Presented to Swift Current Corps of The Salvation Army, 09 Oct. 2011 and The Salvation Army Alberni Valley Ministries, 23 Nov. 2015 by Captain (Major) Michael Ramsay
This
is the November 2025 version, to view the October 2011 version, click here:
https://sheepspeaks.blogspot.com/2011/10/2-timothy-13-let-us-pray.html
2
Timothy 1:3: “I thank God, whom I serve, as my forefathers did, with a clear
conscience, as night and day I constantly remember you in my prayers.” I have a
story about thanking God… or talking to Him anyway.
A
golfer, now in his golden years, had a lifelong ambition to play one hole at
the famous Pebble Beach in California, the same way the pros do it: The pros
drive the ball out over the water straight onto the green that is on a spit of
land that juts out off the coast. It was something he had tried hundreds of
times without success. His ball always fell short, into the ocean. Because of
this he never used a new ball on this particular hole. He always chose an old
one with a cut or a nick in it.
This one time when he came to Pebble
Beach to try again and he arrived at that particular hole, he teed up an old,
cut up ball and said a silent prayer. As he was about to strike the ball a loud
voice from the heavens says, “Wait! Replace that old ball with a brand new
ball.”
The old golfer did but he still had some
misgivings. He still lacked faith a little bit that he would ever see his ball
again despite the fact that the Lord seemed to be implying that he was going to
finally achieve his life-long ambition of avoiding this water trap, just like
the pros. Hesitantly, the old golfer stepped up to the tee one more time, this
time with a brand new ball and as he did, he heard the voice again from above:
“Wait. Step back. Take a practice swing.” He did.
The voice boomed again, “Take another
practice swing.” He did. Then, after a moment of silence, the Lord finally
said, “put the old ball back on the tee.”
2
Timothy 1:3: “I thank God, whom I serve, as my forefathers did, with a clear
conscience, as night and day I constantly remember you in my prayers.” Here the
golfer can thank God that He spared him his new golf ball.
We are
going to be looking at 2 Timothy today in our lead up to the Advent Season this
year. Paul probably wrote this letter while he was in prison in Rome in the
mid-60s CE. Now, this imprisonment was different than other imprisonments that
Paul suffered. Previously Paul was under house arrest – an electronic
monitoring type of situation, albeit before electronics of course - where Paul
had a fair bit of leniency in his imprisonment. Now, however, he is in a
dungeon. Tradition has it that this is Paul’s final imprisonment; He will only
leave the dungeon for the grave. Paul will die via capital punishment here in
Rome and he is now awaiting that conclusion.[2] The conditions in the dungeon
were probably not as bad as those for people today in Guantanamo Bay – I doubt
that the Romans were actively torturing him like the USA does there - but
Paul’s experience may not be entirely dissimilar and probably even worse than
prisons in this country. It certainly is not the house arrest that Paul had
experienced earlier.[3] This is what life is like for Paul as he is writing
this letter to his friends.
In his
letter, one can see that Paul is obviously lonely. He misses his church family
(2 Timothy 1:4). He is remembering in this letter his church family in
Ephesus,[4] especially Timothy and Timothy’s mother, Eunice; and Timothy’s
grandmother, Lois (2 Timothy 1:5). Paul wants to see them again. He misses
them. Paul, as he expresses his loneliness in this letter, is in all likelihood
having feelings not entirely dissimilar to the feelings experienced by Officers
and others who are moved from community to community in the Army (cf. Romans
1:11; 1 Thessalonians 3:6 and Philippians 1:8). We are separated from those we
love and with whom we have together served the Lord.
Paul,
the apostle, is reaching out in this letter to his friends and church family
and look: what is one of the first things that he tells them? He says, “I thank
God, whom I serve, as my forefathers did, with a clear conscience, as night and
day I constantly remember you in my prayers” (2 Timothy 1:3).
Paul
says that he thanks God day and night as he constantly remembers them. The
Authorized Version reads, “without ceasing I have remembrance of thee in my
prayers night and day.” Without ceasing (Greek: adialeipton) Paul remembers his
Christian brothers and sisters in his prayers (cf. Romans 1:9-10; Philippians
1:3; Colossians 1:31; Thessalonians 1:2; 3:6). The Greek word used here,
adialeiptos (unceasingly), is a powerful word and is found elsewhere in Paul’s
writings only in Romans 9:2 (cf. Romans 1:9-10; Philippians 1:3; Colossians
1:31; Thessalonians 1:2; 3:6).[5] Paul in this letter is saying that whenever –
day or night - the Lord brings Timothy, Eunice and Lois to his mind, Paul prays
for them.[6]
Paul
knows the power of prayer. Paul in another letter to this same church in
Ephesus states about prayer that after we have put on the full amour of God
that we are to – Ephesians 6:18- “…pray
in the spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With
this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.”
Prayer
is a powerful thing and even when Paul is imprisoned, he still has access to
this power of prayer and he is not afraid to use it. 2 Timothy 1:7: “for God
did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love, and of
self-discipline.” 2 Timothy 1:3: “I thank God, whom I serve, as my forefathers
did, with a clear conscience, as night and day I constantly remember you in my
prayers.”
This
is important for us to remember. We need to constantly remember our Christian
brothers and sisters in prayer. We should continue to uphold them in prayer. We
should also pray for all the saints, as Ephesians 6:18 records.
We all
know what the Bible means when we read the word ‘saint’ in the New Testament,
right? In the New Testament a saint is NOT a dead person through whom God does
miracles. ‘Saint’, when we read the term in the New Testament just means,
‘Christian’.[7] The word literally means ‘holy’ or ‘holy one’ and ‘saint’ was
what Christians were commonly called in the first century (cf. TSA doc. 10).[8]
When we read the word ‘saint’ in the New Testament, in our mind we should
probably hear the word, ‘Christian’. We should pray for all the Christians and
we should, like Paul, pray for people without ceasing day and night, whenever
the Lord brings them to our thoughts (cf. for ex. Acts 9, Romans 15, 1
Corinthians 16, Philippians 4:21-22, Colossians 1).
When
Susan and I were urban missionaries in Canada’s poorest postal code, on
Vancouver’s downtown eastside (DTES), with The Salvation Army’s 614 Corps, they
began a War Room there. The War Room was a prayer room. We had a room in a slum
hotel that looked out on that infamous corner of Main and Hastings Street in
the DTES of Vancouver. There were people praying in that room overlooking that
intersection, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for more than a year anyway. We
would each sign up for 3-hour shifts of prayer in the War Room. I often took
the 5am – 8am shift. At first a 3-hour prayer shift seemed like a long time but
by the end of each shift one inevitably wondered how the time passed so
quickly. It was a wonderful time and place to commune with God. Some would take
one prayer shift in the War Room a week, others one shift a day, others
sometimes more. Twenty-four hours a day, morning and evening, day and night,
someone would be praying in that War Room in that slum hotel on Vancouver’s
DTES and wow what a blessing that was. 2 Timothy 1:3: “I thank God, whom I
serve, as my forefathers did, with a clear conscience, as night and day I
constantly remember you in my prayers.”
Like
we said before, prayer is a powerful tool and even when Paul is imprisoned, he
still has access to this power of prayer and he is not afraid to use it. 2
Timothy 1:7: “for God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of
power, of love, and of self-discipline.” The Apostle Paul when he was in a
dungeon awaiting execution, with a clear conscience, day and night would
remember the saints in prayer. Paul, while he was in the dungeon, he was
praying for the saints, the Christians, the other believers. Paul, while he was
in jail awaiting execution, was praying for all those on the outside that the
Lord was bringing to his mind.
This
is important. We need to uphold each other in prayer. There are many things
that need prayer. It is good to pray that in our own lives, that we follow the
will of God and it is also important to pray for others. We have members of our
corps who have been sick and or away; as we pray for them, God will use our
prayers to use them to do His will. Prayer is a powerful tool and the church
that prays together stays together. Prayer is a powerful tool and we should not
be afraid to use it. We have a lot that we as a congregation are facing: City
Hall TUP; Christmas hampers, Christmas services, kettles, meals, and more; We
have emotional and spiritual care matters. We have so much we are facing – all of
us and each of us: health and more.
We
have all heard of as well, if we have not experienced ourselves, the power of
prayer for salvation in people’s lives. How many people have we led in a prayer
of confession of faith after family has been praying for them for years? We
know the story of St. Augustine, of course; this was his story. His mother, St.
Monica, prayed for him for many years before he came to the Lord and then the
Lord used him to influence the church even unto this very day. Prayer is a
powerful tool and we are to use it to uphold our Christian brothers and sisters
day and night as the Lord brings them to our minds. This is important. We need
to pray for each other.
A few
years ago now, then General Linda Bond, the international leader of The
Salvation Army called us all to pray as an Army. She has asked us to pray
Thursday mornings for half an hour from 5am – 8am. This was a great practice.
Today
you are welcome to pray here anytime when the building is open or you are
welcome to pray in your home or you are welcome to pray wherever the Lord leads
you to pray. Wherever you pray, let us here, as a church family, like Paul, let
us, 2 Timothy 1:3, thank God, whom we serve, as our forefathers did, with a
clear conscience, as night and day we constantly remember each other in our
prayers.
Let us
pray.
---
[1]
But cf. James D.G. Dunn, The 1st and 2nd Letter to Timothy and the Letter to
Titus, (NIB XI: Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon Press, 2000), 776-781 on authorship
and date.
[2]
R.C.H Lenski, Interpretation of 1 Timothy, (Interpretation of Colossians,
Thessalonians, Timothy, Titus, Philemon: Minneapolis, Minn.: Augsburg
Publishing House, 1964),474.
[3]
Walter W. Wessel and George W. Knight III, Introduction to 2 Timothy in NIV
Study Bible (ed. Kenneth Barker; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002),1882
[4]
James D.G. Dunn, The 1st and 2nd Letter to Timothy and the Letter to Titus,
(NIB XI: Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon Press, 2000), 781.
[5]
Donald, Guthrie: Pastoral Epistles: An Introduction and Commentary. Downers
Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 1990 (Tyndale New Testament Commentaries 14),
S. 140
[6]
W.E. Vine. ‘That without Ceasing’. In Vine's Expository Dictionary of New
Testament Word. (Nashville, Tennessee: Royal Publishers Inc., 1939),; cf.
Expositors
[7]
Cf. The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, ‘40: Hagios’
(Nashville, Tenn.: Thomas Nelson Publishing, 1995), p.1.
[8]
John D.W. Watts. 'Holy.' In Holman Bible Dictionary, general editor Trent C.
Butler. Nashville, Tennesee: Holman Bible Publishers, 1991), 660. Cf. G.B.
Stevens in Hastings’ Bible Dictionary. Cited W.E. Vine. 'Holiness, Holy,
Holily.' In Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Word. (Nashville,
Tennessee: Royal Publishers Inc., 1939), 557.Cf. Paul Minear, Interpretation 37
no 1 Ja 1983, p. 22: In his death and resurrection, Jesus' holiness or
sanctification became the measure and standard of all holiness, whether of
places, times, things, or persons. (Key passages which reflect this are John
10:36; 17:17-19; I Cor. 1:2; 6:11; Heb. 2:11; 10:10; 12:14-24; 13:12-14.)"
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