Demas, Why Did You Quit?
Chuck Sligh
January 20, 2013
TEXT: Please turn in your Bibles to the book of Philemon
INTRODUCTION
The Apostle Paul was a team player. You never read of JUST Paul on his trips to establish churches throughout the Roman Empire. It’s always Paul and somebody else—Paul and Barnabas or Paul and Silas. In addition, a number of people were with these the headliner pairs, like John Mark, Luke, Timothy and Epaphras, and the valuable couple, Aquila and Priscilla.
One of these helpers that traveled with Paul was a young man named DEMAS. Note Paul’s mention of Demas in Philemon 23-24 which I asked you to turn to: “There salute thee Epaphras, my fellowprisoner in Christ Jesus; 24 Marcus, Aristarchus, Demas, Lucas, my fellowlabourers.”
Notice that Demas is referred to as one of Paul’s fellow laborers. Scholars place the writing of the book of Philemon in early 60 AD. At this point, Demas was valued enough to be mentioned as one of Paul’s fellow laborers, an honored designation.
But in Colossians 4:7-14, we note something interesting. We won’t read this whole passage, but it is Paul’s closing remarks and as was his custom, he mentions a list of servants by name. Note that Paul says some glowing things about several people in this passage:
• He refers to TYCHICUS as “a brother, and a faithful minister and fellowservant in the Lord… (verse 7)
• He calls ONESIMUS “a faithful and beloved brother…” (verse 9)
• He mentions ARISTARCHUS as “my fellowprisoner…” (verse 10)
• EPAPHRAS is referred to as “a servant of Christ,…always labouring fervently for you in prayers…” (verse 12)
• Luke he calls “the beloved physician.” (verse 14)
These are excellent commendations of each of these men. Demas is also mentioned at the end of this passage, but notice in verse 14 the only thing Paul says about him after this litany of praise for all the others: “Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas, greet you.”
“And Demas”…Nothing more. All these others get accolades of praise…but the only thing written concerning Demas this time was his name.
Now, scholars say Colossians was written in the LATTER part of 60 AD. I wonder what had happened over the months. Had Demas been demoted in Paul’s estimation somehow?
Now go to 2 Timothy 4:9-11 – “Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me: 10 For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica; Crescens to Galatia, Titus unto Dalmatia. 11 Only Luke is with me. Take Mark, and bring him with thee: for he is profitable to me for the ministry.”
Scholars tell us that 2 Timothy was written around 65-66 AD. Demas had abandoned Paul’s team while Paul had been imprisoned. The phrase, “hath forsaken me” in the Greek literally carries the idea of “abandonment in a time of great need.” Today we would say, “He left me in the lurch.”
Ironically, Paul asks Timothy in verse 11 to bring with him Mark, who ironically, had abandoned Paul and Barnabas in Acts 15, but had later been restored to service. I find it wonderful that when Demas had forsaken him, Paul sent for the former deserter John Mark, whom Paul now says was profitable to him in the ministry. This is a reminder to us that no one is unsalvageable to God. John Mark, like Demas, had been a miserable failure earlier in his life, but now he had become a profitable servant.
Getting back to Demas, well…what happened to him? He started off with great promise. ONCE he’d been a valued co-laborer; now he’s a tragic failure of renounced service.
May I speculate a little about what happened to Demas? I can think of several reasons Demas may have left his post.
I. FIRST, DEMAS MAY HAVE BECOME WEARY.
Perhaps he had not anticipated how tiring ministry was. No doubt, working with Paul involved many hours of tiresome labor. There would be people to witness to, counseling to attend to, study that needed to be done for sermons and teaching responsibilities, meetings to attend. Many times, undoubtedly, he may have “burned the midnight oil.”
Illus. – I can relate: This week was one of my most stressful, tiring weeks in months. There was more visits, phone calls, extra responsibilities and duties than usual. That’s okay, actually because honestly…I LIVE for this kind of usefulness. But I can see myself being in Demas’s shoes if I’m not careful: just getting weary and being tempted to quit if you caught me at the wrong time.
What Demas needed to hear is the same thing we need to hear when we get weary in the Lord’s work: Paul said in Galatians 6:9 — “And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.”
Sometimes we need to get some rest, but don’t get weary in well doing. Sometimes we have to reprioritize to make sure the important things get done first, but don’t get weary in doing well. Sometimes we may feel taken advantage of and unappreciated, but don’t be weary in well doing—because we’re not doing our service for people anyway.
Let me share with you a couple of tips for how not to get or stay weary in well doing:
• First, when you can, minister in harmony with your spiritual gift.
We cannot always have that luxury to serve only where we’re gifted, but that’s where we should gravitate when possible. When we minister in our giftedness, we may get tired, but we get tired because we’re doing too much of what we ENJOY, and that’s a good kind of tired.
• Second, find time for alone time with God where you can get recharged and encouraged in the Lord.
David faced an awful military and personal defeat at Ziklag in 1 Samuel 30 that devastated him and almost caused him to abdicate his throne. Verse 6 of that chapter says, “And David was greatly distressed; for the people spake of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters…
He was grieving over the capture of his own wife; his men wanted to stone him; all this after an exhausting military campaign that ended in disaster. But that’s not the end of the verse. The rest of the verse goes on to say, “…but David encouraged himself in the LORD his God.”
Maybe Demas needed to just get with God and get strength from Him.
II. SECOND, DEMAS MAY HAVE BECOME UNHAPPY WITH HIS EFFECTIVENESS.
• Maybe he tried to win his relatives to the Lord, but they wouldn’t listen.
• Perhaps as he preached alongside Paul he was disappointed that he didn’t see the kind of fruit Paul did in his preaching.
• Possibly Demas found that preaching when most of his hearers didn’t want to hear what he had to say was more difficult than he had anticipated. And he just he became discouraged; and then decided to quit and leave.
If so, then he could’ve been helped by Paul’s words to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 3:5-7 – “Who then is Paul, and who [is] Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? 6 I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. 7 So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase.”
Paul was saying that much of what we do when we serve God does not result in immediate visible results. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it or that God isn’t blessing it. In our Share Jesus Without Fear seminar, we learned that the average person is touched by at least seven people’s witness before they actually come to faith. Only one of them is there when God gives the increase…but his or her job is no more important that what persons 1 through 6’s did.
Maybe Demas just needed to hear that we work for God, not for effectiveness and it won’t be until we get to heaven that we see most of the fruit of our labors. Right now, we just need to not be weary in well doing.
III. THIRD, POSSIBLY DEMAS HAD BEEN DISAPPOINTED WITH THE FAILURES AND INCONSISTENCIES OF OTHERS.
• Maybe some of the Christians he worked with were not all they were cracked up to be. It’s hard to imagine that he could have found a more spiritual man to minister alongside than the Apostle Paul, but Paul certainly was not perfect.
• Maybe some of the other Christian leaders he worked with did not live up to the standards he thought Christians or ministers of the Gospel should have.
• Maybe he started looking at others instead of Jesus Christ.
• Maybe he was looking around instead of looking up.
• Or maybe he struggled with a certain sin in his life that caused him to began to look at others with more critical eyes so that he wouldn’t feel so bad about his own sin.
We really don’t know for sure, but if that’s the case, the writer of Hebrews had the answer for Demas’s problem—Hebrews 12:1-2 – “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset [us], and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, 2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of [our] faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
The writer says we should keep our eyes on JESUS not others as we run the race. JESUS was the author and finisher of our faith, not those around us. It was JESUS who endured the cross for us, not our co-laborers in the Lord or our mentors and our fellow-Christians.
Get your eyes on those rascals and they’ll disappoint you every time.…EVERY time…if you get to know them long enough or get close enough to them. But keep your eyes on Jesus, and He’ll NEVER let you down; NEVER disappoint you; NEVER fail you!
I wish Demas had thought of that before he threw in the towel.
IV. FOURTH, DEMAS MAY HAVE BEEN DISAPPOINTED WITH HIMSELF
• Maybe he thought that once he was in service for the Lord somehow his struggles with sin and lust or fear or covetousness or anger or jealous would end.
• But once in the Lord’s work, he might have found the battles even hotter than ever as the enemy probed his spirit for weaknesses in the pressure cooker of ministry.
• Perhaps he forgot the importance of dependence on the Holy Spirit.
• Or maybe, as he looked back over the last few years, he was disappointed that he hadn’t come any farther in the Christian life than he felt he should have.
• As a young worker in God’s vineyard, he may have been too idealistic and thought that people would flock to hear him preach and multitudes would be saved. But things, well…they just didn’t turn out that way. All anyone wanted to hear was that big-shot Paul!
• Possibly, Demas struggled with some of these things and was disillusioned with his own wrong motives or lack of spiritual growth, especially when he compared himself with the great Apostle Paul, who seemed to always be “on target.”
Paul’s words in Philippians 3:13 might have helped: “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but [this] one thing [I do], forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before.”
Sometimes we beat ourselves up, not realizing we’re playing into Satan’s hands. Paul said he had not arrived in his spiritual life, but he didn’t wallow in self-flagellation and self-condemnation. He put his past sins and failures behind him and looked ahead to the goals before him in the future.
V. ANOTHER POSSIBILITY IS THAT DEMAS GOT TIRED OF PERSECUTION
Hey, I can understand that: Traveling with Paul was an invitation to disaster! Everywhere he went with the Apostle, trouble was soon brewing. When they went into a new city, Paul would probably send Demas over to the local prison to check out their accommodations! Perhaps after a few beatings, a few eggs in the face, a few times crowds taunted and made fun of and ridiculed and disrupted his preaching, he figured—“Am I crazy or something? Whatever was I thinking when I joined up with Paul?”
Peter could have counseled Demas well.—He said in 1 Peter 4:12-14 – “Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: 13 But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy. 14 If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy [are ye]; for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you: on their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified.”
Illus. – I remember a story about John Wesley. Early in his ministry, after being barred from preaching in the Church of England, he followed George Whitefield into the meadows and hillsides to preach the Gospel—BUT NOT WITHOUT GREAT OPPOSITION! EVERYWHERE he was dogged by ridicule, disruption and persecution. It was routine for hecklers to be planted to disrupt his sermons. On many occasions, stones or rotten vegetables were thrown at him.
Once, a brick hit him on the forehead, producing a gash above his eye. Very calmly and gently, he pulled out his handkerchief, wiped the blood away and continued his sermon right where he left off. There are several accounts of the ruffians causing the trouble getting converted in the very meetings they tried to disrupt.
One day Wesley was riding his horse when it dawned on him that three days had passed in which he had suffered no persecution or opposition at all. Not a brick or an egg had been thrown at him for three whole days! Alarmed, he stopped his horse, and cried out, “Can it be that I have sinned, and am backslidden?”
Slipping from his horse, Wesley went down on his knees and began praying, asking God to show him any unconfessed sin in his life. It just so happened that a man was on the other side of the hedge listening to his prayer. He peeked across and recognized the well-known preacher. “I’ll fix that rabble rouser,” he thought. Then he picked up a large stone and tossed it over the hedge at Wesley.
Fortunately, it missed, and fell harmlessly by his side. But Wesley leaped to his feet, joyfully shouting, “Thank God, it’s all right! I still have God’s presence and power in my life.”
Maybe Demas forgot that it is a blessing to suffer for the risen Savior.
VI. SIXTH, IT’S ALSO POSSIBLE THAT HE HAD DEVELOPED A DIMINISHING OF SPONTANEOUS SERVICE FOR THE LORD.
I wonder if Demas was so involved FIGHTING for the Word that he stopped FEASTING in the Word. I wonder if he was so busy SERVING God, that he stopped SAVORING God. Then his spiritual life became forced, cold, mechanical, calculated, until he just didn’t bother taking time out to spend with the Lord anymore.
Maybe he became like Martha instead of like Mary. MARTHA got a gentle rebuke, though she was very busy serving Jesus, while MARY was commended because she took time to be with Jesus. Jesus said, Luke 10:41-42 – “…Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: 42 But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.”
Maybe Demas would not have given up if he had been able to feed at the Lord’s table.
VII. SEVENTH, JUDGING FROM PAUL’S WORDS IN 2 TIMOTHY 4, MOST LIKELY THE ATTRACTIONS OF THIS WORLD ALLURED DEMAS AWAY FROM GOD.
Listen again to what Paul said, “Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world...” (2 Timothy 4:10) That will rob you of your spiritual power and zeal like nothing else will!
James said James 4:4 – “Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.”
James uses mighty strong language here! A friend of this world system is a spiritual adulterer and an enemy of God! Man!—That’s strong language.
How can you serve God and have God’s power and maintain a zeal for God if you’re a spiritual adulterer or adulteress who, instead of loving God with all your heart, goes “a whoring” after the world, to use Old Testament terminology?
How can you experience the joy of walking with God if you’ve become His enemy?
No, the world will not satisfy you; it’ll only pull you away from God and service to Him.
CONCLUSION
Those are some reasons Demas may have forsaken Paul. But all is not lost in the case of Demas.
Turn with me to 3 John 12 – “Demetrius hath good report of all men, and of the truth itself: yea, and we also bear record; and ye know that our record is true.”
This passage was written about 90-95 AD. Many scholars believe that Demetrius in this passage is the same Demas found in the previous passages we looked at. The name Demas was what is called a diminutive of the name Demetrius; in other words, kind of like shortened nickname of the name, like Bob for Robert or Will for William.
If this is the same Demas as the one Paul referred to earlier, it proves again, as with John Mark, that it’s never too late to recover one who has failed—even failed miserably. Somewhere along the line, Demas got things straightened out in his life so that John could say, “Demetrius hath good report of all men, and of the truth itself…”
If you are in danger of becoming a Demas, why don’t you avail yourself of God’s promise in 1 John 1:9 – “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us [our] sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
