Christian Leaders in the Last Days

Listen or read the following transcript as D. A. Carson speaks on the topic of Christian leaders and pastoral ministry from 2 Timothy 3.

“But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.

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They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over weak-willed women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth. Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these men oppose the truth—men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected. But they will not get very far because, as in the case of those men, their folly will be clear to everyone.

You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, persecutions, sufferings—what kinds of things happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, the persecutions I endured. Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them. In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil men and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction.

For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.

For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my departure. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.”

This is the Word of the Lord.

Not least when times are insecure segments of the church have often indulged in a feeding frenzy of speculation over the last days, over the end times. Wanting to cash in on the current wave, a colleague of mine at Trinity has suggested that he might begin to write a series of books with the title, Right Behind.

Of course the Bible does say some important things about the end, and it does no service to the church if preachers ignore them in a vain effort to tame the feeding frenzy. If you keep quiet, all you do is feed the frenzy. Others will fill the vacuum. But what is most striking about the Bible’s treatments of these matters is that by such expressions as last times and last days and the like, overwhelmingly the biblical authors are referring to the entire period between Christ’s first coming and his second coming.

It’s not just here in the Pastorals either. Sometimes it’s made about as explicit as it can be, as in 1 John, chapter 2, verse 18, “Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour.”

In other words, Christ comes at the end of the ages, and because of inaugurated eschatology, that is, the kingdom is only dawned, there are many antichrists to reckon with as Christ has come, and the very presence of Christ and of antichrists confronting necessarily proves it is the last hour. That is the argumentation.

There are other passages, of course, which are more difficult to understand, perhaps, but have the same presupposition behind them, and then they become fairly straightforward. You recall the passage in 1 Corinthians, chapter 7, verse 29. “What I mean, brothers, is that the time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as if they had none …” What does that mean?

Well, historically, there have been dominant views, and in my judgment, both of them are wrong. One says the apostle Paul believed it was literally the last times, and Christ was about to come around the corner, and therefore, you had to live in a pretty celibate sort of straightforward way.

If Christ is coming back in the next five years or so, well, you know, you don’t start doing your long-range planning, do you? You live in the light of Christ’s impending return, but of course, the apostle was wrong. That’s the entailment of that view, as 2,000 years of history have shown.

The second view is this crisis that is being talked about here in 1 Corinthians, chapter 7, “What I mean, brothers, is that the time is short,” has nothing to do with the return of Christ at all, but the time is short because of the persecution that is going on and the suffering that is on because of some impending debacle that is about to unfold on the church; therefore, it might be better to be single, it might be better not to have a family.

If the church is about to face an overwhelming wave of persecution, well, better not to have a spouse and children. They can get at you that way, and you’re not as mobile. You can’t go underground as quickly. Do you see?

The difficulty is, when you read 1 Corinthians, it’s very difficult to believe that the church is under some major threat of persecution. They’re having a whale of a time, thank you very much! They think the kingdom has dawned a little more than it has. They’re guilty of over-realized eschatology and triumphalism. They are not in danger of going underground; they’re in danger of going over the top.

I think what Paul means here is something that is bound up with this theme that we’ve been dealing with: the time is short; that is, the entire period between the first advent and the second advent is a kind of as if not time. Do you hear all the as if nots in the next sentences?

“From now on those who have wives should live as if they had none; those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not; those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep; those who use the things of this world, as if not engrossed in them. For the world in its present form is passing away.” The time is short.

Now when it says, “… those who have wives should live as if they had none …” it is not suggesting a new form of asceticism in which everybody gets a divorce or at least lives celibately. He has already debunked any such ridiculous notion earlier on in the chapter. That’s not what he is saying.

He is saying, rather, that all of these things that seem so ultimate in this world are not ultimate. Marriage itself, though a gift from God, a charisma he calls it in chapter 7, a grace gift from God. You’re not going into eternity. So you buy and sell, and there are godly ways of doing it and matters of integrity at stake, but anything that you buy, it’s not going into eternity.

It falls under God’s massive as if not. You don’t live as if those things are ultimate. So you’re happy, you know, your child has just got married. Your son has just come out with a first-class degree. You just got promoted at work. Well, that is good. It’s a blessing from God, but as if not. Do you see?

The time is short. The world is passing away. You can’t make any of that your ultimate. You work through all of the list: those who are happy, those who mourn … well, yes, yes, yes, there is a place for mourning, but we sorrow, but not as those who have no hope. How can you put contemporary mourning into an ultimate frenzy of self-pity when, in fact, we are the children of the King, and we will stand with the Master on the last day on the earth. You mourn as if not.

On every front, we are not attached to the things of this world the way the world is attached to the things of this world because the world in its present form, we are told, is passing away. That is such a staple of New Testament eschatology, and you’ll misinterpret an awful lot of the Word of God unless you absorb that thoroughly and work it out in your theology.

So also here in 2 Timothy, chapter 3. This is the second time in the Pastorals where Paul has said things like this. In 1 Timothy, chapter 4, in a passage we have not looked at, we read, “The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving …” So here the focus is on demonic influence, the reality of apostasy, the legalism that was introduced, and clearly from the context, he is talking about things that are going on in Timothy’s day.

Now in this second epistle to Timothy, we read this, “But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days.” In this instance, there is no mention of the demonic influence or the like, though it’s certainly not denied. Here the focus is on the lifestyle and the personal characteristics of all of this unbelief and all of this false belief. This presupposes, you see, massive conflict.

In John’s terms, between Christ and antichrists, between Satan and God and his people. This is exactly the same sort of conflict we saw when we studied together last year Revelation 12, 13, and 14. The same kind of conflict that you get in Matthew 24–25, Mark 13, and Luke 21. It’s part of the whole Bible storyline this side of the fall, but everything has been made acute. Jesus has come. The decisive battle has been fought. We are in the last days as history winds down, and we’re heading for the consummation.

Now then, granted that, how are we to understand our times? There will be terrible times in the last days, we’re told. The word terrible is sometimes rendered in the New Testament English versions by violent; for example, the Gadarene demoniac in Matthew 8:28. He was so violent that people couldn’t control him. He was so out of control. He was so wild. You might almost render this: in the last days there will be wild times. Things get out of control.

So what will be the characteristics, then, of the godly that warrants such a sweeping label? Well, in verses 2–5, the apostle gives us 19 items, 19 traits, a sort of catalog of vices. Let’s go through them quickly. I don’t have time to dwell on them, but it’s important to understand them.

The first four depict selfishness. “… lovers of themselves, lovers of money …” You will recall already that the apostle has said in 1 Timothy 6:10 that money is the source of all kinds of evil. “… boastful …” You’ll recall that in 1 John 2 we are told that boastfulness and pride are bound up with this world. Full of the pride of life and the lust for which you see and the lust for which you possess. Boastfulness. Pride.

Then there are two items suggesting socially destructive behavior. “… abusive …” Whether in actual acts or in language, the way people relate to others so often tears them down. It belittles. It wounds. It cripples. Even in the name of justifying the truth, it becomes harsh, mean, manipulative. “… disobedient to their parents …” In both cases, there is a rebelliousness of heart which reflects finally an attitude toward God himself.

Then there are four un– words, Greek without the privatives. “… ungrateful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving …” It’s almost as if you’re going to say, “Whatever is good and godly, this is the opposite of that. It’s the un– part.” They’re not characterized by gratitude. They’re not characterized by God-centeredness, by holiness. They’re not characterized by love, and they’re not characterized by forgiveness.

Then there are two more that reflect speech and behavior. “… slanderous …” Tearing people down with their tongues by saying all kinds of false things about them. “… and without self-control …” Self-control comes up again and again and again in the Pastoral Epistles. We’ve come across it already. It keeps recurring. We read again, for example, in Titus 1:8. “Rather he must be hospitable, one who loves what is good, who is self-controlled, upright, holy and disciplined.”

There are two more un– terms. It’s more obvious in the original than in English. “… brutal …” the NIV has. That is, untamed, savage in that sense. Someone has commented, “This word serves equally well to describe fierce lions and people who act like them.” Savage. Untamed. “… not lovers of good …” Unloving of the good, un-lovers of good, over against what we’ve just read in Titus 1:8 again, for example. “Rather he must be hospitable, one who loves what is good …” Don’t you love to come across people who just love what is good?

Then there are four items which might show how Paul is moving from general characteristics of the age to the false teacher themselves. “… treacherous …” We might say traitors. That is, they’re betraying which they had formerly espoused. “… rash …” They have given little thought to the long-term consequences of their actions.

They’ve plunged right in, they’re bulling right ahead, they’re going to change everything, and this is the new wave of the future. They haven’t thought things through. There are entailments for your actions and your positions and your attitudes and how you get on with people or don’t get on with people and the way you have proceeded and what sort of arguments.… There are entailments in all of that. These people haven’t thought. They’re rash.

Worse yet, they’re “… conceited …” They think they know it all, far too impressed with their own abilities and opinions. “… lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God …” For you see, when you really are a lover of God, you want to believe what God teaches you, and you want to act the way God instructs you. If you really love someone, don’t you really love to please them?

And finally, the last damning indictment, “… having a form of godliness but denying its power.” There is a sense in which their form of religion, their godliness, has a certain kind of superficial credibility to it. There is a show to it. This crops up in many ways, of course, sometimes with a certain form of spirituality, a certain kind of smarminess.

Sometimes with a certain appeal to esoteric knowledge, which is certainly going on as part of the background here, they have a sort of inside track on some of these things, their mysterious knowledge about the law that we looked at in the first address. That becomes the criterion by which they wish to be judged. That is the focus of their spirituality. They have a certain show of credibility.

But when it comes to the actual transformation of their lives, it just isn’t there. It’s not that these people deny there is such a thing as power. When it says they deny its power it doesn’t mean they say, “I deny that there is any power in the gospel.” I don’t think that’s what is going on. It means, rather that by their very conduct they deny the gospel is powerful, if they’re going to claim to have the gospel.

That sort of theme recurs in these books. For example, Titus 1:16. “They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him.” In effect, the opponents were saying that true reality of religion is attested by their knowledge, their practice, their habits, their vision of spirituality, not by transformed behavior. “Have nothing to do with them,” Paul said.

That’s an important principle, and I don’t want to weaken it, but be careful. For it is sadly true that one or more of these 19 traits may show up from time to time amongst God’s people and have to be dealt with. I guarantee one or more of them has shown up in your life as, God help me, they have shown up in mine.

So if we cite, “Have nothing to do with anyone who ever shows anyone of these individual characteristics,” we’re going to start by excommunicating everyone, beginning with me. Yet, you don’t want to weaken what the text is saying. The point is important. Where there is a pattern of these things, an unrelenting pattern, no sorrow over them, no desire to overturn them, but a pattern of these sorts of things, there you spot the evil of the last days.

You get the same sort of things in other language in 1 John again. “My dear children,” he says. “Do not be deceived. Whoever does righteousness is righteous.” Do you have any idea how revolutionary that was in the ancient world? In the ancient world, so much of pagan religion put ethics and spirituality in different camps.

You could be ever so religious, and it didn’t really have anything to do with whether you cheated on your tax or how you treated your spouse or whether you kicked the dog or whether you were friendly to neighbors. It didn’t have anything to do with that; that was something else. It was sometimes bound up with various forms of worldly view structure, but it wasn’t bound up with religion proper.

Judaism won’t let you get away with that. Christianity certainly won’t let you get away with that because there is one God, one Lord, and we come under him in every sweep and order of our being so that genuine religion is necessarily characterized by genuine ethical transformation. Whenever people start talking about mere ethics, get very nervous. Religion and ethics come together. They belong together.

That is one of the things that is so extraordinarily dangerous about the new spiritualties that are all around us. “I’m a very spiritual person, you know. I’ve discovered that crystals help me sort of tune into the ultimate vibrations of the universe. Whether or not it has anything to do with the fact that I’m on my fourth wife … that’s another issue.”

But biblical Christianity won’t let you get away with things like that. Now we might not be quite so crass in confessing evangelicalism, and yet, it is easy to profess a certain kind of belief in Jesus as personal Savior and know you’re going to heaven and all of that, whereas it still is remarkably un-transforming of behavior.

Most of us are aware of these gross statistics that Barna and Gallup and others have put together to show, for example, that in broad-stream evangelicalism the divorce rate is within statistical happenstance of the divorce rate in the nation at large. On the other hand, both Barna and Gallup have noticed that when you start putting in some extra filters, things change.

When you start saying, not, “Those who call themselves evangelicals,” but, “Those who call themselves evangelicals and who attend church once a week and who read their Bibles regularly and who are deeply committed to bowing to the Lord Jesus Christ in everything,” then the disparities in the divorce rates and every other ethical standard are massive, which tells me there are an awful lot of evangelicals out there who are spurious converts.

They’re not Christians at all because, the connection between genuine faith, between the gospel itself and ethics, simply must not be broken. God help us; we all fall in one regard or another, and we go back to the cross. Where else can we go? But if we start dividing those things into two camps, there is no gospel left. We’ve already got a false gospel. Now in his final paragraph describing these false teachers, Paul established two further points.

1. They prey on the vulnerable, not least with overtones of sexual connections.

We have seen more than our share of ministers of the gospel getting caught up in liaisons of a sexual nature. Anybody who has had to deal with some of these things knows full well that there is a very, very, very large element of control in this rather than sex.

It’s a form of manipulation. It’s a lust for control. Oh, I know there is a sexual overtone in it, but don’t you every forget that. Where is the heart to serve? Sometimes these particular women would be women of means, and they could provide financial and emotional support for these people and allow them to worm their way into the community more deeply.

The text is not saying, of course, that all women are like this, nor is it saying all men are false teachers. Obviously the men here are false teachers, and the women who have thus been snookered by these men are clearly women, and these women are weak-willed, carrying their own baggage of evil, easily manipulated, loving to go to endless seminars to find out one more layer of something or other, but never able, finally, to come to a knowledge of the truth.

They are into experience, and they’ve got no principle, no stamina, no fortitude, no courage, and they’re as easily seduced as the manipulators are easily seductive. They deserve each other, and they do enormous damage. These people, we’re told, have depraved minds and are careless about the truth (chapter 3, verse 8). That is the second thing that we’re told.

2. Sooner or later, their folly becomes evident to everyone.

We’re told that sooner or later, their folly becomes evident to everyone. Verse 9. Sooner or later it comes out. I remember a Trinity graduate. I like to boast about Trinity graduates, but I can’t boast about this one. We’ve turned out our share of international class rotters. In the mercy of God, I don’t know why. Trinity has also been instrumental in small ways of producing people for whom I am profoundly thankful.

I think my job is a wonderful job when I see one of these graduates going off and being fruitful and full of the gospel and holy courage, but every once in a while.… I remember one chap. We’ll call him Rick. Ostensibly converted from a Catholic background, a charmer, gifted in speaking, developed a really good grasp of the gospel, an able preacher, talked constantly, showed a lot of courage in all kinds of dimensions.

He had me snookered, and I am not easily snookered. I am one of those suspicious people who can be a little too harsh, but he had me snookered. He had every single one on our faculty of about 50 snookered. You snooker the whole bunch of us, and boy, you’re good! You’re really good.

He went off to a church on a multi-staff thing and did some work there. I didn’t hear until later that there were some rumblings about his dynamics and lust for power, control; that is, tending to be very smooth and smarmy towards those who were above him, but tending to be dictatorial and controlling to those who were beneath him.

Eventually he became pastor of a church not too far away. Things just went from bad to worse. Now I know that when a new pastor comes in sometimes people leave the church. You know, they just can’t cope with the change, for good and bad reasons, but you always have to ask the question, “Which ones are leaving?” Is it the trouble-makers who are leaving? The peripheral people? Or is the solid bedrock, salt-of-the-earth-type family?

You start losing them, and you realize there is a problem, and those were the ones who were leaving. By the end day, the only ones who could possibly stand around were those who were little “yes” people: “When I say, ‘Jump,’ you jump!” because he had to be god. Eventually one of our faculty members confronted him. He went to him with these terms, “My dear, Rick, are you converted?”

“Well, you must understand there are all kinds of people who are constantly opposing my leadership.”

“Rick, are you converted?” Eight or nine times he pressed him. “Are you converted?” “Are you converted?”

The fellow would not simply listen. The man, thank God, is now out of the ministry, divorced, manipulating still, an evil, wicked man. Because at the end of the day, I don’t care how articulate you are, even with respect to the gospel itself.… The Devil himself knows what the gospel is. He can jolly well articulate it better than I can. You must have the link between the gospel and ethics, between the gospel and relationships, or you’ve got nothing. Sooner or later, people have the right to ask the question, “Are you converted?”

The fact of the matter is there are, on some level, lots of nice people out there, and the apostle Paul himself teaches a doctrine of common grace that produces many kindnesses of many sorts amongst many pagans and guests and after all, every religion says some things true. You can’t tell lies all the time. All of that sort of thing is true.

Yet, I don’t think that while Paul would deny any things that I’ve just said, what he paints with this broad brush is brutally important. He is not saying that every false teacher is characterized equally by all of these things. He is not saying that. Paul is not stupid. He is describing these people of the last days in typical categories, and sin will out.

So what counsel then does Paul give Timothy in the light of these realities? Four things. Hold the right mentors in high regard, hold few illusions about the world, hold onto the Bible, and hold out the Bible to others. Let’s take them quickly in that order.

1. Hold the right mentors in high regard.

Verses 10–11: “You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, persecutions, sufferings—what kinds of things happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, the persecutions I endured. Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them.”

In one of my books I told the story of Dave Ward, so if you’ve read it and you already know it, now you can take a 2-minute mental break because I’m going to tell it again. When I was an undergraduate at McGill University, I started a Bible study in our dorm with another chap.

We were so frightened by what we were doing that we only invited three others to come in the hope that more than two would show up so we wouldn’t be outnumbered. In fact, all three came, and within three or four weeks we had 16 squashed in that little room. I don’t know how we got them all in.

Pretty soon I was way out of my depth. I mean, I was doing chemistry for goodness’ sake, and here I was trying to teach the gospel of John. We did the best we could, but there were still only two Christians there and an awful lot of people asking a lot of stiff questions that I didn’t have a clue how to go about answering.

On the campus, mercifully, there was a chap called Dave Ward. Dave was a graduate student, an Anglican, but a committed gospel man who was known for his boldness in personal witness and answering people. He was very, very busy, a bit high-strung, in-your-face a wee bit, but gifted, really gifted in dealing with people.

So when I got really stuck, every once in a while I’d say to one of these people who was asking all the tough questions, “Well, come spend an evening with me down with Dave Ward,” and Dave would try and sort them out. One evening, then, I brought down two chaps to see Dave Ward. Dave, in his sort of hypertensive sort of way, swooped around and got coffee here and said, “Okay, what did you come for?” turning to the first one. He was not known for tact. I have to tell you that.

The first one said, “Well, you know, here at McGill I think we should have an open mind and begin to look at a lot of things and I’ve become very interested in different religions. I’d like to learn more about Buddhism and more about Islam and I’m trying to learn more about Christianity, and if you can help me in this regard, I’d like to learn some more.” Dave said, “Sorry, don’t have time.”

I thought, “Oh, boy. What have I done?” The fellow said, “I beg your pardon?” He said, “Look. I can tell you to read some books. I’ll give you some books to read. You can go and read them. If you have some questions, come back and see me later, but I’m a graduate student. I’ve got too much to do myself. There are all kinds of people who want a corner of my time. I don’t have time to just talk about religion, you know? If you’re serious, come and see me. If you’re not, I’ll give some books.”

“What did you come for?” he turned to the second one. The second one said, “I don’t come from a Christian home as you people describe Christianity, but I come from a good home. I think you people would call it a liberal home, but it’s a home where my mum and dad have always loved me. You never hear a curse word. They’re honest people, you know? They’re good in the community, and they’re faithful to each other.

They like integrity and truth, and you could trust them with anything. If you put a thousand dollars in front of them, they wouldn’t take it. They’re good people. So why on earth should I join you or become a Christian in your terms when frankly, we’re a good home already, thank you. What’s the difference between you and us, apart from, you know, some of your beliefs?”

Dave looked at him, looked at him, looked at him, and then he finally said, “Watch me.” The student said, “What do you mean?” “Watch me. Come and live with me. I’ve got an extra bed. You can stay here a month, two months, whatever you like. You live here. I’ll pay for your food. You can stay. Watch me. Watch what I do when I get up. Watch how I interact with people. Watch my habits. Watch my relationships. Watch what Jesus means to me, and at the end of two months, you tell me there is no difference.”

Well, that student didn’t take him up on it literally, but loosely, he began to follow him around. He stayed in the Bible study. He became converted. His girlfriend became converted, and today, they’re medical missionaries overseas.

Isn’t that what Paul says? “Be imitators of me even as I also am of Christ.” There is a profound sense in which every Christian, and not least Christian leaders, Christian teachers, ought to be saying to the community without an ounce of arrogance, “Watch me.” Not because I’m sinlessly perfect. “Boy, when you reach my status, boy, will you be hot.”

That’s not it at all. We’re poor beggars telling other poor beggars where there is bread, but we have tasted and seen of the age to come, have we not? We have known what sin’s forgiveness looks like, and our orientation, our lives, our priorities, and our ethics have changed. “Watch me.”

So Paul has the nerve to turn to Timothy and say, “All right, you’ve got all these false teachers around. Some of them are pretty hot stuff, you know, really charismatic, really influential. Timothy, take a deep breath. You’ve known my teaching. You’ve also seen my way of life. You know my purposes. Am I in it for the money? Am I two-faced? Hmm? Do I manipulate Scripture? How do I handle the Bible?

You’ve seen my faith, even in the midst of grueling circumstances. And my tears. And my plodding patience. And my love for people, Timothy, you’ve seen that too. And my endurance. You’ve also seen me suffer. You’ve seen the persecutions, and you’ve seen how the Lord has come to my aid again and again. Do you not see the sheer comprehensiveness of the modeling?

You see, sometimes when people glom onto some temporary guru, some charismatic figure who seems to have the hottest, latest stuff in biblical studies, or the greatest inside track on how to reach the next generation, I want to know where the model is. In their faith, in the way they handle the Bible, how they handle persecution, in the integrity of their relationships, in the balance and wholeness of their lives. Choose your models well, because we all have them. But choose your models well. Hold the right mentors in high regard.

2. Hold few illusions about the world.

Verses 12–13: “In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil men and impostors will go from bad to worse …” That doesn’t mean that across the whole age every generation will be a little worse than the last one.

It means that again and again and again evil people come along, and they just get worse. You know, instead of getting converted.… Well, some get converted, but some just get worse. Hitler didn’t start off with his final solution; that had to be worked out as they got worse. Evil men and imposters will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.

Fred and I, as we were driving here, were talking about a certain theologian who has been skirting with dangerous stuff for some time. I’ve spent many hours with him. Fred has spent some time with him. He’s been skirting with dangerous stuff for some time, and it seems to us he is going just a little farther out, now … a little farther out and a little farther out.

Fred and I came to the conclusion, “You know what we would like to see now? We’d like him to go a lot farther out. It would just be a lot clearer and plainer. Because evil men and seducers go from bad to worse. You either come back in line to the gospel, or you get worse and worse and worse, and there’s no end to it.

Sometimes there are a lot of people in the church that just don’t see how bad some stuff is until it’s gotten really bad. Those who see in advance where something is heading.… Well, sometimes they don’t see. Sometimes they’re just too picky. Sometimes they’re just too condemnatory, but in other times, there are some who are discerning and wise and have smelled where this is going. They’ve seen it before.

It takes a little while before the thing really exposes itself for what it is, that evil men and seducers go from bad to worse. Hold few illusions about the world. There will be persecution; indeed, the sweeping statement of verse 12 is stunning, isn’t it? Everyone who lives a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

Last year I gave you some stats on some of this. Let me remind you of some of them, and I will offer you one or two more. There have been more Christian martyrs in the last century and a half than the previous 18 centuries combined. The fact of the matter is that there have been on average per year in the last 10 years 160 Christian martyrs a year.

If we continue at that rate for the next generation, it means that one in 200 Christians now alive will end in a martyr’s death. So, one of us. Pick one. Of course, it’s not evenly distributed. You have two million in southern Sudan. Then recurring problems in many, many, many Muslim countries, some of which I can’t tell you about. And in some of the tribal areas of other southeast Asian countries, in Burma and elsewhere. And small picky bits here and there, brutal, brutal things.

Then besides this actual martyrdom, persecution is broader than that, isn’t it? It includes slander and opposition and inability to get a good job and getting sacked because you’re too tight. For Christians, you see, who have Christian values of integrity and family and honesty and truth telling, that can cost you in North America, too, in many, many, many jobs.

If your family comes first, you might have a barrier on how high you can go in the company, and if you can’t stand the salacious condescension of the boardroom, well, then maybe you’re not board material. Avoiding the salacious or the demeaning or the merely PC. In fact, more broadly in our culture, the very meaning of tolerance has been flipped on its head so that provided you say that nobody is wrong about anything, then you’re judged to be tolerant.

If you say that anybody is wrong, then you’re intolerant, and you’re a bigot by definition, so that if you stand up for what you think is right in the sexual arena or elsewhere, you’re the one who is intolerant, even though you’re not saying they should go jail or they should be silenced or they should be muzzled. You’re simply saying that they are wrong. That makes you intolerant, a bigot. The very definition of intolerance has undergone a massive change of definition in the last 20 years. Where’s the real integrity?

One man, who regularly comes to this conference but who isn’t here this year, has in the last year or so befriended in his area an orthodox Jewish rabbi. They bumped into each other through circumstances I won’t relate. This pastor just liked the guy, started dropping in on his classes at a junior college near him, and got to know him.

They started meeting for meals and talking together. This chap was teaching a course on Old Testament literature, and this pastor dropped in and sat in the back. They were dealing with Job. The rabbi had begun to trust him and began to ask for his Christian friend’s opinion about this or that or the other. On the way home in the car afterwards, the rabbi said to him, “Do you realize that either you are wrong or I am wrong when it comes to the interpretation of the Hebrew Bible?”

The pastor said, “Yes, that’s exactly right. One of us is wrong, and I love you.” The rabbi said, “You’re the only Christian minister I know who will tell me that. Not ‘I love you,’ but that one of us is wrong. The rest of them are all busy saying, ‘We’re all trying to say the same thing. We’re all going to the same place. We’re all doing the same stuff.’ And we’re not. We’re saying something different.”

You suddenly realize that all of the other things that are claiming tolerance and understanding and forbearance, they’re the ones who are producing a certain kind of smearing superficiality without integrity anywhere. You don’t have integrity unless you can say that somebody’s wrong and say it without malice and still love them and bear witness.

Well, things are going to get worse before they get better in the Western world on this sort of front. For the truth of the matter is that where there is integrity and family values, let alone Christian confessionalism and truth and honesty and gratitude toward God and a refusal to be demeaning, we are going to face flak from the broader world around us. That’s the way it is in one sort or another. Not least, sometimes, from people apparently in the church. Doesn’t Paul himself speak about the dangers from false brothers in the care of all the churches?

I had an email.… I hesitate to tell you this, but I’ll tell you. I had an email yesterday from Tim Keller, whose name you’ll know. He said, “Don, the blogs have lit up on your book on the emerging church, and your name is mud. Please send me a copy of the book. Yours, Tim.”

Hundreds and hundreds of hits, about par for the course when you’re involved in any sort of controversy over the nature of the gospel. In the extremes of that movement, it is the gospel that is at stake. In the edges of it, it’s not. In the extremes of it, it is. When you start being prepared to say that substitutionary penal atonement is a form of cosmic child abuse, you’re stepping a little outside the gospel, I would say, wouldn’t you?

In the bigger world, we have just come through the bloodiest century, the twentieth century. I can’t think of a single reason why the twenty-first century shouldn’t even be bloodier. Listen, hold few illusions about the world. Mentioning Tim Keller, I can’t resist reminding you of one of his axioms. “For the Christian,” he says, “optimism is naÔve, but pessimism is atheistic.” Optimism is naÔve because it is a fallen, broken, sinful world. Hold few illusions, but pessimism is atheistic because God is on his throne.

3. Hold onto the Bible.

Verses 14–16: “But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.”

Do you know what my earliest memory is? Sitting in the bathtub being done by my dad. When my dad did me, he was slow and methodical and told Bible stories. He always reviewed the previous one or two and then went on to the next one. There are some Bible stories that are very effective in the bathtub. Like Balaam, for example, and Naaman. Naaman is very effective. “Seven times in the Jordan River.”

You know, I was brought up with a sort of osmosis grasp of the Bible. It was just part of Christian living. I meet people today who became Christians at the age of 26 and before that never cracked their Bible. Let me tell you; they’re never going to have a feel for the Bible that I’ve got.

There is no credit to me either. It’s because my blood, my background, my culture, my vocabulary is Bibline. There is something precious in that that needs to be preserved. Moreover, this is encouraging a confidence in Scripture, encouraging people to go back to the Bible and check it out with detailed exegesis, no superficial readings.

I have sometimes said with respect to some of the current patterns bound up with some forms of the new perspective that they have a certain form of attractiveness to them. They are structurally very enticing because they seem to present a whole system that drags you in, and you can’t find certain texts that seem to support this.

But it’s when you take those views and work them through text after text after text, not superficially, but text after text and actually do the homework, do the exegesis, read the commentaries, you discover they don’t quite work. They don’t quite work. There is something not quite right.

Or they’ve got the background right, but they’ve made it the foreground and they’ve lost the foreground and made it the background. They’ve got things reversed. The priorities aren’t right, or there might be something of theme in there somewhere, but it’s not quite what the apostle is talking about. After you’ve seen enough of that, you suddenly get nervous. Don’t be afraid of testing things out by Scripture, because, verse 16: “All Scripture is God-breathed …”

That is, it’s not simply that the people are inspired, but the text itself is inspired. The text itself is God’s product. This attests its origin, and as a result, it follows that it “… is profitable for teaching and rebuke and correcting and training in righteousness.” In this context, then, because Scripture is God’s product, and it is profitable for all of these things and is trustworthy, don’t be afraid of fads. Don’t be a mere traditionalist. Check things by Scripture again and again and again.

Let me tell you a story. Confession is good for the soul. I’d written two or three books by 1980, but I hadn’t written a major commentary until I embarked on my Matthew commentary. When I started on the Matthew commentary, there were far fewer major commentaries on Matthew in English in those days. A lot have been written since then.

I had been exposed through a lot of training to all the latest forms of redaction criticism and all the latest difficulties in textual criticism and on and on and on. I had read John Broadus’ commentary, 1886, where dear ol’ John Broadus comes up to passage after passage of the New Testament of Matthew quoting the Old Testament, and he says, in effect, “I don’t have a clue what Matthew is doing here, but since God gave it, it must be true,” and he goes on.

That is basically his explanation. The two books in the New Testament that are most difficult to understand in their use of the Old Testament are, in my judgment, Matthew and Hebrews. Again and again and again he would come to these passages.… “Out of Egypt have I called my Son.” “Well, I don’t have a clue what is going on here, but God says it applies to Jesus, so I guess it applies to Jesus,” and away we went. We had that all the way through.

Well, you see enough of that kind of stuff in your reading, and then you remember all the critical stuff you’ve had and you begin to think, “And I’m supposed to write a commentary on this book? What is it going to do to my faith?” Well, I devoted a lot of time to that Matthew commentary, and especially a lot of time to all the places where the Old Testament was used in the New.

I came away absolutely convinced that Christians, far from needing to be fearful or defensive or anything else, can probe and push and by the grace of God make sense of the text that God has given us. Oh, there might be little areas here or there where we say, “I’m not quite sure; it could be this or that,” or one or two cases where you say, “This one is still beyond me, but I’m working on it,” but overwhelmingly, this text to be understood.

It is to be understood. You work through a few texts like that, and write a few more commentaries, and you come away when you hit the next one with an awful lot of confidence. God has breathed it out, and it is profitable for instruction and for correcting in righteousness and all the rest. Work at the text. Hold onto the Bible.

One of the things that troubles me most, if I may stick my neck out, about the emergent movement is that so far in the dozens of books and hundreds of articles that have come out, they have not produced one, not one, that is centered on plain, straightforward biblical exegesis. Don’t fall into those sorts of traps. Make the Bible everything, the very center.

4. Hold out the Bible to others.

Now my time is gone here, so let me merely sketch what is coming in chapter 4, verses 1–8. The charge itself to Timothy is given in verses 1–2. The solemn reason in verse 1. “In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge …” Then the charge itself. “Preach the Word …” Herald this truth.

Then, be constant in it. “… be prepared in season and out of season …” Then the comprehensiveness of it. “… correct, rebuke and encourage …” And this. “… with great patience and careful instruction.” For the fact of the matter is this happens again and again. Verses 3–4. “For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine.” They’ll be more interested in passing fancies and fads, in cute arguments, in a new technique.

“But you, [by contrast] keep your head …” Verse 5. In the context keep your head means keep close to the Bible, keep faithful, being wise in this regard. Isn’t this, in fact, very much like the argument that we saw last year in Revelation 12 regarding how you fight the Devil? How do Christians overcome Satan in Revelation 12?

“They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb …” That is, they have access to God by the atoning work of Christ. That’s how they overcame the Devil when he made his accusations. “… and by the word of their testimony.” That does not mean they give their testimonies a lot; it means they bear testimony to the Word again and again and again. That’s how they advance. “They did not love their lives even unto death.”

The way the Word advances, the way the gospel advances, the way the church advances, the way we are made secure is by the ministry of the Word again and again and again, advancing and advancing. What else are we supposed to do? Take a machine gun and kill people? Manipulate them? Vote them out of Congress? Oh, there may be social responsibilities, yes, yes, yes, but at the end of the day, the way things advance is by the ministry of the Word. That’s the way things advance.

You can vote whatever you like in Congress, but if you still keep losing the ministry of the Word, then the whole culture is going to change badly enough that you’re not going to have anybody left in Congress anyway. At the end of the day, what you need is the ministry of the Word. “… discharge all the duties of your ministry.” At the end of the day, Paul is passing on the baton to a new generation, verses 6–8, as you and I must pass it on ourselves, and as we have received it from others.