When Paul wrote to Timothy, he told it like it was. And here’s what he said: “Mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days” (2 Timothy 3:1).

So when are the last days?

Well, in one way, the last days began when the Spirit was poured out and the church age began in Acts 2, when Peter said, “No, they’re speaking in tongues. They’re not drunk—it’s nine o’clock in the morning. This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel, in the Old Testament: ‘Afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people’” (see Acts 2:14–21). So the beginning of the church age was the beginning of the last days. We’re living in the last days.

Now some people say, “No, the last days are the last, last, last days before the coming of the Lord.” But since we don’t know when Jesus is coming, we can’t really figure out when the last, last, last days are. No one knows the day or the hour, and in a moment when we don’t expect it, boom, He’ll come (see Matthew 24:44).

So Paul was telling Timothy, “Wake up now. There will be terrible times in the last days.”

“Don’t you have a happier message, like, ‘Everything’s going to get better’?”

No, that’s not what the Bible teaches. There can be revival in a church, but there will also be terrible times. In the last days there will be false prophets, false teachers, earthquakes, the love of most of God’s people waxing cold (see Matthew 24:4–12).

But what will make this time so bad is that these things will be happening among people who have a form of godliness, who are religious, in the churches.

Can you believe this? It’s one thing if the world is the world and the culture is the culture. But this will be bad because it will be among church people.

You see, if the light isn’t the light anymore, it’s hardly seen. We are the light of the world, and if the salt has lost its savor; if churches are insipid, predictable, dull, formal, and traditional; if there are no conversions and the moving of the Holy Spirit; if there’s no fiery preaching, deep conviction of sin, and love among the brothers and sisters with open doors for all people, all races, then Satan is working to dim the light, and the church will become something God never intended.

Just read the Scriptures, then visit some churches and listen to reports. Is what you see how God intended the church to be?

Some Christians might say, “But that’s the way it is everywhere.”

But what we have to do by faith is not look at what is, but what could be.

I was preaching recently to some church leaders, wonderful men and women of God, and I said to them, “Do you want to just stay with what you have in your churches? Some of you haven’t baptized ten people in five years. This is what God intended?” I wasn’t putting anyone down. I was saying it to myself.

We have to make the Scripture our goal and not be seduced by what’s coming into the church.

The church has been revised. Today we’re calling something the church that God never described as the church.

And this is not just in wild circles where people celebrate sexual deviance and deny the Lord and call it a church. I’m talking about churches that might be orthodox, sound in doctrine, but are sideways in practice, lifeless. It’s like what Jesus said to one church in Revelation: “You have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead” (Revelation 3:1, NIV).

“Don’t say that,” you might say. “That’s going to hurt people’s feelings.”

But the Lord tells it like it is, in love. How are we going to get better unless we realize our condition?

So mark this: in the last days, terrible times will come. We’ve got to draw near to God. We’ve got to hold fast to Him, following Paul’s encouragement to Timothy: “As for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of” (2 Timothy 3:14). Then we will remain steadfast, strong in the Lord.

Prayer

Dear heavenly Father, give us the wisdom to test everything against Your Word and the grace to follow Jesus’ example daily. Protect us from deception within the church, guard us against weariness, and keep us steadfast as we draw near to You in the last days.

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