CaryCOG | Cary Church of God
Pastor Jensen brings us today's message: "The Opportunity of Perilous Times"
II Timothy 3:1-9 NKJV
I. Introduction to Timothy
a. Paul wrote the 2nd letter to Timothy from a prison in Rome towards the end of his life.
b. Paul’s purpose for writing to Timothy a 2nd time is to:
i. Encourage Timothy in the face of persecution and false teachers.
ii. Exercise his spiritual gifts
iii. Boldly face suffering as a good soldier of Christ
iv. Deal wisely with false teachers
v. And continue to exhibit a strong testimony for Christ in the wake of apostasy and wickedness in the world.
c. Chapter 3-4:8 is nestled in the middle of the epistle as both a warning and a subsequent charge.
d. Thus, we now come to our text today, 3:1-9, and look first at how humanity will change during the last days.
II. Perilous Times will see the degradation of humanity and create an opportunity for travail (3:1-5)
a. Paul begins by placing Timothy in the context of what will become a degradation of humanity. There seems to be a double meaning in the “last days” comment.
b. Second, Paul uses, what I believe is an intentional emphasis on a certain kind of “time” when he uses the Greek Kairos, to describe the last days.
c. We should note that this is not the first time Timothy is hearing this warning from Paul, and as Timothy, the warning is repeated so that we feel the full force and gravity of the prophetic situation. In 1st Timothy we hear of a similar refrain.
d. In the last days, there will be a doubt concerning the return of Christ. Some if not many will scoff at the faithful who look for his coming. Listen to the prophecy in 2 Peter.
e. Finally, Paul provides a laundry list of adjectives to describe the nature of the degradation that will happen to humanity in the last days.
f. However, there is a subtle but sober warning to us that will deceive so many in v. 5, and that is the form of godliness.
Quote:
Prevailing prayer is prayer that pushes right through all difficulties and obstacles, drives back all the opposing forces of Satan, and secures the will of God. Its purpose is to accomplish God’s will on earth. Prevailing prayer is prayer that not only takes the initiative but continues on the offensive for God until spiritual victory is won.
Wesley Duewel
III. Perilous Times will be an age of captivity and learning divorced from truth and provide an opportunity for deliverance (3:6-7)
a. Paul moves from adjectives to behaviors as he begins to describe the societal ramifications of human degradation.
b. Captivity is certainly noted here in terms of sexual immorality.
c. Second we find a time where there is much learning but not truth. One would imagine that learning ought to lead one into truth, but not in the age of perilous times. During the last days, learning will rise like never before. Higher education will be in a golden age and trust in the knowledge of the global scholarly network will appear to be without question.
d. This then begs the question, what is the opportunity herein, what is the Kairos moment in a society that draws all knowledge to itself except the knowledge of the truth! Is it not divine deliverance?
Quote:
It is a question of the freedom of God, which finds its strongest evidence precisely in that God freely chose to be bound to historical human beings and to be placed at the disposal of human beings. God is free not from human beings but for them. Christ is the word of God’s freedom.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
IV. Perilous Times will see the return of Pharaoh’s court and provide an opportunity for exposure (3:8-9)
a. Paul finally closes the section on perilous times with an interesting allusion to the sorcerers of Pharoah’s court during the time of Moses’s calling to deliver Israel.
b. Paul’s allusion is for the purpose of comparing the perilous times ahead both for Timothy and for us to Pharoah’s court. The particular comparison is made to illustrate the resistance to truth and the prophetic.
c. So, we find inherent in prophetic resistant are lying signs and wonders, ones quite definitively defeated by the Lord’s manifestation.
d. So what is the opportunity Beloved? Exposure! When we stand our ground, when we like Moses stand in Pharaoh’s court unwavering in our confession, God exposes the darkness, the folly, and the weakness of the powers in perilous times and shows all a better way.
Quote:
The Egyptian empire could not! The gods of Egypt could not! The scientists of the regime could not! The imperial religion was dead! The politics of oppression had failed!... {the} false claims to authority and power cannot keep their promises, which they could not in the face of the free God.
Walter Brueggeman
II. There is Power in the Blood to Create a New Priesthood (10:21)
a. The blood of Christ not only verifies Christ as the one High Priest once and for all but punctuates His status as He does not offer the blood of lambs but His own blood.
b. The house of God, is the tabernacle in heaven, which is a new order of priesthood, the one after Melchizedek. Let us look further at this new order in Hebrews 7.