in contrast with the wisdom of men (I Cor. 2: 5). This power is manifested in the fact

that earthen vessels were used to contain the treasure of truth (II Cor. 4: 7). We can

readily perceive that the "form of godliness" that will be held by the apostates of the last

days, will have no room for the gospel of Christ, nor for the preaching of Jesus Christ and

Him crucified. It will magnify the wisdom of men, and ignore the earthiness of the

vessels that God has deigned to use. When we open the epistle to the Ephesians we

meet this mighty power, so essential to godliness, in all its wondrous fullness.  From

Eph. 1: 19-21 we learn that the power to usward who believe is nothing less than the

mighty power which was wrought in Christ when He was raised from the dead, and

which placed Him at the right hand of God far above all principality and power. We

discover that this same power enabled Paul in the execution of his ministry, prepares the

heart of the believer to receive the Lord by faith, and that it operates in answer to prayer

(Eph. 3: 7, 16, 20). It is named in Phil. 3: 10 "the power of His resurrection". It

comes therefore to this, the "religion" of the last days will have no room for "Jesus

Christ, crucified, risen and ascended" and will be powerless either for salvation or

sanctification. The great characteristic of the doctrine of the mystery is that it is the

"faith" of God's elect, and the "truth" which is according to godliness (Titus 1: 1).

Having been warned of God by the prophetic statement of II Tim. 3:, we must be on

our guard against every plausible presentation of truth which, while using the phrases of

the dispensation of the mystery, leads to a denial of its most practical outworking. We

are not however to run a campaign against the formalists, we have to remember that

"obedience" is better than sacrifice, and is essential to godliness itself, and our

instructions are definite "from such turn away" (II Tim. 3: 5). We meet the verb "turn

away" three times in this second epistle to Timothy:

Two Greek words are translated in these three references, apostrepho (II Tim. 1: 15,

4: 4), and apotrepomai (3: 5), and the surprising thing is that the word used of the

turning away of those in Asia, and of those whose ears are turned away from the truth, is

a less forceful word than that which is used of the believers turning away from those who

merely hold a form of godliness. Yet so it is, apostrepho means "to turn away", but

apotrepomai means "to turn right away", so completely that one's face is turned in the

very opposite direction. Consequently, the impelling force behind the movement of the

believer, is not merely aversion but reversion, a turning towards the truth quite as much,

if not more, than a turning away from error. If we refer back to I Tim. 4:, where the

apostle speaks of the apostasy of latter times, we shall find this attitude towards error is

emphasized there:

Here is the idea expressed in the words "turn away" of II Tim. 3: 5, expanded and

divided "refuse" "exercise rather unto". May we know something of this aversion to

error, but may we also know the blessed counter-attraction of the truth.