Revelation Is Sufficient Series

An English boy went into a store to get change for a sovereign,

and the clerk asked him if it was good. The boy said, "Certainly it is

good. I saw my father make it just this morning." The clerk, of

course, refused to take it. Money, like truth, has the shadow of

suspicion cast across it when it has been coined only this morning.

Anything that you can really rely on will not be totally new. Even in

the realm of science this is true. New products and new medicine

are not as new as we might think. Nothing just discovered this

morning would on the market. It takes months and even years of

research before things are ready for the market. Even that which is

really recent in discovery is usually based upon older knowledge,

and so it is not totally new, but an extension of what has gone before.

The totally new and novel is seldom of lasting value

A craving for what is strictly new is a sign of degeneration and

superficiality in a culture. This is what was happening to the Greeks

in Paul's day, and has happened time and time again in history.

Acts 17:21 says in the NEB, "The Athenians in general and the

foreigners there had no time for anything but talking or hearing

about the latest novelty." Certainly masses of Americans are

cultural cousins to these Athenians. Novelty is a must in our society.

People feel only a fool believes and acts today the same as people

believed and acted in the past. That which is the in thing must be

something just coined this morning. Someone wrote, "So long as an

artist is on his head, his painting with a flute, or writes with an

etching needle, or conducts an orchestra with a meat axe, all is well,

and plaudits shower along with the roses. But any plain man who

tries to follow the unobtrusive cannons of his art is but a

commonplace figure."

This applies to every realm including the realm of theology. The

men in the limelight today are those who are expounding the novel

and the freshly coined ideas. They capture the minds of millions for

a while, but then they become old hat, and people begin looking for

something new again. This was the problem that Paul wrestled with

in his day, and it is one that he urged Timothy to help him fight. It

was a real battle, and Paul uses military language often. He tells

Timothy to be a good soldier of Jesus Christ. He starts off in this

first letter by stating that he was not an Apostle by his own choice,

but that he was drafted by the Lord. God commanded him to be His

ambassador to the Gentiles. He was inducted into the royal service

of representing the Risen Redeemer. He loved being a soldier of the

cross, and would have agreed whole heartedly with the poet who

wrote,

Life can never be dull again

When once we've thrown our windows open wide,

And seen the mighty world that lies outside,

And whispered to ourselves this wondrous thing,

We're wanted for the business of the King.

Paul felt one of his important tasks for the Lord was in keeping

the churches on a solid foundation. This was no easy task in a world

as filled with novel nonsense as his was. We often talk as if we were

the only people to ever live in the last days, and that we alone must

bear the burden of so much human folly. We would be ashamed of

our complaints if we knew what others have gone through before us.

Paul spent 3 and one half years in Ephesus going from house to

house and teaching the believers sound Christian doctrine. In spite

of all he did he has to urge Timothy to stay there and charge some to

teach no other doctrine. Here were people who had the best

Christian education experience possible, and yet they were in danger

of falling into heresy and being led into fruitless speculation.

I think it can be said with plenty of evidence to support it that no

group of Christians could long remain Christian in their thinking

without the Bible being constantly read and expounded. If

Churches degenerate to the place where they are no more than

humanistic clubs, they have none to blame but themselves, for God

has provided the means by which we are to stay on the right track.

If men do not avail themselves of the means, they will certainly get

off the main road and onto a side road of trivia. This very church of

Ephesus where Paul and Timothy labored for years was still in

trouble when John wrote Revelation. Christ was threatening to