Paul described to Timothy the actions we can expect from non-believers in the last days. This devotion concludes our least of what to expect in the end times.
Nuggets
- People in the last days will curse God.
- People in the last days will not acknowledge God as their Father.
- People in the last days will be ungrateful to God because they will not acknowledge what He has done for us and why.
- People in the last days will not have God’s character.
- People in the last days care only about themselves.
- People in the last days do not have integrity.
- People in the last days will spreads false information about others.
- People in the last days will have no self-control.
- People in the last days compromise between good and evil.
- People in the last days will be untrustworthy.
- People in the last days will be rash and inconsiderate.
- People in the last days will be conceited.
- People in the last days will love the world more than they love God.
Devotions in Living Out God’s Word series
In the last devotion, we started talking about why people in the last days needed to read and live out God’s Word. We discussed lovers of self, lovers of money, and the proud.
Paul gave Timothy a good description of where they we lacking in what God requires of us.
Let’s go on with the list.
Let's Put It into Context
Here is a running list of nuggets for the series.
People in the Last Days
“For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 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: 2-4 ESV)
Abusive (II Tim. 3: 2)
People in the last days will curse God.
I don’t like the way the English Standard Version translates this. Where they translated this abusive, the King James Version translated it blasphemous. Blasphemy is not only cursing God but also cursing the name of God.
No, I am not saying that being abusive is okay. (And there are a lot more abusive acts than just physical abuse). “The Lord tests the righteous, but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence” (Ps. 11: 5 ESV)
It just seems to smack of a worldview slant than a godly slant. Think about it.
Paul had just been talking about being lovers of self and money and how that took he focus off of Him. That is being blasphemous, not violent. I see this as more a summary or the next level up.
Hall agreed. He wrote, “It argues the highest ingratitude in the world for a man …”
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I just think the end times are going to be more about our relationships with God than our relationships with man.
Cursing God is more in line with loving ourselves.
Disobedient to their parents (II Tim. 3: 2)
People in the last days will not acknowledge God as their Father.
Okay, this looks like it blows my opinion that this is about our relationships with God. Or does it?
God is our Heavenly Father. “But now, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand” (Isa. 64: 8 ESV).
Because God created us, He is our Father. (No, nowhere in Scriptures does it say He is our mother.)
Look at it this way. If we can’t obey our earthly fathers, how are we going to obey our Heavenly Father?
It goes back to us thinking we can control our own lives. We can’t.
Ungrateful (II Tim. 3: 2)
People in the last days will be ungrateful to God because they will not acknowledge what He has done for us and why.
I think the root of the problem is we don’t want to acknowledge what God has done for us. Acknowledgment shows our need for and dependence on Him.
Everything we’ve talked about so far shows our kicking and screaming that we want to depend only on ourselves.
Hall argued that ingratitude is a progression of envy, pride, and covetousness. He wrote, that “… envy, [is] looking more at others’ benefits than our own; pride, looking more at ourselves than the benefit; covetousness, looking more at what we would have, than what we have.”
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Ingratitude is all about focusing on worldly things rather than God.
Unholy (II Tim. 3: 2)
People in the last days will not have God’s character.
- Holy means to be set apart — because of our devotion to God — to become perfect, and morally pure while possessing all virtues.
- Perfection means we reach a state of maturity because the combination of the spiritual graces form, when all are present, spiritual wholeness or completeness — holy, sanctified, and righteous.
- Spiritual graces are worldly morals that have been submitted to God to further His kingdom instead of enhancing this world.
- Sanctified means to be set free from sin.
- Righteous means we are free from sin because we are following God’s moral laws.
- Spiritual graces are worldly morals that have been submitted to God to further His kingdom instead of enhancing this world.
- Pure means not being sinful or having the stain of sin.
- Virtues are standards of moral excellence.
- Perfection means we reach a state of maturity because the combination of the spiritual graces form, when all are present, spiritual wholeness or completeness — holy, sanctified, and righteous.
God wants us to have His character. He made us to be like Him.
We went and screwed that up.
In the last days, people will grow further and further away from His character.
Heartless (II Tim. 3: 3)
People in the last days care only about themselves.
I know. People would argue that we aren’t in the last days because people are much more vocal about letting people live the lives they choose to live.
I don’t see it.
People are more tolerant if you believe what they believe. If you hold Christian beliefs, they are much more nasty — and feel justified at cutting you down because you are, in their opinion, wrong in your beliefs.
Only believing as they believe is not tolerance. It surely isn’t the love they profess to have.
It is heartlessness — only caring about themselves.
Unappeasable (II Tim. 3: 3)
People in the last days do not have integrity.
Hmmm. When I read the sermons, I get that this means that they don’t keep their word.
Hall described it this way. He wrote, “In the last days, men will not only be sermon-proof and judgment-proof, but covenant-proof …”
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To me, this keeps going on the me-theme. They are going to do what they want to do — even if they tell you differently.
It also tells me that they do not have integrity. Their word is going to mean nothing.
Slanderous (II Tim. 3: 3)
People in the last days will spreads false information about others.
Have you every heard a story being told about someone — and then find out it wasn’t true? That kind of story is very hurtful.
Sometimes, we wonder how someone can make up stories like that.
But Paul said that was going to be par for the course in the last days.
This will especially be true for those above reproach. Those who don’t believe in God will tear down — often by telling lies about — those who do follow Him.
Without self-control (II Tim. 3: 3)
People in the last days will have no self-control.
I see this playing out in instant gratification. People do not have the control to wait for things.
They want the best this instance — regardless of whether they have earned it or not.
I also see this in the anything goes attitude. People do not have the desire to control their lust of things that — in reality — hurt them.
Brutal (II Tim. 3: 3)
People in the last days will be brutal.
Hall identified the characteristics Paul was discussing here. He wrote, “Men will then more especially be of a fierce, rude, savage, barbarous, inhuman disposition. They will be cruelly and bloodily disposed. There will be in them no meekness nor mildness to regulate the passions; but, like brute beasts, they will be ready to slay all such as oppose them.”
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Hall said these were the products of self-love and covetousness. I can see this.
Drive somewhere. Some people think they are the only ones on the road and traffic laws do not apply to them.
Think of all the mass shootings. Think of the human trafficking.
Not loving good (II Tim. 3: 3)
People in the last days compromise between good and evil.
Good, in the biblical sense, is the workings of God within His people through His holy, pure, and righteous behavior. Evil is equated with sin because it is that which goes against God and His purposes.
These should be polar opposites. We are told to hate what is evil (Rom. 12: 9).
Compromising is not hating evil. Anything short of loving good is not acceptable to God.
God wants us to be faithful to Him. Anything shirt of that is not acceptable.
Treacherous (II Tim. 3: 4)
People in the last days will be untrustworthy.
I can see why treacherous is listed toward the end. Everything leading up to this point is showing that people in the last days will not be able to be trusted.
Those following or compromising with evil will not be trusted.
Reckless (II Tim. 3: 4)
People in the last days will be rash and inconsiderate.
They will not be able to contain their desires. They also will not be able to control their words.
Conceited (II Tim. 3: 4)
People in the last days will be conceited.
We talked above it this when we talked about being proactive and arrogant. Conceited go hand in hand with those.
Lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God (II Tim. 3: 4)
People in the last days will love the world more than they love God.
They will love the pleasure that the world brings them. Some off these will be forbidden pleasures. These violate God’s laws and commandments.
Payson said that some will be an “inordinate pursuit of pleasures not in themselves sinful or expressly forbidden.” To me that means there will be an imbalance on an things in which God is indifferent.
Resource
We talked before about God being indifferent on some things. He doesn’t say things we think should be sin really are a sin. We said that disciples are not to have an opinion on something someone else does if God hasn’t made a law or commandment about it.
To read a related devotion, click the button below.
That being said, we have to watch when we do something we believe may be a sin — but we aren’t sure. We can’t love doing things of the world more than we love God.
Making the Connections
Let’s chase a rabbit for a second. Many are questioning if we are currently in the end times.
Let’s check out what Boston had to say. He wrote.
“The days of the gospel are the concluding period of time. In these last days are several particular periods; the first of which was the last time of the Jewish state, beginning from the time of our Saviour, to the destruction of Jerusalem; and more periods followed, and some are yet to come; but from the time of our Saviour to the end of the world, is ‘the last days?’”
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That gives a good explanation as to why there are so many who thought their generation was the end times. It is one long end time from when Jesus ascended to when He returns.
So, when we read in Scriptures that the disciples were in the end times, they really were.
Waterland thought one component of self-love is self-interestedness. I think, many times, that is what it all boils down to. We are more interested in ourselves than in God.
Resource
We have to put God as a priority, even over ourselves.
Hall had a great explanation of worldliness. He noted that it wasn’t an outward pursuit of something.
It is an inward condition of the soul. It is a carnal mind. It is when we focus on the earthly and self rather than the spiritual and God.
Hall described it this way. He wrote, “It is especially tested in the selection of our pleasures and the degree in which they are indulged.”
Resource
It is the choices we make and how committed we are to those choices.
How Do We Apply This?
- Remain faithful even in the hard times. Hall wrote, “The worse the times we live in are, the greater will our [honor] be, if we be faithful.”
- Show ourselves to be against sin when sin may be all the world sees.
- Get our hearts right with God by seeking Him.
- Search God’s Word to see what He has to say about the times in which we live.
- Pray for grace.
- See sin for what it is — separation from God.
- Diligently watch.
- Realize we can only find happiness in God.
- The only true happiness is eternal happiness.
- Seek God’s grace.
- Honor God for His goodness.
- Don’t associate with lovers of pleasure.
- Follow God’s laws and commandments.
- Practice self-denial.
Resource
Father God. We want to be faithful in all we say and do. We want to endure even through the last days. Help us to grow closer to You so that we can. Amen.
What do you think?
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