[322 words]
Have you noticed the growing fascination that some have with other people’s perils? They pay good money to watch stunt drivers jump a string of cars, or a tightrope walker make his way across a tiny rope 200 feet above the pavement. We marvel when someone unnecessarily puts himself at risk.
The greatest risk of all is the danger that threatens our soul. Paul warned that perilous times would bring dangers that threaten to undo us (2 Tim. 3-4). These perils include:
1. Ignorance of God’s Word. Some will “creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (3:6-7). Those who do not know God’s word are fair game for religious racketeers.
2. Doctrines of Men. “Now as Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, disapproved concerning the faith” (3:8). The Egyptian magicians resisted Moses by imitating his works. Satan is the great imitator. What God does, he counterfeits, forcing us to distinguish between truth and error.
3. Prejudice. “But they will progress no further, for their folly will be manifest to all, as theirs also was” (3:9). One who judges before he knows the facts is prejudiced. Some students searched the Scriptures and rejected the truth, while the Bereans searched the same passages and received the truth (read John 5:39; Acts 17:11). How can the same act (studying the Bible) produce such different results? The first group was prejudiced; the other, honest.
4. Desire to Please Men. Paul warns Timothy that God will judge him (2 Tim 4:1), and therefore he must continue to tell people what they need to hear, whether they like it or not (vs. 2). One of Timothy’s greatest problems would be the “itching ears” of those who demand something besides truth (3-4).
Covet correction and don’t let these perils steal your soul!