you will find the text this evening in 2nd Timothy 4 and verses 6 to 8 2nd Timothy 4 and verses 6 to 8 for I am now ready to be offered and at 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 also that love his appearing as I said this morning I do regard this as a very special privilege and joy to be invited to address you today and I do repeat that I bring to you the warmest Christian greetings of my congregation in Inverness in the Highlands of Scotland if ever you find yourself up there on holiday or vacation, please do look in. We would love to see you. We pray God's richest blessing upon you at this time as a nation when we and you are facing we know not what of possible conflict and war as the brethren have just said before me. It is a critical moment in the history of the world once again. may the Lord give great wisdom to your beloved president and government and to you all now my text 2nd Timothy is the Apostle Paul's final letter what a collection of writings we have from his pen did you ever hear a list of books like this The Epistle to the Romans, what an earth-shaking book that has proved to be. Corinthians 1 and 2, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians 1 and 2 and so on. What books, what a contribution to the understanding of God's truth and gospel we have. from this dear and beloved Apostle to the Gentiles, the Apostle Paul. We love his writings and we try to memorize them and lay them to our hearts and live by their teaching. But now with this epistle to Timothy he comes to his final letter And indeed this fourth chapter therefore is the last chapter of his writings. There is something poignant in that thought. Here we have the last words of this great and wonderful man of God. His final farewell to his people and indeed to us. You would have noticed in the final part of the chapter a reference to the lion I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion you may have wondered what that reference was I think we can safely say that what Paul means here is that he was delivered on the occasion of his first trial from the axe or the sword of the Roman Emperor Nero who well deserves the epithet of being a lion he was a very brutal very vicious tyrant if we were to give an epithet to Nero we would call him Nero the terrible and talking of epithets by the way of kings and great men they're fascinating things you will have heard of a king perhaps whose name was Richard they gave him an epithet he was a very courageous man in the Middle Ages he flinched before no man and they gave him this epithet Richard the Lionheart what a title and yet not all kings have had such a happy title as that have you ever heard of a certain king in England in the Middle Ages whose name was Ethelred not so well remembered I dare say today Ethel Red they gave him an epithet too can you remember it? he was called Ethel Red the unready Ethel Red the unready and that they called him that no doubt because when his enemies were preparing for war and when he should have had his defenses in place he was unready now I want to speak tonight about this whole subject of being unready and you may say to me unready for what? well I'll come to that just in a moment but the most of the people I meet in this world if they were to receive the name they deserve most of them should be called Ethelred because more than 90% of the people that I meet in this world are truly unready you say unready for what? well they're unready for the very thing that the Apostle Paul was ready for unready for death most people live this world in this world as though there were no such thing as the grave they live as though they were going to be here forever houses and cars and sports and music they make preparation for everything except the one thing which is certain that they're going soon to meet and that is of course death and after death and above all to stand before the great and terrible God who is indeed terrible to those who meet him unready as the Bible often tells us when it reminds us that our God is a consuming fire. Let me give you one or two references to somewhat famous men who meant death and they were unready for it did you ever hear of a man called Caesar Borgia now Caesar Borgia was the son of one of the popes you may say that's a strange thing but it's also a fact Caesar Borgia well you check it for yourselves in the history books and you'll find I'm sure that I'm absolutely correct he was a dreadful character as so many of those were that came from that source and Caesar Borgia lived in pleasure and in lust and in brutality all his life and when he came to the end of his life and was soon to die he said this about himself he said in the course of my life I have prepared for everything except for death and now alas I must die although entirely unprepared well talk about Ethelred the unready he had made preparation for everything in life except the only one thing of which he could be certain and then take this man, you know his name Cardinal Woolsey he was a very powerful figure again a little bit later at the Reformation in England in the days of Henry VIII now Cardinal Woolsey rose to be a very powerful man he used to have attendants walking in front of him all dressed in scarlet and carrying cushions of scarlet and they made way make way for Cardinal Wolsey they would cry and the Cardinal also dressed in scarlet would process through the midst of the people he was a man to be reckoned with a powerful dangerous man and Cardinal Wolsey alas also came to die he fell out of favor with the king at the end and this is what he had to say poor man had I but served my King as faithfully as I have had I but served my God I should say as faithfully as I've served my King he would not have given me over in my grey hairs it is my just reward he confessed well my very dear friends I want to put it to you Are you ready? Or are you unready tonight? If God were this night to summon your soul to appear before the throne of judgment, are you ready? Are you prepared? That's my subject. And I bring the subject before you in terms of what the Apostle Paul tells us here. In these verses of my text, verses 6, 7 and 8, he tells us how he feels as he faces certain death. He is about to stand for the second time before Nero the Terrible, Emperor of Rome. And we know as a matter of history that Paul was put to death. He was martyred under that dreadful man. The year was roughly 64 AD. and the apostle knew his time had come he was not daunted there's no self-pity here he doesn't crave another few years no no he tells us how he feels now there are three things I want to show you here you'll find them all in my text first of all let me draw your attention to Paul's confidence in the past of his life second let me draw attention to Paul's confidence for the future after this life and thirdly let me draw your attention to Paul's confidence in that present hour when he was facing his certain martyrdom and death those three things are my subject from these words tonight first of all then Paul's confidence for the past and here I refer you to what he says in verse six for I am now ready to be offered and the time of my departure is at hand I have fought a good fight I have finished my course I have kept the faith alright three things there I have fought a good fight he says and he's referring of course to the fact that the Christian life is a fight when a person becomes a Christian and is converted to the Lord Jesus Christ they spend all their life fighting in this world by that of course I refer to the fact that they have spiritual enemies we wrestle not with flesh and blood says the Apostle Paul but against principalities and powers and the rulers of the darkness of this world spiritual wickedness in high places the devil becomes our adversary as soon as we come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and when you read the life of Paul in the Acts of the Apostles and when you supplement that with what we know from the epistles that he wrote we see that the Apostle Paul's life is a catalogue of fightings and wrestlings and strugglings and sufferings and persecutions and stonings and beatings and shipwreckings and he is looking back over all of that And he says, I have fought a good fight, not only in that sense, but also in terms of the truth. He has fought for the gospel all his life. He was a man who had to put the churches right. The churches are always sliding away from the truth. Every church does that. They're alright for 50 years maybe or 60 or 100 and then a generation rises up that's very tired of the truth. Why should we be so strict, they say? Why should we be old-fashioned like our grandfathers, keeping the Sabbath days and reading old black Bibles? and dressing as though there was a funeral service. We want to lessen things, lighten things, make it more easy for the Christian to live in the world. One foot in the world, one in the church. Why be so sour and so severe? That's what happens. Well, all of that is beginning in the Apostle's day and he tells us that in the beginning of this chapter. the day will come when men will not endure sound doctrine but after their lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers having itching ears and they shall turn away their ears from the truth and be turned unto fables if you know anything at all about church history and what happened in the middle ages before Luther and Calvin then you will know just what fables people turned unto and all that was beginning in the apostles day He had to fight for the truth. There is a time in life when we are called to war as well as to peace. And woe betide us when we fail to recognize that golden moment when we must stand against adversaries who stand against God. And the Apostle Paul's life was spent in just that way, fighting against error. So he says, I fought a good fight. Then he goes on, he says, I have finished my course. That of course refers to the race. A course, or race course, refers to these great games that they had in the days of the Romans and more especially of the Greeks. the Greeks had these Olympic games, it was their idea, they had the huge stadiums and that they would run this way and then round the corner and back again, round again and back again and the apostle is referring to his Christian life in terms of this race and my dear friends, this is what the Christian life is a Christian is always running and you ask a minister, these dear ministers here and elders they're always running, why you've hardly time to answer the phone before another phone call comes and somebody else is at the door, another sermon to prepare another lecture to give, another journey to take you're running all the time as a Christian and the Apostle was exactly in that condition ah, he says I have now finished my race my running days are over He puts it like that. I have finished it. I am coming to the finishing line. I can't say I ever came first in any race I ever ran, but I think it must be a wonderful exhilaration, don't you, to be running a race and to see the white line and the tape measure in front of you and all the rest behind. Maybe some of you are excellent enough to know that experience. So the Apostle Paul sees that. He sees the white line, he sees the goal, he sees the end of his journey very close at hand and he puts it in this way, I have finished my course, my race then he puts it again like this, I have kept the faith now not everybody who begins in the Christian life and faith continues to the end, you know He mentions somebody in this very chapter. Did you notice it? Demas. Demas had been a Christian, or at least he professed to be a Christian. He had sat at the Lord's table, no doubt. He had mingled with the Apostle Paul. He had shaken Paul's hand. He had knelt in prayer with Paul. He had talked about the Gospel with Paul. But now Demas had swerved back into the world. He had gone back like a dog. to his vomit or like a sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire he was back into his old sins my dear friends there are people who do that they come into churches sometimes they become very important and noted figures and then they drop off sadly and away they go and you never see them again Well, says the Apostle Paul, by the grace of God, I have kept the faith. And in the light of his past experience, he says, I am therefore ready. I am ready to go. Ready to meet my maker and my judge. I'm ready for death, for judgment, for eternity. Allow me to put this to you, my dearly beloved friends, in this most beautiful congregation that I am so honored to address you I put it to you my friends all of you are you ready or should you be given this name Ethelred that I spoke about before should that be your name isn't it a tragedy to be unready when God summons you and beckons to you I was preaching at a funeral service a few days ago, and when I got to the church where I had to conduct the service, up in the state of Michigan, amongst dear beloved people like yourselves, Christian people, we knew that a young boy, perhaps 18 or something, had been in a car crash just a few days before. Certainly we have hope of that young man. but he was suddenly taken out of this world just in a moment he was driving his car and he didn't notice the lights were red his mind you see was busy he was going to college or something he had his books to think about and his subject he went through a red light for the last time in life oh my friends our life is so short and uncertain only a fool lives without thought of eternity to come in a moment God's sickle may cut us all down who knows what nasties are to come our way from Saddam Hussein who knows how sudden terrible death may strike whole populations we don't know and I'm not to be alarmist but I say if ever there was a moment in the history of the world when you and I ought to be prepared now is that time prepared I say to go stand before the judge of all the earth that is no small thing I hope you realize that if you're not a converted born-again Christian my friend I have to tell you straight and honestly you are not fit to leave this life if you do not know what conversion means if you have no Savior no grace of God in your heart I have to be honest with you otherwise I'm a liar in the pulpit I have to tell you with all honesty you are not fit to die nor to appear before God if you have no new heart no experience of the grace of God like this Apostle Paul I have fought a good fight I have finished my course I have kept the faith now that was his confidence with regard to the past let me come now secondly to Paul's confidence with regard to the future he puts it like this in verse 8 henceforth or in the future if you like 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 also that love his appearing now here we have the Apostle Paul thinking of his death and what will happen to him after death at death the soul of a Christian leaves the body instantaneously that soul goes to be in the presence of Christ and receives a private judgment At death there has to be a private judgment in order to assign the soul to its proper home and place between death and the resurrection day. There has to be that private judgment between the Lord and the soul of everyone so that we may be allocated our proper place between death and the judgment day or the resurrection day which is the same. And in that intermediate state, the soul of a believer is in glory. The soul of the unbeliever is in hell fire. You won't think me severe for saying these things. My dearest friends, I don't say these things in order to sound severe, but because the Bible is full of this. Full of it. You can't read the Bible without finding it on pretty well every page. There is such a thing as hell and fire. and we say these things not to alarm or frighten but in order to show people they must be serious in preparation for death and judgment and the apostle Paul is and he says henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness now he's referring again to the games which were played in the Greek world of that day and we're familiar aren't we with Olympic games they run and jump and fight and throw things and the one who does best with the gold medals when the games are finished he is summoned up and in Greek times in the sight of thousands of spectators the champion walked up these steps and came to a place where the judge was there and in his hands he held this crown either made of pine or of laurel or of some other beautiful leaf and in the sight of the ecstatic crowds clapping and shouting he placed it upon his head well done thou Victor he would say and all the place would be a rage with delight now says Paul that's what the Christian will get when he leaves this world having kept the faith having been faithful in his walk and work and service to God the Lord Jesus Christ the righteous judge will give to me and to all like me who have kept the faith this crown of glory he's not referring to anything of course which perishes these beautiful flowers are delightful but they won't last for 10 years I dare say or even maybe 10 weeks but the crown of glory which Christ will give is an imperishable crown what is he referring to by a crown? he means that we shall see God face to face. We shall gaze in glory upon the uncreated God. We shall see the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. We shall see the blessed three whom all angels delight to praise. and God himself will summon the believer soul and say to him well done good and faithful servant you have been faithful over a few things now I will reward you with many things enter into the joy of thy Lord into the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world now of course the Apostle Paul was not suggesting for a moment that our good deeds merit or earn for us this wonderful heavenly reward. No, what it means is, when a person is under the blood of Christ, saved by Christ, trusting in Christ, having the righteousness of Christ, being justified by Christ alone and through faith alone, that when he comes to his glorious condition of being judged, God will reward his earnest, sincere, faithful, beautiful service to him in this world. and God will bless the Christian in that heavenly place with peace and joy and comfort and there his soul will be all throughout the ages to come until the second coming when the Lord shall return from heaven with the shout of an archangel, the trumpet of God and the dead shall arise and all the souls and bodies come together again and both soul and body of the Christian will go to the public judgment And there Christ will publicly own and acknowledge and reward all those who sit on and stand on the right side. Come ye blessed of my Father, he will say to them, and inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. There they will enter into their eternal reward, not simply their temporal place, in the intermediate state, but into the everlasting kingdom, into that beautiful city mentioned in Revelation 21 and 22, the city now paved with gold. There is no need for the light of the sun or of the moon, by day or by night. God Himself is the light of it, and the Lamb is the lamp of it, and that is His reward. and not my only says Paul but the reward of all those who have kept the faith as I have done a place in heaven a place at the banqueting seat the banqueting table of Christ a place beside the Lord Jesus a place where you will gaze into his face a way you will see his smile of love and where he will talk to you and you will talk to him now that's what the apostle was looking forward to and he was ready to go some years ago a friend of mine who was a minister in Scotland had a visit from an uncle of his who lived in I think Canada and this Canadian uncle was not a Christian as you will see and my dear friend who was a minister wanted to be respectful to his uncle but also to alert him to his need for a spiritual experience of the grace of God so my friend at a certain point as they were traveling on a train he said to his uncle, uncle are you insured? oh yes said the uncle I have so many thousand dollars on my life, he said, so many more on my wife, he said, so many on my son, he said, so many on my daughter, so many on my house. Oh, he said, I am fully insured. My friend turned to him with a smile of love. Uncle, uncle, he said, you are travelling with your back to the engine. You are blind to the future. What about your soul? Are you insured for your soul? He'd never thought of that. He never imagined he had a soul. He was, like Ethelred, completely unready. My dear friends, isn't that sad? You may have so much, and I hope you do. You can't have too much to make us glad to know it. But are you ready? Are you ready to leave what you have here below? Are you prepared, my dearly beloved, to go when you say, what am I to do to make sure? Nothing but one thing. You are called upon to repent of your sins and to turn to the Lord Jesus Christ as your only Saviour and your only hope in life and in death. Christ, who died upon the cross, is the object of faith. And I say to you, to be prepared is to have Christ as your Saviour. To be unprepared is not to have Christ as your Saviour, though you have everything else in the world. Listen to the way he put it. What shall it profit a man to gain the whole world and to lose your own soul? One human soul is more valuable in the sight of God than 10 million worlds all this talk about the universe and where it came from as if God hadn't told us all this talk about outer space and green man from Mars and who knows what there is in Jupiter and Saturn all this exploration perhaps it's necessary but let it not deceive us my friend It is in this life and in this world that God has placed man with an immortal soul. The only universe that matters is the universe of your own immortal soul. And I say to you, with all the love of my heart, believe me, we need to be ready when God says, your time has come. I don't know if you know that here or whether you have the same expression, but in the Second World War in Britain we had this expression, you won't go until your number is called. These were the soldiers on the battlefield. We'll be here, they said, until your number is called. That's another way of putting it, isn't it? They knew that they wouldn't be killed until God's providence allowed it to happen. The day is going to come where you and me When our number is called, God will say, Roberts, your time here is finished. Come. And then what I am will be known and what you are will be known. What we are before God is what matters, not what men think of us. And the Apostle Paul tells us, he was ready for the future. Now, third and final, notice this. His confidence for the present time. And this is in verse 6, I am now ready to be offered and the time of my departure is at hand. He is talking about the here and now, isn't he? I am now ready. He has already spoken of the past and then of the future. He is now talking about the present, now. I am now ready to be offered. now this may not be so very easy to understand I have to explain what he means by being offered he is really using a word in the Greek New Testament which refers to the drink offering which was offered in Old Testament times at the end of every sacrifice you will know your Bibles well enough to know that there were various sorts of sacrifices in the Old Testament there were sin offerings and burnt offerings and peace offerings and trespass offerings and they all had their own regulations it's worth revising them in Leviticus 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 those early chapters of Leviticus talk about them now my point is this each of these offerings or sacrifices in Old Testament times involved this more or less you had a little lamb or a bullock you brought it along to the priest to the altar that it was to be burnt then you cut its throat you poured out the blood into a bowl some of it you sprinkled around the altar or you poured it at the altar depending on the sacrifice and then you cut up the lamb or the bullock into little pieces and put it on top of wood on the fire of the altar then you watched it burn and as it burned down to nothing but ashes the very last part of the sacrifice involved taking two or three or four pints of wine and you sprinkle this on top of it this was pouring out the wine offering when that was done the offering was complete and that's what Paul is saying I am now ready to be offered to be poured out like a drink offering my life has been one great sacrifice of love to Jesus Christ now I breathe my last shortly this is my drink offering he is referring to death now the next of these illustrations is very different the time of my departure verse 6 is at hand he's talking about the same thing going out of this world. On the new heels is now a different illustration. What is this illustration? Well let me explain. In the days of the ancient Greeks and Romans the only sea that they knew much about was the Mediterranean. They knew little or nothing about the Atlantic. That lay too far to the west. They knew a little by reputation of other seas but what they meant by the sea was the Mediterranean. surrounded by the countries of Europe and North Africa. Now, because the ships in these days were pretty precarious and anybody's life in these days was at risk in a ship, they were made of wood and whatnot, in the winter months they didn't sail. The boats were tied up against the quay or the harbour and there they remained until the winter months were over December, January, February. Towards the end of March the weather was warm as it is today and so sailors would come down to their boats, they would untie the anchorage and pull up the anchor, they would get on the ropes and pull the sails and the sails would be unfurled, they would let go the ropes that tie them to the key and away they went with the wind into the deep sea and enjoy the glories of being at sea now that was their way of doing it they didn't unloose the ship until the winter months were past so says Paul I am now ready to depart the time of my sailing is at hand where was he sailing to? well of course sailing into the sunset into the glory into the land of the kingdom of God sailing into the land where Christ alone is King of Kings and Lord of Lords I'm sailing there he says and we know how he got there it was because at the second of his trials in front of Nero the terrible he was condemned to death the axe fell upon his head or whatever it was we don't know and he was executed and put to death but oh dearest friends he was ready to go I must close shortly I haven't much more to say but let me say to you isn't this a wonderful way to go what a happy person a Christian is he's ready to go this world is not the Christian's rest however much he loves his home and wife and family and church and minister but he's ready to go he knows that soon he must go on this journey to meet the Lord and to bid farewell a dear lady in our church just a few weeks ago had a minor operation just a routine operation but the doctors found something they didn't like and they had to tell her of course that there was cancer possibly even in the liver where we least want it to be oh she was quite content as so many of you will be content that's alright she said that's alright she knew where she was going nothing to worry about I have not lived for my own pleasure but for his glory she was ready the day will come when the doctor will say something like that to me no doubt and to you my duty my very dear friends as I close is to point you to the one place where you will be ready you don't need to pray for 10 years to get this blessing you don't need to wait and work and labor and sweat night and day for 15 years to get it you can have it right now is offered to you by God right now if you never trusted in Jesus Christ before then he tells you come unto me and I will give you rest right now before you leave this very room you say what am I to do to get it? my dear friend all you need to do is to want it as soon as you want it you will get it and if you feel you don't want it then you can pray to God to make you willing because God is so sweet He can turn the key that fits the lock of your heart and from being unwilling you can find yourself strangely willing and you can say well when I came into this building I wasn't very interested I came because somebody invited me or somebody called me along to the service but now I see something I never saw before I see I need Christ as I never saw it before Oh, my dear friends, it is the beginning of all happiness to know the blessed Jesus. If you don't believe me, ask the dozens of people here who know Him, they will tell you. There's no happiness conceivable upon earth like the happiness of knowing Jesus Christ as Lord. To trust in His death upon the cross, the shedding of His blood because He shed His blood to take away our sin and there is no other way to get rid of it you can go into a monastery and that won't get rid of it as most monks will tell you if they're honest incidentally the Roman Catholic priests of whom we hear so much in Boston and elsewhere aren't really a very creditable example of how to find peace are they? sadly to say oh no no no the way to get peace is not to look to the church Whatever the church's name, it is to look to Christ, to Christ crucified on the cross for sinners. In Him there is life and peace and nowhere else. Look unto me therefore and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth, says God. And if you do, you can leave this room tonight a new man or a new woman or a new young person or a new child. Because the youngest child needs to be saved as well as the oldest man or woman who is a sinner and talking of children let me finish with something for the children tonight it's wonderful to have children in this beautiful building and I want to close with something for the children I hope the others will forgive me and not think that I'm demeaning their superior intelligence I came across this beautiful story in a little book that was handed to me by a lawyer recently. We had a lady who died and she had lots of old books and papers and this little book had this story in it. It could have been related to Northern Ireland or something but I suspect it was that sort of a little book and it had come from that source and here was what I read in it. Years ago in the Old Testament there was a thing called the Passover. and in the Passover the father had to make sure that the lamb whom they had prepared was killed his blood taken and sprinkled round the top and sides of the door the main front door and God said when I pass over the house if I see the blood I will pass over you if he saw no blood he would kill the firstborn and the family would lose by death their firstborn well in this story there was a little girl and the little girl was sent to her bed on the night of the Passover and she knew that it was the duty of her father to make sure the blood was on the outside front door and the lintels and side posts but she couldn't go to sleep, she was afraid so she got up and she ran to her father in his room and she said to him father, are you sure the blood is on the door? yes my dear, he said I am sure, how do you know father? she said I know she said because I gave it to the servant to do this duty it's a responsibility that I gave to him he's a faithful man but father he may have forgotten get up father and check that it's been done well the father was not at all impressed and he tried to reason a little girl out of it but he was not to be persuaded and to appease her he got out of his bed and went to the front door and opened the door looking for the blood assuming it to be there and there was none and with great haste he got the blood that had been shed from the lamb in the vessel and he took it with a brush and he daubed it quickly round the door post and on the top of the door Thank God, my little child, he said, that you have the wisdom to tell me so. God would have killed the firstborn of this home. Now, he said, we are safe. That's the gospel in a nutshell. As soon as you have the blood on your heart and on your life, you are safe. But if you are not covered by the blood, I have to tell you, You are unready. God help you to prepare.