What's The World Coming To?

“You should know this, Timothy, that in the last days there will be very difficult times.”

2 Timothy 3:1  

 
In wanting to encourage you this morning I struggled with writing this devotional today until the Lord whispered in my ear, “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32). You hear more and more these days by those who walk with Jesus saying, “I really do believe we are living in the last days.” By many who don’t walk with God they ask, “What in the world is going on in the world today? I have never seen it so bad.” Maybe you have been asking yourself or others too?

In my curiosity I have learned as I have sat this past few months and listened, what many of us are seeing with our own eyes are the very things the Bible speaks of that are indicators of what life will be like as the last days draw to a close right before the Lord returns for His bride, the church. As Jesus lays out the warnings of what will take place in these last days he also reminds us of something very important as well. It’s what motivated me to write to you today. In the gospel of John, (John 16:33) Jesus says, “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." That is important to keep in mind each day as we see the events of these last days unfolding right before us.

It was in Luke’s gospel, Luke 21:28 that Jesus said, “Now when these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near.” Jesus doesn’t want us to be caught off guard or taken by surprise, to get disillusioned or depressed. He wants His bride to understand the times and be ready for Him when He comes for her in the clouds. The apostle Paul gives us a more detailed list of what life will be like before Jesus returns in a letter he wrote to a young pastor named Timothy. Read the following examples and decide for yourself if they describe at all what is happening in the world today and if you to get the impression as you read that we are in fact living in the “last days.”

People will be lovers of themselves (2 Timothy 3:2)
People will be covetous (2 Timothy 3:2)
People will be boasters (2 Timothy 3:2)
People will be proud. (2 Timothy 3:2)
People will be blasphemers (2 Timothy 3:2)
People will be disobedient to parents (2 Timothy 3:2)
People will be unthankful (2 Timothy 3:2)
People will consider nothing as sacred (2 Timothy 3:2)
People will be unloving (2 Timothy 3:3)
People will be unforgiving (2 Timothy 3:3)
People will slander others (2 Timothy 3:3)
People will have no self-control (2 Timothy 3:3)
People will be unusually cruel (2 Timothy 3:3)
People will have no interest in what is good (2 Timothy 3:3)
People will betray friends (2 Timothy 3:4)
People will be reckless (2 Timothy 3:4)
People will be puffed up with pride (2 Timothy 3:4)
People will be lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God (2 Timothy 3:4)
People will have a form of godliness but deny God (2 Timothy 3:5)
People will take advantage of women, weakened by sin (2 Timothy 3:6)
People will always been learning but not coming to knowledge of truth (2 Timothy 3:7)
People will resist the truth (2 Timothy 3:8)
People will have corrupt minds (2 Timothy 3:8)
People will have a fake faith from a depraved mind (2 Timothy 3:8)
People will not progress in fake faith and fail miserably (2 Timothy 3:9)

So maybe you read that list and thought to yourself, what then are we to do in these last days? I hope you are asking. Do exactly what Jesus instructed us to do, look up! Don’t live in fear, live by faith in the One who loved you and gave His life for you! Keep your eyes on Jesus and guard your own heart lest any of us think that we are not capable of any or all of what the apostle Paul described in 2 Timothy 3. For the grace of God go I wrote the apostle Paul. May the same be said of me and you.

Make sure to put on the full armor of God each day as Ephesians 6 admonishes us. Lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily ensnares us as the writer of Hebrews points out in chapter 12. Walk in love as Ephesians 5:1 calls us to do. Remember, we aren’t working in an attempt to get saved, we do good works because we are saved! We aren’t even fighting for victory as followers of Christ, we are fighting from the place of victory as Jesus Christ has already won for us and He is our solid ground on which we stand.

There is plenty of work to do this side of heaven to keep us busy until Jesus comes. Stay in the Word of God, pray always in the Spirit and look for opportunities to get together with other believers as well as unbelievers to share in the life and the love of Jesus.


“not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.”

Hebrews 10:25

I LOVE YOU!  

Michael Osthimer

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