“This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away” (2 Timothy 3: 1-5 KJV).
Our text tells us that “in the last days perilous times shall come.” The reason for these perilous times is that society will be filled with people who are full of self-love and yet ardent religionists. And then follows a long list of vices belonging to a person who is in love with themselves.
These people are obviously lost but have a “form of godliness.” They have religion but are lost because they have rejected or denied God’s saving and transforming grace. These are in the church but not of the church because they are of the world. These have a Christless Christianity. Because they only have an imaginary Christ, they only have imaginary salvation. And their “Christianity” is an abomination to God (Pro. 15: 8, 9, 26). But they don’t really have Christianity. All they really have is Churchianity.
This text proves that our churches are full of lost people of the worst kind. This is why I wrote an article The Church is Going to Hell. The true church, the Bride and Body of Christ, will never go to Hell, but because there are so many in the local church that are not of the true church, one could say the church is going to Hell. C.H. Spurgeon and D.L. Moody in their day believed only twenty-five percent of the church members were actually saved. There are probably less than twenty-five percent today that are saved.
These religious but lost people are the ones that make our days “perilous.” The word “perilous” means days that are hard to bear because they are full of danger and involve risk. These religious but lost church members are part of the problem.
Outwardly these people seem to be religious, but by their ungodly behavior, they show that they are living a lie — “They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him” (Titus 1: 16). They love the pleasures of sin rather than God whom they pretend to worship. The reason there is so much show business in the church these days is that these lost church members must have a venue to act like a Christian. Hiebert warns: “It is a fearful portrayal of an apostate Christendom, a new paganism masquerading under the name of Christianity.”
These unsaintly “saints” that are “saved” and on their way to Hell, are the great tragedy of Christianity.
