Losing a friend can cause a lot of pain especially one who has labored with you and shared your vision. Such was the case of Paul the apostle. There was a man who labored with him called Demas who forsook him at a time when Paul needed him the most.
The bible records in 2 Tim 4:10 that “Demas forsook Paul, having loved this present world and has departed to Thessalonica.” Prior to this, he was mentioned in Col 4v14 and Phil v 24 as a fellow labourer with Paul and the other servants of God.
This shows that he had a good start; he began with the right foot. Just like many of us today. Like Demas, many people today started well, they loved the Lord with all their heart, they labored for the Kingdom of God, obeyed His word and followed him wholehearted. And it seemed like they would continue on that same path.
For the apostle Paul, he too would probably have thought so about Demas. He would have thought he found someone who would run the race with him and finish strong, someone who will continue to fight the good fight of faith even after he may have gone; someone like Timothy but it wasn’t to be so with Demas.
The bible says, he loved this present world and departed to Thessalonica. The tragedy of Demas reminds us again that “Better is the end of a thing than its beginning thereof” (Eccl 7v8). Many begin well but sadly end bad. Some begin on the narrow path that leads to eternal life but end on the wide path that leads to hell. How possible is this?
The bible says in the book of 1 John 2:15, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. So why couldn’t Demas continue with Paul? Because the love of the Father had departed from his heart. Anyone who has the love of this world abiding in his heart, the love of the Father cannot abide in that same heart.
It is sad that such a great opportunity with the promise of eternal reward was exchanged for the things that are passing away. For the bible says, “for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father but of the world and the world is passing away and the lust of it, but he who does the will of God abides forever. (1 John 2:16)
Demas exchanged the love of the Father for the love of the world. He found the fleeting and transient pleasures of the world more appealing than suffering for Christ. He chose comfort over hardship, he chose the broad way over the narrow path. Are the pressures of this present world tugging at your heart? Do you see it shameful to suffer for Christ and be persecuted for your belief in Him? Do you think the way of the Lord is too stringent for you and it allows no room for compromise? Take heed to what the bible says in Matthew 7:13-14, “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.
Many today in the body of Christ are loving this present world and drifting to the wide gate. They are loving the fame, glamour and applaud of this present world; they are substituting the standard of Christ for the standard of the world, they are loving the lifestyle and dictates of this present world, they are choosing the lies of the devil over the undiluted word of God which says, “Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” (James 4v4). Jesus made it clear without mincing words in Mark 8v34 “Whoever desires to come after me let him deny himself, carry his cross and follow me.” This is what qualifies anyone to be his disciple and makes a Christian because “not everyone who calls him Lord, Lord, will enter into His Kingdom but those who do the will of the Father” (Matt.7:21).
This is a great lesson to every believer in the body of Christ. Although we may start well, begin under the leadership of some of the prominent men of God, go to the biggest of churches, serve in the choir or evangelism department, our names may be mentioned in various Christian circles (which are all good and worthy of note) but we sometimes forget that the adversary is still going about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour and we fail to guard our heart with all diligence. “Let he that thinketh he stand take heed lest he falls” (1 Cor 10v12). We must nonetheless continue to “work out our own salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil 2v12).
Paul started on the wrong part, an unlikely candidate for such things as were done through him by the grace and Spirit of God. He killed and persecuted the disciples of Jesus until the day he had an encounter with Jesus. He writes in Philippians 3:7-8, “but what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ.”
The apostle was not looking to gain the world, he was not looking to gain the riches and wealth of this present world, he was not looking to be remembered as a great scholar or anything of human significance, one thing and one thing only did he live and die for as he boldly declared in verse 10, “that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his suffering, being conformed to his death, if by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
What a contrast between Demas and Paul. How many of us have departed from the fold of faith, having loved this present world, having bowed our hearts and bent our knees to the worldly pleasures and departed to Thessalonica. How many of us have abandoned our first love and returned to Egypt or Babylon, a land of fading glory which will soon be perish?
Choose you this day whom you will serve! Today we have an option to choose the way of Demas who started well and in the midst of the right congregation, but left and returned to the world. Or the way of Paul, who left everything and laid down his very own life for the Master, not minding the pain and persecution that he may at the end receive the crown of righteousness.
Choose you this day, the love of the world or the love or the Father. Remember no one can serve two masters.
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