Times of Difficulty

I invite you to turn with me to second Timothy and to chapter three you'll find it on page 996 if you are using one of the Bible's around you in the seats we pick up our studies in second Timothy here at the first verse of chapter three we'll read through to the end of verse nine 2 Timothy 3 verse 1 but understand this that in the last days there will come times of difficulty for people will be lovers of self lovers of money proud arrogant abusive disobedient to their parents ungrateful unholy heartless son appeasable slanderous without self-control brutal not loving good treacherous reckless swollen with conceit lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of god having the appearance of godliness but denying its power avoid such people for among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women burdened with sins and led astray by various passions always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth just as Janice and John Burris opposed Moses so these men also opposed the truth men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith but they will now give very far for their folly will be plain to all as was that of those two men Amen father we do this because it is imperative we recognize our own personal insufficiency both in teaching and in listening in understanding and having the truth applied to our hearts so help us we humbly pray in Jesus name Amen now having read the passage in the English standard version I want to reread it for us purposefully in the paraphrase of the late Kenneth Taylor which he left for us in the Living Bible and 2 Timothy 3 first five verses read as follows you may as well know this to Timothy that in the last days it is going to be very difficult to be a Christian for people will love only themselves and their money they will be proud and boastful sneering at God disobedient to their parents ungrateful to them and thoroughly bad they will be hard-headed and never give in to others they will be constant liars and troublemakers and will think nothing of immorality they will be rough and cruel and sneer at those who try to be good they will betray their friends they will be hot-headed puffed up with pride and prefer good times to worshipping God they will go to church yes but they won't really believe anything they hear don't be taken in by people like that you know when you read this and it comes across I think forcibly doesn't it in the paraphrase there we could be forgiven for thinking that some are another Paul had been able to read the newspapers of the last week or had actually been listening in to our news broadcasts because the list that is here before us reflects in multiple generations the prevailing attitude of a society in which men and women have set themselves up as rivals to God the catalogue of evils which is here and it's not dissimilar to other catalogs that Paul provides for example in Romans 1 and Galatians it makes depressing reading and Paul is not providing this here in order that Timothy might be upset or discouraged but in order that he might be better prepared that's why he begins as he does understand this back in the second chapter and in verse 7 we noted when we were there that he encouraged him it he to think over what it was that Paul had been writing to him and in order that the Lord would give him understanding and we tried to make the point in passing that Christianity involves the mind that our minds matter that unlike some other attempts at spirituality or religious activity whereby the mind is largely disengaged in considering what the Bible has to say it is imperative that we are thinkers and so I hope that you have come this morning prepared to think we can't necessarily take that for granted to think about this passage to think about what it means in relationship to the context in Ephesus all that time ago and in the context of Cleveland this morning to think about what is happening in the world to ask the question why are things the way they are perhaps pointedly to ask the question why am I the way I am and at an even deeper level to ask the question Who am I and what am I and foundationally to ask the underlying question does the Bible provide credible helpful answers to these kinds of questions now I'm not inventing the questions they abound I trip over them every day reading in the Daily Telegraph last week in an interview with Martin Amis and Ian McEwan celebrated English writers of the 20th century McEwan in the course of conversation as it made this observation he says you know there is an increasing urge isn't there to have the world explained Science and History and international relations belong view on current events and as an intellectual he is wrestling with these questions questions that Paul is actually addressing here in writing to Timothy as his young lieutenant who's taking over from him as Paul prepares to go and meet Jesus so what I want to do is simply follow Paul as he traces a line here noticing that he tells us in the first verse about these times of difficulty that's all I wrote as a heading in my notes times of difficulty not exactly brilliant but nevertheless it helped me focus Paul as we've seen could never be accused of sugarcoating the challenges of Christian ministry he began this letter by saying to Timothy I invite you to join me in suffering for the gospel so in other words Timothy knew right out of the gate this is going to be pretty daunting it's important that Timothy understands what paul is saying when he identifies these times of difficulty as taking place in the last days in the last days we need to know what he means by that now I recognize that this little phrase the last days stirs up all kinds of passions in home Bible study groups people can get off on all kinds of tangents and often in a very unhelpful way therefore it is important for us to allow the Bible to answer the question is Paul here describing some remote and distant future when he says in the last days does he mean days that Timothy will never experience himself that they're way out there somewhere in the future clearly not he is writing in the future tense but he's writing with his gaze on the present that's why he's able to say concerning the false teachers have nothing to do with them that would be an irrelevant exhortation if the then were not present in the now and so we just immediately learned something and we learned what the Bible teaches us that the last days began with the coming of Jesus we could proof text this but it's tedious Hebrews 1 begins in many in various ways God spoke of all by his profits but in these last days he has spoken to us by his son the coming of Jesus has assured assured this time in Peter grasps this when on Pentecost he explains to the people who were bemused by the Pentecostal environment this isn't some kind of strange visit to the brewery that has produced this but this is actually what God promised from of all that in the last days he would pour out his spirit on all flesh and Paul and Peter is saying and so what you see now is in that context so in other words it is immediately apropos Ephesus and it recognizes the fact that each of us post coming of Jesus pre the return of Jesus are living in the era which the Bible refers to as the last days now obviously there will be last days to the last days but that does not alter the reality of what is here the difficulties and the hostility of these days will vary from time to time and presumably from place to place but Paul wants Timothy to understand that it is to be expected that there will be turbulence I know many of you fly a lot as I do and I'm always very grateful when they announce the prospect of turbulence not to scare us by to reassure us I'm never I'm never daunted by the fact when someone comes on and says the captain has asked us all to be seated for about the first 25 minutes of the flight so that's fine it's going to be like Cedar Point what I would having to buy a ticket it's going to be it's going to be a wonderful experience the faith stretching experience but we're prepared for it as opposed to whoa what was that the people shouting out in the middle of the middle of the experience so Paul doesn't want any shouting out he says to Timothy you should expect the turbulence to come in between the two comings of Jesus the followers of Jesus are going to face seasons or cycles or eras or epochs that are terrible perilous difficult and the word for difficult here is the word that is used in Matthew chapter 8 of the demoniac individuals whose fierceness was such that they could not be controlled by any human being it's the word that is used in classical Greek of the way the raging of the sea or of animals who which would be absolutely ferocious if they were not kept under control so in other words there's nothing superficial about this and some of our brothers and sisters this morning in various parts of the world have a better grasp of these difficult times than do we so we don't need to go any further than that I don't think understand this you need to think in the last days in the present tense there will come times of difficulty and then in verse 2 the conjunction for introduces us to the cause of these things and so I wrote in my notes people are the problem people are the problem these difficult times will come for people doesn't immediately start to describe circumstances but to describe people and the characteristics of people I want you to notice the opening phrase and the closing phrase the opening phrase people will be notice here's the phrase lovers of self then if you go down to verse 5 into the closing phrase rather than lovers of God all right so the whole list is bracketed between these two descriptions people who love themselves rather than they love God one of the cultural treasures of Cleveland of course is our Orchestra and under the direction of the conductor we have a whole group of world class musicians who make wonderful music that many of us have come to enjoy but if you can imagine going to Severin some Thursday or Friday evening only to discover that the orchestra had deposed the conductor that Franz the conductor had been and every member had decided that they were going to play whatever they wanted to play and it was only what mattered to them was what they wanted to play well I don't think we any of us would stay in there for more than a minute and a half it certainly wouldn't be melodic it would be absolutely chaotic now the storyline of the Bible says essentially the same thing that God the Creator is a conductor of his universe man has deposed the conductor man then seeks to write his own melody line men and women seek to live their lives without reference to the score and without reference to the conductor and when that happens results follow God the Bible tells us has made us for a relationship with himself but we in our rebellion from the very beginning as we read the Bible have decided that we will have God replaced with substitutes now you will notice that the list continues for people will be lovers of self and then lovers of money if you go down again to the bottom lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God so here we have the four loves if you like not CS Lewis's four loves but the four loves you have the love of self the love of money the love of pleasure or the love of God the transport the transforming power of the love of God said against the substitute loves of myself what I've managed to put together and the abandonment of my senses to whatever makes me happy and pleased in the sexual realm in the mortal realm in whatever it is no God is going to tell me what to do now you see what Paul is doing here and it's very striking he's identifying self love as the essence of rebellion against God self love as the essence of rebellion against God think that out because most of us have lived through the end of the 20th century and into the 21st and what has been a mantra of the closing decades of the 20th century that the reason that society is as it is particularly Western society is because individuals do not love themselves enough that the real problem is we need to really start loving ourselves hence the self actualization of New Age mantras and so on it's all about you look inside yourself you'll find the answers and so on we become familiar with that then you read your Bible and what is described as a panacea what is described as a cure by Paul is described as a disease that what the 20th century has offered to us as an answer to our dilemma is actually provided in the Bible as the reason for our dilemma you see why it's so important to be reading our Bibles I don't want to get off on this but you might want just a ponder the fact that you and I are now enjoying the privilege of living in the generation where one of the words and there are only a few words make it into the Oxford English Dictionary in the in the electronic form it goes electronic before it ever goes because those are big books takes a long time to reprint them but but in the in the last 24 months one of the words that has made it in there is selfie selfie okay in fact it was one of the top words by Time magazine in 2012 it is now embedded in our culture now it's not my responsibility to enter into a diatribe concerning this after all van Gogh painted a picture of himself you know Rembrandt did a few of his own but you're not Rembrandt and I'm not van Gogh social commentators are interacting with us not from the perspective of the Bible but they're just making observations they go along these lines here's two for example by general whirter in the New York Times she says that the introduction of the selfie is at best an attempt to mark our short existence and hold it up to others as proof that we were here so it's kind of a way of letting everybody know I exist we know okay you really don't need to go to that land Alicia eller coming at it from a different perspective says it is narcissism that is worst where we become our own biggest fans and our private paparazzi now you can think this out yourself but Paul describes how self love is a company then by an assertive disregard for other people and for the needs of our world people will love themselves love money and notice the words that follow proud arrogant abusive now which of those words are hard to understand none and their behavior is to be seen he says at the very epicenter of society in the context of family life it's quite striking isn't it that in these lists that Paul has not only here but elsewhere in his letters disobedience to parents comes almost every time doesn't that seem a little trivial that we would throw into the realm of immorality and abuse and scorn and implacability and everything just throw in disobedience to parents not at all because you see a child's obedience to his parents or to her parents is emblematic of our obedience to God and that the way in which I show myself to be an obedient son of God is to be an obedient son to my mom and to my dad and when you have a culture where by the legal systems of the culture make it possible for the children to sue their parents for the exercise of their god-given duties you got a culture that is deeply on the slide disobedient to their parents ungrateful unholy heartless heartless in other words utterly lacking in normal human affection the breakdown of human society at the very heart of things and when these times of difficulty come he says there will be and if you read the list and I'm not going to work my way through the list is tedious actually but you can affirm it for yourselves later when these times of difficulty come they will be accompanied by a glaring and disturbing absence of gratitude respect affection and reasonableness gratitude respect affection and reasonableness and there will be within the environment in these difficult times the embracing of recklessness brutality and unbridled conceit now you've got your Bible you can read and see what I'm telling you is actually there now let's pause and acknowledge that this is not entirely this is not a whole picture some of you are immediately going this a little bit heavy I mean after all I know some children that do obey their parents not mine but I have met some that do obey their parents you know and I know some families that are very happy together and so on of course they are if it weren't for the restraining grace of God if it weren't on if it weren't for the kindness of God to restrain the impact of evil it would be hell on earth the only thing that prevents a culture from finally imploding just destroying itself is actually the grace of God who is sovereign ly working over the universe you see how radically different this perspective is you see how vitally important it is when we're thinking about transitioning truth from one generation to another generations that are growing up having in having embedded in their psyche things that are absolutely diametrically opposed to the truth of the gospel and we have very short time and very few opportunities to harness these life's and to impact them with the truth and to speak into their lives is this the little girl I dreamed oh is this the little boy at play and all of a sudden the university students all of a sudden they're married all of a sudden the opportunities that we thought we had to impact their lives have gone we think about this children's wing it is beautiful you love it when you see it but unless the teachers in there are on their game unless the parents are on their knees then it may be the finest building you've ever seen in your life and amount to nothing at the end of the day unless these truths are imbedded in these tiny hearts now I recognize that to speak in this way is an unpalatable kind of menu to say that this is as it is I have so many of my friends who say you I always thought you were a nut bag but not as big a nut as this because we live in an environment of victimhood don't we our culture is a culture of victimhood now it's not my problem is her problem is this problem she did it where did that come from the Garden of Eden the woman you gave me it's not my problems her if you hadn't give me her if I is your problem God you came up with this program it's not my problem one of the other great cultural benefits of living in the sugar and Valley is the presence of Bill Watterson who is the who was who stopped it now but he was the writer of the author of Calvin and Hobbes and right here in chagrin he penned these little things including this cartoon which reads as follows Calvin is speaking to Hobbes there Calvin the boy speaking to Hobbes the tiger and he says nothing I do is my fault my family is dysfunctional and my parents won't empower me I'm not self actualized my behavior is addictive functioning in a disease process of toxic codependency I need holistic healing and wellness before I accept responsibility for my actions to which Hobbes the tiger comments one of us needs to stick his head in a bucket of ice water and the cartoon ends with Calvin walking away saying I love the culture of victimhood of course you love the culture of victimhood because it alleviates responsibility people always ask me who who's your biggest problem at Park sight tell him same one from the day I walked in the door me me I am my own biggest problem what's wrong with the world they asked Chesterton Chesterton said I am you will never get to this by nature only by grace by nature revolt against such a notion because we want to make sure that we are in charge they want to make sure that we are in control we want to make sure that everyone knows how really pleasant and good we are until we lie on our beds at night we know that isn't the case we know what it is to be proud and to be disobedient and to be abusive and all these other things now John Lennon I guess he's best known for imagine all the way he wrote many better things than imagine the sort of forlorn notion of imagine that if you could remove religion and all of its implications things would be much better people would be happy and if you could imagine no posessions imagine no boundaries imagine no passports the whole thing then we'll all just be you know singing Kumbaya together it's a wonderful kind of naive thought but it's not the whole story of Lennon if you know the things that Lennon wrote and sang you know that he wrestled with the implications of the fact of the wardeness of the human soul for example do you know this song that begins you can shine your shoes and wear a suit you can calm your hair and look quite cute and you can hide your face behind a smile but one thing you can't hide is when you're crippled inside you can go to church and sing a hymn you can live a lie until you die but one thing you can't hide is when your crippled inside you see again this morning as we read our Bibles it is an unpalatable truth and yet it is a vital truth that we as individuals are warped bent in upon ourselves as wise as Luther said from the very moment of our conception and the moment of our birth how else do you explain all the badness all the sadness all the meanness all the jealousy have you noticed that evil has raised its head that our politicians are all of a sudden prepared to use the word evil our president in the last 24 hours David Cameron with a further beheading of a journalist evil is here okay where did it come from the Bible is the only place we get a realistic answer it says the problem is our problem now enjoying this to a close and we'll come back to this later but there's something that we need to really notice and that is that as he goes through these lists this list he is not standing as it were pointing his fiction his finger at a putrifying culture II he has that in view but he is actually indicted the false teachers who have embraced much of the sadness and the madness and the badness of the surrounding culture you see that because it just comes almost out of the blue lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God it's not a full stop as a comma having the appearance of godliness but denying its power what Paul you're actually talking about some of the people in the church you're talking about some of the people here in the congregations in Ephesus yes don't you remember he says when I when I left the Ephesian elders in Acts chapter 20 I warned them that they better take care of the flock of God that's under their care because after my departure the will arise from among yourselves fierce wolves who will actually attack the congregation what's happened his prophecy has come true these individuals have substituted self for God and there's false teachers they have an impact Paul is very straightforward about this he's quite he's quite clear in stating things they profess to know God he says when he writes to Titus but they deny him by their works what are they like they're detestable disobedient unfit for any good work it's not very politically correct is it why would you go to such lengths to say these things have you seen people dealing with the Ebola virus they don't have people walking around going hey yeah I think we got a little problem here with the virus no it's like it's like after space why because the disease is so virulent but didn't Paul at the end of chapter 2 say now try and bring people along if they oppose you and be nice to them and don't be quarrelsome he did absolutely he doesn't seem to be saying that now does he absolutely not what does he say now have nothing to do with such people why because you get like the people with whom you spend time these false teachers have made such an impact and they have convinced people that their religiosity on the outside is representative of the reality of their relationship with God on the inside and Paul says no it's not they have embraced the attitudes and practices of the surrounding world and their lives are the very denial of the power that they proclaim and here's the strange and important thing to note we are not to imagine that these individuals were augers you know if this was a cartoon you know that they that that the people would be like and you would be you would identify them no no no no no no they would be sleek slick white teeth bright smiles big talk compelling language large crowds big results big revenue avoid such people that loved ones we're either going to get serious about what the Bible has to say are we going to have to go on our own way and when you read this kind of material you need to understand I need to understand what Paul is saying and what he's not saying Paul is not suggesting for a moment that the church is supposed to circle its wagons and have nothing to do with people who are idolatrous or who are sexually immoral or who are greedy or who cheat because when he wrote to the Corinthians he said I'm not saying that you should do that because he said if you were to do that you would have to be removed from the world you couldn't even live in the world I mean to live in the world is to be associated in this way I wasn't writing to you to disassociate yourselves from there but I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he's guilty of sexual immorality or greed or is an idolater a revealer a drunkard or a swindler don't even eat with somebody like that Wow while we'll pick up from here next time when these individuals start sneaking into the homes of weak-willed women we're always watching Christian television but can never understand what they're watching don't you love how up-to-date the Bible is but let me finish in this way our world is broken you got to be crazy to say that it isn't there's hardly a place to which we can turn whether it is in international relationships whether it is in family matters whether it is in courts and in jurisprudence whether it is in the ethical questions of medicine whatever it might be and the thinking person has to say why and the thinking persons has to say now how can it be fixed is the answer political is the answer economic there are dimensions to all of that the culture essentially says the problem is an external problem it's not your problem and your answer you can find in yourself and you turn to the Bible and it says the reverse says the problem is actually your problem and the answer you can find outside of yourself outside of yourself where well there is a green hill far away outside a city wall where the Lord Jesus was crucified who died to save us all we cannot know we cannot tell what pains he had to bear but we believe it was for us he hung and suffered there there was no other good enough to pay the price of sin he only could unlock the gate of heaven and led us in isn't it amazing that God on account of his immense kindness pursues not the righteous or the self satisfied but pursues the likes of art's who hide from him run from him and worship substitutes have you ever said to God in the privacy of your own life in your own home Lord Jesus Christ would you please take my life and all of its brokenness and and will you fix me he will if you turn to him and you may just admit that you're messed up just believe that he is the person he claimed to be the Redeemer about which we were saying it just consider the fact that it's a major revolution he takes the steering wheel not you and then just do something about it call out to him father hear our cries from our individual hearts bring our lives into line with your truth grant that what is of yourself may find a resting place in our minds and hearts that which is unhelpful or untrue or unclear unkind you will banish it from our recollection but Lord Jesus Christ grant that we might in recognition of the immensity of your love towards us in your sacrificial giving of yourself that we might offer ourselves a way to you unreservedly all that we are and all that we have for as long as we have left to live for we pray in your name amen

Channel: Alistair Begg

Views: 151,744

Rating: 4.853035 out of 5

Keywords: Alistair Begg, 2 Timothy, False Teaching, Worship, Christian Thinking, Last Days

Id: GHBu53IZVXg

Length: 37min 18sec (2238 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 17 2014