"This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their
own selves, covetous, boasters, . . . lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form
of godliness, but denying the power thereof:from such turn away" (2 Tim. 3:1-5).

This chapter begins with the statement that in the last days perilous or difficult times shall come.
A number of questions arise as to this; "When are these times?" "Have they come yet, are they
past, or are they yet to come?" and "Difficult times for whom?" I believe we can truly say that
for God’s own people_the Church today_difficult times are here. May we be more as Daniel was
in his day, for God gave him to know the times. If these be difficult times, we know that God has
given us every resource in the midst of all the difficulty. We need continually to turn to Him.

Let us now consider the various characteristics of these difficult times which God through the
Spirit gives to us by Paul in his letter to Timothy. The first characteristic is, "Men shall be lovers
of their own selves." Is not this true of the world all around? We see it everywhere. Such
selfishness as is prevalent now, there has never, been in our history before and it is worldwide.
We even hear the people of the world speaking of it:"Where are the ethics anymore? Everyone
in the world seems to be selfish." We as Christians might think, why does that concern us? Well,
we are out in the world every day, are we not? That is the exercise that I have upon my
heart_that these things we are reading about can brush off on us and defile us. The old nature is
still within, and sometimes it is not always evident to us that worldly attitudes have rubbed off on
us, yet we show a self-love. At the same time we lack that mind which was in Christ Jesus that
esteems others better than ourselves (Phil. 2:3). How we tend to surround ourselves with our own
little fence, so to speak, and not be concerned as we should be about others. We want to do what
we want to do, regardless of how it affects others in our own assembly, or in the whole body, the
Church. Oh may it not be characteristic of us that we are lovers of our own selves!

The next characteristic is "covetous," or as another translation has it, "lovers of money." Now we
can fool each other for a time; but as people get to know us better and visit our homes it does not
take long before it can be easily seen that in our hearts we are lovers of money or what money
brings. We have been living in too affluent a society these past few years, haven’t we? It has
rubbed off on us. We want to accumulate this and accumulate that. We think of income; we think,
"In so many years I am going to retire, and I will have so much, and I will travel around the
world, and I will do this, and I will do that." May our Father and the Lord Jesus search our hearts
that we might clearly see what is the goal of our life.

Next we read, "Men shall be … boasters, proud." Oh, that certainly does not become us who
belong to Christ. We are to have that mind which was also in Him, who thought it not something
to be held onto to be equal with God. He was equal with God_God the Son_yet He stepped
down. As we see in Phil. 2, He took a low place to become a Servant, the perfect Son, the Son
of man; and then further, He humbled Himself and went into death, even the death of the cross.
Although this passage in Second Timothy applies especially to those in the world today, does not
that element come in among ourselves who are Christians as well? Does it not come into my own
heart, into your own heart? We are proud, aren’t we? We have gotten along so far in our status,

in our work, in society, and at home. Sometimes we criticize others of our brethren for being
"after money all the time," and then we turn around and tell about all the great things we have
been doing. Oh, how subtle our hearts are! "The heart [that is, the natural heart] is deceitful above
all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?" (Jer. 17:9). The older we get, the more we
learn the subtlety and deceitfulness of our own hearts.

Another description of men in the last days is "blasphemers" or "evil speakers." In the world there
is no limit to which man will go, no limit to speaking evil against all authority and all powers, and
even against God Himself. But among God’s own people, are there evil speakers? Are the things
which we speak, and the things which we think, "First pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to
be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy" (James
3:17)?

"Disobedience to parents." Perhaps some of the younger people may think we have worn out this
phrase. But God’s Word puts it here. God has constituted the family; He has entrusted parents
with children, and we are told to bring up our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

To be sure, we make all kinds of mistakes as parents. Yet God has put us there, as parents, with
responsibility for our children; and children in the place of responsibility to the parents. So the
spirit which is prevalent in the world today is not simply disobedience to parents, it is a refusal
of the authority of God who put the parents over the children. It is true that we parents make many
mistakes in bringing up our children. One may be too strict, too legal, or else too weak, too
liberal, too permissive. We may chasten too much or too little. But above all that, God has
established His Word, and we must follow His Word.

I would say to the children:Our parents are not old fogeys from the Stone Age, as the world puts
it. Our parents have been given to us, and what a privilege it is to have parents who are the Lord’s
and who are seeking to bring us up for Him. So may we look beyond the mistakes "of our parents
and seek to be obedient to God in being obedient to our parents. And as for parents, we must obey
God and bring up our children for Him.

"Men shall be … unthankful." Where is there thankfulness in the world? There is discontent
everywhere. During economically harder times there has, in general, been more thankfulness by
the people in the world. But today, the accumulation of material things has not produced
thankfulness, but the contrary. It is part of the fallen nature to get what I can get and then to get
more. But again, unless we are subject to the Spirit of God and walking in communion with the
Lord Jesus this same spirit of unthankfulness will permeate our life too.

The next characteristic listed is "unholy" or "profane." This is a general term that would cover
many things. We think of the Lord Jesus, how He loved righteousness and hated iniquity. He was
the One who knew no sin. And we should be like Him, allowing the new nature to operate in us
by the power of the Spirit, so that we might not become like those in the world whose whole
course is unholy and profane.

"Without natural affection." That is everywhere in the world, is it not? Consider the marriage and

divorce statistics. That is just one phase of it. Natural affection seems almost no longer to exist.
To truly fall in love and to marry for life seems to be becoming something obsolete and belonging
to the Victorian era. Seldom before has there been made so much in the world of what is really
lust.

And of course we find a lack of affection in children toward their parents, too. This is seen when
the parents get older. We cannot say what is right for each one; that is between the soul and the
Lord. But in the world that lack of natural affection is, I am sure, the reason why there are so
many convalescent homes and old people’s homes. So instead of that natural affection being
present as- it used to be, the attitude now is to send our aging parents off to the nursing homes,
visit them once a week or once a month, and then go our own way, live our own life, and enjoy
it.

"Men shall be … truce breakers." No one’s word is good anymore in the world, it seems. Let us
be careful to keep this from coming in among ourselves. May our word be good.

"False accusers" or "slanderers." Oh, what a seed- this is that comes in sometimes among God’s
people! What attitudes a root of bitterness brings out! Many are defiled by it. And how the Spirit
of God is quenched. How easy it is to point to other people’s faults. It is very easy to see the faults
of others, but I need to look within and see how I measure up to just the thing I am speaking of
in someone else. So often slandering and backbiting come from a bad conscience; I talk slightingly
about someone else, and that makes me feel better because I can think of myself as on a higher
plane than that one is. Is there something that offends us in another one of God’s people in our
own assembly? Let us first of all take it before the Lord, examine it all before Him to see if what
we think about that person or those persons is true; and then in the spirit of Matthew 18 we ought
to go to that one. It takes a lot of grace. As another said many years ago, we have to be as a
doormat, allowing others to walk over us, so to speak. We have to get down low so that the Lord
can use us to restore others.

"Incontinent" or "unsubdued passion" is prevalent in the world today. This description includes
all kinds of passion. How many murders are committed every day for what variety of reasons!
Lives are taken over the smallest matters. Unsubdued passion covers many other things as well.
How the world is filled with "free love" today; it is the worst bondage there is. It is unsubdued
passion. Again, we as Christians are living in this world, and these things can brush off on us. We
see it every day, and how defiling it is. How we need to go to the Lord continually, to wash our
feet as we go through this scene.

The next words are "fierce, despisers of those that are good." On every hand, perhaps now more
than ever before, there is that element of despising anyone who would stand for righteousness.
Applying it to ourselves as believers, we should not resist what someone may say to us because
we have something in our lives that needs correction. May we not despise those that are good, but
take, as from the Lord, any exhortation that is given to us. Let us forget the vessel _the person
offering the correction_and recognize that the Lord has set the members in the body of Christ as
it pleased Him, for our good and for His glory.

"Traitors" is similar to what we had before in "truce-breakers." Traitors are those who turn
against what they are. We usually think of those who turn against their own country as traitors.
But here it means one who turns against what he knows is right, to be a traitor to it.

The next characteristics are "heady, high-minded." Oh, how much headiness there is. How much
the man of the world is boasting of his knowledge, of having opportunity for more education than
had previous generations. But often, if this education is not rightly received, it produces headiness
or high-mindedness. This is one of those things that is of the world_the pride of life. If God gives
the privilege of better education, may we use it for Him. All that we do should be done in the
name of the Lord Jesus, and that includes education. May we be free from headiness and high-
mindedness.

"Lovers of pleasures more than lovers pf God." Certainly this is true everywhere. And how easily
does this love of pleasure fit in among God’s people. There are certain things we like to do and
we will make time and room for that; we have the money to pay for it too. Everything is lined up
in the right direction, we think. May we examine our hearts before the Lord as to what we are
doing with our spare time -our leisure hours. There may be the legitimate excuse that we are doing
it for our family. But may we be more before God about every aspect of our lives, day by day,
and shall we say, weekend by weekend, so that we will not be characterized as lovers of pleasure.

The last characteristic mentioned is "having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof."
Could this denial of the true power of godliness be the reason why there is so much going after
the. tongues and healing movement today? Perhaps we have all had experiences in speaking with
someone connected with this movement. We always try to take up the Word and enjoy something
together, to have a measure of fellowship with someone whom we believe belongs to the Lord.
But time after time in speaking to these people, we do not get very far in the Word. The tongues
arid healing have come in to take the place of what, perhaps, used to be, in a measure, the work
of the Holy Spirit We should .not speak disparagingly of true believers who have been entrapped
by this system, but let us pray for them and seek to help them in rightly dividing the Word of
Truth. Surely this "experiential theology," as some call it, is very subtle and one can easily be
attracted to it if not well grounded in the truth.

"From such turn away." May die Lord preserve us in these last days when difficult times are here.
We could isolate ourselves as hermits somewhere, but that is not the way God would have us live.
He would have us stay in the world, as the Lord Jesus prayed the Father that He would not take
us out of the world, but that we might be kept from the evil (John 17:15). We especially need this
today in these difficult times.

(From a message given at the Cedar Falls, Iowa, Bible Conference, August 1972.)