Natural affection falls next, and the vile temper vents itself in savage fierceness even against the wife, the child, the brother. Promises are broken, slanderous reports are circulated, wives are neglected, profligate companions are adopted; and the children of God are despised and scoffed at, as absurd in their peculiarities, and contemptible in their faith.
Governments again are disobeyed, political factions plot against the state, dignities are evil spoken of; and, strong in their own conceit, heady and high-minded men regard their own intellect as their only guide, and their own will as their only law. Meanwhile God is forgotten in a wide-spread thirst for pleasure; sabbaths are broken in pursuit of pleasure, souls endangered, and all for pleasure. Pleasure is the idol; the phantom before which they bow; the vain idea on which they fix their hearts’ best love. They are “lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God.” Such, saith the Scripture, is to be the moral character of vast multitudes of professed believers in the latter days.
(2.) And now look at what may be termed their religious character.
We have already remarked they will retain the form of godliness. There is no open rejection of the name or the outward acts of Christianity: in appearance their standard is high, for it is a form of godliness. But, with all this, they deny its power; they do not like its soul-searching message. They would not for the world be accounted any thing but serious, they are regular and attentive at the round of the church’s services; they welcome your words so long as you speak of the externals of religion; but, when you search into the real matter, the new birth by the Holy Ghost; pardon through the Lamb’s blood; justification freely given through his righteousness; the deep humiliation of those who live by grace; the weaning of the affections from the world, and the fixing them unreservedly on Christ; then it is that the natural man rises up, and, if not by words, they will by facts deny its power. They will live as much in the world as ever. They will have the form of godliness at the sacrament on Sunday, they will deny its power by their eager thirst after gain and pleasure through the week. They will approve the form when the services are reverently conducted in the church: they will deny the power when called upon to cleave anew to Christ in life.
And, even when there is not this cleaving to the world, there may be the denial of its power in conjunction with the form of godliness. Such is the case when the church and its forms are made more prominent than Christ and his grace. There may be the form of godliness in the expression of peculiar reverence for the things of God, in frequent bowings, in the constant use of the epithet “holy,” and in humble submission to the church’s teaching. But with all this there may be the stopping short of the power of a lively faith. The church may be like the painted window disguising the true colouring of the sun; the soul may be resting on the church’s ordinances rather than the cross; baptism may be exalted, and the new birth by the Holy Ghost forgotten; while the mind becomes so subjected to the church’s teaching, that it dares not presume to make a fearless use of the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. When such is the case, we have the form of godliness without the power.
(3.) A third feature of the character of the church in the latter days, as here described by prophecy, is an ignorance of, and aversion to, the truth as it is in Jesus.
In chap. iii. v. 7, there is a description of future ignorance: “Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.”
In chap. iv. vv. 3 & 4, this ignorance is turned into actual aversion. “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.” And this is the more remarkable if you observe that the ignorance of truth does not arise from neglect. They are not like persons who pass it by as a thing of no importance, who turn aside from the whole matter; but they are “ever learning.” They will make the thing their study, they will have many books and read them, they will ransack human literature, they will be able to quote human testimonies, they will strive to unravel the tangled mazes of patristic theology. And, what says the prophecy respecting their success? They are “never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” Why is this? How can it be, that with all this fair form of godliness, with all this deep research and learning, they are yet outstripped by some simple cottager who knows only his bible and his Lord? The prophecy must again reply, and it shows that the defect is rather in the heart than in the head; for (iv. 3) “they will not endure,” they do not like, “sound doctrine;” and again (iii. 8) “they resist the truth.” Truth is presented and resisted, and then they will turn to fables. They are blinded, because they will not see; their mind is turned unto fables; just because their heart has never been turned in true repentance to the cross. They are exactly like those whom St. Paul describes as led astray by the man of sin: “And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness;” 2 Thess. ii. 10–12. They have pleasure in unrighteousness, and therefore cannot love the truth. The result is a strong delusion, a judicial blindness, an incapacity of receiving Christ. In their latter stages they really think they are conscientious; they are not hypocrites or infidels, but have schooled their understanding into the belief of the fables to which their heart is turned. Having begun by disliking the truth, they end by believing lies. “For this cause shall God send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie.”
(4.) But there is a fourth remark from the prophecy of no small importance; viz. this; the apostacy will be found not merely amongst the laity, but the clergy, i.e. amongst those who exercise the office of the ministry in the house of God.
Ordination cannot effect regeneration. The Bishop’s hands may give the pastor’s office, but they cannot give the pastor’s spirit; and thus there will be amongst the clergy the same leaven of corruption that there is amongst the flock. Like priest, like people. Thus you will observe in the prophecy that there is to be no lack of teachers in the latter days. There will be deceivers as well as the deceived, and men will “heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;” iv. iii. Nor will these be mere upstarts rising up without legitimate ordination, for let us turn to the parallel prophecy, Acts, xx. 29 & 30. These words were addressed by St. Paul to the elders of the church of Ephesus, the very men over whom Timothy presided as a bishop. They are therefore closely connected with the epistle, the only difference being that they are addressed to different officers of the same church. It is only consistent therefore to suppose them to relate to the same apostacy. Nor can there be any doubt as to the ecclesiastical position of the persons addressed; they had authority higher even than Apostolic; for the command was given them “Take heed unto yourselves and to the flock over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers.” And now what says the prophecy? It contains the description of a two-fold danger, from without and from within: some shall arise without and break in upon the church’s fold, “I know this, that after my departing, shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock;” v. 29. But others shall spring up within, in the very midst of a rightly ordained ministry, corrupting the faith without attacking it. “Also, of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them;” v. 30.