Listen or read the following transcript as D. A. Carson speaks on the topic of the End Times from 2 Timothy 3:1–17
“But understand this, that in the last days there will comes times of difficulty. 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, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power.
Avoid such people. For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth. Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith. But they will not get very far, for their folly will be plain to all, as was that of those two men.
You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra—which persecutions I endured; yet from them all the Lord rescued me. Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.
But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.”
This is God’s Word.
Commonly, when the Bible speaks about the last days, it refers to the entire period between Christ’s first coming and his second coming. Thus, for example, when John writes his first letter, in the second chapter he says, “My dear children, it is the last days, and as you have heard it is the last hour, and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, so already there are many antichrists by which we know that it is the last hour.”
Last hour (or last days) commonly refers to the entire period between Christ’s first coming and his second coming. The idea is the coming of Christ is so world-transforming, the kingdom has already dawned, and the old world is petering out. It is coming to an end. We are already in these last days.
When Paul, in the passage that was read, refers to these last days, he is not telling Timothy to write down something that will be for future generations. The whole context shows Paul is giving instruction that tells Timothy what to do now in his own time. “But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days.”
More than just terrible times or difficult times, the word that is used suggests violence. Wild. It’s the word that is used, for example, of the Gadarene demoniac. There will be uncontrollable times, wild times, in these last days. What will be characteristics then of the ungodly that warrant such a label? In verses 2–5, the apostle Paul lists 18 individual items and then adds a clause to give a nineteenth trait.
The first four depict selfishness: lovers of themselves, we’re told; lovers of money; boastful, and proud. The first commandment is to love God with heart and soul and mind and strength; the second is to love our neighbors as ourselves, but these people are characterized first and foremost by loving themselves. The first commandment is the first commandment because it’s the one we always break when we break any other. We don’t truly love God. The antithesis of that is loving ourselves, loving things, being boastful, and being arrogant.
The next two terms suggest socially destructive behavior: abusive, whether in word or deed, and disobedient to parents. This disobedience to parents is not the only disobedience, of course, but it reflects a certain kind of rebellion at heart that is fundamentally rebellious against God himself. It’s true that authority can be abused, but then it is no response to be suspicious of all authority, for some authority is genuinely ordained of God, but where there is a disobedience to parents, almost always there is a disobedience to all structure, a kind of in-your-face anarchy, that is also embracing an anarchy against God.
Then there are four “un” words. That is, words that mark the absence of something: literally, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, and unforgiving, which shows sometimes sins manifest themselves in the absence of good, in the absence of virtue. Then two more that reflect speech and behavior: slanderous, we’re told, and without self- control. Self-control is a virtue that is constantly stressed in these three letters. In chapter 1, verse 7, we’re told God has not given us a spirit of fear but of love and of power and of self-control.
Then there are two more “un” terms. It’s hard to translate them that way in any English translation just because our language doesn’t work quite the same way as the Greek does. Brutal, some translations have here. Untamed. Savage. That is untamed. That’s the “un” part of it. A word that can be used to describe fierce lions and people who act like them.
Not lovers of the good. That is, unloving of the good. They might love all kinds of things. They might love their own glory, their own self-promotion. They might love their money, they might love their home, they might love their children, but they don’t love the good. They don’t cherish it and cleave for what is truly good.
Then there are four items which show, perhaps, that Paul is moving from characteristics of the age to the false teachers themselves that he is confronting in the epistle. He calls them treacherous, rash, or impetuous, conceited, and lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. This treacherous category is important.
The church is usually not too badly troubled by teachers who are outside the framework of confessional Christianity from the beginning saying all kinds of things Christians view as either foolish or dangerous or just false, because they’re recognized as moving in another circle. They’re bringing another set of assumptions.
But if you find someone who has been a public teacher of Christianity for some time and then gradually moves away from the center of the faith, it sometimes takes a while to see that the drift is going on, and when the first people see that the drift is going on and begin to wave a red flag, others say, “Oh, come on. You’re being much too critical. I mean, after all, we trust this person. He has been such a huge help to us.”
It might take a very long time before a lot of people just see how serious this drift actually is. In that sense, you see, they’re traitors. They’re treacherous. That is, they have moved away from the public position they once held, and they are rash. That is, impetuous in the sense of not thinking through the long-term effects of the stances they’re taking.
Conceited, far too impressed by their own opinions, egos the size of small planets, unwilling to think through things out of a confessional heritage anymore because they’re telling everybody else who is right, and finally, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.
Then this clause one, instead of a single word or two, a longer expression: having a form of godliness, or having an appearance of godliness, but denying its power. This appearance of godliness, this form of godliness, can have many different shapes. It may be fine liturgy, or it may be a whole lot of noise, or it may be a lot of fluent God talk, but what is missing is the transforming power of the gospel which actually changes people’s lives.
This denying its power is not an overt verbal denying it. That’s not the point. It’s not a verbal denial. It’s a denial as evidenced in the life. Hence, in Titus, chapter 1, verse 16: “They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him.” In other words, their religion has all the form, all the verbiage; what’s missing is the transformed life. It’s tragic!
Now Paul says, “Have nothing to do with them.” Clearly, if you were to apply that maxim to anyone who ever displayed any of these sins you would have to begin by excommunicating everybody, beginning with yourself. It would be a very small church. Yet the point is surely important.
It’s built on the assumption that the gospel comes to us and actually does change people. It doesn’t simply declare us just because of what Christ has done. Salvation is more than justification. It is also regeneration. It is Spirit-empowered transformation of life. Such that Jesus himself can say, “By their fruit you shall know them.”
This does not mean we achieve a certain kind of perfection. It doesn’t mean anything like that, but where there is a whole pattern of public sins that everybody can see are antithetical to the gospel, at some point you have to say, “That’s not Christianity. This is Christianity. Have nothing to do with them.” This does not mean don’t make any friends with them or don’t evangelize them or don’t be civil. It means in the church, in the context of the confessional body of Christ, make sure these people do not constitute part of your assembly of believers.
The final paragraph describing these false teachers finds Paul talking about predation, the predatory nature of some false teachers. Verse 6: “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.”
Do not misunderstand this passage. It is no more saying all women are weak-willed than it is saying all men are predators. On the other hand, it is certainly saying you can have a confluence of evils that is morally catastrophic. I have been involved with more than my share of ministers who have been dismissed from the ministry because of adultery. In almost no case has it been a simple matter of lust. Oh, there has been some of that too, but usually it’s more complex.
Usually the minister is wanting to feel needed or is exercising a certain kind of power. There is a power dynamic going on as well. On the other side, there may be a desire to be attached to a powerful figure, to feel strong because identified with someone who is at the front. Now with an extra baggage of neurosis and sins connected with sexual desire on the other hand, suddenly you have a recipe for moral catastrophe.
In other words, false teaching easily leads to a desire for power and recognition that then itself leads to predation. These people prey on people. They prey on weak-willed women, and as a result now you have a confluence of evils that issues in disaster. Verse 9: “Mercifully, they will not get very far because, as in the case of those men just mentioned (Jannes and Jambres), their folly will be clear to everyone.”
That is, sooner or later the truth comes out. Sooner or later it becomes clear. It’s not always instantaneous. It’s not always even fast, but sooner or later if they continue down this course, people begin to discern what is going on. God is not mocked. This is a cheerful way to begin my last of three addresses, isn’t it?
In fact, some people have accused the apostle Paul of being a wee bit negative here. After all, the apostle Paul is certainly able to talk about what theologians refer to when they speak of common grace, grace that is commonly given to people at large. Yet, Paul is probingly accurate. He is going after the heart.
He is not going after the civilized face we put on but after the heart of human beings apart from the gospel of Jesus Christ. The longer you live and the more you probe into people’s lives, you discover this is a very accurate picture. What do you do about it?
1. Hold the right mentors in high regard.
Verse 10: “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.”
The crucial word to show the flow of thought is this however. “You, however, know all about my teaching …” That is, “Instead of being snookered by these false teachers, instead of being attracted to the way they go about things, you know me. Follow me.” Do you ever speak to a young Christian and say, “Do you want to know what Christianity is like? Watch me.” Do you ever say that? If you never do, you’re unbiblical.
After all, the apostle Paul can say elsewhere, writing to the Corinthians, “Be imitators of me even as I also am of Christ.” There are all kinds of things that are learned as much by example as by word. Isn’t that why we pray and work to train up Christian parents? It’s not just what the parents say; it’s what they do. “Watch me.” Isn’t that what Paul is saying here?
“Timothy, choose your mentor. You have known all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love.” So if you’re looking around for a good senior mentor, then always ask some fundamental questions. Don’t simply say, “Oh, that person seems to be making a real go of it. A wonderful success. I just love that personality. I’d like to be like that.”
No. Ask some fundamental questions. “You know all about my teaching.” Does he follow apostolic teaching? Paul’s teaching? How about way of life? Purpose? Faith? Patience? Love? Endurance? Suffering? Do you see? Choose your mentors and hold the right mentors in high regard. For all of us do follow people, whether we like it or not. Consciously or unconsciously we do. After all, that’s why advertising works.
When I was an undergraduate at McGill studying chemistry a long time ago now, another chap and I started a Bible study for unbelievers. The other fellow was godly but very, very quiet and a bit withdrawn, and I’m afraid I had the mouth, so I was left to lead this thing. We didn’t want to be outnumbered so we invited only three people, hoping that not more than two would come. Unfortunately, the first night all three showed up and by week five, we were running 16 people and still only two of us were Christians.
I was rapidly out of my depth. I was trying to work through a gospel, and on many occasions they asked questions I didn’t have a clue what to do with, but in the grace of God there was a chap on campus called Dave Ward, who was a graduate student. He had been converted quite spectacularly as a young man, and he was a rough jewel.
He was slap-dash, in-your-face, no poise, and no polish, but he was aggressively influential in his apologetics, and he allowed us to bring people down to him every once in a while. We’d get people down to Dave, and Dave would sort them out. That night I brought two of my guys down to Dave, and he slapped around the way he always did. “Why don’t you sit here? Would you like some coffee? (Slosh. Slap.)” Nothing suave.
He turned to the first one. “Okay. Why did you come?” I had warned my guys so they knew what sort of a fellow he was. The first one said, “Well, I think university is a great time for finding out about different points of view and different religions and so on, so I’ve been reading something on Buddhism, and I have a Hindu friend. I want to question him a lot more. I got to study some Islam. Then this Bible study started, so I thought I’d get to know a little bit more about Christianity, so that’s why I’ve come.”
Dave looked at him and looked at him and said, “Sorry. I don’t have time for you.” The chap said, “I beg your pardon?” He said, “Look. I’ll give you some books. I can give you some books on world religions and show you how I understand Christianity to fit into all of this and the truth of Christianity, but you’re just playing around. You’re a dilettante. You don’t really care about these things. You’re just goofing off. I don’t have time. I’m a graduate student myself. I don’t have time to have endless discussions with people who are just playing around.”
He turned to the second one. “Why did you come?” The second one said, “I come from a home that you people call liberal. We go to the United Church, and we don’t believe in things like the literal resurrection. I mean, give me a break! The deity of Christ.… It’s a bit much. But it’s a good home, you know? My parents love me and my sister. We’re tight as a family. We worship God. We do good in the community. It’s a wonderful home. What do you think you have that we don’t have?” Dave looked at him and looked at him and looked at him and said, “Watch me.”
The other fellow, whose name was also Dave (as it happened) said, “I beg your pardon?” He said, “Watch me. I have an extra bed. Move in with me. Be my guest. I’ll pay for the food. You go to your classes. Do whatever you have to do. Then you watch me. You watch me when I get up, how I interact with people, what I say, what moves me, what I live for, and what I want in life. You watch me. You watch me for the rest of the semester, and then you tell me at the end of the semester if there’s no difference.”
Well, the second Dave didn’t actually take him up on this, literally. He didn’t move in with him, but he kept going down to see him and kept going down to see him. Before the end of the semester he became a Christian and today is a medical missionary overseas. “Watch me.” You see, it means that you who are older should be looking out for younger people and saying, in effect, “Watch me. Come and I’ll show you how to have family devotions. Come and I’ll show you how to do Bible study. Come and let me take you through some of the fundamentals of the faith.”
You who are younger (not necessarily younger in years but younger in Christian grace and experience) ought to be finding mentors who have these characteristics: they know Paul’s teaching, they have Christian characteristics (maybe they’ve been tested by suffering), they demonstrate love and endurance and patience and faith. In this broken world, in this sinful world, where in these last days so many siren voices are taking us in different directions, hold the right mentors in high regard. That’s how you respond.
2. Hold few illusions about the world.
Verses 12 and 13: “In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil men and imposters will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.” This does not mean every generation is necessarily worse than every previous generation. It means, rather, that in every generation evil people get worse and worse.
Pol Pot does not start off butchering one third of the population of Cambodia. Hitler doesn’t start off by gassing 6 million Jews. Mao Zedong does not start off by killing 50 million Chinese. The French Revolution starts off with people who are trying to get rid of corrupt authority and ends up in Robespierre and his Reign of Terror.
Evil people get worse and worse, so don’t be surprised. What is astonishing is after the bloody century we’ve just come through, so many people think if we just sit around the table and talk we’ll sort it all out. It’s astonishingly naÔve. Christians should never, ever, ever be surprised by evil. We should always be horrified by evil. We should never be surprised by it.
Don’t adopt a Pollyannaish view of things. “Just leave me alone, and I’m okay, Jack.” No, no, no. Don’t be surprised by evil. Hold few illusions about the world, but at the same time, view it all as something to be evaluated from God’s perspective, and then you will not be surprised by evil … not even the evil in your own heart. Horrified, no doubt, but not surprised.
I have a friend who is a Reformed Baptist pastor in the South. An Orthodox rabbi moved into his area, and he decided he would get to know him, so he went to him and asked for some private tutoring in Hebrew just to improve his Hebrew. How better to learn it than from a rabbi? Eventually, they were actually teaching courses together at the local junior college.
One night as they were driving back home from one of these courses, the rabbi said to him, “You do know, don’t you, that you and I can’t both be right in our understanding of the Old Testament?” My friend said, “Yes, I know, and I love you.” He said, “All my other Christian friends are trying to convince me we’re all saying the same thing. You’re the only one I can trust because you acknowledge we’re different.”
You see, this world is constantly parading notions, for example, of tolerance and of all being on the same page, and kindness covers everything, and it’s naÔve. It’s ridiculous. It’s blind. You have to see that there is difference and still be Christian in the context of that difference, still hold few illusions about the deceptiveness of this world, about the wickedness of this world, and about the lostness of this world.
3. Hold on to the Bible.
Verses 14 and following: “But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it …” In this case, it’s his mother and his grandmother, Louis and Eunice. That’s where he got his first lessons in the Bible, mentioned a little earlier in the book. “… and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.”
Now there is a way of learning the Bible that learns more and more data, that learns more and more text, that might even memorize a whole lot of text, but that somehow doesn’t see the Bible as a coherent whole that brings us to faith in Jesus. There are even some people who go by the name of evangelical who view the Bible in such scrappy little atomistic bits that they can find moralizing lessons here and there but they don’t see how the Bible gives us the gospel of Jesus Christ. It’s tragic.
“But you, Timothy, you’ve understood from infancy these Holy Scriptures, and you’ve understood they are able to make you wise unto salvation by faith in Christ Jesus.” The Bible is not a magic book. (A verse a day keeps the Devil away.) It’s a book that points us to Jesus, and Jesus saves.
Jesus transforms. Jesus gives us the good news of the gospel. Here there is instruction on what God has done in Christ Jesus. Here there is the message of Christ dying for sinners, of whom I am chief. Here there is the promise of the Holy Spirit given in down payment of the ultimate inheritance. Here there is transformation.
Do you see? These Scriptures make you wise unto salvation. Indeed, Paul goes on to say, “All Scripture is God breathed.” You see, this is not saying the writers of Scripture are inspired by God, though doubtless in some sense that’s true. It’s saying the text itself, finally, is God breathed.
God has many different ways of inspiring texts. It wouldn’t take very long to go through some of them. Different ways in which he has given text to people in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. Many different ways, but the result is in every case the same: namely that this Scripture, this written material, is itself God breathed, and in consequence, it’s useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness so the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
In a world where there are so many false ideas or deceptive ideas or selfish ideas or un-God or anti-God ideas, what do you do to get orientated toward God himself? You go to his Word. You hold on to the Bible. You’re not what you think you are, but what you think you are, so you need to think God’s thoughts after him. Isn’t that what Paul says?
Elsewhere he writes to the Romans and says, “Do not be conformed to this world …” That is this world he has just described for us here in 2 Timothy, chapter 3. “Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” That means you must hold on to the Bible, not as a magic book but as a book that teaches you how to think, what to think, and provides an entire frame of reference.
Not because a frame of reference saves. Only Jesus saves! But when you understand what this gospel is and look at all of the world around you out of the framework of this gospel, out of the framework of this Book, then you are able to withstand the subtle allure of passing fancies that drive us away from the God who is our Maker, Redeemer, and Judge. Hold on to the Bible.
4. Hold out the Bible to others.
That takes us into chapter 4. Here the opening lines are an adjuring that is astonishingly powerful. “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 …” You can’t get much more high pressure than that, and the charge is, “Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction.”
I know this is given to someone like Timothy and then to other pastors and so on. Yet there is a sense in which this is also given to all Christians. Doesn’t the Great Commission itself tell us we are to make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit and teaching them, Jesus says, to observe everything I have commanded you?
There is this teaching ministry, whether in our homes or small groups or with our children or one-on-one across the back fence or around the coffee urn at work and in evangelistic Bible studies and adult Bible classes. Whatever. Constantly, constantly teaching and preaching the Word of God.
For you see, everything that has been said up till now is essentially defensive. That is to say we follow the right mentors, we hold the right mentors in high regard, we hold few illusions about the world, and we hold the Bible up, but now, for the first time, we have something that is essentially strategically offensive. We hold out the Word to others. How else shall we respond to this world that is going off on its own and other directions? How else shall we prevail in the last days?
We hold out the Word to others. We think aggressively in terms of teaching the Word of God in every domain of our lives through every channel of the church until men and women come under the sound of the gospel, and many, many are converted. Indeed, Paul himself sees himself as part of a long chain in this regard. Have you noticed how this section ends? Verse 6: “For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my departure.” This is the last letter that came from his pen. He’s about to die a martyr’s death under Nero.
“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the faith, 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.” Do you see he’s passing the torch now to Timothy? He’s going off the scene, and he understands that as he will receive this crown of righteousness so, ultimately, Timothy will as well. “… to all who love his appearing.”
When I was a young man, I spent quite a lot of time reading some of the writings of John Stott and Jim Packer and others who were viewed as giants in the land. Now, of course, they’re all either retired (that generation) or they’re dead. A few are still being productive but not too many anymore. I’m 60. I’m no giant in the land, but I’m 60, and in another 20 or 30 years (maybe a good deal less … who knows?) I won’t be here either. Then who is coming along behind me? And on and on and on.… Kent Hughes is no longer here, and who comes along behind him?
Now you begin to see your ministry.… You see not only in terms of teaching the Word right now to this one or that one (teaching the Word right now for this sermon or that sermon), but you see it as part of passing God’s truth along to another generation which comes along behind and takes up the reins and proclaims this gospel to yet another generation world without end until Jesus himself comes back, and backwards, backwards all the way to the apostle Paul.
Because, you see, that’s what Paul has already told Timothy to do. Two chapters earlier, in chapter 2, verse 2, he said, “And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others.” Now you begin to see your ministry in your home, handling this Word as you hold it out to others.
You begin to see your ministry in a Sunday school class. You begin to see it as part of this huge chain that connects us all the way back to the New Testament and prepares the people of God for the return of Jesus Christ at the end. That’s how you live and work in the last days. You hold out the Bible to others. We are about to celebrate the Lord’s Supper. The Lord’s Supper, of course, looks back (“Do this in remembrance of me”), but it also looks forward until he comes.
