Just know also that in the last
days, in the last days, you know when the last days started? The last days started when Christ
came. They're called the last days
since the Lord Jesus Christ came. It's not the last times, it's
not the last times, but it's the last day when our Lord came.
And you find it in the Old Testament several places talking about
that day, that day, the day that he shall arise with healing in
his wings and shall appear in his temple. But I'm going to
show you that. Look, you keep 2 Timothy. Look
in Hebrews chapter 1. And this is another place that
shows us exactly what the last days are. You know what, here look what it said in verse
1. God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in times
past unto the fathers by the prophets, now listen to this,
hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath
appointed heir of all things, but whom he also made the world.
See, he's spoken to us in the last days by Christ. So when
our Lord Jesus Christ came, that's when the last days started, the
last days. And I know, I want you to understand
this also, that you know the scriptures were written in verses
and chapters. So when you read a letter, you
gotta read all the way through it and see how the continuity
goes on. But Paul told Timothy, he says,
you be sure to teach, let no man teach no other doctrine.
There's people that's gonna deny the resurrection. There's people
that are vain babblers. There's people that are proud,
knowing nothing, doting about questions. And so he is exhorting
Timothy, and then he told about how that the servant of the Lord
must not strive, but be gentle unto all men. Of course, these
people opposed themselves. Anybody that opposed God opposed
themselves. Maybe God would give them repentance
unto life, and that God might recover them out of the snare
of the devil. who also are taken at Him by His will. He goes on
to say, you think that's something? You think everything that I've
told you is something? I'm gonna take you just a little
step farther. He said, this know also. I want
you to know this. With everything else I've told
you that in the last days, and this is in Timothy's day and
Paul's day, this know also that in the last days perilous times
would come. Perilous times. And when he talks
about the last days, he's talking about the coming of our Lord
Jesus Christ. The scriptures are broken down
into what we call historical theology. You have the days from
Adam to Moses. Adam to Moses. You have Noah,
Shem, and Jacob and you go down to
Abraham and you go down through there to Moses cup and Moses
when he came and From Adam to Moses, when the law was given.
Then from Moses to the coming of Christ, it was the days of
the law. That's why they said Moses would
be, we're disciples of Moses. And so, the Moses, until Christ
came, was days of law, and days of ceremonies, days of ritual,
and the scriptures kept telling that our Lord Jesus would come,
and all those things would be indulged and that they'd be done
away with. So the last days is when Christ himself comes. But
there's a lot of people that believe that the last days would
come when they would come, like they think this is not the last
days, but they're looking to something that'll happen in the
last days. And there's a lot of people think there's gonna
be peace and this awful wonderful time on the face of the earth,
that people be obedient to God and especially His Word, and
especially those who claim to know Christ, Paul, he's warned
Timothy about so many things, so many things. And what he warns
him of, he warns us of, warns us of. You know, he says, you
know, you've got that faith that your mama had, your grandmother
had. And don't you give heed to seducing spirits and doctrines
of devils. Don't you do that. You be true
to the word of God. You study to show yourself a
workman approved unto God. So then he comes down here and
warns him, see. And he says, and he warns Timothy
and all of us and everybody that listen and every true believer
in that age. Expect perilous times. It's perilous
times. times of danger, times of weariness,
times of frightfulness, perilous times, hard, difficult times,
and it's not by reason of we ever having outward trials or
anything like that. It won't be because we're scarce
in food. It won't be because of that. It won't be because of these
people trying to sell you a whole bunch of food in case things
get so bad that you'll have food to eat for months. You know,
buy buckets full of them. You know, it's not like that. It's not danger from the sword. If somebody's gonna come and
persecute us with a full sword, then the government's gonna take
over the churches. That's not what he's talking
about. But he's talking about the reason of wickedness, which
is people that's in the church at that particular time. And
in lots of churches who profess religion. He's talking about
pastors. people who pretend to be holy. And listen, this is what we have
to contend with in our day. We have to contend with legalists.
I know so many legalists. So many legalists. Anybody that
goes to law is a legalist. Anybody looks to the law and
says, well, we go to Calvary to get saved, we go to Calvary
to get our sins forgiven, then we've got to go back to the law
to know how to live. What did Abraham live by before
the law was given? What does scripture say? He lived
by faith. What did Jacob live by before the law was given?
He lived by faith like everybody else does. And I tell you what,
the pastors and people of God will have to contend with legalists,
false teachers, You know what a huckster is? Somebody on television
and everybody else trying to con somebody and tell them that
you'll get a special blessing from God if you'll do something
for them. Send me some money and I'll send
you a special bottle of water. Send me some money and I'll send
you a prayer cloth and put it in your billfold and you'll be
good to go. That's a huckster. And they've
got filthy rich doing it. Filthy rich doing it. There's
one guy, I can't think of his name. Doogie and them used to
sit up at night and make fun of him. I can't think of his
name. There's so many of them. Hucksters. Robbing widows. Telling poor
widows, send me some money. And them poor widows, they'll
go without food themselves so that they can buy their way into
heaven. Buy a blessing from God. And
I tell you what, and had to deal with evil and profane men and
women in the churches. And this time prevailed in the
day of the apostles. Let me show you here in verse
15 of chapter one, look what happened. This is what Paul's
talking, this is a perilous time. He said, this thou knowest that
all they which are in Asia turned away from me. They all turned
away from him. You reckon that's pretty perilous
times in his day. This is an apostle. This is a
man who wrote 13 books in the New Testament. He said, everybody's
turned away from me. And then he started naming the
people that did. Look what he said over here in
chapter four in verse 10. He says, for Demuth hath forsaken
me. having loved, loved this present
evil world. And make what he said, men should
be lovers of themselves. That's what Demas did. He loved
this present evil world and departed unto Thessalonica. And I tell
you, only Mark is with me. Only Luke is with me. I've got
one person with me, standing with me right now. And I'll tell
you what, then look what he said over here in verse, chapter four
and verse 14. This is things that happened
then. Alexander the coppersmith did
me much evil. The Lord reward him according
to his works. And whom you beware too. You
beware of Alexander. If he done me evil, what do you
think he gonna do to you? For he hath greatly withstood
our words. He don't like my preaching. He
stood against it. And he said, at my first answer,
this is when he was standing before Nero, and this is when
he was first in jail. He said, at my first answer,
no man stood with me. Not one man stood with me. All forsook me. That's an awful thing, isn't
it? I've never been forsaken of everybody. In fact, I don't
know what it is to be forsaken. That's why David said, though
my father and mother forsake me, yet the Lord will take me
up. I got somebody that'll never forsake me. My mama might, my
daddy might, but God will never forsake me. He'll take me up.
And then look what he said. I pray God that it may not be
laid to their charge. He kept the attitude of Christ. They didn't stand with me, I
stood by myself. And he said, it's like Stephen
when he was being stoned to death. He dug down and said, oh Lord
Jesus, forgive them. Forgive them, they don't know
what they're doing. Now that's the kind of attitude those men
had, that they had. And I tell you, this is really
something. And I'll tell you something else about the last
days. Look over here in 2 Thessalonians chapter two, just go back a couple,
verses, talking about the last days and the way people look
at these things. And here's what most folks think.
And we know that Christ is coming. I don't know when He's coming.
Our Lord said, but one person knows when I'll appear and that's
my Father. Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our
Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him,
when he comes, all of us are gonna go be with him, that you
be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit,
nor by word, nor by letter asked from us, as that day of Christ
is at hand. And they were sitting down, not
doing anything, said, well Christ said He's going to come back.
And they sat down and said, we're going to wait and we're going
to stay right here until He comes back. He said, listen, they've
got you troubled. They've got you worried. And
he says, what Lord? He said, let no man deceive you
by any means. Now this is the key right here.
For that day shall not come, the second coming of Christ,
except there come a falling away first. Just look at who's here
tonight. You think we've had a falling
away? You think there's not a falling away? And when he talks about
a falling away here, he's talking about a falling away from revealed
true religion. And I tell you, this world has
fell away. Falling away from the grace of
God, from the truth of Christ, for redemption by Christ, by
the blood of Christ. It's a decision, it's a free
will, or it's the power of you God that's against God himself.
And he said, falling away first. And I tell you, we see a falling
away, and it's a falling away from the truth. That's what it's
a falling away from. And then he comes back over here
and he gives a description. I believe there's 17 of these
things that he uses as a description. I want you to know, Timothy,
of everything I've told you, I've got some more news for you. Perilous times shall come, and
here's the first thing. He gives description of all these
hypocrites and false professors and false preachers that would
arise in these last days, in the days of Christ. For men,
here's the first thing, men shall be lovers of their own selves. Lovers of their own selves. This
is put first. You know why it's put first?
Because all error, all vice, all sin, starts from a self-love. There's a fellow who wrote a
song. Thank God for self-love. I've
heard mothers say, I love myself more than I love my children. If you don't love yourself, you
can't love somebody else. But he said, here they should
be lovers of their own sins. And I tell you, all sin and all
error comes from this flow of self-love. I know this, he who
loves himself cannot love Christ at the same time. He despises
other people because he loves himself. He has no regard for
the glory of God. He has no regard for the good
of others. If it don't profit me, I don't
care about anybody else. Self-love promotes free will. It's you that loves yourself. And here's what, this is how
they prove self-love. You don't want to go to hell,
do you? Well, of course not everyone will go to hell. You want to
go to heaven, don't you? Yeah. And that's all based on
loving yourself to try to get you manipulated to do something. And I tell you, it promotes free
will, human merit, and then I tell you what's the honor and applause
self-love does. Oh my. And I tell you, there's
a mother and a father that God, I mean just naturally, naturally,
the minute they have a child, they never dreamed they could
love so much. And as that child begins to grow, they just can't
believe, I could love anyone that much. And that's just natural. But
these people are not natural. We'll see that later. And then
look what it says, the second thing is, is that they're covetous. Why, of course, if you love yourself,
you've got to be covetous. You know, covetous, I mean, they're
lovers of money. Lovers of money, covetousness.
You know, if you love yourself, you're looking for recognition.
You're looking for personal gain. You're looking for recognition.
Oh, I want to be recognized for what I do. They're not content
with God's providence. They're not content with God's
providence and how it goes on. And let me say this here about
God's providence. People say all the time, that
was God's providence that brought that to pass. There ain't nothing
that happens in this world that ain't God's providence. They
say, boy, that was good providence, wasn't it? Well, is there any
bad providence? We know that all things work
together for good to them that love God, so the providence of
God, it's always gonna be done, but they don't like the providence
of God. Do you know what they like? They
like to be what, they wanna go where they wanna go, they wanna
have what they wanna have, they wanna do what they wanna do,
and they're not interested in what God wants them to do, or
what God thinks about them. I tell you that's why Paul told
the Hebrews, he says, let your conversation, let your manner
of life be without covetousness. Why? Because he has said, God
has said, I'll never leave you, I'll never
forsake you. So why in the world do you want
to go around wanting something all the time when you got Him?
God, be content with such things as you have, is what scripture
says. And then look what else it says about them. Oh, not only
that, here's the third thing about them, boasters. There's
nothing worse than a braggart. Nobody wants to be around a braggart.
Nobody wants to be around a braggart. Oh, just somebody bragging all
the time, boasting all the time. Huh? Oh, they brag about what
they've accomplished. They brag about where they've
been. They brag about who they know. They brag about what they've
accomplished. Oh, my. Talk about their wealth. They talk about their gifts.
And preachers talk about their numbers. Well, we had 15 people
made a profession Sunday. We got 25 people down the aisle.
I'll tell you, Jack Howes, You all
look him up. He had one of the biggest church,
what they call the church that's ever been in America. And you
know why he got so big, he got started just busting ministry,
that they didn't even baptize anymore. They just turned on
a big faucet, great big faucet in a big place, and people just
walked under it. They just walked under it. Because
they had so many professions. And you know, they'd just get
them to the aisle and bust them into the churches. And no, there
ain't no sin. I ain't got time to baptize all these people.
What are we going to do? Turn on this great big faucet with
this great big thing and they're all going to get wet. Now that's
what you call a huckster. Huh? That's what somebody's bragging
about. Oh my, they brag about their
own righteousness. I heard a man say one time that
I tell you our righteousness, you gotta be careful about our
righteousness and the imputed righteousness of Christ. If you
go too far on your righteousness, you'll take away from Christ.
If you go too far this way, then you'll live a sinful life. Ain't but one righteousness.
Pharisees is the one that bragged on their righteousness. Paul
said there was one time I had a righteousness when I looked
at the law it was blameless but that same law that said I was
blameless turned around and slew me because it convinced me of
my sin and when it brought sin to me I died. To what? To the law. I died to self. I died to my hope that I had
in my religion. Died to all of it. And I tell
you, who maketh you to differ? Who makes you to differ? What
did we got? You know, we have nothing to
glory in but Christ. That's the only thing we can
glory in, in this world, is Him. Huh? Brad prayed twice last week
and he said, Lord, our lives is failures. We're failures.
But Christ's not a failure. He's the one makes us to differ.
He's the one who saves us and keeps us saved. Bless his name. Then look what else it says about
him. Boasters proud, proud. That's another thing. That's
another thing that God just, if there's, you look in Proverbs
16, and you see it yourself when you get home. But it says seven
things are, Seven things are an abomination in God's sight.
Six things are abominations, six things God hates, and the
seventh is an abomination. You know what the first thing's
mentioned in those seven things? The first one's pride. God hates
pride. Can you imagine a human being
made by God, created by God, life from God, lives and moves
and has his being from God to stand up and act proud in the
sight of God? to be proud. Oh my, nothing's more offensive
in the sight of God. God said, I resist that proud
man. They started arguing about which
one's going to be the greatest of them. My Lord said, I'll tell
you who's the greatest, he's the least. that fellow that just absolutely
has got nothing that he can glory in except Christ. Oh, they're
proud. Oh, my. And I tell you, somebody
said one time, people have pride of race. And I tell you, we hear
a lot about race now. But, you know, people got pride
of race. Then people got pride of place.
Oh, I'll tell you what. This is one thought. They said, Southern by something and then, you know,
something by the grace of God, you know, Southern born or something.
But anyway, being born a Southerner is supposed to be the greatest
thing ever. Huh? Oh, pride of place. Oh, you just don't believe what
place I occupy. You don't believe where I come
from. Oh, I tell you, I come from this great big place, you
know, and all this. And then I tell you, and then they have
pride of face. Oh, I'm somebody. I'm somebody. You know, there was a fella that
almost moved here. He's gone now. The Lord called
him home. But he almost moved here. And I prayed, oh Lord,
don't let him move here. Please don't let him move here.
He was a pistol. Oh, he was a pill. He was, oh. So he went over to Tennessee
one day and he went into a real estate office over there. And
he went in there. And he stood around there for
a while, waiting for somebody to acknowledge him. And he finally
walked over there and said, don't you know who I am? He said, no,
no. He said, I come in here and have
every intention of buying a piece of property, and I can't even
get your attention. And so he walked out, and I never
was so glad to hear that. Oh, my goodness. When heavy mayhem
go over to be around somebody, you know there's something. And
him he did, I was so relieved. But oh my goodness, he was so
proud of his faith. And the most offensive at all
in the sight of God is pride of grace. Oh, I'm so proud of
grace. I'm so proud that God saved me
by grace. Oh my. You know, old Scott said one
time, somebody told him, said, boy, when God saves you, he takes
all the pride out of you. God said, well, most of it, but
not all of it. We still got enough of it left
in us, don't we? But oh, to be proud. And then
look what else it says about them. I've got to hurry, hurry,
hurry. Then look what else it says about
them. Blasphemers, what's a blasphemer? Well, they think and use words
about God, and they blaspheme God the Father. They blaspheme
His Son. They blaspheme the Holy Spirit,
to whom all glory and worship and reverence and praise is due.
It's caused by Him that everything we have, we got from Him. Our
spiritual life, our natural life. But oh my, they turn around and
they blaspheme God the Father. You know, God's got no hands
but our hands. He got no feet but our feet.
Got no money but our money. I tell you what, that God's in
a wheelchair. If He's only got our hands and our feet and can't
do nothing without us, He's pitiful shape, ain't He? He's in beautiful
shape. And the Son? And the Son? Oh my. I wish the Son of God
didn't have to beg, but He does. The Holy Spirit, He really don't
regenerate people. They just make a decision. Make
a decision. And I tell you, then look what
else it said here. Disobedience to parents and unthankful. Those two things, I think, go
together. Because when you're disobedient to parents, and you
know, Paul talked a lot about parents and their children. And
when you talk about disobedience to parents, that's people who
despise authority, no matter where it's found. Despise authority. Whether it's in their parents,
whether it's in the government, whether it's in the pastor, whether
it's in somebody that they work for, they just despise authority. But when it says disobedient
to parents, then it goes around and says unthankful. If you have
a parent, a child that's disobedient to a parent, I tell you what,
the first thing you'll notice about them, they're unthankful
for what their mom and dad has done for them. And I tell you, if
you're talking about getting me upset real quick, you see
somebody, some youngin, mouth off to his mom, you say, shut
up! You ever heard a kid tell his mom to shut up? Have you ever heard him say,
no, I'm not gonna do that? If you don't get them from the
time they're born until they're five years old, you ain't got
them under control then, forget it. And I've seen this happen
so, they'll get you in public, and you'll have to give in to
them, they'll throw a fit. And you want to get them to shut
up their fit, so you give them what they want. And I'll tell
you what, I said, they used to say, wait till I get you to the
house. You'll not do that again. That's all you do, just wait
till I get you home. I'd go out of the building and
leave my child kicking in the floor. I said, you wanna throw
a little fit? Just throw a fit, I'm gonna leave
you here by yourself. Which garden is this going to
fit? I don't know. His mama left. That's what you ought to do.
Just leave them. Leave them. Leave them in there
and see what the world, see if somebody else is going to come
to the rescue. But oh my, that's just, Shirley and I had that
experience on the last flight we had. This little three-year-old
child sat in his mama's lap right across the aisle. Mama told her, no give me that,
no! Give me that, no! Give it to me, no! And then the
next thing you know, she went to screaming. She screamed and
screamed and screamed, what, for 10, 15 minutes? Just screamed
bloody murder. And her mother's trying to get
her to be quiet. She would not, so the more she told her to shut
up, the louder she screamed. unthankful disobedient But I'll
tell you what makes It's a parent's fault that they let these children
get by with it. That's my that's my own opinion.
That's my feelings about it I'll do tell you another story
one time Do he one time he seen somebody throw a fit. He was
about six or seven So he decided he's going to throw him a little
fit. He got down on the floor and went to kicking and hollering
and all that. I jerked him up off the floor
and I wore him out. I said, you ever do that again
and you'll not be able to sit down for a month. He just tried something to get
by. Let me see somebody else do it. Well, he's so embarrassed
about that, but he just decided I'm going to try it. I think
I'll try it. But oh my, they're unthankful.
Unthankful. Oh, describing everything to
themselves. And then look what else it says. Unholy. What does
unholy mean? Without fear of God. They have
no fear of God. They don't regard His Word. They're
not concerned for the testimony of the gospel of the grace of
God. They live and walk indulging their flesh. Their God is their
belly. Inwardly and outwardly, their
God is their belly. And then look at this one. This
one speaks for itself. Without natural affection. This world is full of people
without natural affection. There's people who don't have
natural affection to their husbands, or their wives, or their children,
or their parents, or their friends. No natural affection. And I tell
you, they're better to dogs than they are to people. They treat
their dogs better than they do their neighbor. That's unnatural
affection. And I tell you what, I tell you
what's unnatural affection, when a man leaves the use of a woman
to go be with another man, and a woman leaves the natural use
of a woman to go be with a woman. You can't get more unnatural
than that, can you? Can't get no more unnatural than
that. And I said, that's what the Roman, you know, these things
are in Romans too. Then look what else it says.
I've got to hurry, hurry, hurry. It says they're truce breakers. What's a truce breaker? Well,
it's somebody that when you make an agreement with them, they
don't care nothing about it. They don't care. They'll make
a promise, and that promise ain't worth nothing. Huh? Oh my. Truce breakers. They break covenants.
They don't care about the marriage bond. That's a, you know, people
don't care about the marriage bond anymore. They don't care
about it. When they get a contract, they make a contract with somebody.
Well, I'm not going to keep that contract. I'm not going to keep
that agreement. And I tell you, they make promises
to God and men, and when they make a promise, as I've often
said, you save your breath to cool your coffee. When certain
people make you a promise, you know it don't mean nothing. Don't
mean nothing. Then look what else it says.
False accusers. False accusers. What's a false
accuser? That means people that slander.
Slander people's character. They make up things about people.
They're gossipers, gossipers, tailbears, tailbears, gossipers,
false accusers. And then look what else it says
here about them. I wish I could go on to deal
with these a little better, but it says they're incontinent.
That word incontinent means without the ability to restrain yourself,
to restrain yourself. And I mean there's people that
has no ability to restrain themselves from their fleshly appetites.
They can't restrain themselves from their tempers. They can't,
you know, they can't restrain themselves from nothing. They're eating and drinking or
whatever, indulging themselves without any restraint whatsoever.
I said, that's what incontinent means. And then fierce, fierce. You know what that word fierce
means? It means untamed. It's like a wild beast that's
been untamed. And that's what he says. Fierce,
they're unkind, they're unthankful, they're hateful. They're like
somebody that when you get around them, they strike at you. Got
something bad to say, something evil to say, something horrible
to say. They don't care to wound you. And if you do anything to them,
I mean, they're fierce and their hearts set on vengeance. And
then look what he says here in verse 3 again. Despisers of those that are good.
Ain't that the way they treated our Lord Jesus Christ? Hypocrites hate true believers. Like the Pharisees hated the
Lord Jesus Christ. All these despisers of good,
the gospel of grace and the righteousness of Christ condemns them, condemns
them of their claims, brings out their malice, brings out
what they think about those that do good. Oh my, then look what
it says, traitors, traitors, and I'm gonna say something about
this. You know a traitor is somebody
who is not loyal, of course, that's what it means, a traitor.
We find somebody a traitor, as a traitor to our government,
we think they ought to be put away forever. But here, you know,
but anyway, it's talking here about people who betray secrets
of other people. When somebody gives you or speaks
to you in confidence, don't you never, ever give up that confidence. They say, now listen, I don't
want nobody to know what I told you. And if anybody gives you
anything in confidence, you gotta preserve that confidence. I believe that with all my heart.
And I tell you, they'll betray themselves, they'll betray other
people, and they'll do it to get gain in some way. Now, you
know, if somebody tells me not to, they say, I want this in
confidence, I'm telling you this in confidence, I wouldn't tell
it under no circumstances. I've been that way most of my
life and I just, but there's a dear lady, she used to save
me all the time. Now they told me not to tell
anybody, but since it's you, Since it's you, I say, now wait
a minute, if they told you not to tell anybody, that means me
too. Well, you know, it's you, and I know you won't tell it.
I know you'll keep it to yourself. But listen, if somebody says
to you, don't tell that. Please keep that between me and
you. You better keep it between them and there. They've proved
this before. You'll get people in a circle.
You tell this person here one thing. You tell them that. You
tell them what. Now you turn around and repeat it to the next
person. Then you repeat that and you go around the circle.
And by the time it gets to the last person, it ain't even close
to what the person told them to start with. So you know, trainers, didn't
look what it says. Heady, heady, high-minded. Oh, that means that they're puffed
up, heady, puffed up, swelled up, swelled up, uppity, we'd
call them. With vain conceit, they really
think they're intelligent. They've got great accomplishments
and great abilities. When Paul said, I'm nothing,
I'm nothing. And then it started out right
where we, it ends up right where we started. Lovers of pleasures
more than lovers of God. That just goes right back to
the same thing. Lovers of self, lovers of pleasure,
lovers of sin. They like applause. They like
worldly honor. They make gods out of their bellies.
They don't love the Lord Jesus Christ. Not at all. Love puts Him above everything
else. And then, I think I'll wait and
deal with that next verse next week. I've done, took too long. But I think I'll deal with that
next week. I've done, took too long. I've done with 39 minutes.