Turn to 2 Timothy chapter 6. No, not chapter 6. I don't even
know if there are 6 chapters in that. There's not. Chapter
3. I've got something else on my
mind. John chapter 6 is the next one. Before we get into this, let's
go to the Lord in prayer. Our Father, thank you for this
beautiful day. Thank you for this hour that
we can gather together, open your word, preach from your word,
sing your praises. Father, thank you. Thank you
for not leaving us alone. Thank you, Father, for choosing
us in Christ, calling us by your grace, and revealing Christ in
us. Our Father, we pray for thy presence
this morning. Without thy presence, this service
is useless. We pray for thy presence, and
I pray for the power to rightly divide the word of truth and
to preach the gospel in the power of your spirit. Lord, no man
is sufficient for these things. Lord, thou art our sufficiency. We look to thee not only in this
hour, but at all times. for all that we need. And what
we pray for ourselves, we pray for all your people, your servants,
your preachers throughout this world. Father, in Jesus Christ's
name, we pray, and amen. The title of this lesson is The
Face of False Religion in the Last Days. Paul starts out here
in verse one, we'll go through about the first nine verses,
but he says, this know also, Timothy, he's instructing Timothy,
this know also that in the last days, perilous times shall come. Paul is not talking about world
events. So many think that he's talking
about how bad it's going to be, and he's not talking about world
events. He's not talking about national
trouble. Those things will always be.
There'll always be rumors of wars. There'll always be trouble.
But what he's talking about here is the progress of false religion
It began in his day, you know, he says over in verse 17 of chapter
2, he speaks of Hymenaeus and Philetus who said the resurrection
is already passed. Paul dealt with this and he's
telling Timothy that this is going to get worse. This is not
going to get better. It's not going to get better. He says
it's going to get worse as time goes on. He says in the last
days, perilous times shall come. We've been in the last days now
for 2,000 years. You know, the scriptures are
divided up, or time is divided up, we should say. From Adam
to Moses, it says it was 2,000 years. From Moses to Christ was
2,000 years. And now, since our Lord came
into this world in the flesh, Died on the cross, rose again,
it's been 2,000 years. And that to me, when I was looking
at this, I thought, how fast that's gone. It's just like that.
6,000 years is gone. And he says, in these last days,
instead of the things getting better for the church, it's gonna
get worse. because of the false preachers.
He's talking here about false preachers, those who claim to
know Christ, but they don't. And so Paul warns Timothy and
he's warning us. He's warning us also that these
perilous times, these difficult times are going to arise for
the church because of these, these hypocrites, these false
preachers. They're going to bring in damnable
doctrines, heresy, and they're going to withstand you. He's
going to give a couple examples of Janus and Jambres there in
verse 8, as we get down to that part. The pastors and the people
of God are going to have to contend with these false preachers. These legalists, self-righteous,
some will go into legalism, some go into just outright immorality. But we have to contend with them.
And they're always going to withstand the truth. I wish every place in this whole
community, throughout this world, throughout this country, I wish
everyone who stood in the pulpit told the truth on God. Wouldn't
it be great if everybody in the pulpit this morning was telling
the truth on God? But you know that the vast majority, the vast
majority are standing up, lying on God. Lying on God. Twisting the truth. And making
their their proselytes, as the Lord, as the Lord said to his
Pharisees, you're making a twofold the children of hell. That's
sad, what's going on this morning, especially with children. You
know, they get these children when they're young and they get
a false profession out of them, they have a false hope and a
false peace and they grow up with that. And I say that because
I was thinking of a man that I talked to a few years ago.
They had their summer Bible school and he was telling me how many
children they got saved. They ought to hang that guy.
Now I know it sounds bad, but when you take advantage of children,
and their youth, and their inexperience, and their ignorance, and you
give them a false hope and a false refuge, that's, I don't know,
I don't even have words for that. But Paul here, now listen, Paul
in chapter three here, verses two through four, he gives a
description of these These hooksters, that's what they are, they're
religious hooksters. And he gives a description of
them. And it's interesting here that Paul gives the first description
of these religious hooksters, these false preachers, is this,
lovers of their own selves. This is the root of the truth.
This is the root. It all starts with this. All
these, I'm going to look at these one by one as we go down through
this, but all of these things that are mentioned, they are
the fruit of self-love, loving oneself. And Paul mentions this
first because from self-love comes all other problems. It
does. The person who loves themselves,
I mean, they love themselves more than anybody. They despise
others. They look down on others. They
despise God. They despise giving Him all the
glory. It's like, give me some of that.
Self-love will always contend. Now here's one of the evidence
of self-love. It will always contend for free
will. It'll always contend for my will. What about my will? It'll always contend for works. Salvation always will, because,
you know, my works got to mean something. And then he begins to mention
the evidence of self-love and which is the evidence of the
conduct and character of these false preachers. From self-love
comes, naturally, covetousness. There are covetous lovers of
money. Have you ever seen, and I know
you haven't, there's never been a time in the history of this
world where preachers are filthy rich. I mean, one of them that
I know of is very close to being a billionaire. You know, as we read through
the Word of God, you don't read of God's preachers being... None
of the apostles were rich. Paul said, I've suffered the
loss of all things. God's preachers live upon what God gives them,
and God gives them what they need to live on. He doesn't make
them rich. I don't want the Lord, and I
say this seriously, I don't want the Lord to make me financially
rich. I want to be rich in Christ.
I want to be rich in love. I want to be rich in grace. I
want to be rich in kindness. I want to be rich in joy. That's
what I want to be rich in, and that's what you need to be rich
in, you and I. We need to be rich in these things. We don't
need to be rich in these worlds. They bring a lot of problems.
They bring a lot of problems. But it starts with self-love.
They're covetous, looking for personal gain and recognition.
They're not content with what God's provided. More, more, more. And they're boasters. You see,
they're self-love. They love themselves. They're
covetous. And now they're boasters. They're braggarts. That's what
that means. They're braggarts. They brag on their wealth. They
brag on their gifts. They brag on the sides of their
congregation. They're like the Pharisees of
old who thank God, I'm not like other men. I thank God I'm not
like other men. That's arrogant. That's arrogant. I bet that Pharisee wishes now
he is like that sinner. They boast, listen, they boast
because, and here's where boasting comes from, the more one boasts
and brags, the emptier they are. Can you write that down? They're,
the emptier they are. And here's why they boast. They're
proud. Proud. You know, pride will grow,
it'll grow anywhere. It'll grow in any soil. They're
proud. You know, in the scriptures,
the scriptures teach us that pride is one of those things
that God hates. You know, it mentions this six,
seven things that God hates. The first one is proud, a proud
look. He hates it. God hates it. You
see, pride says that I'm somebody. I'm a self-made man. I heard
this the other day. This guy was a very wealthy man. He was talking about being a
self-made man. God said, I make rich. I told
this to a rich man not too long ago. God said, I make rich, I
make poor. I lift up, I bring down. I, the
Lord, do all these things. I kill, I make alive. Nothing
moves, nothing happens apart from God, Almighty God. Someone said this, I read this
this week. There's nothing worse than being
proud or pride, but especially when it comes to pride of race,
pride of place, pride of face, and the most offensive of all
is pride of grace. We, I tell you, human nature
is proud of anything and everything. They'll find something to be
proud of. I'd rather be humbled. Proud. Like that lady I told you about
here a week ago who spent $25,000 on her wedding to marry herself. Proud. Nobody else is worthy
to marry her but herself. She couldn't find anybody worthier
than herself, so she married herself. That's crazy. And then
if they're proud, they become blasphemers. You know, blasphemy starts in
the thoughts. It starts with the way you think,
how we think of God. And then it comes out in words.
And then it comes out in action. And we can see this. There's
one building, church so-called, up the road here toward Lillington.
They always have some of the most blasphemous statements on
their billboard. It's just awful. And they think
it's cute. I know the pastor, whoever that
pastor is, he must think these are just, he just thinks he's real witty or something. But they're the most blasphemous
things that you could ever read. And this is how they are identified. They're blasphemers. Any thought or any word that
does not give God all the glory is blasphemy. We do not use his
name in a blasphemous way. We don't use his name at all
in a blasphemous way. When we speak of God, we speak
of Him with reverence, with respect and honor. He's our Father. He's our Father. You know, people
speak of God a lot worse than they even speak of their own
parents. We are to speak of Him with reverence
and respect and stand in awe of Him. But they are blasphemers. They're not afraid to speak against
God. And it says here they're disobedient to parents. It starts
early. It starts early. But what this
is saying, when Paul says this, is that they are disobedient
to authority. Parents are the first order of
authority. These false preachers, these
rebels, are just against authority. They hate authority. You know,
God established authority, and they hate it. They hate the
authority of magistrates, they hate the authority of pastors,
they hate the authority of employers, they just hate authority. And
it comes out at a very young age. It does. And then here's
another evidence of them. They're unthankful. Unthankful
people are unsaved people. I'm telling you, if God saved
you, you're thankful. You are thankful for the first, probably
the first time in your life. You're truly thankful. Thank
you, Lord, for saving my soul. Thank you, Lord, for making me
whole. Thank you. And you're a thankful
people. Unthankful people are lost. It's
just so. And those who are unthankful
are unholy. They're unholy. That means without
fear of God. They have no fear of God. They
have no fear to put those stupid statements up on their bulletin
board. They have no fear of God. They have no regard for God's
word. They have no regard for the gospel. No, they don't have
that. They use it to their advantage. They take this Bible right here
and they use gospel language. They'll use gospel words for
their advantage, take advantage of people's ignorance and people's,
you know, people are religious by nature. They're just religious
by nature. And you can get them to do a
lot of things by playing on their conscience. And these people
here are unholy. They have no fear of God. They
have no, they have no, uh, fear of indulging in the flesh. They don't have it. And they're
without natural affection. This has to do with parental.
We're speaking here basically of parental. The mothers and
fathers don't have that natural affection to their children.
And the children don't have that natural affection to the parents. They don't have that natural
affection. There's not that natural affection that keeps a husband
and wife together, they don't have it. He says they don't have
it. They don't have that natural
affection that a friend has to a friend. They don't have it. And they're truth breakers, they're
covenant breakers. They'll give you their word,
but whatever advantages them, they'll take it back. They'll
take it back. You know, there's a scripture
I'm trying to think of. It's over. I'm going to look at Psalm 15.
I'm going to see if that's in Psalm 15. It may not be, but
let me see if it is. Let me just read this psalm.
It's just five verses. Look at it. Lord, who shall abide
in thy tabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill?
He that walks uprightly, works righteousness, and speaks the
truth in his heart. He that backbites not with his
tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbor, nor taketh up a reproach
against his neighbor. And we know all this applies
to Christ, because he didn't do this. He did walk uprightly.
But now, listen. In whose eyes a vile person is
not contemned, but he honoreth them that fear the Lord. Now
here it is. He that sweareth to his own hurt and changes not. He gives his word, and he realizes
that his word that he gave is really going to hurt him. But
he doesn't take it back. He's what we call a man of his
word or a woman of her word. They give their word, and even
though it's going to cause them some hurt, they don't take it
back. Not so with these hooksters here. If they need to take it back
for their advantage, they take it back. It means nothing. Their
word means nothing to them. And they're false accusers, he
says. They slander others' character. You know, in Paul's day, Paul
dealt with this. They called Paul a false apostle,
that he was a liar. They said everything you could
say about him. And they did the same about our Lord. If they
did that to him, they'll do it to me and you. But they are false
accusers. They don't care to destroy a
person's character. You know, if you destroy a person's
character, you can destroy the ministry. And that's what Satan
does. One of the first things Satan
does, and this is, he's so subtle, but one of the first things he
does is try to destroy the man's character. Isn't that what they
do in politics? You just step into the arena
of politics, and the first thing someone's gonna do is dig up
dirt on you, and you're gonna, you know, love, hide is the matter.
Love hides the matter. You don't go around telling it.
But they dig it up and just plaster it everywhere they can plaster.
They try to destroy your character. And that's satanic. That's satanic. You can usually mark this down
when someone's talking to you. And they're destroying somebody's
character. Satan's in it. Satan's in it. And they're incontinent. That
means they are without restraint. Their fleshly appetites, they
just turn them loose like wild horses. They just turn them loose. They don't restrain their appetites,
their tempers, their anger, their passions, their desires. None
of that is reined in for the glory of God. Paul said, mortify
the deeds of the flesh. They don't mortify it, they feed
it. They fainted. They indulged themselves. He
said they're incontinent. Fierce. Fierce. These people are fierce. Now,
they may come in the door smiling. They may come in the door smiling
and just shaking your hand and patting you on the back, but
they're fierce. Unkind. Inside, they're hateful. I remember this statement my
pastor made many years ago, but it stuck with me. When I read
things like this, fierce, angry, unkind, hateful, mean people
go to hell. Where love is shed abroad in
the heart, where the grace of God is tasted,
If you have tasted that the Lord is gracious, you're gracious. And that love that is shared
and brought in the heart, it's coming out. It's coming out whenever
the opportunity is given. And it's not going to come out
perfectly. We know that. There's sin in
everything we do, but it's coming out. But if it's not there, it's
not there. The meaning here, when it says
fierce, it's like a beast that's been cornered, and they come
out fighting, they come out fierce. When the Apostle Paul was beaten,
and all these things, he was stoned, he was beaten, we never
read of the Apostle Paul fighting back, do we? When the Lord was
being relatable, When he was reviled, it says
he reviled not again. He reviled not again. But these
don't, they are fierce and they are despisers of those that are
good. Good. If you don't run with them,
they're going to despise you. They're hypocrites. They hate
believers, just as the Pharisees hated the Lord Jesus Christ.
And they're traitors. They betray confidence. You tell
them something, they're going to tell somebody. It's like they're
going to tell somebody or bust. And they're heady. Got to have
their own way. That's what heady is. High-minded,
puffed up, swelled up with vacancy. And they're lovers of pleasure
more than lovers of God. That's why you see many, many
of these televangelists. I mean, their homes are like
playgrounds. They're just unbelievable. Lovers of pleasure more than
lovers of God. And that goes back to verse two
there, where Paul says they're lovers of their selves. But whatever
they do, they do for themselves, their own pleasure. This is the
character, and this is, Paul says, this is the face of false
religion, and it's going to get worse and worse in the last days,
in these last days. It's not going to, that is not
going to get better. You know, false religion never,
it never gets better. False religion will be false
all the way to the end, all the way to the end. And he says here in verse five,
and he says that, now having a form of godliness, they have
a show of godliness. It's all external. They're like
the grays. They've got their whited sepulchres.
They look good on the outside, all decorated up on the outside,
you know, all the flowers and all the mown grass. And it just, there's some beautiful
cemeteries out there. I mean, they're decorated, but
on the inside, it's ugly. It's full of dead men's bones.
All their religion is on the outside, and you can tell that
when people don't have anything on the inside, they wear it on
the outside. I know, I did it. I used to wear
a T-shirt. It's awful. I used to wear a
T-shirt, or not a T-shirt. I guess you call it a t-shirt,
whatever you want to call it. And on the back of it, it had
a hand and it had a finger pointing up and it said, one way. I wore
that to work. I wore that to work for a good
while. It was early. You know, I made
a profession when I was 20. And those who have nothing on
the inside, they've got to wear it all on the outside. But I
tell you this, if you have it on the inside, there's nothing
more beautiful than a meek and quiet spirit. There's nothing
more beautiful than kindness. Here's how we adorn the gospel. It's not by getting a short haircut.
It's not by the outward things we do and look like the all-American
boy. It's that adorning of the gospel
with a meek and quiet spirit. It's that kindness. It's that
love. It's that joy that just comes
out of you. I tell you this, it's that contentment. It's the contentment with what
God's given you and where he's placed you. You are content. You're happy. You're happy. Your happiness has nothing to
do with the amount of money you make. Happiness has nothing to
do with the home you live in. I know people that are rich and
miserable. That's not where it is. It's
all on the inside. It's Christ in you. The hope
of glory. This is where happiness is. I'm happy here. I'm happy here
because I believe I'm doing the Lord's will. I believe that. I'm not here because of any other
reason than the fact that I believe this is the Lord's will, and
I'm happy. I'm as happy as I can be. My dad said that. My dad
said that to my brothers and sisters one day. He told me this. He said, I believe that John
and Vicki are the happiest of all the children in the family. I believe they are. I didn't
tell him that. I didn't tell him that. I didn't
say, Dave, we're the happiest. I didn't tell him what I'm telling
you right now. He saw it. He saw it in our demeanor,
in our conduct. Happiness just comes out. I'm
telling you, if you're happy with Christ, you're happy with
everything else. Our happiness is in a person,
Jesus Christ. Nowhere else. Nowhere else. Now
these have a form of godliness, an outward form of religion,
but they deny the power. They deny the power of the gospel
to save. They deny the power of the Holy
Spirit to regenerate. That's why they drag people down
and out. You know, if you really trust the Holy Spirit to apply
the gospel in power and to save, you don't drag people down an
aisle. You just leave it alone. You know, I learned early on
in preaching to do this. Stand up, speak up, sit down
and shut up. That's the process. Stand up, speak up, sit down
and shut up, because it's the power of God the Holy Spirit
to apply the gospel. It's His power to instruct you
this morning. If He instructs you, you won't
forget. If I instruct you, you'll forget before you get out the
door. They profess to believe the gospel,
but they deny the power of it. Now, He says, Of this character,
Timothy, of this sort, are they which creep into houses like
a snake. You don't hear the snake slip
into the house, do you? They slip into the house, into
the church. They slip in. They slip in, and they lead captive
silly or foolish women, or the meaning is little or diminutive
women. They go after the women, like
Satan went after Eve. He did not take on Adam. He went
after Eve to get to Adam. And I believe, I mean, I don't
know all the things to be known of that situation, but I know
this. He went after the love of his heart. He went after the
love of his, Adam loved his wife. So much so it got him in trouble.
So much so, he preferred her above God. He that loves mother,
father, sister, brother more than me is not worthy of me.
And Adam did. And Satan went after him through
his wife. And these, these, these hooksters,
they slip into the flip into the house and they, they take
these women. He said, he's silly women laden
with sin, burden with sins. And they, and they just make
all these smooth promises and they just talk right into following
them. And they do, they do. If you
look at these occults and I'm going to close here, but you
look at these occults, what are they mostly made up of? Women. Women. And you'll see that the
leader of that cult is surrounded by many women. Free love. They promote free
love. What they're promoting is their lust. That's what they're
promoting. But he says here, they're ever
learning, that is, they're ever learning new doctrine and are
ever able to come to the truth. Here's why they never come to
the truth. Lies do not lead to the truth. If you're constantly
telling a lie, you can never come to the truth. And then he gives two examples.
He says, now Janus and Jambres These were the Egyptian magicians
of Pharaoh, and they withstood Moses. Their names are not in
Exodus, but they're in Jewish writings. Josephus wrote of them,
and they withstood Moses. And these also do the same. They
resist the truth. They are men of corrupt minds,
reprobate concerning the faith, but they shall proceed no further,
just like those two men did. There's a stopping point. There's
a point where God says, enough's enough. He'll bring them to a
close. He'll bring it to a close and
put an end to their evil. Aren't you glad the Lord looks
after His church? Aren't you glad He keeps us? Oh, I tell you, Satan comes in
every direction he can come. If he can't get you this way,
he'll dig this way. If he hits a wall there, he'll
dig this way. He never stops. But thank God,
thank God Almighty, that we are kept by the power of God through
faith. All right.