-2-
Terrible Times
In the previous chapter I pointed out that, as he wrote to his young protege', Timothy, the Apostle Paul gave him two prophecies regarding the future. In the first prophesy On the first occasion Paul used the word 'later' times and on the second one, the word 'last days'.
The 'later times' prophecy came to pass initially in the second and third centuries. The 'last days' prophecy seems to be coming to pass in our time.
But having made this statement, it is important to point out that the first prophecy, even though it may have begun in the second or third century, has had an ongoing fulfillment. So much of what Paul predicted still applies. I am thinking particularly of the statement, “ in later days there will be men who abandon the true faith”.
Even though that began to happen way back in the second century … and by the sixth century was in 'full bloom', it is still happening today.
But for the next few minutes I want to look at Paul's second prophecy to Timothy.
2Ti 3:1-5 ¶
1 But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days.
2 For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
3 unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good,
4 traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,
5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away!
I will give Paul's prediction in point form.
People will be:
I would call it … Negative changes in the people of the world 2 Timothy 3:1-5
Do we recognize any of these? Of course we do. Do we see these things as being our 'normal'? Can we remember times when these things were less pronounced?
For many of us, especially if you were born in the mid- to late '60's, you grew up with this.
But the things in Paul's list have been around for a few years now. Actually they were likely around in Paul's day … but not to the degree that they are today. And that's the thing … things are getting worse.
Later in his second letter to Timothy, Paul wrote,
Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. 13 But evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. 2Timothy 3:12
What is so terrible or perilous or dangerous about the 'last days' as described here?
Let's look back at the list and ask this question and try to answer it.
People will be lovers of self . While this has been true from the days of Cain and Able … this prophecy, in order to have any meaning at all, speaks of self-love being greatly amplified. If we think about it … advertisements aimed at selling products to the public must be worded in such a way as to 'grab' attention. Satan first advertised something to Eve and she fell for it.
However, the ability to 'advertise' on a large scale really only happened in the last couple of hundred years. In Jesus' time newspapers and magazines had not been invented. But once they were invented, they became advertiser driven. Radio advertising was quite an influential media in its time. Then came Television. The ads unabashedly stated, “After all, you are worth it!”
Some of the earlier so-called Christian psychology books spoke freely of the need for 'healthy self-love'.
Self love, self actualization etc, has become a pandemic of its own.
But in what way is this, in Paul's words, dangerous?
Lovers of money is the next one. For this to be noteworthy it has to be connected to the first one. If you love only yourself, you will pamper yourself. It takes money to do that. A major focus will be, 'What can I do to get more money?' The options that may come to mind could involve fraud, stealing, or destroying a colleague's reputation so that you could get their higher paying job, etc.
But how does this contribute to Paul's 'dangerous times' of the last days?
For the sake of time I will group a few of these together. I am looking at the ESV version, by the way.
Proud, Arrogant and Abusive are the next three. It is not hard to see these traits when you read some of the Old Testament's history. And yet Paul cites them as traits demarcating the last days. Proud and arrogant, to me, seem like synonyms. How much more proud can people become? Humans have accomplished a lot in the last century. Inventions of every kind have become reality. Machines, vehicles, aircraft, spacecraft and space stations, electronics etc. etc. Man has become God. And now there is absolutely no room for God in classrooms and playgrounds.
Abusive. This ranges from abuse that Christians have to take in the work place … to abuse that happens at levels that are too horrifying to recount.
We hear about it all the time. In what way do we sense these days as being the 'dangerous times' of the end?
Disobedient to parents … ungrateful. In the old Testament we can read about the time that a group of Teen-agers made fun of Prophet Elisha's bald head. Elisha, using God's special power with which he had been gifted, called out a couple of bears from the forest … to kill the whole group of them. That is a story of some teen-agers way back then. What about now?
I can remember when Dr. Benjamin Spock's book, 'Babies and Child-care' written in 1946, became a best-seller. The end result of his twisted theories has created the greatest generation of disobedient and ungrateful children of all time.
But would we really call the end result … dangerous?
Unholy … with the removal of God from everything secular in our surrounding environments, coupled with the drastic decrease in biblical instruction in many of our churches, unholiness is worse than it has ever been.
When I refer to the decrease in biblical instruction, I am comparing normal church life in the first half of the 20th century, to what is normal now. At that time normal was two sermons every Sunday, - one in the morning and a second church service in the evening. In addition there were Sunday morning bible classes for all age groups, including adults, and on Wednesday nights there was more bible teaching and prayer. Youth bible lessons and activities happened weekly. All of this has transitioned into one sermon on a Sunday morning that is supposed be both evangelical and instructive at the same time. The result is Biblical illiteracy. The sad thing is that most believers do not see themselves as being Biblically illiterate.
So, how is all this contributing to the last days … dangerous times?
Next comes Unloving (ESV) or Without natural affection is the rendering in many other versions including Young's Literal Translation.
Paul is saying the the last days will also be characterized by an increase in un-natural affection. We thought this was getting bad back in the sixties … wow. Nothing like what we are seeing today. Same sex relationships and gender fluidity are some of the basic doctrines of the humanist church/religion. All a person has to do to be a member of this church is to simply push God out of your thinking.
Unforgiving and slanderers kind of work together. And if we connect it to the previous one … If we as Christians let it be known that we are opposed to gender fluidity, or same sex 'anything', slander would be a mild word for what would happen to us.
Without self-control. Self denial is the opposite. If a person has the money and the time … why deny yourself from anything? After all … we DESERVE it.
Brutal This describes fierce and savage behavior coming from those with enough power to display such action. In various parts of the world this is particularly felt by believers. This will get worse.
Not loving good This should be seen as anti-good. A literal translation would be 'opposed to goodness and good people'. An accurate word for it would be 'anti-Christian'.
Treacherous, Traitor, in this setting, means a person that will not stand by their word. A treacherous person needs to have everything in writing. Just because he or she may have promised it … means nothing. Is this something we have come to expect and live with? In what way is this relating to 'dangerous last days'?
Reckless and arrogant ('rash' in the KJV) The word reckless is clear enough. It would be precipitated by … “Where do you get off telling me what to do? I will do what I want, thank you very much!”
Arrogance, (haughty, high-minded, conceited) is another attitude that will be elevated in the last days.
In our present time … and even in the last days, how exactly is this dangerous and terrible?
Lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.
The industrialized 'free' world in which most of us live has never had more opportunities to seek for pleasure and happiness. There has never been a generation in history with more material goods or comfort than this present generation. This does not mean that, as a rule, people of today are happier than they ever have been in history. Self-centered living does not produce happiness.
This part of verse 4 is talking about extremes. We should not be lovers of pleasures … to the extreme. We SHOULD be lovers of God … to the extreme.
The things of life (that some people obsess over) are to be held by us … in our hands, not in our hearts. And, I might add, held with a loose grip.
There is one more element to this list that Paul gives us. This last item is somewhat connected to the one we just looked at, but it can also be a 'stand-alone' item. Here it is:
Having a form of godliness, but denying its power (NIV)
One translation puts it like this: They will maintain a facade of "religion" but their life denies its truth.(J. B. Philips)
Jesus talks about this as well and we will look closely at His words a bit later.
This is one of the signs of the last days. There are people … ministers, who promote an almost hedonistic life-style. They preach something like, “God wants you wealthy and healthy and enjoying life to the full. This is the gospel!”
Maybe you are thinking … if we are in the terrible times spoken of by Paul … they are not so terrible. We are coping. They really do not seem to be all THAT dangerous or terrible.
But first we need to determine … is this list of Paul's applicable to today? Are we, according to this list, in the last days? If we can agree and say, “It sure looks like it.”, ...
Then, second, we have to take it on faith, that something about this time in which we live IS dangerous and terrible, whether we presently see it that way or not..
Maybe we need to re-look at our evaluation or understanding of what is terrible and what is not.
The very bottom line of what the Apostle Paul called “terrible” for the end times is this:... What is it doing to the church of Jesus Christ?
If Paul's list does not look terrible to us, something is very wrong with our eyesight.
In the church of today, Christians are not only very used to this evil norm existing in the communities in which they live, in some cases they (we) are also used to tolerating a lot of it in our churches. I am not saying that we should have policemen in church. Not at all.
But when we preach the word of salvation … repentance of sin is usually included as we talk about receiving Jesus as our Savior. But sin is very often generalized. We very seldom see 'brokenness' these days when a person comes to Christ.
As a matter of fact, in some of the evangelical denominations, a 'starting out' preacher is counseled at his ordination service, “Do not name sin in the pulpit. Talk only about the love of Jesus and His sacrifice. If you mention sin at all, keep it general.”
Keeping sin general makes for much less conviction of sin in the individual who we are leading to salvation.
But if sin is pointed out plainly, like it is in Paul's list of the evil tendencies of the last days, it will result in adding people being added to our churches who know what is right and what is wrong. They will come in with a biblical standard of what God calls evil. It will provide a new spiritual 'normal' to aim for.
But you may wish to object and say, 'But we are clothed in the righteousness of Christ, are we not? So this means the church is in perfect shape right?'
Let's look at the word of God on this.
Paul wrote this to the church in Ephesus.
Eph 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.
Wash her from what? Sin and imperfections, obviously.
Wash her with what? The water of the word. Not with His blood? No, with the water of the word.
That he might present it to himself a bride without spot or blemish.
At salvation, all the sins of the past were washed away. Re 1:5 ... To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood,
At the point of our salvation there was no longer a spot or a blemish. But we came to him with our baggage. We came to him with all the stuff that was 'normal' when we were still in the world.
Layer by layer we discover things that we brought with us into the church … things that need to be shed. Things that need to be repented of, that need to be confessed to God and to ask for His cleansing.
There is nothing wrong with crying out to God … “But I didn't know! I am so sorry God. Please take that away too!”
And He takes it away. Our part is to look into God's word and use it as a mirror. We will see all of our imperfections and bad habits, bad decisions etc. As I said, that is our part. That is our responsibility. But then, as we see ourselves in light of His word, we confess it to God. Then He does His part:
1Jo 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
In a sense, it is the Word of God that 'washed' us. However, the actual 'washing' is still by the blood of Christ.
The preaching and teaching of the word has that effect. Or it should. Unless, of course, we spend our time searching the TV world until we find a preacher or teacher who tells us we are OK.
We are NOT OK. That is the case in the majority of our churches. A great exception to the rule would be those churches who are undergoing great tribulation even as we speak. But North American churches … and all of the churches who are able to worship in freedom … are all affected to some degree by this list given to Timothy by Paul.
One of two things needs to happen.
One, we recognize our need to look intently at Paul's list, and we appropriately must apologize to God for those things that apply to us.
Or Two, … expect God to clean us up in His own way. And that can be painful.
One way or the other, we will come to this point:
“Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready.” Re 19:7
What does being ready include? Becoming 'clean' in His sight, and becoming aware of the signs as they appear.
We clean our selves up via faithful service. Scripture says, it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure" — for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. Re 19:8
Faithfully serving is mentioned as producing a shining bright robe for the wedding celebration.
An angel spoke to Daniel about what believers in the end time would do. He said,
Many shall purify themselves and make themselves white and be refined, but the wicked shall act wickedly. And none of the wicked shall understand, but those who are wise shall understand. Daniel 12:10
This is a voluntary 'clean-up' on the part of believers. Many, says the messenger to Daniel, will recognize the need for purity … they will repent of having had a less than acute hatred of the things in Paul's list, and they will gladly look for opportunities to serve. Many shall purify themselves and be made white
If we fail to 'clean ourselves' voluntarily, we will ultimately become 'cleaned up' by God's wise hand.
Listen to what the angel told Daniel as he talked to him about the end times.
... and some of the wise (believers) shall stumble, so that they may be refined, purified, and made white, until the time of the end, for it still awaits the appointed time. Da 11:35.
This is less than voluntary. This demonstrates the caring Lord Jesus Christ who will allow some of the 'wise' (in this case it refers to His children), to stumble. This is talking about falling into the sufferings of the tribulation period. They will end up refined. They will be purified. Their robes will be made white and spotless.
Terrible Times are already here. We need to see it that way. And we all have some heart searching to do. God loves you so very much, and one way or another He wants you to be separate from the terrible influences of a world that is moving away from Him at a steady pace.
The signs that we have looked at in this chapter make no mention of earthquakes, pestilences, wars and rumors of wars … etc. etc.
The 'sign' that we have just examined is all about a degeneration in mankind.
In the coming chapters we expect to look at the signs that Jesus Himself has given to His church. And in so doing we want to point out that, in all that is coming, Jesus makes no mention of self-preservation. In all of the blackness of sin surrounding the last days, Jesus wants His church to lift up the light of the gospel.
The 'later times' prophecy came to pass initially in the second and third centuries. The 'last days' prophecy seems to be coming to pass in our time.
But having made this statement, it is important to point out that the first prophecy, even though it may have begun in the second or third century, has had an ongoing fulfillment. So much of what Paul predicted still applies. I am thinking particularly of the statement, “ in later days there will be men who abandon the true faith”.
Even though that began to happen way back in the second century … and by the sixth century was in 'full bloom', it is still happening today.
But for the next few minutes I want to look at Paul's second prophecy to Timothy.
2Ti 3:1-5 ¶
1 But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days.
2 For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
3 unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good,
4 traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,
5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away!
I will give Paul's prediction in point form.
People will be:
- lovers of themselves,
- lovers of money,
- boastful, proud,
- abusive,
- disobedient to their parents,
- ungrateful,
- unholy,
- without love,
- unforgiving,
- slanderous,
- without self-control,
- brutal,
- not lovers of the good,
- treacherous,
- rash,
- conceited,
- lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God--
- having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.
I would call it … Negative changes in the people of the world 2 Timothy 3:1-5
Do we recognize any of these? Of course we do. Do we see these things as being our 'normal'? Can we remember times when these things were less pronounced?
For many of us, especially if you were born in the mid- to late '60's, you grew up with this.
But the things in Paul's list have been around for a few years now. Actually they were likely around in Paul's day … but not to the degree that they are today. And that's the thing … things are getting worse.
Later in his second letter to Timothy, Paul wrote,
Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. 13 But evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. 2Timothy 3:12
What is so terrible or perilous or dangerous about the 'last days' as described here?
Let's look back at the list and ask this question and try to answer it.
People will be lovers of self . While this has been true from the days of Cain and Able … this prophecy, in order to have any meaning at all, speaks of self-love being greatly amplified. If we think about it … advertisements aimed at selling products to the public must be worded in such a way as to 'grab' attention. Satan first advertised something to Eve and she fell for it.
However, the ability to 'advertise' on a large scale really only happened in the last couple of hundred years. In Jesus' time newspapers and magazines had not been invented. But once they were invented, they became advertiser driven. Radio advertising was quite an influential media in its time. Then came Television. The ads unabashedly stated, “After all, you are worth it!”
Some of the earlier so-called Christian psychology books spoke freely of the need for 'healthy self-love'.
Self love, self actualization etc, has become a pandemic of its own.
But in what way is this, in Paul's words, dangerous?
Lovers of money is the next one. For this to be noteworthy it has to be connected to the first one. If you love only yourself, you will pamper yourself. It takes money to do that. A major focus will be, 'What can I do to get more money?' The options that may come to mind could involve fraud, stealing, or destroying a colleague's reputation so that you could get their higher paying job, etc.
But how does this contribute to Paul's 'dangerous times' of the last days?
For the sake of time I will group a few of these together. I am looking at the ESV version, by the way.
Proud, Arrogant and Abusive are the next three. It is not hard to see these traits when you read some of the Old Testament's history. And yet Paul cites them as traits demarcating the last days. Proud and arrogant, to me, seem like synonyms. How much more proud can people become? Humans have accomplished a lot in the last century. Inventions of every kind have become reality. Machines, vehicles, aircraft, spacecraft and space stations, electronics etc. etc. Man has become God. And now there is absolutely no room for God in classrooms and playgrounds.
Abusive. This ranges from abuse that Christians have to take in the work place … to abuse that happens at levels that are too horrifying to recount.
We hear about it all the time. In what way do we sense these days as being the 'dangerous times' of the end?
Disobedient to parents … ungrateful. In the old Testament we can read about the time that a group of Teen-agers made fun of Prophet Elisha's bald head. Elisha, using God's special power with which he had been gifted, called out a couple of bears from the forest … to kill the whole group of them. That is a story of some teen-agers way back then. What about now?
I can remember when Dr. Benjamin Spock's book, 'Babies and Child-care' written in 1946, became a best-seller. The end result of his twisted theories has created the greatest generation of disobedient and ungrateful children of all time.
But would we really call the end result … dangerous?
Unholy … with the removal of God from everything secular in our surrounding environments, coupled with the drastic decrease in biblical instruction in many of our churches, unholiness is worse than it has ever been.
When I refer to the decrease in biblical instruction, I am comparing normal church life in the first half of the 20th century, to what is normal now. At that time normal was two sermons every Sunday, - one in the morning and a second church service in the evening. In addition there were Sunday morning bible classes for all age groups, including adults, and on Wednesday nights there was more bible teaching and prayer. Youth bible lessons and activities happened weekly. All of this has transitioned into one sermon on a Sunday morning that is supposed be both evangelical and instructive at the same time. The result is Biblical illiteracy. The sad thing is that most believers do not see themselves as being Biblically illiterate.
So, how is all this contributing to the last days … dangerous times?
Next comes Unloving (ESV) or Without natural affection is the rendering in many other versions including Young's Literal Translation.
Paul is saying the the last days will also be characterized by an increase in un-natural affection. We thought this was getting bad back in the sixties … wow. Nothing like what we are seeing today. Same sex relationships and gender fluidity are some of the basic doctrines of the humanist church/religion. All a person has to do to be a member of this church is to simply push God out of your thinking.
Unforgiving and slanderers kind of work together. And if we connect it to the previous one … If we as Christians let it be known that we are opposed to gender fluidity, or same sex 'anything', slander would be a mild word for what would happen to us.
Without self-control. Self denial is the opposite. If a person has the money and the time … why deny yourself from anything? After all … we DESERVE it.
Brutal This describes fierce and savage behavior coming from those with enough power to display such action. In various parts of the world this is particularly felt by believers. This will get worse.
Not loving good This should be seen as anti-good. A literal translation would be 'opposed to goodness and good people'. An accurate word for it would be 'anti-Christian'.
Treacherous, Traitor, in this setting, means a person that will not stand by their word. A treacherous person needs to have everything in writing. Just because he or she may have promised it … means nothing. Is this something we have come to expect and live with? In what way is this relating to 'dangerous last days'?
Reckless and arrogant ('rash' in the KJV) The word reckless is clear enough. It would be precipitated by … “Where do you get off telling me what to do? I will do what I want, thank you very much!”
Arrogance, (haughty, high-minded, conceited) is another attitude that will be elevated in the last days.
In our present time … and even in the last days, how exactly is this dangerous and terrible?
Lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.
The industrialized 'free' world in which most of us live has never had more opportunities to seek for pleasure and happiness. There has never been a generation in history with more material goods or comfort than this present generation. This does not mean that, as a rule, people of today are happier than they ever have been in history. Self-centered living does not produce happiness.
This part of verse 4 is talking about extremes. We should not be lovers of pleasures … to the extreme. We SHOULD be lovers of God … to the extreme.
The things of life (that some people obsess over) are to be held by us … in our hands, not in our hearts. And, I might add, held with a loose grip.
There is one more element to this list that Paul gives us. This last item is somewhat connected to the one we just looked at, but it can also be a 'stand-alone' item. Here it is:
Having a form of godliness, but denying its power (NIV)
One translation puts it like this: They will maintain a facade of "religion" but their life denies its truth.(J. B. Philips)
Jesus talks about this as well and we will look closely at His words a bit later.
This is one of the signs of the last days. There are people … ministers, who promote an almost hedonistic life-style. They preach something like, “God wants you wealthy and healthy and enjoying life to the full. This is the gospel!”
Maybe you are thinking … if we are in the terrible times spoken of by Paul … they are not so terrible. We are coping. They really do not seem to be all THAT dangerous or terrible.
But first we need to determine … is this list of Paul's applicable to today? Are we, according to this list, in the last days? If we can agree and say, “It sure looks like it.”, ...
Then, second, we have to take it on faith, that something about this time in which we live IS dangerous and terrible, whether we presently see it that way or not..
Maybe we need to re-look at our evaluation or understanding of what is terrible and what is not.
The very bottom line of what the Apostle Paul called “terrible” for the end times is this:... What is it doing to the church of Jesus Christ?
If Paul's list does not look terrible to us, something is very wrong with our eyesight.
In the church of today, Christians are not only very used to this evil norm existing in the communities in which they live, in some cases they (we) are also used to tolerating a lot of it in our churches. I am not saying that we should have policemen in church. Not at all.
But when we preach the word of salvation … repentance of sin is usually included as we talk about receiving Jesus as our Savior. But sin is very often generalized. We very seldom see 'brokenness' these days when a person comes to Christ.
As a matter of fact, in some of the evangelical denominations, a 'starting out' preacher is counseled at his ordination service, “Do not name sin in the pulpit. Talk only about the love of Jesus and His sacrifice. If you mention sin at all, keep it general.”
Keeping sin general makes for much less conviction of sin in the individual who we are leading to salvation.
But if sin is pointed out plainly, like it is in Paul's list of the evil tendencies of the last days, it will result in adding people being added to our churches who know what is right and what is wrong. They will come in with a biblical standard of what God calls evil. It will provide a new spiritual 'normal' to aim for.
But you may wish to object and say, 'But we are clothed in the righteousness of Christ, are we not? So this means the church is in perfect shape right?'
Let's look at the word of God on this.
Paul wrote this to the church in Ephesus.
Eph 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.
Wash her from what? Sin and imperfections, obviously.
Wash her with what? The water of the word. Not with His blood? No, with the water of the word.
That he might present it to himself a bride without spot or blemish.
At salvation, all the sins of the past were washed away. Re 1:5 ... To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood,
At the point of our salvation there was no longer a spot or a blemish. But we came to him with our baggage. We came to him with all the stuff that was 'normal' when we were still in the world.
Layer by layer we discover things that we brought with us into the church … things that need to be shed. Things that need to be repented of, that need to be confessed to God and to ask for His cleansing.
There is nothing wrong with crying out to God … “But I didn't know! I am so sorry God. Please take that away too!”
And He takes it away. Our part is to look into God's word and use it as a mirror. We will see all of our imperfections and bad habits, bad decisions etc. As I said, that is our part. That is our responsibility. But then, as we see ourselves in light of His word, we confess it to God. Then He does His part:
1Jo 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
In a sense, it is the Word of God that 'washed' us. However, the actual 'washing' is still by the blood of Christ.
The preaching and teaching of the word has that effect. Or it should. Unless, of course, we spend our time searching the TV world until we find a preacher or teacher who tells us we are OK.
We are NOT OK. That is the case in the majority of our churches. A great exception to the rule would be those churches who are undergoing great tribulation even as we speak. But North American churches … and all of the churches who are able to worship in freedom … are all affected to some degree by this list given to Timothy by Paul.
One of two things needs to happen.
One, we recognize our need to look intently at Paul's list, and we appropriately must apologize to God for those things that apply to us.
Or Two, … expect God to clean us up in His own way. And that can be painful.
One way or the other, we will come to this point:
“Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready.” Re 19:7
What does being ready include? Becoming 'clean' in His sight, and becoming aware of the signs as they appear.
We clean our selves up via faithful service. Scripture says, it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure" — for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. Re 19:8
Faithfully serving is mentioned as producing a shining bright robe for the wedding celebration.
An angel spoke to Daniel about what believers in the end time would do. He said,
Many shall purify themselves and make themselves white and be refined, but the wicked shall act wickedly. And none of the wicked shall understand, but those who are wise shall understand. Daniel 12:10
This is a voluntary 'clean-up' on the part of believers. Many, says the messenger to Daniel, will recognize the need for purity … they will repent of having had a less than acute hatred of the things in Paul's list, and they will gladly look for opportunities to serve. Many shall purify themselves and be made white
If we fail to 'clean ourselves' voluntarily, we will ultimately become 'cleaned up' by God's wise hand.
Listen to what the angel told Daniel as he talked to him about the end times.
... and some of the wise (believers) shall stumble, so that they may be refined, purified, and made white, until the time of the end, for it still awaits the appointed time. Da 11:35.
This is less than voluntary. This demonstrates the caring Lord Jesus Christ who will allow some of the 'wise' (in this case it refers to His children), to stumble. This is talking about falling into the sufferings of the tribulation period. They will end up refined. They will be purified. Their robes will be made white and spotless.
Terrible Times are already here. We need to see it that way. And we all have some heart searching to do. God loves you so very much, and one way or another He wants you to be separate from the terrible influences of a world that is moving away from Him at a steady pace.
The signs that we have looked at in this chapter make no mention of earthquakes, pestilences, wars and rumors of wars … etc. etc.
The 'sign' that we have just examined is all about a degeneration in mankind.
In the coming chapters we expect to look at the signs that Jesus Himself has given to His church. And in so doing we want to point out that, in all that is coming, Jesus makes no mention of self-preservation. In all of the blackness of sin surrounding the last days, Jesus wants His church to lift up the light of the gospel.