SINFUL WORMS

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over gullible women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth. Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these teachers oppose the truth. They are men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected. But they will not get very far because, as in the case of those men, their folly will be clear to everyone.

2 Timothy 3:6-9

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Over the past four days, we have looked at bad behaviors that will be present in the last days, the days directly preceding Jesus’ return to judge the world. The scriptures told us that the people perpetrating these behaviors will cause “very difficult times” and should be avoided when choosing whose company to be in.

As we turn to verses 6 through 9 of the third chapter of Second Timothy, we learn the identity of some of these people that God’s word says we need to have nothing to do with (v. 5). Paul writes:

They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over gullible women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth. Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these teachers oppose the truth. They are men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected. But they will not get very far because, as in the case of those men, their folly will be clear to everyone.

As we have seen in our study of both of Paul’s letters to Timothy, false teachers were a present danger to the Christian church in Ephesus where Timothy was pastor. The call was to identify them and then eradicate their efforts to deceive and mislead by distorting and perverting the purity of the true Gospel.

Unfortunately, as we see in our passage for today, this problem of false teachers in the church will not go away until Christ returns for in the end days they will be like sinful works, trying to slither and bore their way into the hearts of those who are gullible and weak in faith. Women in particular are mentioned here as being vulnerable to corruption because of their burden of sin and propensity to be swayed by “all kinds of evil desires”. It wasn’t that these women didn’t want to learn but their faith was shallow and so they were “never able to come to a knowledge of the truth”. Instead, they found themselves controlled by the suggestive teachings of the false teachers.  

How could one of these “sinful worms” be identified?

The scriptures give us some indicators.

First, a false teacher will oppose the truth and truth here is referring to the inerrant nature of God’s holy Word.

With this, a person has to work diligently to know the scriptures themselves so to be able to easily identify someone who is a wolf in sheep’s clothing (Matthew 7:15). Satan’s attempts to misinform and deceive God’s people will always be exposed when the light of the scriptures are shone on them. You can always trust in that.

Before I move on, it’s of interest that Jannes and Jambres are not mentioned anywhere else in the Bible but it is widely believed that they were the magicians mentioned in the Book of Exodus (7:22).

Another quality of these false teachers was that they were “men of depraved minds”. A quick look at the dictionary shows us that the word “depraved” means morally corrupt and that fits what we read in our passage which goes in to say the men are living a life reflecting a counterfeit faith, a counterfeit faith that won’t take them far because it will soon be clear to all that their beliefs and actions are nothing more than folly.

Friends, these words of warning for the last days can serve as words of warning for us today. For unfortunately, we have many false teachers masquerading as pastors and Bible teachers who are really sinful worms, trying to squirm their way into the hearts and minds of people to deceive and mislead them. These men will seek to tell a person everything they want to hear so to make them feel good and comfortable in life. They make false promises of security, prosperity, and providence as if they are speaking for God Himself.  And they will gladly collect money freely for their wicked service. In fact, if the truth would be known, getting rich through deceitfully misleading thousands and thousands of believers is really the motivator at the heart of why these false teachers do what they do.

It’s little wonder why Jesus made it clear that one can’t serve two masters and then in particular mentioned God and money (Matthew 6:24).

So be on the lookout. Don’t allow yourself to be in a position of vulnerability by failing to fact check the biblical teaching you are receiving. Turn to the Lord, to His Word and Spirit, and He will always allow you to apply divine fact checking while exposing the efforts of those trying to deceive.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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