 Good morning everyone. Thank you for joining class. Today we look at second Timothy chapter three before we begin to look at second Timothy chapter three or maybe if you need it. Just a recap, we know that this is Paul's last episode to Timothy. Where is Paul when he is writing this letter? Where is Paul when he is writing second Timothy? You can type the answers in the chat or unmute and answer. Where is Paul when he was writing this episode to Timothy? Or this letter to Timothy? In Rome, okay. And what was he? Thank you Prince. He's in Rome. What is he doing in Rome? Yes, thank you Conant. He's in prison. He's in prison and he knows that this time he's not like the previous time. This time he knows he's going to die. That is very evident and he knows that this is going to come about. And so he's writing this episode and this Paul's last episode which he writes before he is martyred. And he's writing this letter to whom? Who is he writing this letter to? Timothy, yes. Thank you, Evan. Thank you Conant and he's sharing with Timothy. Evan says sharing with Timothy how to live a life, how to live a Godly life. Yes, we know that Timothy is now 30 or almost 25 years and he served alongside Paul for 18 years. So, you know, he's seen Paul's life, his ministry, the way he does things. He's observed it very closely and you see that second Timothy is a very personal letter that Paul writes to Timothy where he's talking about his own life and his ministry. He's talking about his life as a minister of God and he's giving inputs to another minister that Paul is giving his inputs to Timothy who's a minister of God as well and how he should live and his life as a minister of God and hence we see this very, very personal letter. Okay, now we're not just cutting this book because it's a bible. Of course, yes, you know, we can receive a lot from, you know, scripture, we learn a lot. So, this book is not just a letter that was written to Timothy in a very personal letter, but it's something that also a minister to us today, there's a lot of learning that we can, you know, we can see from this, we can learn a lot things from this. So, all those who want to serve God, who want to be a minister of God and want to be used by God, you know, this letter is very helpful to help you to know how to live as a minister of God, how to live a life worthy of the calling that you have received, never worthy and honourable, like worthy and honourable in the sight of God as you serve him and even as you minister in his kingdom. Okay. So, let's read 2 Timothy chapter 3. All of us can please turn to 2 Timothy chapter 3. There are 17 verses. So, all of us can read a few verses. This is the three or four verses each of you can read two or three verses to help. So, one of you please. But know this that in the last day, previous time will come, for men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blunders, disobedience to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, blunders, with of self-control, barter, despised, of God. Thank you. So, we will read the next three verses. Traitors, headstrong, howdy, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness, but denying his power. And from such people, turn away. Four of these serve and those who creep into households and make copies of gullible women and women loaded down with sins led away by various lusts. Thank you. So, we will continue. How many of us can read eight, nine and ten please? I will read it. Always learn and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Now, as jenis and jambres and resisted modus, so do they, so this also resist the truth. Men of corrupt minds, these are proof concerning their faith, but they will progress no further, or their folly will be manifest to all as there also was. Thank you. Anyone else would like to read other verses? Okay, verse ten, but you have carefully followed my doctrine, manner of life, perfect faith, long suffering, love, perseverance, persecutions, afflictions which happen to me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra, what persecutions are endured, and how to them all the Lord delivereth me. And yes, that all who desire to live God here in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution, but even men in impostors will go worse and worse deceiving and deceiving. But you must continue in the things which you have learned and be assured of knowing from whom you have realized it. In that consciousness, you have known the holy scriptures which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for the truth, for protection, for instruction, a righteousness that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. So let's like you to take a couple of minutes just to go through chapter three in Second Committee. Just read through again, just glance through, and just share one or two things that you know, you feel that God is just broken to you, something that really cuts your heart, something that brought back many of you that know something in the past or spoken to you to one of these verses in the past, or what does it mean to you, or if some verse is to jump at you or left at you and it is the perfect, you know, strongly coming to you, you can just share. So just take a couple of minutes to just look through the chapter and then we have one of you share one or two points about this chapter. Okay, again one of you share one or two things that you can see from this chapter when we're reading it, something that's spoken to you in the past, you know, that's ministered to you. Now can we start sharing please? Okay, I'll go ahead ma'am. Yes, thank you very much. Verse 16 and 17, the word of God which is inspired by God and every believer, especially those who are planning to minister or those who are planning to lead at church or to ministry, supposed to be equipped with the word of God, because if we are thoroughly equipped, not just to do good works but to cancel out all the bad works that the devil is planning to do in our life, to know what God actually wants and what, if we know the truth, we can distinguish between false ones. So it's very important for each one of us to know the word completely and be equipped. Okay, the word of God equips us, it helps us to know what is right, wrong, and do it, instructs us and teaches us, guides us. Okay, thank you Dave. Okay, now we'll share please. Okay, Kanan says the first few verses say about the last days and the sins of the last days that has happened today. Yes, very true. Thank you. So this letter is very relevant for our times because you're also living the last days, we are living the last days, but also living the last days. And the kind of people that we mentioned here, the kind of people we're seeing in our time, we have aged today. Yes, so it's a little bit. Thank you Kanan for sharing. What about the others? First one to nine, what is it saying from last days? Can the people and believers and other also strong believer, they can, they can, they are like wrong, like that apply like wrong prophecy and money lovers and unbelievable and unfaithful like that people will come for last day. But Paul was saying, not be like that and be a faithful to God and be a faithful and be a obedient of God's word. Thank you, Kanan. Yes, you know, saying that these kind of men, lovers of money, they know this obedience, but Paul is encouraging, I'm telling us today that we shouldn't be like these men who we see these false prophets, these people around us in these last days, but we don't follow their lifestyle, your obedience and you need to be faithful to God and to this code. Okay, thank you. No worries, Kanan. It's okay. Yeah, but thank you for, you know, targeting the church section here. I know you have a lot of noise in the background, so it's okay. You can just, you know, give your answers, so type in your answer in the church section. Okay. Anyone else want to share? Okay, Prince says we're smoking, whatever we are learning, we must stay on the truth and also teach the truth. Yes, to others. Thank you. Yes, we need to hold on to the truth. Let the truth guide and lead us and also we do to teach each others. Thank you, Prince. Anyone else would like to share? Okay. If not, we will look at each verse. We will study it, okay, or we'll look at two verses together. Now verses one towards five for this writing says, but notice that in the last days, countless times would come, for men would be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, hearty, lovers of pleasure, rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness for denying its power and from such people, pause as to work the way. So Paul is talking about the end times. He's telling Timothy that in the last days, you know, there were the perilous times, troubles times. So these last days will be perilous or will be very troublesome. And there are things that are going to get bad and worse. Then he's also describing the kind of people who are going to be in the last days or we will see these kind of people in the last days. And like Kanan said, you know, you know, all of these kind of people we are actually seeing that today they'll be played out with porous globally, okay, and Paul gives a list of who these people are, lovers of themselves, lovers of money, and he goes on in verse 3 and verse 4 and verse 5, okay. But it's interesting that Paul, you know, clubs, all of these people who are without, you know, self-control, so-called slanderous, lovers of money, this blasphemous, proud, despisers of good, you know, hearty, lovers of pleasure, rather than lovers of God. Along with that, he is also, you know, loving very good religious people with the rest of the kind of people he has mentioned in verse 1, 2, verse 4. And he says in verse 5 that these kind of good people, so-called good people, have a formal godliness but they deny its power, okay. So, which means Paul is saying that there will be people, you know, who will have a form of religion, okay, they will have a form of piety, they will, you know, be seen as good people, they'll be seen as religious people, they will embrace our form of religion, okay, when Christianity, they will embrace our form of religion, they will like to embrace all the nice things about the Christian faith but they are the kind of people who deny the power, okay. So, apart from all the, you know, that kind of people that he's talking about, verses 1 to 4, he's talking about a certain group of people who's look good, you know, and they are, you know, even good in their beliefs, maybe, they are kind of religious people from the rest of the others, they will have a form of religion, they will be very pious, they will embrace Christianity, they will embrace all the nice things about the Christian faith but they will deny the power, okay. What is a Greek word for power? Anyone knows what is a Greek word for power? Dunamis, yes, dunamis, which is from the Greek word, dunamis, and we, from this Greek word, dunamis, we received the word dynamite, you know, dynamite is something that is very powerful, that can blow up entire area, houses, people, buildings, okay. So, we see that this dunamis, this word dunamis is used in the New Testament to talk about the power of the Holy Spirit, okay. It talks about the manifestations of God's power, it talks about the healing, power of God, it talks about the miraculous power of God, it talks about the salvation power of God and also the deliverance power of God. So, this dunamis is used in the New Testament to talk about the power of the Holy Spirit and also the manifestation of God's power through his healing, miracle, salvation and deliverance. So, what Paul is saying here is the last things, there will be people who have a form of religion, they are able to say all the right things, they will be able to even believe and do the right things, but they abuse the power of the Holy Spirit, okay. So, you know, very subtly, they seem to be good, they have a form of religion, you know, they claim to believe all that we believe, they do all the right things, but they will abuse the power of the Holy Spirit and Paul is telling them, you know, very strictly is warning and say just stay away from this kind of people, turn away from them, don't have anything to do with such kind of people. So, in the last days, you know, it's insufficient for us to just have a form of religion without having the power of the Holy Spirit, okay. So, these days that we are living, some of us can just have a form of religion, we can know God's word, we can know the truth in God's word, we can properly preach the truth in God's word, but you know, if we don't have the power of the Holy Spirit, you know, it's not going to be of any use because the time that we are living now, you know, is difficult times, troublesome times, we must pursue more of the Dunamis, we must pursue more of the power of the Holy Spirit because of the times in which we are living in the kind of situation that we are living in. So, this is not a time to embrace a form of religion that is void of the power of the Holy Spirit, but it's a time that when we must cry out as people of God, you know, that God, we want more of the Dunamis, we want more of your power, we want more of the power of the Holy Spirit, we want more of the manifestation power of the Holy Spirit, a operation, a demonstration in and through our ministry. So, actually we are there even as we are living in these last days. Yes, we need to, you know, do everything concerning religion, like, you know, you do the Bible, pray, go to church, fellowship, and all of those things, but, you know, we need to also pursue, cry out to God and ask him for more of his power, more of his manifestation, more of the power of the Holy Spirit in manifestation, in operation, in demonstration, in and through our lives. Why? You know, he goes on to mention that in verses 6 and 7, but one reason is because, you know, given the times that we are living in, we desperately need the power of the Lord at work to be able to stand up for ourselves, able to, you know, stand up for ourselves in this world, stand up to make a difference, you know, there's everywhere, there's people who are doing things that are wrong, giving in to the lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, the pride of life, and, you know, giving in to temptation, so we need the power of the Holy Spirit to overcome temptation, to stand up strong and bold in the face of persecutions as well, to make a difference in this world, and an empty, you know, powerless form of rigid will not have any impact on the darkness that prevails around us or darkness that prevails in the world in these last days. So if we have to be salt and light, you know, we need the power of God, we need the luminous power of God, otherwise, you know, just, you know, attending Bible colleges, just, you know, just for the truth sake, living our Bible and praying, thinking that we are completely out of the truth, just like we do other things in the day, you know, it will just become for the truth, but then, you know, it will become an empty, powerless form of rigid, but if we have to make a deep impact on the lives of people, if we have to save people in these last days, because many of them are perishing without any souls are lost, without knowing Jesus Christ, without accepting Him as their Lord and Savior, if we need to prevail or to minister in these last days, then we need to cry out for more of the luminous power of God and more of the manifestations of the Holy Split and his operation, his demonstration in and through our lives. And then he goes on to give us the reason why we need more of this power because he says in verse 6, for of this sort are those who creep into households and made 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. So Paul says in verse 6, for of this sort, that means all of those he has mentioned in verses 1 to 5, all of the kind of people he has mentioned in verses 1 to 5, especially referring to those people who have a form of religion with a religious kind of people who have a form of Godliness, but have no power. He says these kind of men, you know, sneak into homes where they take captive weak and gullible, gullible are naive and innocent women to ask themselves into sin. And we see that these kind of people, they do not want to listen to the truth. They like learning, but they don't want to come to the truth. They like listening to the truth, but they don't want to live by the truth. They don't want to receive the truth. They don't want to come to the truth. They like the information, okay, that they receive from the religion, but they don't want to be transformed. They don't like the transformation, which is like the information that they receive. There are people who say, you know, tell me what you want, but don't ask me to change, right? We have these kind of people who we see. They love listening to the gospel when we talk about Jesus, they're very happy. You know, they listen to it, but, you know, they don't want to change their lives. They don't want to transform their lives. They don't want to accept Jesus as their personal savior. They just like to listen to information. They like to listen to the latest truth. They like to receive, listen to the truth, but they don't want to have anything to do with the truth. They don't want them to see the truth into their life. So these kind of people say, tell me what you want, but don't ask me to change. And they don't want to embrace the truth. They don't want to embrace the truth in God's word, and they don't want to ask God to change them. So it's not just unbelievers. It can be even people who are born in Christian families who can, you know, we can find these kind of people who go to church, who listen to the truth. They're very happy. You know, they are kind of good people because they have a formal Godliness, but they don't have anything to do with, you know, the power or they don't have anything to do with the truth that is there. And they don't want the truth to change their lives. They continue living their lives as they want, sometimes spiritual, you know, spiritual ways sometimes, sometimes, and most of the time in the worldly ways. Ports as such men will go to the roots of such women and will mess up their families and mess up their homes. So we need to be very careful of such kind of women and also need to be careful with such kind of men and not associate with them. And so, you know, it's a good principle to follow as, you know, as a pastor, if you're a main pastor, to go in visiting or going to ensure that the person is married, the husband is also there at home, so that you can be most minister to them as a couple. And also, we need to be careful as women and pastors, you know, when we go visiting, we need to ensure that, you know, we are when we go and visit homes that the husband and the wife are present or minister to them. And then he talks about men of corrupt minds in verses 8 and 9. And here he is talking about verse 8, he says, now as Janus and Jambus resisted Moses, so do these also resist to trade the men of corrupt minds disapproved concerning of faith, but they will progress no further, for their folly will be manifested to all as theirs also was. Sorry. So Paul continues talking about these kind of men, the kind of same kind of people that he's been talking about in verses 5 to 7. Now these four compares these men to Janus and Jambus who resisted Moses. Have you read about Janus and Jambus in the Bible? It's a quiz question, so you can type in your answers, yes or no. Have you heard about these names Janus and Jambus in the Bible? Before Paul writes it, okay? Okay, Siddharth says no. The others still thinking? I don't remember the name, okay? Yeah, thank you Siddharth and Dave and Prince says no. Okay, yes, these names are not mentioned in the Old Testament. We don't see them anywhere in the Old Testament, so good. But then how does Paul mention these two names and how does he say that these two men, sorry, resisted Moses? When did these two resist Moses? So for that let's go to Exodus chapter 7 verses 7 to 13. Let's do the account of Moses in the book of Exodus chapter 7 verses 7 to 13. Now this is in this narrative here, you know, it's Moses meeting with Spel, okay? So can one of you read Exodus chapter 7 verse 7 to 13 please? And Moses was 80 years old and Aaron 83 years old when they spoke to Pharaoh. Then the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron saying, when Pharaoh speaks to you saying, so a miracle for yourself, then use Celsius to Aaron, take your rod and cast it before Pharaoh and let it become a serpent. So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and they did so just as a Lord commanded and Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh and became before his servants and it became a serpent. But Pharaoh also called a wise man and the sorcerers. So the magicians of Egypt, they also did it like manner with their incendments. For every man threw down his rod and they became serpents. But Aaron's rod followed up their rod and Pharaoh's heart grew hard and he did not hit them as the Lord had said. Okay, thank you Dave. So here we see, you know, by telling Moses and Aaron to go to Pharaoh and to do these miracles in front of Pharaoh and I'm sure Moses and Aaron would have been so excited to go and do it. The magicians just doing this magic in front of Pharaoh and showing how powerful they got this. But I'm sure when they went and they did it and, you know, Pharaoh or his magicians were at least taken aback or surprised. They would have laughed and mocked at them and they wouldn't have laughed or stood in awe and, you know, said anything that was amazing, anything like that. But we see that, you know, Pharaoh just commands his magicians and they also do the same thing. So the wise men and the sorcerers and the magicians of Egypt, they also did the same way. But they did these things to their enchantments, to their colors, to evil magic. Okay, and we see that all of us, they also truly became serpents. But, you know, God was not surprised or he was like, Oh my gosh, how did this happen or was this a failure or, you know, I didn't expect them to also do it to the evil enchantments. No, God knew that they'd be able to do it. But we see the power of God manifested, you know, greater than that once the evil one. We see that Aaron's thoughts swallowed up all the other gods, but in spite of that, we see that Pharaoh's heart grew high and he did not need to go. And here we see that there's no reference given to about James and Jambris. So how did Paul receive these names? These two people were actually magicians in Pharaoh's court. So the apostle Paul may have obtained these names from his education of ancient Jewish literature. We know that, you know, Paul was a very learned man. He learned under the great teacher, he studied the laws, he knew all of it, he knew the Old Testament very, very well. And so he might have learned this, quite this knowledge from the Jewish literature, which might have been most likely the case, or it could have been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit, that all of the writers in the Old and New Testament, all the fucking authors who wrote the scriptures, they all went they wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And that's why we see that there's you know, uniformity. There is no differences in the Bible. It has one new form thread run throughout the Old and New Testament. There is no discrepancies, there's no error. And it's the truth because even though it was written by 40 different authors in different periods of time in their cultural settings, you know, over 1600 year period, you know, and some of them never even met, most of them never even met each other. But there's perfect unity, it was because it was inspired by the Holy Spirit. It was written through human hands, it was written through human minds in their cultural setting, human language, but under the power, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. So we see that, you know, it could have been revealed to Paul by the Holy Spirit. Either way, you know, the Holy Spirit let Paul to write the names of these two magicians who are part of Pharaoh's, you know, court of his wise men, sorcerers and magicians. Now we see, or we read here, that these men did not confront Moses with their theology, okay, but they confronted him or they opposed Moses with their enchantments, their sorcery, which they kind of recede or through their contact with the unseen dark forces or the unseen dark land or the unseen dark world, okay. So all is saying that these men in the last days were also opposed to truth just as the magicians of Egypt opposed Moses, okay. And what is that inspiration or where do they receive all of these things, these men who opposed the truth in the last days, their source is demonic. It comes from the devil, okay. So this is a kind of opposition to come against the church and which also Paul writes about in First Timothy chapter 4 where there also he's mentioning that, you know, they would be led by Satan, it's a demonic spirit that is getting them to teach these false doctrines, preach these false doctrines and also to believe it. That's how Paul says it's no use arguing with them because it's the power of God who can only work in their lives and change the truth, change the falseness, change the error of the truth that is in them, to them accepting the truth that is in Paul's blood. So it's only the power of the holy spirit, not true human arguments because all this is of the unseen dark evil force or the demonic event that is working in that life. So the first three miracles that Moses did, he made by the, you know, by power of God, of course, all of the miracles he did by the power of God. But the first three miracles, you know, the God becoming a snake, water turning into blood, the frogs that came out of the water, the sorcerers were also able to do it, singing the miracle. What Moses did, the sorcerers, the traditions, the wise men in Periscope were also able to do or imitate the same miracles and they were able to do it not with the power of God, but they were able to do it with the demonic force or the source, their source was demonic and it was from the devil. Now when God saw that, you know, the magicians were able to change the rod into snakes, they were also able to turn the water into blood, they were also able to bring out frogs that God asked Moses to change his strategy, that God asked Moses to do something different. We need to tell him, okay, now this is not working, they are also able to do the same thing. So let's try arguments, let's try debates, what there was to do that? No, thank you, Dave. Yes, you know, God did not tell them to change their strategy, he did not say, okay, this is not working, guys, so let's try something else, let's go with arguments and debates. No, he just simply tells Moses and Peron to pronounce or to, you know, tell Peron the next play that is coming. So the fourth play or the fourth miracle, you know, that God did, that Moses did to the power of God, we see that the magicians, the enchanters, the sorcerers in Peron's court, they were not able to do it and they told Peron that, you know, this is the finger of God or the power of God and they knew that, you know, this is more ordinary power that is working through Moses and Peron, they told Moses that they don't bear it and they weren't able to do these miracles because this is the finger of God, which means this is the power of God. Exodus chapter 8, verses 18 to 19. So what is a lesson that we can learn for ourselves from this, you know, from this incident in our life today or the New Testament church, even as we are living in the last days, you know, if you and I are going to stand firm, you know, that we are going to make a difference in the world at which we are living in. And if we are going to stand up against the kind of men who will rise up in these last days or in this last hour, we need to press in and ask for the more of the power of the Holy Spirit. So we see that God did not change his strategy, he continued with the fourth plague, he continued the fourth miracle, he did not change it, you know, until the 10th plague and finally pharaoh like the people go, until then God continued, you know, bringing up one thing after the other, one miracle after the other. We have changed the strategy. So what we see here is, you know, if we need to stand up against these kind of men in these last days, if the church has to be bold and strong in these last days, if we have to make a difference in the world today, then it's not just by the theological reasoning and debate, which also has its place, but we need more of the power, the dunamis power of God, the power of the Holy Spirit to be manifested or to be demonstrated or operational, you know, like it's not time to give up or turn back. It's time to tell God we want more of His dunamis, we want more of His, the power of His Holy Spirit and this is the only way that we can stand up against what is coming against the people of God, against the church in these last days, all the persecutions, all the difficulties, everything that is coming against us, the last things we need to stand, only if we have the power of God in our lives and we are just hungry for more of His power. And the only thing that can turn people to the truth, to knowing God is, you know, to the miraculous manifestation of His power. Of course His word has its place, the power of God will also be manifested in the words that we speak, the truth that we speak, and the truth will set the people of truth, okay. So here's what Paul states about these men that in the last days, in addition to them having a form of Godliness without the power there, and also they are the men who speak into the people's home, you know, and by proper comparison of these kind of men in Exodus, Egypt, we see that they are men who are involved in, you know, in their spiritualism, that is for culting, that is of the demonic force in the demonic realm, and we can't just, you know, speak to them with the knowledge that we have in God's Word, but we need the power of God, even as we speak His Word, because His Word is power, and when it goes forth to the power that God has bested in our lives, it will break the lies, it will break the darkness, it will break the blindness that is there, the darkness in their hearts and minds, the blindness that covers their eyes when they are able to see the truth, and the power of God will be manifested through their lives, through this Word, and even as they receive salvation, okay. So we will stop here, we will take a break and then we will come back.