It made him feel small and frightened, knowing that God’s power was infinite and beautiful, that He was truly working to provide for all of his creatures.”
–Bobby Cavazos (The Cowboy From the Wild Horse Desert)
“Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?”
–Matthew 6:26 (KJV)
——————–
These are indeed perilous times. Don’t kid yourself by thinking things have always been this way. They haven’t. Sure, there have been terror and wars, but a person could walk down the street in this country in relative safety. Schools? Who would ever dare think someone would go into a school and start shooting children? These are perilous times!
Let’s look again at the first few characteristics of Paul’s description of “perilous times.”
“But understand this, that in the last days will come (set in) perilous times of great stress and trouble [hard to deal with and hard to bear]. 2 For people will be lovers of self and [utterly] self-centered, lovers of money and aroused by an inordinate [greedy] desire for wealth, proud and arrogant and contemptuous boasters. They will be abusive (blasphemous, scoffing), disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy and profane.”
–2 Timothy 3:1-2 (AMPC)
Now add verse 3: “[They will be] without natural [human] affection (callous and inhuman), relentless (admitting of no truce or appeasement); [they will be] slanderers (false accusers, troublemakers), intemperate and loose in morals and conduct, uncontrolled and fierce, haters of good.”
The characteristics of the time will show that there is a lack of devotion to their family; a lack of commitment. People may reside in the same house together, but they don’t share life together; there is an uncaring family environment. You want to know why there is so much shooting, killing, taking of drugs, and chaos in life then look to the family. Want to know why there is so much child rebellion and attention disorders then look to the family. Listen! It is imperative that we build our families to resist the spiritual storms that are characteristic of this age and the coming years!
Relentless or trucebreakers, false accusers, troublemakers are characteristic of the times. It is interesting that the Greek for “false accusers” is “diabolos” the same is often translated as “devil.” The are people who will go to court and argue to get material gain.
Look at the phrase “uncontrolled and fierce”. Who would that describe? A Hitler, Stalin? Add Idi Amin, Pol Pot, and Mao Zedong to those names and they don’t come close to being as savage, vicious, ferocious and inhumane, as the phrase actually means. The worst kind of savagery is the killing of an unborn infant in the womb. There have been more killed through abortion than all the evil of those mentioned above put together.
One more phrase, “haters of good.” This again goes to leadership. The courts are intended to protect the rights of those that are good, but now they protect the offenders. Abortion is one case in which the courts uphold those supposed rights. Criminals are now aggressively protected. Surely these are perilous times for these are days in which society is morally confused. It cannot be a confused, mentally unstable society that sets our moral agenda. We must! It is vital that we stand upon the Word of God in these perilous times.