Hello and welcome. At this time, we will take a look at the Word of God, the Bible, considering Scripture in light of the fact that we are approaching quickly unto the end of the world.
Allow me to read from 2 Timothy 4:6-10 where the Lord is moving the Apostle Paul to write:
For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing. Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me: For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica…
I will stop reading there as we find through this passage that the Lord is laying out the lives of two men, two people: the Apostle Paul and Demas. Paul does go on to mention some others, but the important point that God is making about Demas is that he forsook Paul because he “loved this present world” and that he then departed to Thessalonica.
As we look back on history, as this was written in the 1st century A.D. and here we are in the 21st century A.D., this was quite a long time ago, and yet these men lived just like we live today. At that time, there were worldly-minded people. The vast majority of people alive then were just like vast majority of people who are alive today. They had natural minds, earthly, worldly; they still had their old nature because they had never been born again. And the people of the world do not understand the Gospel. They do not understand giving up one’s life and sacrificing your time and money and effort for the sake of the Word of God and for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ.
At the time that Demas forsook Paul and departed for Thessalonica, he certainly would have met up with others who had at some point known him, maybe his friends or his family members, people who never really understood the purpose for Demas’ attraction to the Gospel, and they would have heartily slapped him on the back and praised him and encouraged him because he had finally come to his senses—he came back to the world.
On the other hand, people could have observed the life of the Apostle Paul who was greatly afflicted through many trials and testings and tribulations. In a couple of places in the Bible, God moved Paul to lay out many of the things that he had to suffer for Christ’s sake.
So, obviously, Demas made the correct choice; Demas did the wise thing. He left the affliction that accompanies the Word of God and returned to a life of ease and peace with the world, being once again a part of the world. After all, he did love this present world. People then would have praised Demas and continued to just not understand an individual like the Apostle Paul who endured such affliction.
But here we are now almost 2,000 years later and we have this Biblical record, the Biblical history of these men. We know that in the 1st century A.D., the Apostle Paul died for the sake of the Gospel. We do not really know what became of Demas except that be forsook Paul and that he loved that present world.
Well, that present world is long past now. It is 20 centuries later and all of the people whom Demas knew, including Demas himself, have long since perished; they have long since gone away.
The world itself remains unto this day for a short while longer; but as we read the Bible and we read of this individual, this real person named Demas, do we not just feel sorry for him? And do we not recognize what an awful, tragic, and woeful decision he made way back then to go away from the Gospel, to leave the Word of God?
Yes, we see the suffering of Paul—we see the tragedy and all of the horrible things that he had to endure—and yet we know that once the Apostle Paul died, his spirit went to be with the Lord. We know that he has been comforted all through these many centuries existing and living in the very presence of God in Heaven.
We quickly understand that the better, the exceedingly better thing, is to have lived a life of suffering for the Gospel, for God, for the Lord Jesus Christ, and then have an eternal reward, an eternal happiness, rather than to have gone back to the world like Demas who put his hands to the plow and then looked back.
This was a tragic thing for him because Demas was gone forever. In the day he died, his thoughts perished; he ceased to be. What a tragic thing this was for him!
What about us today? What about us? Each one of us is faced with this very same situation. We have the cause of Christ and the Gospel and then we have the world ever present—until its destruction—and ever alluring and very attractive to man.
God told us in 1 John 2:15-17:
Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.
Through this perspective that God has given to us in looking back hundreds and hundreds of years to the 1st century A.D. and at this man named Demas, no matter what obstacles or afflictions or troubles are in our path at this time, may each one of us realize that shortly this world will pass away on October 21st after five months of torment in the year 2011. May we not be found fleeing or forsaking the Word of God at this time of the Great Tribulation, but may we be found doing the will of God and, therefore, abiding forever with Him. Of course, this can only be done by the grace and mercy of God. May the Lord’s will be that He would give us His Spirit to be steadfast in service to His Word and the Gospel.