[Darris McNeely] So while reading the Bible the other day, I was in 2 Timothy chapter 3 and the matter is posed of the last days, and in the last days the perilous times will come. When you read about the last days, perilous times in the Bible, you normally think about wars, famines, pestilences. But the Apostle Paul goes into a list of different things. He says, “For men in those days will be lovers of their own selves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unloving and unforgiving, traitors, headstrong, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God" (2 Timothy 3:1-5) Quite an interesting list, Steve, of traits of people that make for a very perilous period at the end time. Why is that?

[Steve Myers] Now you might think, well does that really apply today? The fact is, I think, Google bears that out, believe it or not. Google has compiled a whole list, top 10 searches of 2011. What were the fastest rising searches? Would that tell us something about where we are as a people, as a world? I think it does and those searches bear out we are entertainment, pleasure oriented. When you think about those searches, what would be number one? Well, number one on those searches was Rebecca Black, the rising teenage star, 13 years old. Just Google itself, searching was one of the top ten. Ryan Dunn, the big MTV star who died in a fatal accident—one of the top searches. Casey Anthony, the court case was more interesting than some of the serious news stories of the day. Look at number five was Battlefield 3, that's a video game, a game that we can withdraw from the world and create our own…

[Darris McNeely] Virtual world.

[Steve Myers]…virtual reality. And you go down the list and it doesn't change. There was only one serious news story that was on there and that was the Japanese tsunami, and earthquake, and nuclear disaster. So what does that tell us about our world? What does that tell us about us? Are we fulfilling the words that Darris read in Timothy?

[Darris McNeely] It may be saying that we are wanting to escape into a virtual world and escape some of the realities of life. And that's understandable with the pressures that we have today. And we're not talking about not having fun, not relaxing and not enjoying life, but we are talking about, and I think what Paul is talking about in Scripture is to not get caught up in matters that distract us from the big truths of life. In verse 7 of 2 Timothy 3, Paul says because of all these other matters that people are involved in, they're always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth (2 Timothy 3:7). Searching for truth, finding truth, considering those big questions are really matters that should consume us and it's really time to wake up out of the sleep that we're in and get to those answers to these big questions of life.

[Steve Myers] So it's probably the time to unplug, unplug from that world that really is not reality and look for the real truth of God. That's really the place that we've got to begin our search.

[Darris McNeely] Unplug so often from the virtual world, plug into the world of truth in God's Word, the Bible, and start searching and finding those answers.

[Steve Myers] That's BT Daily. We'll see you next time.