Amen.  The Lord is good!  Amen?  His mercies endure forever.  Let’s turn to Second Timothy.  We’ll continue along with our study, reiterating what Paul had said at the end of his life and having spoken toward all the trials and the tribulations that he had experienced and passing on to us the fact that all that live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.  Amen?  So, as we’re coming into these last days don’t think it a strange thing.  It should be something that’s common.  The Lord Himself said that we will be hated.  We will be hated by all this world’s system because they first hated Him.  Our association with Him brings that hatred; kind of like Trump.  Nowadays it’s anybody that associates with the other side.  They spew out hatred.  Everything within them rises up and opposes the positions that he takes, and they apply that to anybody who would associate with him.  You can support an ideology and not the person promoting it.

So, this is one of the things that, in the time of Jesus, they so hated Him.  Him coming and declaring himself—can you imagine? —to the Jewish people, “I am your Messiah.  I am the son of God.”  What is statement!  And so, of course we can think, “Well, I can understand, then, why people hated Him.”  Jesus said that we’re living in a time, and we should be exhibiting Christlikeness so that when people see us, they see Jesus; amen?  He went on to say, “And when they see Me, they’ve seen the Father” (John 14:9).  The Scripture then speaks toward that time in Antioch, where they were first called Christians.  You know, there are a lot of people, today, who when you go up and you talk to them, they’ll tell you they’re a Christian.  Then, when you begin to ask questions, you find out that maybe they’re not.  Because the word “Christian” means “Christ-like.”  That’s all it means, just “Christ-like.”  And if we’re going to be like Jesus, then we take on His same heart’s desire.  The call that He had been given of God.

He speaks very clearly to it.  I’ve not come to do my will, but the will of he that sent me, and to finish that work.  It’s interesting that His last words uttered on the cross as He died was, “It is finished” (John 19:30).  He came to offer Himself, that living sacrifice, for humanity.  He took man’s sins upon Himself that He might justly put His righteousness on all of us that believe in Him.  So, here we are, running this course being hated because of our identification with Jesus.  The Bible says, “My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience” (James 1:2-3).  Amen?  The more hatred is directed toward us, as Christians, the more consistent we will become in our living.  The word “patience” doesn’t just mean endurance, it means consistency.

Every Christian fights this pattern in their life.  Every one of us.  Everybody from Moses to David to Paul to us.  Yet, one of the things that causes us to not waver and to not vacillate in that way is trials and persecution, because when we’re in the midst of them, how many of you know you get a little more serious?  When it’s your baby dying, you get a little more serious.  When you’re losing your business, you get a little more serious.  When it’s your body that’s being afflicted by pain and disease, we get a little more serious.  Wouldn’t it be great if we could just continue on an incline without trials and tribulations?  It doesn’t work that way.  Why?  Because we still have that sin nature in us that wants to cater to self and take it easy and be able to heap upon ourselves all types of rewards and benefits.  So, “It is good for me that I have been afflicted…,” (Psalms 119:71) the Scripture says.  Amen?  “I was going astray, but through this affliction I was faced with sobriety and able to get back on the path.”  So, don’t count it a strange thing when we’re coming into these last days.