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Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost
St. Stephen's Anglican Church
The Rev. Jeffrey O. Cerar, October 13, 2013


God's Word is Not Chained


Text: 2 Timothy 2:8-15

The Apostle Paul gave everything for Jesus. From the complete turnaround in his life on the road to Damascus, where he met Jesus in the first place, to his martyrdom in Rome, Paul was in all the way. Today we read from the Second Letter to Timothy. Paul wrote this when he was awaiting execution. He was in an underground dungeon, bound in chains, and suffering miserable conditions. His friends couldn't find him. He was alone, he was cold, and his rations were meager. And yet, he continued doing his work diligently for the Lord. He wrote this letter to one of the people whom Paul had discipled in the faith. Timothy had become a valued associate. He had accompanied Paul on missionary journeys, and in fact was himself becoming a leader in the Church. At the time Paul wrote this letter, Timothy was probably ministering to the Church in Ephesus.

Always primary in Paul's mind was the spreading of the Word of God. In this letter, he urged Timothy:

In the passage we read this morning, Paul made the statement I want to focus on this morning:

This is my Gospel, for which I am suffering even to the point of being chained like a criminal. But God's word is not chained. [2 Timothy 2:8-9]

God's Word is not chained. No matter what happens to God's messengers who are called to proclaim the Good News to the world, God's Word will always be out there. It cannot be stopped. It cannot be captured and thrown away. It cannot be robbed of its power. And in this letter, we have a perfect illustration of this truth. Paul had been captured and locked up in a dungeon, hidden away from the light of day. And yet, still the Word of God came forth from his heart to everyone he encountered. And somehow, he got this letter delivered to its intended recipient. And because this letter was inspired by God and was filled with divine truth, it is now in the Word of God, preserved forever as part of the New Testament.

Paul was in chains. But the Word of God is not chained.

This is a profoundly encouraging word for us today. From every direction, it seems, people are trying in different ways to discredit the Word of God, or to pull its teeth, or to cast it into the dust bin of forgotten things. But Jesus said, "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away." (Matthew 24:35)

Let's take a look at ways the world tries to destroy the Word of God, and how, generation after generation, the Word has survived and triumphed.

There are stories in the Bible itself of how the Word of God was recovered after it seemingly had been lost. One was when the Hebrew people came back to Jerusalem after the exile. God moved the Persian kings to allow the restoration of Israel. Many of the Hebrew people had forgotten the Word. They had abandoned their practices as God's people. But there was a day when Ezra the priest read the Torah to the people from daybreak till noon. (Nehemiah Chapter 7) They were so moved that they wept. They repented and returned to the Lord, and a revival began.

There were other times in Hebrew history when the kings worshipped other gods and did evil in the sight of God. And again, the Word seemed lost. But during the reign of Josiah (2 Kings Chapters 22 and 23), the Word of God was found in the Temple. And it was brought out and read, and the king initiated a reform. And for a few years, the profane things of the false gods were destroyed, and people recommitted themselves to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. In the 18th year of the reign of Josiah, the people observed the Passover for the first time in 400 years

Their faithfulness lasted only one generation. In fact, there never was a time when all these departures from God were put behind them forever. And yet, miraculously, the Word was preserved, and has been passed along intact throughout all of history.

Christendom has been through equally dark times, and yet the Word has survived.

In modern times Communism has posed an ominous challenge to the Gospel. One of the tenets of communism is the elimination of religion. In China during the reign of Mao Tse Tung, churches and monasteries were destroyed, and many Christians were martyred. it was illegal to own a Bible. The official enmity toward Christianity still lingers in China today. Some churches operate legally, although they are watched closely, and their message is controlled.

When Christians aggressively evangelized communist China, it was done in secret. Chinese who had embraced the saving love of Christ valued His Word as a treasure. But it was a capital offense to own a Bible. In many places, Bibles were hidden away. In others believers tore out pages of the Bible and distributed them to other believers, and they would assemble a Bible when they came together for worship. They treated those ragged-edged pages with the utmost love and care. Bibles are still smuggled into China today, and millions are printed in China. The Word of God is not chained.

In our place and time, the Word is under attack again. You can find the Word of God in our national songs, printed on our money, inscribed on our monuments, our courthouses and our universities. In common conversation, you would hear expressions like "Good Samaritan" and "Prodigal Son." People could quote the words of Jesus. But all that is changing. There is confusion over whether it is even permissible to display the Ten Commandments on a courthouse wall, or whether schools can allow Christmas pageants showing the Biblical story of Jesus' birth. Third-graders have had their assigned papers sent home with notes in red, telling them to take out the stories about the Bible. Valedictory addresses have been censored to take out references to the Christian faith.

Even in the Church, the Word of God is under attack.

Are we to be depressed about this? I hear more agonizing about this than about anything else these days. We had hoped to live in a Christian nation. We had hoped that the Lord had special plans for us and had put an anointing upon us. Maybe that is true. Maybe there will be another Great Awakening. God has done many miracles greater than rescuing America from moral collapse. But suppose that is not His plan? Are we to be in despair and say all is lost?

The notorious Emperor Nero may have beheaded Paul and burned Christians on spikes like torches to light his garden parties. But He never dimmed the flames of the Gospel. He never extinguished the Word of God.

Paul told Timothy something that he tells us today:

Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. [2 Timothy 2:15]

Remember? Jesus said, "Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matthew 5:11-12)

Yes, they will try to make you ashamed.

In the face of these kinds of accusations, we who cherish the Word of God have no cause to feel ashamed. And we have both encouragement and a warning right here in this same passage from 2 Timothy:

Here is a trustworthy saying: If we died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him. If we disown him, he will also disown us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot disown himself. [2 Timothy 2:11-13]

Those who disown Jesus, who corrupt His Word, who toss it into the bin of irrelevance or artifact, have reason to read this with concern. If we disown Him, He will disown us. But if we stand firm, if we hold fast to His Word, if we guard the good deposit that was entrusted to us, if we treasure the Word of God which cannot be chained, this passage is filled with hope for us. "If we died with Him, we will also live with Him. If we endure, we will also reign with Him."

We have no cause to be ashamed. Like Paul, we can say, "I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes." (Romans 1:16) God has placed a deposit in the heart of every believer. He has quickened in us the ability to understand, believe and embrace His truth. Contrary to Richard Dawkins' assertion that we believe in the absence of supporting evidence, God has given us the ability to see the evidence, and to rejoice in His truth, and to live in accordance with what we know to be true.

And He has given us the privilege of passing that truth along to others, so that God's good gifts will be shared throughout the human race. Let me conclude with an encouraging story that shows the Word of God is not in chains. It's about Vicky Armel, who was a detective on the Fairfax County Police Department. Vicky was a confirmed skeptic who made it clear to the people around her that she didn't want to hear about Jesus. Her biggest stumbling block was the resurrection. She had seen a lot of dead people, and none of them came back to life.

There was one detective who just wouldn't let her off the hook. His name was Mo. In 2004, he and Vicky were assigned as partners on a case that took them on a 5-hour drive. Recognizing that they were going to be in the car a long time, Vicky said to Mo, "Okay, this is your time. You can talk to me about Jesus all you want, on one condition: When we get back to Virginia, I don't want you to talk to me about Jesus anymore."

Mo jumped at the chance, and he got her interested. She started reading the Bible after that. She studied hard. Another friend invited her to go to church with him, and she took him up on it. In 2005, Vicky gave her life to Christ and was baptized. As she gave her testimony, she started by saying, "My name is Vicky Armel, and if you told me last year that I would be standing in front of hundreds of people talking about Jesus Christ, I would have said you were crazy."

On May 8, 2006, just a year after her baptism, Vicky Armel was killed in the line of duty by a crazed teenager with an arsenal of weapons. Ten thousand people came to her funeral, many of them law enforcement officers who were in town for National Law Enforcement Memorial Week. At her funeral, they showed a video of the testimony she had given the previous year when she was baptized. The fact that she witnessed at her own funeral drew a lot of media attention. Many visitors were attracted to her church in the months that followed. People said things like, "I want what she had." and "This has caused me to rethink my life. How do I find out more about Jesus?" One member of her congregation told a reporter, "Vicky didn't just save lives. She saved souls."

Well, of course, Vicky didn't save souls. Jesus does that. But, no matter what happens to the messenger, the Word of God is not chained. It is as free as the Holy Spirit. Like the wind, it blows where it will. And however things may look to you on your most discouraging days, take heart; Jesus has overcome the world. God has a plan. He has a way. And He has everything well in hand.

© The Rev. Jeffrey O. Cerar, 2013

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