Because some professed Christians would not want the pure word of God preached is one of the reasons assigned by Paul as to why the word of God should be preached the more diligently. “Preach the word.... For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine.” At first thought it might seem that this statement was true in Paul’s day; for did they not persecute and kill preachers then? But Paul was not here speaking of outsiders. He had in mind the time when professed Christians would not endure sound doctrine. Growing tired of the gospel they would long for something else. “Having itching ears,” they “will heap to themselves teachers after their own lusts; and will turn away their ears from the truth, and turn aside unto fables.” It is plain that he was talking about people who would accept the truth, but later become tired of it, and would employ preachers that would tickle their itching ears. It is a dark picture, but it is not a new picture. After God’s people came out of Egypt, they frequently drifted into the condition Paul here mentions. Read the historical books of the Old Testament and also the testimony of the prophets, and you will find that God’s people never remained true to him very long at a time. Against them Jeremiah testifies: “For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and have hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.” (Jer. 2:13.) They had turned from the fountain of living waters as spoken to them by God’s prophets, and had procured for themselves false prophets. And that was their folly and their sin. Isaiah delivers a terrific rebuke: “The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.” (Isa. 1:3.) They did not know as much about where safety and food could be found as did the ox or the ass.