Lovers of Themselves

But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good,  treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people. They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over gullible women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth. Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these teachers oppose the truth. They are men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected.  But they will not get very far because, as in the case of those men, their folly will be clear to everyone.

    Throughout Church history, there have been heretics. From the very beginning with the Arians, and the Nestorians, various sects and people have risen up to claim that they have the form of the true Christ and that the Church though it appears genuine has somehow lost the true path even though it has remained unchanged for centuries.  As I mentioned, the first heresy recorded by the Church is Arianism. Arianism, teaches that Jesus was begotten of the Father in time, and was not co-eternal with him at the beginning, thus making Jesus a subordinate of God the Father, a creation set a part, and not as the Creed teaches, Light of Light, True God of True God.  Today two religious heretical groups, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons) and the Jehovah's Witnesses still claim this as the true doctrine.  The Mormons teach that Jesus is completely subordinate to God the Father and that Jesus while a creation of God, has perfected his will with God's in that he is now eternal.  While they reject some of the basic tenants of Arianism, they certainly derive their theology from Arius and his so called disciples.  Jehovah's Witnesses on the other hand also state that Jesus is a created being, they see God the Father as the only "true God" and Jesus as a mediator.  Thus both of these heretical groups deny the teachings of the Church as established in the Symbol of Faith.  They claim to be continually learning and developing ideas about God but never coming to the truth.  The truth being that Jesus was co-eternal with the Father before all ages, and that he is the second person of the Trinity...the Logos. St. Paul warns us in the reading to be wary of this, because we could continually question God, about everything, and never really come to know him.  The second heresy I mentioned was Nestorianism. That Jesus was 100% both God and Man, and that there was no union of the two or rather, that the Logos entered the physical body of Jesus and that he was a man, given the power of God.  The Church teaches a hypostatic union of both human and divine. He was not sometimes human, sometimes divine, but 100% both God and Man at all times.  This was formalized at the Council of Chalcedon, which was rejected by the Assyrian Church of the East, and is the only true form of Nestorianism still practiced today.  

    Let us continue our quest to outline more fully the reading from today.  As you can already tell, both heresies arose out of a love for themselves, for their knowledge that supposedly no one else had and it placed themselves as God rather than God himself and His established One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Orthodox Church.  More recently we have seen the likes of organizations like TBN, Kenneth Copeland, Creflo Dollar, TD Jakes, Joyce Meyers, Paula White, and of course the largest prosperity gospel preacher, Joel Osteen flout the prosperity gospel, becoming lovers of money and lovers of themselves...hence the name of this blog post. They promote that by sending in money to their ministries, that people will be given vast amounts of wealth and that God will bless them.  However if we look at even modern church history through the eyes of the Church under Soviet era Russia, we understand that the Church is not meant for prosperity on earth.  We are meant for prosperity in heaven.  In the Russian Civil War alone, 652 clergymen were executed by the Soviet Atheists, and 579 monasteries completely destroyed. But of course it gets worse as this story continues. Kiev was completely obliterated when 28 bishops, and 6,775 priests were condemned to death by the Soviet regime in 1921. The Soviets violated the 73rd Orthodox Canon, and manipulated church law to install Metropolitan Sergius as the so called head of the church. 8,000 were killed in 1922.  Finally the worst came in 1937-38 when 106,300 were executed for their faith alone. No crimes, except for being Christian.  The Gospel therefore is not one of peace and prosperity, but one that brings us to the fullness of Christ. If Christ suffered, then so must we.  

    Finally let us briefly mention those who are the renovationists, the ones trying to renovate the church.  While the protestants certainly are renovationists in the fullest extent, the ones I am most concerned about were those within the Russian Orthodox Church at the time of the Soviets.  These are the treacherous, rash and conceited that Paul discusses in the reading from today. These men, having no concern for their flock subjected them to the horrors and tortures of the Soviets without regard for their wellbeing or their salvation.  They believed just like the Arians and Nestorians through their own intellect they knew more than God himself and could bring the church into a new era with new ideas. They rejected the lives of the saints, they rejected the teachings of the church, and refused reason. Though they claimed they had more reason than the Church.  They were content with the pleasures of this world, being protected by the government to live their lives in peace, while their flocks were pushed underground into the catacombs to pray and worship.  They saw the church not as a eternal ship guiding the world to salvation in Christ, but as an earthly ship guiding man to a better life on earth.  They are anathema.  

    Today's blog post might not be the most wonderful you have ever read, nor will it be the most cheerful. But we can see that through the eyes of this passage that I stated in the beginning that Paul knew what was to come. He was warning not just his spiritual son Timothy, but the church throughout history to be on the lookout for those who seek the destruction of the faith and to turn it into something foreign, something demonic.  This is the work of the antichrist, in preparation for the Antichrist.  Let us as St. Theophan says to watch carefully for the Second Coming of Christ and to prepare inward our hearts that our hearts may be the throne of God. We must prepare ourselves not for comfort but for persecution. 

Amen.