Rev. David Holwick
First Baptist Church
West Lafayette, Ohio
May 17, 1987
When No One Stands By You - But God
2 Timothy 4:9-22, NIV
November 28, 1965. Captain Howard Rutledge guided his jet toward the Thanh Hoa Bridge in North Vietnam. At six hundred miles an hour he broke through the clouds and dropped a pair of 2000-pound bombs on the target. In over 200 missions in Korea and Vietnam he had never been hit - until today.
An anti-aircraft shell exploded in the rear of his jet and it dived out of control. Captain Rutledge ejected just in time to see his plane explode beneath him. His troubles were just beginning because his parachute was taking him straight for the middle of a large Vietnamese village. Rutledge managed to steer his chute toward a nearby rice field, but he was still surrounded in only two minutes.
For seven long years this American pilot became a prisoner of war. Five of these years were spent in complete isolation (in the Hanoi Hilton). Even his family back home didn't know if he was dead or alive. In his imprisonment, through torture and starvation, Captain Rutledge clung to the one thing that sustained him - his faith in God. He had never been a strong Christian, and for many years he had drifted away from his Southern Baptist upbringing, but in his time of need, God was there for him.
It is this kind of experience that makes a person realize what holds you together and what doesn't.
Paul writes 2 Timothy under the same circumstances. For some time he had been held in the Mamertine prison in Rome. The prison itself wasn't the worst part. He sums up his biggest concerns in three areas - and each of them concern people:
1) Paul was separated from his friends.
2) He was opposed by an enemy.
3) He was unsupported at a critical time when he really needed it.
Let's look more closely at Paul's first concern. He was separated from his friends. His friends seem to have come in two categories. On the one hand there was Demas. He says, "Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world, and has departed Thessalonica."
The desertion of Demas is obviously very painful to Paul. In Colossians and Philemon he is called a "fellow-worker." Paul doesn't really say what happened to Demas. His desertion wasn't necessarily a rejection of Jesus. It is more likely he lost heart in the face of persecution and headed home. Whatever his reason were, they were selfish instead of spiritual.
When pressure is on you, the failure of a close friend can be devastating. This happens to many Christians when their leaders fall. Maybe we ask ourselves: "If they can't make it, how can we?"
I've given a lot of thought lately to the disaster at PTL. You can't help it - it's in the news every night. There was the affair. Then the payoff. Then the resignation. Then the allegations of widespread immorality. Then the bug in the headquarters. And the $1.8 million salaries. Then we hear $90 million dollars is missing (it won't be found in a grocery bag) and they need millions immediately to stay afloat.
Now what happens?
People lose faith in public ministries. All of them are reporting decreases of thirty to fifty percent. A lot of people have been burned by leaders they trusted. Paul probably felt like this, with Demas. He also mentions other people. Crescens and Titus had gone to other regions. It is important to note that Paul does not criticize these two like he does Demas. They seem to have been involved in legitimate Christian ministry. But Paul still missed them.
Most people don't appreciate friends until they need them and they're nowhere to be found. Captain Rutledge spent most of his time alone in filthy prison cells. He wasn't completely alone. There were always lizards and worms and rats as big as cats. But it wasn't the same as having a human to talk to. He considered it the worst thing about captivity. More than the torture or the filth he hated the isolation. Only one thing was worse: For brief periods of time he shared his cell with other fliers. They would spend hours talking about their lives and building each other up. According to Rutledge the only thing worse than isolation, was having a cellmate, then having that cellmate taken away from you. Paul was feeling this pain.
The second great concern of Paul's was the opposition he received from Alexander. Verse 14 calls him a coppersmith and literally says he spoke evil against Paul. Perhaps he was a hostile witness at the first trial. The first letter to Timothy also mentions an Alexander. There he seems to have been a church member who turned against God.
If there is another thing worse than being alone, it is being alone and knowing someone hates you. That can gnaw away at you, and there's always the temptation to hate them back. Paul doesn't give in to this. As he says in verse 14, "God will take care of Alexander."
Paul's third deep concern was that no one stood up for him at his first defense. That's the meaning behind verse 16. It probably indicates Paul was brought before the emperor for preliminary questioning, and no one supported him. No one. I can imagine they stayed away because they were scared to death, but that didn't help Paul any. As they said during Watergate, Paul was left to twist slowly in the wind.
There will be times when any of us will feel that no one cares. In the prisons in North Vietnam, our men wondered if their wives had divorced and remarried. They worried that their children would forget them. At times like that, you need resources to fall back on. If Paul had his problems, he certainly had his resources.
In verse 17 he gives his greatest resource - when all others failed, the Lord stood by him and strengthened him. Spiritual strength can come at the most unlikely times. Captain Rutledge grew up in the Nogales Baptist Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma. His parents were devout Christians, but he drifted away when he was a teenager. In the Navy he found it easier to sleep than go to church.
The instant he was shot down, it all changed. As he drifted down in the parachute he prayed to God. He wasn't sure what to say, but he said it with feeling. Once he was locked in a tiny, oppressive cell he had to admit to himself that he had completely neglected the spiritual aspect of his life. But God was still there for him. With endless hours to waste, Rutledge focused on Jesus and found the strength to keep his sanity.
People will always fail you. They may be a spouse, a minister or a close friend. People will fail, but God never will.
Another resource Paul had was his knowledge. In verse 13 he asks Timothy to bring him books and especially the parchments. Without a doubt, these would be his copies of the Bible. Back then it wasn't published as one book - each portion was handwritten in a scroll of its own. The Bible is a great spiritual resource and Paul had made good use of it.
Our mind is a great resource, but many people waste it. Half of all the people who graduate from college never read another book. Why? The answer is found in America's most widely-read magazine - The TV Guide. Many of you here can't list the books of the New Testament, but you know exactly what's going to be on TV tonight.
What would you do if your Bible was taken away from you? Howard Rutledge found out. His Southern Baptist church had drummed the Bible into him but it didn't sink in. As he lay on his concrete floor he wracked his mind to recall the smallest snatches of scripture. In time they started coming back to him. After seven years, he had over one hundred passages of scripture and Christian hymns which he recited each day. In his prison cell he made two solemn vows. The first was that he would never be without a Bible again. NEVER.
A final resource Paul had were friends. Not many of them, but enough to make a difference. Verse 11 says Luke had stuck by him. They had been close Christian friends for over thirty years. There was also Mark. Mark wasn't in Rome at the time, but Timothy was going to bring him along. If you know your Bible well, you know this is quite remarkable. Mark was on Paul's first missionary journey in the book of Acts. At the end of it, Mark took off. Paul was so enraged he wouldn't travel with Mark again. But here at the end, they are back together. Paul even admits he profits from Mark's ministry.
Everyone needs friends. Some super-spiritual types say you only need Jesus, but that's not exactly true. Jesus ministers to our needs by giving us friends. People who encourage us, listen to us and smooth over sharp edges. No one can be an island.
It may be harder these days, because there is so much competition for our time. We tend to get wrapped up with activities, instead of people. Don't fall into this trap. If you have no one to share your inner feelings with, do something about it now. A person with no friends is a person in trouble.
Despite all his problems, Paul did more than hang in there. He accomplished something for God. He says in verse 17, "But the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it...."
That is what Paul means when he speaks of preaching "out of season." At each session of the trial he was able to share his testimony of faith in Christ. It is a reasonable principle that those who receive God's strength should tell others about it.
Captain Rutledge's second vow - that the first Sunday after his release he would take his family to church, go to the front and give a testimony. He did. What are you going to do?
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Typed on January 17, 2005, by Sharon Lesko of Ledgewood Baptist Church, New Jersey
Copyright © 2024 by Rev. David Holwick
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