EPISODE 202 2 TIMOTHY CHAPTER 3 "Perilous times will come"

One of the many aspects that the Apostle Paul details in 2 Timothy 3 are the characteristics of humanity in the last days, the perilous times that are upon us. Pastor Paul gives us examples of the widespread levels of these end-time characteristics and how they're impacting society, and not in a good way. Listen closely. There's so much to this chapter, and I've only touched on one aspect. 2 Timothy chapter 3. Perilous times will come.

As I'm writing this, there's a hurricane coming up the East Coast. It's not projected to hit land, fortunately, but the storm surge and flooding are doing damage to a lot of homes along the coastline. I've already seen some video of how it's battering the North Carolina coast, and it's supposed to be in my area tomorrow. My grandson and his dad are scheduled to make the 90-minute ferry crossing from Delaware to New Jersey tomorrow. I'll be surprised if the authorities even let the ships make that run. I hope they don't.

When we were discussing this tonight, it reminded me of a crossing I made in bad weather, where the ferry was rising and dropping in pretty rough seas, and passengers, including me, were getting seasick. Some were feeling a little scared. Maybe to the crew it wasn't that frightening, but for those of us who hadn't experienced being on the ocean in such conditions before, it was. I remember grabbing hold of a metal railing and holding on tightly to keep from getting thrown around on the ship that day. I told my daughter, even if they are letting the ferries cross, don't let Kyle and Theo take that trip tomorrow. The opening verse of 2 Timothy chapter 3 says, But know this, in the last days perilous times will come.

If you look at different translations, you'll find a lot of different adjectives used to try and get at Paul's word to describe what he calls the last days. The Greek word the Apostle Paul used actually comes from the idea of a turbulent sea of raging waves, and by extension, what it's like to be caught up in that. One translation uses the word distressing times will come, which points to the anxiety that events happening in the last days will produce. Another says terrible times will come. The word translated times there really means epochs. In the New Testament, the whole period we call the Church Age, the span of time between Jesus' return to heaven till he comes back again, whenever that is, that's all referred to as the last days.

But the idea here, as elsewhere in the New Testament, is that as humanity proceeds through this era, distressing, scary times will overtake people on Earth and that they will increase in intensity and frequency as we approach the end of this era, the last of the last days, we might say, when things will climax in the awful period of time known as the Tribulation Era. I've been alive for several decades now, which admittedly is a small sample of almost 2,000 years of the Church Age, the time that's passed since Jesus went back to heaven. Yet I can tell you just in my lifetime what I've observed and experienced is that stress levels have markedly increased. It's due to a combination of many factors, probably. Those who've been around since the 1950s and '60s like me, I bet will resonate with this. What have been the causes?

Well, as I think about it, technology moving forward at a very rapid pace, we're getting into uncharted waters at this point for many. It's a little scary where things are going. What does it mean for privacy? How can we be sure what is real anymore? How will artificial intelligence impact our lives, our jobs, and impact life as we've known it? Another thing, economic instability and uncertainty has certainly heightened in my lifetime.

More people than ever are living on the edge these days with real uncertainty about their future. Another factor adding to our general distress is that people's confidence in government leaders to solve problems, that's at an all-time low. We don't trust that anyone really has answers. Like some pretty scary things have a life of their own, and no one really knows how to reel them in. Having gone through that global pandemic not that long ago exposed how fragile our social safety net really is, how vulnerable our global supply chains really are. It's a lot of things contributing.

And try not to think about the crazy people that have nuclear weapons in our world, or even how dangerous it is to walk down the street in many major cities. There are just a lot more threatening things going on these days than I ever remember thinking about when I was even 20 or 30. And for many people today, at the same time the pressures are increasing, they have weaker support systems around their lives than people in the past. People are more disconnected from traditional social structures that provided comfort and security in the past, like close-knit families, a stronger sense of community, and even a connection to a local church family. These are things many people just do not have today. Instead, there are the counterfeit social networks on the virtual world, which probably produce more stress in people's lives than they even realize.

Here in 2 Timothy chapter 3, Paul lists 19 or 20 characteristics of people and circumstances in the last days. There were already some people exhibiting these traits in he and Timothy's day, and he's challenging Timothy about how he can remain a man of God in the midst of these difficulties. That these things were already apparent at the beginning of the last days, at the beginning of the church age. The warning in the New Testament is that they are only going to get worse as the last days play out, and the rebellion of mankind against God and against His ways increases and gets more extreme as we near the end of this age. There will be, Paul says, extreme self-centeredness. People will be lovers of themselves.

Selfishness is, of course, a part of our human nature, yes, but in normal times it is seen not as a virtue, but most people try to keep it in check. In the last days, however, people will be more self-centered than ever. By the way, we don't know how close to the end of this age we really are. Nobody knows how long God's patience will last. But just think about how these descriptive terms Paul uses here in 2 Timothy chapter 3, verses 2 through 5, fit our time. People will be lovers of themselves.

Trying to imagine people when I was a kid taking selfies ten times a day and posting them to Instagram and Facebook or wherever else. I can't. What a weird time we live in where people are obsessed with trying to create an, usually, unreal image of themselves online for other people to look at. And to see how many followers they can get and how many likes they can have for their most recent posts. We're obsessed with ourselves. We're in a world now where narcissism is normal.

We're taught that the first and foremost love is to love ourselves. If you are younger than me, maybe this all seems normal to you, but believe me, it hasn't been. I read about a study done in 1967 in which young people were asked about their life goals, and the most common answers were things like to make the world a better place, or to live a meaningful life, or just to get married and have a happy family. You know what the top answers are today when you ask young people the same question? Number one, to become rich. Number two, to become famous.

And what's the best way to become rich and famous at this bizarre moment in history? By becoming an online influencer, of course. To become rich and famous for being rich and famous. You build up a fake image of yourself online so everyone wants to be you, to go where you go, to wear what you wear, to eat what you eat, to listen to what you listen to. People even hire fake paparazzi to follow them around to convince people they are somebody famous and special, lovers of themselves and lovers of money. That characterizes a whole lot of people today, especially in the rising generation.

Values have changed, aspirations have changed, and not for the better. People are shallower, it seems, more self-absorbed. I don't think this is just my imagination. Not like I'm an old guy saying, Get off my lawn. Ask anybody who is over 50. And to be fair, if you could ask my grandparents about my generation, they would probably tell you they saw many of the same troubling changes starting to occur in their day.

But my point is, these things are worsening and accelerating. People are getting more self-absorbed and more materialistic. Not every individual, of course, but looking over society as a whole, this is where we are going. Closely associated with that, the Apostle Paul says people will be boastful, arrogant, ungrateful, unloving, treacherous, and disobedient to their parents. The word he used, translated unloving there, is one which has to do with family love. Family values will be breaking down in the last days, Paul is saying, with people increasingly ungrateful, disrespectful, and rebellious.

Some of the breakdown of families today is accountable to how separated many are because of jobs. They take jobs, moving them here and there, removing them from their roots and from their familiar social networks. But not a lot of it. When Jesus talked about the last days to his disciples, he pointed to many of the same breakdowns that would be occurring in society. And one characteristic I feel that he talked about at a gut level is that he said in the last days, the love of many will grow cold. He was describing how the decline of morality and character, along with a disregard for many rules, will go hand in hand with a decline in people's love for and loyalty to one another, and even to their own families.

That kind of social disconnection and isolation leads to people trying to fill those voids in wrong ways, ways that lead too often to disappointments, depression, and despair. I saw a story this past week about a young woman found dead in her apartment somewhere in New Mexico, if I remember right. That's not an unusual thing these days, sadly. But the reason the story made news sites across the country is because the article said she was a popular porn star with apparently a big following. This came back to my mind as I was looking through this list of Paul's distressing things that will mark the last days. It made me curious about what happened in her life.

So I Googled young porn star found dead to find it again and actually read the article. And up came story after story after story about different young women in what should have been the best years of their lives who had died from overdoses of drugs or taking their own life or who have disappeared and no one has ever found them again. If anyone cared to figure out this phenomenon, I bet they would find a lot of similar factors leading to these tragedies: family breakdowns, the desire to be somebody, the desire for easy money, the high of hearing lots of men say how beautiful and desirable you are, then getting sucked into that very ugly industry and used in the most degrading ways which leaves them feeling more lonely and empty and worthless than they can deal with. How messed up our society is that this continues to go on and on.

Speaking of moral decline, Paul uses descriptive terms for the lives of many in the last days, like they will be brutal, without love for what is good, reckless, without self-control, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. As society deteriorates, respect for other people is lost. We hear of brutal, senseless crimes on a regular basis now. Human beings are trafficked and used by the rich and powerful. More and more people's ideas of pleasure are to be completely uninhibited sexually or engage in crazy, reckless behaviors of one kind or another. They laugh at the old ideas of living with restraint, with self-discipline, with consideration for others.

I think that's what Paul means when he says they will be without any love for what is good. Just rudderless people living for the next party, the next sexual conquest, craving nothing more than wild experiences without restraints. I got an eye-opening introduction to this a few years back when my youngest graduated from high school. He asked me if some friends could come over after graduation to hang out that night, and I said sure. I knew most of his friends, guys I liked. Well, the cars started rolling in around 10 p.m., and soon there were more than a hundred high school kids all over my house and property.

A bonfire was going on in my backyard in short time. Kids were drinking, popping pills, smoking marijuana, getting sick, and I mean a lot of them getting sick. The place was overrun, literally. I thought I heard noises upstairs at one point and went up to find kids in my bedroom having sex. I had to call in reinforcements to gain some measure of control back at my house, to try to ensure also that nobody falling-down drunk got into a car to drive other kids home. It was literally crazy.

I had never seen anything like this. It's so different than when I was that age. Of course, I said to my son later, What in the world were you thinking? And he said only, I just invited several of my friends, and I have no idea how all these other people got here. I guess I just heard through the grapevine there's a party at Sam's house tonight. I'm lucky nobody got seriously hurt that night or got into an accident driving away from that because it got out of control.

I never expected it to. But afterwards, while trying to clean up and the next day picking up what was strewn all over my yard, I was sad and honestly amazed to realize this is what passes for fun these days. This is a party for these kids. This is what they think it is to be a grown-up now, to be able to do this. Ugh. On the spiritual side of things, in the last days, Paul says men will be blasphemers and unholy.

Even those who still hold on to some form of religion will only be playing at it, going through the motions with no real regard for God or things that are holy, not really believing in God's reality and power. If you're wondering about Paul's allusion to Jannes and Jambres mentioned in verse 8, these aren't characters told about in the Old Testament by name, but ones Timothy probably knew about since he was reared in a Jewish household. According to Jewish tradition, these were the names of the two magicians from Pharaoh's court who opposed Moses, deceivers who were able to mimic some of the miracles God empowered Moses to do, signs that demonstrated Moses was really God's representative. According to Jewish legend, they then pretended to become Jewish proselytes to join the Jews during the Exodus. But their objective was really to deceive people and undercut Moses' authority.

Timothy no doubt knew this story, so he understood what Paul was warning him about, that is, that there were then and would continue to be spiritual deceivers, false teachers, we keep calling them. Who have no real belief in the truth, but whose purpose is to mislead people and take advantage of people. And then he says, Although evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived, that is, fake spiritual leaders who will only contribute to the confusion and worsening problems, you, Timothy, keep following my teaching, my conduct, my purpose, my faith, my patience, my love, and even be ready to join me in persecutions and suffering. How many times have we heard Paul come back to this charge?

Before I move away from this to the biggest idea in this chapter, soon in our series we'll see in Revelation that in the last of the last days, it will be a religious leader who will be the master deceiver, someone known the world over, but who is really God's enemy and will use his power and influence to get people at that time to follow the Antichrist. So, in overview, what Paul is foreseeing as the church age proceeds is that evil will keep getting progressively stronger until the last of the last days, the time just before Jesus returns, when the most distressing and perilous days this planet has ever seen will grip the world and all the people living in it then. Civilization will have been broken down, morality disappeared, evil and rebellion against God and His ways will be the ruling thing. It will be a time of never seen before extremes.

Even the religion then, the most prominent religious leaders, will be deceivers advancing the evil one's agenda. This will be the apex of evil's influence and control. When the spirit of Antichrist that has always been in the world since the beginning of the church age, opposing God and good, finally spawns that awful world of the tribulation. So what is Paul urging Timothy to do? And by extension, all of us who can count ourselves on God's side, what is he calling us to do as this happens? As people around us turn against God and His ways, mocking what He says is good and true.

Keep following my teaching, my conduct, my purpose, my faith, my patience, my love. Continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you've learned them. Paul's referring to all the things he himself had taught and modeled to Timothy over the last 15 or so years, and even before that, what his godly mother and grandmother had instilled in him as a child. Because verses 15 and 16 go on to say, From childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to make you wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be fully equipped for every good work. Timothy had from childhood been taught the Word of God, rooted in the Scripture, which Paul says is God-breathed, which means something God created.

And therefore, it's the sure foundation and basis for truth, what we must believe. He calls doctrine here, what we must believe, what is imbued with the power then to convict us of sin and to correct erroneous ideas, and with the wisdom to train us in what is right. You're a man of God, Timothy, and by now, because of all that has been poured into you, you're equipped to do everything God will call on you to be doing going forward. It's a pep talk. I can tell you from personal experience what a blessing and advantage it is to have had a heritage where I, like Timothy, was taught and had modeled for me the things God says are right and true from childhood. To have had godly role models to inspire and guide me.

I wish everyone had that advantage, but I know most do not. But from whatever background you have come from, you're a Christian now. What you do have is the Scripture, which is God's inspired, inerrant Word. And it's being diligent to learn it, believe it, and live it out that any one of us can become men and women of God who are equipped to do the things God will call on us to do in our generation. We don't know for certain how close to the last of the last days we are, but if our eyes are open and we're at all spiritually aware, it's pretty hard to deny how dark it is becoming, how many of the characteristics Paul describes in this chapter are becoming prevalent in our world. How much worse can things get?

How long will God let evil go on? When will Jesus return to end this age? We don't know. The challenge here to believers caught up in perilous times is to grab hold of and hold on to the things that are sure, the things we have become convinced of, that we know are true because God has written them down for us in His unchanging Word. Perilous times will come, yes, but as an old hymn forever planted in my memory reminds me, the Bible stands like a rock undaunted amid the raging storms of time. Thanks for listening.

This is Paul for Share the Word. Thanks, Paul. With all the examples that Pastor Paul has presented, it's clear that we've been in perilous times for quite a while, and evil continues to grow. And knowing this, there is such an importance for wisdom and discernment, and that is something I pray for every single day. So did you recognize yourself in any of those examples? And if so, what's your next step?

We are in perilous times where truth and the Word of God is critical and under attack. And like Timothy, Paul charges us to follow his teachings. So here's my challenge and suggestion. Start with the blog article at ShareTheWord.org called Why I Trust the Bible. Start there and seek out mentors. Get involved with Bible studies because remember, darkness in of itself doesn't exist.

Darkness is the absence of light. Be the beacon of light in these times of darkness.