XVII

THE END OF THE AGE AND HOW TO

T

sion.

MEET IT

I

HE theme of this chapter has been chosen in order to bring the teaching up to this point to a spiritual and practical conclu

It is a brief exposition of Paul's words to Timothy-those in the third and fourth chapters of the second letter to his young son in the faith, beginning with the words: "This know also that in the last days perilous (grievous) times shall come." By "the last days," I do not understand him to mean those preceding the end of the world, which, as we have seen, is doubtless a long way off, but those pre ceding the end of the age, which, for aught we know, may be very near.

Indeed his description of these days so tallies with what we see around us now, as almost to compel the conclusion that he has the present time in mind. For is not this time marked by selfishness, by the love of money, boasting, pride, blasphemy, disobedience to parents, unthankfulness, the absence of natural affection, the breaking of treaties, slander, incontinence, fierceness and the other awful things he names? Does not the love of pleasure supersede

the love of God to-day, and has not formalism largely taken the place of real spiritual power in the religious life?

Of course, it may be said that these things have been apparent in every period of the professing Church from apostolic days till now. Cowper thought they marked his period over 100 years ago, when he wrote:

"The Prophets speak of such, and, noting down
The features of the last degenerate times,
Exhibit every lineament of these."

But this does not effect the prediction that they will mark the last days, nor the fact that they assuredly mark the present ones.

II

Therefore particular interest attaches to the three or four additional things which Paul says about these days:

(1) He speaks of the influence of the formalists on the female mind. "Of this sort are they that creep into houses and lead captive silly women.

Not that all women are silly, as some of Paul's critics might be quick to charge him as having said, but that those are silly who are led away by these false teachers whose propaganda he informs us is marked by secretiveness, cowardice and ignorance.

We think of Bahaism in these days, and the Star of the East, and New Thought, and Christian Science, and Spiritualism, and other forms of Theosophy and Buddhism, which get their foothold in these western

climes so generally through woman's susceptibility. When her conscience is restless because of sin and fear, and failing to accept Jesus Christ as her Saviour and Lord she "casts wearily about for other anodynes," the false teacher gets his opportunity. He has his occult solutions of her difficulties, and she listens, and experiments and becomes infatuated and is lost.

(2) A second thing he mentions is that these “evil men and seducers" (or impostors), for thus he characterizes false teachers of religion, "shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived."

A prediction this is which definitely answers the ever-recurring question as to whether the world is morally growing better or worse.

The modern view is that improvement is constantly in progress, but the Bible steadfastly teaches the opposite. And it does so because it is dealing with fundamental and eternal principles rather than material phenomena of any kind. These latter can be good and lasting only as they express or are based upon the right view of and the right relationship to God, which are clearly inconsistent with the growth of religious imposture in the world.

Note further, that these impostors are not only deceiving others, but are themselves deceived. The god of this age, as Satan is called in the Bible, is he who controls their thinking and inspires their religious zeal though they are unaware of it. Because they refuse the love of the truth God gives them over to a delusion that they should believe the lie (2 Thess. 2:10, 11).

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(3) A third thing is the certainty of persecution for all who oppose the world's view of things, or as the apostle puts it, "for all that will live godly in Christ Jesus.

"Antithetical principles must collide, and collision for the Christian disciple must bring pain. This may not mean the faggot, or imprisonment or the lictor's thong, in these days, though in some places and under some conditions these are not impossible; but it will mean ostracism and contempt, it will mean defection of relatives and friends, and it will mean an opposition on the part of those who have the power of worldly preferment that will bring deprivation and loss that can be felt.

(4) But a fourth thing Paul mentions has joy and comfort in it.

These false teachers shall come to an end, or as his words in 3:9 might be rendered, "they shall not proceed too far." The hounds of hell are leashed. He compares the teachers with the magicians who withstood Moses before Pharaoh, and he affirms that their folly shall be made evident to all men as was true in the other case. But that will be the day of the manifestation of the sons of God, the day of the Lord's coming for which the whole creation groans.

III

We have thus before us a picture of the last days, however sketchy, and it is in order now to follow Paul as, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he instructs and warns us how to face the situation it

discloses, and how to solve its problems. Three lines of action are set forth:

(1) After describing the character of the men and women who are in part the cause, and in part the product of the times, and after climaxing his description on the religionists who hold only the outward form of godliness and deny the power thereof, he says: "From such turn away" (3:5). There must be no compromise in other words, and no parley; separation must be the rule.

Devoutly is it to be wished that the youth of our generation would act on this advice or rather command, and "turn away" from these false systems of religion before attempting to investigate them. To investigate them is worse than useless for there is always peril in it. And this investigation has been done for us by those competent for the task, and who have stamped their character upon them in no unmistakable terms.

The fabric of these false systems is not new, though like an old dress they sometimes deceive us by taking on new collars and cuffs. Their beginnings were in Babylon, on the plain of Shinar, of which we have written in a preceding chapter, and which the Bible calls "the mother of the harlots and the abominations of the earth" (Rev. 17:5). From her face flight is the only safety for "her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell" (Prov. 5:5).

(2) But flight is nothing if there be no refuge to fly to, and therefore Paul reveals one in the Word of God. "Continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of," he says to