Would you turn with me over to 1
Timothy, where I have been speaking to you.
Suppose we go over to 2 Timothy for
a minute, because I feel there are a
few things here I'd like to talk to
you about.
You know, there's so much I'd like to
talk to you about.
I wish we just had hours and hours
and hours to talk about these things that
are so precious.
But, I couldn't help but thinking last week
we spoke about, from 1 Timothy 4th chapter,
about the fact that in the last days,
or the latter days, false teachers would come
in.
And there would be those who would depart
from the faith and give heed to seducing
spirits and the doctrines of devils.
And as I said last week, those who
depart from the faith, this is speaking of
the church universal, are those who were never
saved.
They've been preachers, they've been trained sometimes in
good seminaries, but they have allowed Satan, the
world, all that is around them, to blind
their eyes.
And they've never truly come to Jesus, never
been born again, because John verifies this very
carefully by saying, they left us because they
were not of us, for had they been
of us from the beginning, they never would
have left us.
So anyone, it never disturbs me, I never
get upset, except I'm sorrowful in my heart,
when someone is, they tell me that someone,
oh so and so, is in the world,
living like the devil, doing everything, it never
distresses me, except that I am sorrowful.
All I say is, if you can live
in sin and like it and it doesn't
distress your heart at all, you never were
saved.
And don't forget it.
I'm sick of this easy salvation that allows
someone to get saved and live as they
please.
I want to tell you, when you have
a new life that's come in, and Christ
comes to dwell in the heart by faith,
and Paul says, you are a new creature
in Jesus Christ, and you have a mind
that's transformed by God, and you have received
the Holy Spirit of God in your body,
he says, what do you not know that
your body is the temple of God, who
ye are and whom ye serve?
Do you not see this?
Do you not know this?
And so we have to understand that wherever
we see this, and in that 1 Timothy
4, this is what he's speaking of.
He said they followed the doctrines of devils.
Don't you let them deceive you.
Don't you get upset by that.
You see preachers in pulpit preaching no salvation,
forget it.
They have no knowledge of God, they know
not Christ, and they're bound to the same
destiny with a greater judgment than any other
man, because they are leading a horde of
people down the road to hell.
And I want to say that hell is
separation from God for all eternity, and I
think that should be enough to affright any
heart, that you'd have no relationship to God
for all eternity.
For God has determined how we can be
related to himself, and that's only by that
simple act of faith in Jesus Christ as
personal Savior, and the receiving of the Holy
Spirit as a seal upon our redemption.
The scripture says the Holy Spirit is the
seal of our redemption, so that we know
this.
The only possible way of understanding all that
you see is by understanding God's word, and
that when you see those departing, remember, he
says they have listened to the doctrines of
Satan and seducing spirits.
That's it.
They've been deceived, and I could bring a
message on that by itself, but I don't
want to stay there for a minute.
I'll get back to that.
But the thing this morning that I want
to speak about is the fact that much
of scripture has been written to and for
those in the last days.
Did you realize that?
We are living in the last days.
Men who know not Christ are concerned about
this day.
They're concerned for what they see.
Read the statements of the greatest scientists on
earth today about their fears.
Read the men who developed the atomic bomb,
who developed a hydrogen bomb.
Read von Braun.
Read the statements of the scientists who have
already died, who had part in it, and
hear them say, the sorriest day of my
life was when I discovered this.
Hear the men who discovered the plutonium bomb,
of which no nation is making any, because
it only needs one to set the world
aflame.
They know it.
When the plutonium bomb was brought into being,
it was told to the President of the
United States that we could develop one, and
he heard the horror of the whole thing.
He said, don't touch it.
And Russia, under some secret agreement they claim,
is not working on the plutonium bomb, because
it would mean the end of Russia too.
So if you have any doubt about living
in the last days, where man has come
to the place where he can destroy the
world, remember this.
I would remind you that Peter says, God
hath reserved the world to be destroyed by
himself by fire.
Not for man.
That is God's province.
God made the atom.
By him all things consist and hold together.
That's what Hebrew says.
He's the one who developed it all and
made it, and man has merely discovered it.
So we're living in a day where we
only have to look around us to realize
that the Lord is coming soon.
Beloved, rejoice with me.
Young people, rejoice with me.
I know how you feel.
I know just how you would feel because
I was myself young, and I haven't lost
the feelings of a young man.
And I would know that you would say,
but I haven't been married yet.
Or if I'm married, I haven't had any
children yet.
Or I'm young.
There's so much.
I want to tell you, you may not
believe me, but if the Lord Jesus comes,
he'll make it all up to you plus.
Plus!
Now, you may not understand my words because
I'm older, but I assure you, God will
make it up to you young people plus.
You won't suffer any loss.
Listen, all we have to do is to
read the Scriptures to understand that God says
man's life is a vale of tears and
of sorrows.
And while some may say, we've never been
married, we've never had children, I want to
say something.
You may not even know what you're asking
for.
There are many a mother and dad today
is saying, I wonder why I had children.
There's many a mother and dad who have
sorrow in their heart and a gold star
in their home window because some boy was
slain in Vietnam.
There's many a mother and dad whose boy
today is living in deep sin.
There's many a mother and dad who have
children who are sick.
There's many a mother and dad whose lives
are broken.
There's many sorrows and burdens.
I want to tell you, if the Lord
Jesus comes, there'll be no sorrow there and
no crying for the former things have passed
away and all things have become new.
I used to worry about whether I'd ever
see too much of the world.
It doesn't bother me in the least anymore.
I'm just as happy if I just see
Melbourne.
I hate Manhattan even.
I'm just as happy as long as God
gives me the privilege of preaching the gospel.
Why should I worry about this little earth
I'm standing on when God's promised me a
new heavens and a new earth where there'll
be glory and righteousness and where I'll be
able to see a universe that science can't
even bring in on its telescope?
Why, they frankly admit they've made a 200
-inch Palomar telescope and they can't bring in
the furthest star and the latest reasoning say
the world is expanding at a faster rate
than the speed of light.
How can you bring it in?
That's the latest theory.
It's expanding faster than the speed of light
at 186,000 miles per second.
There's the world expanding faster than that.
I often thought, I'm going to see a
new heavens and a new earth.
That's what God says, a new heavens and
a new earth.
And I couldn't help but notice where Peter
says, new heavens and a new earth.
Earth singular, heavens plural.
Paul says, and God took me up to
the third heaven.
Everybody used to wonder, where's the third heaven?
Science today says there are three areas.
There's the area of earth, the atmosphere, there's
a period, there's a place in between, and
then there's a heaven that we haven't got
to yet.
Beyond that, where the stars are.
And God says, I'm going to make it
all new.
The new heavens and new...
Listen, do you know I'm not going to
see one of the stars that shines in
the skies because most of them are dead?
Did you know that?
Science says most of the stars are dead.
The light's been traveling here for 10 million
years, and some of them 10 million light
years.
And the light that I see is from
a star that died 20 million years ago.
And so God says, I'm going to make
a...
What?
A new heaven.
And people worry about whether they're going to
see...
Well, sure, I'd like to see Israel.
It'd be nice, wouldn't it, to see Israel?
It'd be lovely.
But I want to tell you, that isn't
what concerns me.
What concerns me is, have you faith in
Jesus?
Have you faith that transcends it?
As we read that scripture this morning, justified
by faith through our Lord Jesus Christ, that
all the promises of God become yea and
amen to us, you see.
God has great celestial promises for those that
love Him.
And a great portion of scripture...
For instance, let me put it this way.
Over half the Gospels...
Notice, four Gospels.
Over half the Gospels record the last seven
days of Jesus' life.
That's all.
A great portion of the Epistles speak to
us of the last days.
You'll go down through scripture one verse after
another.
We'll speak of the last days, the latter
days, so that here we are living in
those days where we see all of these
things, the gathering storm all around us, the
gathering of all of the powers, the terrible
wars and the rumors of war, where we
see all that Jesus spoke of.
Violence, He says, shall fill the earth when
I come.
Shall I find faith on the earth?
No, He says, I will not find faith
on the earth.
Notice that.
2 Timothy 3.1 This know also that
in the last days, what?
Perilous times shall come.
Now, beloved, let me say this.
Let me give you a simple test of
your faith this morning.
We're now looking at some length of Paul's
Epistles.
I gave you the testimony of Christ concerning
the second coming in Luke 17 and 18,
Matthew 24 and 25, the whole book of
Revelation, which I haven't touched yet.
But in those gospel portions, He speaks of
the coming.
We could go to John 14.
We could go to any kind of Acts,
the first chapter.
There's all over speaking of the second coming
of the Lord.
But now we're in that period, that place
where Paul is speaking of the second coming.
We claim to rejoice in God's Word.
That's what we say.
We rejoice in the promises of God.
We've been redeemed in the blood of the
Lamb.
We trust this implicitly.
Then, beloved, when you read this portion, 2
Timothy 3.1, I want you to think
very seriously of what it says, because nine
-tenths of the church preaching this morning will
deny this.
They will deny that in the last days,
perilous times are coming.
They will tell you that the church is
going to sweep in the millennial kingdom, that
the church is going to be the one
that will bring in peace and prosperity, and
every man shall have his own tree, and
the fruit tree shall bear twelve times a
year, and the lamb shall lie down with
the lion.
And they tell you this is all the
church's work.
The church's job is to make men better,
natural men better, by not conversion, but by
reformation.
And God denies this.
God says the only possibility of making a
man who will be clean and pure and
holy is by the new birth.
Then he becomes a new creature in Jesus
Christ.
So a great portion of the church would
deny this.
Test your faith this morning.
It says this now also, that in the
last days, perilous times will come.
Now listen, let me read it again.
In the last days, perilous times will come.
Do you know what the word perilous means
in the Greek?
It means this, trying times, torturesome times, sorrowful
times, anguishing times are coming upon the earth.
Now let me ask you a few simple
questions.
Is this utterance the divinely inspired word of
God?
Test your faith now.
May I say this?
If you don't believe it, you're not redeemed,
because all that we know about redemption is
in Paul's epistles.
Remember.
Is this the divinely inspired word of God?
Is it God-breathed?
Test yourself.
Is it God-breathed?
Is this utterance the clear-cut statement of
the divine mind?
In divinely chosen words by a divinely chosen
apostle?
Is it?
Then it's truth.
In the last days, perilous times shall come.
Never let me hear a Christian say, I
can't understand what's wrong with the world.
You do understand.
Paul says this, what?
Tell me.
Know also.
Let's say it together.
In the last days, perilous times shall come.
Beloved, you see, it's a matter of whether
you believe.
Don't let anyone ever say to me, I
am a Christian, but I don't believe the
miracles.
Well, you know, the greatest miracle is Christ
is risen.
And if Christ be not risen from the
dead, your faith is vain and you are
yet in your sins.
He's the greatest miracle.
So never make this statement, I don't believe
in miracles.
If you don't believe in miracles, forget it,
because the Scripture is a book of miracles.
Salvation is a miracle.
Paul speaks of it as a great mystery.
The world can never conceive of it, he
says.
The carnal mind cannot see the things of
God, for they are spiritually discerned.
Unbelievers don't bother me.
They can't discern it.
You have to have the Holy Spirit, God.
The original work, when Christ becomes Savior of
the soul, God immediately gives you the Holy
Spirit.
So then the whole book opens up, and
you discern, you understand.
He says, by faith we understand.
That's all.
So, beloved, we have to decide, is this
true?
In the last days, perilous times shall come.
Is this utterance as much a part of
God's Word as the portion we read in
Romans this morning, where it says, therefore, being
justified by faith, we have peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ?
Is it?
It's the same man.
If, when I read that this morning, you
rejoice greatly in the justification by faith in
the blood of Christ, forgiveness of sins, then,
beloved, how can you help but rejoice in
knowing that the Lord Himself shall descend from
heaven with a shout and the voice of
the archangel and the trump of God, and
the dead in Christ shall rise first, and
then we which are alive and remain unto
the coming of the Lord shall meet the
Lord in the clouds, in the air, and
then shall we ever be with the Lord.
Who said that?
The same man who said you're being justified
by faith.
Man, I really bring you down to decisions,
don't I?
You're no more saved than you believe the
Lord is coming.
Because if you base your salvation and your
justification upon Paul's words, and Christ doesn't speak
of justification, Christ does not go into any
long treatises on doctrine.
The Roman church and the Protestant church says
we are Pauline churches.
It depends upon Pauline doctrine.
Therefore, what Paul says here is the divine
utterance from the divine man through a divinely
appointed apostle that we might understand that in
the day we're living in, perilous times are
coming, and you can see it all around
you.
Man, you've only got to read the newspaper.
We're blind as Christians.
We're asleep.
And Paul warns in Thessalonians, he said, be
careful.
Christians are going to slumber.
Those who have been low in their faith,
they'll slumber.
They will not see the Lord's coming.
He says, I'm coming as a thief in
the night.
Be ye ready.
For in such a day as what?
Ye think not.
The Lord is coming.
Beloved, I cry out to you.
Listen, we would disturb all the inertia in
human souls who have come to Christ as
personal Savior and are indwelt by the Holy
Spirit of God if we believed what we
read.
There'd be such a dynamic in our souls
that not one of you could sit in
a pew.
You'd want to get up after the sitting
in a pew and listening to the Lord
and talking to your loved ones and talking
to your friends and say, the Lord is
coming.
And I'm not pointing a day.
I'm not pointing an hour because Jesus says,
no man knoweth the day or the hour,
but my Father in heaven.
But I am saying, He's coming soon.
Be ye ready, He says, for in such
an hour as ye think not, the Lord
cometh.
Let me ask you another question.
How do you live?
Concerning this.
What is your life?
God says it is a vapor.
Listen, what I'm looking is for people who
get the fire of God in their souls
and believe God's Word with all their heart
and take hold of it like the disciples
and the apostles of the early church who
were willing to die and be slain and
slaughtered and torn to shreds by animals, by
anything, by lions, it didn't matter what it
was.
Paul beheaded and James saw him asunder, thrown
from the parapet down into the street.
John boiled in oil on the isle of
Patmos at ninety-six years of age.
Peter crucified upside down.
Why?
Because they said, this is the Word of
God.
And what God has said is true.
The other day when we were studying Thessalonians,
notice what it says.
I'll just read it.
Paul speaks.
Here's what he says.
When ye received the Word of God, he
says to the Thessalonians, which ye heard of
us, ye received it not as the Word
of men, but as it is in truth,
the Word of God.
Isn't that tremendous?
Oh, listen to me, beloved.
If the Holy Spirit really takes hold of
your heart, if you really believe this morning,
if you're trusting Christ as your personal Savior,
that burning zeal will come into the soul
first that a husband and wife will really
love each other.
And if you don't love each other, pray
about it and get into that place of
love for each other that's deep and holy.
Those who really love each other, children loving
their parents and parents to children, there'll be
a convocation of families in love with Christ,
understanding God's Word, seeing an answer to life,
an answer to the world, an answer to
all that is terrible around us and all
of the sin and the crime and the
rape and the pillage and every civil rights
problem and all of the problems of earth.
And find that Jesus Christ in Him is
the answer if men will but receive it.
He's not the answer to the deniers.
And I pray Christ is the answer.
I say Christ is the answer to the
receivers but not to the unbelievers.
He's the judge of the unbelievers but He's
the Savior of believers.
Just know also that in the last days
perilous times will come.
Man, I've got a lot to say about
that.
I've got ten points on the perilous times
you're living in and I can show you
from every angle of Scripture.
Russia where she stands, Israel where she is,
the church where it is, the world where
it is, the Arab nations where they are,
the United States where it is.
Every single one prophesied of in Scripture perilous
times.
What does Jesus say?
Listen.
I close with this.
Men's hearts shall fail them in the last
days because of the things they see coming
upon the earth.
Mark my words.
Put it down.
Write it someplace.
Russia will be on the moon.
Russia will not use the moon for scientific
research.
Russia will do exactly what she has said.
Those things which our government already knows.
Russia intends from the moon if she occupies
it to set atomic bombs in the sky
and satellites and operate them from the moon
to the earth and say, You know, about
ten years ago I'd have said Buck Rogers
stuff.
Wouldn't you?
Listen, do you young people know anything about
Buck Rogers?
You don't.
Well, you missed everything.
When I was a boy, Buck Rogers had
everything you see now in his little comic
strips.
He had them getting up to the moon.
He had men from Mars.
He had the moon as a great fortress.
And I used to think, Crazy stuff.
When I got older, I mean.
When I was younger, I didn't think so.
But I want to tell you the secret
files of this government from all that I
have heard from very, very good sources show
that Russia has no benign intention toward the
United States.
And if you don't believe that, then read
Mr. Stalin's and Mr. Lenin's works.
The United States is really hoping it gets
there first.
May I be frank?
And you can rest assured that the first
settlement on the moon will not be playing
games.
The first settlement on the moon will be
creating rocket bases aimed at Mother Earth.
How do I know?
Jesus says, In the last days, perilous times
shall come.
Men's hearts shall fear them for the things,
what?
That are coming, what?
Upon the earth.
Magic.
Did I whet your appetite?
I hope so.
Tremendous things.
Let us pray.
Father, we thank Thee for Thy precious word.
Bless it to our hearts.
We're so thankful we belong to Christ.
And Lord, You've put down well in Your
word about us.
And we want to thank Thee for that.
How precious it is when we read, Lord,
that You have not given us to the
wrath which is to come, that we shall
escape it according to Thy precious word, Lord.
We're thankful it in 1 Thessalonians.
You tell us that.
Ye brethren are not in darkness, that that
day should overtake you as a thief.
Ye are the children of light and the
children of day.
We are not of the night nor of
darkness.
Therefore, let us not sleep as do others,
but let us watch and be sober, for
God hath not appointed us to wrath, but
to salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Oh, what a word.
Seal it to our hearts, Father.
And if in our midst there should be
any who have not yet said yes to
Jesus, Lord, I'm asking that right now in
their hearts they say, Oh, I want Christ
as my Savior.
I want to love Him as my own.
There is a wrath which is coming.
God says so.
Jesus says so.
The Paul says so.
Every disciple says so.
And, Father, we pray that we will take
these things to our hearts and seal them
there, thanking Thee above all else that the
blood of Christ has cleansed us from sin,
and the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven
and take us to Himself before His wrath
is dispelled upon an unbelieving world.
Man has had his time.
Father, he is a failure in government, where
thankful Christ is coming as King of kings
and Lord of lords, and the only high
potentate over all the earth.
And then we're told, And righteousness shall dwell
in all the earth.
Now, Father, seal these things to our hearts
in Christ's name.
Amen.