We come to our own times—the "last days" as characterized in 2 Timothy 3. (See front cover.) These are the great outstanding features of the "last days"—closing the Church dispensation, and to be immediately followed by the coming of the Lord. Can any believer in Holy writ doubt our being now in the very midst of them?

But it may be objected: "When have men in general been other than as here depicted? Is not this but a repetition of what Paul has already said in describing the heathen world in his day in Romans 1:29-32? In what special sense are they any more characteristic now than then?" To these very natural queries I reply that such things, indeed, always described the heathen; but in 2 Timothy 3 the Holy Spirit is describing conditions in the professing church in the last days! It is not the openly wicked and godless who are being depicted here. It is those who have a form of godliness, while denying its power. This is what makes the passage so intensely solemn and gives it such tremendous weight in the present day.

—H. A. Ironside