SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/30/2025 8:12 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 “Difficult Times”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
2 Timothy 3:1
Message of the verses: “But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come.”
This is the second time that Paul has written a prediction to Timothy and the first time was in his first letter to him in which he gives a similar warning, “The Spirit explicity says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron” (1 Tim. 4:1-2).
Now that problem was not new to God’s people, as Jeremiah wrote, “The Lord said to me, ‘The prophets are prophesying falsehood in My name. I have neither sent them nor commanded them nor spoken to them; they are prophesying to you a false vision divination, futility and the deception of their own minds’” (Jer. 14:14). Then later he relates that “among the prophets of Jerusalem I (the Lord) have seen a horrible thing: The committing of adultery and walking in falsehood: and they strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one has turned back from his wickedness. All of them have become to Me like Sodom, and her inhabitants like Gomorrah” (Jer. 23:14) The prophet then warned, “Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘Do not listen to the words of the prophets who are prophesying to you. They are leading you into futility; they speak a vision of their own imagination, not from the mouth of the Lord” (v. 16).
MacArthur writes “The most serious and lamentable aspect of such rejection of God and His Word is that the danger comes from within the church. As noted several times, near the end of his third missionary journey Paul sent for the Ephesian elders to meet with him at Miletus. Pouring out his heart to them, he warned, “I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock: and from among your disciples after them” (Acts 20:29-30), emphasis added).
“Although our Lord assures us, ‘I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not overpower it’ (Matt. 16:18), He did not promise that His people would be free from spiritual danger and harm. Much to the contrary. Near the beginning of His ministry, in the Sermon on the Mount, He warned, ‘Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s cloghint but inwardly are ravenous wolves’ (Matt. 7:15). In the guise of spiritual shepherds and prophets, who were noted for wearing wool garments, they devour and destroy the very ones they profess to lead and protect. Zechariah spoke of such men as those who ‘put on a hairy robe in order to deceive’ (Zech. 13:4). Eariler in His revelation to that prophet, the Lord declared, ‘For behold, I am going to raise up a shepherd in the land who will not care for the perishing, seek the scattered, heal the broken, or sustain the one standing, but will devour the herd who leaves the flock! A sword will be on his arm and on his right eye His arm will be totally withered, and his right eye will blind’ (11:16-17).”
Lord willing more next SD.
3/30/2025 8:36 AM
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