NOTES ON SCRIPTURE 1895 NO. 13
NOTES ON SCRIPTURE 1895 NO. 13
Timothy is the pattern servant for the last days, and is especially fitted for this service. At Ephesus, where the church was most advanced, he is instructed as to the true order of the assembly. As God’s witness among men Timothy was left at Ephesus. The end of the commandment is love, that is God’s testimony to the world. The Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. The pure heart is the heart controlled by the Spirit of God. My hand or my eye when directed by the Spirit is for God, but the same [p. 56] hand or eye directed by my own will would not be for God. Timothy would encounter much opposition from those who desired to be teachers of the law. The law addresses the man in the flesh. The first lesson we have to learn, and the one we have not fully learned as yet, is that the flesh profiteth nothing. The law is for the unrighteous; it condemns. Everything is unsound that is not according to the gospel of the glory of the blessed God. God’s heart towards man is fully declared in it, and Paul, the minister of it, is in himself a sample of the grace of God. Timothy was to keep in mind that he was gifted by the Lord. It is important to see that a gift is some power specially imparted by the Lord. No one can tell what the Lord will impart, but he who receives it knows that he has received it; as was said to Saul of Tarsus, that he was to be a “minister and a witness ... of these things which thou hast seen” (Acts 26: 16); as the burning bush was to Moses, and the man with the drawn sword to Joshua. The more you use your gift the more useful it is. It cannot be judged of by delivery or fluency of speech, but by spiritual power. The servant has to fight a good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience; he must walk up to his light. The greatest failure has occurred where there was much light, but where the conscience was not up to the light. A very conscientious person is afraid of light, because the more the light the greater the demand on his conscience. The servant who is progressing becomes more separate as he receives more light; things he may have tolerated last year he will refuse this year, because he has more light; he walks up to his light.