The Crisis of the Love of Self in the End Times

Tracing History

I. Humanism as the outgrowth of the renaissance/ enlightenment period in which human ingenuity and man’s own potential became the hope of society.

II. Postmodernism emerged as somewhat of a reaction against modern claims to absolute truths. The emphasis is placed upon the individuals right to decide what is true or what is moral for himself.

III. Where I think we are at now: full blown narcissism: obsession with oneself- I am my own God.

IV. The influence of the protestant reformation: The beginnings of thought and language that presents Christian faith and experience as more personal than corporate. “a personal relationship with God.”

Paul’s description of Narcissistic culture in the end times: 2 Timothy 3

2 major signposts right now in the earth: Israel (look at what God is doing) and narcissism (look at what Man is doing).

I. V. 1 “But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come:”

a. Dangerous, violent, turbulent, troublesome times in the last days

b. Google searches for “how to love yourself” will yield results ranging from “make a list of every nice thing someone says about you,” to “caress yourself in front of a mirror.’

c. Movies like “50 shades of grey” which broke the record of president’s day weekend earnings when it hit theatres, and “game of thrones” which is regularly acknowledged to be the “world’s most popular show” have become so popular by taking sex (something meant to be a giving of oneself to another) and knit it to a lust for power and dominance.

II. We must understand the rest of what comes after this as the outworking of the love of self:

b. These verses seem trivial at first glance which evidence of the deep problem: namely that we are mostly unaware of the ways in which everything that’s listed here is brought to it’s full measure of destructiveness when it flows from the love of self.

c. disobedient to parents: seems like an odd thing to throw in here until we realize that its speaking of a wholesale shift of authority to individual persons: “wait for a kid to choose which gender they wish to identify as.”

D. In a framework in which the individual sees himself as the ultimate means to his own pleasure, success and fulfillment, he can’t truly be thankful anything.

E. Unloving: inhuman, heartless.

we exist in the midst of a culture right now that celebrates what is inhumane in the genocide of unborn babies.

III. “Lovers of themselves”

a. it is interesting how the same culture that is filled with the love of self is the same culture that Jesus describes in these terms:

10 And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another. 11 Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. 12 And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold.(Mt 24:10–12).

b. A culture of self-obsession is a culture that gives birth to a people quickly offended.

c. The hight of the love of self is the lowest and coldest point of true sacrificial love.

1. Jesus tells us the love of many will grow cold, this passage tells us why: everyone is obsessed with self love.

iv . Lovers of Money, boasters, haughty:

a. woven all throughout this list is the lust for power that helps fuel this disastrous mixture.

b. Think about how powerful you felt the last time you gossiped:

slanderers (devils), blasphemers

We’re looking at a society which constantly accuses God (blasphemers) and accuses others (slanderers).

proud

My summation of something I found in the “Baker Encyclopedia of Psychology and Counseling”

Narcissism, or self obsession, that is actually bolstered in response to insecurity is a ripe place for the lust for power. We live in a profoundly insecure culture, yet a profoundly self-obsessed culture. (Francis Chan selfies)

Pride will exaggerate your failures just like it will exaggerate your successes. That idea should liberate, but it should also sober us to the depth of the actual problem

Psalm 2 is the easiest picture of narcissistic society in the end times. Leaders of nations begin to conspire together to stop Jesus from coming back to reign as King from Jerusalem and they figure the best way to do it is to wipe out Israel so that He can’t fulfill the way that He promised to reign. They’re so hungry for power and so filled with narcissism that it actually makes God laugh. Isa 40 calls the nations grasshoppers. It would be like grasshoppers holding meetings in your back yard about how to overthrow you.

V. My concern is related to how much this self-obsession is at work in the Church

“ having a form of godliness but denying its power.” (2 Ti 3:5).

this means narcissistic communication will take place in the church and actually carry real anointing and gifting.

a. just think about how many, “you’re awesome go change the world messages” you’ve heard or how many you constantly see posted by well meaning believers on your fb news feed.

b. Think about how many messages you’ve heard that present a God who exists to preoccupy over “your situation” and what “you’re going through.”

c. Yet there is a necessary element of mystery that the Bible calls us to embrace:

1. Isa 40 confronts the fear of the unknown and the accusation that says, “God you haven’t given me what I deserve.”

d. Think about what our neglect of prayer says about the problem of humanism in our midst.

e. Think about how many of us gather our sense of success from being liked, affirmed, and noticed… and before you just dismiss how powerful the need to be liked is, examine your heart.

f. Henri Nouwen:

“All this is simply to suggest how horrendously secular our ministerial lives tend to be. Why is this so? Why do we children of the light so easily become conspirators with the darkness? The answer is quite simple. Our identity, our sense of self, is at stake. Secularity is a way of being dependent on the responses of our milieu. The secular or false self is the self which is fabricated, as Thomas Merton says, by social compulsions. “Compulsive” is indeed the best adjective for the false self. It points to the need for ongoing and increasing affirmation. Who am I? I am the one who is liked, praised, admired, disliked, hated or despised. Whether I am a pianist, a businessman or a minister, what matters is how I am perceived by my world. If being busy is a good thing, then I must be busy. If having money is a sign of real freedom, then I must claim my money. If knowing many people proves my importance, I will have to make the necessary contacts. The compulsion manifests itself in the lurking fear of failing and the steady urge to prevent this by gathering more of the same—more work, more money, more friends. These very compulsions are at the basis of the two main enemies of the spiritual life: anger and greed. They are the inner side of a secular life, the sour fruits of our worldly dependencies. What else is anger than the impulsive response to the experience of being deprived? When my sense of self depends on what others say of me, anger is a quite natural reaction to a critical word. And when my sense of self depends on what I can acquire, greed flares up when my desires are frustrated. Thus greed and anger are the brother and sister of a false self fabricated by the social compulsions of an unredeemed world.” - The Way of The Heart (1991).

Vi.

6 For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, 7 always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. 8 Now as Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, disapproved concerning the faith; 9 but they will progress no further, for their folly will be manifest to all, as theirs also was. (2 Ti 3:6–9).

How we do or don’t honor and empower women is evidence of narcissism in the church

Jannes and Jambres (by Jewish tradition) were the names of the magicians who tried to copy the miracles of Moses before Pharoah. “Are we settling for a counterfeit expression of the pleasures of God?”