Dangers of the Last Days (2 Timothy 3:1-9)

Well, it's good to be with you. I'm so glad

that you're worshiping with us in person or online today.

So we've been in our study for 2 Timothy for

a while, and as we come to chapter 3, Paul

kind of finishes this section. He's talked a lot about

false teaching, and this is the last time in 2

Timothy that Paul discusses false teaching. As you remember, Paul

is in prison. He's in Rome, and he's facing his death.

He's sending his last will, if you will, and testament

to Timothy. He's writing to warn him. He's writing with

a sense of urgency to Timothy. He wants Timothy to

carry on his ministry. He wants the church to carry

on his ministry. But there's some urgent things that Paul

wants to convey to Timothy. And as we come to

chapter three, you kind of sense this. He believes false

teaching is a huge issue. There's a huge danger here.

You know, in our house, we have natural gas. And

so that's something that we have in our home. And

You know, the thing about natural gas is natural gas

is colorless. It's tasteless and it's odorless. You can't smell it.

And so one thing that we have in our home

is we have CO2 sensors, carbon monoxide sensors. They're all

through our house. In our house, we have three stories.

We have a basement, first floor and third floor. And

we have a sensor on all three floors. And why

do we do that? Because natural gas is dangerous. And

if there was a leak in our home, we'd want

something to alert us of the danger that might be

in our home. So we put these alarms to always

be looking for what? A dangerous leak. And if there

is a leak, the alarm will detect it and what?

It'll send off an alarm to us that there's natural

gas in our home and for us to call the

gas company, right? So that's in our home because we

know it's danger. We want to be alerted if there

is danger. And that's really the heart of this passage

in chapter 3. Paul knows that there is a danger

that's looking for all believers. There's a danger that you

and I must be aware of. And it is false teaching.

It is sin. And today he wants you and I

to be alerted of this. He wants us to be

prepared for this. And so he wants us to know

what Scripture says about the dangerous times. The title of

my sermon is Dangerous of the Last Days. Do you

realize one of the things that Paul wants us to

see that we're living in the last days? You know,

as we, I think you've heard me say before that

there is this always maybe curiosity around the last days.

What is last days going to look like? What are the,

when is that? When did that occur? And a lot

of times people ask me through the years, through my ministry,

are we living in the last days? And the answer

is yes, we are living in the last days. In

the Bible, it was not only important to us as

church people, it was important to the people in the Bible. Actually,

the prophet Daniel warned about the last days, just like

Paul is here. He says in Daniel 12, 1, and

at that time shall arise Michael and the great prince

who is in charge of people and there shall be

a time of trouble such as never has been since

there was a nation till that time. But at that time,

your people shall be delivered and everyone whose name shall

be found in the written book. Jesus, not only did Daniel,

a prophet, warn about the dangers of the last days,

so did Jesus. Jesus in Mark chapter 13 warned of

Mark 13 · chapter mention

the last days and the dangers of the last days.

And the scripture says in Mark chapter 13 verse 3,

Mark 13:3

and he sat on the Mount Olives opposed to the

temple and Peter and James and John and Andrew asked

him privately, tell us when will these things be and

what will be the sign when all these are about

to be accomplished and Jesus began to say to them

see that no one leads you astray many will come

in my name saying I am he and they will

lead many astray and we hear of wars and rumors

of war don't be alarmed this must take place but

the end is not yet for the nation will rise

against the nation kingdom against the kingdom and there'll be

earthquakes in various places there'll be famines but these are

beginning of the birth pains but listen to this Jesus

says be You see, Daniel warned of the last days.

Jesus warned of the last days. And why did Jesus

warn us about the last days? Because he wanted us

to what? Be on guard. He wanted us to be alerted.

He wanted us to be prepared. The early church, the

apostles warned us of the last days. In 1 John,

the apostle John wrote, children, it is the last hours

as you've heard that the Antichrist is coming. So many

Antichrists have come. Therefore, we know that it is the

last hour. And so the early church warned us. The Daniel, Jesus,

the early church says, John, and that's what Paul is

doing here. Paul was warning us of the dangers of

the last days. And he wants us, like Jesus, he

wants us to be on guard. He wants us to

be prepared. And so this morning, as we think about

the dangers of the last days, we must be on guard.

We must be prepared. We must be warned. You know,

it's interesting that gas companies do something. Because natural gas

is odorless, they add a little odor, a little... thing

to the the gas to make us recognize that it's

there it kind of smells like rotten eggs they either

they add this little dye to the to the natural

gas so we'll detect it why why do they do

that because they want us to what sense smell and

recognize there's danger that's what Paul's doing here he's putting

us a warning in scripture to warn us of things

that we are to look for so we will be

prepared and the times of danger. So this morning, let's detect,

if you will, the dangers of living in the last days.

And I wonder today, can you detect those? Do you

know what the dangers you're to look for? The gas

companies wants us to detect the smell of those eggs, right,

to detect. Can you detect what the dangers of the

last days are? Do you know how to avoid them?

Avoid them in your life, the life of your family,

life of other believers. Do you know what dangers there are?

Are you avoiding these dangers in your life, in the

life of your family, in the life of others? Let's

look at Scripture, what Scripture says are today the dangers

of the last days. The passage begins, and let's look

at it together. He says, but understand this, understand this is,

is mark this, if you will, or it's the idea of,

I want you to, to recognize this. I want you

to mark this. I want you to remember this. Now,

if you think about something in our, in our life,

if we want to remember something, right, we, we mark

it down. We write it down. Some of you today,

or maybe you want to remember this sermon. So maybe

you're taking notes. So you're, writing down things because you

want to remember, you write it down. If you, or

your wife is sending you to the grocery store, if

you're going to the grocery store, a lot of times

you'll get a list and you'll write down things on

your grocery list. Why? Because you writing it down because

you want to remember it. You don't want to get

in the store and forget it, right? If you're reading

a book and you take a break from where you're reading,

you put a bookmark or you mark where you are

in that because you want to remember what you read.

You'll remember where you were. If you're working in your yard,

maybe you're spraying your yard of weeds or different things.

A lot of times you'll mark with flags to see

where you've been so you can remember where you've been.

That's the imagery here. Jesus and Paul was saying, or

Paul was saying here, Understand this. Remember this. Mark this down.

I want you to remember this in the future so

you can remember what you're to look for. Now look

at what he's saying here, but understand this, that in

the last days, he used this term last days. The

idea for last days is where we get, you may

have heard the term in theology called eschatology. Eschatology, the

first part of that is the understanding of last days.

The ology part is a study of, eschatology is a

study of the last days. Paul brings up this eschatological

idea here, and he's trying to get the church to

think about the eschatological perspective that you are living in

the last days. Now, we think about the last days,

and here he's describing what it will be like in

the last days. But I think it's important for you

to understand, for Paul, Paul and the early church knew

that The last days had already begun. We know that

after Christ died and rose again, the last days had begun.

In Acts chapter 2, we know that because one of

Acts 2 · chapter mention

the descriptions of the last days was not only an

outpouring of sin, as we're going to look at in

a minute, but there's an outpouring of the Spirit. There's

two marks, if you would say, of the last days,

and there will be an outpouring of the Spirit. And

Acts chapter 2 verse 17 described this. It was the

Acts 2:17

prophet of Joel prophesied about the last days and what

it would be like. And one of the descriptions that

Joel the prophet gave of the last days would be

an outpouring of the Spirit. Outpouring of the Holy Spirit

living and residing in the life of people. And it

said this in Acts chapter 17. In the last days

Acts 17 · chapter mention

it shall be, God declares, I will pour out my

Spirit on all flesh. And your sons and your daughters

shall prophesy and your young men shall see visions. And

your old men shall dream dreams. And they knew when

the Pentecost came. and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit

came at Pentecost, that was a mark that they were

living in the last days. So I would say since

Jesus died and rose again, we've been living in the

last days. So to answer the question that I asked

a minute ago, are we living in the last days? No. Yes,

we've been living in the last days since Jesus rose again.

This is the last days. And one of the marks

of the last days is an outpouring of the Holy Spirit,

according to Acts chapter 2 and Joel. But Paul wants

Acts 2 · chapter mention

us to see one of the marks of living in

the last days is an outpouring of sin. Notice what

he says here. Understand that in the last days, today.

I think sometimes we're guilty of the church individually. is

that we don't have this ecological perspective. We think last

days is something that's coming ahead. Maybe after we, after

we're the next generation, the generation after, maybe that's when

we'll be living in the last days. We're living in

the last days today, right now. It's been happening since

Jesus rose again. We're living in these moments. There is

a pouring of the Holy Spirit and We know that

because the Holy Spirit came to us when we accept

Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. So they're outpouring

the Holy Spirit, but also there's an outpouring of sin.

And today we're living in these last days, and we

have to have a mindset that lives in that reality

that right now, moment by moment, day by day, month

by month, year by year, we're living in the last

moments of eternity. The last moments not of eternity, the

last moments of this earth. We are in the last days.

What will the last days be like? He wants us

to understand this, to mark this, that in the last days,

listen to what he says, there will come times of difficulty.

This word difficulties is an interesting word. It's how Lepos

in the Greek, it means violent, dangerous, hard, difficult. I

think I wanted you to hear that because when we

think difficulty, we think today was a difficult day. Maybe

yesterday it was a little cold and rainy. It was

a difficult day. Couldn't do anything outside. We think that's

what difficulty is, right? It's more than that. This is dangerous.

This is hard. This is violent. This word is only

used twice in the New Testament. It's used here, and

it's used in Matthew 8 of some demons who came

to the disciples and Jesus. It's in Matthew 8, 28,

and when they came to the other side in the

country of the Gadarians, two demon-possessed men met him, and

coming out of the tombs, listen to this, so fierce

that no one could pass that way. The word fierce there,

the fierceness of the demons, is the same Greek word

that Paul uses here for difficulty. As we come into

the last days, listen, it is dangerous. It's dangerous, the

days we're living in today. I want you to notice,

why is it so dangerous? Because first, it's dangerous because

there is an outpouring of sin. These are the dangers

of the last days. There's dangerous sins. And in this,

Paul begins listing, if you will, a list of sins.

This is, um, it's almost a list of vices or

a list of sins. This is something that we see, um,

a lot in scripture is also was, was common among

the Jews to, to have a list of different sins.

It was also common that during this period of time

of writing that philosophers would list different list of sin.

This list contains 18 different items, 18 different sins. Um,

six which only occur in the New Testament, four that

only occur in Timothy. Paul lists here in chapter 2,

it's very similar to another list we found in the

New Testament of Romans. Romans chapter 1, verses 29 through 31,

Romans 1:29–31

Paul writes a very similar list of sins and he

lists just these different ones. The difference between the two

I think are important is that in Romans chapter 1,

Romans 1 · chapter mention

as Paul is outlining a list of sins, In this

list of sin, he's describing the common sins that were

found in Rome at the time. It was found in

the Gentile world when Paul wrote the book of Romans.

As he's coming to chapter 2, he's not talking about

the current sins that are prevalent in Rome or prevalent

at time. He's writing prevalent sins that will be marks

of the last days. Notice these sins as we walk

through these. I think it's important as you begin this

list and as we walk through these, he begins with

kind of bookends, right? He starts with sins at the beginning,

and the same sins are found at the end of

the book. They're parallel in that they're lovers, right? Look

at the beginning. For the people will be lovers of

self and lovers of money. If you get to the

very last one of this list is, again, the bookend.

It's lovers of pleasures rather than lovers of God. You see,

at the beginning of this list, he's seeing that what

flows from all these sin is a substitute. One who

substitutes a love for God for loving something else, right?

What do they love first? They love their self. They

don't love God. They don't desire things of God. They

They are their own God. They love themselves above God.

Loving themselves is their chief desire. They don't seek God.

They seek to find happiness in themselves. That is the

first mark. The second one is the second sin that's

listed is the lover of money. If they don't love themselves,

they love their money. They love their materialism. Their chief

desire in life is to have more. Have more money,

more clothes, more things, more toys, more pleasures. And it's

all found in the great green dollar. Love of money.

But both of these are what? Replace God. Our chief

end of man is to love God, right? And they've

replaced loving God for loving something else. A substitute. And

out of the flow of not loving God and loving

self or loving money, flows all the other sins. Do

you know that? Do you recognize that today? That when

we love ourselves more than we love God, or we

love money or the created things instead of the creator,

all other sins flow from that. And that's what Paul

wants you and I to see here. The marks of

the last days is not an outpouring of the spirit.

The marks of the last days is an outpouring of

sin where we live in a world where people love

themselves more than they love knowing God. where they love

the money and the things of this world more than

they love the one who created the things of the world.

And flowing from that is all the other sins. He

describes there, let's just follow along. Verse 2 says people

will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud. The

word proud here comes from a bounce of swaggering. You

ever seen someone who kind of They have a swag.

They kind of walk around like they are somebody. That's

the imagery. This is the idea of someone who is

proud of themselves. They brag about themselves. They're an arrogant person.

It gives the idea of someone who speaks big words

about himself. One writer described it as one whose mouth

is too big for his body. He likes to brag

about what, or he or she likes to brag about

what they've done and what they've accomplished. They are proud,

and they walk around with a swagger because they think

they are somebody. They strut, if you will. The second,

the next word there is arrogant. The idea of arrogant

is someone who is haughty. This is someone who is

just proud for. They're arrogant. They're an old dog. They

believe that they are God's gift to mankind. They are arrogant.

The next term here is abusive. This word abusive, in

the Greek, it comes down to the idea of words.

They're not abusive physically. They're abusive in the way they

speak to others. In 1 Timothy 6, 4, this term

is used, and it's understand someone who maliciously tears down

someone with their words. They're abusive. The next term is

they're disobedient to their parents. They don't care for their parents.

They don't obey their parents. That's another example of this

outpouring of sin in the last days. The next ones

that flow from that, you may see a connection between

the two. The next four that are listed all begin

with a prefix, And the prefix we see in our language,

if you go to, it will be lovers of self,

lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive. disobedient to the parents.

The next one you see all starts with a prefix

of you in. And so they're not something, right? And

we see that same prefix in the Greek. They're not grateful.

They're ungrateful. You can see this imagery. They don't respect

for their parents. And maybe they're ungrateful for what their

parents have done to them, for them. They're ungrateful. Ungrateful

is the idea of not feeling or showing gratitude. They're ungrateful.

They're not only not grateful, but they're unholy. They're not holy.

This term in the Greek means sinful. They're wicked. They

don't have any desire for the things of God. They're sinful.

They don't desire to be holy. They're ungrateful. This is

seen in 1 Timothy 1.9. As Paul talked about this,

he says, understand that the law is not laid down

for the just, but for the lawless, the disobedient, the ungodly,

the sinner, for the unholy, the profane. It's this idea

of these don't desire the things of God. Scripture says

they are in this here. We don't see the un here,

but this translator is translated as heartless. They have no heart, right?

It's the idea of they're without love. They have a

lack of desire to show affection for others. They're heartless.

They're unappeasable. Unappeasable, actually, the word is unforgiving. They're not forgiving.

Some translations would say they're unforgiving. This idea is they're

not capable of being reconciled to others. This literally in

the Greek means without truce. It means that there's such

a hostility toward others. A truce is not possible for them.

It's impossible. There's no way they'll be willing to reconcile

with others. The next word is slanderous. They're unappeasable there.

I'm sorry. The unforgiving there. The next one is slanderous.

You ever heard the word diabolical? This is the word

in the Greek where we get that word. The word

here literally means to engage in slander. Someone who engages

in slander. We see this in 1 Timothy 3, 11.

Their wives must be good character, not slanderers. The term

may be rendered better or something that we would apply better.

They're gossipers. They slander others. They're busy about gossiping about others,

slandering others with their words. They're without self-control. Scripture says

self-control is the idea of an attitude of mind that

is controlled. They're not able to control themselves. They're not

able to control their mind. They're not able to control

their actions. They're brutal, Scripture says, is the next word here.

They don't love good. Not loving good. This idea for

not loving good is someone who really hates good. And

they really instead replace it with something else more demanding.

They don't love things of good. They don't like it's description.

They're Tetris. That's the idea of literally means they're reckless.

The word means in the Greek to fall headlong. It

means to Be reckless. I feel like we see that

sometimes on the roads, right? You drive around Durham, you think, man,

that guy's Tetris. It means that he's reckless in how

he drives. I mean, we saw, we were going down

the road the other day and someone was trying to

pass on the left side and they went into the

turning lane. And then when they couldn't get across, they

went across and they lost control of their vehicle and

went up on the curb. They were reckless, right? That's

the idea. But this is not in regards to driving.

It's in how they live their life. Swollen with conceit

is the next one here. Without self-control, brooding, not loving, good, treacherous, reckless,

swollen with conceit. The word swollen renders an unwarranted desire

of self-importance. They're conceited. They think they're more important than

they really are. And then he finishes with the last one, right?

The last one is, Lovers of pleasure rather than lovers

of God. You take all 18 together, right? You put

them all together. Starts out with people who say, you know, God,

you created me to be in your image, to love you,

to serve you. And God, I don't want anything to

do with you. Instead, I want to love myself. I

want my happiness to be my chief goal in life.

It'll be those who seek that and be those who

says maybe it's not their happiness, but it is the

happiness of finding love and the things that are created things,

the things of this world. I'm going to love the

pleasures of this world, the material of this world, the

money of this world, and I'm going to find my

happiness in loving the things of the world. But at

the end, they all produce all these different things, arrogance, pride, recklessness, Heartless,

not able to be pleased, appeased, arrogant, abusive, disobedient, ungrateful, unholiness.

And in the end, they love pleasure rather than they

love God. I want you to, you know, I was

thinking about, do I walk as I prepare for this message?

Do I walk you through all of these different ones?

Or do I just kind of read you through them

and let you just kind of deduct in your mind

what each one of these mean? But I think it's

really important for me to go through each one. Why?

Because you need to recognize these. You need to know like, okay,

this is what this means. And here's the thing. Do

I see any of this in me today? Is there

anything in my life that resembles this? And Paul is

wanting me to see that this is dangerous. This is dangerous.

This is violence. This could tear me apart. This could

destroy me. And this was something that Paul warned was

coming in the future to destroy God's people. And I've

got to recognize if this is something Not just maybe

coming in the future, this is here now. And this

is here now meant to destroy me. And if this

is any of this in my life today, Lord, I

need to repent. I need to flee. I need to run.

I need to get this out of my life. Because

it is a cancer that's going to take my very soul.

just yesterday we were or Friday we were coming back

most of you know my I was away this week

and my stepdad passed away and so I was with

my mom all week and we had the funeral on

Thursday and so Friday we we stayed the night there

in Charlotte area and then Friday we went by I

saw my mom and on the way home we were

coming down up 85 and and as we was coming

up 85 I noticed that Traffic started backing up. There

was some type of accident. Something was going on, and

the traffic was backing up pretty quick. And I noticed

kind of in the distance there was this kind of

a black smoke kind of rising. And so I thought, well,

something's happened. There looks like maybe a fire. As we

got closer, we realized it had just happened, and there

was a tanker that was all the way on the

end of the side of the road. And as we

got closer, I noticed it was on fire. Now, you

put in your mind tanker, fire, right? This doesn't look

like a good thing. So what did I do? What

I did was like everybody else did. I got out

of there as quick as I could, right? Because this

is dangerous. This is dangerous. This could explode in my

mind is what I was thinking about. And so I'm

not going to run to it. I'm going to run

from it, right? And that's the imagery that Paul wants

you and I to see. then in the last days,

there's going to be, listen to this, there's going to

be an outpouring of sin. There's an outpouring of sin

in the time of Rome, and that time is going

to get worse than it's ever seen before. Listen, folks,

I'm not trying to be negative Ned today, but what

we've seen in our world is just going to get worse.

It's not going to get better. And we're going to

see more and more lovers of self, lovers of money,

and lovers of pleasure than we've ever seen before, and

we're going to see all the sins that outflow of it.

But as believers in Jesus Christ, we must recognize what

we see that's happening in our world, and we as

believers must be ones who flee from it, who run

from it, who say, I don't want to have any

of this in my life or in the life of

my family, in the life of my friends, or the

life of our church. We must be ones. Who see

the dangers of sin. The dangerous sins of our world.

And we must be ones who flee. Who run. Paul

always says. There's one. In this passage of scripture. There's one.

application that Paul gives, and we're going to look at this.

In verse 5, he describes them having the appearance, rather

than lovers of God, they have the appearance of godliness,

but denying its power. That's why he says, avoid such people.

Avoid it. Avoid the people. Avoid these individuals. which you

see the next part is not only a dangerous sin,

but there's a dangerous deception. He's describing now, not only

the sin, but he's describing who is leading people do this.

And we know one of the issues for, for Paul

leading all the way up to this chapter was false teachers.

And Paul in chapter three, as we looked at the

character of God's people, we are to be people who

try to reach the false teachers or try to minister

to them, try to, to confront them, to discipline them

in order that they might repent, right? We see that.

If you go to chapter 2, verse 25 and 26,

correct his opponents with gentleness, maybe God may perhaps grant

them repentance leading to the knowledge of truth, and they

may come to their senses and escape from the snare

of the devil after being captured by By him to

do his will. See, Paul's goal, right, for Timothy was

for Timothy to confront the false teachers or those who

were going away from God's truth and following false teachers

in the church. He used to do that gently. He

used to discipline them. For the goal of what? To

lead them to repentance, right? That they might turn away

from false teaching and turn back to truth. So that

was the goal, right? That's what we looked at last week.

But as you come to chapter 3, Paul is realist, right?

He knows that's the goal, is the goal is to

corrupt the false teachers and hopefully lead them to repentance.

But reality is, it was not going to end false teaching.

False teaching was going to continue to grow. And that

was going to be part of being in the last days.

As you see the flow of the passage, what in

verse 26, they may come to their senses and escape

the snare of the devil after being captured by him

to do his will. But you see the connection, the

conjunction there. But understand this, in the last days, There'll

be times of difficulty. He said that's the goal to

reach them, but to understand that part of the last

days is there's going to be a continue of growth

of sin, but also there'll continue to be more deception.

There'll become more deceivers. And in chapter, verse 5, he

describes this. These false teachers are leading people to sin.

They're leading people to these dangerous sins, but also they're

leading them, secondly, to dangerous deception. He knows, he says,

they're having the... The appearance of godliness but denying its

power avoids such people. They lead people to sin, but

they also lead them to deception. They lead them to

believe that they can live this wicked lifestyle and that

they're still okay with God. We see that in the

church of Laodicea in Revelation. Jesus in Revelation, the beginning

of chapter, I mean, the beginning of Revelation, Jesus writes

four letters to, I mean, seven letters to seven different

churches in Revelation. And one of the churches is the

church of Thyatira. Thyatira was a church that, It had

a false teacher in there. The false teacher was telling

the people in the church that they can continue in

their sin and they're okay with God. And God confronts

the church at Thyatira and says, put away the false teacher, right?

And what's the idea? The idea of the false teacher

in Thyatira was saying what? You can live this life.

You can live this sin, right? And you can still

be godly. But the imagery here in this verse, they

have the appearance of godliness, right? They act like they're religious,

they act like they're godly, but the reality is they

don't have God's power, but they deny its power. You see,

Christ and Christianity or a relationship with Christ doesn't change them, right?

They just have religion, but they don't have a relationship.

And Paul was explaining that, and let me just walk

through these quickly. He then describes the dangerous deception of

Look at verse 6. He says, among them who creep

into household and capture the weak women and burden them

with sins and led astray by various passions. He's describing

these false teachers. And he's really one of the things

that Paul wants them to know and wants us to know,

the kind of people that are dealing with. These are deceivers.

And we're going to look at that in a little bit.

But what is their goal? Their goal is to lead

to a dangerous deception, that they deceive people. And he

gives the ones that they're really preying on in the

early church here. Look at verse 5. It's almost like

a scary movie here. They're sneaking into a household there.

And he's talking about the households of God. It's the church.

And who are they capturing? They're capturing the weak women.

This idea of weak women here literally means little women.

it's not meaning that their stature or how tall they

are or that they're little. It's the idea of they're feeble,

not physically but spiritually. It's the idea of moral weakness.

They're prone to fall into something. And what do they do? Again,

they creep in, and the term here is they gain control.

It's the idea of they take them captive. The word

in the Greek here is literally a word that's used

for prisoners of war. Their goal is to take them captive,

to captivate them or capture them spiritually. You see that

term in verse 6. Listen to what it says. How

did they capture them? They burdened them with sins. And

they led, in the end of verse 6, and they

led them astray by various passions. There's this goal of

the false teachers is what? It's to capture people to

pray on the weak in the church, those who really

probably don't know their Bible like they should, those who

are maybe weak in their faith, and they creep into

the church and they pray on the weak. And how

do they pray on them? They seek to capture them.

And how do they capture them? They capture them, they

burden them with what sin? You see the imagery there.

They burden them with sins that The idea of the

verb here is to heap on. They burden them down

with more and more sin. The sin becomes a burden,

and they lead them astray with various passions, it says.

That's the goal, is to capture. I think of this,

I need to finish up here today, but as you

think about this, you think about what's happened in our

news just last year, the story of Sam Bateman. who

was a false teacher in Utah, who came and told

his followers, this was the Latter-day Saints, it's a sect

off of them, but he told his followers that they

must give his wife and his children to him as

spiritual wives. He required that of them. He forced his

followers to give him money, to provide money for him

to buy him a house, to buy different houses, to

buy cars. Again, it's burdening with his followers with him,

these things. And here's what my fear is. I was

thinking this preparing. I was thinking about telling you that story,

and you were like, oh, a pastor, that's not. I mean,

I know that's the big deal. It's happening in cults

like the Mormons, but that doesn't happen here. Have you

seen and heard the story of the death of a

pastor's wife? It was a pastor of an evangelical church

in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. And that pastor, J.P. Miller,

did the same thing in a different way to his

followers in his church, to his wife. He burdened them

and says, this is what you've got to do to

really follow Christ. And he led them away and he

captured them. Listen, it happens in all across our world today.

And I want you to hear today from Paul, from

the word of God, that there's a danger of sins,

but there is a danger of deception that's in our

world today. And you and I, listen, we live naive

to think cults and false teaching, that's what other countries

deal with. We don't deal with false teaching in America. Listen,

false teaching today is just as alive and well and

deadly today in America than it is anywhere else in

the world. Actually, I think it's more deadly here than

it is anywhere else. Because here's the reason why. They

recognize it as false teaching in other worlds. You and

I don't recognize it as false teaching. And you and

I have lost the sense. to be able to detect

when there is a deception, but it's before us. And

we toy with deception, not realizing it's seeking to hold

us captive, to capture our family members and our friends

and our loved ones, our church body that's seeking to

prey on the weak. I want to finish up lastly,

and that's the dangerous of deceivers, Paul says. There's dangerous

sins and there's dangerous deception that seeks to capture people,

the weak, But there's also dangerous deceivers who are actively

seeking to target God's people. And that is a mark

of the last days. It is one of the things

of the last days. Listen look verse 8 he suggests

as Janice and Jambres opposed Moses I'll quickly go through

this in Exodus chapter 7 verses 11 through 12 Pharaoh

Exodus 7:11–12

when Moses came in Exodus and to deliver God's people

we know that God gave Moses the ability to do

perform miracles right Pharaoh opposed Moses. How did he do that?

He did that through magicians. If you remember the story,

Moses would do a sign and then Pharaoh would bring

a magician out and he would copy what Moses did.

Throughout church history in Judaism and Christianity, they began giving

the names of who these magicians were. And by 150 BC,

these two magicians were named. They were named Janus and Jambres.

Paul knows that in this passage of scripture. He knows

that Timothy knows this and those who would read 1

Timothy would know that Janice and Jambres were the magicians

who used to oppose God. And so Paul is using

this as an illustration. Illustration that there would be those

deceivers who come up, right, who seek to oppose God's

word and truth. Just as Moses spoke the word of

God and there were deceivers who rose up to what?

Oppose God's word. They would be deceivers who would rise

up in the time of Timothy and who would rise

up today who seek, whose sole purpose is to oppose

the truth of the word of God. Listen to what

he says here in this passage. Just as Janice and

Jambres opposed God, so these men also opposed truth. Men

opposed What are they? Corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding

the faith. There are today deceivers in our world. John

said that at the very beginning of the passage of Scripture.

I read to you in 1 John, right? Children, in

the last hour, as you've heard, the end of Christ

is coming and many antichrists, false teachers have come. Therefore,

we know that it is the last hours. There are

deceivers today. Who are actively seeking to oppose the word

of God. Some of that comes in the form of

liberal theology. Some of it comes in a false teacher

like Joseph Smith. There's many different forms. But know there

are deceivers today. And they're dangerous. Dangerous sins. Dangerous deception.

Dangerous deceivers. Church today. What does God command us? What's

right in this passage of scripture. Look at verse 5.

having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power, avoid

such people. We must avoid sin, the dangerous sins of

the world. We must avoid dangerous deception, and we must

avoid dangerous deceivers. Today, you recognize we're living in the

last days. Do you know how to detect them? The sin,

the deception, the deceivers? And how are you avoiding? Let's

pray together. Lord, we love you. We thank you, Lord,

for your word today. We thank you, Lord, today. That, Lord,

you want us to recognize we're living in the last days. And, Lord,

you don't want us just to conceptually recognize that in

our minds. But, God, you want us to live on guard.

Recognizing the dangerous sins that are of our world. Recognizing

the dangerous deception that's in our world today. And recognizing

that there are deceivers who are corrupt, who seek to oppose, Lord,

your word. Lord, may we be your people today who

live on guard. Avoid these things who protect our families

and our friends, our loved ones, our church body. from

these dangerous sins, this dangerous deception, and these dangerous deceivers. Lord,

we love you. We thank you, Lord, for your word.

We thank you, Lord, for how you've spoken to us today. Lord,

if there's someone here today that doesn't know you as

Lord and Savior, maybe today they have replaced a love

for you for a love for self. Maybe today they've

been living for money and the pleasures of material things.

And Lord, they found themselves empty today. It's more that

they pursue things of this world. They realize that there's

no satisfaction in the things of this world. Lord, only

you will satisfy their soul. Maybe there's some today that

realize they live for their own pleasure rather than pleasing you, God.

And I pray that it be those today that say, Lord,

I don't want to love myself. I don't want to

love the things of this world. I don't want to

love my pleasure. Lord, today I want to love you, Lord.

I pray there'd be those who admit that they're a sinner,

they've sinned against you. Lord, today I hope there'd be

those who say, Lord, I believe that you died on

the cross for me. Lord, today I want to confess

that I need you today, Jesus. Lord, I want to

love you first above all else. Lord, forgive me. Lord,

today I put my faith in you for salvation. Lord,

come save me today. I give you my life. Lord,

I pray there'd be those who make a prayer like

that today. Lord, however you lead us today and as

we respond, Lord, I pray this would be a time, Lord,

that we respond to, Lord, how you've spoken. In your

name we pray. Amen.