Lovers of Self

If you'll turn in your Bibles with me, please. That would help if I was at the right spot myself.

To 2 Timothy chapter three. 2

Timothy chapter three. We will step out of our P45 study for the morning.

Lord willing, return this evening. Some words from Paul's epistle, second epistle to Timothy chapter three.

Let us ask the Lord to bless our time together. Father, now in this hour, we ask that you would protect us from distraction.

Lord, that you would help us to focus upon your truth. Meet with us by your spirit.

We confess that without his assistance, we can do nothing. We pray in Christ's name, amen.

The story in the newspaper, this past week, was stunning.

Well, at least I hope it remains stunning to us.

The first line in the New York Daily News article from Tuesday, August 1st, read this.

Now that's a miracle. Now that's a miracle. Well, it's pretty unusual to hear the

New York Times, New York Daily News, I'm sorry, New York Daily News referring to a miracle these days. What was the miracle?

Well, here's the title of the article. Portland Transgender Man Gives Birth to Baby Boy.

Portland Transgender Man Gives Birth to Baby Boy. Caitlin Hitt's article begins with that line.

Now that's a miracle. Of course, there are pictures included which leave us, especially those of us who are maybe over 40 years of age, staring in unbelief.

It's very difficult for those of us in my generation to even begin to wrap our minds around what to us seems like such obvious insanity.

No man has ever given birth to a baby boy or a baby girl.

I was actually sort of shocked they said baby boy. How dare they assume a gender? We struggle,

I struggle daily because I simply cannot even begin to work up respect for those who demand not only that they be allowed to live in a fantasy world, but that I must not only enter into their fantasy world, but I must honor it and celebrate it, and I must learn 47 ,000 new pronouns just simply to affirm them in their own fantasy.

I really struggle to understand how that is in any way, virtuous, ethical, moral, right, or just.

And yet that is the world into which we are going each and every day.

Now that's a miracle. No, actually that is a woman who has been abusing and mutilating her body for 10 years.

She had been taking artificial hormones. Yes, women do have testosterone, but not that kind.

She had been taking hormones, which if she had been a weightlifter would have been a great advantage to her,

I suppose. But she had been abusing her body so much so that she had miscarried before.

Well, what are you doing taking testosterone while at the same time trying to do only what women can do?

The level of abject, not confusion, but rebellion that is demonstrated in these types of situations is astounding to people of my generation.

It wasn't a miracle that a woman gave birth. That happens every single day. What is a miracle is that our society has become so twisted in its thinking that it is now considered to be good and virtuous and right to call that a miracle, to not mourn when you see it.

When I see that, I recognize in and of myself, I have anger.

I have anger. I have anger toward individuals who are so focused upon the fulfillment of their own desires and lusts that they would demand that all the rest of us celebrate their desires and lusts, and most importantly, because I think of that little child, and I think of how important it was for me to have a mother and a father, and how important it was for me to see my mother and my father interact with one another as a man and as a woman.

I know how important it is for a young man to have a dad, but also to have a mother, because you learn so much from each.

And in every generation before this one, we recognized how terrible it was when you lost a parent that had a little child.

Orphans and widows all through the New Testament, right? And it was always considered to be a good thing, especially in times of war.

The father is lost on the battlefield, and back home, the community comes together, and they rally around that family.

And other men step in to provide what is needed for that young man's guidance, for that young woman's guidance.

It's good to have a father and a mother. We recognize the tragedy of losing that, but when people can be so self -centered as to put a child in the position of being raised by allegedly two fathers or two mothers, not recognizing what this means to that child, not recognizing the damage that is done, it is truly astounding.

But I want to speak this morning, especially and primarily to the younger generation.

I don't know who gets to decide these things, to be perfectly honest with you, but I looked it up, and the millennial generation, 1983 to 2003.

Why? I think somebody flipped a coin, personally. I don't know. I really don't know.

But basically, 32 down to, you know, what?

About 14, somewhere around in there. I want to talk to the young people.

Because if you're as old as I am, or within 10 years, one way or the other, we were raised in a different world.

And we all have vertigo right now when it comes to the moral and ethical merry -go -round that we have been stuck upon.

But for you younger folks, I would like to suggest that you're in more danger than us older folks.

What do I mean by that? You've been raised with cell phones, and computers, and social media.

And as a result, communication is a secondary thing for you.

It's just natural. It just happens all the time. You don't even consider it. You find out about things immediately.

It's hard for you to even realize it was only a few decades ago that in World War II, we would find out about great battles days or weeks after it happened.

And you'd only get summaries. Now we get reports within minutes, sometimes live as it's happening.

You're accustomed to having information coming at you so quickly that it's very rare that you ever have a situation where you are protected from or outside of the gale of worldly forces and voices coming at you.

I've discovered that young people struggle with silence. You know that?

You've grown up with something in your ears. You've grown up with music, entertainment, all the time.

When it stops, you don't know what to do. The idea of silent meditation, extended contemplation upon a single subject, that same internet is filled with studies demonstrating that modern man, even people my age who have become a part of the same, we have to utilize these tools who are part of the same culture.

We've all found, we all find it much more difficult now to concentrate upon one particular thing, to think deeply upon one particular subject for a lengthy period of time.

Our minds want to change subjects because it's too difficult, it's too hard. We need to multitask.

We need to have 47 different things happening all at the same time, but not real in -depth on anything. And when it becomes silent, it's like when

I lead the prayer. How long do

I wait? Anyone ever counted? I don't have a specific time. But I wait a lot longer than Brother Callahan does.

When you say, let's have a few moments of silent prayer, and then you wait 10 seconds, that's not a few moments.

But I rarely wait more than a minute and 15 seconds. Seems like a lot longer, doesn't it?

Seems like forever. If I stood up here for three minutes and said nothing before that prayer, if I opened my eyes, you'd all be going, is he okay, did he fall asleep, what's going on?

That would be a few moments. We say a few moments of silent prayer. But man, when it gets silent, all of us anymore are like, why is that?

Speaking to you as the young people, I hope you know the world wants you.

The world wants you. You are its greatest enemy.

The secular totalitarians who are taking over in our society recognize that they must destroy the family and they must destroy the

Christian faith. They are the greatest impediments to creation of this perfect society where everybody thinks exactly like them.

It's amazing to me, it's only been 30 years since we had people like this before.

We thought we had seen the error of this way of thinking. 30 years and we're back at it again.

I've told you before, I've walked the halls of the Stasi prison in the former East Germany.

I've seen the frightening places where they put people to make them all think the same way.

And we have that happening in our land today, right now. We have people in government that want to punish anyone who thinks differently than what is right today.

It's happening all around us at a speed that is astounding. But they know my generation isn't gonna be around forever, but you're gonna be around too long.

And so they want your minds. They want to intimidate you, they want to conform you. And for now they don't care if you're at least somewhat religious, as long as that religion does not impact how you think and how you act in this world.

And the grave danger is when it comes to the moral and ethical revolution we see going on around us and do not be deceived.

What is going on around us has nothing to do with equality. It has nothing to do with equal rights.

It has nothing to do with human rights. It has everything to do with abject, unmitigated rebellion against God.

There's nothing about equality and redefining marriage so that you destroy it. There's nothing about equality, enforcing the rest of society to live in light of your fantasies, when the reality, the

God -given reality of your own creation is that you're a male or a female.

Don't give me the .001 % of genetic errors. When people have specific genetic problems, you deal with that, you show them mercy, you show them kindness, you show them comfort, but that's a teeny, teeny, teeny, tiny, small percentage of people.

99 .9 % of the quote -unquote transgender movement, there is not a single genetic thing wrong with these individuals.

It is all spiritual, it is all mental, and it's rebellion. God made man and woman, and those things are good.

They are good things. They are proper things. They are necessary things, and they're beautiful things.

Motherhood's a beautiful thing, and part of the anger that I experience when

I see an article like that is that what I'm hearing is my society is telling me

I need to view that as a miracle of motherhood, a person who calls himself a man.

No, I respect true motherhood too much to do that kind of thing, and it may well cost us in the future.

To believe those things. Young people,

I want you to look at a specific phrase with me. I want everyone to look. I'm not excusing you if you're 35 and above, but in 2

Timothy chapter three, we read these words, but realize this, in the last days, difficult times will come.

Difficult, treacherous, hard times will come, and then the very first phrase of verse two.

For men shall be lovers of self.

Lovers of self. Self lovers. Oh, there's many more things.

They don't have thankfulness. They love money. They're blasphemers. They're ungodly.

There's all sorts of things that are described, but I want to look at that first word.

It's a single word. It's a compound word, obviously. You take the term phileo, one of the

Greek words for love, and then the word for self, autos. You've heard of autonomy.

That's autos, self, namos, law, self, law. I am the law unto myself.

Here, it's phileo, self lovers. The first and foremost object of this individual's love is self.

We've heard that a lot, haven't we? We think of what was called the greatest generation.

We think of those who stormed the beaches of Normandy, and if you had asked them what their priorities were, self love would not have been the first thing in their mind.

They were fighting for their sweethearts back home, their wives, their mothers, their fathers.

They were convinced that if they did not do this, if they knew that many of them were going to die, but if they did not do this, that many more would die, and that they would lose their freedom, and the world would become a much darker place, and so their love was for someone else.

But sometime in the 50s, and really coming to expression in the 60s, self love, my fulfillment, my happiness, became the mantra, and those hippies of the 60s are the politicians of today, and the leaders of the universities, and the philosophers, and self love, self actualization is now the god of the people of this nation.

It is. What's the greatest human right? My sexual satisfaction.

It's the greatest human right. Couldn't be done in any way. No one has the right to say anything's wrong anymore.

If it feels good, do it. It seemed utterly impossible just a few years ago that a man by the name of Bruce Jenner would be named woman of the year, but it happened last year, remember?

What explains this? Self love. You see,

God didn't make us to be philatelic. Love is supposed to be expressed outwardly to others in service, first and foremost to our

God, in thanksgiving and service to him for all he's done for us, and the very fact that every breath of our mouth, every beat of our heart comes from his hand, and then as an expression of that toward others, the man is to love, honor, and cherish his wife.

The wife is to love, honor, and cherish her husband. They are together to have children. They love, and honor, and cherish.

We're to honor, and love, and cherish our parents. It is in community that this is expressed, and yet when we become self lovers, then everything else must be seen as a means to primary end of my satisfaction.

Everybody else exists to make me happy. Everybody else becomes a means to my end, and once you have that attitude, you no longer think about the future.

You don't think about the future of your culture, your nation, your people, your community, your family.

It's all about you, and once you're gone, who cares about who's left after you?

Self love, a focus upon the fulfillment of the individual's desires, but even those desires in self love become twisted because we all know in our heart of hearts that ultimate fulfillment does not come from the obtaining of selfish goals and ends.

How many times, we've all had that experience where we worked, and we worked, and we worked to try to get that one thing.

Oh, we wanted that one thing, that boat, that car, that house, whatever it might be, and we worked, and worked, and worked, and then we got it, and oh, we were so happy for a while, for a while, but you see, if we didn't have the right motivations, if it wasn't something that actually had eternal value, if it was a boat, it gets old, and it starts leaking, and the engine needs repair, and it needs an overhaul, and it can get swamped during a bad thunderstorm and end up at the bottom of Lake Pleasant, and it's no longer overly pleasant itself, and all that work, and oh, you were just so focused upon it, and now, it has no meaning.

That house, money pit, gotta just keep pouring stuff into it.

We all know that the obtaining of these things, if we don't have the right motivations, if it's not something wherein we are serving others, especially serving our

God, has no lasting value to it. It's empty. We have more things than we've ever had before in the history of our nation.

More food and more stuff. There are screens all around us.

Constant entertainment, but all the studies say we are the least happy we've ever been, least satisfied, and when you start talking about those who get trapped into these deviant sexual perspectives, the transgender person, 19 times more likely to commit suicide than anyone else.

19 times, oh, but you dare not suggest that might suggest there's something wrong there.

Oh, no, no, no, it's society's fault. No, it's not society's fault.

There's something wrong, and that wrong is a spiritual rebellion. God made you the way you are.

You do not have the right to tell God that he made a mistake, and you will never find happiness, never find satisfaction and fulfillment.

In fact, the suicide rate goes up after radical surgery. It goes up.

Why? Because once you've done that, once you have mutilated your body, you realize what we all realize.

If you're a man and you mutilate your body, it doesn't make you a woman. If you're a woman and you mutilate your body, it doesn't make you a man.

You were given a lie. You believed the lie. 19 times more likely you'd kill yourself because it's empty, and what was the root of all of that?

Self -love, lovers of self. That was the root of it all.

Instead of being a lover of God and looking to him to define for you what your reality really is, and to even deal with, there's a small percentage that really have what's called gender dysphoria that really are confused about that.

That's a small percentage, but they're still there. If even those had been directed toward a fullness of life in Christ, what a difference it would have made.

You don't have to destroy the body. You don't have to mutilate the body, but here's my concern.

You and the younger generation, you may hear this in here, and in this context, okay, there's the old guy up front, and he's talking from the

Bible, but this just doesn't fly with my friends. You live in a society, you live in a generation that is the first thoroughly secularized generation.

Majority of your compatriots have been completely cut off from the moral and ethical foundation that gave rise to this nation.

You need to understand, this society cannot survive the utter destruction of its foundations.

It will not survive it. It will come apart at the seams. Our law, our economy, everything in this society was based upon a worldview that is now considered not only to be decrepit and to be abandoned, but to be evil.

I don't know what's gonna take its place, but the transition is not going to be smooth. It's not gonna be easy.

And what's the result going to be? You see, young people, you're being told that it is wrong and unloving and hateful to believe there is such thing as objective truth.

Because you see, everybody gets to decide their own truth. Who am I to tell somebody else they're wrong?

Look at the results of this in the educational system. I do not want to fly in an airplane that was designed by someone doing new math.

Two plus two does equal four. And if you think it equals five, the plane will crash.

This world cannot function in the way that the foolishness of mankind is now thinking it can function.

Just because the chemicals that exist between here and here fizz in a certain way, that doesn't mean that that reflects reality.

I need an objective standard. And yet, almost every film you see, almost every song you hear is in overt or subtle ways trying to convince you that you can't think that way.

You gotta let everybody, you're just born that way. Just born that way, right? Everybody has their own kind of love.

And the result, the result's destruction not only of the society but of the individuals.

And so I'm concerned because this kind of article is now becoming an almost daily thing.

It's almost every day. So much so that I think, especially you young folks, you just don't even notice anymore.

That's just the way things are. That's not the way things are.

Oh, it is descriptive. It's descriptive of a society under the wrath of God. I get that part.

But we cannot become insensitive when we see our fellow image bearers intent upon the destruction of everything that has value and meaning in their life.

And we don't live on an island, folks. When they destroy it in theirs, it's gonna damage us as well. I just see so many young people and you know so many of those around you have accepted as good and proper the kind of immorality.

Yeah, believe it or not, there is such thing as immorality. And as such, you're intimidated.

And when it's an everyday kind of pressure, it can become very, very easy to start thinking along those lines.

And when you come in here and you hear the moral standards of God's word, you say, well, that's one thing there, but I can't really believe that that is what is to be true for all people.

And that really gets us back down to the authority, not only of scripture, but to the authority of Jesus Christ. My friends, if there is an employee in an empty tomb, the one who left that tomb is the authority for everybody.

No Yale professor can argue with that empty tomb because that Yale professor's gonna be in his own tomb and it's gonna remain filled until the resurrection.

So fundamentally, what the world is saying to you is, you can put that little fishy on the back of your car if you want, but don't let that impact how you think and how you live.

And don't you dare believe that that one who lived 2000 years ago actually has authority over anyone today, yourself or anyone else.

And yet, what is the very essence of the gospel proclamation? Sometimes we've lost this.

We say it, but sometimes we've lost this, and I want to make sure that we don't lose it. There's everything true in talking about the gospel as the means by which

God's saving a particular people, but the gospel proclamation begins with one statement.

Jesus is Lord, and he is Lord not because I made him that.

He is Lord whether I recognize it, he is Lord whether I bow the knee, he is

Lord, period, end of argument. If that's the case and he is

Lord over this culture and this culture will receive from him that which is necessary to rebels when they rebel against his authority, because let me tell you something, my friends.

No society has ever existed on this planet that has had more light than we have.

A movie came out a couple weeks ago. I actually went and saw it. I don't see very many movies, but I had heard about this one because I'm somewhat of a

World War II guy, and the movie is called Dunkirk. Why didn't someone tell me

I needed to bring earplugs? I mean, seriously, my ears are still ringing. It was unbelievable.

So I had to sit there the entire time like this, and I could still hear everything just fine.

It was amazing, but aside from that, I guess that's just what happens in Iowa. That's the climax.

What was amazing was obviously I knew about Dunkirk. I've read lots of books about the beginning of the war and the

Blitzkrieg and the whole nine yards, and it was really well done, and I loved especially the air battles because I was going, look, it's an

ME -109, and there goes a Spitfire, and oh, there's a Hankel bomber, and this is great, you know, and everybody else is going, what is with that guy?

But anyways, I enjoyed that part. It was really, really well done, but what they didn't talk about, what they didn't mention is it's always, it was called by the

British people, it wasn't called Dunkirk. It was called the Miracle of Dunkirk, and it was called the

Miracle of Dunkirk because the king actually asked the people of the nation to gather to pray that the army would be rescued, and there are pictures of the churches of England with lines outside.

They could not hold the number of people that came together and prayed that God would deliver the

British army from the Germans at the beginning of the war. They didn't even mention that.

They didn't mention the fact that, because it really wouldn't have fit with, with, you know, how it all ended up working out where he had air battles and stuff, but a storm blew up that grounded the

Luftwaffe, and at the very same time that all these little teeny tiny boats are heading toward Dunkirk, the channel became smooth as glass.

People said they'd never seen anything like it in their lives and instead of rescuing 20 or 30 ,000 people, they rescued over 330 ,000.

It was amazing. It was a miracle. So much so that the British government set up a day of thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving to whom? In England today, no one would know who to thank. The nation has become so secular since that time, but you see, you look at something like that.

You look at what has happened in the past. You look at that British nation and you look at, remember when

Pastor Fry, after his dad passed away, he brought home the New Testament that had been given to his dad in World War II to carry with the material in the front from the

President of the United States recommending they read it. Can you imagine that happening today? If someone even tried to do that, they'd be sued so fast by the

ACLU and 47 other entities, they wouldn't know what to do with themselves. Could never happen today.

What am I saying? England, United States, tremendous amount of light.

You can't scratch all of the references to Christianity out of the rocks of the buildings in London.

They're everywhere. And yet today, the people that walk those streets see those words, they mean nothing.

Tremendous darkness. God's judgment has come upon our culture.

We've never had more light. And the Scriptures tell us to whom much is given, much is required.

Tremendous light, tremendous judgment. Now we, of course, are called to be faithful in whatever situation we find ourselves.

We are called to be salt and light. We pray about this all the time. How can we do so in our society? But young people, you need to understand, you're the next generation.

And the world wants your mind. It wants your heart. And it wants you committed not to the idea that Jesus Christ is

Lord over all. Not to the idea that you have a tremendous calling as a human being to serve your master, your maker.

He made you, he created you. He then died for you. You have been united to him by his spirit.

You have the highest calling that can be. The world says you have no calling. As soon as you turn to, as soon as you die, you turn to dust and that's it.

That's all the world has to offer you. That's all the world has to offer you, nothing more.

And all those friends that you have that you know keep you from being what

Christ would call you to be in your behavior, your dress, your language, your actions. Those friends, those friends are robbing you of the greatest joy you could ever have in being a servant of Jesus Christ.

And are you being much of a friend to them if you don't warn them that eternity is right around the corner for every single one of us?

And that there will be a day when we will all stand before a righteous judge and we will be judged for the deeds we have done in the body.

And we all know what the standard is. We all know what the standard is. Lovers of self, young people, what are you gonna be?

Your generation tells you, yep, they will be and we should be, that's good.

Put yourself first. Fulfill your own desires. You're the, whatever you think you are, that's what you are, no.

God's made you, he's given you certain gifts, talents and callings and he says serve me with them fully to your utmost ability and you will find your greatest satisfaction in so doing.

But the world wants you. Do you get up in the morning and realize that?

Do you get up in the morning, Lord, I know the world's gonna be after me today. I know the world is going to be seeking to conform me to its image.

It's gonna do everything it can to make me embarrassed. Do you therefore pray, prepare, meditate upon that word, maybe have some silence so you can really focus upon those things?

Or do we just stumble on out there? Hope for the best. Lovers of self, greatest commandment is what?

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.

If you're a lover of self, you're not fulfilling the greatest commandment. You can't, you can't.

That's why our society is, young people, you don't wanna go there. You may have mastered the ability of being in the church service, saying the right words, but only you know, only you know how you live your life.

Just ask each one of us, no matter what our age is. Will we be lovers of self in this coming week?

We fulfill the greatest commandment and therefore receive God's blessing in our lives.

That's my question for us all today. Let's pray together. Gracious heavenly

Father, we have your word which gives us clear guidance. And yet Lord, we live in a world filled with those who have been deceived, those who are in rebellion.

And Lord, we cannot help but be influenced by their presence around us. We ask that you would drive us into your truth and by your spirit, you would make your word to come alive in our hearts.

It wouldn't just be a book. It would be those living words that you have so graciously given to us, which give us light, which tell us how we should live our lives in such a way that we would fulfill the calling you've placed upon us.

We thank you for the empty tomb. We thank you for the one who rose, who is seated at the right hand of power.

Lord, we desire to serve him. May you make his truth to come alive in our hearts.