"But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion's mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.” (2 Timothy 4:17-18)
One day during January 1975 on an isolated tropical point in southern Mexico, called Punta de Mita, 30 miles north of Puerto Vallarta; a young 22 year old surfer was resting after surfing all morning with just his best friend in perfect tropical world class waves. He had only just recently in December become a Christian. Lying on a hammock, with only the sound of seagulls, pelicans, and the waves breaking, the peace, solitude, and quiet made for a good environment to read his bible, which he read every day for hours. So, he opened his bible and began to read as he did every day after surfing. Only this day was different, as C.S. Lewis put it, he was surprised by joy, in short, God ambushed him! God came to him in a voice in his head and told him to turn to Jeremiah 1.
Now understand that this young guy had never read Jeremiah 1, nor did he even know that there was a book in the bible named Jeremiah. So after fumbling through his bible trying to find this ancient book, he finally arrived. The passage went like this:
“Now the word of the LORD came to me, saying, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations." Then I said, "Ah, Lord GOD! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth." But the LORD said to me, "Do not say, 'I am only a youth'; for to all to whom I send you, you shall go, and whatever I command you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, declares the LORD." Then the LORD put out his hand and touched my mouth. And the LORD said to me, "Behold, I have put my words in your mouth. See, I have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant" (Jeremiah 1:4-10).
After reading the passage, the Lord said to the young man, “My son, you will be my Jeremiah. Just as I called Jeremiah, I have called you to be a pastor. I will do it” The young man laughed hysterically at this word yet strangely wept profusely at the same time and said, “Lord I am nothing but an uneducated, unemployed surf bum. I have problems in my life. I have lived a terrible life of sin. I am an uneducated, unemployed, loner, barely graduating from high school, a nobody. How can you use me? How can this possibly happen?” The Lord said to him, “The word that I gave to Jeremiah, I give to you. I will make you a pastor just as I made Jeremiah my prophet. You will be my Jeremiah. It will be my work and you will know that I alone have done this.”
After that the young surfer boy waited for two years before the word of the Lord began to be fulfilled in his life; not that he would not try before that to run ahead and make it happen. But every time he did, it was a complete and humiliating disaster. But the Lord, who called him, had his own ordained time for him and in 1977 the Lord fulfilled his calling and the young man of 24 years began a singles ministry and in February 1977 preached his first sermon.
That surfer boy that I am telling you about is me and I have never forgotten that moment when the Lord graced me and called me to the ministry. The Lord and His calling on my life has been my compass, my strength, my hope, the object of my faith, and the sustaining power that has kept me persevering these past thirty five years through ministry triumphs and defeats, through exaltation and humiliation, through joys and sorrows, through mountaintops and valleys, through moments of elation and disappointment, through people coming into my life and people leaving my life, through times of pleasure and times of pain, through seasons of popularity and rejection, through times of great laughter and times of great, deep, sorrow and tears, through friendship and estrangement, through fulfilled dreams and broken dreams, through successes and failures, through great surprises and disappointments, through great gains and great losses, through being promoted and being demoted, through chastening, breaking, trials, sanctification, growth, maturity, progress, regress, ups and downs.
It is a blessing to write today after thirty five years and say “the Lord has done it and it is marvelous in my eyes” (Psalm 118:23). Today I am a lot older, hopefully wiser, more mature, a bit more tired, but full of longing that God would fill me with fresh, Spirit-given passion to preach and finish my course with the most fruitful time that I have ever known. I know that it may be presumptuous to say that I hope and plan to preach and trumpet the vision of the beauty and supremacy and glory of God until I am an old man (I just turned 59). Only God knows if I will live that long.
I want to testify to the faithfulness of God in my life and I want to encourage you about His faithfulness to you as well. I love the testimony of the apostle Paul in 2 Timothy 4. Paul is in Rome and is about to become a martyr for the gospel. He will die in the persecution of Nero very soon after this letter is written. He knows this is coming. That's the meaning of verse 6: "For I am already on the point of being sacrificed; the time of my departure has come." Paul has already made one defense before the Roman court. He calls it his "first defense" in verse 16. "At my first defense no one took my part; all deserted me." He knows that another court appearance is coming and that it will probably mean the end of his life. That is the context in which we read verses 17-18 as he looks back on the first defense and forward to the dangers in front of him. “But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion's mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.” I want to take this testimony as my own. Each part of it fills me with a sense of overwhelming gratitude to God and empowers me to hope for my future.
I. "The Lord stood by me. . ." All my life, Jesus Christ has been a very personal, precious, and a faithful friend to me. What Jesus says in John 15:13-15 has meant so much to me, "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you." The heart of my ministry has been rooted in the friendship of Jesus. The heart of my ministry is to know what the Master is doing, to know what the Master is like, and to make it known. That is why I tell people all the time that the most important thing in my life is to see Jesus for who He is and to savor Him for all He is worth. If I am to succeed in this ministry Jesus must be my friend; and Oh what a friend He has been to me! "There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother" (Proverbs 18:24); and his name is Jesus.
II. "...and gave me strength to proclaim the message fully . . ."
One of the greatest things I have learned in my life and experienced all of these years is that God never calls us to do things that HE CANNOT DO! He does not ask us to do things that He will not help us and enable us to do. He is faithful. He does supernatural and impossible things. He takes jars of clay like you and me and fills them with His power so that in all things we do He might get the glory. “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us” (2 Corinthians 4:7). Too many people say, "I'm so ordinary, so average and undistinguished. I can't do anything significant." 2 Corinthians 4:7 shows that this argument is wrong and why. God's concept of ministry is so different from the world's concept. The world stresses the container, not the glory of God in human weakness. God does the opposite.
If there is one thing that I have learned, it is that God's purpose to get the glory in all things determines how we do all things. God's purpose is to make sure that we see that the surpassing power belongs to him and not to us. How does he do it? He puts the treasure of his gifts and his gospel in clay pots like you and me. Your ordinariness is not a liability; it is an asset, if you really want God to get the glory. No one is too common, too weak, too shy, too inarticulate, too disabled to do what God wants you to do. I am living proof! I can say like Paul, “Most gladly will I brag about my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may dwell in me”(2 Corinthians 12:9).
I have experienced the Lord’s strength in so many other ways: In financial provision when God called me to serve full time with no salary; then called me with a wife and three kids to turn down a full time salary and give up my thriving ministry for a position as a youth pastor in a church that had no youth for 100 dollars a month; with the strength to be rejected by three churches and yet watch the demotions lead to His promotions; invariably leading to planting a church in 1987; in the most severe trials in the 90’s when I thought that the church wouldn’t make it, when I have been so discouraged, despondent, lonely, and defeated that I felt that I could not go on another day as a pastor, when I have been at wits end and didn’t know what to do but to cry out for help, in the day to day sustaining grace to plod along in obedience to what I know by faith; in Him coming over and over again in divine providence to guide and encourage me; in losing everything and wondering if I would ever be a pastor again; and in restoring me, providing for me, and calling me to plant another church at 59 years old. And oh how often He has strengthened me through the love and prayers and grace,mercy of men like Pastor Dick Reeve, Chuck Smith Jr., Dr. Walter Martin, Ed Piorek,and Professor Ronald Wright; through longtime loyal and faithful friends in ministry like Ken Fish, Paul Cessarini, and Jean White; through the writings of men like John Piper, Jonathan Edwards C.S Lewis, R.C Sproul, Sam Storms, Charles Swindill, and Augustine; through the lives of men like George Mueller, David Brainerd, Hudson Taylor, William Carey, John Newton, William Wilberforce, Adoniram Judson, John Paton, and the English Puritans; and through the unknown but known to God, prayers of the saints for me. I am so very grateful.
Oh how He has been there to strengthen and to be patient with me in my immaturity, pride, character flaws, glib and flippant speech, selfishness, impatience, false ambition, introversion, being a loner, battling depression and discouragement, and numerous other sins. I have learned that the faithfulness of God triumphs over the flaws of men. “The one who calls you is faithful and He will do it” (1 Thessalonians 5:24); “I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ (Philippians 1:6); “Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful” (Hebrews 10:13). God’s grace has always triumphed over my guilty impotency. That is why I have not allowed my weaknesses and flaws to paralyze me The Lord stood by me. When I have failed and fallen and the enemy has said, God can’t use someone like me, I have been able to say like Micah 7:8 “Do not rejoice over me….Though I fall I will rise”. The Lord has been my advocate and has pleaded my case. He has helped me to stand in His righteousness, not my own, and to do the work that He has given me to do these past 35 years.
God has a great work to do for each one of you to do. Do it with all of your might-yes, even with all of your flaws and your sins. And in the obedience of this faith, magnify the glory of His amazing grace, and do not grow weary in doing good. The Lord stood by me. In every storm, in every dark season his hand has been on my shoulder to get me through them and to come out the other side with unshakable faith and joy. As the hymn writer said, “When all around my soul gives way, this is my hope and my stay. On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.” And now at the end of thirty five years as a pastor I love the faithfulness of the Lord more than ever. The Lord has stood by me. I have felt his hand on my shoulder without fail every week of these thirty years. God’s sovereign faithfulness has been the hope of my future, the energy of my service, the center of my doctrine, and the remedy for all my discouragements.
III. "So I was rescued from the lion's mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil and save me for his heavenly kingdom."
Notice very carefully what this rescue means. "He will rescue me from every evil and save me for his heavenly kingdom." What evil would threaten to keep Paul out of God's heavenly kingdom? When Paul says that he was rescued from the lion's mouth and that he will be rescued from every evil work, he means he was saved from unbelief; he was saved from apostasy; he was saved from loving the world like Demas (2 Timothy 4:10); he was saved from cowardice; he was saved from throwing it all away for a few more years of freedom and comfort. Oh how God has kept me in the faith and in the ministry. This is the great preciousness of having the Lord standing by us. It means that the Lord will cause us to persevere to the end and save us for his heavenly kingdom.
It is no wonder why we must break forth with the apostle Paul at the end of verse 18 and say, "To him be the glory for ever and ever. Amen." Why? Because God caused Paul, and will cause you and me to persevere in the good fight of faith. Therefore: "To him be the glory for ever and ever. Amen." I thank God that Jesus, in his mercy, has stood by me and helped me for Thirty five years. The Lord stood by Paul, guiding him all is life and the Lord stood by me, and the Lord will stand by you! He will do that for you to as you offer yourself up to him for his use and his mission.
William Carey said, "Expect great things from God, attempt great things for God." In that order! First trust him. Trust his promise. He will stand with you. He will give you strength. Then . . . THEN . . . "attempt great things for God. My precious brothers and sisters, I urge you to be faithful to the work of Christ; to fulfill your gifts and calling; to witness with courage; and most of all—as the foundation for all—to BELIEVE THIS PROMISE: The Lord will stand by you, He will give you strength, He will rescue you from every evil and save you for His heavenly kingdom. To Him be the glory for ever and ever. Amen.
Grateful and expectant,
Pastor Bill
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