The Last Days Of The Church XIII

 Children being disobedient to parents is self-explanatory enough that it does not need to be plumbed. Once again, we see the fulfillment of Paul’s prophetic warning playing out before our eyes. Rebellious children are not only a heartbreaking tragedy for the parents in question, but they are also a sign of the last days of the church. It seems as though the age range when children begin to think that they know better than their parents is decreasing perceptibly with each passing year.

Since the aim of the godless is the corruption of innocence and destruction thereof at as early an age as possible, seemingly out of nowhere, there is a chorus of voices insisting that a three or four-year-old has the mental wherewithal to decide upon issues that they will have to contend with for the rest of their lives, and acquiesce to irreversible procedures which will haunt them until they breathe their last.

The world encourages parental disobedience, from former Vice Presidents telling auditoriums full of preteen children that their parents know nothing and that it is their responsibility to enlighten their mothers and fathers to entire governmental bodies being created with the singular purpose of negating wise counsel and stripping parents of the ability to teach their own progeny.

There is a well-thought-out, concerted, and diabolical effort afoot to circumvent and nullify parental counsel. Laws are being passed in certain states that prohibit teachers and counselors from reaching out to parents if their child is troubled and encouraged to keep the knowledge of the child’s problems hidden from them. The state now deems itself the defacto parent of every child and encourages the aforementioned disobedience shamelessly and vociferously.

Unless the parents are fully engaged and are wise to their child’s emotional instability, by the time they figure out what’s happening, it’s too late to do anything about it. Even then, if attempts are made to reason with their offspring, the state is quick to swoop in and go as far as removing the child from the home because they deem a loving parent who wants the best for their child a threat to their health and happiness.

The enemy is fully aware that if the pattern of being disobedient to parents can be established in the hearts of the young, they are more likely to be disobedient toward God when they are grown. God is not the author of confusion, but the devil surely is. If he can plant the seeds of rebellion early, they are likelier to be deeply rooted by the time the individual in question is called upon to make choices of eternal consequence.

Access to technology by kids barely out of diapers has given them a false sense of omniscience, and they’ve come to believe that Wikipedia is a suitable replacement for life experience. Due to an increase in children being disobedient to parents, they refuse to listen to the voice of experience when it comes to practical life matters and suffer the consequences of the choices they make needlessly. It’s no longer enough that mom and dad say you shouldn’t touch the stove when it’s hot; they have to confirm it for themselves, and many have the scars and burns to prove it.

The gray hairs around your father’s temples prove that he knows more than you and is wiser than you. It’s not me saying it; it’s the Bible. Proverbs tells us that wisdom is the gray hair unto men, and an unspotted life is old age.

It is foolhardy to reject advice and counsel from someone twice your age because although they’ve been where you are, as yet, you’ve not been where they’ve been. Disobedience also begets dishonor, and the Word is clear regarding the honoring of your father and mother.

Ephesians 6:1-3, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and your mother,” which is the first commandment with promise: that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.”

Think back on how many heartaches and heartbreaks you would have been spared had you listened and obeyed your parents in the Lord. Think back on how many pitfalls you could have avoided, how many tears you would have never had to shed, and how much disappointment you wouldn’t have had to wrestle with.

That whole nonsense about not doing anything different given the chance is nothing more than a coping mechanism for people who refuse to admit they made mistakes. Most people can think of a dozen things they would have done differently off the top of their heads, perhaps not life-altering, but likely beneficial to their overall well-being.

Conversely, most people can think of a dozen things they’re thankful for having heeded when it came by way of counsel from a mother or a father.

I remember being in my first year of Junior High, and the electives I had to choose from were either typing or wood shop. I got home from school and offhandedly mentioned it to my mother, to which she said that typing would be the better choice since it seemed more useful to her than carving your initials into a block of wood with a band saw. Plus, typing didn’t pose the risk of cutting off a finger if you weren’t being careful.

I was all of eleven at the time, and the idea of taking typing classes was not at all appealing to me. I explained to her why I thought the wood shop class was a far better idea. She retorted with why she didn’t, and we went round and round for a solid half hour with nobody making any headway.

Finally, exasperated, she sighed and said, “Do what you want, but I’m going to pray that you get put in the typing class.”

I thought nothing of it until I went to school the following day, excited to pick wood shop as my elective. I was told that the class was already full, and the only option left to me was the typing class. Having resigned myself to the idea, there was no point in getting angry or complaining, and a week later, I was the only boy sitting in a classroom full of girls banging away on selectric typewriters.

In hindsight, it was the best decision I made at any point during the entirety of my junior high years, even though, technically, the choice was made for me. At the time, it was grueling, and I didn’t much like it, especially the first couple of weeks when you had to get comfortable with the finger positioning on the keyboard.

A few months later, when I started translating my grandfather’s autobiography and typing out the ministry's newsletters, I had to admit to myself that my mother was right, and it had been the best decision for me.

At the moment, a parent’s advice or counsel might seem antiquated and old-fashioned, but if we’re honest with ourselves, we will realize that however it may have seemed at the time, it was good, solid advice that would have paid dividends had we followed through.

Unlikely as it might be that I have a gaggle of young readers, children, obey your parents. It is a Biblical mandate, and as Paul wrote to the Ephesians, the first commandment with promise.

God doesn’t make empty promises, nor does He promise something He can’t deliver on. Do what God says, and watch what He does. Obey your parents in the Lord, honor them, and the fruit of this obedience will carry you through life.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

The Last Days Of The Church XII

 Paul also warns that in the last days, there will be blasphemers. Those who blaspheme God, the ways of God, the Word of God, and the truth of God have always existed in the world. There have always been men whose hearts were so darkened, whose hatred for a God they claimed they didn’t believe in reached such heights as to utter the most blasphemous things without giving it a second thought. The difference between then and now, between that time and this, is that the blasphemers will not be exclusive to those of the world but also found within the house of God.

It may seem paradoxical for someone who says they serve God to blaspheme Him, but we’ve seen it time and again, not just from the laymen but also from supposed leaders and governing bodies of churches and denominations.

Between Merriam-Webster’s definition of blasphemy and the definition of the root word for it in Greek, it is undeniable that many so-called spiritual leaders and people of the cloth are, in word and deed, blasphemers.

The modern translation of blasphemy, via the aforementioned Merriam-Webster, is the act of insulting or showing contempt or lack of reverence for God, the act of claiming the attributes of a deity, or irreverence toward something considered sacred or inviolable.

The translation from Greek adds an extra layer by defining blasphemy as speaking lightly or amiss of sacred things or slandering.

By these definitions, anyone who has stood behind a pulpit and claimed to be a little god committed blasphemy. Anyone who has stood behind a pulpit and twisted the Word of God to give permission to sin committed blasphemy. Anyone who showed contempt for God because they deemed Him unfair, misogynistic, non-inclusive, or outdated committed blasphemy. The list is long, and had we the time, we could go through it point by point, but there are only so many hours in a day.

Sobering as the reality of it might be, the truth of it is that some of the most lauded, celebrated, and revered spiritual leaders of our day are, by definition, the blasphemers Paul warned of.

There is a difference between those who blaspheme out of ignorance and those who do it knowingly. Given that the preachers, pastors, and evangelists who are guilty of blaspheming handle the Word and ought to know better, they cannot use the excuse of ignorance to justify the things they’ve taught and encouraged.

1 Timothy 1:12-13, “And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who has enabled me, because He counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry, although I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man; but I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly and in unbelief.”

This is a man who understood what he had been and what he had been transformed into. He didn’t try to soften the blow or put himself in a better light. Were it not for his own words, we likely would have never known that Paul had been a blasphemer and an insolent man. Due to the telling of Stephen’s martyrdom in the book of Acts, as well as his subsequent reason for being on the road to Damascus, we would have known Paul was a persecutor, but that would have been all. He confesses to having been not only a persecutor but a blasphemer and an insolent man, but he’d obtained mercy because he had done these things ignorantly and in unbelief. What’s the excuse of many of today’s most prominent preachers, teachers, and pastors?

Because certain people always feel the need to one-up their contemporaries, recently, a mega-church pastor went beyond calling himself a little god and went one step further, calling himself God almighty. The hubris of some men continues to baffle me, and the fact that thousands upon thousands are cheering them like trained seals, not realizing what blasphemy is being uttered is beyond me utterly.

Then you have the new crop of prophets and prophetesses, at least in their own estimations, who declare with a straight face that they’ve been teleported to heaven via porta-potties, sat on God’s lap, braided His beard, and gave Him their indispensable insight as to how He should administrate the universe. It’s both insulting and irreverent toward God, the very definition of blasphemy.

So before we get on our soapboxes and start declaring that there are no blasphemers here, take a minute, look around, and listen to what some people are saying about everything from God to the Word of God, to the inerrancy of Scripture, to the supremacy of Christ, or the presence of the Holy Spirit, just to name a few, and then tell me that they are not a clear and present reality in our midst.

Anyone insisting that God has denied His nature and that He is no longer a holy and righteous God in order to appease and facilitate the proclivities and vices of modernity is likewise a blasphemer by definition. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and in Him, there is no shadow of turning. That’s what the Book says about the God such individuals purport to serve, yet present Him as one who is willing to make concessions and change at the drop of a hat.

Men’s opinions do not supersede the Word of God. We must revisit this lesson and allow it to take root in our hearts. It doesn’t matter who said it or how well respected they are within Christian circles; if their words contradict the Word, they are in the wrong and need to be rebuked for it.

But that’s never going to happen because we like what they have to say. It tickles our ears and makes us feel good, and in the end, for many, feeling good takes precedence over being saved as long as they are constantly reassured that they are saved even though there is no fruit or transformation in their lives to confirm that reality. Believing a lie that boosts our egos is preferred to a truth that humbles us. That, too, is addressed by Paul further into his second letter to Timothy.

2 Timothy 4:3-4, “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth and be turned aside to fables.”

We can sing about these being the days of Elijah and Ezekiel until we’re hoarse, but if it walks like heresy, talks like blasphemy smells like blasphemy, and turns men’s ears away from the truth and toward fables like blasphemy, it’s blasphemy. We can try to couch and sugarcoat it, but what would be the point? The evidence speaks for itself.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

The Last Days Of The Church XI

 The proud are usually boastful, and the boastful are generally proud. Some things just go together and complement each other, like peanut butter and jelly or pineapple on pizza. You’ll never find a humble man boasting of his humility, nor will you hear a proud man waxing poetic about his modesty unless they’re self-deluded enough to ignore the paradox they’ve created in their own minds.

That pride comes before the fall has been wholly ignored in the contemporary church lately. The pervasive materialism has led to an ongoing competition among those deemed our spiritual betters to try and one-up each other, or as the kids call it nowadays, flex. If one sheep shearer gets a jet, the next one has to get two. If another comes along and gets two, his two must be bigger and more luxurious than the others; otherwise, what’s the point?

You can turn on what passes for Christian television on any given day and find someone talking about how they’ve just acquired some material thing, whether a new car, plane, or mansion, all the while brow-beating their followers into yet another round of sacrificial giving. Your prioritizing feeding your kids over sending Brother Jesse a fat check is what’s keeping Jesus from returning!

We’ve come a long way, but not in the right direction. Once upon a time, it was common knowledge that in and of ourselves, we have nothing to boast in, for all good things come from God, and nothing that we have is of ourselves but a gift from Him. Men used to walk humbly with their Lord, and if God chose to use them in any measure, they gave Him the glory and the honor due Him, not taking for themselves that which was rightly His. This humility and gratitude were the standard for all believers, inspiring them to live a life of service and worship.

Ephesians 2:8-9, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.”

That used to be the standard for all believers, something that compelled gratitude and thankfulness of heart because they knew the magnitude of the gift they’d received. Fast forward some two thousand years, and you have self-titled pastors denouncing the words of Jesus, calling Him an obtuse, misogynistic racist to whom the current culture couldn’t possibly relate. Keep in mind that these are individuals who shepherd other individuals, are fully ordained in their chosen denominations, and claim to be of the Kingdom. How does it work exactly, vilifying the one you claim to serve and worship?

Due to men’s pride, many have come to believe that they are on equal footing with Jesus. They’ve convinced themselves that if they don’t like something He said, they can insist He was wrong and go about their lives as they will without a moment’s hesitation. The narcissism is off the charts, and it’s only made possible by the influx of pride the church has allowed and accepted. Pride warps reality. It makes people see what isn’t there and gives them a false sense of authority when they have none.

Well, yes, Jesus said to go and sin no more, but I don’t count my preferred perversion as a sin. Therefore, I don’t have to cease indulging in it! I wish I were exaggerating, but I’m not, and a few minutes worth of research will confirm that it’s even worse than that.

The image many have in their minds as to what they believe the church is and the reality of what it has become are markedly different, and what it is, in reality, is akin to a carbon copy of what Paul warned the last days of the church would look like. Somehow, there’s still that disconnect wherein although we are seeing the heresy, deception, and turning away from the truth obliterating denomination after denomination, we’re still fully expecting the sweeping revivals men promised us.

Why are you so dour? Why can’t you be more optimistic? Because I cannot ignore what the Bible says about the last days just because I want to see them play out differently than how the Bible says they will.  

The only ones who don't see the perilous times of which Paul spoke coming to pass in real time are those who choose not to. Just because we ignore the uncomfortable things doesn’t mean they cease to exist. On the contrary, ignoring them only precipitates their dissemination.

The spiritual condition of the church during the last days explains how so many will be deceived and why the love of many will grow cold. It also explains why there will be so little resistance to the darkness and to those preaching another Christ. If churches are too busy churning out NDAs and hiring crisis management firms to keep the shockwaves of certain revelations localized, how can they also be expected to preach against sin and be a light? Priorities are priorities, after all! Business first, then if we have time for Jesus and if His words aren’t overly offensive, we might mention Him in passing.

The Word of God has much to teach us if we are willing to learn. Among the things it teaches us is that as servants of God, we must walk uprightly and, rather than boasting in our accomplishments, boast in our infirmities so that the power of Christ may rest upon us. They are not our accomplishments to begin with. If you are a vessel of honor in the Master’s house, acknowledge that it was the Master’s good pleasure to choose you and use you rather than insist that He would have never accomplished His will without you.

That’s also where pride plants its seed to give birth to its hideously destructive harvest. When men begin to think that they are too valuable for the Kingdom, that God couldn’t do one thing or another without them specifically, they allow themselves liberties, which the Bible never does, and ever so slowly wander from the truth. They justify their unconfessed sin because, as yet, God has not punished them for it, not realizing that one day, sooner or later, the bill will come due, and it will be hefty indeed. God doesn’t play games with us, but we’ve gotten it into our heads that we can play games with Him. Eternity is not a game; it is everything, and if you are willing to place your soul in jeopardy over momentary pleasures or to pacify your flesh, you are not worthy of Him to begin with.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

The Last Days Of The Church X

 Paul then proceeds to single out the love of money as another sign of the last days. Not money, but the love of money. Men will be lovers of money willing to compromise their principles, betray their Lord and King, omit the truth, and preach outright lies, all because the love of money has taken root in their hearts and has become their idol.

If you compromise the truth for the sake of money, then you love money over God. If you teach lies contrary to scripture because your bottom line would suffer if you started to preach the truth, you love money over men’s souls. If you compromise your ethics, morals, and values for the sake of money, money has become your defacto god, one for which you are willing to go to any lengths to obtain.

1 Timothy 6:10, “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.”

It’s not as though the love of money was new or unheard of even as early as Paul’s ministry. In his first letter to Timothy, Paul mentions some who have strayed from the faith in their greediness, but what was once the exception, a handful of souls who gave in to their love of money, will become standard practice in the last days and something that will a bane upon the church, and so prevalent as to become a danger for the household of faith.

When your convictions are for sale, and the doctrine you present can be decided by the highest bidder rather than the Word of God, what follows is disaster on a grand scale, culminating in despair for the individual and bitterness toward God Himself.

When the love of money is the driving force of your convictions and not love for the truth, you’ll say anything, do anything, hock anything, co-sign anything as long as it turns a profit, and as long there are a few extra shekels in your change purse at the end of the day. The lovers of money prey upon the sheep like starving wolves, and the sheep seem not to notice, or if they do, they ignore it because the promise of a lump sum on the back end is just too enticing to pass up.

Supposed men of God are selling their souls one piece at a time until they wake up one day, utterly soulless, trying to talk their congregations into some pyramid scheme, or the little old ladies into a reverse mortgage from which he gets a kickback. The underlying cause of all these schemes and scams, the root of every twisted thing that leaves a bad taste in a church’s mouth once the dust settles, is the love of money.

Usually, the love of self and love of money are fast friends, even bosom buddies, because the one facilitates the comfort and material well-being of the other. If you love yourself, you treat yourself to the finest the world has to offer, and in order to treat yourself, you must have the financial wherewithal to do so. It’s not as though people love money for the sake of money; they love money for all the things it can buy and the illusory security it provides.

Since we had to distract from the void in our hearts, we told ourselves that he who dies with the most toys wins in the end, not realizing the utter foolishness of that particular rationalization. Whether rich or poor, dead is dead, then judgment. There is only one God, one throne of judgment, and no man can buy themselves an exemption from it. The prince will stand in the same spot as the beggar, and God will not show deference to someone because of their net worth.

It’s funny how those who serve a God who judges without partiality show it in the most blatant of ways when it comes to people they think can help further their ministries, whether by proximal influence or an injection of funds. We’ve all seen the pictures of prominent pastors posing for photos with individuals whom they know to be antagonistic toward the Gospel just because they’re famous. Eventually, it comes back to bite them when they least expect it, but in the moment, they revel in the idea of rubbing elbows with the influential.

Because they are used to being treated differently, whether having a front-row seat reserved for them at church, being led out through the side exit when the service is over, being pointed to and named by the pastor and told that their mere presence is an unequaled honor, such people have taken to believe that God will likewise treat them with the same deference, show them undeserved respect, and tweak His standard to accommodate them. He won’t. He never has and never will because God is no respecter of persons. 

You can buy a lot of things with money. I’d be lying if I said you couldn’t, but there are things money can’t buy, and they happen to be the most important things in life. Whether love, health, or more time, the things that truly matter cannot be purchased, no matter how much someone is willing to spend. We’ve seen it time and again wherein men with seemingly endless resources couldn’t buy their way out of a terminal diagnosis or add a minute to their existence on earth, even though they were willing to trade all they had just to see another sunrise. Every other day, we hear of people who deem themselves wealthy and in need of nothing spiral into depression because the love they thought they had turned out to be a well-orchestrated deception, and the person they believed loved them shatters their heart and takes half their stuff in the process.

Standing head and shoulders above all else when it comes to things men can’t buy is salvation. Were you to have the wealth of Solomon himself, you still couldn’t buy your way into heaven. It is exclusive, members only, and the only way to get in is through Christ Jesus. Anyone who tells you that writing a check will square you with God is lying in the most contemptible of ways. Repentance, surrender, rebirth, continually walking in His way, denying yourself, and picking up your cross daily are the only means by which we can attain that which money cannot buy. That salvation is free does not make it cheap; it is free because it’s priceless, and no man could ever buy himself entrance therein, though he might gain the whole world.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Intermission

 You call a man, any man, Hitler, worse than Hitler, the Antichrist, the spawn of Lucifer’s loins, a walking plague, the end of all things, the personification of evil long enough, and someone will eventually get it into their head that they could be the hero and slay the villain. Who knows, there might even be a damsel in distress at the end of the story who will recognize the bravery required in trying to remove the worst human ever to walk the earth from the chessboard.

If propaganda were not effective, there wouldn’t be multi-national corporations spending billions of dollars trying to convince you that an amalgam of chemicals and red dye 40 pressed into some gelatinous form with the appearance of a week-old severed limb is not only good for you, or something you want to have, but something you have to have!

As recently as two months ago, women were braining each other with overlarge purses to get their hands on a sweet, sweet Stanley tumbler in which they could fit a toddler and still have room left over for their chosen beverage. It was all a result of marketing, word of mouth, and people being convinced that they couldn’t live without one.

For those of you who listen to the radio program regularly, what happened last night should come as no surprise. We’ve been discussing this scenario for going on six months now, and I’ve warned repeatedly that, in all likelihood, this was bound to happen. Those insisting that this is the worst man the world has ever seen, putting Genghis Kahn, Stalin, Pol Pot, and Hitler combined to shame, knew exactly what they were doing even though their backpedaling has already commenced.

Currently, there are more answers than questions, especially when it comes to the security detail that seems to have ignored warnings from people who had seen the shooter climbing the building from which he fired.

Is this the event I’ve been warning about? No, I do not believe it is. If this had been a professional shooter, we’d be having a very different type of conversation this morning. It’s also too early in the election cycle for it to be what I foresee playing out. This is the second viable attempt on the man’s life and the second time someone got close enough to do the job but failed for one reason or another.

Those who thought it would spook him into quitting haven’t taken his tenacity into account, and as such, more pressure will be brought to bear on the planners to come up with a surefire solution to the threat he poses to this nation's permanent ruling class, which has been pulling the strings from the shadows for decades on end.

Although I’ve already made my position clear on the matter, no, I do not believe this man is the antichrist, and anyone who does needs to spend a bit more time in the Word so that they might gain a deeper understanding of who this man is going to be. Conversely, I do not believe he is some sort of savior of the republic because the republic cannot be saved by any man.

That said, those who keep going on about him being the aforementioned antichrist haven’t come up with a good answer for why he didn’t antichrist the first go-round. Why wait? Why put it off for four years and go through it all over again? I know; logic hurts.

A flawed man? Most assuredly. The antichrist? Hardly.

I do not believe this is over, not by a country mile. If enough balls are kicked at a goalie, no matter how good he is, one of them is bound to get through the net. If you figure that a number of your defenders have some ulterior motive for letting the striker get closer than he should, then getting one through the net becomes almost certain. For those of you scratching your heads in frustration, it’s a soccer analogy. Yes, it’s a sport. It's quite popular in much of the world, actually, but I digress.

It’s only a matter of time before this nation is plunged into unprecedented chaos. It is as unavoidable as death and taxes. And for those hard at work posting, “if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray” memes, do the world a favor and finish the verse.

Many may pray, some may humble themselves, but as far as turning from their wicked ways, that answer has already been given, and it’s a resounding no.

There are four prerequisites to God hearing from heaven, forgiving sin, and healing the land: the first is for His people to humble themselves. The second is for them to pray. The third is to seek His face, and the fourth is to turn from their wicked ways. Two or three out of four just won’t do, and that last one always seems to trip nations up.

2 Peter 3:11-13, “Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless, we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.”

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

The Last Days Of The Church IX

 The church was never called to heal the world. It was never its mission. Yes, God loved the world, but He sent Jesus so that whosoever believes in Him would not perish. There was a conditionality placed on not sharing the same fate as the world, and that was believing in Christ.  The whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one. We are strangers in a strange land, behind enemy lines, and on the enemy’s soil. Our mission is and always has been to preach the gospel and point the way to Christ in the hope that some who are in the world might come out of the world and some who are in darkness might come to the light.

That we could somehow restore the world by sheer will alone or by the power of our words is an enticing fable, but a fable nonetheless. The world isn’t getting any better, and those waiting for it to do so will be waiting a very long time. The times will grow all the more perilous, the love of many will wane, and those things once embraced, practiced, and celebrated by the godless exclusively will become standard fare within the household of faith as well.

Anyone could have told you that! We’ve been seeing it for years now. Yes, but Paul told you two thousand years ago, so you must give credit where credit is due.

2 Timothy 3:2-5, “For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away!”

There is not one thing on that entire list that was not evident in society when Paul penned these words. It’s not as though being lovers of self, lovers of money, boasters, proud blasphemers, and the rest of it is something new to this generation or something that materialized only with the invention of the radio.

Men have always loved themselves, loved money, boasted of one thing or another, and were proud even when they had no reason to, but none of these things were as yet evident in the early church.

Their entire framework was such that selflessness was essential for their continuity. New believers sold what they had in terms of possessions and then pooled the money with the other believers to continue to preach the good news of the gospel.

If Paul’s warning had been meant to alert us that the world would be blasphemous, proud, unholy, unloving, and unforgiving, it would have been anticlimactic and not very revelatory. The world wasn’t brimming with holy people even back then. We’ve known for long and long that all these things existed in the world. We’ve been witness to it throughout history, but if the warning is specific to the last days, and the peril will be something other than what has been common, then it’s safe to assume that all the things Paul lists will be evident within the household of faith, the house of God, and among those who claim to belong to Him.

That’s the stark difference between then and now. What was once primarily on the outside is now ever present on the inside. More often than not, you can no longer tell the difference between the two, whether in words, actions, or appearance. Those who dare to point out the need for sober-mindedness and pursuit of righteousness within the church are summarily labeled a legalist. Because men refuse to acknowledge the need to walk in the light and pursue those things pleasing to God, they accuse those who would insist it must be thus as being judgmental, ignoring the reality that they are quoting scripture and pointing to the Word when doing so.  

Paul confirms that what he is itemizing is not something we will have to contend with in the world but rather within the house of God because he names a form of godliness among the things that will bring about great peril, something that the world never possessed or will ever possess.

The first thing Paul warns us is that men will be lovers of themselves. He’s not talking about looking in the mirror and liking what you see. He is referring to men of the household of faith placing the self, the flesh, and this present life above all else, including the will and Word of God. When a man loves himself, there is no room for the love of God in his heart. When he prioritizes something other than God in his life, it shows, and what flows out of it is neither noble nor divine. He will always defer to and seek after what is more pleasurable, comforting, exalting, and beneficial to his flesh rather than the will of God.

An entire cottage industry has been built around the concept of loving yourself. There are tutorials on how to love yourself, stickers you can put on the back bumper of your car, and hand-stenciled signs you can hang in your bedroom, all with the singular message that all you need to do is love yourself. Just love yourself! In order to find your bliss, your purpose, your joy, and your peace, all you have to do is love yourself.

I’ve even heard it said from pulpits by men who should know better, and each time, it makes me cringe. We’re not supposed to love ourselves or this life; we are supposed to love God. When you tell someone to love themselves, you are encouraging them to do something contrary to what Jesus commanded, which is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. Jesus called this the first and great commandment.

Yet, Paul said that one of the most evident characteristics of the last days, and one that would bring about peril among the children of God, is that men will be lovers of themselves. Those unwilling to see the undeniable truth that his prophetic utterance is playing out in real-time can readily chalk it up to chance, but how many times does someone have to hit the nail on the head before we can no longer dismiss it as accidental or a fluke?

One surefire sign that we are living in the last days and that we have entered into the perilous times the Bible warns us about is that men will be lovers of themselves. Love of self has become a de facto doctrine for many, and we have molded, twisted, and butchered the Word of God to suit the self rather than insist upon the self submitting to the Word of God.

We make excuses for sins and justify rebellion, all because men have become lovers of themselves rather than lovers of God and have placed themselves at the pinnacle of the hierarchy of their existence. They sit on the thrones of their own hearts, worshipping themselves, and have left no room for God therein, all while claiming that they are His.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

The Last Days Of The Church VIII

2 Timothy 3:1, “But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come.”

There’s danger, then there’s danger. There’s a danger you can see coming, the danger you can anticipate, the danger for which you can prepare, and the danger against which you can defend. Then there’s the danger you can’t see coming, the kind of danger that blindsides you, like getting t-boned by a car while going through a green light or having your boat propeller fall off and sink into the deep while you’re putting around in the middle of a lake. Although I’m no seafaring aficionado, I’ve heard stories.

As Paul wrote his second letter to Timothy, he sat in a dungeon in Rome. It wasn’t the first time; it was the second time this had happened to him, and he was so close to the finish line that he could taste it. This was to be his last epistle. Soon, he would be martyred and go to his reward. His words, penned in the shadow of death, carry a profound significance.

By some grace and divine providence, Paul was allowed some parchment and a quill and made use of his time in prison by tying up loose ends and edifying Timothy, whom he’d mentored and trusted to continue the ministry once he was gone. True men of God never retire. Even when their flesh grows weak, and they are no longer the tip of the spear in the ministry to which they were called, they spend their time mentoring those who will take up the charge once they are gone, for the Kingdom and the work thereof remains paramount in their lives to the very end. Ministry is not a career. It is a calling, a vocation, a purpose to which one devotes one's life in its entirety throughout.

The timing of this writing matters lest anyone insist that the early church had as yet not seen any peril of which they should be aware or that Paul was referring to persecution or the godless waxing worse as the danger to which he was referring. That he would not consider the times he lived in perilous is illogical and fraught with cognitive dissonance. He was sitting in a Roman prison waiting to be executed, so if the perilous times he was referring to had anything to do with persecution or the godless, it would have been redundant.

Paul was an educated man with a specific background and a certain pedigree that would prohibit him from stating the obvious or being needlessly repetitive. This was a man who, before his conversion, was a Pharisee of Pharisees, taught the law by Gamaliel, a man who, in his own right, was held in great esteem by all the learned men of his time.

Paul used words both sparingly and judiciously, and if he contends that in the last days, perilous times will come, we must determine the source of the peril and what the peril will entail. This is not a matter of casual observation, but a call for deep understanding and discernment.

Jesus warned regarding the last days of the world with a purpose in mind, and now Paul warns of the last days of the church with a similar purpose and intent.

Ignorance is bliss only to the ignorant and indifferent. It raises my hackles any time those whose singular purpose is to rightly divide the Word shrug their shoulders and gloss over a passage they don’t want to examine because they deem it trivial. It’s in the Book; therefore, it’s not trivial. There is a purpose for every dot and tittle contained in the Bible. If we dare to dismiss large swaths of God’s word because we think there is more fertile or less dense soil we can till that will demand less exertion on our part, especially when those swaths have to do with the last days, we are being unfaithful to the calling to which we have been called.

Given that the early church was already living in perilous times and was already being persecuted, rejected, martyred, and denounced by the powers of the day, the nature of the peril Paul warns will come during the last days must be something altogether different than what they were already used to.

That’s not to say the current peril would be done away with, just that another layer of peril would present itself during the last days, from a different source, in a different iteration, and those with eyes to see have already witnessed it take shape and form before their eyes.

The second reality we must contend with is that the perilous times Paul speaks of are a certainty. There was no addendum or caveat. It was a declarative statement: But know this: in the last days, perilous times will come.

He didn’t say perilous times would come if you didn’t vote Republican or Democrat, nor did he say that perilous times would come unless your church had a fully funded building fund or you belonged to a particular denomination. That perilous times would come was a prophetic certainty, with no possibility of redress or correction.

I’m often asked what the church could have done to save the world, and the answer is nothing. There is nothing the church could have done to save the world as a whole, but there are plenty of things it could have done to be more effective at helping to save individuals out of the world by clearly pointing the way to Jesus. The two are not the same thing, but since conflating ideas has become the banner most churches are flying nowadays, we make it out to be so.

What the contemporary church could have done that it has failed to do is live according to Scripture and be desperate for the presence and power of God in its midst. Had that occurred, though the world would not be saved, the world would likely look different than it does because at least there would have been some pushback against the darkness.

Could have, should have, spilled milk and bitter regrets. We chose apathy, indifference, lukewarmness, and duplicity because these things did not infringe upon our flesh to any discernable degree. We chose the form of godliness, thinking it would suffice, and honored God with our lips while our hearts were far from Him, thinking He’d have to make due.

The modern-day church isn’t dealing with some rogue mole on its scalp from too much sun that the doctor can excise in five seconds flat with a scalpel and some numbing agent. We’re talking stage four metastatic cancer that has spread to most organs. Dark? Perhaps. True? Just look at all the prominent dominoes that have fallen over the past few months, and you tell me.

As an aside, I think the kids call it foreshadowing, Paul foresaw the downfall of man-made religious fiefs and those who lorded over them during the last days as well. Everything you need to know is in the Book. You just have to be diligent in studying it.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.