Dangerous, difficult Days

II Timothy 3:1 This know also, that in

the last days perilous times shall come.

Perilous means troublesome, hard, difficult, violent.

We now live in the age of the nominal Christian, imposters, not really saved children of God.

God's truth is replaced with men's ideas.

The church has lost its importance.

God is thought of as an impersonal force.

Government has become more important than the church or the Word of God.

Self replaces God.

Men are losing their faith. I Timothy 4:1 Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; 2 Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; 3 Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.

The problem facing the church today is not an outside attack but an inward deterioration, deception, detraction, destruction. the danger the church faces today is in the church not in the world.

People no longer love God!

These last days began with the earthly ministry of Jesus. Acts 2:16-17

I read the following by Pritchard and find it very interesting: "In 1988 evangelical philosopher and theologian Carl Henry made a stunning prediction in his book, Twilight of a Great Civilization (Crossway Books). He said that as America progressively loses its Judeo-Christian heritage, paganism would grow bolder. What we saw in the last half of the 20th-century was a kind of benign humanism, but he predicted that by the start of the 21st-century, we would face a situation not unlike the first-century when the Christian faith confronted raw paganism—humanism with the pretty face ripped off, revealing the angry monster underneath. His words have come true, and are coming truer with every passing day."

Photo by Vincenzo Di Giorgi on Unsplash

Arndt, William, Frederick W. Danker, Walter Bauer, and F. Wilbur Gingrich. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.