Eternal life resides in Jesus and in Him alone. No one else! This is true now and will also be the case after Jesus removes His true church from the earth.
In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
What do people need the most? The answer remains the same as it’s always been: A clear understanding of the Gospel. By this I mean that people need Jesus, not the one that so many today create in their mind but but the One revealed on the pages of Scripture.
Do not let the elite powerbrokers of our day deceive you; there is no climate emergency. This is one of many deceptions that Jesus said would characterize the last days (Matthew 24:4). The purpose of COP28 is about furthering the ruse that the globalists believe will enable them to gain control of all the nations.
Whether it’s the Gospel or any other belief, we depend upon the words of Scripture for truth rather than our own intuition or reasoning. “Why restate such an obvious truth?”
I do so because many believers do not understand how the words of Scripture relate to the perils we face today as our world teeters on the brink of a devastating war.
To know Bible prophecy and to see it converging and aligning as never before in human history assures me that the Lord will fulfill all things written in His Word for the days to come. As a believer, my future is glorious and secure regardless of man’s opinions and interpretations of what is happening
The word that’s translated “perilous,” or “difficult” in some translations, is Chalepos. This term denotes the last days as “dangerous” and “hard to bear.” In Matthew 8:28, it depicts the fierceness of the two men possessed by demons. The text says that they were “so fierce that no one could pass that way.”
Such are the dangerous times in which we live, and they will grow increasingly treacherous leading up to and during the seven-year Tribulation.
When the disciples asked Jesus about the signs of the end of the age, Jesus began His answer with these words, “See that no one leads you astray” (Matt. 24:4). Jesus’ first warning about the last days concerned those who would seek to deceive His followers by leading them away from the truth. Does this not describe the world in which we all live?
We live in the last days of human history as we know it before the start of the tribulation.
We do not know the day or the hour when Jesus will come for His church or when day God’s fierce wrath will begin. The prophetic signs we see all around us, however, tell us these things are getting ever so close.
I shared this list a couple months ago through my newsletter. As events continue to point toward the soon return of Jesus, I decided to update the list and make it available to more who may be interested. I have also changed the order a bit.
The apostle Paul begins his list describing the characteristics of people who make up the “perilous times” of 2 Timothy 3 with the phrase “lovers of self.” Does this not sum up the Facebook generation? For many, posting is all about drawing attention to themselves, their lives, and their opinions. It’s all about making them look good. I have not been immune to this temptation myself.
A couple weeks ago I wrote a response to a Facebook post and later regretted it. I discovered too late that my reply was a mistake and misunderstood. I soon realized that any attempt to explain my words would only make matters worse and increase the anger of the responses I had already received.
While such self-promotion as I exhibited has been around ever since the time of Paul, it describes our current day more than ever before. Part of the current day problem is that everyone now has many more opportunities to express their feelings and ideas in an anonymous way without having to answer for anything they say.
What also makes matters far worse today is that so many have replaced a love of God with love for themselves.
A multitude of books and psychoanalysts today encourage people to love themselves and express everything that come to their minds. This, they claim, is the essence of a healthy emotional state. The disastrous results of such encouragement manifest themselves in broken relationships, quarrels, a lack of trust in people as well as in what we read, and a total lack of respect for the opinions of others.
Let’s begin by looking a little closer at why Paul chose this trait first in describing “perilous times.”
“Lovers of self” is the first characteristic that Paul lists in 2 Timothy 3:2-5 and as such it sums up well all the qualities that follow. In his commentary on 2 Timothy, William Barclay states that this “self-loving” is “the basic sin, from which all others flow.” He went on to say that once a person makes self the center of everything, “human relationships are destroyed, obedience to God and charity to men both become impossible.”
This becomes evident through the other items on Paul’s list such as pride, a lack of “self-control,” “conceit,” and “lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.” Such an inward focus of life is the capstone of many of the ills that beset people today. People today place everything in their lives ahead of their devotion to the Lord and make themselves the center of their universe.
When such self-love defines a person, many other problems ensue including his or her inability to effectively relate to other people or to worship God in any meaningful way. It also leads to depression and increased anxieties when people do not respond to us in the way we would like.
How do we counter this tendency of focusing our dependency inward rather than upward?
I believe it starts with remembering that as believers we have the powerful Holy Spirit living inside us. When we walk with the Spirit, we experience victory over the lure to see ourselves as the center of our universe (Rom. 8:1-11). Later in Romans, Paul describes the transformation that takes place in us as the renewing of our minds (12:2). The Holy Spirit changes our thinking; He is the one who makes our thoughts God-centered rather self-centered.
I love the verses that follow in Romans 12:3-8. Self-loathing is not the antidote to self-centeredness. Rather, as the Spirit renews our thinking we increasingly see our gifts, and talents as something bestowed upon us for the purpose of serving others, particularly those in the body of Christ. These special abilities come from the Lord, not us, and as such they are not a cause for boasting in ourselves.
We are to have the mindset of verse 3, “For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.” The gifts and ministries the Lord gives to us vary greatly, but they all come from Him and the same Spirit for the purpose of building up others in the body of Christ or reaching the lost.
The Lord never intended for us view ourselves as superior to fellow believers because of our gifts or based on the degree to which the Holy Spirit manifests Himself through us. Instead, He intended our focus is to be God-ward with our thinking constrained by how we can serve and bless others.
We do not need someone to teach us how to love ourselves; that comes naturally. We do need, however, the power of the Holy Spirit to look for ways we can benefit others with the gifts and abilities He has given to us.
This is not a “poor me” or false humility. It’s certainly not self-hatred.
Instead, it’s looking at our lives as God does. It’s putting Him first rather than ourselves and serving others with gifts the Spirit entrusts to us. It’s being confident, not proud, recognizing that our competence in ministering to others comes solely from the Lord (2 Cor. 3:4-6).
We can be confident because of the gifts God gives to us and the working of the Holy Spirit through us to bless others. This is not egotism or self-centeredness. It’s giving all the credit to the Lord for all He gives to us and does through us.
The news of the Las Vegas massacre shocked me. I watched with great sadness as updated news bulletins increased the death toll seemingly each hour on Monday morning. How could someone be so evil as to murder innocent so many people he did not know? How could he gun them down as though he was a gamer shooting lifeless images on a computer screen?
The pictures of those killed, now appearing on news sites, are almost too much for me to bear. I see the smiling faces and wonder about the grieving families left behind.
Are these the "perilous times" that the Apostle Paul described in 2 Timothy 3? Are we in the "last days?" I think so. Paul's mention of "last days" in this passage refers to the time just before the end of this age. While the evil people he described in the opening verses of this chapter existed in his day as well as in every era since then, the sense is that they will be especially numerous at the end of human history with their behavior much more intense, or fierce, than in previous times. I believe this is what we are seeing today.
In 2 Timothy 3:1 Paul says this, “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come” (KJV). I used the King James Version here because the phrase “times of difficulty,” as in the English Standard Version, does not capture the harshness of the word in the Greek.
In Matthew 8:28, the word in the original depicts the fierceness of the two men possessed by demons. The text says that they were “so fierce that no one could pass that way.” They were “violent and dangerous” men as the commentator William Barclay describes them. The word also denotes someone as “hard to approach.” The brutal nature of these demon possessed men made it impossible for anyone to deal with them in any normal way.
Does this not bring to mind the scene in Las Vegas? Although the suspected shooter did not appear to be violent leading up to the assault, he somehow possessed the vileness to carry out the vicious attack. I believe the characteristics of the two demon possessed men of Matthew 8 apply to anyone who would massacre and injure so many people. We see the work of the devil in all such violence such as was certainly on display during this latest tragedy.
Barclay also described the menacing last times of 2 Timothy 3:1-5 as “a kind of last tremendous assault of evil before its final defeat.” All throughout the world we see daily terror attacks with similar death and destruction. The devil knows his time is growing short and is fiercely and savagely attacking all that is good. This came to full fruition in Las Vegas, did it not? This brutal attack has the fingerprints of Satan all over it.
Although the authorities have not yet announced the motive for the killing, I firmly believe ISIS was behind it. In Amir Tsarfati’s prophecy update after the tragedy, he provided many convincing reasons for this conclusion. I do not think the shooter could possibly have carried out his tragic attack without help. He appeared innocent enough so he could procure the weapons, but could not have planned and carried this out alone.
What does the terrible tragedy in Las Vegas tell us? I believe it primarily reminds us that we need to be ready. If you know the Lord as your Savior, this means watching for Him to return as Jesus instructed us to do in Matthew 24:42-44. If we are in Christ, we know we will see Him either through death or meeting Him in the air. We need not be afraid of the day in which we live; we are secure in Him regardless of what comes our way. Personally, I am hoping to meet Jesus in the air.
If you do not know Him, please call upon His name while you have opportunity. As demonstrated by what happened in Las Vegas, life on this earth is ever so uncertain. We do not know if we will have tomorrow; but those who know Jesus as their Savior can rest in His promise of eternal life come what may during their time here on earth.
Jesus said this in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” Jesus is the only path of salvation available to men and women. He will, however, give eternal life to all who call upon Him believing that He will forgive sins and save them from the wrath that is coming (see Romans 10:9, 13).
Are you ready for eternity? Are you resting secure in Jesus?
Stay tuned for more studies on the characteristics listed in 2 Timothy 3 . . . .
