Let's take our Bibles and go to 2 Timothy chapter 3. Encouraged to be in the Word of God this evening as we strive to be every week. It's on page 1280 in a church loan Bible. First and Second Timothy are pretty much in the forefront of my mind right now. I'm studying this book, these books, including Titus, every week, reading through them. I try to every day in preparation for my pastoral epistles class that I'm doing right now. It's the first time I'm teaching that class, but I'm noticing there's a lot of good stuff that I'm being reminded of that's found in these three books. What I want to talk about today is really a phrase in verse 1 of 2 Timothy chapter 3, and then the verses that follow. There's a lot of people that want to try and pinpoint as to when Christ is returning. I lean towards the imminence side of things, meaning there is nothing that needs to be fulfilled for Christ to come back. He could have come back in Paul's time just as much as he could have come back 10 years ago. I don't see anywhere in the scripture where we're waiting for a specific prophecy to be fulfilled. But we do have some things in the beginning of Matthew, and I think here in 2 Timothy, that can be flags. They kind of show us that we're getting closer. That's the title of our study tonight, Closer Every Day. And of course, that title carries with it the imminent return of Christ. I think it's interesting to look at things that are happening in the world and see how there's this prophetic emphasis to the current news. I remember in 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine, I was really interested in that from a prophetic view because I wondered, is this the hook in the mouth of Russia that's going to pull them into a sudden attack on Israel? And then of course you see the war that's going on between Israel and Hamas and all of the geopolitical ramifications of that one event. you get to really see that the world is still against Israel, that there is still a consensus that Israel is an invader in that land. These things don't surprise you and me as Bible-believing Christians, but they should serve as reminders that we really are set in a prime time for the Lord to come back. Now, would we say that we can actually pinpoint it down to a day? No, I don't think so. And I believe that's what the Scripture teaches, that we're not to be looking for a specific day, but every day we are looking for that glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ, Titus 2.13. We're reminded of that And it's an encouragement for us to run our race well. When the Lord comes back, there is a possibility, according to 1 John 2 and verse 28, for believers to be ashamed at His return. That has everything to do with the judgment seat of Christ, which is a rewarding stand where God will reward you based off of your profitability. And of course, your unprofitability will go unrewarded. And I believe to a degree it'll determine how you rule and reign with the Lord in the millennial kingdom, the thousand year reign here on the earth. I think that's taught in 2 Timothy chapter 2. But it would be very easy for us to manipulate our lives and kind of be the one who plans everything if we knew exactly when the Lord was coming back. we could create these false narratives in our mind, right? Well, the last year before the Lord comes back, that's when I'll really turn it up. That's when I'll really make sure that I'm doing everything that I can and I'm gonna be in the best condition. This is the best way to teach faithfulness. We don't know when, but we know that it is going to happen. But we should also be paying attention to these warning signs. Birth pangs is another way that it's described. Of course, if you've dealt with anything that has to do with childbearing, you know there are things that happen that signify What's about to happen is getting closer. Sometimes it comes out of nowhere, but there's still at least some warnings ahead of time. If it's not just the progress of the birth or whatever it may be, there are things that show you we're getting real close. And of course, you wanna be prepared when those times come so that when the baby's ready to be delivered, you're in the right place and getting the right care that you need. However, I think the same thing applies to the church, because we're supposed to be evangelists. We're supposed to go out and give the gospel. We need to know the temperature of the world out there. I say this all the time. The number one conversation starter is favorable attention. And that requires you to know your audience. You want to make sure the things that you're saying are understood. You can be speaking a lot of things, but not making a lot of sense to people. I have a guy in my community that I'm working on right now. He is a New Age believer. It's interesting, because we were both walking to the trash can a couple of months ago, well, probably half a year ago now. And we were talking and I was talking about spiritual things and what I do for work and how I know I'm going to heaven. I asked him the same thing and all that, but we didn't really land the plane, so to speak. It was just kind of like, yeah, I like going around. We come to find out he is all into the Christ consciousness movement, which is New Age. which is spiritual mysticism. I found that out because my wife saw that he was on the neighborhood Facebook page and all that, and I was like, wow, well that's why we couldn't land the plane at all. I haven't seen him since, but I'm ready. Should we have a conversation again, I'm ready. Favorably. I'm not looking with a spiritual spear to stab him in the neck and say, you know, this is why you have all these problems. He used to be a Christian according to his testimony. Now he's not. I want to find out what happened there. But favorable attention is very important. It's going to require you to have a temperature on what's going on. There's a statement here in verse 1 of 2 Timothy chapter 3 that says, this know also. So Paul's saying to Timothy, you need to know this, that in the last days, perilous times shall come. Now we kind of see that as a succession. In the last days, as a result of it, times will come. The Greek word is different there. Usually that word is chronos. The one we're looking at is kairos here. And what it means is not necessarily chronologically, but it means there'll be a period of time that will be described as perilous. Now I think there's been pockets of that in church history, especially if you look at the letters that Jesus wrote to the seven churches, you see a lot of persecution. We don't see persecution to the degree that we saw back then, but we still see persecution. I read an article, this had to be this week, I read an article about 60 bodies that were found beheaded in the Dominican Republic, Congo, or DRC. Yeah, they had beheaded these bodies, stuffed them into the church, burned the church down, the rubble was found through. And I just can't imagine what that would have been like to discover a headless body. That's in the year 2025. We're still dealing with that persecution of Christians. Now, it's not on a mass level like what we'll see in the tribulation period. where there will be technology that will be able to do that. By the way, a lot of people ask me, the mark of the beast, what if a believer tried to take a mark of the beast? And I've often said, I think that Jesus knows that all of those who have trusted in Christ will not be able to take it. And it's been hard for me to kind of see how that would work. But it says all those that take the mark are not getting in. There's something interesting that's happened recently. In the UK, there was an effort a couple of months ago for Apple to release their encryption protocol for the UK government. And of course, at the beginning, which was like two months ago, everyone was like, that's crazy. That is a complete invasion of privacy to build a backdoor into a device like that with personal information exchange back and forth. Well, they just granted it this week. It got granted. What does that tell you? I know that I just used technological words, backdoor, encryption code, all of that. What that basically means is that the government can order these cell phone manufacturers that own the hard drives and all of that, they create the hard drives, and the cloud services where our data is stored. Whether you like it or not, it's there. there's a version of it at least, to where they can see all of your records, who you're talking to, what you have said. Couple that with technology like artificial intelligence and there can be an entire database built on what you have ever said and done on your device. If you have a smart speaker, I know they don't say that they record, and I'm not here to say that they do, but let me just say this. They can. I mean, it's possible. I didn't realize this until probably, I don't know, 10 years ago, but you realize if the device is able to respond to a voice command, listening has to be initiated first. I mean, think about that. If I walked around like this all the time, I'm not gonna be able to hear you until I unplug my ears and I'm listening. And then, you know, hey, Jesse, yeah, here I am, right? Well, when you say, hey, Michelle, which really means, you know, I always use Michelle as the other word for the other names, because I don't want to set any phones off tonight. We say, hey, Michelle, she's already listening, ready to process data. You can go on your Amazon account and you can go to manage voice recordings. You can see. on the website. It's right there. You can play everything you've ever said. It'll tell you. And then you have an option to delete it. What I'm saying is we can see how that technology can be used to invade people's privacy. They can build a history and a database on you. There's a potential where in the future there are no secure devices, or at least the parameters of security are enlarged. Well, we're gonna have it secure as long as your government doesn't need it. So that can be dangerous. Those are gonna be perilous times. The tribulation period is going to be, can you even call it perilous times? Jesus says it's going to be the worst time that man has ever seen, specifically in the way of persecution that's going to happen on Israel and those who have placed their faith in Jesus Christ. So we know that's going to happen. We know we're not going to see that here, but we can see degrees of it, certainly. We can see examples of it. What Paul is saying here is, I want you to recognize, this is to first century Timothy. So he's right in the beginning of all of this. And he says, in the last days. Now that can mean before Christ comes and establishes his kingdom or any time since Christ's ascension. I tend to take the side that this is the period from the Lord's ascension to when he's going to come back and establish his rule on earth. We can call that the last days. I don't look at this as degrees. like we're in the last last super last days you know it's all just considered this one category specifically where false teaching will flourish and this was happening in the first century of the church jesus had been through his ministry he's already getting attacked as far as after his ascension in john's ministry There are people who are saying that he was not truly of the, excuse me, they were denying the Trinity. They were saying that you can have the Father and not have the Son, that Jesus only took on a Christ-like spirit and it left him when he was on the cross and all these heretical, nonsense things. And you're talking, we're not even 40 years removed from the teachings, from Christ walking on the earth and this stuff happens. You think we're gonna have some form of that in 2025? Yeah, there's a lot of time that's passed to build that up. That's the first bracket here. If we look at this as an opening bracket. This know also, Timothy, that on the last days perilous times shall come. Now I want you to hold your spot here and look in 2 Peter 2. 2 Peter 2, excuse me. And we're going to look in verse number, 1, 2 Peter chapter 2 and verse 1. It's on page 1318. But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you. Now we could read the rest of that verse, but that first portion is what I want to draw your attention to. The false teaching that we will experience in the church age is no different, it is no different than what Israel experienced in the wilderness. So this should tell us a few things. We should not be surprised when there is the presence of false teaching. We should expect it and we should be ready to give an answer against it. Specifically, when we hear false teaching, we have a responsibility to renounce it, Go to Titus chapter 1. This takes a little bit of time to explain, but it's a worthy endeavor. If we start in verse number... 10. We see that the instruction that Paul is giving here is one against false teaching. And, you know, we live in a very sensitive world. You know, people are very sensitive to rebuke and all of that. And to be honest, that doesn't mean we should stop teaching the truth, but it can be very polarizing to take a stand on things that are sure. I've had people look at me sideways when I've told them I know that I'm going to heaven. They're like, you can't know that. Well, the Bible says that I can. So now we've run into a problem, right? Your view versus what the Bible says, we got to make a decision here. Who's going to be believed? And most of the time, you know, people get upset about it and you just have to let them get upset. You still got to teach the truth. But there's a statement here that's made in verse 10. Now some would look at that as an anti-Semitic remark. It's not to be taken that way. What does this mean? Specifically, in Crete, where this epistle was being written, there were a lot of Jewish talkers and deceivers who were either completely discrediting the work of Christ, and we know the number one thing that they said against Christ was he did not rise again, the disciples stole the body. That's what's reflected at the end of Mark. And as a result of this, it was causing people to stumble away from the faith. Paul says they're unruly, they're vain, they have no profitability, They exist, verse 11, whose mouths must be stopped. Now that's a pretty clear statement. You can take that one of two ways. That you have to physically stop their mouths, that would be putting us in the position of vengeance. We are not supposed to do that. I'm not supposed to go around looking to sock somebody in the mouth who has a false gospel. That is not my responsibility and it's not yours either. Their mouths are stopped by the persistent presence of the truth. The truth condemns them because they're in error. And the hope is, the prayer is, that they change their mind. We say this every time we do these React videos, which I have a love-hate view of. I don't love the idea that people like the React videos, but I'm also really happy to see that people are coming out of false teaching through our videos. So we're just going to continue to do it. I've told Trent we're going to do one a month, and that'll work. And those videos take off. We posted a video on Friday, it's over 10,000 views already. I know for some people, they're like, well, call me when it's millions, bro. It'll never be millions. Okay, maybe in the tribulation period, but we won't be here for that. But the whole point is their mouths must be stopped, not by us going and physically restraining them, but by teaching the truth. Look at what this says. Whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert, and that word is so interesting. I'm fairly certain this Greek word is the same one that is catastrophe. It's to subvert houses. It's this idea of completely taking anything that is lined up correctly and flipping it upside down. I mean, can you imagine? We just saw this with that plane accident. It's a miracle that no one died. But everybody going from an upright position to a, upside down position, you're gonna have chaos. This is the idea too, the statistics are if you were ever thrown overboard at night, you would drown in five seconds, your lungs would fill. Because, not necessarily just that your lungs fill with water, but because you'd likely swim down than swim up. You have no idea what the difference is between up and down. These false teachers who are vain and deceptive do nothing but catastrophically reverse houses. And this is interesting. Whole houses. That's not just flowery language. I think that's specific, meaning it likely affects the husband, which will affect the views of the wife, which will affect the children. That's how the devil wins. That's how he's winning right now in our culture. To have a stable family, which is one man, one woman with children there, is considered to be a career killer. It's old-fashioned. It's not the way things should be done. Well, you know, choose you this day who you will serve. For me and my house, we're gonna serve the Lord. My wife and I couldn't have children, naturally. So we went about and we got on our knees and prayed to the Lord for him to bring children into our life, and he has. And we rejoice for that. But we want to make sure, too, that we don't have false teaching coming into our house to subvert our house. It was happening at the time of this writing, which is around A.D. 65. You think it's happening today? Yes. The likelihood is yes. Teaching things which they ought not for filthy lucre's sake. Now I want you to hold on to that phrase, because that phrase is important. You're going to see it again in 2 Timothy 3, and you're going to see it when we go to 1 Timothy 6. But you want to find out why most false teachers do what they do? You follow that money. You follow what they're getting paid to say, who's paying them, and the things that they say about that money. Not here to stand up and say, money is the root of all evil, because that would be a misquote of what the scripture says, but the love of it is the root of all evil. Boy, you wanna see some real fireworks and some verbal outbursts? Get some people in the room with an unclear will. And they now have to have an executor of the will. People will do everything that they can to get their hands on the possession of money. Infringing on morals, doing things that would be ungodly, even teaching false messages. Messages that tickle the ears for the sake of, well, it gets me more views on YouTube. YouTube's a very profitable platform. You start saying the right things, the algorithm likes it, you better be careful. Especially if they're not true. Verse 12, one of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, the Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. Now, some would say, wow, Paul's so insensitive there. No, he's just quoting a native. So what Paul is trying to point out here is the people, naturally, in the place where Titus was doing ministry work, are deceivers. So they get their hands on something profitable like Jesus Christ, they can twist it to their own devices. This is AD 65. If we're gonna make the conclusion like, well, Jesus is definitely gonna come back now because it's worse than it's ever been. It's always been this way. It's always been this way. Verse 13, this witness is true. Paul confirms that statement by the native Cretan. Wherefore, rebuke them sharply. How is Titus to do that? He's supposed to do it from his authority in the church. You rebuke them sharply. There's some people that have come across our ministry and they say, oh, this is slander. This is gossip. No, it's not. Everything that I build any kind of response or rebuke publicly on is already revealed in the Word of God. I have a responsibility, as do you, to rebuke error. It's a part of what the Christian faith produces. Now how you do it is going to be the difference between success and failure. That's important. Therefore, rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in the faith. See, there's a reason. We're not just trying to speak against false teaching so that we can say, I did it! Look at the expected result. That they may be sound in the faith. We've talked about this before. Trent and I have talked about this. I've talked about this with Dr. Arnold before. If we could just get some of these people that are wrapped up in cults, to understand the truth of Christ. And they take that same enthusiasm and they go out and win people. You could have a very profitable soul winning ministry. Think about how bold it is for a Jehovah's Witness to just knock on somebody's door and be ready to say all manner of things. I have gotten, you have gotten these too, I know you have. I've gotten handwritten letters in my mailbox. I wonder Why we don't do that? I wonder. It just shows you how strong this deception can be. There's all manner of attempt for the false message, so we gotta be ready with the right message to give an answer to it, with an intended result, that people come to a better understanding. Now go back to 2 Timothy, chapter three. With that in mind, We have this list. Verse two, 2 Timothy chapter three and verse two. Four, men shall be lovers of their own selves. There's a lot that could be said about that. You could say, oh, this is just for narcissists. This is really what our whole culture is today. People that just can't stop about themselves. And this is another thing too. Some people are like, well, this is a description of lost people. Doesn't say that here. It does not say that here. And what I think it's a better description of, yes, they can be lost people, but religious people. Religious people. I do not think that I am a religious person. I wanna be godly. There is a difference. Religion has the intent of man binding himself back to God. You separate that English word, you get two Greek words. Man binding himself back to God. And it often requires public demonstration. We call that piety. I don't want anything to do with that, but I know people, that's all they do. chit-chat, chit-chat, talk, talk, talk, and as a result, there's no fruit, there's nothing being done, but boy, you'd think they could walk on water. It's not how it should be. This is what James says. You tell me you have faith without works? I can't see it. Be warmed and filled. Don't put any food in the belly, don't put any clothes on them. That's not profitable. Lovers of their own selves. We have whole companies that are profiting off of this. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, anything where you can just, we're all caught up in self-expression today. Now I'm not here to judge you if you take a picture of your meal and post it on Instagram, but I do wanna ask, why? I'll just say that, that's it. You know? And for some people, and they're usually young people, that kind of self-expression is toxic. Because now all of a sudden you get, and that's all the little notifications on your phone. Oh man, people are liking my post left and right. You begin to think of yourself higher than what you want. Covetous, we're living in that culture today. People are always desiring the things of another. Boasters, same, I think that can be synonymous with what is said there about lovers of their own selves. Boasters, these are people who are braggadocious. You've been around people like this. They can't help but exaggerate themselves. It's like, all right, that's enough. Usually this is a braggart, someone who, they just kind of talk about all the things that they've done. That's not a good sign. And you say, well then what do we do, Pastor? Do we just be quiet? Well, maybe. That might be a good start. I'm not saying this means you don't say anything, but it's an internal perspective. Are you content or do you need people to hear everything about you in order to feel valuable? Are you content whether you are abased or abound? Do you need more? My wife and I are at this point where we have another opportunity to begin the adoption process again for a second child. And we're going back and forth, not as to whether to do it, but we just wanna make sure that we're doing things right. And from our perspective, if we never got to add another child to our family, we are content. We've got Remy. We were good before. Because there can be this sin that comes up where we covet something more than we desire to be godly. If I just had one more child and now we've got two and it's just perfect, now it's perfect. What am I really saying? I'm not content with what I have right now. That's sin. And these are hard looks, okay? I'm not saying you're gonna walk out of here going, I have mastered the Christian life. That's not the goal. But I do want you to see here that this list of things can exist in us. Boasters, proud. I see this as people who are unable to be corrected. It's always somebody else. I'm gonna leave it right there, because we all know. Blasphemers, saying things that are untrue, slanderers. Now, likely this is slanderers about things that are of God. The ultimate slanderers we saw was committed by the Pharisees. You do this in the power of Satan. That was a very serious offense. Disobedient to parents. I can't tell you how many times I would tell our ranch kids this verse. I know Trent has. It's not cool, it's not hip to intentionally disobey your parents. And I know all manner of stuff that people use as an excuse, it's always wrong. It'll never be right to disobey. Because if you think it's right to disobey your parents, it's gonna be that easy for you to disobey God. You know your parents only have the authority that they have because God gave it to them? So if you're disobeying that authority that's been given by God, you're really disobeying the Lord. How about that? Usually when I tell kids that, we get the whole, you know, I'm uncomfortable. Well, make the change. Obey. And I say that to my former self too. A lot of my problems, all of them would have been solved with obedience. Prompt obedience. That's what we teach Remy, first time obedience. Not the second, not the third, not the fourth, first time. Now of course she's two, so she's got a little leeway. But you know, think about it. You take that kind of attitude into the world, you're running into problems. Pull over. If a police officer has to tell you two times, there's likely another police officer with him at this point. And now, you know, you've got a helicopter following you, because you haven't pulled over. Now I'm ready. Well, officer, I pulled over. Well, you didn't do it promptly. People don't last long with that attitude. And you know, we can see the humor in that, but it's like, we can live in the same kind of disobedience today. Unthankful, I really like that song that we sang. Jesus, we just wanna thank you, we wanna praise you, we wanna serve you. Boy, that's all that we can do, amen? And what a good thing to do. We're teaching Remy that. Say thank you, you know, please and thank you. And she's beginning to understand, you know. She'll get a little surprise or something like that. She'll go, oh, look at this. Thank you. She's learning. We want to make sure that that's something that is a standard, to be a thankful person. But signs of the last times, these perilous, dangerous times are when people are unthankful, unholy. Now this is an interesting word. This is against anything that is set apart. So this could mean a lot of different things. For the Christian, it would mean you're against God. God has set you apart for His purpose. You are now placed in Christ. You're given gifts through the sealing of the Holy Spirit. To be unholy is to be against those things. So, the only other choice is worldly. Without natural affection. Now, some people read sexual description into this. It can be taken that way. It's more likely that they're not generous people. They're usually, I tie this to covetousness. You could use it in the sense of sexuality, but I think it's less likely in that sense. I think these are people who just naturally, they're hard people. They're calloused, jaded, we would use the word jaded. Are we living in a culture like that today? This is our political temperature. And look, I get it, because there's two sides that are really, at this point, diametrically opposed. There is really no centrist anymore. Should we have that kind of behavior and practice in our Christian life? Well, I'm not. Well, look at them. I don't like the color of their hair, so I'm not going to witness to them. I have heard independent, fundamental Baptist teachers say they will not witness to a homosexual person, because their homosexuality is proof that God has condemned them. God is against that mindset completely. All sin is sin. I remember when I was going out soul winning, I'm running out of time here, but I wanna tell you this. I remember when I was going out soul winning and I went with one of my mentors, Peter Amato, and we split up at one point. We came back and he was talking about he had the first time ever he had an opportunity to witness someone who was homosexual. And the discussion was basically around this. Well, you don't think I'm going to heaven because I'm gay. I was like, well, what do we do now? Because we have a cultural assumption, and now we have, for God so loved the world, hello, they need to understand that. And Pete, he just did a mastermind thing. He said, well, all sin is sin. Your sin is that you've taken what God says is right about sex and you've perverted it. Specifically, it's even outside of marriage, so that's wrong. But he says, my sin is just as great as being a liar. Or when I know to do right and I don't do it, that's a sin too. It's all qualifying of death. That was a master class in conversation, because what it did is it took this red herring, well, my sexuality condemns me, and it removes it from the conversation. What is now the thing that condemns them? Sin. All kinds, all flavors, to all degrees, it all separates us from God. That kid trusted Christ as his Savior. That's the kind of conversation we need to look for. What a tragedy it would have been if there was an outward assessment that led us to disqualify them from hearing the gospel. No. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation. To everyone that converts from their wicked lifestyle? No. To everyone that what? Believes. Look at the rest of this here. For the sake of time, we'll continue. Truce breakers, dishonest. False accusers. Y'all remember the Me Too movement in 2015 and all that? Come to find out these people that were accusing others have done the same thing. But just because they were of a different gender, there was less scrutiny. I'll never forget, there was that court case, I think it was either a Harvard student or a Stanford student, where he was accused of rape. And it went on in a whole trial. And the kid's testimony was just completely destroyed. And it comes out, she made the whole thing up. It was a sexual encounter, which that's where the sin is. Can we be honest? You wouldn't have to be accused of rape if you didn't sleep with people who you're not married to. And I know that's an unpopular opinion, but tough. That's wisdom from God. You completely remove that opportunity, right? I can never get drunk if I never drink, so I'm not gonna drink. Anyway, but just because she was a woman and the movement of the time was believe all women, that man was slandered out of a job, out of any profitability, I have no idea what his condition is now, but what a shame for those details to be revealed. False accusers. incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good. This is the idea of loving the evil and hating the good. That's our whole entertainment cycle today. You think about this, y'all remember The Lion King? Who's the villain in The Lion King? Scar, right? Now, there's a new movie out called Mufasa, and he's a real bad guy. You remember in Lion King, he was the illustration of a good, strong leader, all of that. Well now, Scar is the way he is because of Mufasa. I know I'm not here to tell you that I'm gonna read into all movies like that, but I just, that doesn't smell right to me. It's almost giving the villain an excuse for his wickedness, and they're praised for it. Don't think that that's, I can't believe it. You can believe it, why? Despisers of that, what's your good? Traitors, of course, going against, I tie that directly back to truce breakers. Those who betray, specifically a promise that they had kept. Heady and high-minded, this is interesting. I was reading a commentary on this. That high-minded literally carries around the illustration, the use of that Greek word, as one whose head is covered in smoke. Now, I don't think this means people that are getting high-minded. I don't think that's what that means. But I do think that that's an interesting illustration that the Greek word here carries around smoke. Again, I don't think that's about getting high. What does that mean? I think it talks about the elevation they see themselves. They're in the clouds. They're untouchable. Don't you know my knowledge? Don't you know my experience? Oh, hey, hey. The bigger they are, the harder they fall, buddy. Keep climbing up that pedestal. One day you're gonna miss a step, and we're all gonna know when you fall. This is happening with Christian leaders. And my stomach turns in knots when I hear of scandal, even of people that are false. Because you know what? The world doesn't see him as, oh, well, that's a false teacher, right? The world doesn't see that, no. They see, see, all these Christians are all the same. I despise it, it's ammunition, it's free bullets in the devil's gun. I just, I don't like it. Look at this. Lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God. It's interesting, there's been some analysis with price gouging that's happened since COVID, especially on the leisure side of the economy. Now that people are working from home still like a 3-2 model, three days in the office, two days at home, The travel industry has taken advantage of this by price gouging leisure. And people are taking vacations at a higher rate than they did before because they can work their schedule around to take off more time. There are people who live for vacations. They live for leisure. It's all that they desire is to go on trips and breaks and all that. Lovers of pleasure is more than lovers of God. Now I'm not saying going to work and never taking a vacation is a godly thing, but what I am saying is the desire for leisure can be lethal. I learned that in Bible college. Dr. Phil Myers said that one time in class and I wrote it down in my notes. Lethar, excuse me, lethar. I'll just get all the mistakes out now before we go live in the air in an hour. Leisure can be lethal. Leisure is the opposite of work. We are to be busy about the Lord's work. Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof. There's a lot of debate around that verse. They appear that they're saved, but they don't have the power. I think that this is likely talking about the carnal Christian. They're in Christ, they're positionally secured, but they're denying the power thereof. I believe that's walking against their spirit. And the reason why I believe that is because that's more in line with Scripture than somebody who is professing faith in Christ. Yes, I believed in Christ, but they don't have any work, so therefore they're not really saved. See, the Bible doesn't, I don't think the Bible teaches that. Here's Timothy's instruction. From such, turn away. So, the first bracket is there in verse one. In the last days perilous times shall come. All these things down through verse four, and then in verse five, he ends the bracket like this. From such turn away. That's the conclusion here. That's why you renounce against false doctrine. Now, I do wanna look at verse six. It's gonna be hard to stop. But let's look at verse six for a moment. For of this sort are they which creep into houses. That is exact similar language to what we just read in Titus, that they subvert whole houses. But he gives some more information here. And lead captive silly women, laden with sins, led away with diverse lusts. Now, you can read this one of two ways. You can think, well, God's anti-woman. He just called women silly. He thinks all women are silly. The amount of holes in that kind of thinking is enough to qualify it as thinly sliced Swiss cheese. This is not talking about the fact that all women are silly. But if the devil's gonna work through somebody, he's gonna target the women. And we can see that in history. Now ladies, those of you that are here tonight, You're here tonight, okay? You're very unlikely to be these silly women that are gonna subvert houses. But know, know that you have a target on your back. I cannot say this with more emphasis. The way that a woman is described in scripture is the most empowering view of women you'll ever get. It is not this sexual movement that we see today. You read Proverbs 31 and you tell me how important a woman is to God. She goes out and prepares. She buys the field in 1 Timothy 5. She's supposed to rule her house, excuse me, the word is actually guide her house well. You know how Timothy got to be who he was? His grandmother. How do you think God thinks about women? But women who have no direction, no purpose, they will be led captive. They will be led captive. And you read the warnings that the father gives to his eldest son in Proverbs. Be careful of the woman who says, my husband is away, he's on business. Before that verse, get this, it says that she intentionally picks her clothing. the time in which she will approach that man. The food is prepared so that the only thing that is left is to trap that man. You think men are getting trapped? Do we have to say? Absolutely. For of this sort are they which creep in the houses, lead captive silly women, laden with sins, and led away with divers lusts, ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. These are cults. There's always something new to learn, but you can't ever know what's really right. The whole source is, trust me, bro. I know, trust me. Well, I'm not gonna trust you unless you line up with what God says. I'm going to trust God first, and then I'll consider trusting you, bro, you know? Now, we're gonna stop there. But that's right on the heels of all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works. That's right before those two verses. See, people think, well, it's not enough just to know the truth, you gotta know the error too. No, you know the truth, you will know the error. If you know the truth well enough, you'll be able to spot error. You can close your Bibles. That quote that I read to you this morning, to you all this morning about what that man was putting his trust in, that he's in the Lamb's Book of Life, that, able to pick that out, I was so encouraged. I looked out, we had a full stadium. Auditorium this morning. And I was very, I was pleasantly encouraged to see, when I read that man's quote, how most of you were able to see through it. If we had triple the amount of people that were here, you would find a lot of people that would agree with that statement. Because that's what's taught. That statement being that God has granted me repentance and I have fruit in my life. That's how I know I'm written in the Lamb's Book of Life. That, I'm telling you, it sounds great on the surface. When you compare it to the Bible, it's wrong. It's wrong. The fact that people are hearing that stuff is what is concerning. So you say, well, what do we do? Do we have to learn all the phrases and trigger words and all? No, just read your Bible. Just read your Bible. And get in a church that teaches it. And you'll be able to discern between right and wrong. It's profitable for that. That's a promise that you can get. It is guaranteed. It's guaranteed. But those things that we looked at show us that we're closer every day. We're looking for the Lord's return. And as a takeaway here tonight, walk in the Spirit and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Walk in the Spirit and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. I want to show you how you can know that you have eternal life. I use this illustration here. This hand represents you and me, everybody in the world. This block of sin represents sin. I put this on top of my hand because the Bible says, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. God loves us. He hates our sin. This sin separates us from Him. In order to get to heaven, to have eternal life, we have to be sinless, perfect. We all fall short of that. James says, even if we know to do good and we do not do it, that is sin as well. Everybody wants to talk about, well, I don't do the big sins. Well, you do the little ones too, my friend. We're all sinners. That separates us from God. The wages of sin is death, eternal separation from God and a literal fire burning hell. The Bible also says without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins. What this tells us is that somebody sinless has to shed their blood for us. You can't die for yourself or do enough religious deeds to pay for your sin, contrary to what the world teaches. And there's nobody on this planet born of the human race who could do it for you too. That's why God sent his son, Jesus Christ. This hand represents Jesus for the sake of this illustration. And we see in John 3.16 how the payment that Christ made can be put to the payment to our sin debt and we can have what is required to get to heaven. For God so loved the world, that's you and me, that he gave his only begotten son, that's Jesus Christ, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life." The way that you have your sin debt paid is when you place your trust in Jesus Christ. It's a transaction. You believe the blood of Christ pays for your sin and you receive from God a bunch of things. But the most important one is eternal life. And once you're saved, you're saved forever. I don't care what the YouTube preachers say. My Bible says, past, from death unto life, and I'll never be brought into condemnation again. If Jesus said it, I believe it, amen? And that's good enough. When you get into this other stuff, well, listen, this guy on YouTube said it, he has a couple mil subscribers, pastor, I don't care. The Bible trumps all of that. And if you're here tonight and you lack assurance, you can gain that assurance. Here you are, here's God's Son. You put your faith in Jesus Christ, that sin is paid for, and you're eternally secured in Christ. There's nothing now that can separate you. from God. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Heads are bowed and eyes are closed. Nobody's looking around. If you're here tonight and that made sense, I want to pray for you. If you say, Pastor, I walked in here trusting in my religious deeds, my good works, I thought I would be good enough, but that illustration that you just gave showed me that I'm a sinner. It doesn't matter to what degree, I am a sinner. And this sin requires a payment. And Pastor, I've changed my mind. I have put my trust tonight in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, that He shed His blood to pay for my sin. I believe He did that for me. I want to pray for you if that is you tonight. Would you just slip your hand up and let me know? Raising your hand doesn't save you, it just communicates to me that, Pastor, I trusted Christ as my Savior. Anyone at all, before we close. to all of us here that are in the body of Christ. These things that we read are not just characteristics of unbelievers. Paul said to the Corinthians, The goal tonight is not to chide you or rebuke you, but to just remind you that these things are present in our world and that we are unaware of the time Christ will return. Let's make the most of today while we have it. And should tomorrow come, we'll do the same thing. Father, thank you for your word. We pray for this live show. Whoever may call it, let them be encouraged, or whoever may listen, let them be encouraged as well. We pray for the Iwana ministry, the ranch ministry, all of the things that are going on in the church with the intent to win souls. Thank you, Lord, for who you are. In Jesus' name we pray these things, amen.