Perilous Times . . . But You,

Daily Bread

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We’ve been in chapter three of Second Timothy all week, dealing with this unsettling term, “perilous times.”

“But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come” (II Timothy 3:1 – NKJV)

Again, “the last days,” the “days” since Jesus ascended into heaven, the “days” in which you and I are living; they will be marked by “perilous times.” Yes, difficult and dangerous “times” are what we “know” have existed in the past, and exist right now, and will exist in the “days” ahead, until our Lord returns.

They are “days” that have been, are, and will be marked by “evil men and impostors” (3:13), those who God tells us, “will grow worse and worse.” They are,

“. . . those who creep into . . . (men) who resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, disapproved concerning the faith” (II Timothy 3:5, 8 – NKJV)

“Men” marked by a whole list of godless characteristics (3:2-5) who, by the term “creep,” remind you of a certain snake that inhabits the spirit world in rebellion against God. “Truth” is something they “resist,” thus revealing their relationship to he who is called “the liar” (John 8:44). These “men,” besides all else that is already said of them, have “corrupt minds” and they are not to be found in “the faith,” that “faith” that makes up the historic doctrines and truths of biblical Christianity.

All that revealed by the apostle Paul regarding the “last days” and its “perilous times,” and “the evil men and impostors” of these “days,” he writes something key for our understanding, two words that find a common thread throughout the New Testament Scriptures,

“But you . . . But you . . .” (II Timothy 3:10, 14 – NKJV)

The disciple of Christ is always in stark contrast to “the evil men and impostors.” He is always found within the sphere of the words, “but you.” His or her mind is not “corrupt” nor is it “disapproved concerning the faith.”

The disciple of Christ is commanded,

“But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of knowing from whom you have learned them.” (II Timothy 3:10, 14 – NKJV)

We who are of Christ, we are, within “the last days,” in the midst of “perilous times,” encompassed about by “evil men and impostors,” we are commanded by our Lord to “continue” (present tense, in the imperative mood) continually “in the things which” we “have learned” from “the Holy Scriptures” (3:15).

In “the last days,” in the “perilous times,” as things “grow worse and worse,” as “evil men and impostors” seek to “creep” into the hearts and minds of the masses and shape their thinking and actions according to their own “corrupt minds,” let it be said of us, “but you . . .”

Have a good day . . . and be on your guard, holding fast the faith which you are to be established in and earnestly contending for.

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