PIETY
P. S. Chareyre
I should like to begin by saying a few words on the epistles to Timothy. We are all agreed, I suppose, about what has often been stated, that the second epistle to Timothy contains the believer’s charter for the difficult days of the church’s ruin. That is a principle that we all accept. I think it is of great value to accept it, and to see clearly how the Holy Spirit has foreseen the evil times. By means of the apostle Paul, He supplied in advance, so to speak, the provision that was going to be necessary for the state of things that the Lord Jesus Himself brings to light in chapters 2 and 3 of the Revelation. From the moment when the lamp is removed out of its place, the Lord takes account of the overcomer.
It is a question of being an overcomer (in the singular). The Lord does not say ‘Those that overcome’, but “He that overcomes”; and we see how the epistles to Timothy answer to this necessity. We may well ask—How am I to be an overcomer? The answer, as far as it can be found, is assuredly in the epistles to Timothy. If we are together, it can only be rightly so before God if each one has followed a moral road, a strictly individual road, to arrive there.
That is why the epistles to Timothy are so necessary to us. While we have the instruction appropriate to the days of breakdown in the second epistle, the first instructs us, I think, in certain characteristics that are indispensable for being able to meet the responsibility of the second; and one essential feature in this regard is piety.
I should like to draw our attention in a simple way to piety. It is plain that piety runs all through the first epistle. We have it from the third chapter onwards,
where it is connected with the thought of mystery. In chapter 4, in the exhortations addressed to Timothy personally, piety, we are told, is profitable for everything. Then the apostle goes on to say in chapter 6—“piety with contentment is great gain”.
I have read in chapter 6 because Paul brings in the thought of a bondman. As you know, the Lord was the bondman, and He was the pious Man, “who, subsisting in the form of God, did not esteem it an object of rapine to be on an equality with God; but emptied himself, taking a bondman’s form” (Philippians 2: 6, 7): that is to say, not only did He become man, but He became a Man having that character. As He says prophetically in the book of Zechariah, “for man acquired me as bondman from my youth” (Zechariah 13: 5). We need to contemplate the Lord very much in that condition, I think. We are in days when the world is busy bringing about circumstances in which man can assert himself. That becomes a temptation to every one of us, the temptation to try to go higher. The Lord Jesus has shown the downward way, and He is the pious Man. In Psalm 16, Christ designates Himself, by the prophetic Spirit, as
“thy Holy One”, that is, according to the note, ‘thy gracious One’, or ‘thy pious One’, as we find it explained in the note to 2 Chronicles 6: 42. (Note ‘e’ in the 1991 Edition of Mr. Darby’s English translation). That is to say, the character of a saint (or holy one) according to God consists in piety, a thought that we need to understand well and meditate upon.
So this epistle to Timothy emphasises piety. The beginning of this chapter is occupied with the responsibility of bondmen, who are exhorted to show the features of humility, subjection, and obedience in their everyday life, quite the opposite of our natural ambitions. In the epistle to Titus, Paul says, in relation to bondmen, “that they may adorn the teaching which is of our Saviour God in all things” (Titus 2: 10), a great privilege by which this class of society is honoured.
Going further on in this chapter, we find that “piety with contentment is great gain”. I must speak soberly of this, because I know very well, by my own experience, how difficult it is to learn to be satisfied with small conditions; and dissatisfaction is a snare by means of which Satan does us a great deal of damage. He undermines our spiritual life by these ambitions (whether gratified or not) which are found in every one of our hearts, and which fill the world; but “piety with contentment is great gain”. So the apostle goes on emphatically—“For we have brought nothing into the world—it is manifest that neither can we carry anything out. But having sustenance and covering, we will be content with these. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and many unwise and hurtful lusts, which plunge men into destruction and ruin. For the love of money is the root of every evil”. These are realities; they are things that have a powerful influence over us, and Paul speaks about them at length. He speaks at length and in detail about piety.
He writes all this to Timothy. We say Timothy was a young man; we are accustomed to hearing him called that. That is of course what Paul says—“thy youth”. Nevertheless he was a man who had laboured fourteen years with Paul. When Paul wrote this first epistle to him, Timothy had shared in the hard labours of the apostle for fourteen years; he was not a child; but the apostle gives him these warnings, the warnings that are practically necessary if one is to be ready to meet the obligations of the second epistle righteously. Timothy received this letter; he read it for himself, so I need to read it for myself. When he received the second letter, two years later, Paul had been taken prisoner again; things were darkening. But for two years he had had Paul’s first letter with him. He had had to work at Ephesus among the saints under the impression of that first letter. When he received the second, I think he was a man prepared to receive it. And I ask myself in what measure, morally, I have been prepared for this
second epistle. We are put to the test practically by these things, beloved brethren, tested whether we are persons who can live the truth that we profess. Thus we have the way marked out by the Lord Himself, the way that leads down, the way in which, if we commit ourselves to it, we find peace. It is the way of Christ’s yoke—“Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me ... and ye shall find rest to your souls”, Matthew 11: 29. The yoke that He carried, He carried it on the downward way.
Nevertheless He is the “mighty man of wealth”. We can understand that everything belongs to Him because He Himself created everything. But there is something more. As we have said, He left the condition appropriate to His supremacy over all things, although they never ceased to belong to Him; He went this way, the way of piety. Think of what is said of our Lord Jesus Christ in the epistle to the Hebrews (Hebrews 5: 7)—“Who in the days of his flesh, having offered up both supplications and entreaties to him who was able to save Him out of death, with strong crying and tears”; He was heard because of his piety”; He, our Saviour, was heard because of His piety! Could I be heard because of my piety? Yet in this path He manifested His strength, because Satan had no hold on Him. How easily Satan gets a hold on us! How quickly he can make us drop down and down, bringing us ever lower, down to the level of the world! But against Christ he could do nothing—“the ruler of the world comes, and in me he has nothing”, John 14: 30. He bound the strong man, He plundered his goods, and He is sitting in glory. He is seated there on high as the One who has led captivity captive, and carried off the spoil from the enemy. That is what He is, the “mighty man of wealth”.
When the humbling history of the church in responsibility is coming to an end, He has to use very severe language, as He does to Laodicea. He presents Himself as the faithful and true Witness. He was the
faithful Witness: He was faithful in the path of self-abasement and humiliation, in the path of piety. He has not ceased to be faithful since then. So He offers us the advice to buy from Him. Let us read the passage, “I counsel thee to buy of me gold purified by fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white garments, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness may not be made manifest; and eye-salve to anoint thine eyes, that thou mayest see. I rebuke and discipline as many as I love; be zealous therefore and repent”, Revelation 3: 18, 19. He is the “mighty man of wealth”. He has received everything as Man; He inherits all things as Man, and He offers to each one to have a share in His riches. “I counsel thee to buy of me”—we must accept that we have to buy. That is a very remarkable thing. The gospel is free. God causes the costless character of the glad tidings to be proclaimed; but there comes a moment in our history when Christ says to us, “I counsel thee to buy of me”. If we want some of those riches, dear brothers and sisters, we must buy them; we shall not have them without paying; the Lord Jesus tells us so. Well, we know what that means—it is the path of piety and contentment, the path of giving up things that we might like, things that might be profitable to us as regards our earthly condition. The Lord leaves no alternative; the situation is that “thou art the ... poor”—‘ You are the poor one; there is only one way out, and that is to follow My advice, to buy gold and garments and eye-salve from Me’.
Then there is something very precious in these closing words addressed to Laodicea. The Lord goes on to say—“Behold, I stand at the door and am knocking; if any one hear my voice and open the door, I will come in unto him and sup with him, and he with me”. He carries you, so to speak, into the light of chapter 14 of John’s gospel: He will come to one who keeps His word. This therefore is still available to each one of us at the end of the dispensation.
One word more. “He that overcomes, to him will I give to sit with me in my throne; as I also have overcome and have sat down with my Father in his throne”. Think of that: “As I also have overcome”; I find that deeply affecting and moving. The Lord takes you and puts you alongside Himself, as He has overcome. He says: ‘You have overcome in a very little thing; well, I consider that you have overcome as I have done’. He who has overcome everything, who has met all the power of the world, of Satan and of death, He puts you beside Himself, saying, “As I also have overcome, and have sat down with my Father in his throne”.
May we be encouraged to become overcomers, accepting the way by which it can be reached, the way for which there is no substitute, the way that Paul taught Timothy, in order that it may be true that we are among the number of those who are consistent with the rights of the Lord Jesus. I believe it is a serious matter to profess to acknowledge and accept the authority of 2 Timothy 2. It becomes us to consider well whether we are clothed with the corresponding moral character, that if an overcomer.
Address at Vevey
29 April 1995