the Church, what an example of a Faithful Believer.
I wonder, do you think of the Lord Jesus as much as the Apostle Paul or do you think on Christ when it suits you? Do you, like Paul, love the Lord Jesus and His Church or have you become weak in the faith? If so, let the testimony of the Apostle Paul bring you encouragement and allow the Holy Spirit to rekindle the flame of Faith fullness in your heart tonight.
Paul’s Position
Paul’s Position
Now that we have a understanding of Paul’s Plight, let us look at the opening statment in his letter to timothy because we see that Paul isn’t writing to Timothy just as a loved one, but as an Apostle and that of Christ Jesus. Apostle, from the greek word Apostolos simply means “Messenger.” An apostle was a called out one, someone having a real, tangible, Personal encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ. We see in Matthew Chapter 4 where our Lord Jesus Called Simon called Peter and Andrew his brother as they were fishing, Jesus continues on and calls James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother. Later on in Matthew Chapter 9, Jesus sees a tax collector named Matthew and calls him to follow, in the first Chapter of John we see Jesus calling Phillip and Nathanael, later on we see Thomas coming along, in the book of Mark we see Jesus Calling James, son of Alphaeus, Thaddeus also called Judas, Simon and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed Jesus.
All of these men were called out ones, messengers, or Apostles, they were directly invited by Jesus in a Personal, physcial, tangible way as that is the only way one can be an Apostle, one of the reasons we do not have Apostles today and then we have Paul. Paul was, like the others, called directly by Jesus as we mentioned earlier, during his damascus road experience, where the Lord spoke to him audibly and blinded him for three days, healing him through nathaniel afterwards and calling him as an Apostle.
Paul’s Passion
Paul’s Passion