Knowledge

I am going to wrap up our trip through Timothy today. There is a lot more to cover but you have to stop somewhere and Easter will be a good place to stop. The rest of 2 Tim covers a lot but it sticks with one central theme, get ready for the last days. It tells us what to expect and what to look for as time grows short.

2 Timothy 3:1–17 NASB95

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; 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. Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men of depraved mind, rejected in regard to the faith. 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. Now you followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, perseverance, persecutions, and sufferings, such as happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium and at Lystra; what persecutions I endured, and out of them all the Lord rescued me! Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. But evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.

There is a lot in that we could recognize. Selfish people are easy to find today, it is no problem to find someone who is dishonest or immoral it is easy to find someone to agree with you that this present generation is worse than the last and that has been going on longer than I have been alive, it is nothing new. We could find plenty of things to talk about, especially about how much worse they are than they used to be. However I want to focus on a particular idea this morning.

2 Timothy 3:7 NASB95

always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

2 Timothy 3:14–17 NASB95

You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.

in my lifetime we have learned so many things. I don’t remember the firth phones but I remember the first cell phones. I remember bag phones, they were huge. Before they came along everyone had the same old black rotary phone and people in the country had party lines where several houses shared the same phone line. I remember black and white TV and the snow from a bad signal. I remember having only two or three channels and having to wait for whatever you wanted to watch to come on and if you missed it you missed it, it was gone.

Now we have cell phones that you can watch TV on, whatever you want to watch. Kids today have more information available in the palm of their hand than we had in the local library. More information than they could ever learn or use. In some ways I think the amount of stuff we know or can know has in some ways made us know less. Because we can look anything up at anytime we don’t need to memorize or learn as many things as we used to, so we don’t.

I think that having so much opportunity to google things have made us less interested in knowing things, having things in our minds available to recall for ourselves. Why go to the trouble when we can just look it up whenever we need to?

But I think there is a disadvantage. We act on what we believe to be true. In a way our beliefs control our actions. If we believe that a certain thing will make us happy then that is what we will do. If we believe that a certain thing will be unpleasant then we try to avoid it. So what determines what we believe, what determines what we think is true and what we think is false? With so much information available to us, and so much of that information contradicting other information what do we believe, how do we know?

I think that many of us don’t know. I think we have so much information overload and so many different opinions that we start to believe that there is no way to know what is true, or that truth does not really exist. If nothing is true and nothing can be trusted then anything and everything is on the table. In many ways it seems that the more we learn and the more we know the fewer things we are certain of.

There was a time when there seemed to be fewer things to know but people were more certain about what they did know. Since there was less to know most people “knew” the same things and most everyone was certain about what they did know. In many ways the world was easier since things were more certain and beliefs were more secure. People knew what they believed and what they were certain of.

Scripture has something to say about this.

2 Timothy 3:16 NASB95

All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;

Scripture is given so that people may learn, once they have learned it can be used to correct mistakes, to show error and to teach you to do the right thing. all of this has a purpose, a goal. There is an end game in mind from all of this teaching and training

2 Timothy 3:17 NASB95

so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.

The goal is to do good works. Having the right knowledge, believing the right things leads to doing the right things. People act according to what they believe, if they believe the right things they tend to do the right things. If they believe the wrong things they do the wrong things. So what happens when we don’t know what to believe, we don’t know what to do.

Now we have a situation where there is so much information, so much conflicting information that no one knows what is true and what is false and some people have even begun to wonder if there is such a thing as truth or if there is truth if we can be certain what it is. Is it any wonder that our actions follow our beliefs. If we are not sure what is true then we cannot be sure what we should do or how we should act. If we are not sure that truth even exists then how can we know if there even is a “right” way to act or a “right” thing to do.

Once you lose your certainty of what you believe you lose your compass, the thing that tells you which way to go and what to do. You lose your way. We have lots of people today who have lost their way, people who don’t know exactly what they believe or what they can trust and so they try different things. Some of the things they try are good and some are bad. They are not sure what to believe or what to trust so they try lots of different things and there seems to be no rhyme or reason to what they do and how they do it because what they think and what they believe are always changing.

So what is the solution. If confusion and uncertainty are the cause and all kinds of sinful actions are the result what is the cure. If the last days are full of people who lie and cheat, people who are selfish and disobedient greedy and despising good. Paul tells us that this will be the case and we can see it all around us. If the cause of these things is that people don’t know what to believe anymore or what to trust then what is the solution. How do we fix it. How do we keep from ending up in the same situation?

2 Timothy 3:16–17 NASB95

All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.

Trust in God, trust in the word of God. Trust in the truth of scripture and you will know what to believe. Even Christians today are having a problem knowing what to believe. It should not surprise us. Biblical ignorance is at an all time high among our churches, we just don’t know what the bible says. Maybe it is because there are so many other things competing for our time and attention. Another problem is that some of us are not sure we believe what the bible says. We have begun to doubt and to question.

We are unsure what the truth is or if we even believe in truth at all. It has caused many of us to lose our way. So how do we find our way? We have to find a source of truth. We have to find something to trust. We have to find a foundation to rest our beliefs and our behaviors on. We need a firm foundation. We need to believe in that something is true and trustworthy. If you are going to trust in something, anything, trust in something that never changes, something that is solid and dependable, something that is true. Or someone who is true. Basing your beliefs and therefore your behaviour on God and on the word of God keeps you grounded and consistent. God is true and his word is true, therefore basing your beliefs and your behaviors on God and the word of God will give you a moral compass and a foundation that you can stand firmly on for your entire life. It won’t matter how many different opinions and versions of the facts are out there, it won’t matter how confusing things become or how many different options there are, you will know what to believe and how to act because you are grounded in the word of God. It is an anchor, a solid rock that you can rely on no matter how many things change and no matter how many options or choices there might be you will know where to start and what to believe because you have decided to trust in God and his word. It is the place to start, it is the firm foundation. God’s word will give you the truth and the firm anchor that grounds you in life. You will never be lost. You can always find your way, and your way will be clear. Trust God, rely on God, use him as your foundation, your base, the one you can always trust and rely on, be grounded in scripture and you will never lose your way.