[0:00] Father, we ask that the Holy Spirit would move in our hearts and help us to see and understand ourselves in your word.
[0:13] And we give you thanks and praise, Father, that your word speaks the truth about us, not a truth that is brutal, that destroys us or diminishes us or hurts us, but a truth, Father, that is always for our good to lead us to a truer and deeper knowledge of Jesus and what he did for us on the cross, a truer and deeper knowledge, Father, of your great love for us and a truer and deeper knowledge of ourselves and others.
[0:40] So, Father, we ask that your Holy Spirit would do that wonderful, gentle and powerful work in our lives this morning. And we ask this in the precious name of Jesus. Amen. Is this sit down, please? Is this working right?
[0:52] It seems like it's good. Okay, then not only am I nose running, but my ears aren't working right. That's not a very good sign. There's about a year and a half ago, I don't know, maybe it's a, I've lost track of time.
[1:09] You know, it's COVID makes it hard to figure out how long ago anything was. I don't know for you folks, it's just pre-COVID seems like a hundred million years ago to me.
[1:19] It's hard to imagine there was, but I was just watching ER is on Netflix. And it's just shocking to see what the doctors do with masks or don't do with masks.
[1:30] It's like, whoa, what? That actually used to happen before COVID? Anyway, so there was a big scandal that rocked the Christian church, I don't know, about a year and a half ago or so.
[1:40] And it was a very, very hard revelation, series of revelations about Ravi Zacharias. And many of you are probably familiar with it. Ravi was a best-selling author, a Christian apologist, started a large organization that helped to defend and describe the Christian faith.
[1:59] And then there had been some allegations just before he died, but they sort of seemed to be dealt with. But then after he died, more and more revelations came out. And it turned out that he had been a sexual predator for a long time.
[2:12] Like just actually a terrible sexual predator. And if he had not died before these revelations come out, he would definitely have been fired. And he might very well have been in jail.
[2:24] And it was a very, very hard thing for a lot of people to get their mind around. And for some people, it weakened their faith in Christ. I was just talking this week with somebody who was describing one of their friends who was part of a church where some sexual things had been going on.
[2:41] And in this particular case, it was with teenage boys, younger, like 12 to 15-year-old teenage boys that had gone on and what happened. And it just led their friends to basically lose their Christian faith over such a terrible thing to have been revealed.
[3:01] I mean, it's interestingly enough, there's a part of the, what we're going to look at today actually speaks very directly to this problem. In fact, it's one of the things which is very interesting about it.
[3:14] It really struck me this week. There's a part of the text that we're about to look at today that for many, many years, when I would teach this in a Bible study, there would be a range of people who wouldn't like the text because they thought it was misogynistic, that it was sort of sexist.
[3:29] It was a problem for them. But as I was reading and studying this text this week in light of things like the Ravi Zacharias scandal and other scandals that have gone on in churches, and not only in churches, of course, right, in Hollywood, in government, in the media, in, you know, different swamis and yogis and all that.
[3:50] It's been a big scandal. But in the Christian church, it's been a scandal. And I realized that this was actually a very, very powerful thing that the text speaks into this situation. And in fact, just to give you a bit of a teaser, I think as we grasp what the Bible is going to be saying to us this morning, it will help us to realize that we shouldn't lose our faith over revelations about things like Ravi Zacharias.
[4:16] And I'll tell you why. I don't know how many of you are vaccinated. And one of the things, by the way, that we can do is there is so much division and divisiveness and anger is rising in our culture at an exponential rate.
[4:32] And we need to really, as a church, start to try to pray into that, that there can be actually, that people can have civil conversations and just disagree over this without going nuclear and everything.
[4:46] But anyway, for those of us who are baptized, for those of us who are vaccinated, I mean, we took the vaccines because of the promise that it would protect us from COVID, that it would protect us probably from death, that it would be something very good for our life.
[5:06] And if five years or two years down the road, it turns out that half of the people who got vaccinated developed cancer, well, we would be very mad.
[5:18] I mean, I'm putting it mildly. We would be absolutely furious. Why? Because the promise and prediction is one thing, but the outcome is completely different.
[5:30] And so we're angry. And one of the things which is very interesting about this biblical text, concealed within a part that many people, when they look at it from a different context, find maybe insulting to women, that rather than that, it's actually a very, very profound warning about the human condition.
[5:46] And in fact, a precise warning about the perennial problem of predators. So in other words, it's as if it isn't as if God said, listen, believe the gospel and follow Jesus and none of this stuff will happen.
[5:58] And it's, no, no, listen, this is going to be a constant problem. You know, Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, Church of the Messiah, this is going to be a constant problem.
[6:08] So you have to deal with it. So let's look at the text. So if you'd like to turn your Bibles to 2 Timothy chapter 3, verse 1. If you're a guest this morning coming on, we preach through books of the Bible.
[6:20] And so this is where we are in the book of 2 Timothy. And 2 Timothy chapter 3, verses 1 to 9. And it goes like this. But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty.
[6:34] Now, we're going to stop and pause there for a second. But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. Now, if you're here as a guest and you haven't traveled and hung out with Christians for very long, or if you're watching us online and you haven't hung out with Christians for very long, or maybe you have hung out with Christians and you're in recovery and checking us out to see if maybe there is, after being really burned by types of Christianity in churches, that maybe there is something in this Jesus thing.
[7:05] I mean, just by the way, the biggest barrier for me becoming a Christian was the church, which I try to remember as a pastor. And I'm not saying that we do everything perfect, but that was part of my background that was a hard thing to get over.
[7:20] But it's very interesting here that it says, In the last days there will become times of difficulty. And difficulty is a good word for the original language.
[7:32] But don't think of difficulty as the difficulty that you have because you go to your coffee shop and you have to wait 90 seconds longer because the person ahead of you is confused.
[7:45] And you think, gosh, this is difficult. Okay, that's what's called a first world problem. Take a chill pill and, you know, pray for the person.
[7:55] Like, do something productive with your time. Like, what it's describing here is deep difficulty. Like, really serious difficulties. That's the way you have to understand that word.
[8:06] But here's the significance. If you travel with Christians, they'll often talk, Oh, this person's going through a very, very hard time. And what will Christians, many Christians often say, Oh, they're obviously going through a time of attack.
[8:18] The Bible here says that's wrong. If you could put up my first point, Life will always be difficult. Aren't you glad you came to church? I get to tell you that life will always be difficult.
[8:34] It's not necessarily a time of special attack. It's called normal life. Life will always be difficult. So following Jesus and learning from him as you walk with him is wise.
[8:50] Life will always be difficult. I mean, that's a... It's actually very interesting for a moment. Why is it that we don't like hearing that?
[9:03] Like, what does it tell us... What does it tell you about yourself that you don't like hearing that? You know, the fact of the matter is that we live in a culture that's been very, very, very deeply formed by this idea that if you manage techniques, if you manage science, if you have a proper way of managing organizations and governments, and if you read this self-help book, in self-help books, or different self-help gurus or coaches, they're going to teach you these different steps, and if you follow these steps, then your marriage will be easier, your job search will be easier, your finances will be easier, your health will be easier, and on and on and on.
[9:47] And we have this basic acceptance of the idea that life should be easy. And Christians easily fall into it if you just have this experience of the Holy Spirit, if you have this breakthrough in your life, if you have this Bible study technique, if you are part of this church, if you listen to this celebrity pastor tell you the steps for dealing with anxiety or this or that, then life will be easy.
[10:11] It's as if that's normal life. And when it's not easy, there's something wrong with you. Or something wrong with your boss or something wrong with your wife or something wrong with your kids or something wrong anywhere else.
[10:26] But we have this deep addiction to a myth that life is going to natural life is easy. And if it's not easy, dang it, it's the school board's fault or the union's fault or Trump's fault or Biden's fault or Trudeau's fault or Toul's fault or fill in the blank.
[10:45] The Bible says life is difficult. Why am I saying that? Because, you see, the last days began when Jesus rose from the dead. It's not talking about some special time of season that happens the week or the month or the year or seven years or three and a half years before Jesus returns.
[11:06] It's talking about what happened. We live in the last days right now. And it's very important that the Bible puts it in terms of the last days, you see, because the last days has a very, very powerful pull on our imagination.
[11:20] That, you know, the last days will either be when the back when I was a kid, there was a very popular song. This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius. As if we were dawning the age where there would be peace and there would be love and there would be harmony and all of that type of stuff.
[11:38] You know, there's intellectuals who talk about, there was an important intellectual that talked about how with the collapse of the Soviet Union, we'd reach the end of history. And on the other hand, the end of the days can also be something that gives you license to do whatever you want.
[11:52] The world is about to come to an end. The comet's about to come. We just do whatever. We murder, rape, pillage, because it's all going to end. And no, no, the Bible is saying we are in the last days. And the last days means that your life's going to often be very difficult.
[12:08] And then the Bible goes immediately into describing part of the reason why life is difficult. And part of the reason life is difficult, you're going to be really glad you came to church this Sunday.
[12:20] Part of the reason, you want to find out part of the reason why your life is difficult, the Bible says, look in a mirror. And it doesn't mean look in a mirror to see what's behind you.
[12:32] Look in a mirror to see what's around the corner. Look in a mirror to see yourself. And what the Bible is about to do now is to actually begin to describe the human condition.
[12:43] So what does it do? Let's look. Verses 2 to 5. What I'm going to do is I'm going to read through the list. And then we're going to sort of just think about the list a little bit. And then we're going to look at it in a little tiny bit of detail so that some of the points are brought home to you.
[12:55] But listen to what it says. So I'll read verse 1 again. But understand this, that in the last days there will become times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness but denying its power.
[13:48] Avoid such people. Actually, literally it says cut them off. Now that's quite a list. And almost all child-raising books that are published in the secular and even much of the Christian world says this isn't true.
[14:12] I was just talking to somebody who'd been observing some child-care-raising practices and at the heart of those child-care-raising practices is fundamentally the idea that this isn't what human beings are like, that human beings, their children are fundamentally good.
[14:33] And they were following techniques to try to deal with children that assumes that children are fundamentally good. It's part of a lot of educational curriculum at an undergirding level that children and others are natural learners.
[14:51] It doesn't entertain the idea that, naturally speaking, kids might spend six hours looking at TikTok or playing video games and never actually wanting to master mathematics or physics.
[15:06] That they'd much rather read a silly, easy book than to be stretched by a book. This is a very, very hard list. If you could put up the point, that would be very helpful.
[15:17] The Word of God brings you the bad news that the human condition is bent and disordered. So life is difficult. In other words, life is difficult not just because you age, not just because you don't always get that promotion, you don't always get the marriage, you don't always get the children, you don't always get that friendship, you don't always get the house, you don't always get these things.
[15:44] It's hard and difficult because you live with people that are at least partly described by some of the things on this list, and life is difficult because you were partially described in this list.
[15:56] Some of you know me reasonably well. And you could probably pick different things where you could see that this is a weakness in my life.
[16:08] You would look at this list and say, I can see George. I could see how George would be tempted. I could see how George has sometimes been a little bit like this and a little bit like this and a little bit like this.
[16:21] And my only hope is that if you ever reveal it to me, you do it in a way that's not brutal. Because if you do it in a way that's brutal, you're in the list too. You see, this isn't just describing the world, it's describing the world that includes those who come to church.
[16:35] It's describing Christians as well as non-Christians. Now, this is a very, very interesting list, you see, because it's not saying that human beings are all completely and utterly bad.
[16:51] And it's not saying that human beings are by very, very nature good. And if you just have the right religion or the right educational system or the right form of government, or if you're a part of the right group, that this won't be characteristic of you.
[17:05] It's far more nuanced. And by the way, this is a very persistent problem. You see, the heart of critical theory, which is like, in a sense, there's sort of several different things that go on in how people think and talk in the media and in educational institutions.
[17:19] And part of it is this sort of a deep belief still that there is something about people being fundamentally good. But it's sort of mixed up a little bit with critical theory, which is sort of the grandchild of Marxism, which divides the world into classes.
[17:34] And when you divide the world in classes in classic Marxism, I mean, it doesn't really say that there's something wrong with the proletariat, but there is something wrong with the owner class. And critical theory has taken that and developed it.
[17:46] So it might just be that if you're a white male like me, then of course I'm going to be most of these things in the list. But if you're some victim class, that there's something about them in that victim class that they don't lie, they don't lie.
[18:01] Well, one moment, the Bible says that's not true. This list describes everybody. And just apart from a type of learned blindness, we see it all the time.
[18:17] And so you see, here's what the Bible is saying. It's not that we're all bad or all good. Like, take the idea of overcome with conceit. Well, what's conceit? Conceit, and this describes nobody in the room, okay?
[18:28] Conceit is actually having too high opinion of your own ideas. There's nobody here who never remembers the time they made a prediction that it was wrong.
[18:39] But they remember all the times they made a prediction that it was right. There's never been a time, any of us, where we've made a proposal for a way to move forward, and later events would show that if it had been followed, that it would have been disastrous.
[18:54] But we do remember the times we made proposals where because it wasn't followed, there was disaster. There's nobody here who thinks that they're sort of always right, or that they're always the smartest person in the room, or they're always the wisest person in the room.
[19:06] There's nobody here that describes that. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Isn't that ridiculous? Some of us are squirming, and others are saying, I sure wish my best friend was here to hear this, or I really wish, I hope my husband is paying attention to what George just described.
[19:24] But you see, what's the problem with that? The Bible doesn't say that you never have good ideas. The Bible doesn't say you never have good proposals, that there's just something completely dirty and wrong about you.
[19:38] The Bible doesn't say that. The Bible says the problem isn't that you never have good ideas, is that there's something disordered in you, and you're conceited.
[19:48] You don't recognize that sometimes you're just wrong, and you don't acknowledge it. Right? You see, the Bible here is very subtle.
[19:59] That's why it says that the human problem, there's something bent and disordered about human beings, and that that's the human condition. The human condition isn't that we have, as Buddhism says, that we have desire, and we have to kill desire, and get rid of that through different techniques, so that we will no longer have problems.
[20:18] It doesn't say that the failure is because we don't understand that all things are one. The Bible isn't saying it's because we're part of the wrong class, or the wrong group, or that we haven't had the right education. It's just saying this is the human condition, and we have to deal with it.
[20:32] But let's go through the list. We have a few minutes. Let's just go through the list again, and just look at it, about what it actually says. For people will be lovers of self. The Bible isn't here saying that you should never have a positive regard for yourself.
[20:45] But what it is saying is this, that your concern for yourself, and your desiring the best things for yourself, is very easily disordered.
[20:58] You see, here's the problem. Most of us want love. But if you are too much in love with yourself, it will be impossible for you to love another person.
[21:12] Why is that? Well, you see, because partly what's loving another person, is forgetting yourself for a moment, is to say to yourself, you know, gosh, you know, whatever it is, my wife, you know, my kid, gosh, they're a cute kid.
[21:30] You know, gosh, they did a really good job with that. You know, gosh, my wife is, that was a really kind thing she did. Gosh, she's beautiful. But if every time you have an interaction with a person, all you're thinking about is, does my hair look good?
[21:45] Like, am I coming across right? Like, and all you're doing is thinking about yourself, then it's hard to notice the other person. It's hard to actually love the other person.
[21:56] So the problem isn't that you just so love the other person that you forget about yourself. The problem is that your love is disordered. You've got them out of, it's in the wrong order.
[22:07] Oops. Good thing that was closed. And then look at the second one here. So that was the first one. Lovers of self, lovers of money. The Bible isn't here saying, I was talking to a business person the other day in one of my favorite coffee shops.
[22:21] And I said to him, you know, the Christian ideal, because he obviously likes to make money. And I said, you know, the Bible doesn't say you shouldn't be making money. He provides employment for a lot of people. And my guess is he's a really good boss.
[22:33] I'd probably easily have one of my grandkids or kids or recommend one of you to work for him. I think he looks like he's a very conscientious boss, cares about his employees, probably pays them as fair as he can.
[22:44] And I said, you know, the Christian ideal isn't like you see often in Hinduism or Buddhism, where you have an emaciated person living an isolated life. And that somehow is the pinnacle of the human life.
[22:58] Christians believe in feasts. You know, the Sabbath is not just a day of rest. It's a day that you should feast and that you should share the food with other people if you can, if it's a non-COVID world.
[23:12] Have people over. Remember, bring out the pumpkin pie. Add lots of whipped cream. Bring out the best wine if you're not an alcoholic. And if you're an alcoholic, well, bring out the best Coke.
[23:23] Don't get the no-name stuff. Buy it. Get the real stuff. You know, give them the full experience. Like, it's not, and I said, you know, I mean, the Christian wisdom would be, like a very one is, you know, earn as much as you can and give as much as you can because if money starts to control your life, your life is just going to be miserable.
[23:42] So, you know, a very standard piece of advice is, you know, live on 80% of, you know, give 10% of your money away for the good of people and the furtherance of the gospel. Save 10% because that's a wise thing for the future.
[23:54] And with the other 80%, have fun. You sort of looked at me, what Christians would say, you can have fun. Yeah, have fun.
[24:05] Like, if you can afford an expensive car, afford an expensive car. See, part of the way you deal with money having control of your life is giving it away. Just giving it away.
[24:17] And by the way, if you're watching this or if you're here and you don't come to the church, we don't want you to put any money in the plate, okay? If you're not with Jesus, we don't want you to give us any money. I don't say that so you give us money. But for Christians, you have to wonder, you know, is money running your life?
[24:33] We can see how money runs other people's lives and it ruins them, but does money run your own life? Well, you only actually experience that if you try to give the money away. Let's look at the rest of the list.
[24:45] Sort of proud, obvious, arrogant, abusive. Abusive is here, meant not just physically abusive, but abusive with your tongue. Being like a bull in a tea shop, being just very, very domineering in meetings or groups or your family.
[25:05] Disobedient to their parents. We'll talk a whole type of thing about this, but it's just for children who are still under their parents that there is a... Okay.
[25:18] I'm not telling you to get a vaccine necessarily. I'm trying to stay out of that whole debate. I just want things to be divisive. But I do know that some people don't want to get a vaccine not because they have good medical reasons, and I know people who have valid, valid concerns about it, but there's something like the government telling them what to do.
[25:37] Okay, time out. That's not a good reason. That's just not a good reason. I'm sorry.
[25:50] I have all the time in the world for people I have other concerns about. I really do. And I just was suggesting to somebody at the end of the 8 o'clock service, I said, because they sent an email about my latest blog, which I wrote yesterday about whether vaccinations against COVID-19 are a mark of the beast.
[26:05] And I said to them, you know what would be really wonderful? I'd love it if I could get, there's a wide range of views on this in this congregation. Wouldn't it be good? Would you be willing to be part of this, to have 12 people from the congregation to represent the whole range of things and we'll get together, we'll all share Coke and have something to eat and just see if we can have a civil conversation about this and try to hear how other people think?
[26:28] Like that could be, I mean if we could actually manage that, we should probably put it on YouTube and try to get it promoted because there doesn't seem to be anywhere where people have civil conversations about this thing.
[26:39] I'm getting off of my sermon topic. It just began with that one thing of, I know there's valid reasons to take it and I'm double vaccinated and I understand those who have other concerns but just because the government tells you to do it is a reason not to do it.
[26:53] That's not a biblical reason. Sorry, it's not. Ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable is an interesting one.
[27:09] The actual word is, the opposite to unappeasable is a treaty person. A person who's willing to get into a treaty. A person who's willing to say, okay, we've made these claims, they're wrong, we're willing to set them aside.
[27:22] Okay, we acknowledge that we've done these things and we need to stop them and you'll stop them and being able to enter into a treaty with a person where it's not just a treaty because you've just completely and utterly annihilated them and while you have your knee on their back and a gun to their head they have to sign something but one where you actually have a treaty and you acknowledge problems on both sides and things you have to give up to have a treaty.
[27:45] The opposite of that is the word here. A person who never enters into a treaty. Never acknowledges that they're wrong. Never gives an inch. Everything is somebody else's fault.
[27:56] I have to get my way. That's what this is describing. Where am I here? Slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.
[28:15] Once again, the Bible isn't saying that you shouldn't go home and get that pumpkin pie from Costco and add a whole pile of whipped cream and just enjoy it today. We're not world denying.
[28:28] But if pleasure starts to rule your life rather than God, it means you'll never pick up and cross and follow Him. You'll never be generous. You'll never show compassion to people.
[28:42] If your pleasure ends up being what rules you, you'll never do these things which are just good and just so needed for the social order and having the appearance of godliness but denying its power avoid such people.
[28:55] So, you know, just to go back, the Word of God brings you the bad news that the human condition is bent and disordered and so life is difficult.
[29:07] But the Bible doesn't tell us this just to depress us. See, the thing which is so powerful about the Bible, well, here, before we get to it, let's just look at the type of thing that happens.
[29:24] There's another concern that Paul has with Timothy that's, you see, what all, actually, what we'll do, it's not going to be in, you can't look at it on the screen. This is part of chapter 3 and chapter 3 culminates with this very, very, very powerful phrase.
[29:40] If you have your Bibles with you, you won't have it on the screen, I should have had it up here, but if you look at verses 15 and 16 and 17, all of this bad news is setting up the stage for us to appreciate verses 15, 16, and 17, and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, that's the Bible, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
[30:05] All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God or the woman of God may be complete, equipped, for every good work.
[30:21] And so the Bible is giving us this bad news to make us understand why we need the good news, that we need a mirror that actually shows us who we are. But the Bible doesn't confront us with these things about ourselves so that we despair.
[30:34] The Bible's not being brutal. The Bible's getting us to realize, I need a Savior. I need wisdom. I need insight. And I need wisdom and insight that isn't bent and disordered.
[30:47] I need something that comes ultimately from outside this world condition that ultimately comes from God. Like, I need this. That if one or more of these things, the 19 things, describe me, then how can I ever fix myself?
[31:00] How can I leave myself to save myself? How can I leave myself to fix myself? I can't leave myself to do this. I need a Savior. Like, either this is condemning me to a life where there's never any point in trying to repent or change or anything like that.
[31:17] This is trying to communicate why the good news which has been described in chapter 1 and 2 and will be later on in chapter 3 and later on in chapter 4, why it's good news. Let's look at verses 6 to 9.
[31:37] For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions. always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.
[31:50] So, what the text is saying here when it says from among them, what it's basically saying is that, actually it's a bit out of order, Claire, could you just put up my third point right now? Denying the truth of the human condition creates fertile soil for predators to prey on the weak and the vulnerable.
[32:10] Denying the truth of the human condition creates fertile soil for predators to prey on the weak and the vulnerable. That's what it's saying, that out of these things in the human condition.
[32:21] So, what Paul is saying to Timothy, what he's saying to us as a church is you need to preach about the human condition. You need to preach about the human condition in the context of grace. And you need to organize around the human condition.
[32:33] Not that your mind is never going to be right, but that there's a possibility that you can fall too much in love with your mind. Not that you're always going to have wrong plans, but that you can forget the times you were wrong. And you need to remember these things.
[32:44] You need the Bible to help to bring this to some type of a clarity. And you need to be able to have a Savior that you can walk with it. You can call out to Him and say, Jesus, I really need you to be my Savior and I really need you to be my Lord because my relationship with alcohol, my relationship with money, my relationship with myself, my relationship with power, my relationship with others is out of order.
[33:07] And I can't just white-knuckle at Jesus. I have, Jesus, you need to be that higher power. You need to be that one who can bring the order in my life that I can't create myself and I need to be constantly reminded of it and I need to be part of a community, a church, that will remind me of it and will show grace and will speak to me in a way which is not brutal and will tell me about Jesus and that will teach in such a way that will not just, we don't want, I don't want to be a predator.
[33:37] I don't want to have predators. We need to protect the weak and the vulnerable. But out of that teaching which ignores the human condition creates a fertile soil for predators to prey on the weak and the vulnerable.
[33:52] See, what, if you know, any of you have met anybody who's a bit of a predator, predators have a sixth sense of picking out, like I'm talking about men who pick on women, they have a sixth sense about who's weak.
[34:07] They'll go into a room or they'll be part of a group or a church for a little while and they can just tell the women who will just, in a sense, in a way that's, you know, Jesus loves you but give them the finger and put them in their place and they can tell the women who will be completely and utterly, well, they're weak and vulnerable.
[34:25] Predators have a sixth sense. And part of the issue with the Ravi Zacharias thing wasn't that they as an organization never believed in the fall but they didn't believe that Ravi was fallen.
[34:43] They thought everybody in the world was fallen except Ravi so they didn't have normal checks and balances on how he spent his money. They'd believe him when they'd say that he could be paying for women to travel with him and masseuses to travel with him but somehow he was never in a room alone with them and they'd believe it because they just thought as if Ravi wasn't fallen.
[35:13] And part of the whole Me Too movement developed very specifically out of the sexual revolution and the naturalness of sexual desires and this belief that somehow using sexual desires or somehow natural and right and good yet to have such a type of ideology and such a type of teaching is fertile soil for sexual predators to be sexual predators.
[35:37] The Bible here isn't describing that all women are weak it's describing the fact that if you don't deal with the human condition and preach against it and you turn a blind eye to normal types of discipline and normal types of things to try to prevent it that sexual predators will flourish.
[35:53] it's also saying that if when you hear about an act of sexual predation or any other type of predatory behavior and if you don't discipline it it will continue. Like you can't stop it from happening because that's part of the human condition but you definitely will encourage it to happen if you talk as if there's certain people where there's something about the human condition which is just natural and good and that there's nothing evil about it there's nothing bent or disordered about it and if you just talk like that then you'll turn a blind eye to stuff and it also makes it harder to discipline it when it happens and the Bible here is basically saying to Timothy because he's going to be talking to Timothy and if you look at 1 Timothy as well which talked about you deal with it Timothy like preach against it and you deal with it you set up things and you deal with it because the weak and the vulnerable matter to God the weak and the vulnerable matter to God and if they matter to God they should matter to Christians and they should matter to the church some of you know that I had a role in putting somebody who had sexually abused young girls into jail
[36:59] I had a role in that and it was a family member caused great division in my family and you would not believe how many godly Baptists and others wrote me and phoned me and told me that what I was doing was wrong and they wrote me and told me that I should be concerned about the family and the reputation rather than the victims and I can also tell you I will not name them one of these people as a social justice champion in Canada folks if this happens in the church the last thing we should concern about is the reputation of church and the Messiah what we should be concerned about is the weak and the vulnerable and that shouldn't even be something that we have to think about we shouldn't even have to say we have to pray about that just to wrap us up the time story when you understand the bad news you understand your need for the good news when you understand the bad news you understand your need for the good news you see here's the wonderful news about the good news for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son to the end that anyone who believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life when it says perish what does that mean means God knows that those 19 vices in 2nd Timothy describe me and even though that God knew that those 19 vices describe me still Jesus died on the cross for me and he died on the cross for me knowing every single one of them he knows the times
[38:46] I've been brutal to my wife and to my kids he knows the ways that I've damaged my marriage or my family by being a lover of myself rather than a lover of my wife for my kids he knows all that and he died for me and he died for you and I don't know how you can have a moral self-examination if you want to if you're going to be constantly thinking that you need to justify yourself and manage your appearances I don't know how you manage it I know people do and God loved them that they do that's common grace but let me tell you as grace grips you as you understand more fully that for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son to the end that all who believe in him will not perish but have eternal life when you understand that he knew we were perishing and he knew why we were perishing and still he loved us and came and died for us and that in a sense no sin in my life will ever surprise Jesus who died for me and my standing before God my justification before God is not that he weighed my merits but that he pardoned my offenses and it's not that I was able to get a great score in ethics and a great score in theology but I am covered by the blood of Christ and that's my justification and that becomes a stance as that becomes more real and deep to my heart that I can say you know what
[40:08] I can be really ungentle with my tongue I can be like this I can be like that and I can call out to Jesus and thank him for dying for me and I can say Lord Jesus help me to be better help me to be more like Christ help me to be less a lover of myself and more a lover of you help me to be less a lover of money and more a lover of you and what the money that you've entrusted to me for a while could do for the furtherance of the kingdom and the relief of the poor and bringing glory to you see that's why knowing the bad news helps you appreciate the good news and one final thing just as you all stand the challenge here is to teach the Bible and discipline biblically to help people thrive in Christ and to protect the weak and the vulnerable that's why this section is here teach the Bible and discipline biblically why?
[41:09] to help people thrive in Christ and to protect the weak and the vulnerable please stand just bow our heads in prayer Father we confess that it it's we really like it when the Bible speaks about other people it can be hard when it speaks about ourselves but Father we thank you that you press through that that your Bible speaks to us and that as the Holy Spirit has a deeper role in our lives the Holy Spirit will bring the Bible to see how it's describing us describing me describing our church and so Father we thank you that you confront to connect and you confront and you connect so that we know our need for a Savior and your great grace and Father we give you thanks and praise that when we've accepted
[42:12] Jesus as our Savior and Lord that we can repent with hope we can repent Father knowing that even if we're going to fall a hundred times more over the next couple of years but that every time we can repent that we don't have to make a treaty with evil we can make treaty with others for the good of the kingdom and out of love and being self-effacing but we don't make treaties with evil we don't make treaties with hurting the weak and the vulnerable and that Father as the Bible grips us so we can look at ourselves we can repent in the hope that the final word about us will not be bent and disordered but made new in Christ filled with the Holy Spirit and that we can have some victory over these sins on this side of the grave that we can pick up our cross and follow Jesus and become more like him Father help us to know the bad news so that we will love the good news and that we can repent and amend our lives with hope and we ask this in the precious name of Jesus and all God's people said
[43:18] Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen