Sermon: The End of The Age (Evangelist Daniel Nalley 2 Timothy 3)

Let's pray and we're going to dive into God's word. Father, God,

we come before you this morning so grateful for all that you're doing. I

thank you God for this, the beauty of seeing these young ones up here

in the devotion. And I thank you for the teens that shared their testimonies

about camp. God, We're so grateful for that. We're so thankful for

that. But look, we're asking for more. There's so many more young

people that need to be here. There's so many more young people that need

that experience at the altar in the valley of decision to make a decision for

you. We're crying out for more. Lord, would you raise up people

who are unashamed of the gospel. Would you equip them? But more than

equipping them, God, would you just burden their heart to be unashamed,

whether they're fully ready or not, that they would say, I must share

Jesus, I'm I pray you bless this word today God, as we just

stay right in line with the scriptures, line by line, verse by verse,

we love you, Jesus. I pray this in your name. Amen.

Amen. So we're going to get into We're gonna be in two Timothy

Chapter three. We're gonna work our way through it. I want to tell

you the Apostle Paul is one of is probably one of my favorite people other

than Jesus in the Bible. I love the Apostle Paul. I love his

conversion story because it seems like the Apostle Paul whenever you know he was known

as Saul and he's going around he's persecuting Christians, it just would seem like

this guy would never get saved. This guy is so far gone. And

I love Paul's life and his story and his testimony because it shows that anyone

can get say that the power of the Gospel can penetrate and change any heart.

And so as we get ready to go into this message, I want

to just preference it with this. The Apostle Paul is writing one of his

last letters. Here, he's writing to a young man that he has been

discipling, Timothy, and he's writing to him and he's telling he's gonna tell

Timothy. He's gonna say, I'm about to go. I've fought the fight,

I've ran the race, and my time's about up. And he's and

he's gonna be very honest with Timothy, Timothy, I'm leaving you, and

I'm leaving you in a world that is that is wild. I'm leading you,

leaving you in a world that man, people aren't gonna put up with

sound teaching. They're not gonna put up with correct doctrine. They're not gonna

believe the same Gospel message that you believe and preach. But Timothy, in

the middle of this, I'm exhorting you and I'm calling you be thrusted out

into the world. Do not retreat, but go forward and do the work

of an evangelist and evangelize in this wild, crazy world. Let's look at

the scriptures, and I believe that as we read through them, what we'll

see like, Man, this a lot of this looks like America. A

lot of this might look like your workplace. True, maybe this might look

like your house or your family. Maybe even some of it. If we're

honest, friends, if I'm honest too, some of this might even look

like our own heart at times. Okay, remember the power of the Gospel

to change every heart. Then two Timothy, Chapter two, verse three says,

but understand this, how many of you know if the Bible says but

understand this we better put our listening ears on right. Paul is telling Timothy,

understand this that in the last days there will come times of difficulty,

for people will be lovers of self, lovers of money. They will be

proud and arrogant. Wow, I want you to notice something though, real

quick, he says, But understand this. In the last days there will

come times of difficulty. But notice this, friends, there's coming times of

difficulty, according to Paul. And then he's going to go on and list

all of these things. But notice this, it's not times of difficulty that

produce all of these things that we are going to call the happenings of the

heart. It's not the times of difficulty that produce the happenings of the heart.

But it's the happenings of the heart that produce the times of difficulty.

You say, well, how do you know that, Daniel, Because friends,

listen, the Bible says that in all things we are to give thanks

to God. Right. The Bible says that the joy of the Lord is

our strength. That today is the day the Lord has made, and we

will want rejoice and be glad in it. The Bible says, no matter

what's going on, as for me and my household. Huh. You can

do what you want, but we're gonna serve the Lord. Amen. Okay,

So it doesn't matter when if all hell's breaking loose, or it doesn't

matter if there's like chaos within society and in our lives. It doesn't produce

the happenings of the heart, because when the heart is guarded, there can

be things happening around us that cannot get inside of us. Amen. But

what happens though, when the happenings of the heart begin to experience and give

way to some of these things that Paul talks about, that's when difficult times

emerge upon the earth, when people will become unappeasable, when the human heart

becomes unappeasable. It's going to be hard for you, guys, to live

in a culture where the heart of everyone around you is unappeasable. You make

a mistake, and even when you apologize, even when you ask for forgiveness,

they're just unappeased. And even when you pay repribution or you pay it

back and you make it right, they're still unappeased. I want your house,

I want your car, I want your life over unappeasable we're not even

true. Justice is enough, And how many of you know that produces difficult

times. We live in difficult times and we're headed for difficult times. But

the point of this message today is that Jesus is with us and he's called

us to do the work of a evangelist in the middle of the said times.

Let's keep let's keep going, but understand this. In the last days,

there will come times of difficulty for people will be lovers of self,

lovers of money. You know what's real. You know what produces hard times

wheneveryone you work with is it's a lover of self. Whenever when it's a

cutthroat environment, Well, I don't want you to get ahead, or I

don't want you to get a promotion because I want it. You can suffer,

you can stay at minimum wage. I need to go up. When

we live in a society where people are self lovers, it produces difficult times.

Lovers of money, proud and arrogant. When you work and you live

in a nation of people who have become proud, they become proud. The

Bible says that God gives grace to the humble, but what he opposes the

proud some translation say he resists the proud. That word resists in the Greek.

We don't have time to unpack it here fully, but it's the same

concept as if a person would resist arrest, if a police officer would go

and they would try to arrest someone for maybe, you know, robbing someone,

and the person's trying to get away, and the police officers saying,

no, I'm putting these cuffs on you. You're going to jail. You

can't rob people. And the person that's getting arrested, they're trying to resist,

they're pulling their arm away and they're trying to run away, and they've

got to subdue them. God does that, He resists the proud. It's

not just that the proud don't get grace. It's not just a withholding of

grace. It's what you get is resistance. And how many of you know

in a nation that is proud. God resists the proud. Why because only

the humble of heart can experience salvation. Only the humble of heart can experience

the solution for all of the problems. And so the Bible says that God

resists the proud, but he gives grace to the humble and Paul. Here

he's telling Timothy, he's saying, in these last days, he says,

in the last days. Some translations say at the end of the age,

in the last days or at the end of the age, people will be

lovers of money. They will be proud, arrogant, They will be abusive,

they will be disobedient to their parents, they will be ungrateful. When

you live in a world that is ungrateful, it produces difficult times, unholy,

heartless, unappeasable, slanderous. When you live in a world where everyone

has power to publish anything at the tips of their fingers, and they slander,

slander, slander, slander, difficult times are upon the earth without self

control. When you live in a world without self control, where everyone just

operates in the beast mentality, we were creating the image of God. We

are not beast. The beast mentality says, I'm a lion, I'm hungry.

You're the little gazelle. I'm gonna eat you because I'm bigger, I'm

stronger, I'm hungry. It's too bad the lion doesn't go up to the

gazelle and say, hey, you got a wife of kids at home,

Bud, I mean are you I mean, are you older in age?

I mean, are you got to disease? You gonna die off? I

mean, are you okay to eat? He doesn't care because he has a

beast mentality, and we are not beast. The lion doesn't care about controlling

his appetite. I'm hungry, I'm strong, I'm apex predator. I'm gonna

eat you. But we are called not to have a beast mentality. We

are called to uphold the image of God the imago day it is upon us.

Paul is telling Timothy, there's gonna be people who have no self control.

They will control their sensual desires, and we're not gonna go in that.

It's not what the sermon's about. Right, But we can see this

month that it's just haywire. But they won't control sensual desires. They also

they won't be able to control themselves, like they'll be addicted to things.

Right. They will be out of control and something else will be in control

over them, and that produces friends for us. Difficult times, but there's

hope, Say Daniel, you're talking a lot about the difficult times. Come

on, we gotta get through the difficult times. Amen. We're gonna get

through in friends, but we gotta do it. God's way goes on.

He says, they will be brutal. I'm not gonna pause on all of

them, but just think about this. They will be brutal, brutal.

You know when some people say, well, I'm just bold, or i'm

just you know, I'm just outspoken, it's no, man, you're brutal.

You're rude. And sometimes we will we'll take a label and we'll try

to label it something else, but really we're brutal, brutal. You say,

well, man, I just tell the truth. I just tell it

the way it is. And man, listen, you're listening to a preacher

that I preach it the way it is. But we're not called to be

brutal. When we're brutal, it's same thing as Beast's mentality, and it

produces difficult times. We're to do everything in gentleness and in love, and

when you live in a world that is brutal, there's no room for reconciliation.

Because when we live for an eye for an eye and a tooth for

a tooth. You guys maybe have heard this, it leaves everyone wearing eye

patches and eaten soup. Paul says, they're brutal, they're not loving,

good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit. They are lovers of pleasure

rather than lovers of God, having appearance of Godliness but denying its power.

Avoid such people hanging here with me. They have an appearance of godliness,

but they lack the power thereof, or they deny the power for transformation.

So it's like this. If I can give you an illustration, it's like

a red balloon. Say we have a red balloon, and then we have

a red bowling ball. Right, a red balloon, red bolling ball,

same exact color, same exact shape. One has power substance, the other's

full of hot air. But it still has the shape, it still has

the form. I can take a a I can take a balloon, and

I could bounce it right to pastor Brian right now, and even if he

was not even paying attention, it has it's a it's of no consequence,

it doesn't even matter if he's paying attention, will bounce right off him.

But if I take a sixteen pound bowling ball and I say Brian ends up,

I mean, watch out why because that has substance that has power,

there's impact behind that thing. And he says, in the last days,

there's gonna be a lot of people that have a form of Godliness, but

they're not gonna have the power, the transformative power. They're not gonna have

the substance. And he says, have nothing to do with such people.

That's not to be the praise that we sing to our God. A form

of godliness, that's not to be the message to the world, just the

outer shell form of godliness. But the message to the world is a transformed

life, that is having an obedient, just magnificent adventure with Jesus, that

carries power, that carries weight. You need to get through this, he

says, avoid such people verse six. For among them are those who creep

into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins, and let us stray

my various passions, always learning, but never able to arrive at the knowledge

of the truth. Just as Janis and Jambers oppose Moses, so these men

also oppose the truth. Men corrupted in mind and are disqualified regarding faith.

But they will not get very far, for their folly will be playing to

all as was of those two men Paul is dealing with men who are preaching

a false gospel. They have They're trying to tell these people, you're okay,

You've got the form, you know, the words you said, the

words you have, you have the emotional experience. Right, You're good enough.

He said, these people that are coming in, these people that are

being raised up, that are approving. Really the context really means that all

those things that he said were happening. These these men who are supposed to

be heralds of the gospel, they were okay with these things. They were

approving these things instead of rebuking them. They were allowing the happenings of the

heart to no pun inten and happen. So Verse ten, he says,

you, however, and I would say that to you, would lun you.

However, this isn't. This isn't the way it is with you.

You have followed my teachings, my conduct, my aim in life, my

faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions, and

my sufferings that happened to me at Antioch and at Iconium and at Listoria,

which persecutions I endured. Yet for them all the Lord rescued me and Indeed,

all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,

while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse wow deceiving

and being deceived. But as for you, continue in what you have learned

and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, and how from

childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings which are able to make you

wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. All scripture is breathed out by

God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training

in righteousness, that the Man of God may be complete and equipped for every

good work. If we are going to if we are going to evangelize,

and we're going to stand up and say hey, we're going enough is enough

and live like this, we have to return to the word of God.

All scripture is God breath. We need the scriptures, and it's the scriptures

that begin to bring the heart back into alignment. Let's keep going. So

Paul, this is chapter four. He says, I charge you in the

presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is the judge of the living

and the dead, and by his appearing in his kingdom. Preach the word

be ready in season and out of season. Rebuke, reprove, and exhort

with complete patience and teaching. Rebuke and exhort with complete patience and teaching.

Listen, when we rebuke the world, we must do it with what complete

what. We must do it with complete patience and teaching. When we rebuke

the world, we must rebuke them in patience and in teaching. So when

the world is having the happenings of the heart, we must be patient with

them. We call people to repentance, we call people to come and meet

Jesus. But what happens is if you're not patient with them, you'll just

go and say, you know you shouldn't be doing that. You know that

that's wrong, you need to stop doing that. Come on, what's wrong

with you? And guess what? Because you didn't follow the word of God

with patience and teaching, instruction, discipleship. They walked away thinking, man,

man, look at that person. Is all they want to see is

behavior modification. If you want heart transformation, you have to you have to

reprove and rebuke with patience and teaching. If you don't, it will lead

the world that you're wanting to reach, it will lead them to shame,

and they will have shame. But what but also says exhort, So the

people that you're exhorting, that you are encouraging, whether it be brothers or

sisters in Christ, or anything good that you're finding in someone that you're ministring,

and you're applauding. Man, I'm proud of you for doing that.

But when you exhort, you also must be patient and do it with teaching.

Why because if you if you don't, you will flatter them and a

set of remanding humble they will be puffed up and conceded, and the happenings

of the heart will start happening all over again. So what is the what's

the moral? The moral is that if we're going to minister into this type

of word world according to the Word of God, we must do this work

of discipleship and evangelism through the Word of God exhorting and rebuking with patience and

teaching. And if we miss, we have to exhort and rebuke. It's

the truth. But in both we must do it with patience and teaching.

You know, Jesus rebuked the Pharisees, and they didn't listen. You know,

he rebuked his disciples too, but they listened. They took it to

heart, and the happenings of their heart began to become aligned. Let's keep

going Verse three. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound

teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate to themselves teachers to suit

their own passions. Friends, listen, times will be like, man,

that person's a false teacher, or there's so many people teaching wrongly. Friends,

it's supply and demand. This supply and demand, the Bible says,

it's not the false teachers gathering around to them a congregation. The Bible says,

after the happenings of the heart have been happening, the people of this

world, as they're facing difficult times, seek out these types of false teachers.

And it says the people are gathering around themselves teachers who will tell them

what they want to hear. Tell me more about that life where you have

a form of godliness but you don't actually change. Give me that balloon that

balloons a lot lighter to play with, that balloons of no consequence. And

he's and if we don't get back to the Word of God. If we

don't get back to the scriptures, we are not going to know how to

minister and to navigate. We're not going to know how to minister or navigate

our own hearts, let alone the world. And remember I said, we

have one mission to know Jesus, and out of that the overflow is to

make him knowing. We have to get back to the word. I'm looking

at my time. I know. Okay, let me finish this out,

for the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having

itching ears, they will accumulate to themselves teachers to suit their own passions,

and they will turn away from listening to the truth, and they will wander

off into myths. As for you, Woodlawn, always be sober minded,

endure suffering, and do the work of an evangelist, Paul is telling Timothy

in the Content of the World going Crazy, do the work of an evangelist.

Don't retreat when they call right things wrong and wrong things right. Don't

retreat. You have to move forward. Do it through exhortation and rebuke in

all teaching and patience got we have to move forward with teaching impatience. Finally,

let's look at our last scripture here. Okay, this is where Paul

tells Timothy. He says verse six, for I am already being poured out

as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I

have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept

the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness,

which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award me on that day,

and not only to me, but also to all who loved his appearing.

So what is the work of an evangelist? What is the work of the

evangelist? Paul says, to do the work. But what is the work?

This is simply it should be on the screen behind me. Seek God

with an undivided heart. That's what the evangelist does. And when I say

evangelists, I'm not talking about career evangelists like Daniel Nalley. I'm talking about

Watch this. Paul was writ into a pastor of a church Timothy. Timothy

was over the church locally, and Paul was telling Timothy do the work of

an evangelist. Why I thought an evangelist was just those special people that no

pastor do the work of an evangelist, no Christian elder deacon. Remember,

anyone who's put their faith in Christ do the work of an evangelist. Everyone

and so as an evangelist or someone who does the work of an evangelist.

The number one thing we do is we seek God with an undivided heart.

And as we see God with the undivided heart, there's no room for the

happenings because our heart can't be divided by the world. It's already been rightly

divided by God's word. Number two, share the Gospel and simplicity and truth.

I'm not impressed. Listen. I just spoke at Corbin University. Then

i went down to Bridges Christian College, and I've been hanging out with I

was at Asbury. I've hung out and I've talked with scholars, theologians,

the guys that write the big, thick ones you know, that make really

good like gor stoppers. N Get I'm joking, Corey. I've read a

couple. I'm not impressed. I'm not impressed by all the people who can

take simple things and make them very complicated. Jesus takes very complicated things and

he makes them simple. That's why I love man seeing the kids doing their

little devotion up here. That's what we're called to do for our own heart

and for the world. Number Three, build bridges for the gospel. That's

what evangelists does, build bridges for the Gospel. I want to end with

reading this last scripture from Jesus. Jesus is the Hope Matthew twenty four to

nine, says Jesus speaking. Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and

put you to death. Wait a minute, hold up, I don't know

if I want to keep reading. And you will be hated by all nations

for my name's sake. And then many will will fall away and betray one

another and hate one another, and many false prophets will arise and lead many

astray, and because of lawlessness will be increased. The love of many will

grow cold. But the one who endures till the end will be saved.

And this Gospel of the Kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a

testimony to all nations. And then the end will come. So I just

have one Let's have one more point here. What watch this? What does

he say? The hearts of many will grow cold because of sin and lawlessness

abounding in the end of the age. This is what this is. I

gave you exhortation. I'm going to give you more exhortation. This is my

word of caution for every Christian in the room. As sin and lawlessness abound

in our nation, in our communities, even right here in rural southern Illinois,

we must guard our hearts that sin and lawlessness does not abound in our

own heart first and foremost. But also we cannot make our mission field our

enemy. As we see lawlessness and sin abounding in the world. We can

look and say, man, can you believe what they're trying to teach our

kids? Can you believe what they're voting at the school board, or at

the county board or the city board, or can you believe what they're doing

in spring? We can say these things, and we can say, man,

can you believe our neighbors so and so down the road they're doing this

now or that? And we can say all those things, and as lawlessness

increases, if we're not careful, our hearts will grow cold. Guard your

heart in the end of the age so that your heart doesn't grow cold.

If your heart grows cold, you will not do the work of an evangelists

because you will not exhort and rebuke with patience and teaching when your heart's cold.

The patience and teaching is the last thing from your heart, the last

thing from your mind. Guard your heart. Friends. And lastly, this

is the scripture I want to end with, Jesus said Matthew twenty eight.

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of

the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that

I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, even

till the end of the age. This would long lef hear my heart here,

the Father's heart. You are equipped and ready and able to share this

gospel message with every Muslim, LGBTQ person, atheist, agnostic, Mormon,

prodigal backslider, everyone. Why because you are not sent out on a mission

for Jesus. That's not what the scripture said. And remember today we're returning

to what is written. Jesus said, behold, I am with you even

to what the end of the age. The end of the age that he

described, and then that Paul described Jesus is saying you can do the work

of an evangelist because you're not alone. I'm with you. What laan,

He's with you? Can I pray for you. I'm gonna turn it back

over to Pastor Brian. Father, God, thank you so much for your

word. God, thank you for the word of God that is unchanging that

line by line and verse by verse. It changes our heart, it cuts

our heart. Lord, I pray a blessing over this place, over every

heart here and over this local congregation. Lord, I know that it's it's

it's hard. How am I going to talk to so and so at work

about Jesus when they believe this and that? Or when I can get fired

or this and all these things are on the line. God, May your

word the urgency of your word. May we be willing to count the cost

and but we may May we be willing to to do all evangelism with patience

and teaching. May we build bridges. May we preach the gospel and truth

and in simplicity, and Father God above all, may we know you and

make you know even to the end of the age. In Jesus' name.

Amen, don't the food to spin the foot