Becoming an Effective Disciple Maker - Be Prepared - Don't Be Surprised (2 Timothy 3), Part 1

Have you ever wondered what the Bible means when it says we're living in the last days and what to expect? Today, we'll answer that question. Stay with me. Welcome to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Chip's our Bible teacher for this daily discipleship program motivating Christians to live like Christians. Well, we're in the middle of our newest series, Becoming an Effective Disciple Maker, based in the book of II Timothy. We hope you're applying these truths to your walk with Jesus. So if this series has impacted you, would you take a minute after this message and share it with someone so they can learn from it too?

You can do that either through the Chip Ingram app or by sending them the free MP3s that you'll find at livingontheedge.org. Well, if you have a Bible, turn now to II Timothy chapter 3 for Chip's message, Be Prepared, Don't Be Surprised. When we are surprised, we react. When we are prepared, we respond. When we are surprised by things, we react. When we are prepared, we respond. And I thought about how when you're surprised and when you're surprised by evil, this is disorienting. I think the last few years have been very disorienting, haven't they been?

I mean, it's like violence and evil, and it's grown and grown and grown, but then it kind of got like it went nuts. It was similar to, there's a fellow that I knew, I did know him real well. He actually had gone to seminary. He visited our church quite a bit. He was in the area. And I got a phone call from his wife, said, this is absolutely crazy.

Will you please help my husband? And he's in jail right now. I said, he's what? Yes, he's in jail. They've accused him of sexual molestation. So I got to find out what's going on, and he's in jail, and I call him in jail, and what's going on? And there's a huge misunderstanding, and I have no idea what's going on here. And maybe someone's made accusations. And so I jump into it, and I happen to know the DA pretty well and got on the inside to find out, I think there's a tremendous injustice.

I mean, this guy went to this seminary, and he's this person in the community, and I'm trying to help his wife and just thinking, oh my gosh. And the DA says, Chip, can we talk? I said, yeah. He said, well, there's been this allegation. Yeah.

He said, but the reason he is where he is is that we have a number of others who aren't willing at this point yet to testify publicly, but we have a string of these. I said, what? You know what? It's true.

It's true. When evil surprises you, when things start happening that are almost hard to digest, it's very disorienting. And my first thought was, well, do I not have any discernment anymore? I mean, how could I never see anything? Or what's happening to the world? And then thoughts like, well, who can I really trust?

And can we believe in people, right? And then you see, and then now it's happened all across the culture, and not just here. Horrendous things around the world.

And I know we have more access, and we have satellites, and everyone can take pictures with cell phones. So I know we're more aware than ever before, but it's not just that. There's more evil than there was. There's more violence than there used to be. There used to be a right and a wrong. The foundations have eroded, and things are happening that just seem unthinkable to us. People casually just shoot other people?

What is it? One out of every four girls in America, by the time she's 21, will be sexually assaulted by someone? 85 or 90% of people in prisons are without a father or a father figure. I mean, the family's breaking down. I mean, there's a point where you can go, hey, God, where are you?

Has anybody felt that other than me? Here's what the Apostle Paul is going to teach us, and he taught Timothy. And I state it this way. Don't allow current and future events to undermine your confidence in God's purposes and promises for you and the world. You know, we can't just casually say, oh, God's sovereign. We know He is, but some current or maybe some events that are coming can undermine your confidence in God's purposes.

Like at some point, you know, maybe real privately, is this true or not? How could a good God let this happen? How could it be this bad?

Where is He? Those are thoughts I've had on a bad day. And so Paul warns of an increase in wickedness in the last days, and we'll talk about the last days. Let me just read verses one through about five. But realize this, okay, context, context, people, we've always got to remember, Timothy, right, don't be ashamed. Timothy, don't give up.

Don't give in. You need to be strong. You need to be bold in this chaotic culture. But realize this, Timothy, that in the last days, difficult times will come. That word difficult can also mean dangerous, challenging. For people will be lovers of self and lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, slanders, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding, notice the context of this, holding to a form of godliness, although they've denied its power.

Command, avoid such people as these. So let's ask and answer two questions, and then let's dig in and talk about what are the implications. Question number one should be, are we in the last days?

Right? Hebrews chapter one. God, after he spoke long ago to the fathers and the prophets and in many portions and many ways, in these last days has spoken to us through his son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also made the world. Now, I understand that we live in a day where there's been multiple groups historically. These are the last days.

I actually, I have a little file. I have a little pamphlet from one particular group that I forget the date, you know, it was about 10 years ago and Jesus will be coming back on September something on this date, so I keep that kind of stuff. It's always humorous looking backwards. And whoops, you know, and then they say, well, he came in the spirit.

We were just a little off. And then he's going to come later. And when Jesus came and revealed himself as the son of God and the Messiah and the savior of the world, biblically speaking, that's when the last days begin. We are in the last days because this is the last installment.

There isn't something else coming later. This is the era of the church, of God's appeal, of salvation, and depending on your theology, you're turning the end times, the church will be raptured, the Lord will return, he'll set up his kingdom, and on we go. We are in the last days. Now, what we need to understand is that we're a couple thousand years from when the last days began, and so I think it's fair to say, like, how long were these last days? Well, after a few decades of the church, some early Christians were saying, hey, what's the deal with the last days? And so in 1 Peter chapter 3, Peter explains, know this first of all, that in the last days, mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own desires, and saying, where's the promise of his coming?

For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue just as they were from the beginning of creation. For when they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God, the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of the water by the water, through which the world at that time was destroyed by being flooded with water. But by his word, the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly people.

Do not let this one fast escape you. Notice, beloved, that with the Lord, one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. The Lord is not slow about his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not willing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance. And so I think when you open this chapter, and he says, mark this, Timothy, in the last days, evil things are going to come.

And then he starts to lay them out. He's saying, in the last days, beginning now, these are the kind of things you're going to see. And the inference here is, as we get closer and closer, these kind of things will intensify and become more and more the norm, instead of the exception. Does that make sense?

By the way, we always have to keep remembering, as challenging as it is for us, it's not new. Isaiah chapter 5, verse 10, woe to you, what? Anybody know this passage? Woe to you when evil is called good, and good is called evil, when light is called darkness, and darkness is called light. We are living in a day, we had this little plus or minus 200 year experiment, where people founded this country, and regardless of your view of all the government, there was a Judeo-Christian world view that is the basis of our American legal system, and the basis of our values. Family, freedom of religion, all the kind of things, and there was a very clear right, and a very clear wrong. And by the way, if you've ever read much of the Puritans, they really get a bad name. They had this overwhelming sense of the love of God, and of great doctrine, and great care.

That whole concept of Puritanical, yes, they were very pious, and living a holy life, but there's a real, it flowed out of an overwhelming sense of God's love. And so, what we've had is a couple hundred years of this is right, this is wrong, these things matter, the dignity of every human being, regardless of background, color, religion, why? Because they're made in the image of God.

See, that was completely new. You can go back to the early Greeks in Philo, Aristotle, Plato, some of those, their writings will say, it is self-evident that men were born, some to rule, and some to be ruled. It's just self-evident. The world's always been that way. All I want you to get is that the world historically has been far different from the window that many of us have gotten to experience. And what we're now seeing in America as you abandon, and I'm not talking about political issues, I'm talking about values, I'm talking about worldview, I'm talking about reverence for God. You know, I don't know if you've been reading the Old Testament lately, and like Isaiah, Jeremiah, I don't know about you, but it's just gonna, and now here's the judgment on Edom, and now here's the judgment on the Philistines, and now here's the judgment, so God judges nations, and then you get over there to Revelation, and Jesus talking about, it's more tolerable, it's gonna be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah, it's gonna be more tolerable for this country than you, Bethesda, and you, Capernaum, because of the mirror. It's almost like the Bible talks about that God actually does judgment for nations. Oh, wow. Huh.

Wonder if he's still doing that today. You know, sometimes we have a picture of God's judgment, it's like lightning bolts coming down at people, but Romans 1 is a picture of passive judgment. When you sow to the flesh, you reap corruption, and what God in his mercy will say, if you want to do it your own way with these consequences, you can, and then at some point, when it's rebellion, rebellion, rebellion, and a lot of people, they don't know they're rebelling, he says, okay, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna give you over. That's the word in Romans 1. He says, I'm gonna give you over.

I'm gonna give you over. I'm gonna give you over to fully do whatever you want to do in the areas of finance, in the areas of sexuality, in the areas of family, but what happens when that happens is you get the consequences that you see in America today. And unfortunately, so we can be fair, inside the church, of which I am a pastor, so I have to own my part of this, is that it's easy to point to the sins that we aren't most guilty of and see how terrible they are, but when was it, what happened in the church when it was okay to get a divorce for any reason? There was a biblical divorce, right? Grounds of immorality, abandonment by an unbeliever, but so, so when that went by the way, and then, well, all I'm saying is we have inch by inch inside the church, we have, we have mortgaged our own moral standings and just read conversation just the other day of parents that were talking about, you know, their daughter and her lesbian lover and you know, how can you do this?

And you were raised in the church, et cetera, et cetera. And her words were, well, Uncle Fred left his wife. He didn't have biblical divorce. And then he got remarried to someone else that didn't have biblical divorce. And it was all thumbs up and, you know, praising God for the church wedding with Uncle Fred. So what happened, Mom and Dad? Can you, can you see?

That's one of many. And so all I want you to know is what the apostle Paul is saying here is when these things happen with greater and greater intensity, are you ready? Just don't be surprised.

Don't go, oh, don't be like me. There's no way. There's no, the sky's falling. This guy could have never done that. Fact of the matter is, he did. Fact of the matter is, we're going to see these things happen with ever growing intensity and it does not tell us that the world is out of control, that God's plan is not on track. Anybody wonder, why do you think he wrote this to Timothy? What Timothy needed to know was the things that he was seeing that was so overwhelming and so wicked were what Jesus said would happen. What characterizes the increase of wickedness is primarily self love, love of money, love of pleasure, and then the dominoes.

How about this, lean back, amplified Bible. But understand this, that in the last days, dangerous times of great stress and trouble will come, difficult days that will be hard to bear. For people will be lovers of self, narcissistic, self focused, lovers of money, impelled by greed, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, grateful, unholy, and profane, and they will be unloving. They'll be devoid of natural human affection.

They'll be calloused and inhumane, irreconcilable. They'll gossip maliciously. They'll be devoid of any self control, intemperate and immoral. They'll be brutal, haters of good, traitors in relationships, reckless and conceited, lovers of sensual pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of outward godliness, religion, although they have denied its power, for their conduct nullifies their claim of faith.

Avoid such people and keep far away from them. And then he's going to give a couple of examples so that Timothy realizes hey, this has happened in the past. And so the question I put here is how are we tempted to interpret these developments? When you've seen all this wickedness and all this violence and stuff happening, down deep, what are your feelings? What have you done? Where are your fears?

And you know what we would hear? It just feels like the world's out of control. It feels hopeless. I'm scared to death for those of you that are grandparents or for those of you that are parents. What kind of world are my kids going to come into?

Is it even going to be safe to walk in the streets in the future? Right? These are the kind of things that create incredible angst, anxiety, depression, division. When things are really getting crazy, what do we do? We're all human, right? Remember when we were little kids and things got really hard?

You blame your brother, you blame your sister. Well when they get really hard in a society, you find some other people to blame and it's them and the problem's out there. And we get more and more and more divided and we create this petri dish culturally of anger and blame and hurt and suspicion and lack of trust and fear.

And that's the temptation that we have. And in the midst of that, there's this supernatural community. This group of people that is what's called the body of Jesus.

His hands, his feet, his eyes. People that live above all that fray. People who understand the fallenness of mankind. People who recognize the things that they have done and been forgiven of. People who grasp that this is our opportunity in the midst of all this pain and blame and violence. This is the opportunity to love and to heal and to respond and to set an example. And what Paul is saying to Timothy is, this is going to be the normal thing but you got to understand this is how people react.

For some people, you isolate. For some people, they begin to doubt. You know, I don't believe anymore that God's sovereign.

If he was, we wouldn't be having this. This isn't the life. I've gone to church. I tithe. I read my Bible regularly and look at what happened. Look what happened in my world. Look what happened in our company.

Look what happened in our nation, right? Do you understand where this goes? That's why he's writing to Timothy and that's why we're reading it today. We're tempted to feel hopeless and helpless and blame and question God's purposes.

How are we to respond to these developments? Look at verse 6. He says, avoid, turn away from such people and their behavior.

The two temptations are to one, compromise or to isolate. It's like, you know what? It's so crazy out there. I'm just going to kind of watch it on TV and hope it doesn't get too close to me and, you know, my little world. The problem is your little world keeps shrinking, right?

The flip side is we've all heard that illustration where, you know, you put the frog in water and you do the temperature very, very, very slowly. I think as it erodes more and more in the culture, you're going to see more and more things that even five years ago Christians would never do this that will become commonplace because people will compromise. I was counseling with a person, you know, a year or so ago and a godly person, great family and a couple of his godly friends and one was going through a tough time and he kind of tried to help his buddy and eventually, you know, they got a divorce. Then it happened to another close friend and so his couple closest friends are going through these things and then, you know, they entered a new world. Now they're wounded. Now they're hurt and now they're sort of back in it. Well, now they're sleeping around.

And I said, you know, what do you think about all that? Well, I'm really trying to help. I'm really trying to help them.

And I said, are they willfully just kind of living that out? Yeah, but, you know, we're talking and I, you know, how pastors are, I pulled out the Bible and so I said, you know, I know you want to help them but this passage says when a so-called brother or sister is living in willful sin and you talk to them and they don't respond at all, don't even eat with them. Don't keep providing the spiritual and relational support that facilitates the benefits of being in the body of Christ instead of allowing the consequences of their actions to be, remember what Paul said, I turned this one over to Satan to buffet him. The goal wasn't to hurt him, it was to restore that person that was involved in immorality in the Corinthian church.

And I'll never forget, he said, well, you know, I could never do that, which was followed sometime later by a moral failure in his life. First Corinthians 15, 33, bad company creps good morals every time. And none of us are immune. It's happening so subtly and it's not just in the sexual area. Ask yourself, how are people viewing money? How are people viewing priorities? How are people viewing sort of what's acceptable or not acceptable?

And I don't mean culturally, I mean from what the scripture says. And so notice how he picks it up. He talks about the specific ways these people live it out. For among them are those who slip into households and captivate weak women, weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses. Always learning, never able to come to a knowledge of the truth. So he says, Timothy, this is a current example of how these things, not just in the last days, some days, some way, but these things are playing out right now.

You just need to be aware. And then he gives him a historic example. And then he goes on to say, just as Janus and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also opposed the truth. Men of depraved minds worthless in regard to the faith. By tradition, those were two of the magicians who when Moses did, remember all the supernatural things, they could copy it, copy it, copy it, until he did some things that required the creation of life.

And he goes, you know, it's happening today. It happened back in Moses' days. And then notice, but he says, look at the outcome.

Look at the outcome. But they will not make further progress, for their foolishness will be obvious to all, just as it was also of Janus and Jambres. So you're Timothy, you know your Old Testament, and you're thinking of the challenge and the bondage and what they went through. And Moses, who was bold, and before being bold, what he got, he got knocked by Pharaoh and he got knocked by his own people. Do you see the picture he's trying to see? And so Moses gave up and said, I guess it's not worth it.

Oh no, that's not how the story goes. So Moses hung in there, and Moses had challenges and doubts and struggles, and the Lord was with him. Chip will be back in just a minute with his application. You've been listening to the first part of his message, Be Prepared, Don't Be Surprised, from his series, Becoming an Effective Disciple Maker, A Study of 2 Timothy. With all of the hatred and misconceptions pointed at Christianity nowadays, it's really difficult to be a genuine follower of Jesus. In this new study, Chip's going to encourage us that now more than ever, we can't just settle for saying we're a Christian.

We have to live like one too. Chip will help us put that into practice as he highlights four compelling challenges from the Apostle Paul's final letter to Timothy. Join us as we learn how to live more God-honoring lives and better disciple others along the way. To get more plugged in with this series, Becoming an Effective Disciple Maker, visit LivingOnTheEdge.org.

That's LivingOnTheEdge.org. Chip's joined me in studio now to share a quick word. Thanks, Dave. Before I come back and talk about the application that Paul has for this young pastor, I want you to know that pastors are hurting like never before. Almost four out of ten pastors right now have considered leaving the ministry. Whether it's the political tension, vaccines, masks, or disunity, I want you to hear that your pastor, your senior pastor, youth pastors, children pastors, we're in the midst of crisis. We at Living on the Edge have doubled down to help them in the midst of their burnout, their job stress, their loneliness, and all the things that are happening politically.

They need our help, and they need our support. We have, as a project, like never before, invested in pastors here and around the world, and that requires a significant amount of money and expense. So would you prayerfully consider giving to Living on the Edge today? Just go to LivingOnTheEdge.org. Right now, every gift given before December 31 will allow us to channel a significant portion of the resources of Living on the Edge to help pastors here and around the world.

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Again, to partner with us financially, go to LivingOnTheEdge.org or call 888-333-6003. App listeners, tap Donate. Well, here again is Chip to share his application. As we close today's program, the teaching from the scripture brought to mind one of the most challenging things in my life. There's times where God says, Chip, this is what I want you to do. But the moment I think of obeying it, I realize I'm going to disappoint someone or someone's going to think that if I do that, I don't care about them anymore. Pleasing people or pleasing God, I feel between the rock and the hard place.

And here's my question for you today. What is it that God has prompted and brought to your mind maybe over and over about a relationship or about a habit or about a practice? But you know if you obey God, some people will be very disappointed or you think you're going to let them down or they'll think less of you. Would you be willing today to ask Jesus to give you the strength and the help to obey him? Here's your verse for the day, Proverbs 29, 25. The fear of man is a snare, but blessed is he who trusts in the Lord.

Trust God, you'll never regret it. Just before we close, would you stop for a minute and pray for Living on the Edge today? We've never seen a greater need for God's truth to go out than right now. And by God's grace, Living on the Edge has been able to provide encouragement, teaching, and personal discipleship resources to more people than ever before. So thank you to those who support us in prayer. God is doing amazing things. We'll join us next time as Chip continues his series, Becoming an Effective Disciple-Maker, from the book of 2 Timothy. Until then, I'm Dave Drouy. Thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge.