Transcribed by Beluga AI.
Better. Ron can hear me. If Ron can hear me, then we’re doing well. Can we turn on the… Yes. Great.
Well, welcome everybody. It’s great to see you here. It’s good to see Joohyuk’s family, Joseph and Esther. And Lydia was sick in the back, but she’s here. It’s good to see you.
I think we also have a newcomer. Would you like to introduce yourself? Yes, a lot of last names. Thank you. Welcome, welcome. Great, great. That’s good to see.
Kaylin. All right. I’m gonna see if this allows me to move around a little bit. I’m still a little shy. I’m not sure if I’m that kind of a preacher, but we’ll see.
2 Timothy. Let’s turn there. 2 Timothy 3:1.
1 But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. 2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, 4 treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. (2 Timothy 3:1-5, ESV)
Okay, let’s pray.
Lord, we want to locate where we are in salvation history. As we await the return of Christ, we also want to evaluate where we are individually with you. And so, Lord, we pray that you would speak. Holy Spirit, soften hearts, open up eyes and ears, and we exercise our own free will and we open up our own hearts.
Lord Jesus, please meet us where we are. May your kindness lead us to repentance. Thank you, Lord. Be with us in this time. In Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.
Let’s evaluate where we are in salvation history. Of course, in a general sense, we are in the end times. We’ve been in the end times ever since Christ died, was resurrected, and ascended. So it’s been 2000 plus years that we have been in the end time era.
But as we approach the return of Christ now, I think we’re entering into the last days that Paul is speaking about in his final letter to his spiritual disciple, younger brother, named Timothy.
And Jesus Himself tells us about the end times. In Matthew 10, we read about, shockingly, brothers delivering their own brother to death and fathers the same to his child, and children rising up against parents, putting them to death.
21 Brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death, (Matthew 10:21, ESV)
We think, could this ever happen? Could a family hate one another to this level, to betray and to want them dead? Well, if you haven’t been under a rock, it seems like we’ve entered into such a time.
It’s been a growing sense for me for the last 10 years or so that I’m seeing anger—man versus his fellow man—ratcheting up one degree, two degrees at a time, ratcheting up this type of hatred for others.
And when I was praying as we were turning into this new decade, 2020, again the Holy Spirit told me, “This is going to be a difficult decade.” And sure enough, five years in, it’s been a difficult decade. And if I were just to sum it up, I see the fulfillment of what Jesus warned us in Matthew 10.
Right now, just by your political position, people want you dead. Never thought it was possible when I was growing up in this country, but now, if you say the wrong thing, not only will they cancel you, they will kill you. It’s not enough to just lose a job, they want to silence you forever. That’s the kind of hatred that I see in this world. And it’s infiltrating even into families. Families no longer want to meet for Thanksgiving because they’ve said things and they’ve debated, and it was not a civil debate. It was a nuclear meltdown in the family the last time they gathered. And we think it’s impossible that it can get to this, what Jesus says in Matthew 10. But we’re seeing the hatred that’s right on the doorstep.
And Jesus warns us in Matthew 10:16, in light of this rising hatred in this world, he says,
16 “Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. (Matthew 10:16, ESV)
You know, serpents are very good at sensing predators. That’s why Jesus uses serpents. They know when danger is lurking, and they can just—they have their… whether it’s the tail or something, they just know without even seeing the predator. They know danger is around them, and they probably perk up, and they, they coil themselves, either hiding or ready to, to defend or to attack.
And Jesus uses that imagery, saying we need to be wise as serpents. Saying this thing in today’s climate, is it going to be wise for me to say, or am I attracting undue hatred and attack? For me, I never want to come face to face with the Lord and He says, “Why are you here so soon? You didn’t finish the race that I assigned to you because you spoke up and you didn’t sense the danger, and you got taken out before it was your time.” I never want to see the Lord and hear those kinds of comments. I want Him to say, “Well done.” As Apostle Paul says, “I finished my race. I’m here exactly the time I’m supposed to be here, not a second sooner.”
And so we’re being sent out in the midst of wolves as sheep, and we need wisdom. We need to sense danger and refrain from speaking in many cases. That’s in Matthew 10.
In Matthew 24, it’s a little more serious. It says in verse 9, it says,
9 “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. 10 And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. 11 And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. 12 And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. (Matthew 24:9-12, ESV)
So first we evaluate where we are in salvation history. I think we’ve entered into this period called the last days. And then we want to evaluate where we are individually with the Lord. Is your love for Jesus growing cold? When I say you need to love Jesus, is that foreign to you? Maybe you’ve never loved Jesus, and so you think, “Well, why do I have to love Jesus? Isn’t it enough that I come to church and I’m serving at the church, and people at the church think I’m great? Isn’t that enough?” And maybe it’s so foreign to you that, “What do you mean I need to love Jesus? I believe in Him.”
If you meet Him, you will love Him. If you meet Him, you will love Him. If you’ve never met Him, what I just said will go right over your head. If you meet Him, even at one time, if you’ve met Him, you will love Him. Because He’s the most beautiful person you’ve ever seen, the most gentle, kind person, that if you met Him once, you will want to run to Him whenever you’re in trouble.
And you notice that as the hatred of this world grows and lawlessness grows, why does it lead to the love of many who love Jesus to grow cold? It’s because as hatred grows, fear rises. And when fear rises, love diminishes. As hatred rises, we also… I find in myself battling this hatred because what people are saying are so wrong, what people are doing is so evil.
And when you see it, don’t you feel a sense that you want to say something? They should not do this. They should not say this. You want to put them in their place. You want to proclaim truth to them. They are so ignorant, they’re so brutal, they’re so treacherous, they’re so evil. And as we see anger rising all around us, don’t you see anger in your own heart rising? I see it in mine. And when anger rises, the temperature of your heart rises. In terms of your love for Jesus, it grows colder.
I think that’s what he’s saying here. We must fight against hatred to get lodged in our heart. We must fight it, fight against it. You must not allow that hatred that you see all around you to start seeping into your heart. You must fight against it. You must pray it out, you must repent and just cast it out of your life. You can’t let it seep in. If it seeps in, the temperature of hatred rises. It is a hatred. You’re getting hotter and hotter, angrier and angrier, and your love for Jesus correspondingly is getting colder and colder.
That’s why it says in James 3:9-10. He’s talking about the tongue.
9 With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. 10 From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. (James 3:9-10, ESV)
So look back on this past week and what came out of your mouth. As you thought about conversations that you had with your loved ones, that bothered you. As you thought about what you’re seeing on social media, on the news, that bothered you, did you bless people or did you curse them, murmur against them, complain against them?
They’re made in the likeness of God, and from the same mouth come blessing. We bless the Lord. We curse one another. It should not be so.
We need to get rid of all the cursing that comes from a heart that hates people. That’s so normalized now. Everybody’s like that. But for the believer, we fight to hold on to our love for Jesus, fight to hold on to it. Push back the hatred, get it out of your heart. It can’t stay there. It cannot stay there. Otherwise, your love for Jesus will grow cold.
2 Timothy 3:1. “But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty for people who will be lovers of self,”—we see this—”lovers of money,”—we see this—”proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents,”—we see this everywhere—”ungrateful, unholy, heartless…”
1But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. 2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,3 heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good,” (2 Timothy 3:1–3, ESV)
This past week, two weeks, people are so heartless, “unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit. Lovers of pleasures rather than lovers of God. Having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people having the appearance or the form of godliness.
4 treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. (2 Timothy 3:4-5, ESV)
We can easily mask and take on a form, the form of a Christian. But if you’ve ever made a piñata, it just takes one whack. That thing is crumbling to pieces. It’s just, it looks sturdy, it looks hard when you touch it. But just a little whack, that whole thing crumbles. It’s just a form, a shell. And for the Christian, could we also be like this? We’re just a shell. We know how to act on Sundays. We know how to fool people. But in our heart, there’s no love for Jesus. We don’t love people. We are annoyed at most people in this world.
And instead of love, we have hatred in our hearts because the environment is affecting us, and we’re becoming no different from the world that will round up Christians and persecute us and kill us. And these attacks will even come from our own family members.
Rather than this form of godliness, this appearance, there’s another way. It says, “appearance of godliness and denying its power.” How do you know you’re a true Christian? Because the power of the Spirit has changed you. Who you are on the outside matches who you are on the inside. It’s not a shell. It’s not a form. It’s not appearances. It’s who you are through and through. You’re a solid person of substance. You whack that person and they bless you. You don’t crumble. You don’t get angry. You don’t pick a fight. You’re a true Christian. You’re a true Christian who loves Jesus and loves people. And when they whack you, when they hate on you, you love them, you bless them. That is a mark of a Christian. There is a power that that has changed you.
Are you a real Christian who can say, “I’m different from this world? I love Jesus and I love people, and I prove it day after day. With my lips, with my actions, I prove it.”
In contrast to this form, this shell, this appearance, which denies the power of God, there’s Colossians 2:16, and I want to end with this. Colossians 2:16.
16 Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. 17 These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. 18 Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, 19 and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God. 20 If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations— 21 “Do not handle. Do not taste. Do not touch” 22 (referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings? 23 These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. (Colossians 2:16-23, ESV)
The form is just a shell. It’s empty on the inside. Our Christianity could be a form, just an exterior appearance, things that we learn that we just imitate a certain behavior. But there’s no substance. The substance is Christ.
Everything in Scripture is a type and a shadow, a pointer to the real thing, which is Jesus Christ. And you must know Him and you must love Him. If you just attend church, you may love church, you may love community, but you won’t love Jesus. If it’s so academic, you might love theology, you might love a theologian, but that’s just a form. That’s just an exterior. That’s a shell. That’s not the substance.
You might love ministry because you feel good when you see people thank you, and you see a crowd that’s growing, and you see your influence on social media, and you feel puffed up. That’s just a shell, an exterior, a form and appearance. The substance is Christ. He is the head; we are the body. We hold fast to Him, and we love Him the same way that you love your spouse. That’s a training to love Jesus.
Why do you love your spouse so much, and you don’t love Jesus? Isn’t that a problem? We can give 10 sermons about marriage and how to do a great marriage. We can do a marriage seminar and marriage retreats, and we focus on marriage, and we don’t connect to the substance, which is we are the bride, Jesus is my bridegroom. Why don’t I love Jesus?
We love certain passages because we think this passage is what saves me. I love this verse because it talks about my eternal security, as if that saves me. No, Jesus saves you. And you look to Jesus, and you don’t love the Bible as if Scripture saves you. No, you love the person whom the Bible is speaking about, Jesus, who describes Himself as the Word of God. You love the person who is behind the word. You love the person who called you unto salvation. You love Jesus, who is the Bridegroom, and we are the Bride.
One way to know if your faith is just a shell, a form, an exterior, is to examine: have I changed? The Book of Colossians is all about man-made religion and demonic deception. On the surface, it looks right; it can even kind of sound right. But as you apply it to your life, as you live out that rule, that regulation, that teaching, does it lead to change?
It says there’s no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. So this flesh, why is it still alive? You’ve been reading your Bible, you’ve been doing your disciplines, you’ve been attending church. Why am I still indulging in the flesh? My approach is not working because it’s just a shell, it’s just a form, it’s a discipline.
Your disciplines don’t save you. If your disciplines are not working, put it aside. If you’re so regular in reading the Bible, but you’re not changing, put your Bible reading schedule aside. Just get alone with Jesus and say, “Lord, I want to love you, please meet me. I want to love you. Please meet me. This flesh is still so alive. Please help me to crucify this flesh. I keep indulging in my flesh. My spirit is still asleep. I don’t love you, Jesus. I’ve been walking with you for decades and yet I don’t love you. I don’t believe you’re real. I don’t think Christianity works.” Because you’ve been going about it the wrong way. It’s not a form, it’s not a regulation, it’s not a rule, it’s not a discipline. None of these save you.
You must know Jesus as the head of the body, as the head of your life. He must be your best friend that you run to first. Before you pick up a phone, before you text somebody. He must be the person you run to when all the world’s hatred is coming after you. You must run to Jesus. Not just one time—five minutes in the morning, five minutes at the end of a day. Every single moment you must run to him like a branch connected to the vine. You must stay in that posture of Jesus. “Help me. Jesus, I want to know you. Help me. I want to know you. I want to love you. Help me.”
We’re running out of time. We’re running out of time. Let’s get right with the Lord. Evaluate where you are with Him. If it’s not working, let’s put it aside. Whatever you’ve been doing, put it aside and let’s start anew. Maybe the way we read the Bible is wrong. So just put the Bible aside for a second and just get into a prayer closet.
You already have heard enough sermons over your lifetime. It’s just it hasn’t come alive because Jesus is still intellectual. Jesus is still a stranger. It’s just a form, a discipline. You’re just adopting morality for your kids. You just want them to be not infected with immoral behavior. You just want behavior change. But it does not work to stop the indulgence of the flesh.
These rules and these regulations, let’s put all of these aside and just get alone with Jesus and say, “Jesus, I want to meet you. Please save me.” We’re running out of time.
If you see hatred rising in your heart, just empty your heart of all hatred, especially for those who are teachers of God’s word.
Let me just read this one last passage and then we’ll close. 2 Timothy 2:23-26, and I’m reading this for myself.
23 Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. 24 And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, 25 correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, 26 and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will. (2 Timothy 2:23-26, ESV)
Remember I said we need to be innocent as doves, shrewd as serpents. All the more as preachers and teachers and servants of the Lord, we must be careful and not to speak about controversial things. Because who cares if you’re right about these second, third-tier issues? Who cares? What we care about is the most important thing. Do they know Jesus? Do they love Jesus? That’s where we focus all of our teaching. And when people are foolish and ignorant, and they say foolish and ignorant things, we speak to them and teach them patiently. All the evil that they lash out at us, we endure it. We don’t get bothered by it because our heart has changed.
If your heart has changed, you know it’s different because evil takes a swing at you and you turn the other cheek. You forgive and you teach patiently. That is a sign, that is a proof that you love Jesus and that your heart has changed.
And you cannot persuade them through a crafty, well put together, eloquent argument. You cannot persuade them, especially if people are deceived. I’ve tried. It doesn’t work. You have to pray for them. You speak patiently, enduring their evil. And then after the conversation, you just pray for the person because it says they haven’t come to their senses and they’re blinded by Satan. They’re ensnared, they’re captured by him to do his will.
And what is Satan’s will? To trigger you, to get you off your game, for your love for Jesus to grow cold. That is Satan’s strategy. He’s using your family member, he’s using your co-worker, he’s using that social media clip to trigger you. And he’s successful because your love for Jesus is growing colder and colder, and your anger is growing hotter and hotter. Satan is using various people in your life successfully to derail you.
But as a servant of the Lord, how do we respond to people who are blinded by various things? Patiently teaching, enduring evil, praying for that person, for deception to be cast out, for eyes to open, and maybe that person eventually will come to their senses. But not because you are so clever or because you are louder. It’s because you were patient and you prayed.
That is what God is calling us in these last days… to be shrewd as serpents, innocent as doves, loving Jesus, patiently teaching, praying, blessing, and not cursing.
Okay, let’s pray. Father, we’re so sorry to you that we allow the hatred in this world to seep into our hearts, and we get calloused toward you and toward our fellow man. We find ourselves complaining, grumbling, cursing, hating, becoming indifferent, becoming callous. This is not how the believer should be. This is not how our heart should be. Forgive us, Lord, our heart is wicked. It has turned wicked. It has become no different than the people we’re trying to minister to.
In these last days, Lord, you’re calling us to be as innocent as doves but as shrewd as serpents. There’s controversies that we just stay away from out of shrewdness. Even if we’re convicted by certain things, we know better than to post it on social media. It’s just going to create a firestorm for people who don’t agree with us.
I want to be careful to share the most important thing, which is Jesus Christ and Him crucified, and He is the only person to save.
And we want to build bridges with people so that they, we have an ear. We have an ear with them, and we can share with them at the right time. We don’t want to lose that person because we quarreled with them over second-tier, third-tier things which, in the end, it doesn’t even matter.
Lord, we repent of all the hatred that we have allowed to seep into our heart, all anger, all callousness, all indifference. We repent, Lord. Forgive us. This is not a healthy heart. Forgive us. This is not right, Lord, when we curse our fellow brother and sister. How do we bless you and then curse somebody the very next moment? It should not be so. Our lack of change in our speech, lack of change in our heart, the fact that we cannot stop indulging in the flesh, these are proof that our faith is not working.
So we open up our hearts wide and we want to meet Jesus today as if it’s our first time. Jesus, please meet us. Jesus, please save us. Jesus, please grow our love for you. Because if we meet you, we will love you. And we will grow in our love for you if we keep meeting you. You are a real person. You’re not ink on a paper. You are a real person.
Time is running out to get right with you. We see many people falling away because they’re getting so agitated, so angry, and their love for you is growing cold. Lord, may it not be so of us. Even if we’re the last man or woman standing, may we resolve we will love you to the end and preserve our heart for you to the end, and bless people and not curse them to the end, patiently teaching them, praying for them, enduring their evil. Help us, Lord Jesus. Help us, Lord Jesus, please minister to us where we are.
You know where we are. We cannot fool you. We may fool one another. We cannot fool you. You know where we are with you. Help us to get alone in our prayer closet. Please minister to us. Awaken our hunger and our thirst for Jesus.
Holy Spirit, break the shackles of and the chains of sin that there will be a power to change, that we can prove through much fruit that we are different because we hold fast to the head and this works. This changes us. Please minister to us. Awaken our hunger and our thirst for you, so that not just on Sunday, but every single day we’d seek your face. Thank you, Lord. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
