OUR CRITICAL TIMES

2 Timothy 3:1-13 (New American Standard)

1 But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. 2 For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, 4 treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power ; Avoid such men as these. 6 For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, 7 always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. 8 Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men of depraved mind, rejected in regard to the faith. 9 But they will not make further progress ; for their folly will be obvious to all, just as Jannes's and Jambres's folly was also. 10 Now you followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, perseverance, 11 persecutions, and sufferings, such as happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium and at Lystra ; what persecutions I endured, and out of them all the Lord rescued me! 12 Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. 13 But evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.

  This is a picture of just how hopeless and empty society really is?  Just glance over 2 Timothy 3.  Within the first thirteen verses, I find three descriptions of our world: difficult, depraved, and deceived.

The first verse refers to our times as "difficult."  The King James version renders the word perilous.  Another translates it terrible.  The Greek root word means "grievous, harsh, fierce, savage."  It is used only one other time in the New Testament.  In Matthew 8:28, it appears when the writer describes two men with demons as being "extremely violent."  What an apt description of our world! Savage harsh, violent.  If you question that, if you need proof that that is no exaggeration, check this morning's news on the Web or listen to the evening news.  Both will convince you our "village" is in desperate straits.

  Further in the passage, we read of two men from the days of Moses as representatives of people in these "difficult" times. "Depraved" is the word to describe them (2 Timothy 3:8). It means humanity is as bad off spiritually as it can possibly be. Dead toward God. Unmoved by anything spiritual. Hard-hearted and dark within. Depravity is a universal disease in society. And we are reaping what we have sowed.

  Now let's look at the third descriptive term. It will not surprise you to read these words: "But evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived" (3:13). The last word is the one to notice: "deceived."

  Today's "village" is a place where impostors flourish.  Rip-off experts flood every profession.  Religious charlatans are here as well.  Many politicians speak smoothly from both sides of their mouths.  No one can deny the phony-baloney facade of ads and fads. And Scripture is right; society proceeds "from bad to worse."  Remove "the spring" of life from the village—take away the salt and the light—and within a brief time, "the village" becomes a diseased cesspool of contamination.

  Technically, there can be only one "keeper of the spring": Jesus Christ, the Lord.  But we, His servants, His representative ambassadors, have been commissioned to carry on until His return.  We, His servants, are assigned to the duty.

 ~Crosswalk~