There is more, however, than hardship or suffering to be faced in the testimony of our Lord and no one proved it more than the apostle. To be persecuted by foes may be bitter, though glorious for His sake Who really entails it as the world now is. But what is this to compare with desertion by friends? Here, the life that is in Christ finds fresh scope. For glorifying the Lord in such an experience how deep the value of the Word, and how energetic the power of the Holy Ghost which dwells in us. A single eye to Christ alone can sustain in it and as the apostle was then feeling it to the uttermost so does he not hesitate to bring it before the tender spirit of his beloved child.
“Thou knowest this, that all that are in Asia turned away from me; of whom is Phygelus and Hermogenes” (ver. 15). Of these two we may be wholly ignorant. Not so Timothy any more than Paul, who singles out their names as the most painful examples of the abandonment which cat the apostle to the heart. Timothy knew well what made their heartlessness such a distress to the servant, such a dishonor to the Master. It is not Christian to treat such a thing with contempt any more than with resentment. We can afford to hear all, however humbling as well as grievous. For we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. It would prepare Timothy and countless others for that which might be similar in its kind and time. Scripture records nothing in vain. It is true that we are nerved and strengthened for the conflict by looking not to deserters but to the Captain of salvation. But it is well to be prepared for that which has been, for what might be, not to say for what from the same causes is sure to be, from time to time. And it was the more important to speak of it to Timothy at this time, because he was so soon to lose the cheering presence and burning exhortations of the one who was writing to him, at least from his voice as a living man, ever to be heard, ever to abide as the word of the living God.
Let us consider more precisely what appears to be meant by these affecting words. Asia, pro-consular Asia, had been the scene of signal triumph for the gospel. It was there that the word of the Lord mightily grew and prevailed, and this in its capital city Ephesus. To the saints there the apostle had written his most elevated and richest Epistle, with the singular feature of no occasion to occupy himself or them with faults or dangers as then existing in their midst, though not without warning against the worst and lowest evils into which Satan might betray, and betray so much the more surely if that height of grace and truth were departed from or despised. And Timothy knew Asia well, especially Ephesus. There the apostle would have him remain when he himself Was going to Macedonia, that he might keep up the testimony which had been planted there and guard the saints against all the trash of man which Satan would use to supplant it.
But now, the apostle can assume that Timothy knew that desertion of himself which filled his heart, not with dismay but with grief. Such is the effect of divine love shed abroad in the heart and Paul would have Timothy to feel it according to Christ. This, undoubtedly, adds to the anguish but it delivers from selfishness as well as from acrimony. And Timothy needed to have it brought before him thus even though he knew the fact. The language supposes, it would seem, a definite act, rather than a general state, though no doubt there was an antecedent state which prepared the way for that act to affect them so unworthily. It is true that turning away from Paul is very different from forsaking the gospel or the church, from giving up this truth or that. But where the Lord was giving His most honored servant to suffer, not for any failure of his own, but for the divine deposit, for His testimony here below, that any should desert such a servant at such a time would be lamentable: how much more so that the desertion should be general and in a moral sense universal where the truth was best known and grace could be brought out in all its height and depth and breadth as nowhere else. I should judge from the context that the fact which brought out this most deplorable and guilty desertion was the apostle's imprisonment. The enemy took advantage of human shame put upon the greatest servant of the church and of the gospel. And those who had been the abundant fruit of his labors in divine power did in effect join the world in spirit, cowering under its shame where faith and love ought to have given them identification with the apostle's suffering as glory to the name of Jesus.
But the turning away from Paul was not absolutely complete even there. There was at least a bright, exception, as a time of general evil is ever used in the grace of God to bring out singular fidelity and devotedness. “The Lord grant mercy to the house of Onesiphorus; for he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chain; but being in Rome he sought me out diligently and found [me]; (the Lord grant him to find mercy from [the] Lord in that day). And in how many things he ministered at Ephesus thou knowest very well.” The contrast helps much and definitely to show us where the general defection lay; and the Lord repaid “the house of Onesiphorus” with compound interest the grace He had bestowed on its head. “He often refreshed me,” says the gracious apostle: how like the Master Who could say to the poor disciples, “Ye are they which have continued with Me in My temptations; and I appoint unto you a kingdom, even. as My Father appointed unto Me” &c.! But he also singles out the crucial fact, “and was not ashamed of my chain.” Love evinces its truth, character, and power in the hour of need. How was it with “all that were in Asia"? They were evidently ashamed of it. Fleshly prudence blamed the zeal for Christ which gave the occasion; and worldly spirit shrank from all solidarity with the imprisoned apostle. How did the Lord regard such selfish timorousness? The Holy Spirit marks its baseness indelibly on the everlasting page of scripture. But he singles out the blessed exception of one whose heart clave the more to the apostle, not merely in the province of Asia, but in the proud metropolis where the apostle was bound. “But being in Rome he sought me very diligently;" and not in vain. He found the deserted apostle: “the Lord grant him to find mercy from [the] Lord in that day”! This, it is true, we are all awaiting in faith (Jude 2121Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. (Jude 21)); but none the less sweet or comforting the apostle's prayer, surely not less efficacious than that of an Abraham of old for the present government of God. Nor is this all that is said; but he appeals to Timothy as knowing very well how much service Onesiphorus rendered in Ephesus. The Apostle does not limit it, as the Authorized Version does with others, to ministering to himself: the general phrase leaves room for what was personal of course, but implies much more, as the apostle carefully states. None knew this “better" than Timothy who needed no further explanation.