unfaithful – Moment to Moment (Bible blog)

The unfaithful, the faithful, the restored, and the condemned

As we near the end of this letter, Paul mentions several different types of people, the unfaithful, the faithful, the restored, and the condemned.

Demas, unfortunately, was one of the unfaithful. He had worked with Paul previously (Colossians 4:14, Philemon 1:24), but Paul now says of him,

Demas, because he loved this world, has deserted me and has gone to Thessalonica. (2 Timothy 4:10)

What exactly pulled Demas away, we are not sure.

Perhaps it was the lure of money and wealth. Perhaps it was falling in love with a non-Christian woman.

Or perhaps it simply was that he was tired of suffering for the sake of Christ. He had seen Paul go through much suffering, and after suffering along with him for many years, decided he had had enough.

Others, however, were faithful not only to Paul, but to Christ. We see this in Crescens and Titus who apparently were sent by Paul to do the Lord’s work elsewhere, and Luke, Paul’s constant companion and perhaps personal physician.

Then there’s Mark. This is the same man that Paul once argued with Barnabas about in Acts 15.

Paul had considered Mark unreliable because he had deserted them on an earlier missionary journey, but Barnabas wanted to give him a second chance.

As a result, Paul and Barnabas went their separate ways.

But now, Paul says of Mark,

Get Mark and bring him with you, because he is helpful to me in my ministry. (11)

Mark had proven Paul wrong, and learning from his past failures, now had shown himself to be a faithful servant of the Lord, and Paul acknowledged him as such.

Finally, we see Alexander. What harm exactly he caused Paul, we don’t know.

If he was the same Alexander from I Timothy 1:20, perhaps his excommunication from the church had caused him to turn Paul into the Romans who were now persecuting Christians openly under Nero.

Whatever the case, Paul said of him,

The Lord will repay him for what he has done. You too should be on your guard against him, because he strongly opposed our message. (14-15)

Here we see two principals concerning those who oppose us and the gospel. First, place them in God’s hands. Don’t let bitterness consume you or cause you to try to take revenge.

But second, forgiveness doesn’t mean you just let someone hurt you again and again. We need to keep our guard up against such people until they repent

But the main question is, what kind of person are you?

Are you like Demas? You came to faith in Jesus, and at first things were great. But now, other things are pulling you away from Christ.

Are the things of this world causing you to be unfaithful to him? Are hardships causing you to think about giving up?

Don’t give in to those temptations. This world, with its pleasures and trials are only temporary. So be faithful. Shoot for the eternal, not what will last only a short time.

Are you like Mark? Have you failed in the past and feel like you can’t be used anymore for the Lord’s work.

Remember that God is the God who restores.

He restored Peter and the rest of the disciples when they failed Jesus before the cross.

He restored Mark.

And he can restore you. All you need to do is repent.

Are you like Alexander, hardened against God and the gospel?

Be warned. God is patient, but as things are you stand condemned. Repent before it’s too late.

And for all of us who are in Christ Jesus, through everything we go through in life, let us as Paul said in Romans,

Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. (Romans 12:12)

Unfaithful

We live in a world today where it almost seems taken for granted that husbands will be unfaithful to their wives, and wives to their husbands. And because we take it for granted, we lose sight of how painful and destructive it is to a marriage.

I think the same thing can be said about our relationship with God.

God often compares our relationship with him to a marriage.

As Christians, we are the bride of Christ. And when we are unfaithful to him, it causes great pain to the heart of God and is destructive to our relationship with him.

That’s what God points out in these chapters. Time and again, he points out his faithfulness and love to Israel.

He reminds them how he showed grace and mercy to their father Jacob, though he started out as a deceiver and as one who fought against God.

He reminds them how he brought them out of Egypt, and cared for them in the desert through Moses.

But after Israel came into their land and became strong, they also became proud.

They were unfaithful to God, and started building and worshiping the works of their own hands.

From there, things went from bad to worse. They even started sacrificing their own children to these gods.

And when their enemies came against them, instead of turning to God, they made treaties with other nations and allied themselves with them.

You can see the pain in the words of God as he rebukes Israel. He sounds as a husband who has been scorned by his wife, saying,

Ephraim has surrounded me with lies, the house of Israel with deceit. (Hosea 11:12)

He told them that though he cared for them and redeemed them to be his wife, they had bitterly provoked him to anger. (Hosea 12:14)

And so God warned them of the judgment to come. He said that when it came, there would be no remedy.

No king they set up could save them. And because they had turned from their husband and helper, God wouldn’t help either.

Hosea 13:14 is probably better translated as a question.

Shall I ransom them from the power of Sheol? Shall I redeem them from death?

O Death, where are your thorns? O Sheol, where is your sting? Compassion will be hidden from My sight. (NASB)

Paul would later use this passage to talk about how the thorns and sting of death would be pulled out by Christ’s victory over the grave.

But here, it seems that God is calling for the thorns of death and the sting of Sheol (the Hebrew word for the grave) to pour out all their wrath over the people of Israel for their unfaithfulness.

All Hosea prophesied would come to pass within the next 70 years or so. Israel would collapse as a nation because of their unfaithfulness to God.

Did God still love them?

Yes.

Would he eventually restore them?

Yes, because as I’ve mentioned before, he remains faithful even when we are not.

A marriage can survive unfaithfulness.

But there’s considerable pain and hardship when a partner is unfaithful.

The same is true with our relationship with God. That’s what Israel would eventually learn.

How often do we think about the considerable hurt and anger we cause God by our unfaithfulness to him?

We forget his love and faithfulness towards us and trample on them in order to pursue our other lovers, the things of this world.

Let us always remember that as much as we can cause pain to our husbands or wives by our unfaithfulness to them, we cause great pain to the heart of God by our unfaithfulness to him.

Let us not be that way.

Let us instead be faithful to the one who always has been, and always will be faithful to us.