Thank you so very much. Would you take God's Word tonight and open, please, to the book of 2 Timothy. We are studying 2 Timothy on Sunday night. And I want you to turn, if you will, please, to 2 Timothy chapter 3. And we're going to look at the first few verses here in chapter 3. Actually, we'll actually look at up to verse 14. I wanna talk about living in the last days, living in the last days. One of the things you have to teach little kids is how to tell time. I heard about two little boys that were out playing one afternoon and one little boy said to the other, you know what time it is? And he said, no, but I know it's not four o'clock. And he said, well, how do you know that? He said, well, because my mom told me I needed to be home at four and I'm not there. Some believers need to learn how to tell time. And when I say tell time, I'm talking about the time and the days in which we live today. Some are confused by the expression the last days. Now Paul was saying here that we're living in a time that the Bible calls the last days. And people have asked me, they say, Pastor, do you believe we're in the last days? Well, if Paul wrote to Timothy and said they were in the last days, then surely we are in the last days today. So many years removed from when Paul wrote this. And so, yes, I believe we are in the last days. We're in them now. And it's like the one farmer I like to talk about. The farmer had a grandfather clock and one night it malfunctioned and it chimed at midnight 13 times, 14 times, 15 times. He jumped out of bed and ran and said, it's later than it's ever been. And I think it is later than it's ever been. As I look out into the world today and see the things that are going on and taking place in the news every night when we see it on TV, I would have to say that it's later than it's ever been. As Adrian Rogers used to say, it's getting gloriously dark. The Bible talks about these days. In fact, in 1 John 2, verse 18, John said this, children, it is the last hour. And as you know, have you heard, have heard that Antichrist is coming? Even now there are many Antichrists whereby we know it is the last time. Now, John didn't say it was just the last days. He said it was the last hour. So not only are we in the last days, we are in the last hours of the last days. And I believe that the time is close. God's clock is about to chime and it's later than it's ever been. The death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ really inaugurated the time that we call the last days. Since the cross, we've always been in the last hours of the last days. Before the cross, we were in the first days, but since the cross, we have been in the last days. All history before Jesus pointed to the cross, All history after Jesus points to his coming. And then one day all history is going to be over and that will be his coronation. And I'm looking forward to that time. But we are living in the last days. And again, I think it's dangerous days because of what Paul is telling Timothy here. Paul is encouraging Timothy. Remember, this is the last letter that Paul writes to his young son in the faith. Paul knows that in a short time he will be martyred. uh he is encouraging timothy to stay faithful in difficult times and he and paul is again doing that here in chapter three especially knowing that uh challenges are coming for for timothy and so he's informing him how to deliver godly life in spite of all the ungodly influences And that's the message for us. That's the challenge for us, isn't it? I mean, the dangerous days in which we live are causing a lot of people to go astray. A lot of Christians are AWOL. And a lot of Christians are not faithful to the Lord. And so Paul is giving us here a message on how we stay faithful, how we can live faithfully in the last days. Now this whole passage, as I examined it, sometimes when I'm looking at a passage I'll read it in the Greek text, and sometimes verbs will jump out to me, and it kind of brings together a whole argument in that passage. And that's what I see here. Really, Paul's commands are found from verses 1 to 14 in three imperatives. Now, remember I told you a Greek verb that's an imperative is a command. And these are present tense imperatives. That is, it's a continual command. And then from verses one to 14, there are three imperatives that kind of jump out out of this passage that are the commands that Paul is giving Timothy, knowing that he's living in the last days. And these are commands that we need to apply as well. The first one is in verse one, know, this know. Also, you might want to just circle that word know. It's present tense imperative. Keep on knowing this. And knowing here is not in the sense of introducing something new, but of a calling attention to something that is already known. Another way we could say this is, I want you to know this, Timothy. I want you to be aware of this, or you can be sure of this, or remember this. Don't forget this one thing. And then the other verb is in verse 5. Look at verse 5, having a form of godliness, but denying the power of God. From such, turn away. There's the next command. Turn away. You might want to circle that as well. Turn away. Have nothing to do with them at all, is what he's saying. Have nothing to do. And then the next verb is in verse number 14. Drop down to verse 14 where Paul says to Timothy, That's the third imperative in this whole pericope or this whole passage that includes this one argument that Paul is giving about staying faithful in the last days in difficult times. Continue, that is literally just keep on, don't waver. Stay the course. And so from these three major commands that Paul gives to Timothy, I wanna just give you our outline, our sermon tonight. He's giving us three commands. If we are gonna be living faithful in the last days, these are three things that we all must do and must apply to our own life. Here again, number one, understand the danger. That would be the first thing I would say, based on what Paul says in verse one. Understand the danger. What do we remember? We are to keep in the forefront of our mind that we are living in perilous times, perilous times. Look at the word perilous there. That's a Greek word that has the idea of being dangerous, dangerous. Now, this word is used in only one other place in all the New Testament. And it's used in Matthew 8, verse 28, and it refers to the demon-possessed men of Gadara. Do you remember that passage? There are some men that are filled with devils. And this is the word that's used to describe these men. And so it's talking about, and by the way, these men were violent men, they were wild men, they were men, again, filled with demons, demonic days. The famous Greek writer, Plutarch, used this same exact Greek word to describe an ugly, infected, dangerous wound. And so we could say that the last days would be days that are infected with evil, days that are filled with the demonic work of Satan. And this is what Paul reminded Timothy in 1 Timothy 4.1. He said, know that a spirit speaks expressingly that in the latter times, some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and to doctrines of demons. And as we look around, there's all kind of deceptive, insidious, dangerous doctrines that are being taught that come in the guise of Christianity. I'm just amazed at how many Christians are falling prey to some of these dangerous doctrines that are so pervasive in our day, in our time. So many people are being deceived with worldly philosophy and with false doctrine. Now look at the word time. This know also that in the last days perilous times, shall come." Now the word times here there's two Greek words for times one is chronos and one is kairos. Chronos has to do with clock time where we get the word chronology. And kairos has to do with we could say calendar time or a better way to say that would be epics or seasons. And so the Greek word here is not chronos but it is kairos Seasons, or eras, or epics, we could say. And the word, notice it's plural, and so this may indicate that there are epics that were coming, that we're in, that we've seen come through church history, and we see right now, varying degrees of danger based on these seasons, these eras that have come into the church from the beginning, from Paul's day even unto today. And I think that Paul's gonna make clear that these things come more and more intense. They're more and more apart as we live in these days. Look at verse number 13, drop down there. Notice again where it says, but evil men and seducers shall wax, what? Worse and worse. deceiving and being deceived. It's going to get worse. It's going to get worse. Now, I know that doesn't sound like good news, but that's okay. If you know the Lord Jesus Christ, guess what? He's able to keep you safe and secure and on the right path, even though others are being deceived. And that's really the whole goal of why Paul is writing to Timothy. Now, I know that there are some theologians out there that are saying, oh, things are going to get better and better and better, and then we're going to usher in the kingdom and all that sort of thing. Unfortunately, Paul didn't agree with that. Paul said it's going to get worse. And this is a warning, Timothy. Evil men and seducers will wax worse and worse. And again, we have seen this throughout the history of the church. In his book called Damned Through the Church, John Warwick Montgomery does a great job of discussing how that through the history of the church age there were seven eras or seven seasons where damnable doctrines were being taught even by the church. by people in the church and how that these were so dangerous for those that began to adhere to some of these false doctrines and false teachings. He starts discussing these seven specific movements or we could say theological orientations and he begins really in the middle ages or the dark ages and he goes all the way up into our day And he just kind of summarizes some of these things. For example, he talks about, and by the way, in each of these difficult seasons, men's ideas were substituted for the truth of the word of God. Rather than teaching the word of God, there was the ideas of men, the philosophies of men, and twisted doctrines that were being inserted instead of the word of God. And certainly we do see that. We see that today. For example, sacramentalism, or we could say sacerdotalism. What is that? That is salvation by the church. And that was big during the Dark Ages, the Middle Ages. And what happened was the church basically replaced God, and the church became more of a surrogate Christ. You got saved by plugging into the church, by plugging into the system. And that was all Catholicism. You're saved through the ministrations of a priest. And you have to go through the church in order for salvation. If you get out of the church, then there's no way for salvation, you're damned. And so all of salvation came in the church. The actual church replaced Christ or God. And then there came rationalism after that, where reason was, we could say the mind, the human mind and reason was set above God. And that was a time when Thomas Paine wrote the book, The Age of Reason. And in that book, he debunked the Bible and he debunked God. And again, the mind and man's thinking and man's ability to have intellect superseded anything about God. And then after that, there came orthodoxy, cold dead orthodoxy, where, you know, believing to us, holding onto a set of beliefs, that is what replaced God. cold dead beliefs. And then there came politicism where God was the state. And then there came an ecumenism where you can believe whatever you want, but let's just all love one another and hold hands and make sure that we're getting along. And set aside a doctrine for sentiment and just getting along and feeling good. And then experientialism where God became personal experience. It's all about my subjective experience. And doctrine is determined by how I feel and what it means to me, you see. And by the way, that still reigns. And by the way, all these epics, you notice they haven't gone away. What happens is that you just get more and it adds more and more and more. And it just gets worse, as like Paul said. And we could also add that mysticism, which is seeking truth by intuition, or truth by feeling. And then also pragmatism, which basically says that whatever works, practicality replaces doctrine, and truth becomes the servant of whatever works. Making sure our methods work. Methodology becomes king. Nevermind sound doctrine. And people like this say, oh, I don't want to talk about doctrine. I just want to think about Jesus. Well, how can you talk about Jesus without talking about doctrine? And you know, let's just do these things. Whatever works, whatever gets people's attention, that's what we'll use. And again, these movements, they come, but they do not go. They stick around. And now we have all this stuff in the church, and Paul is warning Timothy, look, Timothy, dangerous seasons, dangerous epics are coming. And beloved, we haven't seen the end of it. We're going to see some of this until the Lord Jesus returns. We're going to see more of it happening. Now, Paul wants us to understand this. Why? Well, if we don't, we'll let down our guard. or will become disillusioned at some of the things that we see, we must continually remember this warning. Paul wants to emphasize that opposition to the truth is not a passing situation, but a permanent characteristic of the age in which we live. And we need to understand that. So, that's the first command, understand the danger. Let's go to number two. The second command, turn away. So just write down, turn away from deceivers. That's the second thing Paul says. Again, look at verse number five, having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof, from such turn away. And the word turn away, a strong word, avoid, to keep away from them, have nothing to do with them at all. A faithful believer should have nothing to do with the people Paul is going to describe in this section. And it's important to note that these people operate under the guise of religion, having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof. And these are people that come under the guise of Christianity, come under the guise of being religious. They may have all of the right things to say, but when it gets right down to it, they deny the power. There's no salvation. They are religious, but they are rebellious. And Paul discusses these people, and I want you to see three facts about these people. First of all, their characteristics. And from verses two to five, what we see here is 18 characteristics of these kinds of people, 18 that are listed here. And obviously, we can't go in depth on all of these, but we can summarize what they mean. And as you're reading through these characteristics, again, you might feel like you're watching the evening news, because really what this is, this is a mirror of mankind in the last days. And Paul describes it. What are they? We'll go through them quickly. First of all, Lovers of their own selves. Look at verse two. For men shall be lovers of their own selves. This is an abnormal, extreme kind of narcissistic love where man puts himself on the throne of his heart. And self-love really is the basic sin from which all other sins emanate. The pride of self-love is the pervasive deadly sin that just grips the human soul. And it is, again, the foundation of all other sins. But then also, in verse 2, covetous. From two Greek words, phaleo, which is the word for love, agoras, which is the word for silver or money, thus lovers of money. And a term which represents materialism, this craving for earthly possessions of whatever sort. We don't really see that today, do we? Materialism that is in the world. And I think that because Ephesus was a wealthy city, it's likely that Paul had in mind some specific members of the church at Ephesus where Timothy was ministering. And some had wandered away from the faith. You might remember we talked about this because of their love of money. False teachers were in it for money. And so Paul talks about this. But then also boasters in verse number two. The Greek word means a braggart. Plato used this word to define a person who claims greatness that he does not have. A boastful person brags about their accomplishments. They overstate the degree of their usefulness and goodness, you know, obviously. These are the know-it-alls who try to deceive people into thinking they're brilliant. They love to see their names in print. They love to see their faces on television. They exaggerate their abilities, their accomplishments, their talents, and their reputations. They're always the heroes of all of their own stories. By the way, beware of any preacher, wherever he tells a story about himself, he's always the hero. All right, I hope I haven't done that, by the way. I kind of remember, let me see. I think I'm going to tell a story about myself that makes me look really bad now, so that you'll think good of me. No, I'm just kidding. Anyway, number four, proud. Along with this proud, again, an interesting word, hyperthenos, to think of yourself above, where we get the word hyper. To think like you're superior to other people. Hence the idea of superiority. A good illustration of this would be the Pharisees in Jesus' day who thought they were always better than others. Remember the story of the Pharisee and the publican that went to the temple? And the Pharisee, Lord, I'm glad I'm not like him. I give my tithes, I do this, I do that. I'm not like other men. You know, that's the idea here. And then blasphemers. in verse number two. Again, this is really transliteration. The Greek term is blasphemous, abusive, slanderous language. This is especially towards God. Beloved, we live in a society today that has no fear of God. And the evidence of that is the way that they will blaspheme God's holy name. It just makes me so angry that there's no fear of God. And it just grates at me when I hear people use that holy name in such a blasphemous way. And again, it's an irreverence and ungodliness, and sometimes I wanna blurt out and say, you know what, you're gonna stand before God for what you just said. You understand, you gotta stand before him one day. But that's the irreverent lack of fear that people have today, constantly blaspheming the name of God, but then also disobedient to parents. Again, this is self-explanatory. Do I need to explain this one? It's no surprise to see all the moral confusion in this younger generation today because they have no respect for God-given authority. They don't respect God. They certainly don't respect their parents. But then also unthankful in verse number two. This is a particularly noxious sin to God. The Bible says in Romans 1 that God's wrath is revealed from heaven against ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness, who when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were they...what? Thankful. They were not thankful. And people are not thankful. They have no idea of all the gifts and the blessings that God bestows upon us every day. And He sends rain upon the just and the unjust. His common grace is so evident throughout all this world. You would think that people every day would express their thanks to God, but there is none. In fact, we're living in a day where we have atheism that is growing where people don't want to acknowledge God at all, at all. And then unholy, In verse 2, this carries the idea of not so much of irreligion as much as gross indecency, a person driven by a self-love to gratify his lust and passions, whatever they may be, someone who's a slave to his ugly, filthy, fleshly lusts. And then in verse 3, notice, without natural affection, this is a Greek word, There are four Greek words for love, right? Agape, phileo, eros. But then there's a fourth one we don't hear about a lot, storge. And storge is family love, just a normal family love. Agape is a fatherly love where we love God or God expresses His love. Phileo is a friendship love, we could say. Eros is a fleshly love. Storge is a family love. But what we have here in the Greek is the alpha negative in front of the word. So it's a storge, no family love, no family affection. And so this is talking about an unnatural love, It's in place of the natural love that God has put into the hearts of men and women and families together. We have this natural love that God's given us, but in place of that is now this unnatural love that we see going on out there. We see the rise of perversion in this society and day in which we live, where we're now living in a society where children are being recruited and taught to pick out what gender that they want. And homosexuality is not viewed as a sin. That it's paraded now. And you're a hate monger if you say that this is a sin. And I wanna tell you something, friend, I don't hate anybody. I wish all people would get saved and go to heaven. But I'm gonna tell you this, homosexuality is a sin. And it's an abomination in the eyes of Almighty God. And I don't hate people when I say that. But this is the society in which we're living today, where this is promoted. And then also truth breakers in verse 3. It describes people who will not try to agree. They're unyielding, irreconcilable, they must have their own way, they refuse to seek forgiveness, they hold a grudge. And then false accusers, a word that means slanderers. This is the Greek word diabolos, this is where we get the word devil from, or diabolic. And it literally means to throw something against someone, a malicious gossip. And then we also see the word incontinent in verse 3, without power. This is a person who basically refuses to show any self-restraint and just gives in to any wrong impulse or desire. This is a person who has no self-control. No self-control. They're slaves to their physical lusts. And then there's the word fierce, meaning savage or untamed or brutal. This is speaking about a violent person. I don't know about you, but I'm just appalled at some of the violence that I see on TV or social media where one person is violently beating, brutalizing another person. I just can't stand to see that sort of thing and wonder how can a person be so cruel. So brutally cruel. Well, Paul said that's all part of the last days. And by the way, the Bible says that the Lord abhors the man of bloodshed and deceit. God hates that kind of violence and bloodshed, and yet it's glorified on TV, And then there's despisers of those that are good. This is referring to hating God and His standards of righteousness. And then traitors. This is a word used of Judas who betrayed Jesus. It refers to someone who betrays a loyalty or a trust in order to further his own interests. Heady. This means to be rash or careless about things that are valuable in God's sight. A reckless person goes for a chief thrill without regard to the consequences or danger in this. High-minded, the word means to wrap in smoke, hence to puff up with pride. Again, this is a person inflated with his own sense of self-importance. And finally, Verse number 18, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. So we're kind of coming full circle here, aren't we? Lovers of their own selves, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. Now, we need to look at this list and take personal inventory and make sure that none of these characteristics describe us. None of these things should be characteristic of the child of God. And don't get me wrong, we all struggle with sin, but we all, as the people of God, have this desire of Christlikeness and holiness, and to make progress in our sanctification, amen? As we battle against sin in our life. And these things, when they rise up, we crucify, we mortify. those things with the power of the Holy Spirit and the word of God, so that God will give us victory over our sinful impulses and desires and thoughts that come into our minds because we are sinners and we're fighting against sin. This is not the pattern of a child of God. This is the pattern of someone who does not know God. And that's Paul's point. This is gonna continue on. form without force, religion without reality. These are people, again, that have a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof. So we see their characteristics, but then notice also their converts. Look at verse number six. For of this sort are they which creep into houses and lead captive silly women laden with lusts, with sins, and led away with divers lusts. This is talking about the strategy of the purveyors of false religion. When the word silly is used here, it really means weak-willed. These are hucksters that prey on people with emotional or spiritual needs, such as guilt, and they prey on them not by offering them the gospel, but they prey on their guilt. And they prey on susceptible people. Here, Paul mentioned silly women, susceptible women, we could say. This really could apply to anyone who is vulnerable emotionally. They're led on by various impulses in verse 3. This may imply that these false teachers were seducing these women. Or it may refer to women who were led more by their emotions than by reason or by self-control. But notice verse seven, ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. There may be all kinds of religious knowledge, but they never really come to the knowledge of the truth. There's a lot of people out there peddling religious knowledge. Be careful when you watch these Christian stations and Christian programs. There's a lot of things under the guise of religious knowledge, but it doesn't really teach you the knowledge of the truth of the Word of God. It's always some kind of a new, you know, spectacular teaching or truth, you know, where people come on and say, hey, you know, you probably never heard it like this before. This is new. Listen, if it's new, it's not true. All right? There is no such thing as new truth. And beware of anyone who says that. ever learning, but never being able to come to the knowledge of the truth. And that's referring to the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Often false teachers gain a following by making sensational claims about things that they're teaching or explaining prophecies in great detail. But none of that leads to real godliness. But then notice not only their characteristics, their converts, but also their comrades. Look at verse eight. Now as Janus and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth, men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith. Now Paul, who is a master of the Old Testament, talks about two men in the Old Testament as an illustration of what he's talking about, Janus and Jambres. Tradition says these were the two magicians in Egypt that resisted Moses. You may have remembered the story in the book of Exodus, where Moses has Aaron cast down the rod. Let me make sure I'm getting this right. I just watched Ten Commandments, so I should have this right. Just kidding, I haven't watched it in a long time. Moses has Aaron cast down the rod, right? And what happens? It turns into a serpent, right? And then there are two magicians come along, they cast down two rods. What happens? They imitate that miracle. Those rods turn into serpents. Moses turns the water into blood. The magicians follow the same kind, with the same kind of miracle. When Moses brought up the frogs, Again, the magicians duplicated that miracle, or they were doing cheap imitations of what Moses was doing, which was the real thing. But when it came to the miracle of lice, the magicians could not imitate it. And if you read the record in Exodus 7, chapter 9, the contest between Moses and these two, what you'll find out is that it was pretty clear then that they were exposed as being frauds. And that's the idea here. Satan is an imitator. He wants to imitate what God does, but he can't. So he does something that looks like it's the same, but it's not. It's a cheap imitation of the real thing. And so notice verse nine where Paul says, Again, Paul's talking about these false teachers, the seducers, religious hucksters. Eventually, it's going to be found out that they were not genuine. That's going to be revealed. It may take time, but in time, it'll be revealed. And Paul says, just like it was with these two magicians in Egypt, it was found out that they were pseudo, they were false. Even so, When God's judgment falls, the true character of these counterfeits will be revealed to everyone. That's the whole point. And Paul says, avoid men like this. He's saying that to all of us. I will say to us, don't read their books, don't go to their seminars, don't watch their TV programs, and certainly don't join their churches. Never send them money to support their false teaching. And I could go on and name names, but I'm assuming that you have enough spiritual discernment to know who the false teachers are, who claim to be real, and who are genuine. If any man does not preach the cross of Jesus Christ as the only remedy for sinners who are under God's judgment, or if they promote some kind of a you know, how to, or to use God to achieve worldly or personal success, you avoid them. They're just using the Bible for their own gain and purposes. So the first command is understand the danger. And then Paul says, turn away from deceivers. But then here's the third command. Continue in sound doctrine. Again, notice verse 14. but continue thou in the things which thou has learned and has been assured of, knowing of whom thou has learned them. Paul reminds Timothy, very simply, stay the course. Just stay on the path that you've been on. Just continue in the truth, don't waver. Don't compromise. Don't be lured away by these fantastic claims of people who are deceivers. And Paul basically points out two things. First of all, continue to follow your teacher's example, Timothy. Notice verse number 10, back up to verse number 10. But thou hast fully known my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, charity, patience, persecutions, afflictions, which came unto me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra, what persecutions I endured, but out of them all the Lord delivered me. Paul says, Timothy, just remember what you have seen in me. And that's not being proud. That's Paul saying, Timothy, follow my pattern, follow my example. Paul knew that he was what he was by the grace of God. He said that I am what I am by the grace of God. But the grace that God gave me was not in vain, because I work more diligently than them all. Paul was so grateful for all that God had saved him from. And he persevered in truth. And so, Paul says, Timothy, you know my doctrine. You've heard me. You understand what I've taught you, the gospel. Just stay in that. Just continue in that. You know what? True preachers practice what they preach. They practice what they preach. That's what Paul means, manner of life. Paul backed up his gospel message with the way in which he lived. He did not preach sacrifice and live in luxury. He sacrificed for the gospel. He gave to others far more than he received in the gospel. He stood up for the truth, even when it meant losing friends. And in the end, he lost his life. Paul was a servant, not a celebrity. He didn't consider himself better than anyone else. But also true teachers of the word have as their purpose to glorify God. Look at the end of verse number 10, where it says this, you know my purpose, Paul's purpose in the ministry. He wanted to do God's will and finish the work that God gave him to do. And he was all about glorifying God. That's why he could be long-suffering. He bore up under people's attacks. He was a man of charity, of love. And true teachers are willing to suffer, and Paul was. And he mentions the suffering that Timothy actually saw. He saw Paul get stoned. He saw Paul being left for dead. He was part of seeing some of that. And yet Paul just continued to endure. True teachers are willing to suffer. Paul didn't ask others to suffer for him. He was willing to suffer for the gospel himself. And he went from city to city, being chased from one city to another because of the gospel message that he was preaching there in those days. So continue, Paul says, Timothy, just continue in what you've been taught. Continue in your teacher's example. But then also continue to follow your teacher's doctrine. Again, drop down to verse number 14. Again, Timothy, if you're going to live for God, you're going to suffer persecution. You're going to suffer if you want to live for Christ. And if you're a true child of God and a disciple, you should say, okay, that's fine. If God chooses that, he'll give me the grace to do it. But then here he says, just continue in what you've learned, what you've been taught, knowing of whom thou has learned them. That's why it's so important to not only just be taught by a teacher, but to know that person, know their life. You know, when I was studying this, I was just thinking, you know, God has privileged me and blessed me beyond measure because I had the opportunity to ascend under godly men. And it starts here at Grace with Pastor Johnson. When I was a teenager, watching my father be converted by the power of the gospel, and then coming under the gospel myself, and hearing pastor preach it faithfully. But not only that, but just seeing his life. His life backed up his message. There was nothing false or fake about him, I'll tell you that. I worked with him. I can bear witness. When he asked you to sacrifice, you can rest assured he was already doing that. And I'm just so grateful for the example. I remember this was years ago. We were at a funeral, and he would just teach these little lessons along the way to us. So many times I just remember, for some reason, something pops up in my mind, I remember this. And I kind of just say, this is what Pastor Johnson would do in this situation. I remember one time we were all at a funeral. I think it was me and John and Aaron and Phil, the whole gang, back in those days. We all went to a funeral, and we were just there, and we weren't really participating in it. The preacher got up, you know, did all he was supposed to do, prayed, and then we left. And on the way back in the car, and Pastor Johnson would often do this, he would raise a question. He would say, you know, that was a good sermon, but there was one thing missing. What was it? This was kind of a little test for all of us, you know. And if you got it wrong, woe be unto you. But in that one occasion, I knew exactly what he was getting at. I knew exactly what he was getting at. And none of the other guys got it right. But here I am bragging again. Braggart. But I knew exactly what he was getting at. I said, he didn't give an invitation for people to be saved. He didn't ask people to pray and trust Christ. And pastor said, that's right. Make sure when you're at a funeral every time to preach the gospel and invite people to receive Christ as savior. Just little things like that. And a lot of those things just pop up in my mind all the time. And I just thank the Lord that I had the privilege of being taught by him in so many ways, and also men like Bill Shade. Some of you remember Bill Shade, who's a friend of our church who's also in heaven. What a wonderful reunion he must have had up there with Pastor when he got there. They were friends. I traveled with Bill Shade alongside him in several countries in Africa, went to Ethiopia together, Uganda, Liberia, and we taught. We kind of team taught. He would teach in the morning, and then I would teach after him in the afternoon. Of course, in the morning, by the time he was done with them, he wore them all out. So I had to, you know, keep him interested in the end. But we did so many hours of team teaching together, and I got to know him and hear him and be so close to him. And, you know, recently when I was down at Aaron's graduation, I ran into my PhD advisor, Dr. Miller, who's a very dear person to me, and I learned so much from him when I was in seminary. And I'm just saying, I watched the lives of these men, and I know that they were men of God, and they taught the truth And you know what, by the grace of God, I just want to continue in the things that I have been taught and have learned from them, knowing from whom I've learned them, knowing these are proven choice, great servants of Christ. What a privilege we have. I think that maybe people today don't value men of God enough, men like that. We don't really appreciate them perhaps the way we should until they're gone. But, and by the way, Paul was on his way out when he wrote Timothy this. Timothy, just continue in what you have been taught. This is how to live in the last days. This is how to stay faithful, understand the dangers, turn away from those deceivers, don't give them the time of day, and just continue in sound doctrine. Don't move from what you've been taught. Stay faithful, do not compromise. I'll close with this. Two battleships were assigned to training on the sea and doing maneuvers in heavy weather for days. Visibility was very, very poor. And so the captain stayed on the bridge of this one battleship, keeping an eye on all the activities. And shortly after dark, the lookout on the wing reported, he said, there's a light coming, starboard. And the captain said, is it moving steady? And the answer was, yes, it is. So he knew that there was a, He was on the path of a deadly collision with what he thought was another battleship. And so he said, well, give the command, call out and say to that ship, alter your course 20 degrees to the right. And the message came back, you alter your course 20 degrees to the right. And the captain said, you tell him this, This is, I'm captain. You alter your course 20 degrees to the right. And the reply came back, I'm a seaman, first class. You alter your course 20 degrees to the right. Well, the captain got angry at this point and he says, you tell them, give them this signal. We are a battleship. You alter your course 20 degrees to the right. And the reply came back, this is a lighthouse. You alter your course 20 degrees to the right. And you know what? You know what God's people are in these last days? We're to be the lighthouse. We don't alter our course. We just keep shining the light and living faithful in these last days. Let's bow for prayer together. Father, thank you for this encouraging word that Paul gave to Timothy. Even though we are living in the last days, dangerous days, we know, Lord, that you have given us the resources that we need to stay faithful. And Lord, we have to be willing, as Paul was, to suffer persecution, to go through difficulty. But Lord, that's a privilege to be able to do that on behalf of Christ. But Father, above all things, help us to realize that we are living in the last days. And Lord, we are able, by your grace, just to continue to be faithful, not compromise the truth, but just to continue in the things which we have learned. And Lord, we thank you. Thank you for the gospel. Thank you for sharing with us through other people the beautiful gospel of God's grace. And Lord, help us to stand firm in that and never waver. Lord, for your honor and for your glory, we ask this in Jesus name. Amen. All right.