One of the most challenging tasks that we face as a congregation and as the church in this nation is equipping the next generation to display holiness in a culture that will despise, ridicule, and persecute them for living in such a fashion. For, I well remember the days when pressure intensified against holiness as I entered high school. For me, ninth grade was a pivotal year for such struggle. One year before, when I was in eighth grade, I vividly remember a conversation in my living room with all my close friends as we talked about remaining sexually pure until we were married. However, one year removed from that conversation, as I entered high school, I remember the disappointment as I found out some of those same close friends were already engaging in sexual activity prior to marriage.

I was a freshman in high school, finding out some of my friends were already sexually active! And that was only the beginning of those four years in high school. Over the next four years, the shocked disappointment that had been mine at the news my freshman year soon became one of expectation. I simply grew to expect my friends to walk this path of immorality and more and more of them succumbed to it.

It was a tempting and difficult time. It is difficult to battle sexual temptation yourself in the midst of your friends indulging in that same immorality against which you are fighting. It is difficult to convince yourself day after day that there is greater pleasure in obedience than in disobedience. Such is the nature of temptation – it is tempting! And it was only by God’s grace that it was avoided, for in my flesh only evil dwells.

So, now, as I have a little boy of my own, who is a number of years away from facing such temptations, I am wondering how I might strengthen and teach him so that he finds the courage to resist disobedience before God, and taste and see that the Lord is good. I am wondering what you say to someone as they are only beginning this long road of struggle with many walking away and working against the very thing they are working for.

However, such wondering need not continue indefinitely, for it is addressed in the Scripture. For in this third chapter of second Timothy, Paul is still exhorting his spiritual son. And this time, he is exhorting him as he is approaching darker and darker days. So, let us again look to Paul’s teaching and exhortation that 1) we ourselves might be strengthened for such a task, and 2) that we might now how to exhort others to obedience in trying times.

Paul gives us an outline for how to approach such a battle as believers. I will divide the text into three sections and exhort us this morning as Paul exhorts Timothy.

First, we are to mentally embrace the reality that continual struggle will be before us (1-5a)

Paul’s first exhortation to Timothy is not one to physical action. Rather, he tells him, “Understand this – that, in the last days there will come times of difficulty” (1).

Now why would he start here and say this? He has already instructed Timothy in difficult times right now. He has already told Timothy of the suffering he has endured, how he has been in prison. In fact, he has already stressed suffering as part of the Christian life, not an exception. So why does he exhort him to understand this again?

I think it is because Paul wants Timothy to know that he doesn’t need to gear up for a few weeks of hardship after which he will cruise through life. Paul wants Timothy to know that it is going to be constant. There might be seasons of ease here and there, but they will be the exception. For the last days – those days between the comings of Christ – in which we now live, are characterized by individuals who are lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, … heartless … slanderous … lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of Godliness but denying its power” (2-5a).

These kinds of people will characterize the last days, the days in which we live. Fundamentally their problem is that they love themselves more than they love God, seeing themselves as the center of the world and God as disposable at their own whim.

And here’s what makes it all the more difficult – these people are going to be in the church! I say that because Paul tells Timothy two things: 1) that they have an appearance of godliness but deny its power, and 2) that he should avoid them (in the last half of verse5, while he tells the Corinthians that we do not need to avoid lost men (1 Corinthians 5:9-13)). To avoid lost men would be to ignore the great commission.

So, the picture here is not one of strangers living hypocritically; it is one of those in the church living such lives. They are religious, but they are not righteous. It is this that intensified the struggle for me in high school; these were my close friends and professing believers who were continually engaging in sexual activity. People characterized by this list are going to be in the church – doing the very things that we are striving to avoid and dismissing the very things that we are trying to make our passion.

Men in our very midst will be arrogant, living simply to indulge themselves, slanderous, without care or affection for others, lacking all righteousness.

And I would also ask you to evaluate yourselves here. For a point like this demands that we need to ensure we are not of the people described here. So, is this list descriptive of you? Are you one who simply appears externally religious but do not know the inward power of the Spirit? Do you ever find your heart crushed and driven by the Spirit to see the face of the Lord with all that is within you or you feel like you will die as God’s Spirit within you is thirsting for Spiritual nourishment – much as your body alerts you to physical illness, the Spirit alerting you to spiritual sickness? And then you pray and meditate on the Word and yearn and ache and cry out until you find your soul satisfied in the Lord? If not, you might want to beg God for such mercy as we close this morning, for you might be showing yourself simply to have a form of godliness but not knowing the inward spiritual working and power that should accompany God’s children.

So, understand that this kind of living and these kinds of people will characterize the last days, our days. Do not think that temptation will be light and you will never face times of darkness or close friends abandoning the road on which you are walking. This is what life will be about, so prepare yourselves mentally for a struggle. We are promised much in Scripture, but an easy life here on earth is not a part of such promises.

Second, we are not to tolerate unrepentant unholiness in the church (5b-9)

This command to avoid such people in the latter part of verse 5 seems only to be able to mean that we do not have fellowship with a professing brother or sister in Christ who is unrepentant in living this way, for (as aforementioned), I could not understand how it could refer to one who is lost – for then to obey this would be to disobey the great commission.

So, I think this is a command to us not to tolerate this kind of behavior from professing believers in the church. Labor in one another’s lives, however, if there is continual unrepentance from such people, this we must not fellowship with them – we must avoid them.

Why? Paul tells us, that such people will lead others astray. They will prey on those who are weak within the body and lead them astray, especially those burdened with sins and led astray by various passions (6). These kind of people (if they continue) will show themselves not to be of the faith (“disqualified regarding the faith” – v. 8), will never come to the truth (7), and are corrupted in their minds, opposing the truth (8). However, ultimately their folly will be exposed (9).

Now in a culture that tells us we must be passive and tolerant of all things to be loving and not bigoted, we must (for the sake of the church) obey such a command ultimately if continual unrepentance is shown on behalf of one in our midst. Otherwise, it is not a loving thing for the church or that individual. So, here it seems we are exhorted to nothing less than what Dr. Marshall writes as he says, “Such people … must be kept out of the congregation where they can exercise a bad influence on the others. Some kind of excommunication may be in mind. Indeed, it is difficult to see what else can be meant other than exclusion from fellowship” ¹

And just in case, we are tempted to waver a bit here, I might remind us that two of the letters to the seven churches in the book of Revelation are spoken against by Christ because of their tolerance of heresy and immorality in their midst (Revelation 2:12-16; 2:18-23).

So, first, understand the continual battle we are in and second, avoid people who walk along such a road without repentance.

Finally, what must we ourselves do personally so as to persevere in such dark times?

There are two things here I want to mention from the text, as Paul exhorts Timothy.

First, remember the model laid out by the apostle [Paul].

That is, remember what Paul taught, how he lived, and what his life consisted of and model it. This is what he tells Timothy. He uses himself as a contrast to the men described above and as a model to Timothy for right living. He tells him, “You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim of life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions and sufferings … which persecutions I endured” (10-11).

Paul commends Timothy for imitating him. And this is nothing new. He had written to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 11:1, “Imitate me even as I imitate Christ.” And he had written to the Philippians in 3:7, “Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us.”

Now, this should call us to pause for a second and ask if we could say the same thing. Could we, if someone said, I want to know how I should live, act, think, etc. say, “Well, just come live with me for a bit and begin to imitate me”? Again, it is a high calling, but is anything less demanded of those who take up the cross of Christ?

But what was Paul modeling? You could break it down into three sections. He modeled correct teaching, correct living, and suffering.

Thus, we should teach what Paul taught, live how he lived, and suffer as he suffered. Do you see how warped and self-centered our worldview is when we think suffering should not touch us when Paul saw it as a normal component to Christian living? In fact, Paul follows this up in verses 10-11 by saying in verse 12, “Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” So, just get used to suffering for the faith – it will come, but it is to be expected. Imitate Paul and seek to live in such a way that you too might say to another in the faith, “Imitate me.”

Second, we should saturate ourselves in Scripture.

It is probably fair to say that these two commands are one in the same. For the life and teaching of Paul which we are to model has been preserved for us in the Scripture. Thus, Paul tells Timothy in the final verses, “Continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. All Scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work” (14-15).

First, note the importance of Scripture. It alone provides with the message needed for our salvation and is profitable to teach us, correct us, rebuke us, and train us so that we might be equipped to be useful instruments in the hands of God. In fact, it is God’s very word to us. It is breathed out by God.

We must therefore, be saturating ourselves and those around us in the Scripture. It is necessary, that is not able to be left out, of any life that longs to persevere in dark times and stand strong in the last days.

And I would ask all of us a question here? How many of us are saturating ourselves with the word of God? For one of the difficult things in ministry is seeing people dismiss the exhortation to be saturated in God’s word as simply a weak answer to their struggles while never having actually saturated themselves in that word and seeing its powerful effects.

How many of us would say that saturation of ourselves in God’s word is nothing less than necessary is we are to find strength to live holy lives, to believe and teach correctly, and to be an equipped instrument to be used of God? Then, I wonder how many of us who answer that question affirmatively could follow up by saying, “That’s why I continually saturate myself and my family in God’s word?”

So, you see? As one has said, “It is not that it has been tried and has failed, it’s that it has failed to be tried.” And here we have clear teaching of the word’s power in our lives. So, saturate yourselves in it to find strength to persevere in holiness in dark times. Saturate your families, your wives and children in it. May we model and teach them in this task, saying, “Imitate me even as I imitate Christ.” Seek the Lord, knowing his power to transform lives, and strive for holiness by that power. It is in these labors that we will find ourselves persevering in dark times, as they will surely come and now are.

May his grace be with you. Amen.

¹ I. Howard Marshall, The Pastoral Epistles: International Critical Commentary, 776.

PREPARING FOR, AND PERSEVERING IN, DARK TIMES