A Disciple is Distinctive
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, dear?” 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. The Apostle 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. He was awaiting the cold steel of the executioner’s sword on his neck. For him, eternity was just around the corner. So Paul knew something of the urgency of “last days living”.
A lot has been said and written about the last days. The Late Great Planet Earth, a book by Hal Lindsey about the last days, 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 few people are aware of the fact that the Bible says that we have been living in the last days for almost 2,000 years.
When the Bible talks about the last days, it is referring to the period of history that began when Jesus Christ came to earth. Jesus the Messiah ushered in the last days. The countdown clock actually started 2,000 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 2,000 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.
The last days are not some new 20th century phenomenon. The church of Jesus Christ has spent its entire existence in the last days. Every generation of Christians has lived in the last days. So we need to know something about “last days living”, and that’s why God has given us the teaching that we find in 2 Timothy 3.
Now you 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.’
But look down a few verses to verse 5. If the last days were still in the distant future, why did Paul tell Timothy that he should have nothing to do with the people who would be living in the last days? The last days had already arrived when Timothy read this letter, and we are still living in the last days today. It’s later than you think!
The great characteristic of the last days is that there would be a tremendous upsurge of false teaching. Satan’s “last days strategy” is to obscure the Gospel of Jesus Christ with a counterfeit gospel. If he can get people to believe that there is another way to salvation and God and eternal life other than Jesus Christ, he wins.
And so he has spread many counterfeit gospels in the last days—false religious systems; secular humanism; scientific determinism; materialism; various philosophical systems—all of which claim to provide the answers to man’s ultimate questions, but all of which fall short.
That’s why there were false teachers in Timothy’s day and there are false teachers today, because it is the last days. Another characteristic of the last days is that false teaching always leads to false living.
Question: What is more important: what you believe or how you live?
Most people nowadays would answer that question by saying that how you live is more important than what you believe. They would say that it doesn’t really matter what you believe, as long as you live a good life and don’t go around hurting other people.
But the real answer, in fact, is just the opposite. What you believe is far more important than how you live for the simple reason that what you believe determines how you live.
For example, if I believe that there is no God, then I can live however I want because I will think that I am accountable to no higher authority for the choices and decision that I make.
If I am a woman and I believe that this unborn baby that is growing inside my womb is nothing more than a mass of tissue, then I can abort that baby. Because what I believe determines how I live.
False teaching always leads to false living. And Paul shows us that in the last days, people will be engaged in false living. He gives us 19 characteristics of people living in the last days.
1. People will be lovers of themselves
Once upon a time, an author once met a friend and they sat down for a conversation. After about two hours of telling his friend all about himself, the author 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 card-carrying 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.
The fitness craze, the beauty craze, the self-help movement are all expressions of this obsessive pre-occupation with self.
Even the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been twisted around to become the servant of self. Many preachers today are preaching a new gospel—a gospel of self-esteem, a gospel of success, health, and wealth. The main point of this new gospel is that you can get what you want by letting Jesus into your life. Just like putting a coin into a vending machine.
2. People will be lovers of money:
The Bible says that it is not money itself that is evil, it is the love of money that is the root of evil.
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 stewardess replied “Superman don’t need no airplane, either.”
4. People will be proud:
The word means “arrogant and haughty”.
5. People will be abusive:
The word means to speak evil of your fellow man. Have you noticed the trend of our culture in this direction? Top-rated TV shows like Roseanne trade on trash talk and crass humor. Gangsta rap music has almost succeeded in making abusiveness into an art form. There has been a pronounced coarsening of our culture.
Back in the 1930’s, when they made the movie “Gone with the Wind” there was a scandal because Clark Gable uttered a single four-letter word at the end of that film—rather mild by today’s standards.
Nowadays, you can’t get through a PG-rated film—let alone an R-rated film—without hearing dozens of curses and obscenities. There is a direct link between abusive language, abusive attitudes, and abusive behavior.
6. Disobedient to parents:
Kids have always been disobedient to parents. But now they’re beginning to kill their parents. Jeffrey Howarth. The Freeman brothers. The Menendez brothers. A disregard and a disrespect for parental authority is a characteristic of the last days.
7. People will be ungrateful:
This is the attitude that says: “I’ve got it coming to me—the world owes me a living.”
8. People will be unholy:
The word means “unclean” and there is certainly a sense in which our culture has become very accepting of unholiness. For example, you may be interested in knowing that the National Education Association designated October as “Gay and Lesbian History Month”.
Many new TV shows this season, including “The Pursuit of Happiness, The Crew, and Courthouse” feature homosexuals and lesbians in leading roles.
The Walt Disney company will offer full health insurance coverage to the live-in partners of gay and lesbian employees including the partners’ dependent children as of January 1.
Unholiness is a feature of the last days.
9. People will be unloving:
On Saturday, August 19, over 50 people watched a young woman named Doletha Ward jump into the Detroit River after she had been attacked and brutally assaulted by a gang of youths. Some of the watchers even cheered.
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:
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, and smoking amoung young people is on the rise. That’s just one of the addictions that do so much damage to people who have lost their self-control.
People are addicted to alcohol. Addictd to drugs. Addicted to prescription medications. Addicted to gambling. Addicted to pornography. Some are even addicted to food. People are without self-control.
13. Brutal:
Brutality and violence has become so commonplace that legislators are even talking about a microchip that would be built into your TV set that would enable you to filter out shows that are filled with violent content.
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:
Surveys show that over 96% of all Americans profess to believe in God. But where are most of those people on a Sunday morning? One of three places: in bed, on the golf-course, or at a restaurant having brunch. Only one in four of them attend church.
19. Having a form of godliness but denying its power.
Many people today consider themselves to be religious, but their religion makes no significant difference in the way they live their lives. Their religion is just an empty shell.
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. And when we come to verse 5, Paul says to Timothy…
Have nothing to do with them.
Now wait a minute. How is this 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 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.
Once upon a time, there was a little Baptist church which was noted for being quite legalistic and straightlaced. They put up a sign on the front of the church in gold letters that said “Jesus Only”. But one day, a gust of wind came along and blew away the first three letters, so the sign read “Us Only”.
Is that what we’re supposed to do? Are we supposed to separate ourselves from the world to the point where our fellowship becomes Us Only? If it is, then how are non-Christians ever going to learn about Jesus Christ and the gospel?
When Paul says “have nothing to do with them”, he means to set yourself apart from them as they are manifesting these characteristics. The word in Greek literally means “turn away” from them as they are practicing these things. Don’t buy into what they are doing. Don’t participate with them in what they are doing.
In practical terms, that may mean that there are certain TV shows you should not watch. Certain movies that you should deliberately avoid. Certain situations that you should intentionally stay away from. Because if you participate in those things, your values will begin to change; your attitudes and your outlook will begin to be transformed and shaped by the values of the world.
But that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t have anything to do with non-Christians. Look at Jesus—he was the holiest person who ever lived, but he got flack for hanging around with sinners. He didn’t participate in their evil deeds, but he was friends with them.
A disciple of Jesus Christ needs to be distinct; set apart. Not permeated with the values and the characteristics of the world in which we live, but making an impact in that world for the truth.
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 follower 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 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.
The world needs Christians who are not afraid to be different. Will you be one of them?