TOPIC:“The Man Who Loved the World So Much”
“For Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica” (II Timothy 4:10)
Dr. Raymond Edman, past President of Wheaton College, used to make it a practice of giving a chapel talk by this title at least once a semester: “It's Always Too Soon To Quit.” I can well imagine how many students under the pressure of college life found this message to be extremely helpful to them. It's a message we all need to hear. Such a word of encouragement should have been given to this man Demas. He threw in the towel far to quickly regarding this matter of living for Christ.
If Peter is know as the denier, then Demas must be know as the deserter. Of Demas we know very little, but for the fact he was a Gentile Christian who was believed to have been converted to Christ in the church at Thessalonica. He is mentioned only three times in the entire Bible. His name means “popular.” As we read the closing verses of Paul's letter to young Timothy we find that even apostles have needs. Now as Paul came near the end of his life he needed the physical comfort and presence of friends. He longs to have Timothy with him because of the painful desertion of Demas. Let us examine the life of this man Demas whom Alexander MacClaren, the famous preacher of the past, called “a faithless friend.”
To begin with, consider the DANGER of spiritual RETREAT. This is where each one of us as Christians need to be careful. As Paul makes his final arrangements before his departure to Heaven, twice in verses 9 and 21 he urges Timothy to lose no time to come to him. The reason being when Paul needed Demas most we read these sad words about him: “For Demas hath forsaken me” (v. 10). The NIV has it: “has deserted me.”
In Paul's letter to Philemon verse 24 he mentions Demas as sharing fully in the work when he describes him as “Demas…my fellow worker.” But in Colossians chapter 4 verse 14 Paul writes these brief words: “And Demas.” Here in this gallery of Christians whom Paul has intimate knowledge of having worked with them, he has not one . . .