A lot of

A lot of people think faith is some kind of blind belief, or maybe it's an emotional response to a religious experience.

But when suffering occurs, that kind of so-called faith will ultimately let us down.

We'll see today why true faith demands that we think, focus, and learn.

Alistair Begg is teaching from 2 Timothy chapter 2.

Well, I wonder if you can imagine sitting down to write your last letter.

What would you put in it?

I started that way because Paul has written a letter.

It's a letter.

It's his final letter by all reckonings.

And as we might expect, given that he was aware of the fact that he was now

crystallizing, as it were, that which had been the driving impetus of his life, that in

entrusting this to Timothy, his young lieutenant, he would give to him only that which was salient and vital

and pressing. There were other things that he addressed in the course of all of his letter

writing, but now, as you might expect, given that it is his final letter, he gets to the heart

of things very quickly. It's not easy,

actually, to then summarize the entire letter. Perhaps the best we can say is that he is concerned

that this amazing gospel, which has transformed him, will be so laid hold of by Timothy and others along with him

that subsequent generations will come to understand who Jesus is and why he has come and what

he has accomplished. He has provided the beginning of chapter two these three pictures of a soldier and of an athlete

and of a farmer in order to drive home the essential fact that this gospel business, believing

it, proclaiming it, living in the light of it, is a tough business. And he wants

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