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2 Timothy 3
But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away! For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Now as Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, disapproved concerning the faith; but they will progress no further, for their folly will be manifest to all, as theirs also was. (2 Timothy 3:1-9)
Paul gives Timothy a list that describes what men will
be like in the last days. As I read down this list I hope that you realise
that every one of these things are symptomatic of our times. Jesus said
this, "Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's
life for his friends. (John 15:13) But instead of this kind of love
the main attraction for most people is to themselves, to money and to
pleasure. Love for oneself does not really even qualify if we use the
example of Jesus, because how can you sacrifice yourself for yourself?
One of the famous pop songs says that the greatest love of all is to
love yourself. And it sounds good to us, because our culture has come
so far away from the standard of the Bible. Selfishness has been dressed
up to look like love, when really it is the very opposite of love. The
Great Commandment is to love God with all of our heart and soul and
mind and strength and to love our neighbors as ourselves. We are to
turn our natural selfish nature inside out so that instead of always
regarding myself first, I look first of all to God and then to others.
This is real love.
This lack of love is the root problem that breeds a host of other sins.
We should study this list carefully, because these are all things that
you can easily get away with in our culture. They are all "normal".
No one is going to throw you in jail for being disobedient to your parents.
In fact in most children’s movies nowadays the hero is applauded
for being disobedient. The child is portrayed as smarter than his parents,
who don’t understand what is going on. Everyone agrees that murder
and theft are inexcusable, but treachery and brutality are part of the
jungle we live in and it only means that you are smart and tough and
nobody’s fool.
But the real danger here is that Paul is not really talking about the
culture around us at all. He is talking about the culture in the church
itself. We are supposed to living our lives by the standard of the Bible,
but instead we have been measuring ourselves against the world. Paul
says that these men have a form of godliness but deny its power. Be
very careful here. What this means is that there are some people who
look like Christians, who come to church, who pray, who give offerings,
who read the Bible, who to all outwards appearances seem to be godly
men and women. But although they have the form of godliness, there is
no power. It is like walking into the hospital and "borrowing"
a doctor’s clothes. I could walk around the place pretending to
be somebody important, but if they suddenly asked me to operate, I could
not do it. Remember that we studied this word godliness. It means worshipping
well. It means that we let our worship of God carry over into our whole
lives. It means that we love God not just with our mouths on Sunday
morning but with our hands and our actions the rest of the week. This
love of God has the power to set us into motion. But that is where our
culture is lacking. There is no love of God or love of neighbor. There
is only love of self, and love of money and love of pleasure. Paul says
that there will be those in the church like this who have the form of
godliness but deny its power and he commands us to turn away from such
people.
Even worse is that some of these people will try to use you to get advantage
for themselves. They pretend that they know something that you don’t,
or that they are more advanced than you are, or that they have the special
technique through which you can really be happy. But as Paul says, people
who are sucked into these kinds of scams are "always learning but
never able to come to the knowledge of the truth." The new age
movement has been sponsoring seminars like this for quite a while. They
have names like, "self-realization", "self-fulfillment"
and "self-actualization" Not hard to see where these seminars
are coming from. But recently there have been Christian seminars that
look very similar. Instead of using the new age terminology they use
"Christian" vocabulary to say the same thing. The problem
with all of these seminars is that they are like a drug that make you
feel good while you are attending them, but quickly wear off. Then you
have to go back for more. Usually to more and more advanced courses
that naturally cost more and more money. But the goal of our Christian
lives is not to "feel good". We are not commanded to be "self-fulfilled".
Instead we are called to give up our selves and love God and those around
us.
So Paul tells us to turn away from these kinds of people. But unfortunately,
some of these people are us. We are not innocent of putting ourselves
before others and putting ourselves before God. We are not innocent
of loving self, and money and pleasure. What are we who are living in
the last days, who are part of this corrupt culture, supposed to do?
Listen to the words of Paul to Timothy
But you have carefully followed my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, love, perseverance, persecutions, afflictions, which happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra – what persecutions I endured. And out of them all the Lord delivered me. Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. But evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Tim 3:10-17)
Sometimes I think that we are like passengers on an airplane.
The jet is travelling from Tokyo to Los Angeles but somewhere along
the way we have decided that it would be better to go back to Japan.
So in our effort to reach Tokyo we are walking toward the back of the
plane. Our global society, is the jet, and it is headed not for self-realisation
or self-fulfilment, but most certainly self-destruction. But our attempts
at distancing ourselves from this goal are futile at best. No matter
how hard we try to be better than the rest of them, we are still on
the same plane. You see as part of the society we are blind to its errors.
As long as we are part of it, the best we can hope for is to be one
or two steps removed from the rest. Paul gives to Timothy the parachute
with which to jump off of that doomed plane. More precisely, he gives
to Timothy a standard. As long as you compare yourself to everybody
else, you are only a little better than they are and headed to the same
goal. Paul shows Timothy two things with which he can measure himself
by.
The first of these standards is Paul’s own life. He starts off
with his words, his doctrine, but he does not stop there. Instead he
reminds Timothy of his manner of life, his purpose, his faith, longsuffering,
love, perseverance and persecutions. Oh, the persecutions! Paul lived
out his faith and indeed he says, "all who desire to live godly
in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution." If we are to get past
the near-sightedness of our society we also must follow carefully the
lives of the saints that went before us. The great Christians of our
time are not enough because they also are part of the corrupt society
that we live in. Really we must go back and study the lives of those
who loved God in ages past. Especially those who were willing to be
persecuted and die for their faith. In these last days when men only
love themselves, money and pleasure, the example of those who were martyred
is more precious than gold.
The second standard that Paul gives to Timothy is the Word of God. Although
men may change, the word of God does not. It is God’s operation
manual on the correct use of His creation. I guarantee that if heaven
had a technical support department, the most frequent response would
be, "Did you read the manual?" Have you read the manual? There
are two main purposes that the Bible was written for. First, it is "able
to make you wise for salvation." If you are not a Christian, and
do not know who God is, what Jesus did, and what will happen to you
in eternity, the Bible has all of these answers. If you would like to
know how to be saved, the Bible can give you this wisdom. I recommend
that you read it and find out. But the Bible can’t save you. Knowledge
alone will not bring you into heaven. You must be saved by faith in
Jesus Christ. Second, Scripture works, it changes us, equipping Christians
for the good works that God has planned for us. How does it do this?
Doctrine is the road map. It tells us where to go and what to do. Reproof
is a landmark along the way, proving that you are on the right course.
Correction is someone sitting next to you to tell you when you get off
course. And instruction in righteousness is another car in front of
you that you can follow to your destination. The Bible does all of this,
teaching us the ways of God, reminding us of His hand in our lives,
showing us our errors and providing models of righteousness for us to
follow.
It is obvious that our global society is not improving. It is steadily
growing worse. The students of today who are learning to disregard authority
and to see morality as outdated will be the leaders of tomorrow whom
their children will learn from. We cannot measure ourselves against
this world. If we do we will be little better than them, lovers of self,
lovers of money and lovers of pleasure who do not love God. We must
measure ourselves against the models of old. Those Christians who suffered
and died to love God with all their heart, mind, souls and strength
and love their neighbour as themselves. We must take as our standard
the Bible, given not by men, but by inspiration of God so that we can
be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.
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