In the last days difficult times will come; Jesus has overcome!

2 Timothy 2:22-3:17 from the daily reading in the One Year Bible

Now flee from youthful lusts and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. ²³ But refuse foolish and ignorant speculations, knowing that they produce quarrels. ²⁴ The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, ²⁵ with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, ²⁶ and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.

3 But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. ² For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, ³ unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, ⁴ treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, ⁵ holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these. ⁶ For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, ⁷ always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. ⁸ Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men of depraved mind, rejected in regard to the faith. ⁹ But they will not make further progress; for their folly will be obvious to all, just as Jannes’s and Jambres’s folly was also.

¹⁰ Now you followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, perseverance, ¹¹ persecutions, and sufferings, such as happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium and at Lystra; what persecutions I endured, and out of them all the Lord rescued me! ¹² Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. ¹³ But evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. ¹⁴ You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them, ¹⁵ and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. ¹⁶ All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; ¹⁷ so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.

When we read today’s text it is hard to remember that Paul was writing to Timothy and not specifically to us, in our present time. The text says:   realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy,  unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God…     That certainly is unarguably an accurate description of our current culture and society. As we read the writings of leaders throughout church history though, we recognize that every generation of Christians has remarked about the moral decline and decay of the culture in their time. Yet certainly our current situation, we have fallen too much greater depths than our predecessors. Not only do we see the things mentioned by Paul in our culture, they have become the norm, they are accepted and even encouraged by our society. People have always been: lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant and revilers and so it will continue.

The next thing that Paul mentions though is disobedient to parents. The breakdown of family and God ordained family structure is one of the greatest problems facing our society today. There are many factors that contribute to this breakdown, all of which originate in these other advancing declines which Paul speaks of and which we see in our culture. Because we continue farther down the road of self love, being without self-control, being lovers of pleasure, there are many broken families. There are many families without fathers present and many families where the fathers or mothers are absent from the daily lives of the children. To fill the void schools, government, entertainment media have all stepped in. They are the ones teaching our children and children are taught that disobedience is not only acceptable, but right. Even the parents who do make every effort to raise their children properly are told by society how they must teach their children, what forms of discipline are acceptable, what moral values they may attempt to instill. One of the problems that society creates when it teaches children to be disobedient to parents is that parents are to be the children’s first example of authority. By teaching them to reject this first authority, society has created generations of people with no respect for any authority. The cycle continues and snowballs. With each new generation the moral decay increases. People become even more self-centered, self-absorbed, they become even more treacherous and reckless, lacking self-control, hating good and loving pleasure.

Jesus speaks of the root of this problem and of God’s response to it. In John 3:16-19 He says: God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.  He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light       Even the fact that Jesus came to redeem, to save people from sin, has become offensive to our culture and society. The offense, I suppose is rooted in the idea that people need to be saved, that there would be judgment. Our society continues to blur the lines between light and dark, between good and evil, constantly redefining and moving the lines of what is acceptable. People say that if God truly loves us then He would not judge us. They miss the point. God does truly love mankind. That’s why He sent Jesus to redeem man. God judges and condemns sin, darkness. Any judgment that comes against man is based in man’s choice, loving darkness rather than light. In Isaiah 5:20-21 God speaking through the prophet says:   Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!  Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes And clever in their own sight!        Judgment comes as society thinks in its wisdom it can cleverly redefine right and wrong.   

What are we as believers and in particular those who are teachers and leaders of God’s people supposed to do? Should we declare the coming judgment? Should we condemn those who love the darkness rather than light, who call evil good and good evil? In today’s text, Paul’s instruction to Timothy begins with:  The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.   It ends with:  evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. You, however, continue in the things you have learned… the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.       Judgment will come, as Jesus says, it has already come. Judgment comes against the love of evil and darkness. In Matthew 11:20-24 Jesus declares the judgment that will come against unrepentant cities, it says:   Then He began to denounce the cities in which most of His miracles were done, because they did not repent.  “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles had occurred in Tyre and Sidon which occurred in you, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. Nevertheless I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you. And you, Capernaum, will not be exalted to heaven, will you? You will descend to Hades; for if the miracles had occurred in Sodom which occurred in you, it would have remained to this day.  Nevertheless I say to you that it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for you.”      Judgment will also come to our unrepentant society.   

Paul encourages us to correct with gentleness, to continue in the truth we have known, to teach, correct, reprove and train with scripture. Jesus says that miracles would be part of the testimony of good verses evil. In Mark 16:15-18 He says:   “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned. These signs will accompany those who have believed: in My name they will cast out demons, they will speak with new tongues;  they will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”    For the message of the church to heard today, by a society and culture that has chosen darkness over light and calls evil good, we must preach the gospel, the good news, in gentleness. We must hold to the truth we have known. If we truly believe then according to Jesus words, signs, wonders and miracles will accompany our words, confirming the truth we speak.

I encourage all who have seen or received a miracle from God to testify, that the world will know. Leave a comment on Facebook or on this, veinsoftruth site.   Testify of God’s goodness and miraculous power, so that the world may see and know what is truly good.