A Disciple is Set Apart

One day man came home after visiting his doctor. He had just had his annual physical exam. But he had a puzzled expression on his face. His wife noticed, and so she asked him “How did your annual check-up go, honey?” The man said, “Well, good and bad, I guess. The doctor says I can do anything I want, as long as I do it this week.”

You might say that that man was living in his last days ! Today we come to a passage of Scripture that deals with the subject of what it means to be a disciple in the last days. Paul wrote to his young friend Timothy at a time when Paul himself was in his last days. He happened to be in a dungeon in Rome, where he was awaiting the cold steel of the executioner’s sword on his neck. He wrote this final letter of his life, the one we call 2 Timothy, to a young man who needed to know how to be a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. This letter is a manual of discipleship.

Paul began the letter by telling Timothy that a disciple is courageous - he’s not afraid to stand up for the Lord. Then he told him that a disciple is disciplined - he has an inner strength that helps him to keep going even when the going gets tough. That makes a disciple a person of endurance. Then Paul told Timothy that a disciple is pure. Pure in his understanding of doctrine, pure in his choice of friends in the church, pure in his control of his bodily appetites, and pure in his dealings with frustrating people.

Now, in chapter 3, Paul talks about what it means to be a disciple in the last days. A lot has been said and written about the last days. The book The Late Great Planet Earth, by Hal Lindsey, has sold over 5 million copies since it was published in the early seventies. Christians are fascinated by the subject of the last days. They want to know all about the Rapture and the Tribulation Period, the Antichrist and the Mark of the Beast and so forth. But very few of them are aware of the fact that the Bible says that we have been living in the last days for almost 2000 years now.

When the Bible talks about the last days, it is referring to the period of history that began when Jesus Christ came to earth. He ushered in the last days. The last days actually started 2000 years ago.

Hebrews 1:1 In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son

Almost 2000 years ago, the apostle John put an even finer point on it:

1 John 2:18 Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour.

From the very birth of the church, Christians have been living in the last days. And because we are living in the last days, we need to know something about what it means to be a disciple in that perilous time.

Paul tells us all about it in 2 Timothy 3. Now some of you who are especially sharp may be saying, as you look at the first verse of that chapter, “But wait… Paul seems to be saying that the last days are still in the future. Doesn’t he say ‘There will be terrible times in the last days.’

Look down a few verses to verse 5. If the last days are still in the distant future, why does Paul tell Timothy to have nothing to do with the people who will be around then?

Paul lists 19 characteristics of people living in the last days.

1. People will be lovers of themselves

A novelist once met a friend and they sat down for a conversation. After about two hours of telling his friend all about himself, the novelist finally said, “Well, that’s enough about me. Let’s talk about you. Tell me what did you think of my latest book?”

That man was a charter member of the ME generation. People have always been interested in themselves, but never more so, it seems, than today. We are caught up in a culture of narcissism, named for the Greek legend of Narcissus, the man who fell in love with his own image reflected in a pond.

Modern man has become so egocentric that even the gospel of Jesus Christ has been twisted around to become the servant of self. We have famous television preachers writing and sermonizing about a new gospel - the gospel of self-esteem. The main point of this new gospel is that Jesus can make you feel good about yourself. Try Jesus, and he’ll make you a better person. Not much talk about sin and repentance and atonement in the gospel of self-esteem, I’m afraid.

2. People will be lovers of money:

This is so self-evident that we hardly need to talk about it. Let me just comment on the fact that the Bible says that it is not money itself that is evil, it is the love of money that is the root of evil. It is sad, therefore, to see our government increasingly promoting the love of money in the form of state-run lotteries and state-licensed gambling. I believe that such things only encourage the people of our nation to place their hopes and dreams not in the traditional values of hard work and industry and creativity which once made America great, but in the hope of a lucky pick, of a sudden fortune gained without effort.

3. People in the last days will be boastful:

Muhammad Ali was a man not known for his humility. One day, he got on an airplane, and as the plane was preparing to take off, the flight attendant asked him to fasten his seat-belt. Ali said scornfully “Superman don’t need no seat-belt.” The quick-thinking stewardess replied “Superman don’t need no airplane, either.”

4. People will be proud:

5. People will be abusive:

It gratifies me no end to see that the Morton Downey jr. show has been cancelled. That program, perhaps more than any other typified what the Bible means here by the word abusive. A TV critic called it “verbal mud-wrestling”. But in spite of the demise of Downey, we are still surrounded by abusiveness, and it is growing. Listen to the language on the drive-time radio shows some time. Listen to the language of your typical baseball or football or hockey crowd. Listen to the language of the movies you watch. Above all, listen to the language of your kids. As a father, I am shocked at the language I hear casually coming out of the mouths of children aged 8, 9, 10. I don’t find it amusing or appropriate to hear kids talking this way. Where do they get it? They get it at home. They get it on TV and videos and movies and the music they listen to. It is abusive language, and it leads to abusive attitudes and it leads to abusive behavior. And I don’t need to tell you that we’re seeing a lot more of that in our society.

6. Disobedient to parents:

Kids have always been disobedient to parents. It’s just that now they’re beginning to kill their parents.

7. People will be ungrateful:

More and more nowadays, it seems, there is an attitude that the world owes me a living. It comes from a variety of sources - from children who have been coddled and handed everything they ever wanted up to and including a college education, to social welfare programs that encourage people to sit back and take it easy while the benefits roll in. There is an attitude of ingratitude that permeates our society. Most of all, it is demonstrated by the fact that in America today there are more people in restaurants having brunch on Sunday morning than are in church, thanking God for what they have.

8. People will be unholy:

This is something very disturbing going on in our society. It is a trend in which people are increasingly taking that which is sacred and making it profane. In the summer of 1988, we saw the release and promotion of the motion picture “The Last Temptation of Christ”, a blasphemous slander against the character of our Lord. Incidentally, there are more movies of this genre in the works right now. When you look at the multitude of horror movies like Friday the 13th that have become so popular, you have to realize that there is something very evil and sinister going on. Children are being encouraged to find their entertainment in the blood and the violence and the gore of these kinds of movies. Matchbox Toys has just announced that they are producing a new doll - the Freddy Kruger doll. Their marketing department has proclaimed that Freddy Kruger will become the Mickey Mouse of the 1990’s. Think of it - a monstrous, slashing murderer being promoted as a childhood hero. There’s something going on out there.

This trend of unholiness has invaded the music industry as well. We’re seeing more and more images of God and Christianity combined with the occult and with Satanism. Next time you get a chance, check out some of the art work on the records and CD’s that are popular today. There’s something going on out there.

And this reaches even the most innocent areas of life. My dentist, who is a Christian, was telling me that he was looking through one of his son’s catalogs of skateboarding equipment, and he was shocked to find so many images of the occult and Satanism. He saw painted on one skateboard a skull, and inside the skull was the cross. Going through both the skull and the cross was a huge sword.

My own kids, who are into skateboarding in a big way, have been talking about a great skateboarding professional called Natas. When I saw this name written out, I realized that it was Satan spelled backwards. There is something going on out there, and it is unholy.

9. People will be unloving:

There’s a lot that we could say here, but time won’t permit. Just consider the rising tide of divorces, broken homes and children being abused by the parents who are supposed to be loving them.

Our own Bob Colpitts, who works as a paramedic, was one of the first on the scene last week in Brooklyn where a mother was throwing her little children out of the window of her 10th floor apartment.

10. Unforgiving:

Ask yourself why there are so many lawsuits tying our legal system into knots today. It is because people are not willing to accept responsibility for their own actions, and because they are not willing to forgive others when they are wronged.

11. Slanderous

Ever read the tabloids at the supermarket check-out? Or don’t you have an enquiring mind?

12. Without self-control:

People are increasingly losing control of their lives. We are hearing more and more about the scourge of addiction. Addiction to drugs. Addiction to alcohol. Addiction to nicotine. Did you know that 100,000 people in the United States die every year because they’ve become addicted to nicotine? Tobacco is the number one killer of people in our nation. Addiction to prescription medications. Addiction to gambling. Addiction to pornography. It almost seems sometimes that you can’t become a celebrity in sports or the media unless you have had some sort of addiction.

13. Brutal:

Central Park… Howard Beach… Bensonhurst…these names bespeak brutal crimes committed in a world in which brutality is becoming more and more commonplace. Psychologists talk of “wilding” - gangs of youth who go wild and commit the most brutal atrocities without concern for human life.

14. Not lovers of the good.

15. Treacherous

16. Rash, reckless

17. Conceited:

Conceit is the only disease that makes everyone sick except the one that has it.

18. Lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God:

19. Having a form of godliness but denying its power.

Many people today are religious, but their religion makes no significant difference in the way they live their lives.

Recently, a friend of mine told me about having met a certain woman at work who claimed to be a born-again Christian. This woman was quite excited about speaking in tongues and worshiping the Lord. But then one day my friend asked this woman what her plans were for the weekend, and the woman told her that she and her boyfriend were going to a resort hotel in the Poconos. She was looking forward to the heart-shaped bathtub, and the mirrors on the ceiling, etc., etc. Apparently, she didn’t even recognize that if you are a real Christian, you’re not going to do things like that with someone you’re not married to. People have a form of godliness, but they deny its power.

Real godliness isn’t what you do in church on Sundays. It’s whether or not what you learn in church on Sunday makes an impact on the way that you live out there in the world Monday thru Saturday.

Well, Paul has given us quite a list. This is how people will be in the world in which we live, because we are living in the last days.

When we come to verse 5, Paul says to Timothy…

Have nothing to do with them.

Now wait a minute. How is this practically possible? How are we going to live in the world during the last days if we’re to have nothing to do with the people who live all around us? What are we supposed to do? Become hermits?

Some Christians have interpreted it this way. They have tried to remove themselves from the world by forming their own little communities unto themselves. The Amish people of Pennsylvania are an example of this. They are good and honest people, but they have very little contact with people other than themselves, and as far as they’re concerned, the less contact the better. Is that what we’re supposed to do? If so, how are non-Christian people ever going to learn about Jesus Christ and the gospel?

When Paul says “have nothing to do with them”, he means to be set apart from them as they are manifesting these characteristics. At the point where the people of the world are involved in these types of activity, you should have nothing to do with them. The word in Greek literally means “turn away” from them as they do these things. Don’t buy into what they are doing. Don’t participate with them in what they are doing. Above all, don’t sanction what they are doing by standing meekly by while they do it.

2 Corinthians 6:14-17 Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people. Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord.

That clearly doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t talk to non-Christians, or that you shouldn’t befriend them, or that you shouldn’t try to witness to them. It simply means that if you are going to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, you’re going to be different from them. You’re going to be set apart. You’re going to be doing different things from what they are doing, and you’re going to be doing those things not because you’re a Baptist, or a Protestant, or because you’re an evangelical. You’re going to be different because you are taking your marching orders from the Word of God, and the Word of God tells you to march in a different direction from that of the world. As a follower of Jesus Christ, you’re marching to a different drummer.

A disciple of Jesus Christ is a person who is set apart. And that is especially evident because we are living in the last days…