1 This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.
2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
3 Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,
4 Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;
5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.
6 For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts,
7 Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
Introduction
Do you ever read the morning newspaper or watch the 10 o’clock news and wonder if things could get any worse? Do you wonder why things are as they are and what has brought us to this time in history? If you want a commentary on the times, you would do well to study carefully the book of 2 Timothy 3. Because in that passage of scripture the apostle Paul is speaking about the last days and why things are as they are. He is speaking there about the final showdown that is going to come between the forces of God and the forces of evil. In time there will be a head-on collision in the history of this world and the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our God. And in anticipation of that great event he is writing the words that are found in 2 Timothy 3:1.
When the Bible talks about time it always divides it into two divisions. There is this present age in which we live, which is altogether sinful. And there is that golden age of God that is to come where everything will be made right. Now in between those two periods of time—this present age in which we live and the golden age of God that is to come—is when the Lord shall return to this earth personally and visibly to establish his reign and rule over us officially.
As we lead up to that day of the Lord, that time when the Lord shall come back to this earth again, we have no idea of knowing how long what the Bible describes as the last days will be. Paul is writing to Timothy concerning the last days. And he says concerning the circumstances and the people involved in those last days, “Timothy, you are to avoid them.” So Paul seemingly believed that the last days had already begun. Now don’t be disturbed that 2,000 years have passed since those last days began. God doesn’t measure time by your watch or by your clock. God sees time as eternal and his scope is so much broader than ours that the last days could well be 2,000 or 3,000 years. Whatever the length of time they may be, as we near the approach of Jesus Christ, the coming of Christ, the day of the Lord, we are in the last days. And Paul is describing those last days for us here.
The purpose of this description is to say to Timothy and to say to you and to me, “Timothy, avoid these things and avoid these people.” You need to know the tenor of the times. You need to know the characteristics of the age so that you will know what you ought to avoid. And that is the whole thrust of this passage of scripture.
I want you to notice what he has to say in verse 1: “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.” Now that word perilous is a key word. We need to understand it because it describes for us in a general way the characteristic of these last days. They shall be perilous days. The Greek word that is used there is the same Greek word that is used to describe the two demoniacs that came to Jesus in the eighth chapter of the book of Matthew. Jesus was traveling through their part of the country and these two crazy men who lived in the cemetery came out yelling at Jesus and the Bible describes them as “fierce men.” Now it is that same Greek word that was translated as “fierce” in the book of Matthew is translated here as “perilous.” And it means that as we get toward the end of time that we shall be in fierce, dangerous, wild, destructive days. And people shall be much like those fierce, wild men who came out after Jesus from the cemetery.
And then Paul proceeds to describe in great detail the characteristics of those perilous times. There are 19 different words or phrases that are used to describe the last days. You don’t want a 19-point sermon.
Somebody asked Dr. Jeff Ray, “How many points should a sermon have?” He said, “At least one.” Well, this sermon is not going to have just one, and it is not going to have just 19. What I want to do is to look at this passage of scripture and to draw out what I believe to be the key characteristics of the last days. And there are five of them.
The first one is in verse 2. “For men shall be lovers of their own selves.” So the end of the age will be characterized by self-love.
The second is in verse 3. “They shall be without natural affection.” What ought to ordinarily characterize the relationships between people will no longer be there. There will be unnatural relationships.
The third characteristic is in verse 4. “They shall be lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God.”
The fourth is in verse 5. “They shall have the form of godliness but deny the power thereof.” There will be lots of religion. There will be ritual, there will be ceremony, all of that will be going on. But there will be no power in their religion. It will be formed without substance. It will be a shell without any reality to it. They shall have the form of godliness without the power thereof.
And the fifth characteristic is in verse 7. “They shall be ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” Now we need to know these as characteristic of the end of the age because they are things we need to avoid. We need to count for, we need to be alert to and not be caught up in any of them.
1. They shall be lovers of their own selves. The first of these characteristics is in verse 2 when Paul says, “Men shall be lovers of their own selves.” It is no accident that he begins here because the love of self is the basic of all sins. And it is the sin from which all other sins grow.
You remember on one occasion that Jesus was asked, “What is the greatest of all commandments?” And he said, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matthew 22:37-40).
If loving God is the greatest of all the commandments, then to not love God has to be the greatest of all sins. It is the fundamental sin and from that failure to love God and put him at the center of life all other sins flow. Once a person enthrones himself as the ruler of life, then obedience to God and charity toward your fellow man, in the fullest sense of the word, in the strictest sense of the word is no longer possible. You cannot be your own God. You cannot be at the heart and the center of your own life and at the same time give God the reverence and devotion that is due to him and at the same time have the right kind of love, and the right kind of relationship toward your fellow man.
So if a man ever enthrones himself and refuses to give God his rightful place in his life, then from that point on in his relationship to God and in his relationship to other people goes downhill. The essence of Christianity is this: Jesus Christ is Lord, and that means that I enthrone Christ, I step off of the throne, I abdicate the rule and the control of my own life, and I freely and gladly make Christ the Lord of my life.
But in the last days rather than having God at the heart and center of their life and loving their fellow man as they ought, so many around us are rather lovers of their own selves. Be careful of that and those who practice that. It is the characteristic of the last days.
2. They shall be without natural affection. The second mark that Paul talks about is in verse 3, “They shall be without natural affection.” Now the words without natural affection literally mean that they shall be inhumane. They shall be unfeeling. They shall be calloused. In their hearts men and women shall become hard and dry and those natural affections that ought to characterize people, those natural affections that bind to society and life together, shall be no more. What Paul is talking about when he says, “natural affection” is the love of parents for their children. And children for their parents. The love of a husband for his wife and a wife for her husband. You know those are natural responses in life and whether a person is a pagan or whether they are Christians, whether they are American or African or an Australian, no matter where they are found or whether they have ever heard the Gospel or not, those are natural affections.
It is natural for parents to love their children. It is natural for children to love their parents. It is natural for men to love their wives and wives to love their husbands. That is natural. In the last days, they shall not have natural affections. I’m not sure whether the world is getting worse or the news coverage is getting better but something is happening. And I see an awful lot of the absence of natural affections. Did you read in the newspaper last week? A mother had seven children. Every one of them had died. She kept moving around from house to house and nobody suspected that something was wrong until finally somebody discovered that all seven of her children had died and they have charged her with murder.
The abuse of children is at epidemic proportions in America today. And the same kind of reaction and violence on the part of children toward their parents. I don’t know whether the situation is worse or the news coverage is better or both. But we are in a time of unnatural affections.
There is such a thing as natural affection. And the Bible says that one of those things that shall characterize those last days is that men and women shall be without natural affections.
3. They shall be lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. The third thing that shall characterize the last days is that men shall be lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God in verse 4. And with that statement we are almost back to where we started. Because the message was introduced by saying that “Men shall be lovers of their own selves.” And the very next word that characterizes the age is that men shall be covetous. And that word covetous is a compound Greek word that means “lover of money.” So the last days will be characterized by at least these three things, men shall be lovers of their selves, they shall be lovers of money, and they shall love pleasure more than they love God.
It is interesting that those three things—self, wealth, and pleasure—are the three chief idols of mankind wherever you find him. You don’t have to bow down before a statue of stone or a wooden totem pole to be guilty of idolatry. Idolatry is putting anything and anyone in God’s place and worshipping it. And the Bible tells us that throughout the pages of history unto this very hour there are those who worship self and worship wealth and worship pleasure and put them in the place of God.
What did Jesus say about those who wanted to be his disciples? If you want to be my disciple you must die to self. Deny yourself, take up your cross as I take up my cross and follow men. And the cross was always an implement of death. And men must be willing to die to self and not make self god, self number one, or they are guilty of idolatry.
Jesus said on one occasion, “No man can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, cling to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” And he was saying in that passage of scripture that wealth is a master. It will rule your life. It will become your god. And just as God ought to be master, and as God ought to rule your life, wealth can become your master. The pursuit of things can become your god.
We may be seeing in our part of the state for the first time in a long time the destruction of some idols. With the hardship in the economic sector of our life, we may be discovering that some of the false idols are crumbling, and we shall live to thank God that it happened. For the false idols pass away so that the real true God can stand and endure.
But as surely as men worship self, as surely they worship things, so people worship pleasure. So Paul spoke of those whose god is their belly. They live to satisfy their appetites. They live to gratify their own fleshly desires and that becomes the god of their life. That’s the idol they worship before. And as we come to these last days men shall be lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. It was said of the 16th-century Pope Leo X that he loved science and art and learning and poetry as well as splendor and gaiety. But as for religion he had not much concern about it. It is a strange thing to say about a pope. But it can be said about many a person who calls himself a Christian. As for religion he cares not much about it.
4. They shall have a form of godliness but deny the power thereof. That word form means “an outward resemblance or an outward expression.” So their religion shall be outward and external. But all the while they will be denying the real power of that religion. That is to say their religion will have ritual, it will have ceremony, it will have form, but it will have no substance. It will have the vocabulary without the vitality. It will have the shell without the substance to it. And they shall continue to go through the rituals, the ceremony of worship, but nobody will be saved and no lives will be changed. They shall have the form of religion but deny the power thereof.
I want you to take note of the fact that he does not suggest that people will be irreligious or that they will make fun of religion. They may very well be professing religion and they may come to church with great regularity. Paul never once suggests that the church will be empty of people. He says it will be empty of power. You see you can have a church full of empty people. You can have people here without power here. And he is saying to us that that is exactly what is going to characterize the last days. Religion may very well be on the rise. The church house may be filled and people will be saying prayers and singing songs and listening to sermons and going through all the rituals, but they will be fundamentally insincere. And nobody will be saved and nobody’s life will be changed. It will just be a form and there will be no power to it.
You know the greatest hindrance to Christianity today is not some scarlet sinner out there who rejects everything that we preach and teach and believe and scoffs at the church. It is rather that sleek devotee to religious orthodoxy who crosses every T and dots every I just exactly right, but they have no personal, vital, and dynamic relationship with God. Their religion is just a form. It is just a sham. It is just a shell and there is nothing real down deep inside. They have the idea that if you observe the right forms and you believe the right doctrine and you practice the right rituals, that’s that all there is to it. That’s what shall characterize the last days.
Actor Jackie Gleason said, “I searched for a church that I might enjoy but I discovered that I was looking for one compatible with my lifestyle.” In the last days people will be looking for churches that are compatible with their lifestyle. One in which they can feel comfortable. The church is not here to approve of your lifestyle, it is here to improve it. We are not here to put a stamp of approval upon the way you live, we are here to tell you how God expects you to live. But in those last days the church may be filled with empty people who are just looking for something to satisfy them.
The church of Jesus Christ ought to be not just a form but also a force that leads people to be saved and lives to be changed. There was a church school and they began each class session in the morning with the reciting of the Apostles’ Creed. This professor had an unusual way of doing it. He would start down the row and each pupil would stand and recite one line of the Apostles’ Creed. The first student would stand and say, “I believe in God, the Father Almighty.” The second would stand and say, “I believe in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord.” And the third was supposed to stand and say, “I believe in the Holy Ghost.”
And they came to the first, “I believe in God, the Father Almighty.” The second, “I believe in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord.” And they came to the third and there was nothing but silence. And they waited and waited and finally one of the fellow pupils spoke up and said, “Teacher, the boy who believes in the Holy Ghost is not here today.” There are a lot of churches where the Holy Ghost, the power of God, is not there. So they degenerate into sterile preaching and lifeless and dull routines and the music and the whole service lacks that vitality that only the presence and the power of God can bring.
A preacher met one of his delinquent parishioners on the street. He said, “My brother, I’ve noticed that you haven’t been in church lately.” The man said, “Oh, preacher, you know how it is. The kids have been sick. And it has rained and rained and rained.” The preacher said, “Well, brother, it is always dry in church.” He said, “Yes, that is another reason I’m not there.”
Listen, when the Holy Spirit comes, when the Holy Spirit begins to work in our life and in our midst, there is life and there is vitality and people do get saved and hearts are touched and lives are changed. And we must ever make sure that there is more to what we do here than form. That there must also be power, not only as shell but as substance. Not just the vocabulary but vitality that comes when God is in control.
Let me tell you, do not mistake activity for life. Don’t think that just because the church is always waving its hand and shouting hallelujah or praise the Lord or whatever else that that is a sign that that church is alive. Don’t mistake activity for life.
I came out of the country. Mother used to go out in the yard and catch a chicken and kill it by wringing its neck. She would get that thing by the head and whirl it around to break its neck and then pitch it out there on the ground. It would flop here and there and jump around. You know at that moment that chicken was the most active in the chicken in the chicken yard. It was also the deadest one. So don’t you mistake all this jumping and flopping around for life. And don’t you mistake orthodoxy and belief for life.
Travis Berry, a friend of mine, was a pastor in Argentina. As a missionary in Argentina he said he taught theology to students. He gave tests and sometimes they passed the tests and sometimes they flunked . One year his best student turned out to be a Communist plant in the classroom. He was as orthodox on paper as a man could be.
You can be as straight as a gun barrel theologically and as a cold as a gun barrel spiritually. So don’t think that just because there is activity there is life. Don’t think that just because there is orthodoxy there is life. There must be the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit so that people are being saved and lives are being touched and changed. In the last days they shall have a form of godliness and deny the power thereof.
5. They shall be ever learning and never coming to a knowledge of the truth. The last thing that marks the last days is that they shall be ever learning and never coming to a knowledge of the truth. When Paul says that he is not taking a slap at learning, at education. You know there was a time when Baptists were anti-education. We were rural people. We were country people. We were uneducated people and Daniel Buckner, the father of R. C. Buckner, who started Buckner Benevolences, was dismissed from a church because they said he went against the will of God by sending his son to college to be educated for the ministry. That was a few years ago but Baptists used to be anti-education. That is not what Paul is suggesting here.
Dr. Mullins went off to speak to a conference. He was talking about the value of education and the importance to going to school. When he got through one of the men spoke up and said, “Well, it sounds like you are saying that God can’t use an ignorant preacher.” And Dr. Mullins said, “I am not saying that at all. That is the only kind he has got.” But, he said, “I want you to know God can’t use your ignorance. All he can use is your knowledge. So the more you know the more God can use you.”
When he got through they called on the wrong man to pray. He prayed, “Lord, I thank you for my ignorance. Lord, make me ignorerer. Lord, make me ignorerer than a mule. Amen.” Dr. Mullins went back to the seminary. He said to his colleagues, “Brethren, I believe that is a prayer that was answered before it was ever asked.”
There is no premium on ignorance. But Paul says these folks are ever learning yet they never come to the knowledge of the truth. They go to seminars and Bible studies and listen to tapes, buy books, and all of that stuff. They chase every itinerant that passes through the community. They get swept away by every new doctrine and every new idea. They are always learning but they never come to a knowledge of the truth. And you see the knowledge of the truth soon reduces itself down to practical living. When you come to a knowledge of the truth you get saved. And when you come to a knowledge of the truth if you are saved, you start growing to be like Jesus. You start practicing what you have learned. Don’t come around here telling me how much you believe the Bible. You can only believe the part you practice. That’s the only part you believe. The rest of it is just talk and talk is cheap.
So men shall be ever learning, always going to this and that, but never reducing it down to living and to loving and to sharing with other people.
Timothy, you need to know what the world is coming to. And these are things you need to avoid. Avoid loving your own self more than you love God. Stay away from unnatural affections. Don’t love pleasure more than you love God. Don’t be satisfied with a form of religion without the power that comes. And when you learn something, incorporate it into your life and live it.
That’s the admonition for you and for me. When the world is rushing headlong toward hell, we can still go to heaven.