As we draw close to the end of the age, there are more crisis we face and one of which is truly the crisis of love. Jesus Christ also says because lawlessness will abound, loyalty will grow cold. If we want to explore this topic, there’s no shortage of content to discuss but today we will just talk about a few points.

We first turn to 2 Timothy 3:1-4;

1 ‘But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come:
2 For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
3 unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good,
4 traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, ‘

This whole passage records a string of negative things and these are what we would be faced with in the last days. In v1 it starts by saying in the last days, perilous times will come and this is a time of crisis. The first part of v2;

For men will be lovers of themselves

and the latter part of v4;

rather than lovers of God

Will we also become people who love ourselves more than God? What are the traits of people who are lovers of themselves? In particular when talking about loving ourselves, the speaker wants to focus on 3 other words in these 4 verses.

One is in v2 which says “proud,” and in v4 which says, “headstrong” and “haughty”.

People who are lovers of themselves are people who are proud, haughty and headstrong. They’re people who are full of themselves. They love everything about THEMSELVES. Why would that be? What are some of the possible reasons?

Some are because of their wealth, status and position they hold, and many are proud because they are intellectual. They think they’re cleverer and wiser than everybody else. People who are proud have a superiority complex and think they’re better than others. How is this manifested? Often by looking down on others, often by being unwilling to accept correction, teaching and advice. People like that think they’re always right, “I’m already the smartest, how can you say something I don’t know?”, “I’m the wisest, I can see things you can’t see”, I’m the most visionary, why would I accept the advice of others?” or “I can do no wrong. If something goes wrong, it must be you, the government or the weather but it’s never me. I’m just unlucky today.”

Once the speaker told a really smart and competent guy who always scolds people in a meeting. He would scold people when he cannot understand what he/she is talking about. One day they were having a conversation about this person’s temper. The speaker asked him, “You’re really very smart, smarter than all of us put together. But the problem with your temper; is it because you’re smart because you’re smart and when you cannot understand something, you feel, “I’m not stupid, must be the other person is stupid. Cannot be stupid, must be the other person don’t know how to explain. Are you like that?”” He replied no. He failed the test; he can’t take the advice to reflect.

Other manifestations are people who are stubborn, headstrong and cannot take advice. They must have the first, last and worse, all the say.

Some will say something first so everybody else will agree. If the others don’t agree, they’ll have the last day. Everybody else is irrelevant. They’re unable to accept that others are better or could be better. These are some of the crises facing people in the world. Why is this the case? If we look at what’s happened in the development of human kind, at some point in history there was a rise in humanism.

Long long ago, people believed in God, but in a superstitious way; everything they didn’t understand they called it God. Along the way, the truth came in. They knew of a creator and Christianity came along but later on, people denied this God as well. There were scientists and philosophers who come out and say God is dead.

The rise of science and philosophy made people come to this conclusion that God is dead and started to move towards the concept that everyone of us is an individual. That’s true, we are individuals and are different in many ways. From there rose humanism, the rise of human rights; individual will is very important, don’t have to submit to the higher being. More and more selves started to over-right God.

If we look at what’s happening today - human rights, women rights, gay rights, animals rights. Everyone has the right but God has no right. God has every right, no matter your right. The world focuses on rights but not WHAT IS RIGHT. To the world, “What is right is my right”. That’s the rise of humanism.

We’re now going into another way of crisis. In the theory of revolution, they said there’s this people called the homoerectus. Erectus means upright, because our forefathers all stood on fours and started to stand upright as time progressed. The speaker thinks that his forefathers wouldn’t look like this but the intellectual of the world think so. Then homoerectus became homosapiens. Sapiens means wise men, so homosapiens means upright wise men.

Today science and philosophy is starting to call homosapiens to homodeus; a super human that is actually god. From upright men, wise men, to god-men. How dare they said we would become homodeus? Because of the rise of technology.

Indeed with technology, many can be done. The proposal now is that if we were to support our human capabilities with technological advances, overtime, we’ll become human-god. We can do things normal humans cannot do. They’re even cloning our memories and putting it somewhere so our memory can never fade and become eternal. We can put our memory into supercomputing. This way, they also say we can live eternally.

The other thing about living eternally is to go into our genes to do genetic modifications and predict and prevent possible diseases, so that we’ll never die. This is what is being researched into and talked about realistically today. All the more, as these develop, people will ask, “Why do I need God?”, “Is there really a God?”, “We ARE God!”. But if we take a step back and ponder, there’s nothing new under the sun. This is the same lie Satan had used from the beginning, just in a different form. We turn to Isaiah 14:12-15;

12 ‘“How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, You who weakened the nations!
13 For you have said in your heart: ‘I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation On the farthest sides of the north;
14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.’
15 Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, To the lowest depths of the Pit.’

This records the fall of Lucifer and how the devil came about; the angel who thought he could take over God. V13-14;

13 For you have said in your heart: ‘I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation On the farthest sides of the north;
14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.’

That was Satan’s pride and why he fell. He thought he could be God, he THOUGHT he could be higher than God. Sounds too familiar; how did mankind fall? To exactly the same lie he perpetrated. We turn to Genesis 3:1-6;

1 ‘Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?”
2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden;
3 but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ”
4 Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die.
5 For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. ‘

Here talks about the temptation of Eve and in the last part of v1, the serpent spoke to Eve;

“Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?”

It all starts with planting doubt in the work of God, “Did God really say so?” Be very careful with such thoughts. If we reflect on how the people of God had fallen, every part of the word of God starts off with, “Did God REALLY say?” When we allow ourselves into this, we’ve started to fall into the trap. Later on in v4, the serpent said to the women;

You will not surely die.

God clearly said the day you eat of it, you’ll surely die. Satan was smart didn’t say, “You’ll surely die” first. He started by planting things that would shake your faith, “Maybe, maybe not,” then into a full denial of what God said. In v5, he planted the next lie;

For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

The only person who can know what is good and evil is God Himself. The rest of us will only have to accept what God tells us is good. He is the only Creator and only self-existent one. He sets the standard. Anything that deviates from the standard is sin and wrong. Whether you like it or not, whether you understand or not, it doesn’t change. That is the truth has an unchanging standard of right and wrong.

The woman fell into the same trap as the devil, “I do not want to accept simply what people tell me is right and wrong. I want to do it myself.”

This is the crisis of the world; when you say, “Don’t do this”, people reply, “Why not?”.

“Don’t smoke”
“Why?”
“Because your lung will become black”
“Really? Show me”

But if the Bible says clearly what’s right and wrong, should you question? Don’t be misunderstood that we shouldn’t ask questions, but be clear as to why you ask questions.

The western teaching style today encourages people to ask questions because we are individualistic. But, we’re an individual but we’re SUBJECT to our MAKER. This is the truth, just take it.

Today people ask “why not” not because they’re interested in finding out the truth but because they want to know why others have a better answer than them and why they can’t do what they like. Don’t humans react like that? Asking questions to understand and come to the truth is a positive thing, but don’t have the attitude of, “Why I cannot do this?” or “Why is your answer better than me?” It’s all me, me, me.

V6 says;

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. ‘

At the end of the day, what God said was completely not present. The reason Eve ate of it was because it looked good for food. It was pleasant to the eyes and for her, she fell to the lie because she thought, “It’s desirable to become wise and it would make me as wise as God.” That was the sin.

Remember the Tower of Babel; remember the cases where people thought they could ignore God and be God themselves? What was the result?

Don’t be homodeus. We can be like God when we go to heaven in all holiness, inheriting the status as the child of God He prepared for us. Subject to Him.

If we love ourselves more than we love God, we’ll want to overtake God. We should subject ourselves to the maker, to see His unchanging truth; that’s the way we want to live our lives.

We say proud people are unable to accept others’ advice. We turn to Genesis 4:1-8;

1 ‘Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, and said, “I have acquired a man from the Lord .”
2 Then she bore again, this time his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.
3 And in the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the Lord .
4 Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat. And the Lord respected Abel and his offering,
5 but He did not respect Cain and his offering. And Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell.
6 So the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen?
7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.”
8 Now Cain talked with Abel his brother; and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him.’

Indeed, Cain was a keeper of the ground and Abel was a keeper of the sheep. At that time of the offering, it would be normal for Cain to offer something of the ground and Abel an animal. But here clearly said that God didn’t respect Cain and his offering but He respected Abel and his offering. It wasn’t clearly recorded here why. Can we accept this? If we were Cain, how would we have reacted? This story can happen in many circumstances today., “We do about the same thing, why do you like her more? Why do you like the interpreter more than the sermon speaker?”

When we face such a situation, what is our first reaction? “How come the teacher likes her essay more than mine? My English is not bad what, better than hers! Must be she bribe the teacher.”

Everything is on others except ourselves. If we’re like Cain and our countenance fall, that’s pride. What can we learn?

In v6;

So the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen?

God is telling Cain, “My friend, there’s a reason why I don’t accept your offering.”

V7;

If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.”

God is telling Cain that there’s a difference between his and his brother’s offering, “If you do well, I’ll accept. But you didn’t do well.”

God is telling him, “There’s a reason, go and find out. I’m prepared to accept your offering, go and find out what you didn’t do well in. You sulking doesn’t help.”

God said, “If you didn’t do well, sin lies at the door and desire is over you. But you shall rule over it.” In other words, you have the ability to rule over sin.

Unfortunately, we know the outcome. Cain was so unhappy he killed his brother. So it wasn’t about “me doing well”, but “killing the one who did well so I’m not so bad” - to pull people down and not pull yourself up.

Cain couldn’t accept the fact that Abel was better than him. This is pride. Sometimes we have such attitude, “What’s so bad about me?”

If we think with such an attitude, we’ll become worse. But if we learnt and Cain have went to Abel and asked, “What did you do? Can you teach me?” Things would have been very different, but Cain decided to kill Abel. This is pride.

We can take this and apply to our lives. Can someone be better than us? We better accept that others can and that will be the case. We accept and take advice. Here Cain was unwilling to even accept the advice of God. There was never an attempt for Cain to find out what was doing well.

As we study the Bible, the reason why God was not pleased with Cain’s offering could very well be because the first born of the flocks and first fruits of the ground belongs to God. Abel brought the first born of the flocks but Cain took just any of the fruit he had. That’s one difference the speaker found out. We turn to Hebrews 11:4;

‘By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts; and through it he being dead still speaks.’

“By faith Abel offered a more excellent sacrifice than Cain.” It was not because God was unfair or biased, but because Cain missed the opportunity.

If we love ourselves more than we love God, we’ll never be able to see God’s standards. When things are not plain-sailing, we blame God and don’t reflect on ourselves. We believe we can do no wrong and it’s always “everyone else’s fault and not mine”. This is something for us to ponder about.

We also talk about people who are headstrong and only trust themselves.

We’ll talk about the story of Jacob. As we study his journey, it’s very much like hymn 101 which we sang. He went through the journey of “all of self, none of God”, then “some of self, some of God”, then “more of God and less of self” and then finally “none of self, all of God”

We turn to Genesis 28. Here, Jacob had already done a few things. He used his own method to take over the birthright of his brother; very calculating, smart and competent, knows what he wants. He got hold of his brother’s birthright. Through his cheating means with his mother, he cheated his father. He knew what he wanted and used his own method. But now he had to run away. As he ran away, we look at Genesis 28:10-14;

10 ‘Now Jacob went out from Beersheba and went toward Haran.
11 So he came to a certain place and stayed there all night, because the sun had set. And he took one of the stones of that place and put it at his head, and he lay down in that place to sleep.
12 Then he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.
13 And behold, the Lord stood above it and said: “I am the Lord God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and your descendants.
14 Also your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread abroad to the west and the east, to the north and the south; and in you and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed. ‘

Look at God’s promise in v15;

‘Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you.”’

Jacob knew of God. He grew up in the household of Isaac and Abraham, so he knew of the God of his fathers. But at this point in time, God was vague to him and he hasn’t really accepted God in his life. God, however, reached out to him, and assured him He will be with him.

V16-17;

16 ‘Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it. ”
17 And he was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven!”’

Imagine if you and I had this same encounter, how would we have reacted? This was God directly reaching out to him. We look at the psychology of this guy, and reflect on ourselves.

What was his attitude? We read Genesis 28:20-22;

20 ‘Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me, and keep me in this way that I am going, and give me bread to eat and clothing to put on,
21 so that I come back to my father’s house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God.
22 And this stone which I have set as a pillar shall be God’s house, and of all that You give me I will surely give a tenth to You.”’

His relationship with God was transactional, “God, I test you ah, let’s see if later when I go down there’ll be nice food to eat. Will I have branded clothes? Will I have a nice car to drive? Will I be able to buy a house by the age of 25?”

“If God will do this and this for me…” that was Jacob’s relationship with God. “Then, the Lord will be my God”

For Jacob, it was, “Up till now, I know there’s a God. A God of Abraham and Isaac but for me, wait first ah.”

Sometimes we think of God as an ATM or vending machine. Jacob was somewhat like that. He continued using his own methods and God was a hedge and insurance.

He ran away, ran to the house of Laban, met Leah but didn’t really love her, got cheated, and was very adamant on marrying Rachel. He is determined, works hard and is smart. Someone in this age and time is destined for success. Indeed, he became very successful and wealthy through his own methods. He became richer than his father-in-law.

We read Genesis 31:1;

‘Now Jacob heard the words of Laban’s sons, saying, “Jacob has taken away all that was our father’s, and from what was our father’s he has acquired all this wealth.” ‘

Now, he’s wealthier than Laban and all that he had was from Laban. But Laban was smart too, and is able to see through Jacob’s method, and so Jacob wanted to run. In v3-5;

3 ‘Then the Lord said to Jacob, “Return to the land of your fathers and to your family, and I will be with you.”
4 So Jacob sent and called Rachel and Leah to the field, to his flock,
5 and said to them, “I see your father’s countenance, that it is not favorable toward me as before; but the God of my father has been with me. ‘

“But the God of my father has been with me.” In a way, Jacob did recognise that a lot of what he had gotten is the blessing of God. Now God also reached out to him. At the back of his mind, he knew God was always watching him but he described God as, “The God of my father”. We can see how proud Jacob was; he still haven’t accepted God. Jacob and his wives then ran away and didn’t say goodbye. When Laban found out, he pursued him.

In v24-25,

24 ‘But God had come to Laban the Syrian in a dream by night, and said to him, “Be careful that you speak to Jacob neither good nor bad.”
25 So Laban overtook Jacob. Now Jacob had pitched his tent in the mountains, and Laban with his brethren pitched in the mountains of Gilead.’

V29;

‘It is in my power to do you harm, but the God of your father spoke to me last night, saying, ‘Be careful that you speak to Jacob neither good nor bad.’ ‘

We can see here that Jacob knew very clearly God had intervened to help him and he experienced God’s intervention very clearly. Finally in a dialogue with Laban in Genesis 31:42;

‘Unless the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac, had been with me, surely now you would have sent me away empty-handed. God has seen my affliction and the labor of my hands, and rebuked you last night.”’

Even at this time when he knew God intervened, he still didn’t recognise God as his God. “God intervened, you know why? Because God has seen MY labour, MY affliction. God intervened, because I AM good. God did this, because of ME.”

This is a journey of his faith.

Then, he left. When did he start to change again? When he was in distress and came near to meeting Esau and sent his messengers before him to go and see Esau. Let’s see what they said in Genesis 32:6 after his messengers returned;

‘Then the messengers returned to Jacob, saying, “We came to your brother Esau, and he also is coming to meet you, and four hundred men are with him.” ‘

Jacob had prepared gifts as favour but learnt that his brother came with 400 men, as if to attack him. Jacob panicked and in v7;

‘So Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed; and he divided the people that were with him, and the flocks and herds and camels, into two companies. ‘

He started to make his own plans again.

V8;

‘And he said, “If Esau comes to the one company and attacks it, then the other company which is left will escape.”’

At this time, he was still planning. It was when he realised that maybe he couldn’t make it. In v9, he prayed to God;

‘Then Jacob said, “O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, the Lord who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your family, and I will deal well with you’: ‘

Very interestingly, now he says, “It’s you who asked me to come back, and you promised you’d take care of me.” Jacob called on the promises of God.

V10;

‘I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies and of all the truth which You have shown Your servant; for I crossed over this Jordan with my staff, and now I have become two companies. ‘

Here he softened and said that he wasn’t worthy of God’s mercy.

V11-12;

11 ‘Deliver me, I pray, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau; for I fear him, lest he come and attack me and the mother with the children.
12 For You said, ‘I will surely treat you well, and make your descendants as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.’ ”’

He started to rely on God and not on himself. Through the night, he wrestled with the angel of God and in v26-28, towards the end of the wrestling, he held on to God and didn’t want to let Him go;

26 ‘And He said, “Let Me go, for the day breaks.” But he said, “I will not let You go unless You bless me!”
27 So He said to him, “What is your name?” He said, “Jacob.”
28 And He said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel; for you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed.”’

This was the transformation. No longer Jacob, but now Israel. He is changed.

Then he met Esau, and the brothers reconciled. Finally, in Genesis 33:18;

‘Then Jacob came safely to the city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, when he came from Padan Aram; and he pitched his tent before the city. ‘

20;

‘Then he erected an altar there and called it El Elohe Israel.’

What is the meaning of “El Elohe Israel”? It means “God, the God of Israel.”

From then on, he finally realised relying and trusting in himself was not the way to lead his life. He learnt to rely on God. Finally it wasn’t just the God of Abraham and Isaac, but also the God of Israel. This is the new name he had accepted from God, the new man he has become. This is the God he has finally embraced.

From “none of God, all of self”, to “some of God, some of self”, to “more of God. less of self” and finally to “none of self, all of God”.

This hopefully will be our journey of faith, to love God more than ourselves. May God help us.