"Nearing The End ?"

From his depressing second imprisonment in Rome, Paul wrote these words to Timothy -

"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." 2 Timothy 3:1-5 NIV

Who are these "people" he is describing? Take a moment to re-read what he wrote, carefully!

Are they Jews? If you look at the last statement, the Jews certainly professed faith in God and his written revelation in their Holy Scriptures. But their rejection of Jesus as the promised Messiah in the face of prophetic and miraculous evidence, would identify them as the "people" Paul describes.

Are they Greeks/Romans? Even though modern American society owes much to the Greco/Roman world for a lot of the ideas and principles that became true democracy, you don't have to do much critical research to see how aptly Paul described those ancient societies. Although their philosophers and teachers talked much about deity that discussion was always tied to some non-existent entity that had been invented by those philosophers to attempt to explain what they couldn't explain.

Actually we could probably profile every nation of people that existed then and find apt parallels to Paul's description of "people". Maybe we could even go further and simply affirm that all of the human family, even believers in God and especially many professed followers in Jesus, fit Paul's description from then to now!

Disagree if you wish but to me Paul uses that word "people" to generally describe human society at large. There is no way we can get inside his head here, but I get a sense that he is also warning Timothy about false followers of Jesus who mouth the right words at the right times but their actions proved  false to the core.

Today every newspaper and TV newscast is filled the ugliness of human ignorance about God and his truth, but it's been that way a very long time. If Paul could foresee all that he describes about human behavior and every ugly thing he details confronts us today, what should we conclude?

THE END IS NEAR!

Well maybe not. I doubt there has been a millennium or decade since Jesus ascended back into heaven that some people somewhere weren't looking at the same circumstances of human society and predicted the end. We're still here and still in the same moral quicksand that was evident in first century Rome. People are people in every generation and geography. That's why we need God's grace poured out on us through the blood of his Son.

I could bore you with the Biblical evidence that even though we truly are living in "the last days" the end isn't something any human, any angel, not even Jesus himself could ever predict. That event is at the sole discretion of our Father in heaven and only he knows. (Matthew 24:36)

So pay attention and don't get caught up in the hysteria of the modern day "prophets" who keep trying to get Jesus to come on back and end all this madness. Hear Paul's encouragement to Timothy -

"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." 2 Timothy 3:14-15

That's good enough for Paul, for Timothy and for me too! HALLELUJAH!