Friday, September 30, 2011

2 Timothy 3:2


Copyright Ó 2011 J. Neely
2 Timothy 3:2

2 For [gar] men [anthropos] shall be [esomai] lovers of their own selves, [philautos] covetous, [philarguros] boasters, [alazon] proud, [huperephanos] blasphemers, [blasphemos] disobedient [apeithes] to parents, [goneus] unthankful, [acharistos] unholy, [anosios]KJV-Interlinear

2 For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, NASB

Our context carries over from the previous chapter, in that wickedness will exist generally throughout society, but more specifically wickedness will exist from within Christianity, and even more specifically, this wickedness within Christianity, will swell in the latter days of the Christian era, thus forming perilous times.

Those perilous times will be the Tribulation preceded by the impending Rapture.

Thus extreme wickedness gives over to the rule of Satan and the pattern of his rule which is the policy of evil.

And even though these characteristics have existed in society throughout history, and exist among unbelievers as well as believers, the subject here is the pattern of life that will exist among believers near the end, perhaps the last couple of generations, of the Church Age.

Just as the Tribulation will demonstrate the extremes that humanity will go to in rejection of truth, so too, then the end of our current dispensation will lay the groundwork for that evil time.

No timeframe is defined.  No dates are specified.

This is a pattern or trend, that will become increasingly dominant throughout Christianity as well as throughout the world.

The first sin is the love of self.  This is perhaps the sewer out of which all of the remaining sins, come.

Lovers is ‘phil,’ which comes out of ‘phileo,’ which is used in the relationships of people in friendship.  The Father loved ‘phileo’ the son, Jesus loved ‘phileo’ John, Pauls love ‘phileo’ for believers, and so forth.

The object is ‘autos’ or self.  And when self is elevated above others, then God and others are eliminated from the relationship orientation of life.  Self becomes more important than spouse, family, friends, work, community, honor, responsibility and so forth.

Lucifer loved self and thus became Satan.  Adam and Eve came to love self and then came sin.  In every case, when self is elevated, God is ignored and trouble begins.

Society will eventually love self to an extreme, and thus the end of human history will result.

And even in our current day, self love is becoming the standard for therapeutic treatment.  And that is nothing more than a problem being treated by a problem.  The result will be worse than the original problem.

Resulting from love of self, is the love of things, or covetousness. And so materialism will grow rapidly as the secular side of society places great value on the things of life.

Following this is boastfulness, wherein the person boasts in things of self, that he is not.  Boasting elevates self, exaggerates facts such that they have no basis in truth.  Boasting makes one competitive thus attacking any competition in order to advance ones self.  People do this in office politics, in gossip, in marriage, in politics, in celebrity circles, in any form of social or public setting.  Truth is set aside in order to bring attention and credit to ones self.  Authority is rejected.

Arrogance or pride, carry the connotation of elevating ones self above, or making ones self superior in some way.  The arrogant create an atmosphere of superiority in thought, in opinions, in favoritism, in standards, in beliefs, and all at the expense of others.  Bias and prejudice result.

This high opinion leads to blasphemy or abusive and slanderous and contemptuous attacks against others.  Others become beneath you.  Other ideas become beneath yours.

When an older generation is wicked in general, then the younger generation is not trained properly in life and they become disobedient.  This leads to a succeeding generation that will follow in the footsteps of their evil parents and thus become even more wicked.

Wickedness can never satisfy or complete ones self.  Thus never achieving satisfaction, leads to ungratefulness.  An ungrateful society wants more, is never satisfied, and that leads to even greater problems.

Unholy is generally a term that means lacking of righteousness and justice.  These are two terms that define holiness.  When a person believes in Christ they receive imputed into their life, Gods righteousness and Gods justice, which serves to define salvation.

However, once saved, then a person cannot become unsaved  One cannot unborn themselves.

Therefore, believers who pursue a path of wickedness, will lose sight of sinless perfection, no spiritual life, will lose sight of justice, no washing or confession.  They will leave the spiritual behind, become imitators of unbelievers, and thus be no better than unbelievers as far as the functions of the world go.

In the future, sooner or later, apostate thinking will take over the world.  Certainly there will be believers, for the Rapture exists to remove believers from this world.  But the general idea here is that the spiritual functions of Christianity will dwindle down to near nothing, but not completely eliminated, as other things, activities, outlooks, things, beliefs and so forth begin to prevail throughout society.

Prior to the flood, Noah and his family, eight people, were all that were left before the flood came.  There were fewer people to be rescued in Sodom when Abraham wanted the city saved for the sake of Lot.  The Rapture will most likely see millions being removed as the world will by then reject truth, and thus God will remove it, and in a dramatic way.

Remember we have already studied the three great gaps in history, wherein spiritual declines led to major changes in history.  The first was in Noah’s day, when during a period of 120 years apostasy led to the flood.

The second was during the last four centuries prior to the birth of Christ, when divine revelation stopped as the Old Testament books were concluded several centuries prior to the First Advent, because of the rejection of the Messiah.

And the third major gap in history will occur at the end of our dispensation when it would appear that there will be no further additional new believers in Christ, due to the lack of the teaching or hearing of the gospel, let alone the teaching of doctrine. 

Thus requiring a major change, the Rapture, in order to bring society back to their senses, in which millions will be saved during the Tribulation, who might otherwise not have been saved were it not for the Rapture.

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