That the man of God may be perfect,— "That the furniture of the man of God may be complete, and that he may be thoroughly fitted for every good work which his holy calling may require."
Inferences.—Must we not, on the survey of this chapter, in comparison with what we every day behold in life, cry out, "Verily, these are the last days?" They are assuredly times of difficulty and peril. Self-love, pride, ingratitude, treachery, intemperance, insolence, the contempt of all authority, human and divine, each, all of these characters may too plainly declare it: but none with more striking evidence than the excessive love of pleasure, on which so many are doting to destruction, while every consideration, both of religion and of prudence, falls at the shrine of this favourite idol. Men are lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, more than lovers of their families, yea, though self-interest be in many instances so scandalously pursued, yet more than lovers of themselves; and when they have sacrificed every thing else to their gain, they sacrifice even that gain to luxury. And would to God there were none such, even among those that retain the form of godliness, which so many indeed have scornfully cast off. But O! how vain the form, where the power of it is thus denied! And how peculiarly scandalous are these characters in those who call themselves teachers of religion! Yet to such they are here originally applied; and their race is not yet extinct.
Blessed be God, there are those yet remaining who are the happy reverse of these; ministers, who can appeal to the consciences of men, as to their doctrine, their conversation, their resolution, their fidelity, their gentleness, their charity, and their patience. Happy are they, how ill soever they may be treated in the world! Happy would they be, though exposed to all the terrors of persecution which the apostles and their first followers endured! but we are all warned to prepare for some degree of it; and indeed who can wonder if, amid so many evils, they who will not go on with the multitude, should sometimes be rudely pressed by them; and it may be, in some instances, cast down and trampled under foot. But be it so; though cast down, they shall not be destroyed: (2 Corinthians 4:9.) A little time will balance all. An hour of eternity will more than balance it. Let us guard against the deceits by which so many suffer. Let us guard, above all, against those deceits which men practise upon themselves, and whereby they hurt themselves infinitely more than all their fraud or violence can hurt any who are not accessary to their own undoing.
REFLECTIONS.—1st, The apostle apprizes Timothy of the dangerous days which were hastening on. This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come, when sad corruptions, creeping into the church, shall make it difficult to preserve a pure conscience. For men shall be lovers of their ownselves, wholly devoted to the pursuits of their worldly honour and interests; covetous, insatiate after filthy lucre; proud, and vain-glorious boasters; blasphemers of God and man; disobedient to parents; unthankful to their benefactors; unholy in heart and conversation; without natural affection, which appears even in brutes; truce breakers, perfidious to the most solemn engagements; false accusers, like devils incarnate, blackening, with every opprobrious calumny, their opponents; incontinent, indulging every bestial appetite; fierce and furious in their tempers; despisers of those that are good, and treating men, far their betters, with contempt; traitors, false to their trusts, betraying their nearest friends; heady, driving furiously in their wicked courses, impatient of controul; high minded, puffed up with a vain conceit of their own superiority; lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; and what is the aggravation of all their other abominations, in making great pretensions to piety, having a form of godliness and affecting rigid attachment to the externals of worship, but denying the power thereof, real enemies to vital religion: from such turn away, and shun them as the plague.
These corruptions began in the Gnostick's, who in the apostle's days appeared; and the perilous times advanced to their height, when the Roman pontiffs, after a train of diabolical practices, raised their blasphemous hierarchy, and consecrated their abominations. And to the papal apostacy are all these characters strikingly applicable.
2nd, The apostle proceeds,
1. To point out the artful and pernicious practices of the seducers. For of this sort are they which creep into houses, with every wheedling art, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, imposing upon them with flattering speeches, and gaining them to their party, ever learning of these vain teachers, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth, but bewildered in the endless mazes of error. Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, setting up their pretended miracles in opposition to his divine commission, so do these also resist the truth of the gospel—men of like corrupt minds as these Egyptian sorcerers, reprobate concerning the faith, rejected and abhorred of God.
2. He foretells that all their efforts should be impotent. But they shall proceed no further than the magicians did, nor be able essentially and finally to deceive the faithful saints of God; for an effectual check shall be given to them, and their folly shall be manifest unto all men, as theirs also was; and all their lying miracles shall be detected. Note; Error may, for a time, prevail; but truth shall finally be triumphant.
3rdly, Nothing could better serve to guard Timothy against these seducers, than the striking contrast between their conduct and that of the blessed Paul.
1. He reminds him of what he had seen. But thou hast fully known my doctrine, and the uniform tenor of my preaching; my exemplary manner of life, steady purpose to advance God's glory and the good of men's souls, unshaken faith, fervent charity, unwearied patience amid the many and grievous persecutions, afflictions which came unto me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra: what persecutions I endured: but out of them all the Lord delivered me. With such an example Timothy should be animated to fidelity, and might surely expect the same supports and deliverances.
2. He informs him that suffering must be more or less every Christian's lot, and especially in those times. Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus, shall suffer persecution, of one kind or other, from mockery to martyrdom. There is indeed a godliness in form that the world speaks well of; but to be godly in Christ Jesus, in spirit and temper conformed to him, will ever render us abhorred of a world that lieth in wickedness.
3. He predicts the fatal end of these deceivers. But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, hurried on from one excess of wickedness to another, deceiving and being deceived, till, having filled up the measure of their iniquities, they perish with the arch-deceiver in everlasting burnings.
4thly, As he would be exposed to great temptations, the apostle exhorts him to cleave to the Scriptures, as the only infallible guide to truth.
But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned, and hast been assured of, the pure and unadulterated doctrines of the gospel, which on the most satisfying evidence thou hast believed, knowing of whom thou hast learned them, even from me, divinely commissioned from the great Redeemer: and that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, early initiated in these sacred records, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation, through faith which is in Christ Jesus, who is the sum and substance of the whole, and to whom both the law and the prophets bear witness. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, both the Old and New Testament have the same divine original; and is profitable for doctrine, no doctrine demanding our credence and submission, but what can be clearly proved from thence; for reproof of errors, heresies, and all manner of evil; for correction of whatever is found amiss in the church; for instruction in righteousness, how holiness can be obtained, and how we can be enabled so to walk as to please God: that the man of God, the true believer, may be perfect, throughly instructed in all the mind of God, and furnished unto all good works, whether as a Christian for those of his station, or as a minister for the arduous service in which he is engaged. Note; (1.) Parents should betimes endeavour to lead their children to the Bible. (2.) All the volumes of mere human learning can never teach us so much wisdom as one page, one line of the book of God; after all these labours we must have been left to perish in ignorance; but in the oracles of truth, life and immortality are brought to light, and the poorest and most unlettered saint of God is wiser, in the things which make for his everlasting peace, than the deepest metaphysician, or the most profound philosopher. (3.) All scripture is of divine authority, therefore on God's testimony to be received with faith. Our wisdom, where any thing mysterious is revealed, is, not to reason, but to believe. (4.) The book of God is the Christian's great magazine; he can be in no state and condition, but he will there find direction, instruction, reproof, or comfort, exactly suited to his circumstances.