How to Live in These Last Days | 2 Timothy 3:1-9 | Ben Akatsa | May 3, 2026

Preaching Passage: 2 Timothy 3:1-9 (ESV)

Ethnos Church of Houston, Texas

Welcome to Ethnos Church: A Church for the Nations

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

This morning comes from the book of Second Timothy Chapter Three, verses one through nine. Using one of our black Bibles, you're welcome to go to one now, and it's on page nine thirty-six. Second Timothy three nine. But understand this that in the last days there will come times of difficulty where people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient and appearance, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unpeaceable, slanderous, out of self-control, brutal and not treacherous, reckless, swollen with deceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. Having the appearance of godliness and denying his power, avoiding such people. For among them are those who quit into households and naturally women burdened with sin and letters by his passion. Always working with everyone to lie and acknowledge the truth. Just as generous and generous opposite. Men corrupted the mind and spotlight during the day. But they will not get very far. As oppressed as well as that opposed to men.

SPEAKER_03 2:18

So glad you're here, so glad you made time to come to the service today.

SPEAKER_04 2:22

I'm gonna ask us to go ahead and fall ahead and we pray before we get to the case. Another way to pray is praying.

SPEAKER_03 3:16

And I'll pray for all of us. Lord, would you open your word to us that we may see wonderful things in the world? Would you do this for Christ's sake? We pray, and the Church of the Living God said, Amen.

unknown 3:31

Amen.

SPEAKER_02 3:32

An article from 2023 titled How America Got Mean asks this question, Why have Americans become so mean? And then the writer continues, he says, I was recently talking with a restaurant owner who said that he has to eject a customer from his restaurant for rude or cruel behavior once a week. Something that never used to happen. He continues, I had a nurse at a hospital told me that many on her staff are leaving the profession because patients have become so abusive. You in the medical industry do that. Then he continues at the far extreme of meanness, hate crimes rose in 2020 to their highest level in 20 years. And then at some point in the article says this the words that define our age report menace, conspiracy, polarization, mass shootings, trauma, safe spaces, and of course. The writer of this article might as well have been reading the passage that we're going to be in today. Because our passage answers not just why people in America are getting mean, but why people in the world as a whole are becoming worse and worse. And the Bible places all that in this framework called the last days. You're going to see this up on the screen. The last days is best understood as a period between the first coming of Christ and the second coming of Christ. Jesus has already come once, he's resurrected, he ascended into heaven, he's going to come a second time. In between is a period called the last days. Verse 1 of chapter 3 says, but understand this, in the last days, the times we're living in, the times Timothy was living in, there will come times of difficulty. When the writer says, But understand this, he's trying to tell Timothy that what I'm about to tell you should shape how you live in this period called the last days because of how hard it's going to be. The writer doesn't want Timothy to be surprised by the difficulty. And in answering for Timothy, how Timothy should live in the last days, he answers that for us. Our message this morning is title how to live in these last days. And the first thing I think the writer shows us is this live with knowledge. When you look at verse 2 in your Bible, chapter 3, verse 2, and you look at all these descriptions: lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, and keep going. It's just comma after comma after comma of these descriptions. These words are describing moral character, which simply means inequalities, values, and habits that people are that identify these sorts of people. People have chosen to do these things. These are not isolated actions that are being written here. This is a settled way of life, a settled way of practice. The writer doesn't use any connected words. The effect on us who are reading and on them when they're reading is supposed to be a sense of moral outrage being like, what is going on here? Now we're not going to look at each of these words. I'll pick just some and then just do a high level of reading. One of the words I'll pick, and it's up on the screen, is the word unappeasable. Somebody who is unappeasable, that is someone who's unwilling to negotiate a solution. They would rather fight you under all circumstances than reconcile with you. If you were in a boxing match with them, their gloves would always be up, their gloves would always be on, and their gloves would never come down. That's what that word means. Imagine two people who are unappeasable trying to come to an achievement. They would rather die than we. That's the sort of character that people have. People will have. Now, not everybody is gonna have these sorts of vices in their lives to the same degree. Not everybody's gonna have all of them, but by and large, Paul is describing the way humanity is going to be. They will be unappeasable. Another word, I'll take, is the word of holy. For this sort of person, nothing is sacred, nothing is off limits. They don't have a reverence for things that should be considered holy. Someone once said that the problem we have today is we have forgotten how to blush at things that ought to make us blush at strange always. You know, for 35 years, between 1930 and 1968, there was a code that governed the morals that should be presented in movies. There was a code. And here are two things that that code had. One, complete nudity is never permitted. This was a code governing how movies are supposed to present morals. They were never supposed to show during that period complete nudity. You see, they understood that some things are holy. Some things should make you blush and look holy. How times have changed that now we can slap an R on a movie and show what we want to show and not worry about how that's gonna affect people. Another one was undressing things, if someone undresses should be avoided. How can we come from those things? That's what it looks like when for people nothing is holy. That's the downstream effect. Another one I'll take is disobedient to parents. You see, parents are normally the first authority that a child has to be under in their lives. And yes, I know some parents abuse their children, yeah, but that's not all parents. Good parents are a gift from God. Good authority is a gift from God. In a society where this obedience to parents is not held up as a value, there is going to be chaos. And now here for ethno students. I just want to call your attention, if you can, just give me your eyes for a moment. Since this is here, I'll talk about it. Bear with my pictures on the screen. I thought our first graders, second graders would be in here. So they might have a bit kidding, these pictures, but bear with me. You see, there are some things you have to learn by experience. Here's an example. If I tell you writing a bike is like this and you have a balance like this and move your feet like this, until you write the bike for yourself, you will not know. It's just gonna be worse. Here's another one that you've got to learn from experience. I might tell you what it's like to play MindRap all day, my turn blue, but I'll just sit in front of the TV with a console. You will not learn what it means to play my.

SPEAKER_04 11:04

By the way, my son is still trying to get me to learn again.

SPEAKER_02 11:09

I still don't know what it's like to play Roblox. There are some things, though, that you do not want to learn by experience. When it comes to choosing the right thing and the wrong thing to do, you are meant to learn that by obeying your own process. Because this is what happens. If you do not learn that it's not okay to take things apart, you are someday you end up being like this guy, and the consequences are really, really bad. You do not want to learn that from experience. Some of you someday want to start getting summer jobs. You're gonna have a boss. Learning to obey your parents is gonna help you obey your boss.

unknown 11:55

That's true.

SPEAKER_02 11:56

Now, notice how many times in this list at the top of the screen the word love is mentioned. One, two, three, four, five. I think I counted correctly. Five times. And one might ask the writer, oh, what's love got to do with it? If I may.

SPEAKER_04 12:17

Look at the next screen, you get to understand what it is.

SPEAKER_02 12:21

It begins with, for people will be lovers of self rather than lovers of God. He places his thumb on what the issue is. This is what the writer is telling us. People love themselves instead of God. And in between, all these things that you're reading are caused by the fact that they love themselves instead of loving God. That's what the writer is trying to present to us. The problem with these people is not even that they love themselves more than they love God, they love themselves rather than God. God is not in the picture. And someone said this when God is removed as a priority in life and is replaced with self, money, and pleasure, all the other vices naturally follow. So, how should we live in this day? Live with knowledge. The reason that moral evil is getting worse is because people love themselves rather than God. And someone said this: what the heart loves, the will chooses, and the mind justifies. You see, when you love yourself, you will choose what pleases you. You are going to justify it and give all sorts of reasons why you should do it and it will not matter. Do you ever see people do things in their life? How could they have done it? That is the mindful answer. How should we live in these days? Live with knowledge. The reason moral evil gets worse is because people love themselves rather than God. How else should we live today with the right solution? When I was a child, I stole from my parents' home. And I think it was about, you could say, let's just say it's five dollars. In Kenya the currency was shillings, but it's five dollars. So I went and I stole and I hid the money. And my grandmother was asking, who took my five dollars? I did not say a word. I didn't want her to know it was me who's told. But then my conscience bothered me, and so I came up with a plan. I thought to myself, huh? And this is what I did. I got the money, I took it to my grandma, and I said, Hey grandma, I found your money. You're lying in the kitchen. Now here's a question. Did I tell the truth?

SPEAKER_04 15:05

No. No, I did not tell the truth.

SPEAKER_02 15:08

You see, I was more concerned about looking good than telling the truth. I was very romantic. On the outside, I was a hero. I found the money. On the outside, I looked good, godly, but on the inside I wasn't changed. On the inside, I was a fief once God. That's an idea the writer has in this passage in verse 5, when he says that these sorts of people have the appearance of godliness, but they deny itself. On the outside they appear to be very religious, but on the inside they have not experienced the truth. In Paul's time, godliness was godliness was marked, godliness is how devoted someone was to the gods or to a religion, and was, and here I quote, commonly measured by external actions rather than by one's character, temple quote. So, like the more you gave in temple worship, the more godly you were seen. That's not the biblical understanding of God. In the Old Testament, godliness is defined as the fear of the Lord. What about in Timothy? In 1 Timothy, how is godliness defined? It's up on the screen. And it says this great indeed we confess is the mystery of godliness. What is this? He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up to glory. According to the New Testament, the power of godliness is the life-transforming power of Christ, which changes the heart and then changes how we live. These people, the apostle is saying, do not have a personal experience of the transforming power of the message of Jesus. Saints, have you had that experience? I have amazing grace, how sweet the sound, the save, I regret. I once was lost, but that I'm found of money, but now I see. I've had that experience some of you have. You should be rejoicing. This cannot be said on you. You have real godliness. You experienced the power of godliness of Jesus Christ. We sang it in the song, Good and Gracious King. I approached the throne of glory, nothing in my hands I read, but the promise of acceptance from a good and gracious King. Saints, we should live with the right solution. And what is that?

SPEAKER_03 17:54

The love of self instead of God, I believe. Looks like the right words and goodness.

SPEAKER_04 18:03

So let's keep it. Let's keep it in the office.

SPEAKER_02 18:10

I don't know if we know what is here or what is not. But whether they is or there isn't, we need to all to remember that our good deeds without Jesus will not take us back. This sounds harsh, but our good deeds without Jesus will take us. There's something that separates every human being from God. And that something makes us love ourselves instead of God and our fellow man. It's called sin. That problem cannot be fixed by trying harder to be better. It's only fixed by surrender. Nothing in my hands I bring. The Bible doesn't deny that there's such a thing as good things that anyone can do. Giving to the poor, looking out for your neighbors, going to church. These are all good things, and yes, we should do them. But let us not believe for a moment that good things by anyone cares before God. Isaiah 64, 6 says this, and I have the passage of we are all infected and impure with sin. When we display our righteous beings, they are nothing but filthy rags. The Bible describes sin like an infection. Another verse is Romans 3.23. For everyone has sinned. We all fall short of God's glorious standard. Sin is described as a violation of God's perfect standard. So the Bible talks about sin in different ways. And it's for them. The reason why good things will not take anybody to heaven. I believe it's because sin is a profession. And that can't be fixed by trying harder. Colossians says this for in all his fullness, for God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ. And through him, God reconciled everything to himself. This includes you who were once far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions. Yet now he has done what? Reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. Christ fixes a relationship between us and God. So we should live with the right solution. How else should we live? We should live with caution. At the end of verse 5, the sentence reads this way: Avoid such people, these sorts of people that he has been writing about. Why? For among them are those who creep into households and capture within them, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions. That word creep has the idea of entering into an area through pretense. You hide your motives, saying what you will do to get you there so you can get what you're really after. These people, these men who creep into these holes, are accepted into them, but their true motive is to gain followers, is to capture followers. These followers are called weak women. This is not saying that these women have a low IQ. It's not a general statement of women. This is describing particular women in that time. And that word weak means women who display immaturity and a lack of dignity. There are dishonorable men, they are not dishonorable women. The same way a father will look at a daughter and say, Be careful about certain men. A father will look at a son and say, Be careful about certain women. It's a world we live in. Remember, Paul is not describing women in general. He's describing particular women and something about them. He says, This women, he describes them this way. They've been burdened with sins, giving us the picture that sins have piled up and piled up and piled up, and something is bothering them about their sin, and they want some way to deal with it. He describes them as women led by various passions. He doesn't tell us what the passions are. They could be enemy. He does not tell us. And then he says they're always learning and never able to arrive at the knowledge of the truth. That sounds like an endless hiring cycle. These women are burdened by past sins and their lives are controlled by desires instead of them being in control of their desires. This puts them in a weakened condition and makes them vulnerable to these false teachers. You see, amongst this group of humanity, Paul is saying some of these are those false teachers who creep into holes to take advantage of these unions. Saints, false teachers will hide their motives, they will seem genuine, they will seem to offer new ways to deal with sin for you to be more spiritual. But behind that pasal is a person who lives for themselves, someone who will use others. No wonder the apostle gives a simple command, very simple command. Avoid such evil.

SPEAKER_03 23:56

We live with caution.

SPEAKER_02 24:04

Avoid false teachers, they are dangerous. When you recognize them, get away from them. Avoid them. Because they will prey on you if they can, but prey on other things. That for us pastors means when you recognize a false teacher, we do not allow them to come and teach in a church. Because they will prey on people in the congregation. I'll give you a personal story. This was probably 30 years ago or something. I was in my late teens. I was in a meeting, and a visiting preacher had come to preach. So at the end of the meeting, he starts calling on people for prayer. And then he looks at me and he points at me and he says something like this young man, the spirit of distinction is on you. And then he continues. And then later on, we bump into each other and he says, I have a word from the Lord. Come and see me. I found out later when I went to see. But this man was a practicing author. And he had picked me out because he wanted to pray for me. It did not work. I had been taught alone. And after that experience, I did not start asking myself, why did he pick me? What's wrong with me? I had no thought. I knew who I am in Jesus. That's what false teachers do. They will pick up witness or perceive witness and they will take advantage of you. The apostle says, avoid them. Avoid them. Now later, I went to talk to the church leaders who invited this man. And I went with somebody else and we told them what he tried to do. Unfortunately, they didn't listen. They let me down and they still kept inviting this man to come. When we recognize those sorts of sorts of false, we should know about it. Now I sent some some thoughts, or I'll send some thoughts on Slack about how to assess a Bible teacher. Jonathan addressed this same question in a message two or three weeks ago, and one of them was for you to look at how they interpret the scripture when you tweet the Bible for yourself. I'm not gonna go through all of these thoughts because I sent them on Slack. When you're questioning somebody's speech. Ask yourself. What are they asking you to do? Are they trying to isolate you from relationships? Are they trying to get you to spend money you are not comfortable? Compromise Are they trying to get you to compromise your morals and clarify what is right and more for you? One thing I don't need to think about much.

SPEAKER_04 27:33

And I got this one from John MacArthur.

SPEAKER_02 27:38

Here. Look at the follow-up of that. Do they reflect the look in John MacArthur says that a true teacher will not be satisfied with live with caution. Avoid false interest. But it doesn't end there.

SPEAKER_03 28:01

Because the apostle points out that you and I should live with hope. You and I should live with hope.

SPEAKER_02 28:14

In verse 8, it says this just as Janus and Jabras oppose Mo and Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, these false teachers. Here's how Paul describes these sorts of men. He describes them as corrupt in mind. That's a word that has the idea of utterly spoiled. In the natural sense, yes, their minds work, they can think and make decisions, but in the sense of morals and the things that have to do with what is pleasing to God, they are utterly spoiled. The food has gone bad.

SPEAKER_03 28:52

That was what we say.

SPEAKER_02 28:56

You see, the mind in the New Testament is something that's used to make spiritual judgments. And just like the conscience, your sense of right and wrong, your mind can be morally defiled. That's what happens to these false teachers. Why is false teaching so dangerous? Here's one answer. The content is not just bad, but over time the natural fruit of that sort of teaching is immorally in. He also describes them as disqualified, which is not what it means. They don't stand the test. Viewed against the true gospel, they fail the test and are worthless as far as the faith is concerned. These people have nothing to teach the Christian.

SPEAKER_03 29:41

This is not man's assessment of them, this is God's assessment of them.

SPEAKER_02 29:46

And the apostle does something. He gives an object lesson to illustrate why we should live with hope. And I think this is up on the screen. He says, just as Janus and Jabras oppose Moses, so these men also oppose the truth. These names, Janus and Jabras, are not mentioned in the Old Testament. But Jewish literature, which Paul is pulling from, mentions them as Pharaoh's magicians who opposed Moses when Moses went before Pharaoh to say, let God's people go. These two are mentioned as magicians who were there. You see, God's people had been slaves in Egypt for 400 years. God had promised He would deliver them. Moses was the deliverer, he had been sent to the most powerful nation in the known world at the time. The Pharaoh was the most powerful ruler at that time. And a simple man. You see, Pharaoh had magicians who could do amazing things. Is there demonic power in this world? Oh, yeah, no we could. It is there, and it's real. These people had it. And here's what happened: there were ten planes. The magicians were able to mimic plane one through four. They were able to mimic plane one through three, but it gets to plane four and onward. Actually, at plane four is when the trouble starts. And this is what they tell Pharaoh. They say the magicians tried by the secret class to produce gnats, but they could not solve their gnats on land to be. Then the magician said to Pharaoh, this is the finger of God. What the magicians realized is that though they could mimic one through four, at some point their progress eases. And what stops their progress? Finger of God. Think about that. With just a single thing, God brings animation to its ears. The magicians recognize God's power is at work. To use Paul's words, he says, they will not get very fast. Why? God's anger will stop these false teachers and their teaching. The object lesson is supposed to teach us that. Do not be fooled by how far false teaching goes, how successful it is. Don't be fooled. God controls everything, including how far false teaching will go. Why does God allow false teaching to exist? He has to know. But what if Moses had decided to stop a plain thing? Concluding that God's power is not fully necessary. We would have missed seeing the spectacular failure and wonderful hours. And we would have missed this wonderful concession that this is the favor of God. We can't find it. The progress of false teaching is on a leash. And to quote one commentator, that leash will not get any longer than what God has determined. The false teachers will not get very far because God is fighting for his truth. So don't get yourself depressed about the large following false teachers. Don't try to make yourself the one who fights every false teaching. Because that's not your job, that's God's job. You teach your circle. You avoid them. You refuse to invite them to your church. You teach your children. Let God's finger do the rest. These people try to oppose the truth of the gospel, but they will not get very far. Live with hope. One writer, and I call this from Christianity, says this. Over the past years, Christians have often been warned that we are on the wrong side of history. Think about things like the definition of marriage, issues of sin and then he continues. I don't believe in historical inevitability. No good cause is permanently lost. If you are told that you're on the wrong side of history, remember there is no such thing. History is not a deity that sits in judgment. It has no power to determine what is true or false, good or bad, right or wrong. History doesn't have wrong and right sides, truth does. So my overriding message to everyone is that our overriding concern should be to be on the side of truth. You see, these men oppose the truth, but they will not get very far. False teachers oppose the truth, but they will not get very far. Live with hope because God will fight for the truth of the gospel. So let us continue with the truth of the gospel message that says, For there is one God, and there is only one mediator between God and man. Only one, the man Jesus Christ. Holy high as a matter of God will fight for that truth. Do not shrink from it. Live with knowledge, live with the right solution, live with caution, but finally live with hope. The finger of God is on your side because you are giving the gospel.

SPEAKER_00 36:45

Just apply this word where you can.

SPEAKER_03 36:52

Some of us need to be the knowledge, some of us need to be the right spirit. And some of us are some of us. You know this.