3 choices to make during difficult days
I. Remember That Hard Times Come to All People (vv.1-5a)
2 Timothy 3:1 - But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come.
A. Because of the wickedness of humanity
Timothy 3:2-5 - For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; avoid such men as these.
B. Because of godly of living
2 Timothy 3:12 - Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.
II. Pursue Right Relationships (vv.5b-13)
A. Avoid sinful, destructive relationships
2 Timothy 3:5b-9 - …avoid such men as these. For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men of depraved mind, rejected in regard to the faith. But they will not make further progress; for their folly will be obvious to all, just as Jannes’s and Jambres’s folly was also.
1. Manipulation – meaning of ‘Jannes’
2. Rebellion – meaning of ‘Jambres’
B. Follow faithful examples (vv.10-13)
2 Timothy 3:10-13 - Now you followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, perseverance, persecutions, and sufferings, such as happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium and at Lystra; what persecutions I endured, and out of them all the Lord rescued me! Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. But evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.
1. Paul’s teaching
2. Paul’s life
III. Hold Fast to God’s Word (vv.14-17)
A. Know the Bible
2 Timothy 3:14-15 - You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
B. Live the Bible
2 Timothy 3:16-17 - All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.