Cornerstone Mission Church, Sunday Sermon
“3 killed in University of Alabama…” a text message from Associated Press appeared on my phone. Yesterday, a biology professor, Amy Bishop, of University of Alabama was charged over triple campus murder. She is 42 years old, a Harvard-trained neurobiologist and an assistant professor; she was at the biology faculty meeting on the Huntsville campus… when Bishop learned she wasn’t going to get what she wanted, tenure status, she got angry and shot and killed three faculty members and injured three other university staffs. It is reported that as police led her away in handcuffs, she said, “It didn’t happen. There’s no way. …They are still alive.”[i] And, late yesterday, a Massachusetts police chief disclosed that Bishop fatally shot her own brother in 1986. It was dismissed as an accident, but now in the light of what she did, some doubts if it was really an accident after all.
From what’s known thus far, Bishop murdered her colleagues for not getting what she wanted... the tenure status she thought she deserved. Her Indignation and her perception of insult to her sense of justice, fairness for herself was so strong that in her mind killing was the right thing to do. To her, those who decided against granting her tenure status deserved to die. The insult to her love of herself was reason enough to kill others. This is what a person does when self-love, selfishness is carried out to its extreme.
Love that destroys…
Paul told Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:1, “in the last days,” the expanse of time between Jesus Christ’s first and his second coming, there will be “terrible times.”
The Greek word translated here, “terrible” occurs in one other occasion in Matthew 8:28. There, “terrible” is translated as “violent” to describe “two demon-possessed men” who came from the tombs and met Jesus. These demoniacs “were so violent that no one could pass that way.”
I want you to see this connection. When Paul describes the last days as terrible times, he is talking about the kind of violence and damages that will be ensued and sustained by the essence of evil; the essence of evil that has wreaked havocs in disguise of subtleness... Where you find troubles of broken trusts, lies, power struggles, conflicts that have shattered friendships, marriages, and families, where you find troubles of peoples being irresponsible and making others responsible for their failures, where you find troubles of people going astray, what you will find in the midst of human troubles is the essence of evil, destructive love of self that traces back to Satan.
God created Satan as a powerful angel to love, worship and serve the Creator, to live out his identity as God’s privileged angel. Yet, he made the choice to reject the creative purpose to love, worship and serve God. Instead, Satan chose to love, worship and serve himself; he sought to make himself like God. And, this is exactly how he seduced Eve and Adam in Genesis 3:5, “… when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
He became like the fallen Babylonian king in Isaiah 14:12, “How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations”; Jesus said the same thing about Satan in Luke 10:18, “I saw Satan fall like lighting from heaven.” Satan was rejected because he refused to love, worship and serve his Creator, instead he became lover of himself.
Why have there been terrible times in the last days? The creative purpose to love God has been marred and replaced by the demonic bent on love of self.
“People will be lovers of themselves” says Paul. We are creatures created for love-relationship with God. Love-relationship with God now broken and rejected, what preoccupies people is love for themselves. This obsession for self, this love of self, results in evils that destroy. Love of self without love for God is demonic in nature and it destroys.
Lovers of themselves become lovers of money and lovers of pleasure; lovers of themselves are unable to contain the attitude of pride so they gloat boastfully of what they possess. Since lovers of themselves use people for their own gain, they see nothing wrong in abusing people. Lovers of themselves begin young in their distaste for legitimate authority, so they are indifferent and out right disdainful for anything that their parents have to say to them. Lovers of themselves demonstrate no gratitude to the true Giver of life. Lovers of themselves see no reason to be set apart for God’s purpose; they have no taste for holiness, only for secular. Lovers of themselves have very little room to love others for they waste all their energy on loving themselves. Lovers of themselves relate to others only to the extent that it benefits them; so they are unforgiving and resentful. Lovers of themselves empowers themselves by accusing others slanderously, that is falsely. Slanderous is translation of Greek word diabolos, which is also translated as the devil. The devil, Satan’s trademark is accusing falsely to destroy. Without self-control, lovers of themselves are inflamed with lust. Lovers of themselves lose their humanity and become brutal and cruel. Lovers of themselves are treacherous and act like Judas did betraying their friends even for meager profits. Lovers of themselves are rash so they take no time to be considerate to others. Conceited, they are drunk with self-importance.
In sum, love of self without love for God, namely selfishness, is demonic in nature as its destructive force produces evil vices.
Empty shell of destructive love of self
Paul likens love of self without love of God as “having a form of godliness but denying its power” in verse 5. Beneath the shell of godliness, what is missing is love directed to God and for people. The shell of godliness has no substance of corresponding reality of love of God. Without the reality of love of God, there is no divine power to bring about godly changes.
Form of godliness that is not found in the reality of love for God and love for people is counterfeit faith. William Mounce said, “True Christianity consists not in the show of religiosity but in the powerful proclamation of the gospel accompanied by the life of obedience that conforms to the demands of the gospel.”[ii] The essence of the gospel is God in pursuit of the loss generation through the self-giving love of his Son Jesus Christ to bring about real changes, conformity to the image of Jesus. When love of God is replaced with love of self, the empty shell of hypocrisy can only bring about evil destruction.
The religious frauds of Paul’s time showed their true faces when they wormed their way into homes and gain control over weak-willed women. Paul highlights some women of his time who were duped into believing the religious frauds as genuine lovers of God. The women of the ancient time were less educated in traditional religion and assumed lower social standing and thereby had less to lose and much more susceptible to the façade of godliness… Because in the Greek society the access to women were restricted in public arena, the religious frauds sought to gain access to the household to win the hearts of vulnerable women, playing on their emotion, passion and even their fear. Winning the wealthy women, these religious frauds gained financial support from them, but entrapped them and burdened them further into sin for they never learned the truth…
Today, it may look like this… A person rebukes you for what is clearly wrong on your part, but you walk away feeling shamed, discouraged, put down, not loved and not cared for; you walk away feeling like something is terribly wrong with you without hope that God can change you for better.
A person encourages you to take the path of the least resistance that pleases people but doesn’t please God.
A person tries to make you do things by shaming you, obligating you, subjecting you, dominating you… their motive is calculating and manipulative to steer you to what works for them for their good, rather than the interest of God and others.
Wow, did you ever think that selfishness can be so destructive? After all aren’t we all selfish to varying degrees? So, what’s the big deal?
The big deal is that love of self without the love of God, the religious frauds empty of God’s love cannot bring about godly changes in themselves or in anyone else for that matter. Only God can bring about godly changes.
That’s what happened to Jannes and Jambres. The facts about Jannes and Jambres were widely known in the resources outside of the Bible as Pharaoh’s magicians who opposed Moses in Exodus 7:11. Initially they were able to counter God’s power by turning their staffs into snakes. But, in the story of Exodus, they couldn’t match the genuine power of God with their silly magic. Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs. They failed to copy the plague of gnats (Exodus 8:18-19); they failed to stand against the plague of the boils (Exodus 9:11)… They were fools living in the empty shell while believing that they possessed the power of God to change, when in reality, they were nothing more than frauds bent on destruction. So, soon, their folly became clear to everyone. William Mounces says, “When God is removed as the priority in life and is replaced with self, money, and pleasure, all the other vices naturally follow.”[iii] Peter Williams says, “when self is on the throne of the personality, then love for God and other people is of little consequence.”[iv]
Whose priority do you follow? Who is sitting on the throne of your personality? Who do you love the most? The enemy, Satan’s game plan is to seduce you to walk the path of destructive self-love, the path of defiance that rejects God’s rule, the creator’s directive to love, worship, and serve the loving and good God, your Creator… Don’t fall for it.
[i] http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article7026077.ece
[ii] William D. Mounce, Word Biblical Commentary : Pastoral Epistles, Word Biblical Commentary (Dallas: Word, Incorporated, 2002). 547.
[iii] William D. Mounce, Word Biblical Commentary : Pastoral Epistles, Word Biblical Commentary (Dallas: Word, Incorporated, 2002). 547.
[iv] Peter Williams, Opening Up 2 Timothy (Leominster: Day One Publications, 2007). 68.
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