Jeff Schreve - The Truth About The Last Days
What does God have to say to us about the last days? 2 Timothy is Paul’s last letter. And Chuck Swindoll, in his great commentary on 2 Timothy, he says, looks at chapter 1, he says, The tone of chapter 1 is gratitude. The tone of chapter 2 is compassion. And then the tone of chapter 3 is warning; to be forewarned is to be forearmed. And then you get into chapter 4, it’s just four chapters, this little book. The tone of chapter 4 is command, preach the Word. But chapter 3 is about warning, and we need to be aware of what is going on.
So, 2 Timothy chapter 3, verse 1, Paul is writing to his true child in the faith, Timothy, who is pastor at the church in Ephesus. And he says, «But realize this, that in the last days, difficult times will come». You need to understand this; you need to know this and keep knowing it. That’s the Greek word that is used in the tense here. It’s an ongoing thing; don’t just learn it once and forget it; know this and keep knowing this. Realize this, understand this, that, in the last days, difficult times will come. Well, three discoveries from 2 Timothy chapter 3 that I want to share with you today. Discovery number one: We are living in the last days. Because the Bible makes it clear that the last days are between His first and second comings.
The last days encompasses a lot of time. Jesus was born 5 BC; He was born before Herod died; Herod died in 4 BC. And He was crucified in, on April 3, 33 AD, according to Dr. Harold Hoehner. And so that’s a long time ago; 2,000 plus years ago, Jesus was walking this earth, and now He, it’s gonna be when He comes back again. And the Bible calls that, that’s the beginning of the last days. Well, this is what the Lord says in Hebrews chapter 1, «God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers and the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world».
So the Bible says the last days are when God began to speak through His son, the earthly ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. Then He ascended to heaven; He gave us Holy Spirit. And the Lord, the book of Acts is not the acts of the apostles. It’s the acts of Jesus working through the apostles, through the person of the Holy Spirit. It’s all a work of God. And we’re in the last days until the Lord comes back. Now, the last days are coming to a dramatic conclusion. And so Jesus said that it’s gonna be like birth pangs, and those who have been involved in giving birth or been there to help your wife as long hold her hand and pray for her, and that kind of thing when she’s giving birth, you know about birth pangs because they come more quickly, and they come with more intensity.
And that’s what we’re seeing as we get closer and closer to the coming of Christ. It’s going to be very, very dramatic when the Lord comes back. And the last days give way to the day of the Lord. If you do a Bible search on that phrase, 'the day of the Lord, ' you’ll find that that’s used a lot in the scripture; it’s a lot in the Old Testament. The day of the Lord is not a 24-hour day; it’s a time period. The last days cover a huge period of time. The day of the Lord is a shorter period of time, but it’s the day of God’s wrath. This is what it says in Isaiah about the day of the Lord.
It’s destruction from the Almighty, Isaiah 13, verse 6; it’s the day of the Lord’s anger. It’s a time of doom for the nations. It’s the seven-year tribulation period. It’s an awful, awful time as God pours out his wrath on a disobedient, sinful, Christ-rejecting world. And that’s the day of the Lord. But the the last days lead up to the day of the Lord. And so we’re not living in the day of the Lord; we’re living in the last days. And this is what the Apostle John says. He goes even further to say, it’s not just the last days. We’re at the end of the last days, we’re in the last hour. «Children,» 1 John 2:18, «it is the last hour; and just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have appeared; from this we know that it is the last hour».
He goes on to say, in chapter 4, 1 John chapter 4, «Beloved, do not believe every Spirit, but test the Spirits to see whether they are from God because many false prophets have gone out into the world». And so, this idea, the false teachers and false prophets and antichrist, little 'a, ' they have been around, but it’s all gonna culminate in the antichrist, the man of sin, the beast, as the Bible calls him, «the beast from the sea». Well, that is going to take place, and there is coming a one world leader, and the whole world will flock to him, and they’ll say, «Who is like the beast, and who is able to wage war with him»?
Now, I believe, not everybody believes this, but I believe that God raptures out his church before the revealing of the antichrist takes place. So we’re not to be looking around to see and to, you know, kind of postulate, «Well, who is the antichrist? Maybe it’s this guy, maybe it’s that guy, maybe it’s the other guy». Dr. Ed Hindson said, «If you can figure out who the antichrist is, guess what? You missed the Rapture». Because we’re not going to know until the Lord takes his church out, and then that man of sin, of lawlessness will be revealed. So that’s the very first discovery as you read, «But realize this, in the last days, difficult times will come».
Well, we’re living in the last days. Now, if Paul called his day, he was beheaded around 66, 67 AD. If he called his day the last days, and John called his day, he wrote even later than that; John died about 95 to 98, something like that, AD. Well, if he calls his time period the last hour, well, we’re in the last minutes before the Lord comes back. And we are living in the last days. And that’s the first discovery. Second discovery: We must be aware of the characteristics of the last days. If we’re living in the last days, then, God forbid, that we should be ignorant of the last days. To be forewarned is to be forearmed. So look at it again, «But realize this, understand this, that, in the last days, difficult times will come».
Difficult times will come. So, what are the last days like? Well, according to the Apostle Paul, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, these are times of great difficulty, danger, and peril, and you and I need to be ready, you know, we need to be living on red alert because those are the days in which we live. And then he tells us why it is so bad. What is, what makes the last days so bad and so difficult and so dangerous and so savage and so perilous? Well, it has to do with the lawlessness and sin which is unleashed in the world. So these are times of great difficulty; these are times of great lawlessness and sin. He goes on to say in verse 2, «For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips».
Malicious gossips, one word in the Greek, diablos. That’s what the devil is; he’s a malicious gossiper, a slanderer, a false accuser. «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». Great lawlessness and sin in the last days. And these are times of great deception, great deception because it says in verse 5, «holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power». They appear to be Christian, spiritual, religious. They have a form of it, but they’re just kind of Christian in name only, church in name only. They’re not genuine, they’re not true. It’s just something that they use, something that they wear, but it’s not real inside.
It says in verse 6, «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». You say, «Who, I’ve never heard of these guys, Jannes and Jambres who are they»? They’re the magicians from Exodus 2, or Exodus chapter 6, who opposed Moses. And the scripture says, «Hey, just as those two guys opposed Moses, you’re gonna have people in the church that will oppose the way of God, but God will expose them as false».
Hey, these are times of great deception. That’s why it’s so critical that you be discerning. That’s why it’s so important to spend time in the Word. How do you get discerning? Solid food is for the mature who, because of practice, have their senses trained to discern good and evil. So you have to have your senses trained to determine, «Okay, what’s good here, and what’s evil here»? Because the devil is slick; he doesn’t come at you with something that is so obvious that anybody can figure it out. «Well, this is good, and that’s evil. I mean, I figured that out». No, he comes at, they’re just real close together, and so you have to be discerning. Well, it says in verse 13, «But evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived».
You know, we have people today, and many in churches, many on television or on the radio, and, when you really boil it down, they are lovers of self and lovers of money, the Prosperity Gospel. It’s all about people who are in love with money. You send in your money to me, and then you’ll get your blessing, hopefully, but make sure to send it first to me, and then you’ll get your blessing. Lovers of self, lovers of money. They’re deceived, evil men and impostors. The word for impostor was a traveling swindler of the weak minds. It’s kind of the snake oil salesmen that would go from town to town, swindle people, promise them things, get them to pay their money, and then take off to the next town. It’s harder to do that today, in the day and age of technology and digital things, and we can look people up real fast. But you go back 100 years ago, and you could do that very easily.
You go back to the 1st century, and you could definitely do that very easily, and you promise people all sorts of things, and get them to pay you money, and then move on to the next town. Times of great deception. So we’re living in the last days; we need to be aware of the characteristics of the last days. And, discovery number three: We must stand strong in the truth in these last days. This is so critical, to stand strong in the truth, to stand up, stand up for Jesus, you soldiers of the cross.
2 Timothy chapter 2, Paul tells Timothy, «Suffer hardship with me as a good soldier of Christ Jesus». He is in prison. It’s not like his first imprisonment, in the book of Acts. This is his second Roman imprisonment. He’s in a dungeon, and it’s really bad, and he knows that he’s getting ready to die. «The time of my departure,» he says in chapter 4, «is at hand». He was getting ready to have his head cut off. And he was telling Timothy, «You be strong in the grace that is found in Christ Jesus».
Now, every time we do a membership class, we always share with the people at the class Hebrews chapter 10, verses 23 through 25. It says this, «Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful; and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near». Hey, what’s the point of being part of the church? It’s to come together on a regular basis. We have times where we come together. Sunday morning, we come together; Wednesday night, we come together.
Now, it might be in different parts of the church, and we’re, you know, we have kids’s events and student events and things like that, services. And then we have a big service, and we’re getting ready to have our connection classes, our life classes. And that’s a good thing. But we come together, and the church comes together, and the Bible says, «Don’t forsake that». Now, during COVID, you had things that were called essential, well, essential services. Essential services like bars; well, that’s essential. Strip joints; that was deemed essential. Abortion clinics, that was deemed essential. Church, non-essential; you guys can’t meet.
You know, that’s what they said in California, Governor Newsom said in California. I like John MacArthur. He said in a nice Christian way, «Stick it in your ear. We’re meeting». And, you know, we didn’t have that in Texas, like they had it in other parts. But what is the church? I remember Andy Stanley was like, «Yeah, we’re not meeting for a whole year». I was like, «Good night». He said, «You know, you don’t have to meet to be a part of the church». The church, in Greek, is ecclesia; it means the assembly, and we are to come together. Why do we come together? To encourage one another in love and good deeds. It’s really hard to live the Christian life as a lone ranger out there all by yourself.
And, we have said before, listen, online church is a good supplement; it’s not a good substitute. Because you need one another. I’ll have people that email me from different cities and different states, and they’ll say, «You know, I can’t find a good church, and maybe I should just stay home and just watch you guys». And I said, «Listen, it’s good to watch us, but you need to find a church. Find some church that believes the Bible because you need the fellowship, and you need another person. We can’t be that for you. We can’t be fellowship. We can’t be Jesus with skin on, that you can come and sit down and rub shoulders with; you can’t do that online». And so we encourage one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near.
What day is he talking about? The day of Christ’s coming, you know, the last days between His first coming and His second coming. And so, before the day of the Lord comes the Rapture of the church where He takes us out of here. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, John chapter 14, 1 Corinthians chapter 15, speak of the Rapture. Jesus told His disciples, «Let not your heart be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many dwelling places. If it were not so, I would have told you, for I go to prepare a place for you. And, if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that, where I am, there you may be also».
Now, if you don’t believe in a pre-tribulation rapture, and you’re all millennial, and you believe, «Well, there’s, you know, it’s just, the Lord’s just gonna come back one day». It’s like, where do you put the Rapture? Because that’s a real thing. When do we go to the Father’s house? Because that’s a real thing, from the lips of Jesus. When does He come in the clouds and calls us, «The dead in Christ rise first, and we are alive and remain shall be caught up together with him in the air. And thus shall we always be with the Lord».
When does that happen? It has to happen somewhere, and I believe it happens before the day of the Lord, before that great day of wrath. So, between the comings, where, as we’re living right now, we must stand strong in the truth and encourage one another in the truth in these last days. So we’re called to live the truth and speak the truth in love. That’s what we’re called to do. Verse 12, 2 Timothy 3, «Indeed, all who desire to live Godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,» will suffer persecution. You say, «Yeah, I don’t like that part». Well, listen, if you desire to live godly in Christ Jesus, if you’re gonna please the Lord, then persecution comes with it.
Jesus said, «If the world hates, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But, because you’re not of the world, I have called you out of the world; therefore, the world hates you. A slave is not greater than his master. If they persecuted Me, they’ll persecute you also. If they kept My Word, they’ll keep yours also». It’s part of the deal. If you’re gonna live Godly in Christ Jesus, just know, they will come after you; the world will come after you. That word persecute means to pursue. It doesn’t necessarily, as Adrian Rogers used to say, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re going to put your little finger in the old pencil sharpener. Remember that, as a kid?
Some of you older folks, you remember we had a pencil sharpener when I was in grade school on the wall. And we had pencils, and you’d put them in there. And you always thought about that, «Man, put your finger in there, that would really hurt». We think that’s persecution. They stick your finger in there, and they just whittle it down. Well, that would be a form of persecution, but the word actually means to pursue, to come after you. And that’s gonna happen to all who live godly in Christ Jesus.
So we’re called to live the truth and to speak the truth in love. And we’re called to fight for what is right, to fight for what is right. I’m not talking about physically fighting. I’m talking about standing up, opening your mouth, making a difference (with your presence, with your vote, with your influence) to stand up and fight. It says in the book of Nehemiah, as they were building the wall, «When I saw their fear, I rose and spoke to the nobles of the officials and the rest of the people. I said, 'Do not be afraid of them; remember the Lord who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your houses.'»
And we are called to live and speak the truth in love, to fight for what is right, and to warn people of coming judgment. Jesus says, «As it was in the days of Noah, so shall the coming of the Son of Man be». What were the days of Noah like? They were days of vice and violence, and every intent of the thoughts of man’s heart was only evil continually. Now, we may not be full-fledged in the days of Noah, but we’re fast approaching the days of Noah. And what was Noah’s ministry? You build the boat, you build that huge vessel, you build that Ark, and he’s called a preacher of righteousness, and you warn people that judgment is coming. Judgment is coming. Judgment is coming. What is our job? We warn people that judgment is coming. Does that mean, «Well, you must think you’re better than I am»?
I don’t think I’m any better than you are. I just think that God will save anybody who comes to Him in repentance and faith. I think that judgment is coming. I think that God is holy, holy, holy, and God hates sin. And the day of the Lord, the last days, are gonna give ways to the day of the Lord, and the day of the Lord is judgment from the Almighty. Revelation chapter 6, when they open the seals, break the seals, and start opening the scroll, the sixth seal, the people cry out, and they say to the rocks and to the mountains, «Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne and from the presence of the Lamb; for the day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand»?
Well, I don’t want that for anybody. I want people to be saved from this evil generation. I don’t want them to experience the wrath of God, and no Christian who loves the Lord should want anyone to experience the wrath of God. Paul said that, when he preached on Mars Hill, «Therefore, now, having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead».
God is going to judge, and there is salvation in no one else, just the Lord Jesus Christ, and His arms are open wide. And, in the last book of the Bible, Revelation chapter 22, verse 17, there’s an invitation, «The one who is thirsty, let him come. You can come to the Lord». Jesus said, «Whoever is burdened, heavy ladened, weary, come to Me». You can come, and the Lord will save.