2 Timothy 3:1-4
1. This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.
2. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud blasphemers, disobedient to
parents, unthankful and unholy,
3. Without natural affection, truce breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce despisers of those that
are good,
4. Traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God;
Undoubtedly with the progression of time and of society, through their nature as styled after the nature
of the world; the devil has uprooted to a great extent any desire to meet the covenantal requirement
from even within God’s people through the weakness of the flesh and mind. Distorting the significance
of God’s statutes and their applicability to our modern lives. This more than the mere separation from
the traditional and the conventional. It is a separation from under the authority and protection of our
divine headship.
While judgment comes upon the children of God for their disobedience, constant disobedience of his
commandments and statues will be met with His wrath.
This particular passage of scripture describes the moral and personal characteristics of people as we
draw closer to the time of His return. When we look around at the way people interact with each other
and their views on what they believe is their right to choose; we can begin to understand that these
particular characteristics have been expressing themselves more and more. Some of these same
patterns of behavior and detachment is what God’s people exhibited each time they abandoned Him,
their identities and His statutes. Relying instead on their own limited strengths and wisdom. When we
look at the book of Matthew, most notably chapter 24; the Bible also describes a falling away of God’s
church in the time leading up to the tribulation and the love of many waxing cold. The selfishness that
has been engulfing most if not all of our decisions and and the way in which we treat each other is a
manifestation of our empty faith. While we are not saved by our actions, our faith is dead without
works of compassion for each other . Not that they are a requirement for salvation, but a commandment
given to us by Christ himself who said we should love each other.
If a man say , I love God, and hateth his brother , he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom
he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?
1John 4:20
This is in and of itself a form of disobedience to our father. How then, could we say we are obedient
if we turn each other away and ignore each others burdens. How could we destroy others through our
actions and the words of our mouth?
Have we not been given love in our moments of despair and loneliness?
The establishment of personal relationships determine our outlook, especially the one with Christ.
The way in which these relationships are fostered is equally as important.In Malachi 2:9 God speaks to teachers, who have caused others to fall away due to their corruption and
their defiance to the law. This is a part of the teaching responsibility of parents as well, are we teaching
the gospel and His commandments the way they are meant to be understood? Are we being truthful to
God’s message and are we living it? In the way you treat your family?
He says he will reduce them before the world according to the disobedience of their double-mindedness
and disobedience.
God’s message about the disobedience of His children in Isaiah 1:2-9 depicts their stubbornness and
their sins. Their constant backsliding that has caused them to be removed from their land and
habitations destroyed as a result of the continual breaking of their end of the covenant.
The separation between God and His children because of the world has been a constant, but the falling
away that is to come will be something entirely different. The falling away and the dying off of the
spiritual and moral things of God will bring a darkness that has never been felt before. Here the price
for disobedience is the ultimate death, yet many of us are on this path that leads to destruction
convinced that our minimal effort to revere him is a chore that we must fulfill only periodically.
Putting on a false image of faithfulness when in our hearts we refuse to change.
The suffering of God’s people will be due to judgment for their neglectful inequities and for having
ignored HIS voice.
When we reflect on this and think of our disobedience and the disobedience of our children, we may
feel an urgency to correct ourselves. The challenges that we face as parents are similar to the grief that
we place on God.
This has to do with the fact that even among the most devoted of families and dedicated of parents, we
will at some point face the challenge of children who refuse to either accept Christ or are lost in the
secular world around them. Yes, adolescence presents some difficult moments, but when a child turns
away from all that he or she has been taught in order to fulfill his or her selfish wants, the best thing to
do sometimes is to allow them to fall. In time, the song of mourning brings remembrance to the heart
and the those who have fallen away will sing a different tune, honoring God on foreign soil.
As sinners we are all in this way like the prodigal son, and the sons of Judea who despite our rich
inheritance fail to wait for the righteousness of the Lord to fulfill us and desire to do our will instead.
The parallels between these two are amazing in that despite of the disobedience of both, God’s mercy
is held out at the crying out and redemption of their inequities.
We must place the focus on ourselves as disobedient children and our responsibility to take charge for
seeking our own salvation. After all, the focus of this commandment is obedience towards the
headship of God and that of our earthly fathers as well as the leadership of the home in the respecting
of both parents. Not only for the preservation of the family and society , but the continuation of God’s
own commandments.
This is critical to the preservation of Israel as a nation and a people. Who they themselves have in
recent years become as secular as the rest of the world. The significance of the time in which we are all
living is full of the hope of Christ’s return, but the separation that we are living in threatens both Jew
and gentile. As times continues to move towards the end of the church era, we must look forward tothe time of Jacob’s trouble and the Messianic Age. We are not designed for God’s wrath and for the
church, our faith and personal relationship with Christ places us in a state of grace in our obedience.
We who believe in the rapture of the church look forward to this time of reunion with Christ and are
hopeful.
36 Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things
that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.
Luke 21:36
Can we say without truly knowing what awaits for us during this time of great change and in some way
uncertainty? We must know that we are a part of the body of the church as a whole, but are we worthy
of escaping the tribulation?
Woe unto you that desire the day of the LORD! To what end is it for you? The day of the LORD is
darkness, and not light.
Amos 5: 18
The day of the LORD brings judgment and a regret for our reluctance to terminate our relationship with
the world. Without the adapting to a biblical mindset, there is no possible way we would be ready.
We cannot be saved on our own merit, our hypocrisy that we believe is concealed from the world is in
broad daylight in the eyes of God. While we await the time of the return of Christ , our blessed hope,
we should inspect our faith and our relationship with Him. It would be foolish of us to assume that we
are prepared for His return.
6. But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousness are as filthy rags; and we all do fade
as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.
Isaiah 64:6
For this reason we are called to obedience and humility of not just our actions, but our minds and the
renewal thereof. We are to die to the world in every aspect of our life. The way we think and talk
should reflect His image. That the things that we do be presented before Him without shame and that
we do them as unto the Lord.
God’s desire is that all be saved from this time. He loves all His children and does not rejoice in the
perishing of any. We are saved by grace and not merit, therefore faith in His son is our hope of
salvation.
God’s word both in the old testament as well as in the new, people were made aware and warned and
prophesied over about the judgment of God, His wrath and the second coming of Christ. Those who
failed to listen out of ignorance or even out of envy and arrogance failed to understand the gravity oftheir rejection of the Messiah.
As for Israel, the signaling of the end of the church era brings on a strong and different connotation.
How then do we continue to nurture faith in the hearts of nonbelievers or ourselves, who have strayed
and fallen away?
We are to endure to the end, intact in our way of biblical thinking from the teachings of God’s word and
our identity in Christ. We must remain bound to one an other in love and mercy; never forgetting that
through the trials of life comes a deeper understanding and appreciation for God’s mercy and grace.
as.
We need not shift the weight of blame and point the finger at others, but recognize that we are not in
good standing with God and correct our own indiscretions and failures. After all, our God is a merciful
and forgiving God, who would not desire that any of us ( because all of us are sinners) die the second
death of hell.
The line marking the categorical distinction of the maturity of adulthood and the ignorance of those
not yet meeting the requirement of maturity and of understanding, has stretched out by the
“acceptance” mentality of the new world’s society. But this line is also indicative of our spiritual
immaturity. It is under this ideology of change and acceptance in which our biblical foundation will be
met with the challenge of much of the biblical teachings and inheritances of our youth and even some
adults. Some will forfeit their faith for acceptance, while others will give acceptance of worldly things
and turn away from God all in the name of Society while those who believe will become marginalized.
A society that is also preparing for the coming deception, but only from the Proving that “ the need to
study to find yourself approved” here, takes on a new definition of the character we are expected to
uphold. No longer are we merely to “study” the word of God, that we ourselves may garner
discernment and find courage in His strength; but now face the challenge of identifying it altogether not
only to a new, but to the continuously emerging generations. The truth of God’s word and knowledge
of Him is growing in the absence of our homes and throughout society as we into the dawning of the
end of the church era.
An era in which the significance of obedience in respect to this commandment and to God will take on
a greater scope and definition. In the time before the crossing of this threshold, we should be zealous
in our good fight, on fire with the holy spirit; honoring both the commandments and the testimony of
Christ through our servitude to our all brethren.
The divine plan for Israel continues even after the church no longer is present and it is now that the
seeds of faith should be planted in the hearts of all who should listen, beginning with our obedience.
(please look forward to the concluding piece on the messianic age)
