2 Tim 4: 3 "For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear."
Oxford dictionary named "post-truth" the word of the year in 2016. The recognition that truth doesn't matter anymore is sobering, and indicates that the time this verse was warning us about, has arrived.
Debates today, whether personal or public, no longer deal with facts. They are all about cleverness and emotion. People flock to whoever makes them feel good. Not to who tells them the truth.
We want to feel good without change. We bend the Word of God to fit our lives, instead of bending our lives to fit the Word of God. We no longer want advice on how to correct things, we just want to be affirmed. This is both comfortable and deadly, as we slowly drift away from God's plan until we no longer recognize right and wrong, good and bad, or truth and lies.
We were warned that this time would come, and God is clear about what we must do now that it has arrived. "Be self-controlled in all things, endure hardship, do an evangelist's work, fulfill your ministry." (2 Tim 4:5).
We must be lighthouses in the storm. We are called to point to the truth with unyielding commitment. It may be unpopular, but it is the purpose of our ministry.
Speak the truth in love and don't expect applause. In fact you will probably be attacked and vilified ... but in the end you will be their only chance of escape. As though it were in quicksand, the world is sinking deeper into it's own lies, and we are the only lifeline that will hold when the deception is exposed.
Tell the truth whatever the cost ... it is not what they want to hear, but it is the only road to redemption and freedom.
"...you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."
- Jesus
John 8:32
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