How do we know how close we are to the Lord’s return? How can we tell the end is nearing? If we read scripture and all its descriptions of society at the end times, it is easy to become overcome with a sense of dread…a sense of hopelessness for people during those times. There is a pit that grows in the stomach of true believers when they realize what is coming. Friends, I feel that pit now.
In 2 Timothy 3 there is a painfully accurate description of where we are today. You see, people search and study the prophecies in scripture of end time predictions, yet don’t often think of the predictions given in them of WHERE WE ARE TODAY! Here is the entire chapter. Let’s examine:
2 Timothy 3
“Difficult Times Will Come”
But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, 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 to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these. For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men of depraved mind, rejected in regard to the faith. But they will not make further * progress; for their folly will be obvious to all, just as Jannes’s and Jambres’s folly was also. Now you followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, perseverance, persecutions, and sufferings, such as happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium and at Lystra; what persecutions I endured, and out of them all the Lord rescued me! Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. But evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.
We have all of this at unprecedented levels today! Can man or woman be ANY MORE in love with self than he or she is today? I have seen people step over an elderly woman passed out at the drug store register in order to get rang up rather than stop to help, and get offended when the clerk tended to the frail patient rather than help them! And this has become the norm, not the exception. The name of the game today is “take care of number one.”
Arrogance runs rampant and people are so conceited that they feel they have the right to determine, FORCEFULLY if necessary, what YOU should think and believe. The arrogance has grown do pervasive we even change the very definitions of words to meanings that fit their ideology rather than truth. I have watched young and old alike these days arguing for things that are physically impossible to be made true, as if this “name it and it is yours” philosophy ever works.
Many kids are more out of control with respect to discipline and behavior for parents, adults in general, elders and anyone in authority than ever before! To “honor one’s parents” today is unheard of in many families. We have a generation of some of the most disrespectful, deceitful and entitled youth. Yet rather than get a handle on it, our schools soften their approach and psychologists and other “advisors” advocate for tactics that actually encourage the misbehavior rather than seek to correct it. Things that we know worked in the past, based on Biblical principles, are ignored in the name of “progressiveness” and “modernism.” Why? Because in their arrogance many today feel they know better than God how to parent. They seek to be friends with their children rather than parents.
People love themselves! That is the focus, everywhere you look it seems. “Love yourself.” “Pamper yourself.” “Put yourself first.” Even many of those who call themselves “Christians” turn their faiths inward to themselves rather than outside to others, as God desires! In Philippians 2 we learn that to truly be Christ like is to consider others more significant than the SELF.
Yet this is an impossibility for many entitled people today. The focus on self becomes idolatrous as people spend money on frivolity for self and make no effort to do God’s work with it. The so-called “Christians” spoken of above are famous for this: worshipping their money and their possessions while looking down on those who have little and are forced to beg. It is easier to assume the beggars are drug addicts or alcoholics or fakers or lazy rather than give the benefit of the doubt and attempt to reach out to them, help them and share the Gospel with them.
People are so cold to one another today. And the youth are taught that this is ok. Love is a selfish love rather than God-like. Many are of weak intellect and self-involved. They love their own pleasure only. They seek out who make THEM happy with no consideration for reciprocity. Many, many today sexualize EVERYTHING. Our youth have been so desensitized to it that young girls and boys are displaying themselves on social media in vulgar dances, scantily clad, many even in their underwear, often alongside a parent in the video! And our social media (that give options for reporting these incidences), rather than remove the offensive (and what should be illegal) posts, refuse to take them down.
We have the mentally ill running the show with gender identity disputes and rather than require them to get help or, at the least, refuse to buy in to their demands, our government, families and doctors encourage them! If a schizophrenic demanded this acceptance of their fantasies we would not do so. But we are expected to do so for gender dysphoria?
And we have such a blatant attack on Christianity that it is terrifying for many to profess it! Every other “religion” gets acceptance and tolerance but Christianity gains only persecution. For many it seems a terrifying time to be alive. It is definitely a frightening time to raise a child. I am so unbelievably saddened by the state of the world today where literally everything that God (and previously mankind) state is wrong, immoral, unethical, criminal and sinful, is now perfectly acceptable.
Yet my Redeemer lives! Whom shall I fear? Why should I be intimidated? The lawless can have this world! I am meant for something so much more, so much better! My real hope is to do Christ’s work and help to save as many as possible from the coming destruction that these people today are bringing upon themselves.
Christ promises everlasting peace and rest, love and contentment, for those who will believe in Him and follow Him. I choose life! I choose Jesus! Why would anyone choose different?