2 Timothy 3, we're starting in verse 12. The Bible says, "...yea, and all that will live..." The question is, will you live? "...godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution." Now, when you have a country, and when you have people that will label themselves as Christians, and then at the same time have no interest in living godly, we end up with a problem culturally and then we end up with a deeper problem spiritually because that's why we have mega churches because people who have no interest in living a godly life really don't want to be at a church that has any standards of godly living and so they end up at the creek. And they end up in a church where really there aren't any standards of godliness that are talked about. And so you don't ever have to really suffer any persecution, at least for the cause of Christ. You'll have some persecution that's common to all men. An accident here, a broken arm there, heartache there. We all have that. That's common to men and women lost or saved. But living a godly life in Christ Jesus, there will be a time when you're going to have to suffer some type of persecution. And I know the temperature's dropping, but if our heat breaks, that's not suffering for the cause of Christ, okay? That's stuff that happens to every man and woman alive. Those types of things. We're talking about the mark of the last days, though. And verse 13, if you would get your eyes on that verse, it says, "...but evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived." That's the mark of the last days. And to wax means to just keep increasing. It keeps growing. And seductive men are going to grow, and evil men. are going to grow. And so what we need to say as a church is, look, help us wax. Help us wax more godliness. Help us wax more holiness. Help us wax to do better and better. Help us to grow better and better for the Lord. The church needs your help. The church needs the body of Christ to do that. We're a whole lot better than the world. We're a whole lot better than the carnival church. I mean, they're waxing one way. Get on board and get in the boat and help us row. You know, help the local church row. And that's how the body works and that's how the body operates. And look, we're our local church and no Bible-believing church. We're not a restaurant. You know, a restaurant is where you get to go, and you get to get served, and you can order whatever you want, and whatever you order, the chef's gonna bring it out, and he's gonna smile and be happy, and you're gonna be able to pick what you want. Well, that's not church. You don't get to just have everything you want, and you don't get to have every expectation met, because we're not here for you to get served and you're not here for me to get served. We're all here to serve Him. So the serving is us together serving the Lord. So when brother A gets disappointed at brother B, they should be able to work out that difference so that we can wax better for the Lord. That's the idea of Christian living and godly living. But the mark of the last days, we're going to have to deal with some other things. But evil men and seducers, verse 13, shall wax worse and worse, deceived and being deceived. Now notice it doesn't say things are worse. I want you to look at the text very carefully because it doesn't say times are worse or days are worse. because times aren't worse now. And honestly, hear my heart, things aren't worse now. The days that we live in now aren't worse. I want you to carefully look at the text and what it says because this key doctrinal truth is going to help you, it helped me. It says, "...but evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse." But the days that we're living in now aren't as bad as the days that Timothy and Paul were living in. Let's go back to 203 A.D. for a moment if you will. 203 A.D. is approximately 100 years after Timothy was martyred for his faith. And there's a young Christian girl in 203 AD, there's a young Christian girl and her name is Perpetua. Perpetua's mom was a Christian, but her dad was a pagan. Matter of fact, her dad was a rich, high-ranking military officer in the Roman army. So Perpetua was a military kid. And we're going back to 203 AD. As a Christian, Perpetua's father feared for her life because during that time, worshiping the Lord Jesus Christ was forbidden. You weren't allowed to do it. The government didn't tolerate it. So if you were found out, you were arrested, and then you would end up being killed because you were a Christian. So Perpetua's dad, who wasn't a believer, still loved his daughter. And so he tried to convince her, look, if you're ever asked by the Roman government about your faith, just hide it. Don't tell them that you're a Christian. Hide your beliefs. So young Perpetua In her home with her father one day, this conversation came up, and Perpetua said to her daddy, Daddy, you see that vase sitting over there on the table? And her father said, Yeah, I see it, honey. And Perpetua said, Daddy, when you look at that vase, can you call it anything else but a vase? And he said, No, of course you can't call it anything else but a vase. And she said, Daddy, when you look at me, you can't expect me to call myself anything other than what I am. A Christian. A Christian. How about you? When push comes to shove, will you identify with who you are? Well, authorities ended up coming to Perpetua's house and all she had to do was two things. Two things. Number one, she was asked to scatter and burn incense in her house as proof that she would be willing to follow the Roman accepted form of worship and spiritual practice. But Perpetua would not take part in what she knew to be a pagan practice. She wouldn't take part in it. Number two, she would not recant her faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. She would not say that she wasn't a Christian. So you know what they did to Perpetua? They arrested her. And the authorities drug her from her home and imprisoned her. Well, her father would write to her. And her father would plead with her while she's in prison to just recant your Christian beliefs, just deny them. But she wouldn't. So it finally came time for execution day, persecution day, to be martyred. And so Perpetua and her friend Felicita and some other Christians, when they were hauled off to the arena, which is where they put Christians for them to be fed to wild animals, you know what she did? And you know what the other Christians around her did? They did two things. They sung hymns to the Lord, and as they passed the unbelievers and the Roman authorities, they preached. And they said, repent of your sin against God. The days are not worse now. The days are not worse. So, Perpetua and her friend, they put the girls out there, and they were trampled, and they were gored by a wild bull. Perpetua's friend, Felicity, she died. by the bull. But Perpetua didn't die. She survived that. And so when she gets up, Her hair is just a mess. And she says, excuse me sir, can I have a moment? Can I have a moment to just get my hair tied up? My hair is a little unkept. You say, well why would she do that? I'll tell you why she did that. It wasn't a vanity thing. It was that in those days, unkept hair was a sign of mourning. And she said, excuse me, sirs, will you let me take a moment to not show everybody here that I'm mourning? Let me put my hair up, because this is a time of joy for me and a time of triumph for me that she could go through what she went through for her Savior. Times aren't worse. Times are better for us now. So they gave her that moment, and then they sent a young gladiator, amateur, not fully persuaded in the ways of paganism, I guess. And he was afraid himself, and hands trembling on what to do with the sword. So a young perpetuate, 22 years old, helped him out, grabbed onto his wrist, and helped him bring the sword up to her neck, and she died for her faith. in an arena where Christians were fed to lions, wild bears, and wild bulls. People say, well, what good did it do? All their singing, hymns, all their preaching, what good did it do? Well, I'll give you some good that it did. There were pagan Romans that were astonished by the courage of the Christian martyrs back in that day. Absolutely astonished by it. One account of a man named Justin of Neopolis, he witnessed the death of many martyrs. And here's what he said. Why would they die for anything but the truth? He was saved. And he eventually died as a martyr. The days aren't worse. The days that we are living in are not worse. They're not. We have people in America that are on the verge of having a heart attack every four years because there's a political election. Oh no, what if the gets in? We've lived through Bill Clinton and we've lived through Obama, okay? No Christian that I know in America was fed the lions. And you know what's going to happen next week? We are going to have millions of Americans stuff their fat faces with all the food that they can eat. And you know what? They're going to sit back and they're going to watch the Lions play football all day. Go back to 203 A.D. Christians were being fed to Lions! I'm telling you, Leonard Ravenhill had it right. Know what he said? We've got preachers that are thin on theology. And that's our downfall. We're fat preachers, thin on theology. We're fat on sports. We're fat on entertainment. We're fat on food. We're fat on amusement. We're fat on all of the riches of life. But we're thin on theology. Folks, the days that we are living in are not worse than the days that Paul and Timothy and the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd century martyrs lived through. The days are not worse. Now that we understand that, let's go back and key in on what this verse is actually teaching. It says in verse 13, "...but evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse." You see, it's the men. And I want to hone in on this key doctrinal truth by going back to the beginning of the chapter. Look at verse number 2. The last day is described. It says, "...for men shall be lovers of them own selves." And then it goes on to describe them. It's for men. Look at verse number 5. We see it come up again. It says, "...having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof, from such..." That's the men. "...turn away." In other words, from those such men turn away. Look at v. 8. At the end of the verse, it says, "...men of corrupt minds reprobate concerning the truth." Look at v. 9. It says, "...their folly shall be made manifest unto all men." Look at v. 10. We see, Now it's contrasted with another man. And Paul's talking to Timothy and he says, but thou hast fully known my doctrine as a man and my manner of life as a man. He contrasts his life to Timothy with the other men that are corrupt men. And then he says in verse 11, basically, In verse 11 and 12, he says, basically, if you follow after the example that I live, you're going to be persecuted like I was persecuted. And that's essentially what's been drawn out of this chapter. So what is waxing worse and worse? The men. It's not the days. It's not the things. It's not the time. What happened in Paul and Timothy's day is the same thing that's happening in our day. Individual men and women, they're evil, they refuse Christ, and that individual man will continue to wax worse and worse and worse. How many of you were saved at an early age, like 15 and younger? You didn't have that many years to wax worse and worse. Now how many you got saved after the age of 25? We had 25 years to wax worse and worse and worse. Now you imagine someone that's 50 and they're lost. Well, they had 50 years as an individual evil man to continue to wax worse and worse and worse and worse. That was happening in Timothy's day, and it's happening in our day. You take any individual at any time in history, without Christ, they will continue to become better deceivers, and they will become more evil in their heart. And if you're saved like I'm saved, let's just thank God we came to the knowledge of the truth. It's easier in our day of trends to preach what's on the Google trends. And it's easier and it sells more books and you can sell $350 conference tickets to come see the celebrity Christian talk about the headlines. You follow the news and you follow the headlines and you preach the headlines. Hey, whatever's coming up, man, we can write a book on prophecy on this. The days are so bad. No, no. Evil men have always waxed worse and worse. It's just that going verse by verse through 2 Timothy isn't as appealing as some conspiracy drummed up by the government to annihilate Christians. It draws the flesh, let's put it that way. The Scriptures should be all sufficient. And we should be able to get this truth by reading the Scriptures and understand that men who carry out evil will continue to get better at carrying out evil. Young people, you have got to get this truth. Evil men who are seducers will continually get better at seducing and deceiving people. They're going to get better at it as they live their years without Christ. So why in the world is Paul trying to tell Timothy this? He's trying to tell Timothy this so that Timothy would have a very clear picture of who to stay away from. These individuals, Timothy, don't let them fool you. Evil men are going to wax worse and worse. And if you don't get a hold of this, Timothy, you're going to end up being pulled and persuaded by them. That's good. That's good lessons from wise Paul to young Timothy. Youngings. as you get older, there may be a friend that you meet that doesn't go to church, that doesn't have parents that teach them the Bible. And they are just as good at persuading you to live the way they're living as your preacher is to try to get you to live the way that God says to live in the Bible. I'm trying to persuade you as a pastor to live godly. Well, if you yoke up with somebody who's lost, they're going to be as good, or if not better, to persuade you to not live godly. Folks, that's the battle. And Paul's like, Timothy, if you don't get this, you're sunk. And so we're saying the same thing here. If we don't get that truth, we're sunk. We're sunk. Well, I just like them. I just like the fellowship. Okay, well, my kids like playing in the dirt too. But when they play in the dirt, the dirt never gets handy, their hands always get dirty. In other words, that friend that you love and you want to play with and hang out with and do all that stuff with, if they're not saved, they're going to continue to wax worse and worse, and they're going to draw you into their lifestyle slowly but surely. In other words, things are going to start to slip. I was immersed in living for the devil. I was listening to the devil's music, all the secular music, all that heavy metal stuff. I was listening to all that. You know what it was doing to me? The first day I listened to it, and at the end of a year, for 365 days, each day I waxed a little bit worse, and a little bit worse, and I got a little farther from God. And it's the same thing with the media. Whatever you allow in, whatever you allow into your child's eyes and ears and their spirit, whatever you feed them, they're going to continue to need more and more of it. It makes sense. It just waxes worse and worse. This is why it's hard to get people off of a junk food diet. Because they've been on it for so long, it's hard to get people off of caffeine, off of coffee. Why? Because they had it for so long that if you don't give it to them, they're going to be mean. Not to you. You'll just think it's to you. You can't stop living for God to chase evil men. You can't. Young people, you've got to pay attention. They will corrupt you. They will corrupt you. There's going to be a day when you're going to get old enough where if you're a boy, you're going to like girls, and if you're a girl, you're going to like boys. There's going to come a day when that's going to be a thing. If you... Girls, pay attention. Young girls, pay attention. When you grow up, if that boy doesn't want to be at church on Sunday morning and Sunday afternoon and midweek service, and he doesn't want to do any evangelism, and he doesn't want to do nothing, he doesn't want to do nothing except say he's a Christian when he's not. If you yoke up with him and get married to him, you're going to be out of church. You will be out of church. You can mark it down. And young boys, you listen up to me. You get some pretty girl that just bats her eyes at you. Oh, you're so strong and you're just what I've been dreaming of. I'm telling you, if she don't get to church and she has no appetite for the things of God, she's going to drag you out of church and she's going to drag you away from the Lord. Why? Because evil men and seducers will wax worse and worse. And I don't want that to happen to any of us. Look at verse 13. I think we understand waxing worse and worse. Look at the end. Deceiving and being deceived. We see this all throughout the Bible. A few things the Bible says about it. Three main things is to be not deceived. Everybody say that. Be not deceived. It also goes on in other places to say, let no man deceive you. Let me hear you say that. Let no man deceive you. And then also it says in another place, let no man deceive himself. Go ahead and say that. We have on our sign out there, Thy Word is truth. And that's John 17, 17. The entire verse is, sanctify them through Thy truth. Thy Word is truth. So, I'm saying this not because I'm against it. I'm just saying it to make a point. Rather than put the preacher of harsh reality or the not-so-famous preacher's name on the sign out there, we decided, do just keep my name off of it and we'll just put, thy word is truth. Look, I'm not against preachers that do that or churches that do that. You see plenty. I'm not saying it because I'm against it. What I'm saying is that that verse is there for a reason. Pilgrim Baptist Church, Thy Word is Truth. You know why? Because if you walk into this building, you know what you're going to hear? The Word. You know what you're going to have to be? Sanctified, just like me. All of us need the Word so that you're not deceived, and you don't deceive others, and I don't deceive myself. because it's deception is the problem. And in verse 13, it's finishing with this thought, deceiving and being deceived. Look, why do men and women nowadays reject Bible truth? They reject Bible truth the same reason they did in the first century, the second century, and the third century. Why? because they want to live like the devil. That's why. Because they don't want to live godly in Christ Jesus. Look, before I got saved, I just wanted to do my own thing, live for me. I wanted to be successful. And I was going to show everybody that was a naysayer that they couldn't hold me down and stop me. I was going to make it happen. I wanted to live for myself. I didn't want to live godly in Christ Jesus. How about you? Similar. But that's not who we are anymore. And we need to be sanctified. Each day we need to die daily each day. So I tried to say earlier. Quote the one preacher. And he's right. We've got fat preachers who are thin on theology. Thy word is truth. When someone rejects truth, not only did they deceive themselves, but now they're going to deceive others and others are going to deceive them. And that circle of deception just continues. You have to lie to people. People are going to lie to you and then you're going to lie to yourself. It's deception. That's why it says, be not deceived. Evolution is a lie based on deception. we're going to evolve into a better species. No, the Bible says that evil men, individual lives, are going to wax worse. We're not getting better, we're getting worse as individuals. That's why we need the Lord to step in. And then once the Lord steps into our lives, do you know who we... Look, I know we sing, Christ is all I need. But the Christ that we sing to that's all I need, He said that we need more than just Him. Not for salvation. Not to go to heaven. He gave us each other and a body of Christ to be into so that when I need help, I can go to a brother. When a sister needs help, she has other sisters to pray with. When you need encouragement, yes, you can go to the Lord, and we should. That's the first place we should go. But He put us in a body for a reason, to help and encourage and love one another. You know how bad it's gotten? The deception of evolution? Well, you just evolved from an animal. You were deceived. You know how they're deceiving themselves now? They're okay with being treated like an animal. It's just like stray dogs and stray cats mating out in the And that's what our culture has turned into. Young girls who are okay with being treated like just an animal. Young boys who think nothing of it. What is that? It's the deception that got so bad that not only were you deceived and are deceiving others, but you yourself are so good at deception that you've deceived your own self to be the recipient of such sins and to live a certain lifestyle. It's horrible. One more verse. Let's look at verse 14. But praise the Lord. I mean, you just look at what the negatives are. Man, I'm going to suffer persecution. I mean, Timothy had to be thinking at this point, man, brother Paul, I've got to deal with evil men, seducers, deception. It's going to get worse and worse. Man, you talk about a negative message. And then Paul says in the Holy Spirit's inspiration, but you know what's coming? The positive. That's the negative. Here's the hope. Here's the positive. Continue. It says, "...but continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and has been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them." Look, young people, as easy as it is to follow after evil men, and be drawn into waxing worse and worse, Paul tells Timothy, you can follow me, young Timothy. In other words, follow the Christians. And you can wax better and better and you can live more godly and more godly. There's two paths. And Paul gives Timothy the hope. He says, look, follow after me, young Timothy. Follow my example. Continue in what I have taught you. and don't back down. He uses His own life as proof that what He is teaching is true. You talk about a testimony. Look at the verse again, "...but continue thou in the things..." What things? My doctrine? My manner of life? Do we get together and sing? Continuing that. Do we get together and learn the Bible? Continuing that. Do we get together and evangelize? Continuing that. Do we get together in fellowship? Continue in that. Do we get together and ask questions and rehearse how it went when witnessing? And do we get together and ask questions on, hey, this verse and that verse and what we talked about the other? Do we do all that? Do we rehearse those things? Continue in those things. You can make a choice on what you want to do and what you want to follow after and who you want to follow after. And Paul, tells young Timothy, follow my example. Look at verse 14 again, "...but continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and has been assured of." In the midst of all of the error that's around you, you've been taught right, Timothy. Is there a lot of error around us? In the midst of all the evil men that are around you that will wax worse and worse, has God put godly men and godly women around you? Follow that, Timothy. In the midst of it all, all the seducers, you know what you've got? The Scriptures. And we're going to talk about that next week when we wrap up this chapter. So we'll hold off on that. But in the midst of all of the deceivers, he doesn't leave Timothy sunk. He says, look, there is something to continue in. As grim as it might seem, as tough as it might get, We have an example to follow, ultimately the Lord Jesus Christ. But Paul and Timothy here in this text is another perfect example. And it shouldn't matter who the opposition is, and it shouldn't matter what the consequences. continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and been assured of." Now, how many of you young girls here have read about or know about the story of Perpetua? Okay, good. Could you Could you continue in the things that thou hast learned if you were living in that day? It's a tough question, isn't it? Mamas, could you be okay with your daughter living through that? I mean, no mother would be okay with it. That's not how I'm asking it. The way I'm asking it is, you can't convince her to lie and deny her Savior. Would you want to try to convince her to lie and deny her Savior as a father? I'm going to share with you something that bothers me when I hear it. I'm a patriot. I love America. I'm a missionary. We are a missionary family to America. The Bible buckle belt, the buckle of the Bible belt, we're here. right in the belt buckle. We're here. We love the freedom we have in America. Most of the time when you hear me pray, it's about, thank you for the freedom we have, Lord. And I sincerely mean that. And it's not a vain repetition. It's just a repetition that I sincerely love our people. And I didn't feel called to go outside of America because America is such a full of sin that I wanted to stay here and that's where the Lord, this is where the Lord called me. But when you have people say they love America, they love their country, they're this, they're that, and we need to get the right politician in and we love America. You know, a lot of those people will do if their child had to go to war for the America that they say they love. You know what they'll do? They'll try to get a religious exemption so their child doesn't have to go to war and fight for the country that they say they love. I thought you loved America. Oh, well, wait. When it comes to your child, all of a sudden they're called to be a preacher or a missionary. Come on! God didn't give you that. I just wonder if the God that I say I love and the God that we say we love, if push comes to shove, we're going to take the worldly exemption and deny the Savior that we love, that we say we love and that we sing to I don't even like thinking about it because it's a horrible thing. But I have to compel us to think about these things because we wouldn't because we don't live in the second century when this was happening. I would expect the world that doesn't know God to want to claim a religious exemption if their son or daughter's life might be a jeopardy in the military. But I'd like to think, and I trust you're probably thinking the same, I'd like to think that if we were called to deny our faith, that we wouldn't take the worldly exemption. I'd like to think that we'd stand firm in our faith, and we'd encourage our children to stand strong in their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the mark of a true, sold-out Christian. I want to talk about one more thing and then we'll finish up. The end of verse 14 says, "...knowing of whom thou hast learned them." I want to go back to chapter number 1 just for a second. Because, "...knowing of whom thou hast learned them, Paul saying to Timothy, don't forget who taught you." And in 2nd Timothy chapter 1, I won't stay here long because I already preached on it. But Paul taught Timothy the Scriptures. Look what it says in verse 13. In 2 Timothy 1. It says, "...hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me..." That's Paul teaching him. "...in faith and love, which is in Christ Jesus." Paul taught young Timothy the Scriptures. Now go up to verse 5. It says, when I called the remembrance, the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois..." That's Timothy's grandmother. "...and thy mother Eunice." Or Eunice, depending on how you pronounce that. That's Timothy's mom. Timothy's mother and his grandmother taught him the Scriptures. Paul taught him the Scriptures. You young boys, you're growing up in church. You imagine 18 years of that. And girls, your mom is teaching you the Bible, and your dad's teaching you the Bible. And you grow up listening to dad pray and lead devotions, and mom give you a lesson here or there. And you're doing all that. You're obeying. You're learning things. It's what kids should do. It's the perfect Christian life. Did Paul teach Timothy? Did Timothy's mom and grandma teach him? Paul's in jail and he's saying, I want you to remember But now it's up to you, Timothy, to own it. Right now, your motivation to continue is gained from mom and dad encouraging you and training you and teaching you and compelling you and making you. But young people, when you are 18, That can't mom and dad or your preacher Brother jimmy can't be your motivation as an adult for you to live for god I'm going to teach you the bible Your mom is going to teach you the bible, but when you're an adult She can't be your motivation for serving god. There's going to come a time where tag you're it You're going to have to own it. You're going to have to lay hold of it. Knowing of whom now has learned them. Good parents. Just like good teachers and preachers. I have no motivation to deceive you. This isn't a celebrity church with a celebrity pastor who gets a celebrity paycheck with celebrity members. That isn't our church. We have no motivation to deceive each other. There's none of that. Just like a good mom. Just like a good Christian dad. They have no motivation, young people, to deceive you. They want you to continue in the right thing. You know what we do have? Some life down the road. Some experience. Young Timothy is looking at his preacher in jail, and he's soaking it up. Paul's been down the road. He's got some experience. He has no motivation in his heart at all to seduce or deceive Timothy. It's just all good truth. But Timothy, now it's up to you, bud. You're gonna have to take the reins of control, and you're gonna have to continue in what I taught you, because you want it. Because you want it. Let's pray.