Now, let us look together at the portion we've been reading in Paul's second letter to Timothy in chapter 4, and reading again in verses 16 to 18. At my first answer, no man stood with me, but all men forsook me. I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge. Notwithstanding, the Lord stood by, stood with me, and strengthened me, that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear. And I was delivered unto the mouth of the lion. And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen. Now, this is a chapter that echoes and re-echoes with the sound of triumph. And triumphant note is found throughout it. And where you find that voice of triumph, it suggests that there has been trial. And there is with the godly the trial of faith. And we shall look at that first and foremost. the trial that confronted Paul on this occasion. And then secondly, we shall look at how faith meets with such a trial. We may call it the perspective of faith. These two strands of thought then tonight, and the Lord is looking to the Lord to bless it to us. Paul's trial, trial of faith, We find Paul here, an old man on the threshold of glory. A Paul who can say in his letter to the Corinthians, for example, he can speak of the great difficulties that he has met in the service of the Lord. Speaking of enduring strife three times, speaking of shipwreck, speaking of great difficulties that he faced in the course of his sojourn in serving the Lord. And you might have thought that somebody who has come to the end of his days that, oh surely now, the time of trial is over. The time of difficulty is over. But that's not what we find here. And that's not what we find necessarily in Scripture. And we might, we're in danger sometimes of regarding these trials and difficulties and sufferings as if they were an affliction. But we must remember, as Paul himself writes, that to you, that is to the believer, it is given. It is the gift of God, not only to believe upon Him, but to suffer for Him as well. So, we should not be surprised when we find Paul and the Caleb's of this world meeting up with such afflictions and difficulties at the end of their days. Not only do we find an old man at the threshold of glory, but we find him, well, in the midst of trials, as I have said. He is imprisoned. He is in Rome. facing trial for his stand on Christ's side. He is in the midst of the madness of the Neronic persecutions against Christians and he is facing imminent death. That is what he is facing, death as a martyr for the cause of Christ. And not only is he in that state, but he finds himself all alone in that difficulty. To some people that might not have been such a painful thing as it was for Paul. Paul was no hermit. He was a gregarious person. And he loved fellowship. We gather that from his writings. love to have Christians around him and to have Christian fellowship. And you can see that even in this very letter itself, where he seeks the fellowship, where he seeks Timothy to come to him at this time. We find it in the list of names that he gives at the end. Salute, Priscilla and Aquila, and the household of Onesiphorus, and the names of Erastus and Trophimus and so on given by him. It must have been very painful for him to face loneliness in the midst of his great difficulty. He had friends like Timothy himself. You find when you go back to the beginning of this book, 2 Timothy chapter 1, that he makes special mention of Onesiphorus, who had oft times refreshed him in his chains, as he puts it. must have been that Onesiphorus was one who would have visited him in prison, and one who would have engaged in spiritual conversation with him, and who would have engaged in prayer with him, and refreshed his spirit in this way. And he is very thankful for the friendship of Onesiphorus, and he seeks the blessing of the Lord upon his household. We see also that he esteemed the friendship of Luke, who is mentioned, I think, in this chapter as one who still stood by him. But although he esteemed these friends, we gather that he is all alone at this time. we find that there were those who had come with him when he came from Judea, and when he came from Jerusalem, when he came from Asia, when he came from Judea. Those who had come with him to Rome. Now that he is facing imprisonment and imminent death, well, many of them forsake him. Many of them forsake him. Some of his friends have been posted as Christians and as evangelists to other parts of the Roman Empire at this time. Some of them actually have forsaken him. They've compromised. Rather than make a stand with Paul and identify with Paul and show solidity with him and place themselves in the firing line, well, they back out. Sometimes it's when the chips are down that you find out who are who are your friends and can be true in Christian circles as in other circles. And Paul was finding at this time that many of those who would have spoken as friends before, well, they went away. We find he is particularly disappointed with one called Demas. You find the disappointment, it comes out in the very few words he says about him. Demas also has forsaken me. And it's not saying that he was an apostate, but he was one who had loved the world more than his love for the cause of Christ to such an extent that he went away from Paul at this time. And that was a great grief to him. He was very gracious to the likes of Demas nevertheless. He would wish that the Lord would forgive them for what they've done. But there was one who was difficult to forgive, one who had forsaken him not out of weakness on his part, but out of sheer malice, and that was Alexander the metal worker. he had done despite against him. You find reference made to him, I think, possibly being one of the leaders in the tumult at Ephesus some time back. He was one that we find in one of the early letters, I forget if it was the first letter or the second letter of Timothy, one whom he had delivered up unto Satan, one who had to be excommunicated as it were from the church, one who was a troublemaker against Paul, whom Paul is now putting Timothy on his guard against, that he could be a troublemaker against him too, and against the cause of God. But all of these, whether they were doing it out of malice, as was Alexander, or whether they were doing it out of fearful compromise, as was Demas and others, well, they were forsaking him. And there were those who were friends who had been posted elsewhere, He was all alone. He was all alone in the midst of his great strait facing death, imminent death. How should he respond? How should you and I respond? What is the response of faith in the midst of such a trial? That's what I want to come to secondly, what I call the perspective of faith as we see it as we see it expressed to us in the response of Paul at this time. And we shall see very briefly that that perspective of faith has three strands to it. There's a retrospective view, there's a prospective view, and there's an upward view. that faith takes. And you and I should seek grace to follow these views ourselves in our response to difficulties and troubles that come in our way in our Christian walk. First of all, let's look at the retrospective view then. And you see it expressed in the words of our text. Notwithstanding, well, it's first of all in 16. At my first answer, no man stood with me, but all men forsook me. I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge. Notwithstanding, the Lord stood with me. When our backs are to the wall, well, that should drive us or even draw us to prayer, to the throne of grace. to the Christ of God. Not as a last resort, but as a first resort indeed. Where else can we go? Thou alone hast the words of eternal life. And undoubtedly that was the response of Paul in this situation. And in praying we must understand that the Lord enabled him The Lord enabled him to take, to recall, to take this respective look of what had happened in his life in the past, to enable him to recall a time in the past when he had faced a similar situation to now. And when in the midst of that situation he had been enabled to realize the faithfulness of Almighty God to His promises within that covenant that He would never leave and that He would never forsake His people. That is what Paul does at this time. He prays and he is enabled to recall. And it is a good thing sometimes to go back and recall how the Lord has helped us in the past. Seek to take encouragement from the Lord's dealings in the past. That is what you find when you look at verse 16. At my first answer, he says, no man stood with me. It looks from these words at my first answer. There was a time in the past when it may be, it might have been another imprisonment at some time in the distant past, or it may be just connected with this present imprisonment. Some commentators view that it was this present imprisonment and that it was a first hearing, as it were, before the authorities. in a trial connected with this present imprisonment in one of Nero's jails, one of Nero's prisons. Whatever, whether it was an immediate hearing in this present situation or whether it was an imprisonment in the past, he is recalling the Lord's dealings with him in it. And he recalls that he was left all alone in the midst of that state as well. At my first answer, whatever that situation was, at my first answer, no man stood with me. I was left all alone then too, he says. All men forsook me. Even Luke must have been away on some other business at that time. Even Onesiphorus must have been away on some other business at that time. But he says, all men forsook me. I was left all alone. But the Lord stood by me." That's what he recalls. There was a time of similar difficulty. The Lord stood by me when all others left me all alone. How does the Lord stand by one? There were times in Paul's own experience when the Lord actually appeared personally to him. Do you find reference to that? I think I took a note of it in Acts 23 and verse 11. a time when he was being held by the authorities, when scribes and Pharisees, the Pharisees and Sadducees began to fight among themselves and it looked as if in the midst of the melee that Paul's life was going to be in danger and he was taken into hold. And while he was held in hold that night, God actually spoke to him. And it would appear that God spoke to him personally. Fear not, the Lord was going to enable him to bring him to Rome where his desire and his ambition was towards and that he would be, that he would one day be there. The Lord stood by him by appearing personally to him. There was another time when the Lord stood by him by sending his angel towards him. when the shipwreck was taking place or when the shipwreck was imminent and they would be shipwrecked into the coast of Malta. And he was able to tell the captain of the boat what the Lord had told him by the angels, that not one of them would lose his life, that they would all be taken ashore. Sometimes it was, in the case of Paul, God Himself personally speaking to him, His presence in that way. Or sometimes it was with an angelic presence. But surely that must be exceptional. And when we speak of the Lord standing by him, there would be although we might not expect that sort of personal or angelic attendance of the Lord making himself known to us today. Nevertheless, the Lord's people can still speak of the Lord standing by them in such situations and making his presence known. And he does so particularly by the Spirit and through the truth, through the Bible, through the Word. Not just that we would know the Bible, not just that we would know verses of the Bible, not even know that we would have an intellectual knowledge of appropriate verses of the Bible, but that appropriate verses, appropriate sentences, appropriate portions of the Scripture would be accompanied with the subjective power of the Spirit and brought home to us. We don't hear people speaking today as we used to hear once upon a time, the Lord spoke to me in His truth. The Lord gave me a Word. But that is what He does by His own Spirit. He applies the Word so that it takes hold of us. It takes hold of us in such a way that we are aware that it is the Lord who is impressing something upon our minds. It may be, in the midst of such a situation, a word of encouragement like, as the mountains are about Jerusalem, so the Lord is about His own people. It may be, Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. It may be, fear not little flock, it is the Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. It may be as it was with Jesus appearing to the disciples when they were in the boat, and He came walking upon the water, and they feared that He was a ghost. With the words, be not afraid, it is I. It can be a great encouragement to somebody in the midst of eternal illness when the Lord applies His Word subjectively and powerfully and you realize it is the Lord, Lord speaking. We don't need to be Pentecostals for that. We can be the very best kind of Pentecostals and feeding upon the Word and living upon the Word and realizing the truth of that Word experimentally. And we can be upheld by the truth and by the God of truth in the midst of these situations. How? Because He enables us to see things in proper perspective. He strengthens our faith. He enables us to see the difficulty through the Almighty God of the Covenant as my God The difficulty doesn't go away, but we see it in a new perspective. Instead of seeing our God through the difficulty and having small views of God, we see the difficulty now in a proper perspective in the face of the One who is my God and my Upholder. And so we are strengthened. And so Paul was strengthened to see He was left all alone in whatever the situation was, but left all alone, my God upheld me. And he tells us that when he was upheld in faith like that, when he was unable to see things in proper perspective like that, he was able In the face of the brow-beating authorities against Him that caused others to wither away, He was unable to witness a good confession. He Himself tells us that He was delivered. Delivered undoubtedly from Satan. Delivered from Satan's brow-beatings. Satan would have Him to cowardly shrivel away. He was unable to overcome that. He was unable to witness a good confession, so that the gospel was heard not only by those who were his accusers, but heard by all those who were attendants in the court. And through them, it went to all those who were working in the headquarters and in the palace roundabout. The gospel, through the word of Paul, by the power of the Spirit, went forth against those who would seek to enclose it and to contain it. And Paul can say, there was such a time that the Lord upheld me. And He enabled me to see things in perspective. He enabled me to be delivered from the browbeatings of Satan. And He enabled me to witness a good confession to the glory and honor of my God. And what a joy that must be even in the midst of affliction when we are enabled to attain in a little measure to the chief end of our being, to glorify God and thus to enjoy Him. It's a solemn joy, but it's a calm joy. It's something of the peace of God in the soul there, and a cause for great thanksgiving. That then is what he does first of all, the retrospective view of faith, the looking back of faith to a previous event. That's what you and I must do as well. And if you find, oh well, where can I find such an incident in my life? Well, sometimes it's like that with us and it's difficult to pick out. But shouldn't we be thankful at least that we can see it in the lives of others? that we can see it, that the grace of God was powerful in the lives of those whom we read about in our history books. And that the grace that was unable to uphold them is the same grace set before you and me tonight. The grace that has taken many home, even over the scaffold and the gibbet of their martyrdom. Is he not able to take us home too? And then secondly, as we look at this perspective of faith in the face of trial, there's the retrospective view. And the prospective view, the looking ahead now follows quite naturally and logically from the first one. Just as you have with David who could say, the God who has delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the clutch of the bear, He is able to deliver me from this giant also. The One who has upheld me in the past, He will uphold me now and in the future also. There is a portion that I have written down, because I forgot it. Behold, the eye of the Lord is upon them that fear him, and upon them that hope in his mercy, to deliver them from death and to keep them alive in famine. and o'er the reason to be thankful that such a one, that his arm is not shortened nor his ear heavy, that he is the same yesterday, today, forever." And the effect that you see that having on Paul is that he is leaning more and more upon the Saviour. He is enabled to lean more upon Him. Isn't that faith growing? Isn't that faith advancing? To be like the people of God in the past, who were coming up out of the wilderness, leaning on the Beloved. Faith must have a leaning posture. It is finding its strength not in anything of the arm of flesh, not in anything of self, but alone in Christ. But there is so much of self in us, and so much of self-sufficiency in us, that we have to learn that there has to be a process of self-abasement, a progression in self-abasement and of leaning more and more upon Him. Well, the more we are faced with these difficulties, the more faith is tried, the more faith is unable to be centered upon the almightiness of the Savior, the more we are being prepared for glory. the more the ties that hold us to this world are being loosened. There are so many of these. Even the best of us, we can find ourselves tied with the ties of marriage, the ties of sentiment, the ties of worldly things. But by and by, as we are centered upon Christ and find our strength and our worthiness more and more in Him, these ties are being loosened until at last we can say with Paul, I am now ready to be offered. The time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight. I have finished my course. I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day, and not to me only, but unto all them that love is appearing." We see we are like a boat that is moored to the quay, ready to set off into the great harbour, the great ocean towards our eternal home. I gather from friends that I have who once served in the Merchant Navy that there were three orders that were given when their boat was ready to set off. The first was stand two and then the second order was given was single rope and the boat was held by just that one rope and then finally springs away. And off she sails. Well, don't you see that Paul has at this stage reached that single rope stage? And ready for the springs away to sail into the harbour of the glory that awaits him. He is ripening in faith. He is leaning more and more upon the Master. He is finding His strength more and more in Him, and less and less in self. He can truly say with John the Baptist, He must increase, I must decrease. And so you find that He can say these words that I have just quoted. But it seems to me that when we come to our text that he has even gone a step further than the words that I have just quoted to you in verses 6-8. There you find the words, I, turning up once or twice or thrice. I have now ready. I have fought a good fight. I have finished my course. I have kept the faith. Henceforth it is laid up for me. Glorious as these words are, here we find in verses 16-18, it is God-centered. It is even more God-glorifying. The Lord stood by me. The Lord upheld me. The Lord will keep me. The Lord will bring me home. It is all to the glory of His name. Here is a man who has been delivered. Here is a man who is glorying in God. Here is a man whose ties to this world have been loosened, and he is being prepared for the glory that awaits him. He is ripening for it. And so, although he still faces death, he has been enabled to witness a good confession in that trial, whether it was a previous imprisonment or a stage in this present imprisonment. He is still facing death, but he is facing it with equanimity in the strength of his God. And so there is not only the backward look, the retrospective view, not only the forward look, the prospective view, but there is finally that upward view. And I have really been looking at it. And you see it in the words of the inner text. The Lord shall deliver me from every evil work and will preserve me unto His heavenly King to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. There is the upward view. To whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. It is the language of heaven itself when we can truly have it on the lip of the heart. all glory unto Him. How often we can speak it, but are we truly saying it? Undoubtedly, Paul was here. You can see the desire that he has towards that glory, even calling Timothy to be with him. Yes, that he would be a comfort to Paul in his difficulty. But surely there's more than that in his desire to see Timothy. It's that they should be together prayerfully, seeking the glory of God, that he should be enabled to impart some strengthening to young Timothy, that he would be enabled to carry on the good work when Paul is gone. Surely there was that in it. The glory and honor of the Savior. a thanksgiving day. It should be a thanksgiving day every day with us. But how thankful we should be that the God who delivered Paul, who has taken him home, who has taken home so many whom we have known, is the same one still set before us, the same grace, the same Christ, yesterday, today, forever. Let us pray. Oh, that thou would enable us to see things in proper perspective. How often, to our shame, we are taken up with the things of time and sense and see things in the wrong perspective. But that thou would enable us to see our prosperities and our afflictions. through the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, through the one who has covenanted with his people in him, I am your God and you are my sons and daughters. That in prosperity we would be kept from self-glorying, that in affliction we would be kept from embitterment, that in all things we would know that godliness with contentment, which is great gain. We pray, O Lord, that thou would not leave us to ourselves, that thou would teach us to be exercised at the throne of grace, that thou would give us discernment of thine hand in providence. That thou would enable us to see our sojourn in the context of eternity. That thou would take us to be more and more close to thyself. Help us to bear one another's burdens as we part. and take away iniquity in Jesus' name.