Page 7 - Gods Plan of the Ages

days preceding Yahshua's return would be days of profound deception and error.

II Timothy 3:1-7
But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. 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; and 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.

Note very carefully here that Paul identifies the day he is speaking of to Timothy."But
realize this, in the last days difficult times will come." How many ministers today are
proclaiming that we live in the last days? It seems that many recognize that the hour is late,
but they have failed to discern what the Bible foretells the state of Christianity to be at this
late hour. Paul begins this passage by saying, "in the last days difficult times will come,"
and he concludes by saying that people would be"always learning and never able to come
to the knowledge of the truth." What Paul is speaking of is not the exception, but rather the
overriding condition of the majority of Christians in the last days.
Multitudes today are attending regularly to various forms of teaching, but they are not
arriving at the knowledge of the truth. Timothy was charged by Paul to preach the word.
Things were already difficult in the days Paul wrote to Timothy. Consider then the difficulty
of any minister who finds himself proclaiming truth to those in the last days. Indeed, their
task will be formidable. Paul is still maintaining the same train of thought when he speaks
the following words.

II Timothy 4:1-4
I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ, who is to judge the living and
the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and
out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. For the time
will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears
tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires;
and will turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to myths.

When should one expect this time to come when men will not endure sound doctrine?
Paul already has informed us that he is speaking of the last days, the days in which we now
live. If men are not heeding sound doctrine, what are they listening to? They are listening
to great accumulations of teachers that are speaking the things their wayward hearts want
to hear. They are turning aside unto myths and fables. There is virtually no area of truth
that has remained unaffected due to the difficulty of the days we live.
In the book of II Thessalonians, Paul described the dire state of these days with the
word "apostasy."

II Thessalonians 2:1-3
Now we request you, brethren, with regard to the coming of our Lord Yahshua the
Messiah, and our gathering together to Him, that you may not be quickly shaken from