A gracious God, most assuredly that is true, else we should all perish. We see in the case of Gideon,
now that Gideon as an example of Christ gave himself for the
nation of Israel and yet they were ungrateful and turned back
from that which he had taught them. And you know as we look
through the scripture and we see the unfaithfulness of Israel and we are made to wonder why
didn't the Lord just destroy them? I mean, they deserved it. They certainly never did anything
to deserve the favor of the Lord. And in that, the Lord would show
us the faithfulness that He has unto His people. He loves His
people with an everlasting love. He has not cast off Israel, which
He foreknew. that Israel, which is the true
Israel of God, they're His, and He loves them with an everlasting
love. What a glorious and gracious
God He is, that He daily loathes us with benefits, and is full
of mercy to all who call upon His name. This is, we're looking
in 2 Timothy, Chapter 3, 2 Timothy chapter 3. I'll read the whole chapter,
we'll just comment on a few verses here. It says, this know also
that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall
be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers,
disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection,
truce breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers
of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of
pleasures more than lovers of God, having a form of godliness,
but denying the power thereof from such turn away. For of this
sort are they which creep into houses and lead captive silly
women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, ever learning
and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Now as
Janus and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth. Men of corrupt minds reprobate
concerning the faith. But they shall proceed no further,
for their folly shall be manifest unto all men as theirs also was. But thou hast fully known my
doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, charity,
patience, persecutions, afflictions, which came unto me at Antioch
and at Iconium, at Lystra, and what persecutions I endured,
but out of them all the Lord delivered me. Yea, and all that
will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. But
evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and
being deceived. But continue thou in the things
which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom
thou hast learned them, and that from a child thou hast known
the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation
through faith, which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given
by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for
reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness
that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all
good works. Now Paul begins this chapter
with a exhortation to Timothy that is
oft times, I believe, misapplied and misunderstood. He says, this
know that in the last days perilous times shall come. Now, we've
talked about this before, what scripture means when it speaks
about the last days. Now, it is a common thing in
our present time to hear men look at this as though Paul is
writing to Timothy concerning a future time. that he's saying, we don't need
to worry about this now, but know this, that there's gonna
come a day when these things are gonna happen. In the last
days, it's coming later on down the road, perilous times shall
come. Now what he's telling Timothy, he says, know this, that these
are the last days, and it is taught in the scripture that
in the last days, perilous times shall come. And there are perilous
times, have always been perilous times. uh... from the beginning
most especially in the age in which we live that is being the
last time being the gospel age if you want to speak of it in
those terms uh... when christ has come and he has
manifested the lord's purpose in the earth uh... which is to
redeem his people through his blood and that is uh... a mystery that was hidden from
the foundation of the world. It was hinted at. And of course,
we can look back through the Old Testament and we can see
God's purpose on every page. We see it plainly. We understand
it. We know that when the Lord instituted
the blood sacrifice, when he sent Abraham up on the mountain
to slay his son, I mean, that wasn't about Abraham. It wasn't
about his son. It wasn't about God wanting to
see if Abraham was faithful, as some people would say. No,
the Lord wanted to find out just what Abraham was made out of.
No, there wasn't any of that. But the Lord would show that
he hath provided himself a sacrifice. What a glorious thing. So it is a true thing that we
live in a most glorious time wherein The Lord has been pleased
to reveal His truth unto babes and keep it hidden from the wise
and the prudent. And the Lord thanked His Father
that it was so. It has been His purpose. And
so we must understand that these perilous times have come upon
the Church of God according to the purpose of God. And the Lord,
even as Paul says here, as he kind of gives the explanation
for it, all yea and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus
shall suffer persecution. This world is not our friend. We're in the world, but we're
not of the world. And the world, if we were of
the world, the Lord said, then the world would would love us. The world would embrace us. The
world would bow down and worship Christ, but that's not the way
that it is. So know this, that in the last
days, perilous times shall come. Paul's telling Timothy, these
things have come upon us. Know this. You need to be aware
of it. Don't be thinking that this is
some golden age in which we're going to just float into heaven
and everything's going to be great. Now, you know, we live
in a country, the Lord has blessed us to live in a country where
we don't You know, we have many freedoms and we have much prosperity
that a lot of the world does not enjoy. And it's hard really
for us to grasp sometimes some of these things that Paul writes
about. because of that fact. Now, you
could say we've been blessed and we have, I'm not disputing
that, but then in another way, is it really a blessing to us
that we have all of this prosperity and whatnot? Oh, it's nice in
this world, but sometimes our view of things gets warped. And
we've discussed this just these past few days when we've been
deprived of electricity. And we thought that was just
the worst thing that could possibly happen to anybody. I mean, how
could it get any worse than not having your air conditioner working?
I mean, is there any suffering in the world like not being able
to have the air conditioner on when you're trying to sleep?
But that's kind of how we think, isn't it? I mean, that's kind
of how our mind goes. And so we're kind of up here
thinking about our troubles. But much of the world is way
down here, and they're loaded with many more troubles than
we. I mean, think of those brethren who would seek to follow the
Lord in Muslim countries. and in Hindu countries and in
places where there is not even a hint of consideration towards
those things that we hold dear. I mean, there is a nominal sense
in which people kind of tolerate the gospel in this country, but
it's not that way everywhere. By any means, we must not forget
that, but in any event, Perilous times shall come. Now he describes
this. Now, I want to, you know, we
understand that these things are very present. Every generation
looks at their generation as being the most wicked that could
ever be. I mean, if you read some of the comments of some
of the, we think back on the early days of this nation. We
think about even in the times of the Great Awakening and all
of those things, if you've read much history and whatnot, and
it appears that there was a time in the history of our nation
when we would think, if you read enough of the right kind of books,
you get to thinking that, man, I mean, people was just seeking
the Lord right and left. And there was a time when the
Lord poured out His great grace and many people did seek the
Lord. But the lament of men who followed the Lord in that time
was that these were perilously wicked times. And they say it
couldn't get much worse than what it is now. They didn't see
it like that. And so it is that when the Lord
gives men eyes to see, they see things from a different perspective. Now, if you read this list of
stuff to the world and to the men out there, they say, oh,
well, it's not that bad. You know what? You're just over-exaggerating. People aren't really all that
bad. I mean, we're really a pretty good bunch of folks, you know?
Just good folks. I mean, you know, the good old
boys. We're down here in the South, and you know, the Bible
Belt, and mom, and apple pie, and Bible, going to church on
Sunday when you feel like it. You know, and I mean, it's just
great. Everything's good. You can listen
to the country music songs, and they talk about, not in my town,
you know, we do all these great things in our town, because we're
all these great people, and we're just doing all these things.
But that's not how Paul describes men in general. This is not specific. He's not saying, oh, them terrible
men. No, he's saying, this is how
men are. He said perilous times are upon us because you see we've
been enabled by the grace of God to see what men are by nature. See everybody doesn't understand
that. You know when we say men are totally depraved, people
get up in arms about that and they say oh no, oh that's such
a terrible word, depraved. I don't think it's too, I think
it's probably not strong enough, but because the fact of the matter
is that men will be as wicked as they possibly can be. You
will be. I will be. I mean, if the Lord
removes his restraints from us, there's no telling what we'd
do. You know, we see all these things happen. These people pull
out guns and just kill people randomly, and we think, oh, what
a terrible person. What would ever cause a person
to do such a thing as that? Why, I'd never do something like
that. We'll just wait till somebody
makes you mad enough you know, does something that you think
is just terrible and they shouldn't have done it, and you, all of
a sudden, if you had a gun in your hand, you might do the same
thing. See, if the Lord doesn't restrain us, we will go to the
nth degree. There's nothing that keeps us
back from total destruction of ourselves and those around us
except the mercy of God. Now, a lot of people just think
that's just awful. Well, no, it's just not that
way. Well, we're all really good folks. Well, not what the scripture
says. There's none good, no, not one. There's none that understand
it. There's none that seeketh after God. We've all gone astray,
gone aside. And so when Paul's speaking to
Timothy here, he's describing what men are by nature. He's
warning Timothy. He said, don't get to thinking
that everything's going along all right, because I'm telling
you, this is how it is. And you're going to be able to
see this Men shall be lovers of their own selves. Now isn't
that, isn't that kind of, we were talking about that yesterday
on the way up to a meeting that we went to, me and Brother Ed.
And you know, it is a true thing that the first person we always
think about is ourselves. And every one of you, when you
rode around and you saw a big old tree crush somebody's house,
and you thought, man, that's bad. I feel sorry for them that
the tree fell on their house. But you know what the next thing
you thought was? Man, I'm glad it wasn't my house. I mean, because that's just in
us, is it not? Men shall be lovers of their
own self. You know, I hear all these psychologists
and stuff talking about we need to teach men, folks to love themselves. Well, I've never had that problem.
I don't understand, you know, that. I don't think that's a
real problem. Men do love themselves. They
shall be lovers of their own selves. Covetous. What's covetous? It means desiring something that
you don't have. It means basically what coveting
is, is not just simply desiring something you don't have, but
it's desiring something that you don't have and not wanting
someone else to have it. In other words, you want to have
something so someone else can't have it. Covetous, boasters. Oh, we wouldn't
do that. Proud. If you find any of these that
you're not guilty of, raise your hand as we go along. Blasphemers. What's blasphemy? It's having no regard to the
glory of God. That's what sin is, is it not?
For all have sinned in what? come short of the glory of God.
It doesn't mean that you didn't measure up to the standard of
God. It means that you had no regard
to the glory of God. So that's what sin is. David understood it, didn't he,
when he prayed? And he confessed his sin to the Lord
and he said, against thee, and thee only have I sinned. Now
David sinned against the nation of Israel. He sinned against
his family. He sinned against Bathsheba.
He sinned against Uriah. He sinned against a bunch of
folks, but you see all of that faded away because the nature
and the thing that the Lord taught David to understand when He gave
him true repentance was that his sin was against Almighty
God. And so blasphemy is anything
that does not take the glory of God into account and give
Him all glory. It may be just an offhanded comment. I think today, and this, don't
misunderstand me, I'm not defining this as the only form of blasphemy
that there is, but it is blasphemy. It's a phrase, I don't want to
even say it, but the letters of it, which often has become
a very common little thing to do, is OMG. Every time you see that, unless
it's spoken in a person crying out to the Lord in prayer, Wherever you see that, that's
blasphemy because it is a not consideration of who it is that
you're speaking of. I mean, telling jokes about the
Lord or about things to do with the truth of God. God's people
ought never to be involved in such stuff as that. Blasphemy. It is a denigration of Almighty
God. The Lord said, thou shalt have
no other gods before me. That is, before my face, not
put me up here at number one and you can have number two and
three and four. But he said, not even in my presence. I'll
not share my glory with any. Disobedient to parents. Now that's, none of y'all have
ever been there, have you? See, that's the first place.
Now, why did he say that? Because see, that's where it
all begins, is it not? I mean, the first disobedience
that ever exists in a child is a disobedience to his parent.
He doesn't, do what his parent says, or he thinks his parent's
wrong, or whatever. I mean, he walks contrary to
that. Children, obey your parents,
for this is good in the Lord. But it's much more than that.
Because you see, disobedience to parents is just simply the
natural outgrowth of man's rebellion against God. Because you see,
a child has no idea who God is. Not a bit in the world. And the concept that they grow
up with, in general, I'm speaking about through natural teaching,
of the nature of God is through their parents. And if their parents,
you know, teach them the fear, their parents, then that child
has a greater likelihood, humanly speaking, of growing up to have
some fear of God. But when parents don't discipline
their children, and don't put the fear in them, then they have
no fear. And I believe we see the fruits
of that in our society, especially when for the last few generations,
there's been little, of that fear. In fact, it's become illegal
in places. What a turnabout that is, is
it not? Unthankful. You know, unthankfulness is just
not recognizing from whom it is all our blessings come. Oh, may our hearts be filled
with thankfulness like that song that we sing from time to time. Unthankful. You know, unthankfulness
is that which causes men to go contrary to the way of God. Unholy. Now, of course, all of man's
activity is unholy. But to be unholy is that which
is not set apart unto God. Is that not the place where God's
people are to be? To be set apart unto the Lord,
to set our affection on things above, not on things of the earth,
but to set our affections on Christ. That's a holy affection
set on Christ, but it's an unholy affection that's set on the things
of the world because these things pass away. The word holy simply
means to be set apart. When Isaiah saw the Lord high
and lifted up, as we read in the sixth chapter of his prophecy,
what the vision that he saw was those creatures that flew around
the throne and ceased not, day and night, to cry out, holy,
holy, holy. Lord God Almighty who was and
is and is to come. See the Lord alone is truly holy
and what that means is He's completely set apart from man. He dwells
in the light to which no man can approach. Now we got all
these preachers running around out here today that just tell
us, well, you know, the Lord, he's just sitting around waiting
on you to do something for him or to call on him. I mean, he's
your servant more or less. But God's inapproachable. You
can't come unto God. You better hope that he comes
to you. Because you see, he's a holy God. And the salvation
of men rests in the hands of God. Jonah learned that, did
he not? In the belly of the great fish.
And his confession was salvation is of the Lord. He knew he was
a goner. I mean, how many people had he
ever known of that got swallowed by a fish and lived to tell the
tale? Doesn't happen, does it? But
the Lord taught him what it is. Without natural affection. Now natural affection is a thing
that in the measure we are born with. But the wickedness of men
in their quest for many things often causes them to be without
natural affection. That is, they're not naturally,
they don't express their love in manifest ways. Not just saying
that they love those whom they love, but they don't do it continually. They don't do it in the measure
that it should be. But it is a true thing that to
be without natural affection also has a consideration of men
without natural affection toward God. So you don't have natural
affection toward God. You don't love the Lord with
all your heart, soul, mind, and body, though you're commanded
to do it. It's just not natural, is it? Only as the Lord gives
you that can you have it. Without natural affection, truce
breakers don't keep their word. You never have done that. False
accusers. Now, you know, we see this, of
course, illustrated, we see it every day in our own self. How
often do we try to accuse somebody else of something that we caused
or was our fault or whatever? But you see this plainly manifested. It's pretty clear in the political
season in which we're in. Each side's accusing others of
the most worse things that could possibly be, and they're probably
all guilty. But the false accusation doesn't
come in from the fact that what they're accusing them of they
might not be guilty of, but it comes in when they think that
they're not guilty of the same thing. See, that's the error
of false accusation is when you're guilty of the same thing and
you're making a big deal out of somebody else doing that.
False accusers, incontinent, can't control their self. You
don't have any habits. Paul said, you know, I'm free. in all things, there's nothing
really that can condemn me, but he said, I will not be brought
under the power of any. Now I don't know of any substances
or any things like that in the earth that will bring a man into
condemnation, but I know of a bunch of them that will control a man's
mind, heart, even his soul. You know, there are many substances,
drugs and all of those sort of things as we see them in this
world today that men begin with and pretty soon they'll sell
their own children for some more of it. Incontinent and unable to control
themselves, fierce. I read about a thing today, and
I'm using these illustrations. I'm not pointing these people
out and saying that's how they are. I'm saying this is how we
are, but I'm just using these things as an illustration. This
gentleman, his neighbor was a real grumpy old guy, and his little
boy was having a party, and they were kind of loud and everything.
But anyway, the little boy's basketball popped over the fence,
and the guy that was the man's neighbor, he took a screwdriver
and stuck in it and flattened the boy's basketball. That was
a terrible thing, wasn't it? Well, then the little boy's father,
he didn't react to it right at that moment, but then from then
on, for the next two years until the man died, every time that
the man would come out in his yard, he would turn on his air
compressor or turn up his music or he would just do everything
he could to aggravate this man, right up to the time that the
man died. Now, you know, that's, That's fierceness. Revenge. The Lord said, vengeance is mine,
I will repay, saith the Lord. But how easy is it? Often in
our heart, whether we carry it through or not, don't you sometimes
just kind of hope somebody gets something, I hope they get, this
happens to them, or I hope that happens to them, you know, because
they deserve this. I mean, that's the way we are
by nature. You'll find it. You know, you'll
discover it one day in yourself if you're honest. I mean, if
you look, if the Lord's pleased to give you an eye to look at
yourself honestly, you'll see that these things are so. Despisers
of those that are good. Oh, goody two shoes. You ever
said that? You ever thought that? You know,
despisers of those that are good. There are those, by the grace
of God, that go about doing good. Now, I didn't say they were good.
I said the Lord blesses them to do good. And then sometimes
because we think it puts us in a bad light, you know, somebody
goes out here and he volunteers and does all these things, helps
these people, we won't say, ah, yeah, but he's just doing that
to, you know, make people think good of him. Or we got something
to say about it. Despisers of those that are good.
Now there is really only one that's good, and of course bringing
this back to the place where If we want to apply it to ourselves,
despise those that are good, I mean the Lord alone is good.
There's none good but one. And that is the Lord. And how
often we have despised his way and turned from it. Traitors. That is not faithful to the Lord. to one another, perhaps even
in greater measure to other things. Heady, that is, filled with thoughts
of our own importance. High-minded, thinking our way's
the best way. Our way's always right. Y'all don't ever do that. I certainly
wouldn't. But we do find ourselves there,
don't we? And you know, that was a pretty stupid thing there.
I mean, that guy, he don't have any sense. Why do we, you know,
Paul said this. He says, we know nothing as we
ought to know. And you know, if you just contemplate
that enough, that kind of takes away any place that you've got
to be critical of someone else in what they know or don't know.
Because only by the grace of God do you know anything. High-minded, lovers of pleasures
more than lovers of God. I think that everybody would
have to confess that that is true of themselves. Now these things, while we're
saying all of these things indeed are evident in all of us, they
are more greatly manifested for us to see what we are in the
wickedness of men in general. It's like I talked about the
fact, you know, we see all of these terrible things taking
place. When you see horrific crimes committed by somebody,
It ought to just remind you what a sinner you are. It usually
doesn't, however, because we're too busy thinking about what
a great sinner they are. I mean, the Lord said as much
to his disciples, did he not? He said to them, because he knew
what was in their heart, he says, you think those on whom the Tower
of Siloam fell, that they were greater sinners than any other?
He said, nay, I tell you, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise
perish. See, that's the place all of
us are. It's not that these men are greater sinners. What about
these guys that come in to churches and stuff and various places
and shot all them people? I mean, are they more terrible
people than others? No. The Lord just removed his
restraint from them, and you'd be the same way if it wasn't
for him. I know that makes you mad. It
does me when somebody tells me I'd do something like that. I
don't like it. I think, no, I wouldn't do that,
but I know in my heart I know the wickedness that dwells in
my heart to some extent. See, sometimes people say, well,
I know my own heart. No, you don't. Your heart's deceitful
and desperately wicked. Who can know it? The Lord does. Now, some people take comfort
in that. Have you ever heard anybody say, oh, well, the Lord
looks on our heart? Well, brother, if anything ought
to ever cause you to tremble in fear, it's that. The Lord
knows what you are. You're not hiding anything from
Him and so you might hide it from me and you might hide it
from yourself. But the Lord knows exactly who
and what you are. Lovers of pleasure more than
lovers of God having a form of godliness, but denying the power
thereof from such turn away. A form of godliness. Religion is a form of godliness. And it is the most rampant thing in the earth today. Men
run after all sorts of religion. And it is a form of godliness.
Because men rely on anything that a man relies on other than
Jesus Christ as his righteousness, totally. and completely before
Almighty God is confessing a form of righteousness, a form of godliness, but denying
the power thereof. This is exactly what we've been
saying. All of the righteousness of God's
people comes from the gift of God to men in the person of Jesus
Christ denying the power thereof, for of such turn away. I thought
we might get into, I'm gonna stop there, I was gonna maybe
read, get into this business about leading captive silly women,
but I'll let y'all think about that till next week. And, you know, that's, the Lord,
women are silly, but men are stupid. Because you see, Eve was deceived. Adam was not. Adam had greater sin because
Adam with open face disobeyed the Lord. Oh, that the Lord might teach
us what we are by nature. You know, if you read this passage
of scripture here and you think about all them people out there,
you miss the whole point of it. Because it isn't about the people
out there. This is about who we are, what
we are by nature. May the Lord deliver us from
it, because if he doesn't, we shall surely perish.