Good morning and happy Thursday. We’ve got a great chapter to cover this morning, 2 Timothy chapter 3. There’s only 4 total chapters in 2 Timothy so tomorrow we will finish out with Chapter 4 and then on Monday we will start the short book of Titus. Speaking of, the other day I had a question about new posts not showing up on the weekends. For many months, I was writing 7 days a week and it was quite the undertaking to say the least. Even God took off the 7th day. So right now, I am writing Monday through Friday and then on the weekends I take the days off. Now it’s important to note, I don’t take the days off from God’s Word just from the writing portion of the 5MC. If you missed a post during the week, the weekends would be a great time to catch up.
Today Paul starts out chapter 3 talking of the “last days.” When most of us hear people talk like this today, we automatically roll our eyes and think, “oh no, here comes this crazy guy that’s talking about the end of the world.” In most cases I would be right there with you. Years ago, I thought all of this talk was crazy, but that was before I decided to as they say, “go straight to the well” and see what God’s Word said about it.
The end days or the last days are real and God talks about the process clearly and very straightforward. You know, it’s funny, God gives us all the information and clarification we need, we only have to study His Word and learn the truth. I wanted to know what God had to say about the last days, the tribulation, the millennium and the rapture so I studied. God has a VERY orchestrated, well-organized plan for all of this in the book of Revelation. If you want to know about it, study it. I recommend you get a commentary on Revelation or a study guide on it to use as you study through it. Revelation can seem daunting and confusing, but with the help of the Holy Spirit and a good study guide you can learn of God’s plan for the end days. Let’s look at how Paul opens up chapter 3 of 2 Timothy:
“This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.” 2 Tim 3:1 KJV
Let’s explore the “last days.” The last days is a technical term used in several places in the New Testament, it speaks of the last days of the church immediately preceding the rapture of the church. Remember that the church is not a building, campus or organization but the body of Christ, or to us a local body of believers. So, we can understand from this verse that there will be perilous times in this world in the period before the church is raptured or “caught up in the air with the Lord.” Check out this verse: “Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.” 1 Thess 4:17. The word rapture is never found in God’s Word but the Greek root of ‘caught up’ is “Harpizo” which means to “grasp hastily, snatch up, lift, transport or rapture.”
No one knows when the rapture will take place. God doesn’t give us that information, but we do know that it has not taken place yet. So, if the church has not been caught up yet, are we in the last days? Well, it would seem so. Paul goes on to tell us about the last days in detail, specifically the people of the last days. He lists 19 characteristics of what people will be like in the last days. Read on and you tell me if it sounds like we are in the last days.
“For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3 without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, 4 traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; 5 having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.” 2 Tim 3:2-5 AKJV
You might have a different set of eyes and ears, but this could not sound more like our world today. Let’s explore each of these briefly to better understand what God is telling us about people in the last days.
1) Lovers of self. People will first and foremost love themselves. They will seek personal praise and condemn criticism of themselves. If you are a lover of self, you are not loving others, which is part of the great commandment of God. Matt 22:39
2) Covetous or a lover of money. This is right after the first one for a reason. Lovers of self, become lovers of money. Money is not evil but the “Love” of money is. (1 Tim 6:10.) This deals with the idea of how we treat our money. Is our money all spent on our own desires and pleasures, or do we give some back to God and use some of rest to bless others?
3) Boasters. Being proud. Being full of satisfaction in yourself, your achievements, your position or your power.
4) Proud. Being arrogant. Having an exaggerated sense of your own importance or ability over others.
5) Blasphemer. To speak irreverently about God. This is not just taking the name of the Lord in vain, this is to just generally talk evil about God, His Word, His Spirit and His Holiness.
6) Disobedient to parents. Need I say more? I see this almost everywhere I go. Children with no respect for the authority of their parents. You might say it’s the parent’s fault and I would agree, but Paul is not splitting hairs here, he just says it will happen in the last days.
7) Unthankful. Being Ungrateful. Receiving kindness from God or others and not saying thank you or being grateful. Thankfulness develops and lives in the heart well before it can be expressed through the mouth. (Matt 12:34) This is not just the act of failing to say thank you, this is an individual that does have thanks in their heart.
8) Unholy. Being profane. They are against God in their words and conversation. I was out shopping the other day and a woman accidentally stepped on her husband’s (or boyfriends) new shoes. He berated and verbally abused her including the use of the F word. My heart sank and hurt for this woman. That guy hit 5 of our first 8 on this list in 15 seconds! At another store last week, I heard a mother cussing at her 8 year old daughter. Wow. This one is easy to spot today.
9) Without natural affection. This means to have abnormal relationships. This speaks of homosexuality. We are living in a day where this has been embraced on levels never seen before. In fact, it’s not only embraced today but has been made legal in a perversion of God’s Marriage. Paul tells us we will deal with this in the last days and we are dealing with it today. Rom 1:24.
10) Trucebreakers. Impossible to get along with. People that are impossible to please. This makes me think of the reaction to the political climate in the US today. No matter what party, no matter what candidate, no matter what the result of any election, there are people that just will not be pleased.
11) False Accusers. Those who are quick to blame others with information that is not true.
12) Incontinent. Without self-control. People that do whatever pleases them or brings them pleasure. This is indicative of the first two and usually happens at the expense of others.
13) Fierce. Means to be savage. To be brutal towards others. This is so true today. Google a game called “knockout.” It’s a game played by teens and the goal is to punch a random stranger to see if they can knock them out cold with one punch. In the last days people will be savage and brutal.
14) Despisers of those that are good. True evil despises good. True evil does not even want good to be around. True evil yearns to extinguish good.
15) Traitors. To betray. You can see this as a lack of loyalty. A lack of loyalty stems from point #1.
16) Heady. Means reckless. Acting without thinking or caring about the consequences. Being reckless not only hurts the person but usually others as well.
17) Highminded. Means blinded by pride or drunk with pride. Pride, “the quality of having an excessively high opinion of oneself or one's importance.”
18) Lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. This easily sums up our world today. Never has more money been spent on personal pleasure and personal luxury than today. In the US, the average house has never been bigger. In 1983 the average house was 1725 sq ft, in 2018 it was almost 2800 sq ft. We are building palaces for ourselves. Luxury cars have slowly become the norm not the exception. Billions of dollars are spent on entertainment every year. I hooked up some rabbit ears to watch the Cowboys game last Saturday night and I saw 100,000 people that paid big money to watch 22 millionaires play a game with a leather ball. My first thought was what would I have to do to get 100,000 people to pay the same money to sit for 4 hours and hear about God. You just couldn’t do it. Paul tells us people will love personal pleasure more than they love God.
19) Having a form of Godliness, but denying its power. They go through the rituals of religion but they lack life in God. Those that hypocritically go to church on Sunday, yet during the week, they live, speak and treat others like the devil.
Paul finishes the verse with “from such turn away.” Turn away means to go in the opposite direction. If these people are going west, you go east. If they’re going North, you go south. Stay away or you’ll be drawn into their perilous ways.
Quite the tough list to sit under this morning, but God knows it’s importance, that’s why it’s in His Word. It is so important to study God’s Word in it’s entirety, not to just pick and choose our favorite parts. In fact, this is a great segway for one of the last verses in chapter 3 that has to be mentioned. If we are to be able to resist and rise above the evils listed above what are we to do? Well, as I said yesterday, a safe answer here in the 5MC is always God’s Word. If you guessed that, you’d be right. God’s Word can keep our paths straight and keep us from evil ways. Check out this amazingly powerful statement from God concerning His Word:
“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work..” 2 Tim 3:16
So, through God’s Word and God’s Word alone, we can become complete. I love that picture, to be complete. It makes me think of a jigsaw puzzle as it comes down to the last few pieces. You can see it coming together but it still lacks something. A few pieces will finish it and make it complete. God’s Word is the piece that will finish us. We are all missing something that only God’s Word can provide. It does this through, teaching us, correcting us and training us in the ways that are right before God. Through these, God will complete us so that we can serve Him and others in every good work. One of my favorite verses ever. What a promise from God.
I pray that you are having as much fun as I am, studying, exploring and learning of the goodness of God through His Word.
Bless someone with the Words of God today.
Comments