I have a group of friends who live in multiple states. Now and then we text back and forth, sharing bits of news and commenting on them. For the most part we agree on politics—especially when it comes to the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the rule of law.
I smiled when one of them texted that the mayor of New York City needs to be deported. I understood his frustration with a mayor who is openly socialist. So, I poked the bear and suggested we should deport all the New Yorker’s who voted for him, too. My friend immediately agreed: “Yes, they should all be deported!”
I was trying to make a point. Is the mayor the real problem, or the people who elected him? This mayor would never have been chosen if the voters had rejected his vision.
This wave of socialism pounding the shores of our country is unsettling.
I am a first-generation immigrant whose grandparents fled a socialist country. They left friends and loved ones behind so their future generations could have a better life.
Ironically, I have never known a mass exodus of Americans seeking to leave our capitalist way of life for a socialist one.
So why are so many eager to change the fabric of a country that has produced increasing prosperity for 250 years?
The same question can be asked of the gospel: Why would people reject the salvation God has offered and His Son purchased more than 2,000 years ago?
Paul gives us the answer in his warning to Timothy:
“For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.”
— 2 Timothy 4:3-4
People will reject sound teaching
“Sound” means healthy or wholesome. Sound doctrine nourishes spiritual life, corrects deception, and produces godliness. The problem is not that God’s Word has become unclear or irrelevant. People simply grow tired of hearing truth that confronts their desires, exposes their sin, or challenges the life they prefer.
In the same way, many Americans are tiring of the “sound doctrine” of economic freedom.
Capitalism is not perfect, yet it has lifted more people out of poverty and given more opportunity than any other system in history.
Still, growing numbers are turning away from that freedom toward systems that history has repeatedly shown lead to dependency, control and failure.
Teachers who satisfy itching ears
My father used to say, “If you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything.” That line echoes a 1947 prayer offered in the U.S. Senate by Chaplain Peter Marshall: “Give us clear vision that we may know where to stand and what to stand for—because unless we stand for something, we shall fall for anything.”
When people stop seeking the truth, a void opens. Something will fill it. Paul is clear: people “accumulate for themselves” the teachers they want. False teachers bear responsibility for deceiving, but listeners also bear responsibility for preferring the deception.
The mayor did not force himself on the citizens of New York. He simply offered words that flattered, reassured, and scratched their itching ears—promises of free healthcare, low-rent housing, government grocery stores, and free transportation, all paid for by taxing “the rich.”
Notice the pattern:
- People hold desires they do not want challenged.
- Sound teaching becomes uncomfortable.
- They seek out teachers and politicians who will approve those desires.
- Those teachers and politicians supply the justification the listeners already wanted.
Rather than letting Scripture (or economic reality) correct their passions, they choose voices that accommodate their preferred narrative.
Turning from truth to myths
“And will turn away from listening to the truth
and wander off into myths.” – 2 Timothy 4:4
People who are not anchored to the truth inevitably drift into man-made myths. There is a striking similarity between those who turn away from God’s Word and those who chase socialism. Both believe they are pursuing freedom and independence. Both are actually racing toward slavery—one the slavery of sin, the other the slavery of an all-controlling government.
How then shall we stand?
Complaining about false teachers or bad politicians is not enough. The real question is how we ourselves avoid developing itching ears.
Paul’s next words to Timothy point the way:
“As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.” — 2 Timothy 4:5
But we do not do this in our own strength. Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would be our constant Helper in this very area:
“When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth…” — John 16:13
The same Spirit who inspired the Scriptures also lives in every believer to illuminate those Scriptures, expose counterfeit teaching, and keep our hearts from drifting toward myths. John later writes that we have an anointing from the Holy One, and that anointing “teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie” (1 John 2:27).
So the safeguard is twofold:
- Stay in the Word — the “sword of the Spirit” (Ephesians 6:17).
- Walk in continual dependence on the Spirit who makes that Word alive and keeps us from preferring pleasant lies over hard truth.
When we yield to the Spirit daily, He trains our ears to recognize the difference between the voice of the Shepherd and the voices that merely scratch an itch. He produces in us a love for sound doctrine that grows stronger, not weaker, over time.
Turn toward Him and be filled with His light.
Stay in the Word and walk by the Spirit.
Hold fast to what is true.
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