Sermon Tone Analysis

2 Timothy 1:3-11

Serving God while the World Collapses

 

/I thank God, whom I serve, as my forefathers did, with a clear conscience, as night and day I constantly remember you in my prayers.

Recalling your tears, I long to see you, so that I may be filled with joy.

I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also.

For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands.

For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline/.

/So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner.

But join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God, who has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace.

This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Saviour, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.

And of this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher/.

I am a dinosaur.

I remember the first handheld computer to appear in our laboratory.

I dare not tell you when it was, but it was while I was in graduate studies at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Dallas, Texas.

One of my professors was married to an engineer at Texas Instruments.

He was working on a top-secret project which resulted in a rectangular box which she brought to the laboratory.

Upon examination I discovered that this was a small computer which would perform four functions.

Its cost was in the range of eight hundred dollars.

Later, as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of California Medical School in San Francisco, we were pleased to obtain for only $4,000 a 64K memory Hewlett Packer computer for our work in obstetrics and gynaecology.

Upon returning to postgraduate studies in Dallas I discovered that we no longer needed to store data we had generated in shoe boxes (in the form of punch cards or punch tapes) but we were connected directly to the computing centre mainframe.

My first home computer had a CPM OS and wrote to 5¼-inch floppy discs.

I gradually worked my way up in succession to a 286, a 386, a 586 and at last I again entered the realm of the dinosaur despite using a 166 MHz Pentium with a 1.58 gigabyte hard drive and 128 megabytes of RAM.

I’m in the market for my next computer, which will allow me to upgrade to Windows NT 5.0.

It will have at least a 500 MHz motherboard with 128 megabytes of RAM and at least a 10 gigabyte hard drive.

Of course, it will be Y2K compatible, in no small measure because we will have passed that particular crisis and be facing the next threat to society as we know it.

Until I built my latest computer, each alike was deficient in memory both on the hard drive and in RAM.

To address the memory problem, programmers early on had implemented shortcuts to save memory.

Since that first computer was built in the early 70s, it was not necessary to inform the chip what year it was by entering four digits; the last two digits would suffice since everything was in the twentieth century.

Nearing the twenty-first century, however, perceptive programmers and engineers realised that we were facing a potential problem of catastrophic proportions.

When the year 2000 rolled around, computers would register “00”, but the computers would think it was the year 1900.

Everyone would lose one hundred years, which might otherwise be a blessing.

About five years ago the world began to panic.

The American Congress at last heard and began to seriously weigh the concerns of computer scientists who were warning of world-wide catastrophes if the software driving our world was not upgraded.

It was not that computer experts were just then realising the problem existed, but they were being openly voiced and their concerns were at last being heard.

The term “Y2K” entered our vocabulary and a new fear entered the social consciousness.

Today, Canada is touted as the most Y2K ready nation in the world.

There are virtually no major difficulties anticipated which will arise from Y2K software deficits.

There may be minor difficulties resulting from older software, but no major systems are thought to be threatened by antiquated software in Canada.

Australia, New Zealand and the United States are the second most prepared nations for the looming date change, and Britain rounds out the nations most prepared to address the issues surrounding outdated software.

Consequently, when the year 2000 rolls around in a few days, it is unlikely that there will be major problems caused by obsolete software in Canada.

Perhaps a few isolated power outages will be experienced in Canada, though that possibility appears increasingly remote.

Such outages, should they occur, will most likely be restricted to minor power grids situated in isolated regions of the country.

There should be no phone interruption as result of software non-compliance.

Your money will be there when you need it, whether you have invested it or whether you have it in a savings account.

I would not hesitate to board a plane flying from Edmonton to Vancouver on January 1st, nor even one which was flying to Denver.

Yet experts are cautioning that we may face some problems.

The problems anticipated are not the result of software failure, however, they will be the result of the human factor.

Many people anticipate problems and they may inadvertently cause problems.

Fearful individuals drawing out large amounts of cash may deplete bank machines and create a fear that the ATMs are not working.

Worse yet, consider what temptation can be presented to the less savoury elements of society should a sizeable proportion of the populace be carrying large amounts of cash on their persons or secreting those same large amounts of cash on their property.

Large numbers of people picking up the phone at the same time to see if the system is working can easily overload the system and cause momentary disruptions.

Think of the difficulties you may have had in obtaining a dial tone on Mother’s Day at various times in the past and then think of the impact of tens of thousands of phones being picked up simultaneously as users check for a dial tone.

Add to all these potential problems the possibility of problems arising from uninformed or poorly informed individuals anticipating cataclysmic conflict and you realise that the expectation of difficulties can easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

In the days immediately preceding the changeover, store shelves may well be depleted and some individuals who are nervous about what they consider to be roving gangs of armed and hungry individuals may unadvisedly choose to shoot first and ask questions later if their home is approached by strangers.

It is this human factor which concerns most scientists and civic planners.

As Christians we can surrender to the fear of the world about us and also panic at the prospect of every social change (and there will be an increasing number of changes in our common culture and societies).

We have witnessed a dramatic transformation of life as we once knew it and we will witness yet more dramatic changes as the new millennium unfolds.

How shall we live in such times?

The Faith to Endure— /I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also.

For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands.

For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline /[*vv.

5 – 7*].

Faith is active, touching people from one generation to the next.

That faith which is here identified as sincere faith has an impact in lives about us.

There is no such thing as passive faith.

Faith in Christ the Lord transforms the one who exercises that faith.

Consequently, that faith will be revealed through the manner in which one lives.

Have you ever noticed how frequently this is an issue in the Word of God?

Paul made it abundantly clear that faith must result in action.

We cannot attend services in an evangelical church for long until we hear *Ephesians 2:8,9*: /it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast/.

Furthermore, we are all quick to learn those two verses.

Should someone challenge our salvation we will claim faith.

However, few of us go beyond those two verses to the corollary which Paul appended in *the tenth verse*: For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do [*Ephesians 2:10*].

You remember that James makes this issue in an exceptionally strongly worded passage in his letter.

/What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds?

Can such faith save him?

Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food.

If one of you says to him, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?

In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

/

/But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”/

/Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.

You believe that there is one God.

Good!

Even the demons believe that—and shudder/ [*James 2:14-19*].

When we believe the Good News of Christ’s death, burial and resurrection we are born into the Family of God.

Born of the Spirit, we increasingly reflect our divine parentage.

That parentage will not permit us to flee in fear each time the enemy roars.

So very often I hear of some Christian or another who fears what may be occurring in his or her life.

I frequently urge those believers to memorise one verse of Scripture.

/God did not give us a spirit of [fear], but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline/ [*2 Timothy 1:7*].

Some years ago a man named John Todd appeared on the evangelical scene.

His was a dark message which was disseminated throughout evangelical churches across the United States and Canada.

I was astonished when I actually heard the message this man was delivering, for I judged it to be heresy and called it such without equivocation.

Why would I be so judgmental?

Why would I be so condemnatory toward a professed fellow evangelical?

What would motivate me to be so mean-spirited as to question some of the biggest names in contemporary evangelicalism?

The message John Todd was delivering was a message of fear and doom.

He claimed that witches … Illumanati, as he named them … were in control of the centres of power in the United States.

The Pentagon was controlled by these worshippers of Satan.

The Government was thoroughly infiltrated by Satan worshippers.

I suspect that many congressmen and senators are evil enough with laying any blame on Satan for their culpability.