Check, am I getting a ring? Is it just me? It's just me. Come before winter. Come before winter. You recognize those three words? They're not original with me, of course. They are actually taken from a correspondence of one friend to another. They are a piece of a letter. A letter no doubt intended to be personal and yet a letter that bore the distinct quality of being inspired by the Spirit of God Himself. Come before winter. If you've read the book of Second Timothy, you recognize those words as dungeon words. Words that emerge from an ancient chamber of horrors hidden deeply beneath the streets of for century-rome. Isolated in a dark and filthy tomb surrounded by giant stones that are blackened color by virtue of their age is a lonely prisoner whose days are numbered. His name is Paul. And as you drop into the dungeon, as you drop into that jail, a chill makes you shiver. The moisture and the cool within the air frightens you. You feel alone. The rattling of the chains only intensifies your sense of dread
through a small window in the iron door you peer inside the cell. You notice a piece of old parchment and a quill. The following words reflect the essence, the spirit of what he writes. Listen to them. I need my cloak. I must have left it at the abode of carpets in troads. You'll have no trouble spotting at Timothy. It's an old thing. But it's been on my back through many a bitter winter. It's been wet with the brine of the great sea, white with the snows of the rugged peaks of Pamphilia, gritty and brown from the dust of the Ignatian way, and crimson with my own blood from that awful stoning at Lystra. The cloak is stained in torn Timothy, but winter's coming and I need the warmth it will bring. I also need the books. You remember them? The ones I read under candlelight as we wrote out through the rough waters of the Aegean and endured the rigors of Macedonia together. Those scrolls that fed my mind with fresh bursts of hope and stimulating ideas. Bring along those books, my friend. I especially need the parchments. Those are my most treasured possessions, Timothy. How I need the comfort of King David's songs. The fortitude of the prophets' pens. The insights and perceptions from Solomon's proverbs. Yes, the parchments. Surely they will help keep my heart warm and my hopes high in this desolate place. But Timothy, I need you.
How desperately I need you. Make every effort to come. Come before winter. Come before November's winds strip the leaves from the trees and send them whirling across fields and swirling through the busy streets above me. Come before the snow begins to fall and covers flat carts and frozen ponds with its icy blanket. Come, my friend. The time of my departure has arrived. Soon the blade will drop and the time for me will be no more. I cannot bear the thought of midwinter without the warmth of your companionship. Those eyes of understanding. Those words only you can bring to get me through this barren and bitter season.
Make every effort to come. Before winter.
The apostle. The great apostle. The bold, courageous, fearless man of God who would be God's mouthpiece to the Gentiles. Called of God. He was a man. He was a man. And as a man. He frequently battled with a condition that is endemic to spiritual leadership.
The condition of loneliness. The call of the living God to stand alone as his representative.
It was the call on the life of Moses, was it not? Appointed by God, called by God, gifted for the work, trained under God's providence in those Egyptian courts for the very work that God had given him to do. And yet at times beloved, forsaken by all human companionship and support actually opposed by the very people he sought to deliver.
Alone. Elijah. That great mouthpiece of God. He knew what it was like to be alone to despair of even death itself. He wanted to take his own life. Jeremiah understood what it was like to be forsaken by all. As did Hosea. And David. And Job. And Ezekiel. My friends, I want to tell you something this morning standing alone is one of the occupational hazards of spiritual leadership. It is the inevitable consequence of taking a prophetic ministry on God's behalf. John the Baptist surely understood the agonies of being alone, of loneliness, sitting in Herod's jail, wrestling with his own doubts concerning the messianic claims of his own cousin, Jesus Christ. And for that matter, beloved, what about Jesus Christ himself, the man, alone in the garden, alone at his arrest, alone in his trial, alone at his sufferings, alone at the cross. That place where loneliness like never before had been experienced to the full.
My God. My God. Why? Have you abandoned me?
My dear brother Al said to me the other day, related to another issue. He said, you know what, there are certain things about spiritual leadership that can never be understood by those who do not occupy that role. And this beloved is one of those things.
You know, wonderful book entitled lectures to my students, Charles Spurgeon says to young ministers. A minister fully equipped for his work will usually be a spirit by himself, above, beyond, and apart from others. The most loving of his people cannot enter into his peculiar thoughts, cares, and temptations.
In the ranks, men walk shoulder to shoulder with many comrades, but as the officer rises in rank, men of his standing are fewer in number. There are many soldiers, few captains, fewer colonels, but only one commander in chief. So in our churches, the man whom the Lord raises as a leader becomes in the same degree to which he is a superior man, a solitary man. The mountain tops stand solemnly apart and talk only with God as he visits their terrible solitudes. Men of God who rise above their fellows into near communion with heavenly things in their weaker moments feel the lack of human sympathy. Like their Lord in Gethsemane, they look in vain for comfort to the disciples sleeping around them. They are shocked at the apathy of their little band of brethren and return to their secret agony with all the heavier burden pressing upon them because they have found their dearest companions slumbering. No one knows but he who has endured it, the solitude of a soul which has outstripped its fellows in zeal for the Lord of hosts. It dares not reveal itself less men count at mad. It cannot conceal itself for a fire burns within its bones. Only before the Lord does it find rest. Our Lord sending out his disciples by two and two manifested that he knew what was in men. But for such a man as Paul, it seems to me that no help beat was found. Barnabas or Silas or Luke were hills too low to hold high converse with such a Himalayan summit as the Apostle to the Gentiles. This loneliness which if I mistake not is felt by many of my brethren is a fertile soil of depression. The loneliness that goes along with being God's spokesman my friend Phil Howard says I used to think that the initials pt stood for pastor teacher. After 20 years of ministry, I've come to see that they stand for primary target. It was the experience of men like Moses and Elijah and John the Baptist and the Apostle Paul and men like Spurgeon and his colleagues. It is endemic my friends to anybody who is appointed by God to occupy a position of spiritual leadership. Paul says in 2 Timothy chapter 1, everyone in the province of Asia has deserted me. This is Paul. I'm all alone except for Timothy. How can mere mortals like us endure the loneliness that often accompanies faithful allegiance to God in his word? My friends part of the reason why this is such a pressing thing on my own conscience this morning is the growing number of people I regularly meet for whom the most frightening thought in all of life is the possibility of being alone. I will experience anything in this life Lord but don't leave me alone and as a consequence of that particular fear there is no sacrifice, no compromise, too great to make in order to keep from being alone. What happens however beloved when our loyalty to Jesus Christ necessitates just such an experience? How did Paul do it? How did Moses do it? How did John the Baptist do it? And how will our children do it my friends? How will our children who are Christians stand alone for Jesus Christ when such a thing becomes necessary and you can bet your bottom dollar it will happen? Here's the all embracing question for this morning. What kind of faith is it that enables a person to stand alone as a representative for God amidst overwhelming opposition? What kind of faith is that? Well to answer this question, Hebrews 11 would draw our attention to a well-known Old Testament figure by the name of Noah. Noah! Now to be sure people who have never even read the Bible before recognize his name, songs have been written about Noah, movies have been made about his life however fanciful they may be, the problem however friends. Is that as a result of as the result of presenting him as a kind of sanctified doctor do little people have all together missed the significance of his story. The fact is they've cut the guts out of it and as a result they've lost what this inspired story tells us both about God and his man. Now for our purposes this morning we can say without hesitation that more than any other person in all of the Old Testament scriptures Noah is the one who exemplifies a faith that endures loneliness that is often associated with being wholly devoted to God. So what kind of faith is this? What's the nature of this kind of faith? What's the stuff of this kind of faith that enables a person to stand alone for God as a representative for God as a spokesperson for God amidst unbelievable mounting overwhelming opposition? Hebrews 117 supplies us with three answers to this question. It is a faith that is rooted upon the word of God. It is a faith that responds in uncompromising obedience and it is a faith that results in antithetical consequences. I'll explain to you what that means it will become very obvious. What kind of faith is it that enables a person to stand alone for God amidst overwhelming opposition? Firstly it is a faith that is rooted upon the word of God. Not beloved as simply a theological acknowledgement. Not simply affirming with a line on a doctrinal statement. What kind of faith is it that stands alone? It's the kind of faith that recognizes that everything about my life will be dictated, controlled, shaped, influenced, molded by God's own revelation. Now friends, before we can appreciate what the writer says here in verse 7, I need to help you understand a bit of the context as it appears in the book of Genesis. Genesis in Genesis chapter 6, in fact, I'm not going to ask you to turn there, but from time to time I'm going to be quoting from that passage because it gives us the flavor of what was going on in Noah's day. What kind of culture was this man know it dropped into? This is what Genesis 6 5 says. The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. You won't hear that from Norman Vincent Peale, will you? This is not how to make friends and influence people. Would you listen again to the inspired commentary on the human race? The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. It's astounding to me. In just four chapters the created man of God in all of his created glory has become the depraved rebel. In fact, beloved, if you recall that joyous refrain that closes that creation account in the book of Genesis, that wonderful statement and God looked on all that he had created and behold, it was very good. It is now beloved overcome by an exceedingly dark and ominous strain. Genesis 6, the Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth. Can you imagine his heart was filled with pain? So the Lord said, I will wipe men kind whom I have created from the face of the earth, men and animals and creatures that move along the ground and birds of the air for I am grieved that I have made them. It is not Dr. Doolittle, is it? Be exceedingly careful, parents, how you represent this story to your children. It's not about a bearded old man and his funny experiences on a boat filled with animals. Our planet, as it was known, was soon to be scoured of all human existence. But this leaves us with a problem. Some of you are familiar with the book of Genesis. Some of you I know some of our children right here have given great attention to that third chapter of Genesis where we have that first promise of the gospel. God makes a promise, he says, from the womb of that woman, the seed of the woman, a child will come from that woman who would crush the serpent's hand. The serpent who would introduce that sting of stain into the human race, a child would come from that woman who would permanently crush that serpent underfoot. But beloved, how in the world could such a thing ever take place if the entire existence of humanity is devastated and destroyed, annihilated? Well, it is at this very point you see that as you read through the scriptures, Genesis, chapter 6, that a shaft of light pierces the darkness, a shaft of God's mercy.
Genesis 6 says, but Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Everybody ought to say, hallelujah at this point, because you would not be here, or that not the case. He doesn't mean that Noah was really good and God decided to bless him. Noah, friends, God said his preordained affection upon this man, Noah, and graced him. His unmerited favor was upon that man, changed his heart, and Noah then, like all other men, a sinner, like all other sinners, trusted God. And like unto Enic, we're told that Noah walked with God. And to this man, Noah, God then gives an unbelievable assignment. Can you imagine hearing these words? I am going to put an end to all people. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens. Every creature that has the breath of life in it, everything on earth will perish. Make yourself an ark, and Noah did that very thing. It took him 120 years. Now enter in with what the book of Hebrews says, verse 7. By faith, the idea once again, acting on the basis of faith. Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear, built an ark to save his family, when warned about things not yet seen. Things not yet seen. That bring to your attention anything else that we've read in recent weeks, even this morning. That sound familiar? You remember the author's original description of faith, verse 1? Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. I told you the very first week we came to Hebrews chapter 11 that that particular description of true Christian faith will be expressed now through all of the examples that the writer sets forth before us. Faith in what he did not see. Now friends, let me ask you then a question. Did Noah begin the process of building this ark as a consequence of seeing giant, dark, thick, rain clouds on the horizon? That way he began to build the ark. Was his action the result of reasoned calculation given the best meteorological evidence? No friends, I know you can't find it in the text. I know I can't prove this. But I bet you ten bucks that there wasn't a cloud in the sky the day God made this declaration to Noah. I bet it was as blue as blue could be. He looked up. Now there are some people of course who will go on to say that suggest that it had never rained prior to the flood. Others assert that the concept of a flood was altogether foreign to Noah. We have no way of knowing this for sure. The text does not tell us. But at the very least we do know that Noah had never seen a flood of this magnitude nor had he ever seen a sailing vessel of these proportions. The point beloved I'm trying to make in all of this you see is that the influence, the motivation, the compulsion which persuaded Noah to such strange action to build this gigantic sailing vessel far removed from any large body of water was not what he had learned from past experiences with bad weather. Nor was it because he was able to intellectually satisfy all of the rational curiosities of his mind. No beloved he built the ark for no other reason than this. God told him the flood would come. God told him to build the ark. He acted upon God's word. And friends I know I sound like a broken record week after week after week after week after week. We come back saying this to you again and again but this is what Christian faith is. This is what Christian faith is as it is described in the scriptures. Not merely a positive feeling about something that we hope will come about in the future. I have faith for example that that that I will become a brain surgeon one day. No Christian faith is confident assurance in the revelation of God. God has spoken and on the basis of that I shape mold fashion my life. It is confident assurance in the promise of God, the word of God and in this particular case the warning of God. In fact, you may find it interesting to note that this word here when warned about things not yet seen this word warned is a word in the New Testament that is used almost exclusively to speak about communications that have come directly from the mouth and mind of God. Despite of everything else that would scream at him to the contrary, know it took God at his word and built an ark.
You see beloved this is the kind of faith that will stand alone amidst the most fierce opposition. A faith that has settled this business once and for all of the authority of the word of God of the credibility and integrity of the word of God. It is this kind of faith you see beloved that recognizes the word of God to be performative that the word of God is not merely something that God says rather the word of God is something that God is doing. You know the phrase you know the cliche action speak louder than words. It implies that what a person says and what a person does are not always the same thing or here's another talk is cheap. It implies a distinction between what we say and what we do with God however this is not the case. The Bible does not distinguish between God's words and God's deeds. His words are his deeds in the sense that they always accomplish God's purposes. Psalm 33 says by the word of the Lord where the heavens made he spoke and it came to be his word is performative. He speaks and creation comes into existence. How is Lazarus raised from the dead? Come forth only a bit more focused isn't it?