"But
thou, O man of God..." (1 Tim. 6:11).
"O Timothy, guard that which is committed unto
thee" (1 Tim. 6:20).
"O
man of God... O Timothy". In these words you will sense a
strong and intense going out of heart on the part of the Apostle.
It is a cry, an appeal, as though the floods have welled up and
are seeking to break out. You see, the Apostle is on the last lap
of the race, he is near to the end of his course, he is conscious
that he has very little time left in which to say all that is in
his heart - and there is so much to say, the situation is so
critical, the need is so great; and in this final stage he is
speaking his last words. They are the last words of a great
Apostle. He tries to condense into small space a greatness of
desire, and so he breaks out - "O man of God"! "O
Timothy"! Last words are always words to be taken account
of, noted, regarded with solemnity.
We
are not able, of course, in a brief space to note all the content
of these last utterances of the Apostle, and I propose only to
speak of the nature of the appeal which he makes and the way in
which he makes it. This exclamation - "O man of God"! -
is not an unfamiliar phrase. We know how often in the Old
Testament it is the designation applied to servants of God; and
there is a sense, of course, in which it is a specific term, the
title of those who stand in a peculiar responsibility for the
Lord's interests - "the man of God". But there is also
a sense in which it is of general application, for surely this
should be true of us all; surely this does represent what the
Lord would have in the case of every one of us, the title
"man" covering us all in Christ, and the designation
resting upon us all - "man of God". An old missionary
received a very heartening message one day from a man whom he had
led to the Lord out of heathenism many years before. Another
missionary was visiting that quarter and came upon this man, who
asked after his old spiritual father and said, 'When you see him,
tell him that so long ago I became God's man, and I am still
God's man'. That is just what it is - all men of God, God's men.
A Challenge
Put
like that, we can see how it can and should apply to us all. 'O
God's man!' - which of course covers the woman as well; and in
the very meaning and tone of that outburst from the Apostle's
heart there is the message. We do not need to try to break it up
and expound it to bring in all that it means to be God's man; the
message is just there. It might startle us individually if
someone approached us and addressed us in that way. Think of
anyone coming to you and saying, 'O Man of God!' It is a
challenge. The very idea brings us up short at once - 'A man of
God!' Have you ever thought of yourself like that - as God's man?
Amongst all men, you are God's man, God's woman; and because that
is true, all the rest follows. All that Paul had to say to
Timothy followed on that and came because of that. 'You are God's
man; therefore I say to you all these things that I am saying and
am going to say.'
The Responsibility of God's
Man
(1) A Trustee Careful of His Trust
And
you notice that certain lines run through these two letters to
Timothy, and one of those lines has to do with himself as God's
man - as to the supreme concern of God's man. Paul says firstly,
'Because you are God's man, you are a trustee'. "O Timothy,
guard that which is committed unto thee" (1 Tim. 6:20).
Literally, 'O Timothy, guard the trust', or, 'guard the deposit'.
It is a banking term in the original language: someone has placed
in the safe keeping of the bank something very precious and made
the bank their trustee. And Paul says to Timothy, 'O Timothy,
because you are God's man, you are a trustee; a great trust has
been deposited with you'; and here there opens up all that is in
these letters. Paul perhaps sat down to write a personal letter
and to open his heart to Timothy as a father to a son -
"Timothy my beloved child" he calls him - and perhaps
he thought, 'I will say some heart-to-heart things to Timothy; he
needs to be helped, advised, counselled'. But Paul finds that he
cannot write on merely personal things; he is almost instantly
caught away with the vastness of God's eternal thoughts, purposes
and counsels. What there is of depth, profundity and vastness in
these two short letters! Read them again, and see how
far-reaching are the things mentioned. He says in effect,
'Timothy, the trust which has been deposited with you is no small
thing; it touches all the ages and goes beyond them; it touches
all realms. It is not just an earthly and temporal thing; not
just your little life here as a Christian; no, far more is bound
up with God's man than making a success of life here and now,
according to this world's standards'. And so he says, 'You are a
trustee; O Timothy, guard the deposit'.
And
he does touch on some detail of that which may apply to some of
us. 'From your infancy you have been taught the truth. Faith
dwelt in your grandmother and in your mother. You are God's man
with a responsibility; you have had the deposit of the truth. You
are one of those who, out of the millions of your fellow men,
have been brought, in the sovereign wisdom and grace of God, into
touch with these supremely important and valuable things; you are
responsible for them as God's man.' "I charge thee in the
sight of God, and Christ Jesus, and the elect angels..." (1
Tim. 5:21); "I charge thee in the sight of God, Who giveth
life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who before Pontius
Pilate witnessed the good confession..." (1 Tim. 6:13). 'I
charge you, O man of God, before all heavenly intelligences and
before men; you are in trust and have a great responsibility -
not on the ground that you are a missionary, a minister, a
pastor, or under some special designation in the realm of God's
servants, but simply on the ground that you are God's man, that
is all'. That is what it means to be God's man. You are a
trustee.
(2) A Soldier Concerned Only For
the Lord
You
are a soldier. "Take thy part in suffering hardship with me,
as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier, on service
entangleth himself in the affairs of this life, that he may
please him who enrolled him as a soldier" (2 Tim. 2:3,4).
The appeal is - 'As God's man, you are supposed to be all the
time on active service and must not be of a divided mind, a
divided heart, with dual interests weakening you in the warfare,
preoccupied with things of this world; but, whatever your work
may be on the earth, you are to be of an undivided mind, of a
single heart. Your one concern must be to give satisfaction to
Him Who enlisted you to be His soldier; O man of God, that is how
you should be; a man with but one passion - to bring satisfaction
to your Lord'.
(3) A Husbandman Ready to Labour
'And',
he says, 'you are a husbandman'; and "the husbandman that
laboureth must be the first to partake of the fruits" (2
Tim. 2:6). By that he means, 'You have to labour'. The true
husbandman, the true farmer, knows all about labour, if any man
does. He is qualified to talk about labour, and he knows that he
will get nothing without hard work. He will be the first to
partake of the fruits of hard labour. Of a man who really labours
it can be said that his heart and his strength are in his work,
he is given to his task because he knows that fruitfulness
depends upon that labour.
(4) An Athlete Resolute to Win the
Prize
And
he says, You are an athlete. "If a man contend in the games,
he is not crowned, except he have contended lawfully" (2
Tim. 2:5). Timothy would call to mind the words which Paul had
earlier written to the church at Corinth - "Every man that
striveth in the games exerciseth self-control in all things. Now
they do it to receive a corruptible crown; but we an
incorruptible. I therefore so run, as not uncertainly; so fight
I, as not beating the air: but I buffet my body, and bring it
into bondage" (1 Cor. 9:25-27). Timothy well knew with what
self-discipline his father in the faith had run his course, and
Paul did not hesitate to remind him of it (2 Tim. 3:10 etc.).
"O
man of God"! This is what the man of God is to be. Whether
it be in the realm of the contest, or the warfare, or the hard
toil of the field, or the trusteeship of riches - whatever
metaphors are used, they all have but one purpose. The aged
apostle seeks to utter something that lies heavily on his heart.
'O man of God! O Timothy! This is what should be true of you if
you are God's man'. It is a heart cry - the heartbreaking cry -
of a man who says, "I am already being offered, and the time
of my departure is come" (2 Tim. 4:6). 'I shall not be able
to say much more, but I make this full-hearted appeal to you, O
man of God!'
One
line through the letters is just that - what God's man is and
what he is like. There are other lines which we will not pursue,
as I want to leave that one note of emphasis with you. I have
found myself gripped, not so much by the content of the letters
of Paul to Timothy but by the cry of the Apostle, as if that cry
had entered into me. All I can do is to re-echo it in this very
feeble way. It is true that, in the sovereignty of God, Paul had
a brief spell of liberty from prison between the writing of the
two letters to Timothy. I think he was a little surprised about
that himself. But it was only a little while at most, before he
was brought back to prison and he knew that very soon his course
would be ended. "I have finished the course, I have kept the
faith" (2 Tim. 4:7). But he makes this the basis of a fresh
appeal for diligence and urgency - "I charge thee in the
sight of God, and of Christ Jesus..." (2 Tim. 4:1). It is
the end and it is a cry. Though in our case the details are
different, nevertheless the same cry of the Spirit should surely
reach our hearts today. There is an urgency. It is not merely the
urgency of a closing ministry, but of a man of God who yearns
that every one who may be called God's man, God's woman, should
be like this - intent, utterly abandoned to one thing. You may be
literally a soldier, a farmer, a banker; you may be anything
literally on this earth; but over and above that, you are God's
man. Your earthly vocation has to be made to serve God's ends;
you have to be bent upon these eternal things, with undivided
heart; not distracted by conflicting interests, not influenced at
all by earthly circumstances, not preoccupied by things of this
world, its pleasures, its gains, its successes amongst men; but
motived by this one thing - to please Him Who enrolled you as His
own. Listen with the inner ear to the inward implication -
"O God's man"! If only you and I could get hold of what
is in that - 'God's man'! I am God's
man, I am God's woman. What ought such
a person to be like? Well, above all things, on God's interests
bent. "O man of God"! That is a comprehensive word, but
it becomes personal - "O Timothy". Amongst God's men, O
Timothy, you - you are marked out by Him as His man.
First published in "A Witness and A
Testimony" magazine, Jan-Feb 1951, Vol 29-1