2 Timothy 3:1-5

(1) This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. (2) For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, (3) Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, (4) Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; (5) Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.
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Self-centeredness will produce the crisis at the close of this age. Its evils will reach a climax that can be compared to the time just before the Flood or to Sodom and Gomorrah. Self-centeredness, everyone having his own perception of beauty and pursuing it to the nth degree, is the driving force behind the perilous time of the end. It will be a time that fits the description in Judges 21:25 when “everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” During the period of the judges no one could provide central leadership because people said, “This is what I believe; this is what I’m going to follow.”

So it will be at the end. People will abuse one another to possess the things they hold to be beautiful, like money or power. “[Men will be] . . . lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good” (II Timothy 3:2-3).

The concept of “men will be lovers of themselves” (verse 2) continues in verse 5: “[H]aving a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away!” Verse 7 identifies them further: these people are “always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

Within God’s warning of what it will be like at the end, He lists the traits that Christians must fight against when self-centeredness reaches its peak. But the Laodiceandoes not resist as he should, and that is his problem! Though converted, he has an attitude of self-centeredness, strong enough that his mind is diverted from more important spiritual concerns!

 

— John W. Ritenbaugh