Living in a Decadent Culture

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The New Testament frequently warns us about apostasy in the church of Jesus Christ. Apostasy is literally falling away from the faith. It’s the rejection of the authority of the revealed Word of God and replacing God’s truth with the lies of the culture in whichever age we live. Today the lies about origins and race and victimhood and gender ideologies, including female leadership in the church, have been seeping into the church for a good long while. We all need great discernment in a day of great deception and decadence. When the church rejects the Scriptures, she rejects Christ. And when she rejects Christ, she rejects the power of the gospel to transform lives and thereby resorts to all kinds of other methods and techniques and ideologies the world offers to keep the church “relevant” to the culture.  

That’s exactly what 2 Timothy 3 is about. It begins with the warning about apostasy and ends with the only answer for these days of apostasy, the Word of God. Paul says continue in it, be equipped by it, and preach it (2 Timothy 3:16-4:1). We need God’s Word. It is God’s Word that is living and powerful. It brings salvation and gives power to conquer sin and makes us overcomers in Jesus Christ. Reject or ignore or change the Word and we slide into apostasy and decadence.

Let’s gain a discerning heart about the power and influence of defection and apostasy in this passage. Paul begins with a strong warning.

SPIRITUAL APOSTASY WILL INCREASE IN THE LAST DAYS.

2 Timothy 3:1, But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come.

God wants you to be aware of something – realize this, know this. Don’t be duped into thinking that Christianity is going to make the world better and better, or that the gospel will finally triumph socially, morally and politically. That’s post-millennialism, but that’s not the New Testament. As long as we are in this body, in this time period before Christ comes back, there will be spiritual defection and a need to fight for the truth of the gospel. Christ will clean up the mess when He returns and sets up His kingdom (Revelation 19-20).

Paul says, “in the last days.” This phrase “in the last days” given in Scripture refers to the entire period between Jesus’ first and second coming. Hebrews 1:2 says, “In these last days God has spoken.” First Timothy 4:1 says, “But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons.” The fact is that defection and apostasy from the faith have taken place from the very beginning of the church age. And as we get closer to Jesus’ second coming, deception, defection, and departure from the faith will increase. Christ clearly warned His people.

Matthew 24:10-13, “At that time many will fall away and will betray one another and hate one another. 11 “Many false prophets will arise and will mislead many. 12 “Because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold. 13 “But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved.

Even though Christ is speaking of the tribulation period leading up to Daniel’s abomination of desolation in Matthew 24, a growing end times religious apostasy will precede the tribulation period.  

The word “times” (kairoi, plural) speaks of seasons or time periods. Throughout the church age there have been seasons of defection and apostasy, followed by revival, then defection, then revival. Just think of the Reformation, the Puritan era, the Great Awakening, the Second Great Awakening. In between these God-centered times, the church sank down into times of decadence, and the God faithfully revived her. Where are we today? We are in a period of defection from the truth of the gospel. This has been seen especially in the last decade with the onslaught of cultural Marxism, critical race theory, gender confusion, and feminism seeping and then pouring into churches, mainly through liberal seminaries that train young men and women in these unbiblical ideologies.

Paul describes these times as difficult. The word is “chalepoi” — troublesome, fierce, savage. It is used in Matt. 8:28 of two demon-possessed characters who were so exceedingly violent no one could pass by them. What is Paul talking about? There will be times when it will be dangerous to stand up for Christ. Verse 12 tells us all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. History shows times of severe, horrendous persecution, and nothing says we American Christians are exempt from it. But Paul is speaking here of the spiritual and moral corruption that hijacks the churches. Calvin comments on this passage, “The church will be subject to grievous ills which require in pastors uncommon faithfulness, diligence, carefulness, wisdom, and unwearied constancy…. This is no time for idle repose.”  This decadence and apostasy will increase in the last days.

SPIRITUAL APOSTASY BREEDS RELIGIOUS AND MORAL DECADENCE.

2 Timothy 3:2-4, For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, 4 treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,

The most amazing thing about this list is that it is describing people who identify with Christianity or at least religion. Paul says in verse 5 they hold to a form of godliness but deny its power.  Paul described the world under God’s wrath in Romans 1. And here he sadly describes the church in the same terms, revealing there is almost no difference between the lives of professing Christians and worldlings. As you read through this list of moral corruption, you see the raw view of man’s depravity of the heart. Jesus described the rotten fruit of the human heart in much the same way in Matthew 15:19, “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adultery…false testimonies, and slanderous statements.” As always, the heart of the problem is the problem of the heart. Here Paul describes the depraved, corrupt human heart untethered from the fear and love of God. How is your heart? My heart? How do our desires and loves compare to Paul’s list? Are we looking in a mirror here? 

Paul then highlights three loves that are poisonous to a spiritual life: love of self, love of money, and love of pleasure.

#1 Lovers of self. Self-love is the root of all the rest. Self-love drives so much of our cultural agenda today telling us – be your own authentic self. “Be you. Don’t let others or even God tell you who you are. You have the right to be whomever and whatever you want to be.” Self-love describes the narcissistic sinful self as described in Webster’s – one obsessed with self, feelings of self-importance, sense of entitlement, and need for constant admiration. When the world came up with the pop psychology of self-esteem and that we all needed to learn to love ourselves more, the churches bought right into it. Books were written with verses sprinkled in to make them sound Christian, and the self-love, self-esteem movement has been a disaster.  A book on Amazon, Become Who You Are, is described as giving a “radically new theory of self-esteem and human greatness.” It draws from the insights of Friedrich Nietzsche and others.  Stay away from Nietzsche. He declared war on God and suffered insanity the last seven years of his life. The Bible does not teach us to love ourselves; it teaches the opposite. The Bible assures us we already do love ourselves. Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” He didn’t say, “Learn to love yourself before you can love your neighbor.” He did say we are to deny ourselves, die to our selfish interests, and take up our cross and follow Christ.  

#2 Lovers of money. Loving self and loving money go hand in hand, don’t they? When you love something, you live for it. You live for what you love. That’s why Christ said you can’t love both money and God. Where your treasure is, that’s where your heart is. 

When you love money, you look to money to meet your needs. Soon you don’t see any need for Christ. The problem is money can deceive you right into hell.  

1 Timothy 6:9-10, But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction. 10 For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.

I’ve heard people say money doesn’t satisfy. That’s not true. The reason it is so deceptive is that it does satisfy the flesh, and it keeps people from God. Why did Jesus say in Matthew 10:23-25 it’s hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom? Did that rich young ruler love his money?  You better believe it, and it kept him from following Christ. The love of money has the power to damn people by consuming them with getting it and by deceiving them into thinking they don’t need God. 

All the rest of the rotten fruit in 2 Timothy 3 falls out from these two perverted, self-centered loves. The power of the gospel destroys self-love, love of money, greed, and the desire to be a billionaire. The list ends in vs. 4 – lovers of pleasure rather than loving God. What’s in it for me?  “I want what I want.” Let’s quickly slog through this rotten fruit. You may feel you need a Holy Spirit shower after this.

• Boastful – braggarts who love to talk about themselves and their accomplishments.
• Arrogant – haughty, seeing themselves above others and looking down, like that Pharisee in the temple.  “I’m glad I’m not like other people.”
• Revilers – speaking evil of God and others, from low-life cussing to sophisticated mockery of God. This is man’s heart: we don’t want God, we don’t need God, there is no God. They ask, “What kind of God would allow all this bad stuff to happen?”
• Disobedient to parents – a major crime in God’s book. Parents, train them early to obey you, for their safety and to honor God. Parents, be aware of how the schools indoctrinate your children. The current issue is gender. Gavin Newsome just signed off on a bill that prohibits schools and institutions from informing parents of a child’s gender dysphoria and dysfunction. The government says your children belong to them. 
• Unthankful – with no sense of appreciation to God or others. Romans 1:21 says ingratitude to God is the first step to full-blown moral corruption, sexual perversion, and depraved behavior.  
• Unholy – disrespect for anything God holds sacred, including sanctity of life. Saying abortion is “healthcare” is a lie.
• Unloving – without natural affection. Christ said children will rise up against parents and have them put to death (Matthew 10:21)! This is the heart corrupted by intense self-love. God made families to love and care for one another. He designed parents to protect and nourish their children and children to desire affection from parents.   
• Irreconcilable – full of hatred and implacable malice toward others. 
• Malicious gossip – diaboloi like the devil, spreading lies, slander, and half-truths designed to hurt and destroy others.  
• Without self-control – no longer able to say no to self and hopelessly enslaved to their own passions and lusts.
• Brutal – savage, cruel, violent like wild beasts. A sad story hit the news this June. Mia Bailey, a 28-year-old male who thinks he’s a female, shot his parents in cold blood. His comment was, “I’d do it again. I hate my parents.” MacArthur described our government’s brutal, godless policies this way: “You take basically the most defenseless, the most innocent, the most helpless of all humanity, and you murder them, or you maim them, or you mutilate them, or you pervert them. This is the worst. It’s insanity.”  
• Haters of good – This is why the world hates true Christianity. They hate hearing that their behavior is a sin. They call evil good and good evil (Isaiah 5:20).
• Treacherous – the idea of betrayal. Friends and family betray one another.
• Reckless – falling headlong into careless actions, regardless of how it affects others.  
• Conceited – all puffed up with the smoke of pride, they know it all. John Lennon, blinded in the smoke of his pride, said, “Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue about that; I’m right and will be proven right. We (Beatles) are more popular than Jesus now.” Then in 1980 he was shot and murdered on his front doorstep.

#3 Lovers of pleasure. This is the last mark of these apostates. Lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. God created us to love and glorify Him and enjoy Him forever, but these self-lovers live for their own pleasures of enjoying themselves. They think this is the purpose of life, but it usually leads to an unfulfilled, empty life. These are the three deadly loves: self, money, and pleasure.  

Before we move on from our study of the three deadly loves of self, money, and pleasure, I want to remind you that there is always hope in Jesus Christ. You may have seen yourself in this mirror of human sin and depravity, but never forget there is hope for freedom from the bondage of sin. Jesus came into the word to save sinners. No matter the depth of your sin, when a person repents and turns to Christ, the depth of His mercy and grace is infinitely deeper. Turn to Christ now. 

SPIRITUAL APOSTASY LEAVES ONLY THE SHELL OF RELIGION.

2 Timothy 3:5, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these.

They have this form of godliness, morphe – only the external shell, like those cicada shells you find on trees. They look like cicadas, but they are empty – no life. That is how it is with these people in verse 5. They look godly but are empty of spiritual substance. What’s the problem here? They want heaven, but they want their sin also. They want God’s blessing, but they also want to live their own way. You can’t have it both ways. The gospel changes people when they are regenerated, born again. The cross of Jesus Christ brings not only forgiveness and heaven, but a new heart that loves God and is willing to obey God, even when it goes against our natural desires.

These people see no need for the power of God to regenerate their hearts. “We don’t need to be saved,” they say. “We’re good the way we are. We are all children of God.”  AOC, the “theologian of the 21^st century,” said, “I know, and it is part of my faith that all persons are holy, and all people are sacred. Unconditionally.” A liberal pastor responded favorably to her comment, “Instead of worrying about correcting other people, we decide to act as though God thinks they’re gorgeously fabulous exactly as they are….  If Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s faith is the future of American Christianity, then that’s a faith worth fighting for.”  Whoa! That is apostate religion 2024.

That kind of thinking is probably more common than we in a Bible church can imagine. How many denominations are considering or committed to affirming same sex attraction, same sex marriage, female, even lesbian, pastors? These things are apostasy and clearly condemned by God in Romans 1. Promoting such ideology casts off Christ and His power. It is religious secular humanism, man-centered, and driven by do-good virtue signaling and a self-help social justice agenda which assures them that they are just fine with whatever “power above” may be there.  

How do you deal with these wolves in sheep’s clothing? Paul says, “Avoid them!” Turn away from them. Don’t join them in religious endeavors. Now, it is one thing to befriend unbelievers in hopes of telling them about Christ. We should do that (1 Cor. 5:9-10). But people who claim to be religious but are only the form, the shell, Paul says clearly, avoid them. Polycarp reports that one day the apostle John was in a public bath and when he heard that Cerinthus, a false teacher who denied the incarnation of Christ, was also in there, he ran from the place, exclaiming, “Surely the house will fall in ruins since the enemy of the truth is there.”

John the apostle also wrote in 2 John 10-11, “If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house, and do not give him a greeting; for the one who gives him a greeting participates in his evil deeds.” 

SPIRITUAL APOSTASY REPLACES THE GOSPEL WITH FALSE TEACHING DRESSED UP AS TRUTH.

2 Timothy 3:6-7, For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, 7 always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

How do these religious hucksters operate? They enter like flies as soon as the door cracks open, or tree frogs which cling to the wall above your nightstand, or lizards which slither in and hide out behind a jar on your countertop. These critters are slick, and so are the false teachers who enter houses. They appeal to the more vulnerable. Jehovah’s Witnesses typically go door to door during the day. Is that because the husband’s at work? Remember, old Satan slithered down that tree and appealed to Eve, not to Adam.  

Let’s see how they operate. They’re aggressive – Paul says they enter and captivate. They’re shrewd – they appeal to human weakness, to women weighed down with sin. They have issues and are feeling burdened. Maybe they are exasperated with unruly children. Perhaps they feel ignored by their husbands. These charlatans come into the home with comfort and assurance of caring. They target these vulnerable women. They play on emotions. Plus, they give a sense of identity, purpose, and answers. Irenaeus from the second century talked about a false teacher named Marcus who devoted himself to women, assuring them he could give them the gift of prophecy. He coached a lady; she prophesied and was amazed. Then she offered the false teacher some money or sometimes herself. Ladies, like Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14:35, run everything you hear by your husband before buying into it! 

Notice, they don’t give the truth of Jesus Christ. Somehow, they’ve figured out how to keep you coming or paying or tuning in, but the powerful gospel of Jesus Christ is absent. You’ve got all these systems and steps and treatments and therapies and unbiblical counseling systems, but what you need is Jesus Christ, the way, the truth, the life. If you have Him, you can handle anything that comes your way. Second Peter 1:3-4 says in Christ you have all the magnificent promises and power you need!

SPIRITUAL APOSTASY WILL FINALLY BE EXPOSED AS DAMNING LIES. 

2 Timothy 3:8-9, Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men of depraved mind, rejected in regard to the faith. 9 But they will not make further progress; for their folly will be obvious to all, just as Jannes’s and Jambres’s folly was also.

Jannes and Jambres are not found anywhere else in the Bible. What we do know about them is from the Targum of Jonathan. Their names may mean Seducer and Rebel. They are depraved, spiritually dead toward God, and utterly rejected by God. Judgment is coming; they will finally be exposed as the fakes they are.    

SO WHAT?

We are living during this kind of defection – difficult and crazy days not only in the culture but seeping into the church. One of the greatest dangers we face personally and as a church is in verse 5 – form without reality. Let me close with four simple precautions.

• Settle for nothing less than true spiritual conversion in your own life. Second Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, this person is a new creation; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.” Is Christ in you? Has the power of the gospel transformed your life? 

• Be discerning in your spiritual associations. Paul says avoid these false teachers. If you’re in a liberal, woke church offering affirmation to same sex attraction or female preachers or denying crucial truths of God’s word, come out from among them. Second 2 Corinthians 6:16-17, “For we are the temple of the living God…Therefore, come out from their midst and be separate,” says the Lord.”

• Compare everything you hear with Scripture.  Is this biblical?

• Be willing to endure anything for your stand for Jesus Christ.