Joined: May 2008 Gender: Male Posts: 768 Location: Pikes Peak Ambassador
Second-Timothy-two-fifteen « Thread Started on Sept 17, 2009, 12:36pm »
"Second-Timothy-Two-Fifteen!” How a Scripture text girdled the globe and a led a soldier to Christ. By Charles M. Alexander
AN INTERESTING story has grown up around this Scripture text, which has been the means of leading scores of people to receive Christ as their Savior.
I was spending my holiday with a friend in an American town and we agreed to adopt 'Second-Timothy-two-fifteen' as our year-text, that is, a text on which to shape our lives during the whole year. As the day was ending we would bid each other well and head to our rooms, but instead of saying “Goodnight” we would say that blessed reference “second-Timothy-two-fifteen” and our first greeting of the day would likewise be “second-Timothy-two-fifteen”.
After that holiday we were headed our separate ways and as we headed to our separate platforms at the train station we called out across the station “second-Timothy-two-fifteen” my friend first and then I replied, “second-Timothy-two-fifteen”.
For the whole year we stuck to that text. Whenever we wrote we put the reference across the left hand corner of the envelope and sometimes on the letter as well. Many of my friends did the same with letters they sent me.
Twelve months later I was back in the same town conducting youth evangelistic meetings and was speaking of the great advantage of having a year-text. I had been asking them to adopt the text that I had started with, when a young man got up and interrupted me. “I am very glad,” he said, that Mr. Alexander here took Second-Timothy-two-fifteen for his year–text. “How’s that?” Said I. “Well friends”, he replied. “Twelve months ago I was down at the railway station seeing some people off, when I heard somebody shouting for all he was worth ‘Second-Timothy-two-fifteen’ to a man on the end of an outgoing train and he was shouting back the same. Well, I thought, what is this 'Second-Timothy-two-fifteen', anyway? So I made a beeline for home and looked it up in my Bible. I wasn’t a Christian then, but the first words of that verse hit me between the eyes: -- Study to show thyself approved unto God. Then I went on and read the rest: A workman that need not be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of Truth. I dropped to my knees and received what that Word of Truth said about my salvation and my Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. I asked Him to help me to show myself approved and thank God, He has done it.
Later on I went to Australia. At the very last meeting in Melbourne, after the sermon had been delivered and we had sung and sung, the people still waited. “Why don’t you go home?” I asked. They said, “We want to sing.” We sang, God Be With You, seven times straight through, from one end to the other. Still they did not move and I said again, “Why don’t you go home?” “We want to sing” came the answer, and we sang and sang until I was sure they must be tired of singing. So I said, “I want everybody to listen now while I tell you the story of a text”. And I told them this story.
Then I said “Now everybody who will take 'Second-Timothy-two-fifteen' as a year-text, say it together.” You should have heard them – eight thousand there were – saying, 'Second-Timothy-two-fifteen'. It was like big waves rolling off of the seashore.
While I was telling the story that night a reporter sitting in front took it down as I told it and it was published in The Southern Cross. It went over to England where The Christian Herald copied it. A woman in England sent a copy of that paper to a soldier in Calcutta, who read the story and gave his heart to God.
You say, “How do you know?” Because in going through India I saw him. He came up to me in Calcutta and said, “Are you the man who told the story in Melbourne?
“Yes.”
“Well” he said, “that’s the reason, that I am a Christian.”
There it was. The story travelled 17,000 miles and had led a soldier to Christ.
After the story had been printed in the Australian paper, no introduction was needed when we went from place-to-place to hold mission services. As soon as we got off of the train, people who we had never seen before and who had never seen us greeted us with “Second-Timothy-two-fifteen”. We went across Tasmania. A great crowd had gathered at the dock and they all looked like strangers; however, one great big fellow put his hand up to his mouth as the ship drew up to the dock and shouted: “Second-Timothy-two-fifteen”. We felt right at home.
When we reached England it was the same. Thousands of letters past through the British post office with 2 Timothy 2:15 written upon the outside or the inside or both. A deacon in England told his pastor about it and the pastor came to see me when we were holding meetings in London, He said: My whole church has taken ‘Second-Timothy-two-fifteen’ as a year-text.
A party of sixty Cambridge University students went to Oxford to attend a religious gathering. As the famous text was their motto, they had a cloth sign twelve feet long, printed with ‘Second-Timothy-two-fifteen’ in huge letters and hung it outside of the train car. It was read by thousands of people as the train rushed along with its crowd of students.
Still later the story of the year-text was published in another London journal. The paper fell into the hands of the Master of Ceremonies at the Court of Denmark – a man of high rank and influence. He read about the famous text and was greatly impressed with its worldwide work. A few days later he was to act as chairman at a large and significant gathering of leading people of Denmark. He decided to tell them the story of ‘Second-Timothy-two-fifteen’. The narrative was so popular that ‘Second-Timothy-two-fifteen’ became a familiar phrase in Denmark.
For twelve years I have used the text as part of my signature. In 1912, when I was last in Australia, a young man who had come down from Blue Mountains to Sydney to attend the Mission spoke to me after one of the Town Hall meetings. He told me that when reading various magazines, he had noticed my unusual signature. He was led to study the verse, which was influential in him preaching the Gospel.
Try this year-text for yourself!
Pocket Testament League. Inc. 49 Honeck St. Englewood, NJ 07231
I am going to make that my signature in my email from now on.
There will be many who are ashamed because they are too prideful and stubborn and arrogant to "rightly dividing the Word of Truth." Instead they are crunching numbers, seeking signs (instead of seeking God's truth), coming up with rapture dates, having dreams and visions (lol), prophesying (??), speaking in tongues, laying hands on people, baptising.....oh, I could on and on because I am a little fiesty right now, but you get the point I'm sure.
Well those who fail to even read God's Word, wonder why the "signs" they attempt to practice don't work. You know -- Raise the devil, cast out the sick and heal the dead. Isn't that what it says or something like it?
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