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2nd Timothy 3:1-13
“This
know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own
selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents,
unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers,
incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady,
highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of
godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. For of
this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden
with sins, led captive with divers lusts, ever learning, and never able to come
to the knowledge of the truth. Now
as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate
concerning the faith. But they
shall proceed on further: for
their folly shall be manifest unto all men, as theirs also was. But thou hast fully known my doctrine,
manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, charity, patience, persecutions,
afflictions, which came unto me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra; what
persecutions I endured: but out of them all the
Lord delivered me. Yea, and all
that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. But evil men and seducers shall wax
worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.”
‘In The Last Days
Perilous, Dangerous Times Will Come Upon Us’
“2nd Timothy chapter 3, Paul again speaks to us about the last days. “This know also, that in the last
days perilous times shall come.” He spoke to us in his first epistle to
Timothy in the 4th chapter, ‘the Spirit says expressly in the
last days certain things would take place, people would depart from the faith.’ Here he says, “Know this also, in the last days perilous times shall
come” dangerous
times. And he’s going to talk
about those troubles being anchored in three kinds of misguided affection, men
will be lovers of their own selves, covetousness, the Greek word is lovers of
money, and then finally he’ll say lovers of pleasures more than lovers of
God---all of that certainly rooted in self-love. He’s going to say that these people hold a form of
religion. So it’s not just people
running around in the world, it’s people who at the same time they do these
things, say ‘Oh, I believe in God, oh, I go to this, I go to this meeting, I
go to that meeting, you know, whatever church,’ having a form of religion, but denying
the power of it. That ultimately
what they’re doing is powerless, and that the Word of God of will triumph, their
deception will be manifest. Now
God’s in control of this whole process, he tells us that from the
beginning. ‘Look, this know
also, I want you to know this Timothy,’ and by saying that he’s saying ‘You can bet on
this, this is for sure. You know, the
Holy Spirit has impressed this upon my heart, God will not be shocked by these
things, he’s laying them out ahead of time for his children, for his Church, so
know it. God’s in charge, he sees
it, he won’t be staggered by it, he’s not going to be shaken or surprised by
it. Know this, it will be in the
last days, the last times, God’s in control of that, it’s designated, it’s
going to happen, and that those times that are perilous will come.’ God’s sovereignty is right in the warning, the way he
gives it to us. But it’s
interesting now when he begins to warn, it’s on the personal level, and in
regards to the things that deal to the traitor that’s within each one of
us. The Bible tells us that we’re
not to let sin reign in our mortal bodies. But it’s alive there. We’re to consider ourselves dead to sin, it’s a word of faith. But John the apostle, as he writes his
first Epistle of John, 90-years-old, says ‘If we say,’ including himself, personal pronoun, ‘If
we say we have not sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we say we don’t have that sinful
nature, we’re deceiving ourselves. If we walk with him, in the light as he is in the light,’ it says, ‘the blood of Christ,’ and I love the King James because with
the “eth” it gives us the sense of the tenses, ‘the blood of Christ continually cleanses us from all sin.’ Paul will say in the first chapter of 2nd Corinthians ‘that we have been delivered, that we are being delivered,
and we shall yet be delivered.’ So in all of this process there is a
struggle, Paul tells us in Galatians 5, between the flesh and the spirit (cf.
Galatians 5:19-23). And as he
begins to warn here, he warns of the things that appeal to that traitor that’s
within us, that carnal nature. We
call it “the flesh”, but it isn’t this [he’s slapping his chest], it’s a
nature, it’s a desire that can’t be negotiated with, can’t be satisfied, we
can’t come to any terms with it, we just have to consider it dead, Paul
says. Now when we think of the
“last days” and “perilous times,” first of all, no doubt to the apostles and
early Church fathers, “the last days” had begun. Peter, in Acts
chapter 2, as the crowds gathered to hear people speaking in tongues on the Day
of Pentecost, he says ‘This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel,
in the last days I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, your sons and
daughters will prophecy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will
see visions, and this continues till the sun refuses to shine, the moon’s
turned to blood,’ it is characteristic of this entire Age between the death, resurrection and
ascension of Christ and his return, that Age is “the last days.” Now there are specific things that will
happen in these very end times that we’re living in, and certainly that makes these
warnings more applicable to us this evening than any generation of the Church
that has ever lived before us. But
again I take note, this doesn’t say ‘Get out your duct tape and your
plastic, them times are dangerous, they’re perilous.’ I’m not opposed to that, don’t laugh, because you can use duct tape for
a thousand things, if you don’t use it for those things. [Comment: The Israelis have had to do
that on numerous occasions, especially during “Gulf War I” when Saddam
threatened to shoot poison gas Scud missiles at Israel, and actually launched a
few Scuds into Israel.] Plastic’s
always good to have around, I guess. But we think of the things we think are perilous now, on the global
level, and in regards to nation rising against nation, Jesus said that, of wars
and rumours of wars, famine, pestilence. [Comment: And the Russians under Vladimir Putin just invaded and took
over the Crimea, taking it from the Ukraine, putting great pressure on Europe
to unite and arm itself militarily into a superpower of it’s own (Spring of
2014).] But here’s a warning to
the Church in regards to things that will come to us on that personal
level. “This know also, that in
the last days perilous times shall come.” (verse 1) No doubt about it, written for us. The Spirit has revealed it. “For men shall be lovers of their own selves,” in all the ills we see, verse 2 to 5
are a run-on sentence, “For men shall be lovers of their own selves,
covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful,
unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent,
fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers
of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying
the power thereof; from such turn away.” (verses 2-5) and the Scripture takes that for
granted, our problem is self-love, people come to the verse where Jesus says ‘You
shall love your neighbour as yourself,’ and people say ‘Well, I have to learn to love myself
so I can learn to love my neighbour,’ The Bible knows we’re much sicker than
that. It takes for granted we’re
completely in love with ourselves, that’s why it tells us to love our neighbour
the way we already do love ourselves. ‘Well, I hate myself,’ no you don’t. Again, if we took a
picture of this crowd tonight and put it on the wall there, next week when you
come in, who would be the first person you’d look for in that picture? [loud
laughter] And you’d say ‘I look
dumb, I hate this picture. Oh, it
doesn’t matter about the other 2,000 people, I don’t care, I look dumb, destroy
it!’ Or, again, ‘I hate myself because
I’m ugly,’ no, if you hated yourself you’d be glad
you’re ugly. [loud laughter] The
Bible assumes that the last days will be characterized by a self-absorbed
generation. And you know
what? There are places in the
world, because of their extreme poverty and hardship, their thoughts are
consumed day to day with what they’re going to eat for that day. But in the Roman world of Paul, where
there was prosperity, and in the world that we live in, we are very
self-consumed. We’re called
“Consumers” as a generation, consuming what we want. We spend money we don’t have on what we want. We spend a thousand dollars a seat for
a front row seat on a play-off game. Hey, I’m not complaining, God wants us to enjoy the fruit of our labour,
but my point is, we can be so self-ish in the way we do things. I mean, there’s even “Self Magazine”, you know there was “US”, that wasn’t focused enough, so then
there’s “Self Magazine.” Pretty soon there’s probably just going
to be “ME Magazine” and
come with a mirror on the cover instead of a picture of anybody else. [loud laughter] Don’t even need anything inside, you
just stand there and look at yourself. Look, we are laughing because we know the truth of these things, but
this is an age that’s characterized by love of self, love of money, and love of
pleasure, in contrast to love of God. You know, Jesus, his challenge to us, is to be other-centered. ‘The Son of man came not to be
served, but to serve, to lay down his life for a ransom for many.’ If that Spirit empowers and moves us, then there’s a constant struggle
within us over that selfish nature we have, because the Holy Spirit is always
convicting us, ‘No, you give, no you go the extra mile, no you listen
when you don’t want to listen, you give when you don’t want to give, you
abstain from this, it’s not right, it’s unclean.’ Because
we’re washed with media, we’re washed with MTV, we’re washed with imagery and
sounds and lyrics that constantly appeal to the flesh. And those that get most provocative and
go the furthest out on the limb that want to stretch the sinful boundaries,
they’re almost the ones, you know, avante guard, they’re almost the one’s to be
the most admired in the media and in the entertainment industry, it’s the flesh
being pushed an extra yard and so forth. You know, you parents, if you haven’t seen the video, and you can’t get
it from the lending library because we don’t want the kids to see it, but I
suggest that you talk to Robert G., we have a video called “The Merchants of
Cool” that PBS
ran. And it just talks about how
Viacom and Madison Avenue and the people they have, they send out scouts and
decide what “Cool” is, and what kids want, what the younger generation wants,
and they perpetuate that, and they sell that, and they market it, that the
teenagers in America are spending over 150 billion dollars a year, and they see
them as a continent to be conquered, simply for this. They don’t care about anybody’s souls, about anybody’s
eternal destiny, about anything that’s right. The Almighty Dollar is what drives everything that appeals
to our flesh in the name of what’s Cool.
Laundry List Of
Traits That People Will Be Known For In The Last Days
Paul
warns, “that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own
selves, covetous” the
word “covetous” means “loving money.”, “boasters, proud,” arrogant, “proud” means “looking down
on others,” the idea, “blasphemers,” ‘who cares about God?’ and we don’t have to go far to find that, “disobedient
to parents, unthankful, unholy,” all
go together there, “disobedient to parents.” In the Roman culture, at the threat of your life you
disregarded your parents [and still among the old-world Italians too], and
among the Greeks if you disrespected your parents, you were disinherited, they
took you out of their Will. Of
course in ancient Israel if you were disrespectful of parents, you were stoned,
it was a capital crime. [That’s
why Proverbs says that someone who does not properly discipline his children
actually hated them, it was showing your children hatred by not disciplining
them properly, because the end result, it would result ultimately in their
death.] I’m not promoting that
now, I’m just saying, you know, in these cultures there was a great sense of
the older folks in the family, they were the patriarchs. They were the people that were admired
and esteemed. Today, so much of
the time, the elderly are put away in retirement homes, the old folks homes,
and not taken care of. Then, Jesus
said they were to honour their mother and father. And that didn’t just mean to listen when you were a kid,
because he said, the money that would have benefited them, the hypocrites, the
Pharisees were saying ‘You could give that to the Temple and say Korban,
then you’re no longer responsible to take care of your parents,’ and for the tradition of men, Jesus
said about them, ‘You step all over the commandment of God that says “honour
your mother and father.”’ So, in their old age they were to be
cared for, and esteemed. But he
said, the age is coming, parents are going to be disregarded, they’re going to
be mocked at, they’re going to be laughed at, unthankful, unholy, “without
natural affection,” aestorgio, which is storgio speaks of the kind of love that’s in a
family, it can be husband-wife, parent-child, family-love, the prefix-a in
front of it means without the natural affection that there should be within a
family, between a mom and a dad, between a parent and a child, that that’s
going to be set aside, people without natural affection. And look at the child-abuse that we
see, the sexual abuse of children. Look at the way so much of that is promoted. I remember hearing a testimony by Ted Bundy, who had killed,
and who was a mass murderer, and before he died he turned to Christ. And James Dobson had done an interview,
and he said, “This started in my life with pornography, this started in my life
when those things were hard to find and hard to get, and you had to sneak
somewhere and buy a magazine.” He
said, “The thing that worries me now is, that there are a thousand Ted Bundy’s
in your neighbourhood, because this stuff comes across the Internet, this stuff
is so available.” The imagery in
so much of the videos, the music videos, so much of it violent, immoral. He said, “I washed myself in secret
with some of this stuff, and it just appealed to something in me, and I ended
up involved in these things, blind and in darkness.” How much, without natural affection, how does that
characterize our age, we’re warned, we’re warned. “trucebreakers,” certainly, the rate of divorce speaks of that. You know, it used to be on Wall Street
you made a deal by shaking somebody’s hand. Those days are gone. You know, we have doctors, even in the State of Pennsylvania, because of
the lawsuits, and we see the lawsuits where somebody’s suing a restaurant, the
coffee’s too hot, somebody who doesn’t take the prescription the way that it
says on the bottle that they’re to take it, and get’s sick, and goes and sues
the pharmacy and gets $200,000, and the pharmacy didn’t do anything. Trucebreakers, it’s hard just to trust
on either side of the, you know, it used to be just weights and balances, Lady
Justice there, it’s imbalance now. If someone gives you their word it’s hard to trust them. “false accusers,” interesting, accusers there, diabalos, devils, devil-tongued, Satan is the accuser of the
brethren. “incontinent,” means “without control,” people that
are out of control, all of this kind of lines up with “without natural
affection,” “fierce,” is the word that means “to be like a
beast.” “despisers of those
that are good,” people
are just going to hate good people, good things, good standards, anything
that’s good. If you’re a
goody-two-shoes, if you’re a Bible-thumper, if you’re a holier than thou,
they’re just going to hate anything that’s good. And Isaiah tells us when a nation comes to the point where
good becomes evil and evil becomes good, woe to that nation. And we’re to that point now. If you stand up and say anything about
righteousness or cleanness, morally, Biblical morality, you then are
narrow-minded, you’re not politically correct, you’re condemning others. Well it used to be that it was good to
be moral. It used to be that it
was good to stand up for things that were right. Now you’re the wrong one for doing that. And the person that wants to practice
every aberrant thing is the person with “rights” and “political correctness”, “despisers
of those that are good,” “traitors,” and certainly as Paul is writing,
there were those that were turning over to Roman authorities those that were of
their own families that were Christians. “heady,” means “headstrong,” of course those have been in every age, and if you don’t
agree with me we’ll argue about it. But there’s always been people who have been headstrong. Ah, little joke there, come on. “highminded,” “arrogant, proud.” “lovers of pleasures more than lovers
of God;” and what an
age that we live in, huh? I mean,
look, after 20 years in the ministry here in Philadelphia, I’ve heard
everything. But I’m amazed
sometimes at people that sit in church and listen to the Word of God, week
after week, and then find out they’re living in sexual sin, to find out that
they’re allowing their kids to do certain things. And to think, what is the basis, are you saying that the
Bible, times change, is that what you’re telling me? You know, ‘The times, they are a changin’, you know,
these things are Victorian, they’re from another age, it doesn’t apply now, God
understands, God loves me, God knows my heart, God knows this, God knows that,
we love each other, we’re consenting adults, this and that,’ No, Jesus said “If you love me, you’ll keep my commandments.” It’s very clear. ‘Let
those who name the name of Christ depart from iniquity.’ Here it says, ‘there will be those, the truth is, they love
pleasure more than they love God.’ I remember when I first got saved,
struggling still sometimes, backsliding, flopping around, with sin, and saying ‘I
hate this.’ And finally coming to terms, and saying ‘No, I don’t do this because I hate this, I do it because I love it,’ and I don’t chew on gravel, I do this
because it feels good. And right
when I want some of this to go up my nose, right at that moment I have to say
“Do I love Jesus more, or do I love this more?” I have to make a decision, and then to say, ‘Maybe I do
love this more, Lord forgive me. Lord you have to reveal enough of yourself to me so that I am more
infatuated with and more in love with you, than I am with my own
pleasure.’ And to be that honest, and to find him
meeting you right there to set you free. That’s the business he’s in.
We Live In A
Nation, World That Has Lost Its Spiritual Bearings
But
we live in an age that’s characterized by people who love pleasure more than
they love God. That’s because
they’re self-lovers. Isn’t it
interesting, of all the things, and we’re warned of other things in the last days. Paul says, ‘Know this, Timothy,’ to this young minister whose looking
over these churches for him, ‘this will be perilous, because there are
big obvious things that we’ll all be afraid of, but then there will be those
other things, way more seductive, way more in keeping with the age.’ Terrorism is condemned, sexual sin isn’t. It’s wrong to be a sniper or a suicide bomber, but over
30,000,000 abortions, that’s ok. You see, we’ve lost our bearings, become desensitized, so it says ‘the
age will be characterized by those things that are more subtle.’ We’re to guard ourselves. “lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a
form of godliness but denying the power thereof; from such turn away.” (verse
5) So there’s some with God-speak, they go
to church, or go to some meeting, or love God, or worship the trees, or
something, part of the harmonic convergence, there’s some form of godliness,
What Power Is The
World Denying?---What Power Is False Or Counterfeit Christianity Denying?
“but
denying the power thereof;” “having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof” what’s the power? We know that the power of God is the
Gospel of Christ, the power of God unto salvation. We know that the power of God is the Holy Spirit, to convict
the world of sin and righteousness and judgment. We know that there’s power in God’s Word. There will be those who hold a form of
religion, they use God-speak, they talk the talk, but there’s nothing going on
in their life, because they’re denying the power of it all. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is a message
that transforms lives and sets people free from sin, that changes lives, that
changes lives. It doesn’t just
leave us wallowing, it transforms us. [what is that Gospel? See, http://www.unityinchrist.com/misc/WhatIsTheGospel%20.htm] And that through the power of the Holy Ghost, a new nature that comes
within to set us free from the bondage of those things we just read about. And the Word of God, incorruptible
seed, whereby we have great promises and we’re partakers of the Divine nature,
having escaped the corruption that’s in the world through lust. And how much now of that goes on in denominational
America, where we want to ordain homosexuals, where it’s ok for men and women
to have sex outside of marriage, where it’s just love, or adult love, it’s ok
for this to happen, and no, no, no…Look all that is, is a fulfillment of
Scripture, because Paul said those things would come. And we’re in the middle of them. But God hasn’t changed, he’s immutable. His opinion of sin hasn’t changed, and
never will. His opinion of how
deadly it is will never change, and of grace, that will never change, and
forgiveness in Jesus will never change, and for the last sinner to come at the
last moment and be washed and renewed, undeservedly, that will never change
either, the Good News of Christ. And that’s the power of God. And there will be those who hold a form of religion, and deny the
power. What do we do? Isn’t it interesting, “from such
turn away.” (verse 5b) And it’s ‘keep turning away’ the tense, and it’s middle voice, it
means you’re involved in it, ‘keep turning away.’ Does this mean we’re supposed to neglect our old friends and be holier
than thou? No, it doesn’t mean
that at all. But it does mean some
things. First of all, you can’t
find fellowship with them. I have
unsaved friends, and unsaved relatives. I can’t really fellowship with them, light and darkness can’t
fellowship, my involvement with them is to love them, and to bring the truth of
Christ to their lives. When we get
around them, Kathy and I talk about unsaved relatives, ‘Well, maybe they’ll
get saved.’ That’s always our last sentence, ‘well,
we don’t want to go, but we’ll go, maybe they’ll get saved. Oh we really don’t want to go, we’re
not really happy, but we’ll act happy, and maybe they’ll get saved,’ that’s always the final line. You know, you don’t find, you don’t
look down on them, but bring them the message, Christ ate with tax gatherers
and sinners, but not to find fellowship with them. But then there are those with God-speak, ‘Oh ya, I’m a
Christian, oh ya, I’m a believer, I sleep with my girlfriend, if you don’t like
it you can get out of here, he who is without sin let him cast the first
stone,’ and they’re
unreasonable, they won’t learn, they’re heady, they’re high-minded, they’re
without natural affection, he says, ‘holding the form of godliness, but
without the power, from such constantly be turning away.’ He’s telling Timothy, ‘Don’t argue with them, don’t joust with
them, turn away from them.’ Interesting.
Are You A
Revolving-Door Christian?
“For
of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women
laden with sins, led away with divers lusts,” (verse 6) So they’re creeps, these guys, Paul says. “silly women”, hey. Not Christian women, silly women,
everybody relax here. It’s a
diminutive word, it’s actually
“little” in the Greek, it’s diminutive in the sense that Paul is saying about
somebody that’s a backbiter ‘They’re just so small, they’re just such a
small person,’ that’s
the idea here, silly women, they’re disingenuous, they’re beguiled, he says
they’re silly, they’re sinful and they’re seductive, that’s what he says here. “For of this sort are they” of these, you know, guys, leaders, people
who, they creep into houses and lead captive silly women, laden with sins, “led
away of divers lusts,” and by the way it goes both ways. It used to be that men were often more aggressive sexually, things have
changed, we live in a different world. “of this sort,” they speak God-speak. And it’s interesting, “creeping” means worming their way
in. I wonder if there’s almost a
picture of the serpent coming to Eve. They worm their way into someone’s life. They find someone who is gullible, someone who is struggling
with sin, someone who themselves is wrestling with seductive tendencies. “ever learning, and never able to
come to the knowledge of the truth.” (verse 7) People that they seduce, “ever learning and never able to come to the
knowledge of the truth.” Never coming to a life-changing
relationship with God or with his Word. And you know people like that, I know people like that, in and out of
the church, in and out of the church, in and out of the church, in and out of
the church, revolving-door Christians, back again, gone again, back again, gone
again. They come back, ‘It’s so
good to be back’ and
next thing, they’re using again, or they’re falling into a relationship again,
or they’re in sin again. And then
they’re back, ‘Oh it’s so good to be back again!’ and then they’re gone again. Well let me just say ‘See you
later,’ now, ah
[laughter] And you look at them
and think, God’s Word is so wonderful, I mean, I don’t know about you, I do
know about you, I know you feel the same way I do, how wonderful it is to have
the Word of God in the days that we live in. We look at the news, we look at what’s going on around us in
the world, and I read this, and you know what I know, I know Jesus is coming,
that’s what I know. And I know it
in my heart [applause]. God’s Word
is so wonderful, and so powerful. And sometimes you look and say, ‘Why don’t they? they could be free
of that, what are they doing? God loves them, he set me free.’ You know, people come and try to say ‘No, you don’t
understand, I use heroine, you don’t understand, I’m trapped in this, you don’t
understand, I’m an alcoholic,’ I think, ‘Hey, you’re describing my staff. Don’t tell me I don’t understand.’ [loud laughter] [And each
and every one of his staff has been healed of those things by God, I know, I’ve
received the same healing, so I understand too.] You know, just in the sense, here we are, we’ve been
set free, we’ve experienced the power of God. But there are those, it says, ‘ever listening,’ and that’s the idea of it, ‘but
never coming to a knowledge of the truth.’ They never really take hold of this, to where the life-changing power of
Christ and of the Spirit and of his Word are effective in their lives. And that’s what it’s all about. And Paul warns about a self-absorbed
generation, that is inclined to money, to self, to pleasure, to anger,
forsaking natural affections and forsaking that your word is your bond,
trucebreakers, how an age will change, and that it would appeal to the traitor
that lives within, inside of us. And there’s a warning here, because God loves us. He says there are those who will talk
the talk, but they’re seductive, they’re looking for opportunities to worm
their way into someone’s life whose broken or hurting or fraught with sin, to
take advantage of the situation, and never learning, never coming to a
knowledge of the truth.
Counterfeit
Chrisianity
And verse 8 he says, “Now
as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate
concerning the faith. But they
shall proceed no further: for
their folly shall be manifest unto all men, as theirs also was.” (verses 8-9) Well who were Jannes and Jambres? I mean, Paul’s talking about like everybody knew who Jannes and Jambres
were. We can find out a few
different ways. One is if you get
the Ten Commandments, and you watch the movie, when Charlton Heston, Moses,
throws down his rifle, throws down his staff [laughter], ah, I like Charlton
Heston, he throws down his staff, you see the magicians of Egypt, Pharaoh says “Jannes,
Jambres,” and they
throw down their staffs, and their staffs turn into serpents also, and of
course Moses’ serpent swallows up those staffs, serpents. The Targum of Jonathan is also one of
those historically written works of the Jews, Rabbinic tradition in the Targum
it says that the name of two of the magicians that oppose Moses in Egypt were
Jannes and Jambres, in the Targum of Jonathan. Ah, Exodus chapter 7, they throw down their staffs, they
turn into serpents. Moses comes to
the Nile, touches the Nile, turns the water to blood, Jannes and Jambres, they
turn water to blood. Moses brings
up frogs on the land, they bring up frogs. It isn’t until Moses takes the staff of God, and bangs it on
the ground and turns the dust of Egypt to lice, that they try to do the same
thing and they go to Pharaoh and say ‘This is the finger of God, we can’t
reproduce this.’ They didn’t say the finger of Jehovah,
but this is the finger of God, whatever it was, they admitted at that point
something divine was going on beyond their power. But the idea is, they were imitators, they were
counterfeiters, and they were resisting what was true. And there will be those in religious
circles, counterfeiters, phonies, talking the talk, doing stuff. ‘Many,’ Jesus said, ‘will come and say
‘Lord, didn’t we prophesy in your name, didn’t we cast out demons in your name,
didn’t we do this stuff in your name?’ He’s going to
say, ‘Be gone, I never,’ and it’s ‘never, ever knew you.’ Well he
can’t say that to us, because he knows us, we got saved. But there will be those phonies. Well how do we tell them? They’re like Jannes and Jambres. Well, Jesus said they come to you in
sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they’re ravenous wolves, is the first thing he
tells us. So they look like sheep,
inwardly they’re ravenous wolves. So how do tell them apart? One way you always tell them is by what they eat. If they eat grass they’re sheep, if
they eat other sheep, they’re wolves dressed like sheep. If they’re feeding on the flock. It’s interesting, that word “ravenous”
is used five other times in the New Testament, and in every other place it’s
translated “extortioning” or “extortioner.” It means, they look like sheep, but all they care about is
getting their hand on your wallet. And there are enough of those around. Go home and turn the TV on if you don’t believe me. Look, there is a right way, and a
sensitive way to appeal for money. Billy Graham, there are people that have done that, ‘If you want to
help us this month, pray about it, send in your contribution,’ there’s a right way to do that. But there are those, you watch them for
half an hour and for 25 minutes they talk about what you need to give, and for
five minutes they say something spiritual, and the show’s over, and you sit
there and think ‘I don’t know. I kind of feel like I’ve just been taken, I don’t want to be judgmental
though, but…’ Hey, Jesus said you’ll know them by
their fruits. You don’t gather
figs from thistles. A good tree
doesn’t bring forth bad fruit, and a bad tree doesn’t bring forth good fruit. There are going to be many who will
come in that day, and say ‘Lord, didn’t we do these things in your name?’ And he’s going to say ‘Be gone, I never knew
you. Let me tell you about the
wise man.’ And Paul’s kind of saying the same
thing. Broad is the way that leads
to destruction, many there be that go thereon. Narrow is the way that leads to eternal life, and few there
be that find it. Beware, because
many will come to you in sheep’s clothing, inwardly they’re ravenous
wolves. You follow that thought
along, until finally he says, ‘the wise man is this man, he hears the
things that I say and he builds his house on the rock. The foolish man builds his house on the
sand.’ When the storms of life come, and they
do, and the wind blows and the rain comes, the man whose built his life on the
rock, on that narrow way, he’ll stand. Because everything else in life can get washed away, but that last
moment when we step through the veil and hear his voice say ‘enter in
thou good and faithful servant,’ that never gets washed away because our life is built upon the rock. There are those who build their life on
the sand, ‘You’re gonna prosper, you’re going to have this, you’re going to
have that, you’re always going to be healthy,’ there are whole monumental movements
built upon this stuff, but it denies the power, the central issue of Christ, of
salvation, of the narrow way. And
it appeals to that carnal part of us, so much of it. And they imitate, they can turn their rods into serpents,
they can turn water to blood, they can call up frogs. And they do those things, it says, ‘resisting the
truth.’ And it’s a little bit stronger there,
the language is of ‘opposing the truth.’ They “are men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith.”
(verse 8b) Their minds are corrupt in regards to
spiritual truth, “reprobate concerning the faith.” The
idea is they’re completely hardened, they’re completely worthless of, of no
account in regards to the faith, they’re counterfeits, they’re not even real,
like Jannes and Jambres. The good
news is, God’s in control, isn’t he. It says, “But they shall proceed no further: for their folly shall be manifest unto
all men, as
theirs also was.” (verse 9) “as theirs was also”, as Jannes and Jambres. The truth shall prevail.
‘Timothy, You Know
I’m The Real Deal, Not A Phony, Counterfeit’
“But
thou” speaking to
Timothy, and that’s emphatic, it means in contrast to what we’ve been looking
at. “But thou hast fully known
my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, charity, patience,
persecutions, afflictions, which came unto me at Antioch, at Iconium, at
Lystra; what persecutions I endured: but out of them all the Lord delivered me.” (verses 10-11) Now he says ‘Timothy,
look, this is stuff that’s going to be there, the Church is going to be
swimming in this soup of these things. I send you out, but be wise as serpents and peaceable as doves, into a
corrupt generation.’ And remember, as you and I face this
world, we also need to remember that God so loved this world that he gave his
Son, that whosoever would believe on him would not perish but have everlasting
life. That’s how we got
saved. But there will be those
that deliberately foster deception. And from those we are to be constantly turning away. These guys will be deceiving, even to
the point of signs and wonders, as Jannes and Jambres were. ‘They’re not going to proceed any
further. But you, Timothy, you
Timotheus’s Timothynesses,’ I guess, I don’t know, “But thou hast fully known my doctrine,” and you and, we have Paul’s Epistles,
we know his teaching, on the Church, on grace, ‘Timothy, you’ve fully known
my teaching,’ important, ‘my doctrine, you’ve known my manner of life, you know the
sacrifices I’ve make, I’ve never been in this for the money, you know I’m not
in this because I like getting stoned or whipped or shipwrecked, you know my
manner of living, Timothy, why I’m doing the things that I do. You know my purpose in life, my goal,
to finish my course with joy, to accomplish the things that the Lord has set
out before me to do, Timothy. You
know my faith, personally what I believe, and you know the way I’ve exercised
my faith in difficult circumstances, against all odds, while the outward man
was perishing you know Timothy the inner man was renewed day by day, that I
always looked not on the things that were seen, but on the things that are not seen,
setting my affection on things above, and not on things of the earth. You know my longsuffering, my charity,
my love,’ we don’t
perceive Paul that way all the time, but I believe he really was love, and the
word “patience” there has to do with other humans, Paul was loving, he was
kind, and he was longsuffering with people, even with those who opposed
themselves, he says over here, perhaps we might even see them turn back. ‘And Timothy, you know my
persecutions,’ the
things that have come upon him, ‘and afflictions, which came at me at
Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra,’ now evidently his second missionary journey he came to Iconium, in Acts 13 and
14, and he was, they roused up the crowd there and started chasing him and ran
him out of town, they would have stoned him there, but he fled, and when he
came to Lystra they finally did stone him there. He came in and prayed for a man that was lame, and the man
was healed, and they said ‘This must be Hermes and Zeus,’ and Paul said ‘No, no, don’t
sacrifice an ox to us, we’re just men,’ and they said, ‘Oh, we’ll stone you then if you’re
just men,’ and they
took him at Lystra, and they stoned him, and they left him for dead, they drug
him outside the city and threw him in the trash heap, ah, quite possibly dead at
that time. Paul says, ‘I
knew a man, 12 to 14 years ago, whether he was in the spirit or the body I
can’t tell, caught up to paradise,’ where he talks about evidently that experience. They prayed for him, and God raised him
up again. And he got up and went
back into Lystra and said, ‘You guys didn’t finish the job.’ He says, ‘Timothy, you know the things that I’ve been through,
that I endured,’ “what persecutions I endured: but
out of them all the Lord delivered me.” He’s trying to encourage Timothy, that
would encourage me a whole lot. He
doesn’t say ‘from them’, he doesn’t say ‘you know Timothy how they tried to
catch us and stone us, but God got us outa there.’ And where it says “he delivered us” it
means “he rescued us.” ‘Timothy,
out of all of them God rescued us.’ “Out of”,
not “from”, “out of”, ‘out from under the pile of rocks, God rescued
me.’ ‘He delivered us through the trials and persecutions,’ not “from.” Paul, I want a little
bit of encouragement here. That’s
what you call “rescued?” Stoned
and left for dead? And you know, 2nd Corinthians 11, you read the list there of the times that he was naked, cold,
and without food, a day and a half he spent in the deep, floating around in the
ocean, whipped, scourged, and stoned. ‘It’s great, the Lord delivered me out of all of that, I just walk
a little funny and see with one eye, but he got me through all of those.’ But his point is, ‘Timothy, you know my motives, you know my walk,
you know my faith, you’ve seen what would grind other people down to powder if
they weren’t genuine. God was with
me, delivered me through all of these things.’
Are You Being Open
Enough About Your Faith?
“Yea,
and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.” (verse
12) You have that in your little precious
promises in your, you know you pull those little things out in the
morning? What’s the precious
promise for today? ‘If you’re
gonna live godly, you’re gonna get persecuted.’ Jesus said that, ‘The world hated me, it’ll hate you,’ John 15 or
16. ‘The servant is not greater than
his master, he’s fully learned he’s like unto his master.’ Well why does the world hate us? Why does the world want to persecute us? Because it will be characterized by love of self, and love
of money, by men that are fierce, like beasts, without natural affection,
headstrong, arrogant, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, and that will
set the tone for the age. And if
you want to live godly in the middle of all that, you’re gonna take some heat. Now if you’re not taking any heat, you
probably need to ask yourself a couple questions. Are you being open enough about your faith? Peter will say something glorious, he
said, ‘If you’re going to suffer, don’t suffer as an evil doer or a
thief, but if you suffer for the Gospel of Christ, the spirit of glory rests on
you. The spirit of glory is
resting upon you.’ It’s amazing. You should be able to, when you go home, sit down a piece of
paper, and at least write down a couple people you’ve offended. I can. With this many adults in our church, I’ve usually got five
or six a week mad at me, and that ain’t bad, statistically. But, you should be able to write down some,
relatives, friends, that just by living. You know, Peter says your friends wonder why you don’t run to the same
excess of riot, that means they want to know why you ain’t partying
anymore. See when I was little,
party was a noun, now it’s a verb. I don’t know how that happened. That if you just seek to live godly there’s going to be some resistance,
friends, relatives. ‘Everybody
gets a glass of wine.’ ‘No, we
don’t drink.’ They don’t say anything, but they roll
their eyes. You give them a
Christmas card or an Easter card with a Scripture in it, something about Jesus, ‘Aaahhh!’ [laughter] Or they want to watch a movie and you say ‘No, we can’t
watch that.’ ‘Ooooh,’ you know [loud laughter]. They let you say grace at Christmas and
Easter, that’s how they pay homage, ‘Let them pray, we’re gonna eat,’ so you have your spot, say I pray J ‘We know that any of us who turn to
you from sin, that you’ll forgive us, no matter what we’ve been doing, Lord,’ and you’re going on with this thing,
and they’re muttering ‘Don’t let them pray for the food next year.’ “all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.” And you know it’s gotten worse
now. You know, the medical field
has been fraught with lawsuits, because there’s money there. There are conferences now on how to sue
the Church, because they see the Church as another big fat organization with
money that they want to figure their way in. And if I preach on “sin” now, I’m destroying someone’s
self-esteem. And because I’m
giving them a poor self-image, self-esteem, lovers of self, that I can be
guilty of libel? Somebody’s not
listening. Yes, you’re a sinner,
and you’re lost, but there is a God who loves you so much, unimaginably, that
he gave his own Son, Jesus Christ, who was perfect, spotless, without sin, and
with all the power and authority in the universe, he restrained himself and
watched his own Son brutalized, and suffer, and die, in your place, because he
loves you. That shouldn’t be bad
for your self-esteem, that should be great, that you can sit back and call yourself
God’s son or God’s daughter, ‘That God loves me so much, that even though
I’m a sinner, he made provision for me to be saved and to become his own.’ Isn’t it a shame if we want to tell that message to the
world, we have to worry? Or if we
want to say ‘No, this is morality, I’m not going to teach my kids that’s
morality, but this is morality,’ and the things that are going on in public schools in the name of sex
education, with first graders and second graders. And if parents raise their voice, they’re persecuted. [That happened in Concord, Massachusetts
a few years ago, a parent raised his voice, and got slapped in jail for
awhile. It was a big case,
splashed all over the headlines locally here.] That’s where we live, it’s what we’re made for, to take a
little bit of heat. If the Lord
tarries, there will be more persecution. If they start using the guillotine again, then that’s what my neck was
made for. ‘Deny Jesus Christ,
or we’ll cut off your head.’ ‘Here
it is, right here, get going.’ I’m not gonna deny Jesus Christ, let
that blade flop, I’m going straight to glory. That’s what I was made for, if that’s what it has to come
to. You know, isn’t it
interesting, you guys, would you guys do that? Ok, ok, [loud applause], now wait, see, all saying the
identical thing is not dying for Jesus, it’s living for Jesus, that’s what the
whole chapter’s about tonight. ‘I’m
willing to die for the Lord!’ yea, because at that point, you’re
options are very limited. I heard
Richard Wormbrand say that when he was in a Russian prison they put a gun to
his head and they said ‘We’re going to count to ten, and when we get to ten,
if you don’t renounce Christ we’re gonna pull the trigger,’ and he said ‘You know, they would
take someone in the room before you, and there was blood on the floor and you’d
hear the gun go off,’ and he said they weren’t really killing people, but you in the other room
didn’t know that, you thought they were killing people. And he said ‘They put the gun to my
head, and they said ‘ten, nine, eight,’ and he said by the time they got to
four or five, the Gospel of Christ had become perfectly clear in my mind, that
I was a sinner, and I was saved by grace, and I was going to heaven.’ He said it had become perfectly clear. Yea, we’re willing, probably most of us
to die for Christ. But we need to
live for him. Paul had died long
before this in 2nd Timothy when he’s ready to be offered, he had
died much earlier than that, it was nothing for him to die at this point. ‘All that will live godly in
Christ Jesus, you’re going to suffer persecution, you’re going to be living
opposed, you’re going to be a salmon swimming upstream, you’re going to be
opposed to the age you’re living in.’
‘We Live In An Age
Of Deception Which Will Get Worse And Worse---Two Types Of Deceivers Exist
Within The Church’
“But
evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.”
(verse 13) “Seducers” there is interesting, it’s
“wizards,” it’s an interesting word. So there are those that are deceiving others deliberately, and there are
those who are deceiving themselves, being deceived, having been deceived. There are those who are wolves, you
know, Jesus, and he never explained a lot of what he meant when he talked about
the tares that are sown among the wheat, that Satan went and sowed tares. What are tares? That’s a little spooky idea. There are those, deliberately it seems,
who are destined to destruction, workers of iniquity, tares, wolves, and then
there are those who are deceived by them, who are deceiving others, because they
themselves are deceived. They just
learn a behavior, or they learn something, and then they imitate it. I think earlier Paul talks about those,
he said “they’re opposing themselves, pray that God might give them repentance,
that they might come to a knowledge of the truth.” But there will be those, ‘evil men, wizards,
sorcerers, that will wax worse and worse,’ and certainly in the age we live in,
that’s becoming a prevalent thing. I mean, you watch this show on TV all the time where a guy talks to your
dead relatives, or tells you, you know…I don’t watch it, but I know that that’s
what he does, The Psychic Friends Hotline, you know the one in Florida that went broke, the
newspaper said they never saw it coming, they filed chapter 11. But this stuff’s all over TV now,
seduction, seducing, deception. And it’s getting worse and worse and more prevalent. And the interesting thing is, it’s
going to come to the point where all who refuse the love of the truth are going
to be deceived. The Holy Spirit,
Paul said in Thessalonians, right now is restraining. Just imagine how bad it’s going to get. Because if the Holy Spirit right now,
if he’s restraining war, he’s not doing a good job. If he’s restraining abortion, he’s doing a lousy job. If he’s restraining immorality and
violence, he’s doing a lousy job. What the Holy Spirit is restraining right now is going to make the
post-Rapture world stranger than anyone can imagine. The deception that will come upon the world, from a source
of fallen angels and demons and demonic miracles, all lying signs and wonders,
what’s being restrained right now, no doubt is very spiritual and very dark. ‘But evil men and seducers, wizards,
sorcerers will wax worse and worse,’ Paul says. And finally we see the antichrist and the false prophet calling fire
down out of heaven…deception. Our
‘Western’ logical psyche is scheduled to be seduced by signs and wonders. If you’re here tonight, and you don’t
know Christ, it’s so important that you listen, because the Bible teaches that
at some point the Church will disappear from this world, because of the dark
spiritual forces that will come upon it. [Comment: and that could be from a
pre-trib Rapture or by going to a place of safety, I don’t think any one group
has a real grasp on how God’s going to protect the Church, they all tend to
disagree with each other. See, http://www.unityinchrist.com/Prophets_Prophecy.html and read that title
page to see what I mean] And it
says people will wonder and marvel after the Beast, of every nation, kindred,
people and tongue, of every language. People talk about conspiracies now. We haven’t seen conspiracy until the conspirators are all
conspiracied up, Elderburgers, Club of Rome, Trilateral Commission,
Luciferions, Lucist Trust, fun and games compared to the conspiracy that’s
coming on this world, that began in Eden, the great conspiracy. Deception’s coming. The wonderful thing is, for us as
believers, we can sit here, sing praises to our Lord, wash ourselves with the
truth, remind ourselves where we’re at. In fact, the next week, if the Lord tarries, and we continue this, he
says all Scripture is good for doctrine, reproof, rebuke, correction, means to
take something and set it upright on its feet again. So how many times, we come to church, and we get things back
in focus again, and while we’re here and we’re worshipping and we’re listening
to the teaching of the Word, God just kind of takes us and he puts us back on
our feet again, and puts things back in focus. It’s like getting an alignment. You go through all those pot-holes in the winter, and then
you need your tires aligned in Spring. How many times we come, we open our hearts, we sing his praises, in a
Communion service or a Bible study, or a home fellowship somewhere, and God
aligns us again, by the power of his Spirit, by his Word. Because we come, and it isn’t just a
form of godliness. We believe that
this is the Word of God, and that it is powerful, and it divides down into our
being, between that which is soulish and spiritual. We believe the Holy Spirit is working today. And we believe the power of the Gospel,
the word “Gospel” means “Good News”, the Good News of Jesus Christ can still
set somebody completely free today. It is a one-step program, in a sense. That if you ask Christ to forgive your sins and be your
Saviour, he can take hold of your life, and he can change your eternal
destiny. If you’ll come and say “Lord,
I am a sinner, and I don’t know if I died tonight, where I’d spend
eternity. But I’m willing to turn
from that, repent, metanoia, change the mind, I’m willing to make a u-turn and
turn to you and ask for your forgiveness, if you’ll be my Lord and my Saviour,
if you’ll love me and set me free.” That’s how he changes us all. We’ve provided the sinner, he provided the Saviour…[transcript of a
connective expository sermon on 2nd Timothy 3:1-13, given by Pastor
Joe Focht, Calvary Chapel of Philadelphia, 13500 Philmont Avenue, Philadelphia PA 19116]
related
links:
What
is the Gospel? See,
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