Paul gave Timothy some advice about the last days. This daily devotional looks at the difficulties that will be prevalent in those days and how disciples should watch for and avoid those sins.
Nuggets
- Disciples are to read Scriptures and apply them to our lives.
- We shouldn’t love ourselves more than we love God.
- The items listed in verses 3 and 4 do not reflect God’s character.
We’ve started looking at Romans 12-16 to look at how we transform our lives to be more like God. We just finished Romans 12.
We are going to take a break before we start Romans 13. I went back to the drafts folder and pulled out a devotion I had passed up before.
I think it is very important that we be reminded this world is going to end. God gave us several signs to give us a heads up that we are sliding into the end.
True, there are some from every generation who see the signs within their own generation — and the world keeps spinning. I think that is just their sensitivity and watchfulness to God’s Word.
Let’s see what we come up with.
The End Is Coming
“But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty” (II Tim. 3: 1 ESV)
Disciples are to read Scriptures and apply them to our lives.
We need to watch for signs of the end times. Also known as perilous times, Boston said that they are “times wherein it will be hard for people to keep their feet, to know how to carry themselves, to keep out of danger, and keep a good conscience.”
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God wants us to read and apply Scriptures so that we can escape the dangers in which Satan is trying to trap us.
We definitely do not want to be secure in what God hates. Owen wrote, “Our great wisdom then will be to eye the displeasure of God in perilous seasons, since there is a judicial hand of God in them: and we see in ourselves reason enough why they should come.”
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We can’t give lip service to being a disciple. Salvation isn’t to be an outward change. It is to be an inward one.
“Now the Holy Spirit tells us clearly that in the last times some will turn away from the true faith; they will follow deceptive spirits and teachings that come from demons” (I Tim. 4: 1 NLT).
Unfortunately, some disciples are going to turn away from God. They are going to follow the worldview.
Once we become disciples, we are to turn away from our sins. Sins are actions by humans that disobey God and break one of His reasonable, holy, and righteous laws and commandments, goes against a purpose He has for us, or follows Satan’s promptings.
Unfortunately, there are some who don’t. They are just giving lip service to the gospel.
Paul warned Timothy of people who will forsake the truth. “For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, will multiply teachers for themselves because they have an itch to hear what they want to hear” (II Tim. 4: 3 CSB).
We are just as susceptible as Adam and Eve were when they fell into Satan’s temptation. We succumb to His lies, too.
We “… will not tolerate sound doctrine …” (II Tim. 4: 3 CSB). We won’t follow God’s laws and commandments.
Instead, we try to rewrite them. We just want “… to hear what [we] want to hear” (II Tim. 4: 3 CSB). We want God’s laws to lead to what we want them to be and do.
They lead to God — Who He is and what He wants us to be.
We are to be different than the world.
- “He gave his life to free us from every kind of sin, to cleanse us, and to make us his very own people, totally committed to doing good deeds” (Ti. 2: 14 NLT).
- “If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you” (Jn. 15: 19 ESV).
- “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his possession, so that you may proclaim the praises of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (I Pet. 2: 9 CSB).
Jesus came to cleanse us from our sins and make us a priesthood. Sin has no place in that.
Owen made an interesting comment. We keep thinking that the end times will be the last of this earth as we know it. But it is more than that.
Owen said it was the last days of the gospel. Think about it.
The gospel is the good news of Jesus’ birth, death, and resurrection. It tells us about the Man “… who takes away the sin of the world!” (Jn. 1: 29 ESV).
The gospel gives us the opportunity to believe this. By ABCDing, our relationships with God are restored.
One day, that will end. God will cut off our opportunities to turn to Him. We will have to live throughout eternity based on the choice we made.
God won’t end all this and then say, “Okay. Who believes in Me now?” and allow that answer to change. The decisions we made in this life will remain.
Lovers of Ourselves
“For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy” (II Tim. 3: 2 ESV)
We shouldn’t love ourselves more than we love God.
Oh, we can have some self-love. Waterland thought that was an indication of our happiness.
When does this self-love slip into sin? We do that when we want control of our lives so that we always get the good things.
Waterland had some interesting things about fairness. He said that we should not desire everything because it looks fair.
The self-love should not escalate into pride. That is another name for self-flattery.
The self-love can be so strong within us that we start boasting about all of our good points. Then we start boasting of our possessions.
But this self-love and self-flattery turns into self-interest. We forget about God and come to depend on ourselves.
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The self-interest can turn into covetousness. Covetousness is an inordinate greed for wealth and possessions.
When we covet something, we take our focus off God and put it on ourselves.
It is a form of selfishness.
Bottom line is we can’t give God lip service. We can’t say that we want to give Him glory, and then don’t follow Him.
We can’t blaspheme God. Blasphemy is not only cursing God but also cursing the name of God.
To me, it all ties together. When we think more of ourselves — proud, arrogant, abusive, ungrateful — we blaspheme God. We tell him through our actions if not our words that He isn’t our Creator and all-powerful Sovereign God.
Disciples are called to follow God. We aren’t looking for everything to be the same for everyone. We are looking for God’s plan to be fulfilled.
Without Character
“heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God” (II Tim. 3: 3-4 ESV)
The items listed in verses 3 and 4 do not reflect God’s character.
God calls us to be sober. Sober is a character trait distinguished by self-control, genuineness, and sound moral judgment. It is a calm and temperate disposition.
The distinguished by self-control cancels out the reckless and without self-control. The genuineness cancels the heartless, swollen with conceit, and treacherous. The sound moral judgment cancels out unappeasable, slanderous, and brutal.
The lovers of pleasure focus more on this world than the next. Payson said lovers of pleasure partake in that which is forbidden to them.
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Raleigh described the moral effects of being lovers of pleasure. He wrote, “Gluttony, drunkenness, licentiousness, not only eclipse the mental lights, and scorch the moral sensibilities of the soul, but they hasten the body to dissolution; they dig many a dishonoured grave. But apart from these physical consequences, and even in those cases where they do not follow, the moral effects of the love of pleasure are very sad.”
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Paul is not saying that God doesn’t want us to have any pleasure. He is talking about worldliness.
Most think worldliness is the pursuit of something material or an activity. Hall said worldliness was an internal state of the soul.
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Paul is saying we are not to make pleasure a priority over God. God is to be priority #1.
Making the Connections
“When the seventh angel blows his trumpet, God’s mysterious plan will be fulfilled. It will happen just as he announced it to his servants the prophets” (Rev. 10: 7 NLT).
God rewards us when — even in the worst times — we follow Him.
One day, this world will be over. It won’t be because of sword, plague, famine, persecution, according to Hall. Those are the results of sin.
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God will end things. His plan will be fulfilled. Eternity will be ready to start.
In what shape will our relationships with God be?
How Do We Apply This?
- Pay attention to the perils of this world.
- Use God’s Word to interpret what is happening.
- Focus on God, not the world.
- Pray for grace.
- Mourn our sins and sinful nature.
- Watch.
- Look to God for our happiness, as it only comes from Him.
- Don’t compare ourselves to others.
- Sincerely humble ourselves before Him.
- Submit all of us to His plan.
- Grow in faith, hope, patience, and consistency.
- Be morally upright.
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God calls us to follow Him, not the world. We need to recognize the sins that could lead us away from Him in the last days.
Father God. We place You as the priority in our lives. We look to You every day — but especially in the last days. Thank You for being our Father. Amen
What do you think?
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