Paul writes in 2 Timothy 4:10: “Demas, having loved this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica.” Demas, although mentioned only three times in the New Testament, illustrates one of the most familiar tragedies in human experience – a fine beginning, but a poor ending. He simply lacked the power to see it through. Observe his gradual decline, as indicated in the Scriptures in which his name is mentioned: “Demas, Luke, my fellow-workers” (Philemon 24); “Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas greet you” (col. 4:14); “Demas forskook me” (2 Tim. 4:10). In the case of Demas, let us notice…
THE RELATION OF STARTING POWER WITH STAYING POWER:
In no real realm are these powers the same – a ship, a train, a marriage.
However beautiful one’s beginning may be, nothing matters much in human life without a good ending – not necessarily an ending that the world calls good, but one that is pleasing to God. The life and words of Jesus could have been spoiled in the Garden of Gethsemane if he had not remained faithful to God.
THE CAUSE OF DEMAS’S DESERTION:
“Having loved this present world…” To love the world does not necessarily mean that one loves the things which are inherently evil, though it might mean that. Demas may have wanted to turn his attention to some form of pleasure, business, or even to his family (Luke 8:14; Matt. 10:37-39).
What the Scripture says: 1 John 2:15-17 – “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves 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 boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.” And James 4:4 – “You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”
Or consider Philippians 3:18-19: “For many walk, of whom I often told you, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things.”
SOME ESSENTIAL REQUIREMENTS FOR A SUCCESSFUL ENDING:
Integrity of conscience or keeping faith with oneself… In Acts 23:1, Paul says, “I have lived my life with a perfectly good conscience before God up to this day.”” In 24:16, he also says, “I also do my best to maintain always a blameless conscience both before God and before men.”
If a man will always do what he believes to be right, while at the same time earnestly seeking to know the Lord’s will, in order that he may do it, he will, if he is not already actually in the right way, find it sooner or later (John 7:17; Matt. 13:12).
On the other hand, anyone who will stultify conscience, in order to have what the world offers, will ultimately find that he is not able to shake off the shackles with which his sin has bound him.
Staying power is always associated with the experience of being captured by a cause – something which the one thus captured considers greater and more important than himself. This is the spirit out of which martyrs are made. Think of the people who have suffered and died for the sake of the causes to which they were devoted (Acts 21:7-14; Rev. 2:12-13; 1 Cor. 15:58).
It is one thing for one to take hold on some of the more comfortable aspects of the gospel and possess himself with this or that detail of the message of Christ, but quite another for Christ actually to take hold of him (Gal. 2:20; 6:14-17).
One’s profound resources of interior strength must be replenished by greater faith (Psalm 27:13; Luke 18:1; James 1:5-8). What does the Christian’s faith in God do for him? It causes him to have confidence in such statements as Matt. 6:33; Heb. 13:5; Phil. 4:6-7; 2 Tim. 1:12.
It enables him to have faith in an eternal purpose (Rom. 8:28; 2 Peter 3:8). It gives one available resources of inner power. We do not produce power so much as we appropriate it. A man with real faith in God senses around him a spiritual presence just as truly as he does the material world around him (Matt. 28:28; Heb. 1:14; 2 Kings 6:8).
Let us, like Demas, begin our race well. Let us, unlike Demas, end our race well.
- the late Wayne E. Holland
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