2 Timothy 3:1-9 Living in Perilous Times

Paul is writing to Timothy from prison, describing the persecution he faced from Nero. He compares his situation to William Tyndale, who translated the New Testament into English and was killed for it. Paul explains that he was imprisoned in the Mabertine prison, which was a holding tank for those awaiting trial or execution. He wrote the book of 2nd Timothy during this time, addressing it to his son in Ephesus. Paul discusses the characteristics of people who reject the Kingdom of God and warns Timothy about the challenges of the last days. This letter, originally intended for the church in Ephesus, is now being read by us in the 21st century. We are in the book of 2nd Timothy and I want to talk with you about that today and since I have today and next week I don't have to hurry on getting this one done I can get as much done as possible and then we'll pick up the end of it next week. I started off a little story about William Tyndale that I wanted you to hear because this story is a great deal relational to the Apostle Paul. When your enemies get angry with you they always paint a target on your back and as soon as they have a possibility they like to shoot an arrow into that target and I think the Apostle Paul probably was feeling that way, that Nero had put a target on his back and he was searching for him, found him, as you recall a couple of weeks ago they were at a big athletic event in Yugoslavia over near the GMC and it just so happened that Nero went to the big athletic event and as the scripture identified he participated in it. In fact they made it so that any time Nero participated in an athletic event he always won. No matter who won Nero always won and so whether it was singing or whether it was athletics or horse racing or chariot or whatever it was he won and he was there and Paul was there and he didn't know that Paul was back yet because Paul you know after he left house arrest and went to Spain or toward Spain for a missionary journey then he and his team came back to the Yugoslavian coast where they were going to put in and you remember he told Titus he said come and see me I will be wintering at and he told him the city in Yugoslavia that he would be wintering, you come and meet me there, bring me the books, bring me my robe, bring me the things I need and I will meet you there and Paul intended to meet Titus and the missionary team on the coast of Yugoslavia and as it happened Nero happened to see him at that game and Paul saw Nero and Nero realized that this was one of his arch enemies with a target on his back and not long after that Paul was arrested. Evidently Titus never got to go to there nor did any of the others but Paul was taken to Rome and as you know he was put now not in house arrest but he was put in the Mabertine prison, the dungeon, which by the way was not a prison, it was a holding tank. Nobody ever spent a lot of time in the Mabertine prison. They were there for a period of time for two things, either you had a trial coming up or you had an execution coming up and that was the only reason they put you in that prison. It wasn't like you go to jail for 10 or 12 years and then after a period of time you get to have an opportunity to see who you are. When you went to the Mabertine prison you went there for a short period of time at which the end of two things would happen, either you'd have a new trial or you'd be executed and so when Paul was sent there he knew why he was there and so the book Second Timothy was written probably from that incarceration. By the way, do you know what the Latin word is for incarceration, incarcerate and we get the word incarceration from it, incarcerate means prison and so the Mabertine incarcerate is the Mabertine prison and they were incarcerated there and Paul was there for a short period of time. It wasn't a very lovely place to be in, it was filthy, it was dirty, it had a big spring at the bottom of it that bubbled up all the time and yet parts of it was very, very ugly and where Paul was it was not very nice. From there he wrote this book, Second Timothy and he wrote it to his son in Ephesus. Now let me help you understand about William Tyndale. William Tyndale translated the Greek New Testament from Greek to English. He was from England but he had a friend who became a mortal enemy. Now you don't want to make many mortal enemies, you make a lot of enemies along the way but don't make a mortal enemy because the mortal enemy will see to it that sooner or later you're gone. And along the way William Tyndale when he was translating this book from Greek to English made a mortal enemy who was a clergyman because he made a statement, I'm going to give the English people a Bible that they can read. It will not be in Greek, it will be in their native tongue and they, here's where he made his mistake, they will be able to translate the scriptures better than the clergy. And there's where he made his mistake because his mortal enemy was the clergy. And when he made that statement that this book that he was translating the Bible into English would give the British plowboys an opportunity to interpret the word of God better than the preachers in the pulpits, it really made this guy angry and he set out to do everything he could to get him killed. It was published, in fact it was so popular that the people in England had to smuggle it into Britain in order to get copies and they smuggled many of the copies into England and when they found that out this mortal enemy turned on him and the rest of the story is they captured him, they strangled him and they burned him to death. And he was a martyr. And so William Kendall was a great deal like Paul. Paul had these mortal enemies of whom Nero was number one and Nero wanted him gone. So being put in the member time prison meant that he would only be there for a short time, which he was. In fact, dating it, you can kind of find a little bit of date on it, he was probably put into the prison sometime around 60, late 65, middle of 66, what we call the common era, the CE or the AD and he was executed either late 67 or early 68, so he wasn't there but about 8 or 10 months and so it was a short period of time in the prison before he was taken out on the Appian Way and he was beheaded. Now that was actually the punishment, that was punishment for criminality in Rome. If you were a Roman citizen you were beheaded, if you were not a Roman citizen you were crucified and there were two forms of punishment, one was beheading for the citizen and crucifixion for the non and of course since Paul was a Roman citizen from Sicily he was beheaded. Now interesting story about his beheading along the way, they said as he was beheaded on the road and his head bounced twice, now this is tradition, all of the three places where his head bounced a spring sprung up and now there's a three fountain spring there that's named for the Apostle Paul, still in it evidently, if you go there you can go see the three spring, it's named for the Apostle Paul and his head was lifted from him and it bounced on the street and each of the places where, good tradition isn't it? Okay, so now you know a little bit about Second Timothy and where it's coming from. Now in this chapter Paul is going to do two really interesting things, he's going to go back into a dissertation, now you know Paul was a magnificent master of dissertations, he was a word smith, he could use words and he could bring words and he could cover words and he could insert words and he just had all kinds of words that he talked about and in this particular chapter he's going to do two things, the first part of the chapter he's going to tell us about the ugly part of what's happening in the Roman Empire and what's happening in life and what's happening to the Kingdom of God and what is happening around the Kingdom of God and all of the kinds of peoples who are around the Kingdom of God who are totally unacceptable to and will not accept the Kingdom at all and all of these people actually are mortal enemies of the Kingdom and the Apostle Paul is going to help his young son in the ministry, Timothy, come to understand, now it depends on what Bible you're reading, in my particular I'm reading the New American Standard and in my Bible there are nineteen different ways Paul talks about sin, in one of my other Bibles there are fourteen million ways that he talks about sin, in another there are twenty-two ways that he talks about sin, so it depends on which copy of the script you have how many different identifications he might make of what the people will look like who are outside the Kingdom of God, now listen to what Paul is doing, he's writing to Ephesus, he's writing to Timothy, he's writing to a church, this church in Ephesus will receive this letter through Timothy, but this letter will not just stay in the church in Ephesus, when it's read there it will then be used in all of the other churches, perhaps later on during the time of the Apostle John even read in the seven churches of the Apocalypse and probably read in all of the house churches, when these letters were written and sent to one church they read the letters, generally made copies of them and generally sent the letters to the other churches, the other Christian churches and these letters were read remotely and they were read on site, so these letters were constantly moving around in all of the churches helping all of the people, not just the people in Ephesus, helping all of the people to understand what the Apostle Paul is talking about when he says, this is the way sin is in, now watch this, the last days, and that's how Paul introduces this chapter, he says, but know this, chapter three verse one, in the last days perilous times will come, so Paul is getting ready to tell Timothy, particularly in the city of Ephesus, remotely to the other churches as the letter is moved about, futuristically, guess who's hearing it today, you, you and I are hearing it today, so this letter that was written in the Maritime prison, that was sent specifically to Ephesus, in particular, but generally to all of the churches, are now in the 21st century, on this day in March, we are reading that letter, so all of us are being blessed by the letter, and Paul wants us to know that in the last times, these are the kinds of characteristics you need to look for, now, what he's going to say is, if you can find any of the, and I found 19 in my copy of the scripture, he's going to say that if you can find any of these characteristics in the life of individuals out there, you can be sure that these people and you are living in the last days, and that they are in the last days, moving toward perdition, while you are in the last days, moving toward, what, resurrection, and so you have these two groups of people moving in two different directions, and the Apostle Paul is going to say, now, what does in the last days mean, and when did in the last days start, well, the last days began when Jesus Christ came to the earth, when he came here on his first mission, as a baby in Mykonos, when he came as the Savior of the world, the redeeming Son of God, who was going to give his life a ransom for many, he came in the first advent to be the redeeming Savior of the world, and all of us would be redeemed by his precious blood shed at Calvary, and all of us would be converted through him, and that was the beginning of the last days, the last days of moving toward a very important activity that is on the horizon, and that very second activity is his second advent. Now, the word advent means particular necessity of a period of time, and the first time he came, he came as a Savior, the second time he is coming as King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the first time he came as a redeeming, saving Jesus Christ through his blood, the second time he's coming, he's coming as commander-in-chief of the armies of God, and God is going to use him for his own purpose, to rule and to judge the world. So there is a second advent on the horizon, and the second advent is the second coming of Jesus Christ, and it is out there. You read about it in the book of Revelation, you read about it throughout some of the books of the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, many of the books, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Daniel in particular, and Zechariah in particular, in the last of the three books before the period of 400 years before Christ was born. You see all of these people talking about the last times and what's going to happen in the last times, and interestingly, Paul is saying, here is what you can expect in the last times. Now, as we go through these, each of us can look at each one of them, and in our own heart and mind, with scriptural text behind us as our foundation, we can determine, are these characteristics there? Are they in the civilization in which we find our part? Now, if you want to see where the background of all this came from, you have to go to the book of Romans, chapter 1, verse 29-31. And in chapter 1 of Romans, verse 29-31, Paul gives the most clear picture of the sin of perdition. And every time he writes beyond that Romans 1, verse 29-31, every time he writes like this, he is basically referring to that first statement, because you know, the book of Romans was one of the third books that he wrote. He wrote 1 and 2 Thessalonians first, and then he wrote what was called the anti-Judaic epistles, of which Romans was one of them. Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, and Galatians. And so those were the second part, and Romans was in that second part. 1 and 2 Thessalonians were first, and then came Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, and Galatians. And so in Romans, he sets up this sinfulness in chapter 1, verses 29-31, and from that point on, every time he talks about this, you basically can go back to Romans 1-29, and you can see exactly what he's talking about. Now, he is trying to impress on his young son in the ministry a very important facet of understanding in the kingdom of God as it relates to the kingdom of Satan and his cohorts. You must know that people who do these things are not part of the eternal kingdom of God. They are all outside the kingdom of God. So in the first part of this chapter, Paul is going to speak of two things. He's going to give us multiple characteristics of the sins of the last days. Then we can determine after we read them, are we in the last days? And I think as you come through the end of these sins, you will come to understand that we are. And then he's going to say, let me tell you what else is going to happen. False teachers are going to come on the scene. In the last days, there will be false teachers. We'll deal with that today. I hope we get there. If I don't get there, I've still got next week. Don't worry about it. So false teachers are going to come. They are going to get people involved in all kinds of ugliness. Have you all ever seen in all of your life how many clergy are messing up? Have you ever before seen... I mean, the Catholic Church, folks, has had horribleness. It's been horrible what the Catholic Church has done and what they've discovered. And what they discovered and what these priests have done with all these people. It's horrible. I mean, it is inhumane, inhumanity. What these priests have done with some children and some young ladies and some nuns, it is terrible. And now he's coming to say the same thing here. These false teachers in the last days, they're going to get these silly women who think that they are Christian. And we'll talk about that because it's in verse 8 and 9 and following. Get these silly women who are in the church who think they're Christian and they pray on them. Not only do they pray on them in a choral way, but they pray on them in an ascetic way. And they try to get them to believe that what these false teachers are teaching is more true than what the kingdom of God is teaching. And so the Apostle Paul says, I'm going to tell you the sins. I'm going to tell you the false teachers who are producing those sins. And then in the last part of this chapter, I'm going to tell you what God's going to do about it. So next week, we're going to see what God takes care of it. So let's begin now. But you know this, in the last days, perilous times shall come. Now, here they come. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. OK, the first one is lovers of themselves. When people will rather take care of themselves and do everything for themselves, even than doing for their families or for their close friends or for any of their people around them when they love themselves. It is a narcissism. And when you see narcissism beginning to gain in the people, have you ever watched the Oscars? Have you ever watched any of these gifting places like all of these little moons they hand out? Have you ever seen such narcissism? Have you ever seen people love themselves more than what they're loving themselves in this particular time? Did you see the other day when one lady who came to with her husband to the Oscars and she came in a fur coat and when she got there, she stripped off the fur coat. She was totally naked. I mean, that's pure narcissism, folks. She thought she was so beautiful nude that she ought to take her coat off and let everybody see what her narcissists look like. And so he says, they will be lovers of themselves. And you can begin to put all of these things in order, lovers of themselves, but they will also be lovers of money. That's kind of interesting. All of these people who are lovers of themselves are also people who control a lot, a great deal of money. Now, the interesting thing is the translation here is not lovers of money. The translation is really lovers of silver. They love the shiny stuff. They love the silver and the gold. They love the shiny stuff. Not only do they love themselves, but they love to spend the shiny stuff on themselves. And they love to have the shiny stuff in order they can spend it all over the place. And they are lovers of money. And when they get there, what do they become? Boasters, braggarts. Look what we have. You see my new car? What about that new house I just put on the block? Oh, by the way, would you like to take a look at my bank account? And they become boasters. They become braggarts. It's interesting that all of these things just kind of fall in order. You love yourself. You love money. Then you become braggart about it. You boast about how much money. And after you boast about it, you become proud. Don't you wish you were like me? Don't you wish you had all this wonderful money? Don't you wish you could live in sin like I live in? Look, if God's going to take care of sin, why doesn't He take care of me? Why doesn't He crunch me out right now? Why doesn't He just zap me? Well, a lot of these people better be praising God I'm not God. And they ought to be praising God that you're not God. Because I know what you would do with them. You'd zap them immediately. Well, eventually they're going to be zapped. You do understand that? Eventually they're going to be zapped. And when they're zapped, they're going to be zapped in the eternal perdition. So they become proud. And then when they become proud, they become blasphemers. You know, when you get so much money, and you get so much pleasure, and you get so much notoriety, then you can really blaspheme the kingdom of God. Look at you poor Christians. Look how poverty stricken you are. You don't have enough money. You hardly have enough money to live off. You live in these little old dinky houses. Look at this $5,000, $5 million mansion I just put on the hill. Look how they begin to blaspheme us and blaspheme God because God's not taking good care of you. And so it just runs on the foot. And as they become proud, they become blasphemers. And then Paul says, and then they become disobedient to their parents. They even stop understanding who their parents are. And they can care less about what their parents say. Can you imagine how many parents are really proud and pleased with all of those people who do such things? Can you imagine a parent who would say, I was so proud of my daughter when she stripped off that fur coat? Can you imagine? See, they hate their parents. They're even haters of parents. But not only that, they are unthankful. Most all of these people have gotten to where they are because some people gave them something to get there. And yet they get to the place where they're unthankful for anything. Not understanding in the bottom line of it all, God has given it all to them. And they wouldn't have gotten anything. They're unthankful to God. They're unthankful to parents. They're unthankful to people around them. They're blasphemous of you and me, Christian people. And then not only are they unthankful, but they are unholy. Their holiness is gone. It's not there. And since they are unholy, Paul says, then they become unloving. It's kind of interesting. If you look at this, it's a big triangle at the bottom, and it starts going this way. And it just feeds on itself until we get to the end. It'll be an apex. When we get to the end, you'll see the apex. And at the very end of it all, the apex is chilling. And so he gives all these words. Unholy. Unloving. Unforgiving. Slanders. Without self-control. Brute. Brutal. Despisers of the good. And it just keeps rolling. Traitors. Headstrong. Haughty. Lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. Can't you see all these people? Lovers of pleasure. These people who are narcissistic. They love pleasure rather than loving God. And he ends it with this statement. Here's the apex of the pyramid. Having the form of godliness, they deny the power and from such people turn away. Isn't that interesting? Paul's telling young Timothy, here's what's out there. Here's who they are. Here is the apex. They think you know. They think you hope. They think perhaps they have confused you enough and me to understand that they are Christian when in reality they are no more Christian than the wall or chair is Christian. And they identify a holiness but they deny the power. What are they denying? Here's the problem ladies and gentlemen. They are not redeemed. They do not have an indwelling. For you see if they had an indwelling, if they had an indwelling of the Holy Spirit by the redeeming process of Jesus Christ through his redemptive life, if they had a redeeming process in them, if they had the power of the Holy Spirit in them, if they were filled with the Holy Spirit, all of these characteristics would have to go away. Because these cannot stand where the Holy Spirit abides. And that's why all of these epistles that the Apostle Paul has written to us, he said to us in all of them, look allow the Holy Spirit to dwell in you. He will dwell in you. He will make his home in you. God will see to it that he fills you with himself. God will see to it that he fills you with his being. God will see to it that he guides you. He's talking about the end. These people are not filled by the Holy Spirit. They were lost. They're out undone. They're outside the kingdom of God. They were without hope. They were without any faith. And they were lost. And so the Apostle Paul says, Timothy, mark these people. Mark them. And ladies and gentlemen, in the 21st century church, out there where we do all of our business, out there where we have our daily lives, out there where we have our jobs, out there where we live, out there where we shop, out there all of these people abide just like this. Know who they are. Mark them. And at the end of this chapter, at the end of this chapter, Paul will say, stay away from them. Stay away from them. Don't even abide with them. And then he pauses for a moment and he starts thinking about some heretical teachers. Now, let me read this part on heretical teachers because it's kind of interesting. From these characteristics, Paul is going to say, all of these false teachers basically have the characteristics of which I have just spoken. And all of these, 19, 14, 25, however many are in your copy of Scripture, all of these characteristics are in the lives of these false teachers. And the false, pardon me Bob, I've got an ankle hurt. The false teachers are saying, Paul is saying, here's what the false teachers are like. He says, for of this sort. Now, it's kind of interesting how he introduces verse 6. For of this sort. What he's saying is, of this kind of people that I just identified, all of these, of the 19 characteristics or the 14 or whatever, all of this sort of people are those who creep into households and make captive of gullible women, loaded down with sins, led away with various lusts. He says, these are the kind of people pretending to be very religious, pretending to be unusually spiritual teachers, pretending to be teachers of the economy of God, pretending to be ministers of the kingdom of God. All of these are there, but all of these are of this sort. All of this sort of characteristics I just told you about, all of these people who are now as false teachers have in them these characteristics. They do not have the characteristics of the Holy Spirit. They do not have the characteristics of eternal God. They are not filled with the love of Jesus Christ. They are unholy, they are ungodly, they are unloving, they are unhappy, they are unhappy people. And he says, I want you to know, the false teachers are those who come out of this group. Now, we were having a little luncheon the other day with Doug and his sweet little wife, and we were laughing because Doug went to TCU, and Doug took some religious courses at TCU. There was a time when he was at TCU, I was Dean of the School of Education at Southwestern, and I thought that I was going to have to go over there and get him out of hock, because Doug had been taught rather thoroughly the Bible and the kingdom of God. And he had a couple of religion teachers over there that he took on. And he told me, he said, Dad, they don't believe in the resurrection, they don't believe in baptism, they don't believe in the kingdom of God, they don't believe that Christ is coming back, they don't even believe that he came the first time. They don't even believe that was the first advent, much less the second one. And he says, this guy was talking one day, and he says, you know what, it's okay if you want to believe that Jesus died on the cross, but I'm going to tell you, he didn't die on the cross. Doug said, I came straight up out of my chair. And I imagine he did too. And he said, wait a minute. And after the class was over, the professor called him and said, Mr. Terry, don't do that again. He said, yes, I will, if you're as wrong as you were today. Now, looking, this was a professor in the School of Theology. And this is a professor, he was taking freshman Bible. Okay. He was taking freshman Bible in the School of Theology at a major university. And this was one of their major professors who was teaching Bible in a School of Theology. And he was getting all of these crisscross, he was fulfilling all the characteristics of what Paul said, of this sort. These are the people that you'll find out there. Now, isn't it interesting that some of these people who are falling from positions now are of this sort? I mean, go back and look at their lives. Go back and look at their sinfulness. Now, it's not that you're going to judge them. You're not a judge. But it is, you can, you can, you know, I'm not a judge, but I could, I'm a fruit inspector. I could look at their fruit and see if their fruit tells me that they are of spiritual sort. I don't want to judge them, but their fruit are telling me that they are of this sort. Now, it's kind of interesting that this particular passage, he says, who was always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. He said, these false teachers invade these young women who are in the early faith, probably some in and some out of the Kingdom of God, some professing Christ as Savior, some maybe not, some maybe not totally in the Kingdom of God, but getting into them and getting into their lives so that they involve themselves in their lives and they ruin their lives. And it even says they, some of them became carnal with them, as some of these displays we've seen of some of these folk who have lost their ministry position. And carnality came into their lives and they were, search it now, it's kind of interesting. It never says that he, these false teachers, went to the older women. He never went to the adult women, the older women. He never went to the mature women. They always went to the young women, those who were still very impressionable and could be moved around and could be somehow manipulated. It's kind of interesting how Paul says it says, they became captains of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts. These women were fair game for these play-likes and for this sort. And they were working on them and they were doing their number on them. And they were learning about the Kingdom of God, but never learning the truth about the Kingdom of God. These false teachers were talking about the Kingdom of God. They were talking about the knowledge of truth. They were talking about redemption through Jesus Christ, but never in a sense where it was allowed to become part of their internalization of the Holy Spirit and the Kingdom of God. And so they were just talking faith. They were not living faith. They were not sharing faith. They were talking faith. And it's that many of these young women were taken in by them, never the mature, but always the young women in the churches now. These could have been members of churches. If these had not been members of churches in the city of Ephesus, why would Paul be interested in it? If these women, perhaps, and these false teachers were not in all of the churches in Ephesus, why would Paul be interested in it? Why would he mention it to Timothy? He mentions it to Timothy and he says, tell them that these false teachers are in every church. And they're teaching a gospel that is not a gospel. They're teaching a gospel that is irrelevant. They're teaching a gospel that is outside the Kingdom of God and they are making disciples of people who are destined for perdition. So he's telling Timothy, tell them of these sorts of people that he just gave you the list of. They are the ones who identify themselves as their teachers. Now look, isn't it interesting that those who have fallen from ministry positions interestingly have a majority of these characteristics? Isn't that interesting? And the majority of these kinds of characteristics seem to run on the same foot with false teachers and they can teach what sounds like the Kingdom of God when in reality they're teaching them to be more tied to them as the Kingdom of God as tied to God in the Kingdom of God. They're bringing them to themselves. Have you ever wondered why Satan likes to enlarge all of these churches like they are? Have you ever noticed how mega all of these churches are? And how out of many of these mega churches are many, many of the failures in ministry? It's kind of interesting isn't it? It kind of goes on the same foot. It appears that where there is an opportunity to spread the ungodliness that this sort can get in there and spread it. And now the Apostle Paul gives Timothy an illustration. Now he goes all the way back to the book of Exodus and he goes all the way back to a time when Moses was trying to get the children of Israel out of Egypt and he was using the plagues. And during the time he was using the plagues there were some magicians who were in Egypt who were able to do the same kinds of activities. They could make blood, they could make water look like it was blood, they could make frogs come out of the wall, they could do all kinds of funny majestic things, you know, soothsayers were there. And there were two of them and Paul names them. Oh by the way, you will not find their names in the Bible except here. They're not in the book of Exodus at all, don't look. But they are in an apocryphal book that was written during the intertestament period. The apocryphal book is the book of Janus and the book of Jamboreth. Now look here he says, now as Janus and Jamboreth resisted Moses so do these also resist the truth. Men of corrupt minds disapproved concerning the faith. Now what Paul is telling Timothy, these false teachers that I just told you who are shenanigging these young women and getting into their lives and giving them all of the false doctrines, I want you to know that they are no better than Janus and Jamboreth. And any Jew who had studied any Jewish tradition had studied any of the apocrypha and would have any information in the apocrypha, there are two books in the apocrypha named Janus and Jamboreth. Have you ever looked at, have you ever seen the apocrypha? No. Now if you have a Catholic Bible, a Reims-Douay Bible, you don't have 66 books, you have 88 books, okay. And in the Reims, now here's the name of the Bible, Reims-Douay, it's a Catholic Bible, and in that Bible you have 22 books of the apocrypha. And in those 22 books are a couple of traditional Jewish books called Janus and Jamboreth. And it is the story of these two magicians who were helping Sero to put the onus on Moses when God was helping Moses to do the miracles and these guys were trying to disprove the miracles. He said, now let me show you how these false teachers are just like Janus and Jamboreth. You're trying to teach these people the truth, Timothy, and these false teachers are trying to do magical kinds of things around them, giving them information that is ungodly, unholy, uncut, unnecessary, bringing them into captivity. They are victims of their own selves. And Timothy, these men, these false teachers are no better than Jamboreth and Janus. That's why he brings them up here. Now you can go back in the book of Exodus and look and they talk about where they did frogs and where they did blood and they did a whole bunch of things. But they were all magicians and God was doing it on the other side. So he said, look, I want you to know that these men who are in your day are as corrupt and are as disapproving as were Janus and Jamboreth during the day of Moses. And Janus and Jamboreth are taken care of. So he says, look, you need to know this is in your community. And it's now it's going to be remote. And now I may say, aren't you glad it's not in our community? Oh, really? I think all you have to do is just look outside and see what's going on. And it's all in our community. Everything that's in this chapter up to this point is what when we walk out this door, we walk right into the face of these characteristics. We walk right into the face of false teachers. We walk right into the face of people who are imitating what the kingdom of God is like. And we walk right into the kingdom of Satan and his crown. The last verse. But they will progress no further. For their folly will be manifest to all and theirs also was. Now, he's making a comparison to Janus and Jamboreth. He said, you remember in the book of Exodus when these magicians did those soothsaying things and they produced water that looked like blood and they brought frogs and got some flies going. They did a few of these magical things. Oh, Satan was just real thrilled with these guys. But then when Moses pulled one off that they couldn't cover, Pharaoh got a little angry with Janus and Jamboreth. And do you remember what he did? He killed all the magicians. And so that's what Paul's talking about. He said, do you remember what happened to Jamboreth and Jamboreth? Do you remember what happened to them in the book of Exodus when they got to the place where they could not counterpoint the miracles that God was doing through Moses? Do you remember what Pharaoh did? He had them all executed. That's what he's saying here. But they will progress no further. They're going to be taken all away for their folly will be will be manifest as was theirs, Janus and Jamboreth also. So what Paul is saying is these false teachers are going to suffer the same end, the same outcome, the same entrance that these false magicians suffered during the time of Moses. You know, Timothy, tell your people, if you see people out there of these characteristics, what do you want to do? Have nothing to do with them. Period. Stay away from them. Don't fellowship with them. Don't be a part of them. Use the kingdom of God for entrance into redemption. But don't make it a point to be a friend. These are the people who can do to you what the mortal enemy of Kindale did to him. And these people are always willing to put down the kingdom of God rather than to lift it up. And so we come to the end of this one where Paul says, here's what's out there, Timothy. Now, let me tell you what God's going to do. And in that, he's going to say, all scripture is given by inspiration of God. And that's going to be the end of next week's lesson. Well, Paul's going to come down and say, Timothy, in direct opposition to what I just told you, let me tell you what it really looks like. It sounds something like this. Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. But evil men and imposters will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, continue in the things which you have heard, learned and been assumed of going from whom you have learned of them. So the apostle is going to tell Timothy, Timothy, yes, this does happen. But let me tell you, holy scripture is going to be breathed of God. It is going to take over for all scripture is given by inspiration. So we see the one side. It's there. We see it every day. We know how it operates. We know what they're after. We know that they'd like to do away with the kingdom of God. Oh, by the way, did you see last evening that our president now has a faith council in the White House, a faith council. And he has he has a lady who is the chairman of that faith council. And it's going to include all faiths. That's going to be interesting to watch for a while and see how that one begins to turn out. OK, did you not see that last evening on the news as a faith council of many, many people, many, many different faiths. And in the group that was there praying with him was a fellow by the name of Graham, you know, standing right behind him praying with him. So we shall see. The apostle says, you know, there's perdition. We know. So be careful. Understand what they are, understand who they are, understand what they do. Don't have anything to do with them. Hold on to the truth and the faith of the kingdom of God and to the word of God. And you shall be blessed. Amen. God bless you for being here today. Thank you for listening to me. And we'll next week take it up here and see if we can see what Paul says the good side of what this side is all about. Heavenly Father, I thank you today for the way you love us and bless us. Father, I thank you that you give us understanding of our enemy. Without knowing your enemy, you really can't be protected from that enemy. And so, Father, thank you for all of the times in your precious word inspired by the Holy Spirit, breathed by yourself into the hearts of men who wrote it for us, as Peter said, only men of God breathed on by the Holy Spirit wrote as they were moved. And Father, thank you for moving those men of God to write words for us that we can take in the word and not be like these false teachers or be like these persons who have these characteristics, but that we are filled with the Spirit, loving God with all of our heart, mind, soul and mind. And thank you, Father, that we have the word of God to count on. And we thank you that you're going to use it and bless it and glorify yourself through it. And we pray all of that in the name of Christ our Lord. Amen.