Beloved: grace, mercy and peace be yours from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord. I am delighted to welcome you to the month of February 2023. And I pray that God will protect you from all the evils of these last days that are ruining people’s faith and lives. Amen.
I offered that prayer to God for you because I know that it is His desire to preserve all of us that are His children from all the corruption and evils of these last days. In fact, the bible tells us that we can trust Him to preserve us because He is a faithful God (1Thess 5:23-24). But it is one thing for God to be committed to preserving our lives and faith; it is another thing for us to place ourselves where He can do so. If you do not position yourself where God can preserve your life and faith, you will not be safe. And that is not a curse. It is the reality.
How do you position yourself where God can preserve you from the corruption of these last days? It is by yielding yourself to the word of His truth, whether it is pleasant for you to accept or not. Paul, writing to Timothy in a letter, says this:
“In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage — with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.” (2Tim 4:1-4NIV)
What does Paul tell Timothy to do in this text? First, he tells him to preach the word of God, not his ideas, the popular opinions of men, community stories or traditions. Second, he tells him to be ready to correct, rebuke and encourage the people of God, whether it is convenient for him or not. But is Timothy not supposed to be aware of these things already, since he is a pastor of pastors? He is supposed to be aware of them already.
Why, then, does he need someone to charge him to give himself to doing them? As we see in the text, it is because a time is coming (and that time is now here) when many so-called believers in Christ Jesus will not put up with sound doctrine but will look for those who will tell them what their itching ears want to hear. Paul, in fact, goes on to say that these people will turn their ears away from the truth in order to listen to myths and lies. And when this happens, there is every tendency that Timothy may feel that he is the one that is being too harsh and so want to change his sermons to suit them. So, Paul warns him before God and before Jesus Christ not to do so. Otherwise, he will ruin his ministry and lose his reward.
In like manner, many in the church today do not want to put up with the truth again, that is, if they have ever put up with it. That is why they keep going from one assembly to another assembly and never really settling down anywhere. They prefer leaders like Aaron who will give them whatever they want, even if it is an idol of gold, to leaders that will confront them with the truth about their lives and the will of God for them. (Cf. Exodus 32)
Now the truth is that such people cannot be preserved by God from being polluted or from being misled and destroyed by the devil. And if you don’t want to end up like them, if you want God to keep you safe and sound in the faith in these last days, you had better yield yourself to sound doctrine and spiritual discipline instead of looking for those who will pamper you until you are utterly destroyed. And know this: there are still some of us that will never change our sermons to suit you. Yes, there are still some of us that will never give you any golden calf to worship, regardless of what you say about us or think of us. That is because we are not answerable to you but to God who sent us. And may God grant you a heart that is ever humble to receive His word of truth without disputing. Amen.
Have a great February 2023.
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