In the previous issue of “Edification” an article appeared addressed to those who desire to be Christ’s servants now, and to receive His well done hereafter.
Surely every true Christian would desire this and it is with the wish to strengthen this desire that we seek to enlarge on the theme.
We have seen writers alliteration mad, writers who are always seeking to address us by means of seven S’s or five P’s or something of the sort. Often they are tempted to twist things to fit their scheme, and generally speaking “alliteration’s gentle art” is one to be avoided, or at least used with careful reserve.
But in what lies before us there is a string of S’s leading up to the expression in 2 Timothy 2:21, “Meet for the Master’s use.” These are found in the earlier part of that Epistle, so that for once we are encouraged to use this aid to memory.
We all desire to be “meet for the Master’s use.” In order to be this we first of all note that the Apostle refers to God as the one who “has
SAVED
us” (2 Tim. 1:9). The first step necessary to being “meet for the Master’s use” is to be really saved. We remember that the first device of the enemy was to saw tares among the wheat, in other words to introduce mere professors among the true believers. How many are vainly seeking to please the Lord, who are strangers to His saving grace. Paul, as Saul of Tarsus, himself was very zealous, seeking to serve God when all the while he was “injurious and a blasphemer.”
The first step, then, is to be SAVED, and, we may add, to associate only with saved people in the things of God. To join with a mixed congregation of believers and unbelievers is sad indeed. The devil knows how evilly this works. He is a past master at strategy.
Next we are exhorted to “hold fast the form of
SOUND WORDS”
(2 Tim. 1:13). In the Apostle’s day, before the Scriptures were complete, and when education was the privilege of the few, and printing unknown, and therefore the opportunity of consulting the Scriptures rare, the exhortation was to pay heed to what was heard. Today the Scriptures are complete, any believer can possess himself of a copy for a few pence, and the exhortation to pay heed to sound words comes with as much force as ever. We read these sound words in the Scriptures.
The Scriptures alone are our source of knowledge. It is well to have a textual knowledge of the Scriptures. To be saturated in the very language of Scripture is a great help. Yet we must be careful that our knowledge is more than memory, or else our knowledge will be like the manna that bred worms. We are told in Scripture that the letter kills but the Spirit gives life. The “letter” in this passage takes the character of law, but it is when the Holy Spirit teaches us the real inner meaning of the truth that we are spiritually quickened. So whilst holding “the form of sound words” let us see to it that it includes having the true meaning of those words.
We next come to the exhortation to “be
STRONG in the grace
that is in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 2:1). Unless we are characterized by grace we cannot be “meet for the Master’s use.” Some people think that grace means to be soft, but here we are exhorted not to be soft, but to be “strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” What a character it gives to conduct to seek to walk in grace that has its illimitable reservoir in Christ. If we are in circumstances that call for grace how it will help us to realize that it is in Christ Jesus. With Him as our Pattern and Source of supply we shall travel far in that direction. Certainly a hard legal spirit exacting the last ounce of flesh is not the spirit that is “meet for the Master’s use.” It is much easier to be assertive, to seek the front place, to resent injuries—all that is natural to the flesh. It needs moral, spiritual strength and occupation with Christ to be gracious.
The next thing we are exhorted to is to “endure hardness as
a good SOLDIER
of Jesus Christ” (2 Tim. 2:3). We are in the enemy’s country. The whole scheme and make-up of the world is against the Christian. From another standpoint we are in a world of terrible need. Men and women are moving in one mighty stream to a lost eternity. What are we doing in the gospel? There are thousands of villages in darkness—a darkness literally as gross as many a heathen country. It may take strenuous physical toil to reach these villages. It may take more than we can conveniently spare to buy the tracts and gospel literature that may be the means of bringing the news of salvation to many a dark home.
There are saints to be cared for, assemblies to be visited. All this may entail real hardship. It may be still more so, when devoted servants of the Lord leave friends and home comforts, and the happy fellowship of saints, and plunge in the malarial forests of Africa or travel up the water-ways of China, or visit India, or the far-off islands of the sea in order to carry the gospel to the heathen.
Or there is the humdrum of life, and having to stand the sneers and jeers of unconverted fellow-workmen or clerks.
Let us ever remember that we are soldiers of Jesus Christ, and let us see to it that we are good soldiers.
When the great war was on the soldiers had to endure hardness. Shall it be less in the battles of the Lord?
The next thing we read is that the Apostle himself could say that for the gospel’s sake he suffered trouble, even as an evil doer. Himself an example, with what weight the statement comes; “If we
SUFFER,
we shall also reign with Him” (2 Tim. 2:12).
Can we expect less when our great Exemplar was crucified and cast out? “Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow His steps” (1 Peter 2:21) When He was reviled He reviled not again, when He suffered: He threatened not. The reigning time is coming. Truth is fallen in the streets today, but it is going to triumph, and righteousness shall be enthroned. We cannot have it both ways. If we want to reign we must be prepared to suffer, and to be a consistent Christian is to be prepared to be a suffering Christian.
The next exhortation is to
“STUDY
to show thyself approved to God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15). Our great concern should be to be approved of GOD. It matters little what man may think as long as GOD approves. It was said of Lord Lawrence, once Governor- General of India, that he feared the face of man so little, because he feared the face of God so much.
And to be approved of God we have to practice the truths of the Scriptures, and to do so we must study the Scriptures, not in a haphazard way, but in order to see the great principles of the Word of God—“rightly dividing the word of truth,” or, as another translation renders it, “cutting in a straight line the word of truth.” What a muddle some Christians make of the Word of God. They are not clear as to the dispensations, they fail to see that man in the flesh will not do for God and hence he is not to be cultivated, but has been condemned. They lose valuable time and waste valuable strength in seeking to improve and uphold what God has condemned. They go on with systems that are unsupported by the Word of God. In this way their true fitness is weakened.
Then we are exhorted to
“SHUN
profane and vain babblings: for they will increase to more ungodliness” (2 Tim. 3:16). Following that the Apostle warns against two men, who taught that the resurrection was past already. How the Bible always puts its finger unerringly on the sore spot! All vain babblings move on to the weakening and overthrow of the foundation.
Never was there a day when there was such an amount of vain babbling, one bishop teaches that we are descended from apes; another that the priest at the altar has the power to turn the bread and wine at the Lord’s supper into the very body and blood of our Lord, whilst all around we have strange crank sects, all claiming to be the only one and true thing for God in the world, and all marked by tampering with the foundations of the Christian faith.
Just as one avoids those nostrums that are advertised to cure all the ills the flesh is heir to, and to introduce the millennium into the world instanter, so one is well advised to give these “profane and vain babblings,” that promise so much and perform so little, a very wide berth. The word, shun, is a pretty strong word to use.
Things are in a pretty mixed-up state in Christendom today, and therefore the Apostle exhorts that the believer should purge himself from vessels to dishonour, if, indeed, he is to be a “vessel into honour
SANCTIFIED
and meet for the Master’s use, and prepared for every good work.”
Sanctified, set apart, paying heed to the exhortations we have already considered, the believer will have the joy of being “meet for the Master’s use.”
Our little day of opportunity will soon be over. Let us not miss the wondrous privilege of being serviceable to the Lord. Let us remember that it means diligence of soul. Let us go over the points raised in this article, and ask ourselves how far we are answering to the exhortations.