Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;
Traitors are disloyal betrayers of truth and of God, the headstrong are reckless and rebellious against restraint, the high-minded are proud and self-confident, and lovers of pleasure put self-gratification and amusement above love for God. It is a prophecy of grievous moral and religious decline in the last days before the Lord comes, and that condition is now present and being fulfilled as proof that His coming is near. It pictures selfishness inside the professing church matching the world, keeping an outward form of religion while denying its power, with no inward crucifixion of sin and no heart union with Christ. That love of pleasure displaces God through absorbing games and amusements, gambling and worldly display, luxurious dress and appetite, and money spent for self while souls perish. The whole chapter is therefore a present warning to be read carefully, calling every person to examine himself, to separate from pleasure-loving empty profession, and to wake, repent, and stand firm for Christ.
Words and Sense
Traitors in the verse means being traitorous and betraying and disloyal, including betrayal of truth and of God. It belongs to the character of a class departed from the faith, among whom evil men and seducers grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. It is part of the perilous moral and religious decline of the last days before the Lord comes, an apostasy like that of the early church leading to the same results. Such betrayers, headstrong and conceited and more devoted to pleasure than to God, are found both in the world and among God's people. The trait stands within a larger last-day character of selfishness, pride, disobedience, ingratitude, unholiness, and rejection of good, developed among God's own people as well as in the world. It is joined with being headstrong and proud and choosing pleasure over love for God as part of the grievous conditions of that time. These traits may be present in different people rather than all in one person, and believers are to guard against displaying them and to influence others away from them.
Heady in the verse means being headstrong and self-important, reckless and proud, loving pleasure more than God. It also means being wild, uncontrolled, and rebellious by nature, despising restraint, with independence and disrespect for parental authority as part of a wider pattern of ungodly character. It marks the character of that departed class, among whom evil men and seducers wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived, while the faithful are to continue in the Holy Scriptures which make wise unto salvation and to preach the word. It describes perilous moral and religious decline before the Lord comes, an apostasy like that of the early church with the same results. Such headstrong, conceited persons devoted to pleasure more than to God are found both in the world and among God's people, warning against encouraging pleasure-seeking and worldliness and calling for minds to be directed toward things of God. The recklessness belongs to a larger last-day character of selfishness, pride, disobedience, ingratitude, unholiness, and rejection of good, with a form of godliness but denying its power.
Highminded in the verse means being proud, conceited, self-important, arrogant, puffed up with self-sufficiency, and self-confident. It appears in youth who are headstrong, proud, and disloyal, independent and disrespectful toward parental authority, whose low conversation and example can corrupt others, weaken spiritual judgment, and lead to distrust of God's servants and unbelief. It belongs to the character of the departed class that stumbles and falls and is broken and snared and taken, among whom evil men and seducers wax worse and worse. It is part of perilous moral and religious decline before the Lord comes, an apostasy like that of the early church with the same results. Such conceited persons more devoted to pleasure than to God are found both in the world and among God's people. The pride stands within the prophecy of perilous times in the last days, alongside selfishness, disobedience, ingratitude, unholiness, and rejection of good, in a class with a form of godliness but denying its power.
Lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God means putting love of enjoyment, self-gratification, and amusement above love for God, serving self and pleasure rather than God. Even those professing to love and obey God may deny Him in daily life by living this way, alongside other selfish and ungodly traits. It applies to Christians whose physical exercise and amusements do not accord with Christ's lessons, with choices recorded as love of pleasure above God. It gives the representation of selfishness inside the church matching the selfishness of the world, in which a person sacrifices to self as God, worships the reflection of his own image, and sets his own practices and peculiar tendencies where God's law should be. It means putting self and self-indulgence in God's place, with every feature of prodigality being selfishness. The trait belongs to those professing to belong to God while keeping a form of godliness but denying its power, applying to popular churches including those whose ministers commit serious sins hidden beneath Christian profession.
Time and Fulfillment
The verse belongs to the prophecy that perilous, grievous times shall come in the last days before the Lord comes, portraying moral and religious decline and apostasy like that of the early church with the same results to follow. It means men will be traitorous and reckless and proud, loving pleasure more than loving God, as part of a larger last-day character of selfishness, pride, disobedience, ingratitude, unholiness, and rejection of good. That class with a form of godliness but denying its power will be developed among God's own people as well as in the world, giving the representation of selfishness inside the church as matching the selfishness of the world. That condition shows itself in a person sacrificing to self as God, worshiping the reflection of his own image, and setting his own practices and peculiar tendencies of nature where God's law should be.
The last-day condition described is now present and being fulfilled, testifying that Christ's coming is near and that the end of all things is at hand. It is a warning for the last days in which we now live and is to be read carefully, with every word applicable at this time to all churches and ministers, calling brethren to wake out of lethargic slumber, trim their lamps with the grace of God, let them shine in clear bright rays to a world in darkness, and do the great work of fitting up a people to stand in the day of the Lord. This condition appears among children who disobey and fail to honor parents, and among youth who follow love of pleasure more than love of God through indulgence of perverted appetite, fashionable intemperance in eating and drinking, and debasing customs. It is the state of a large share of those who have a form of godliness but deny its power in these last days, the living counterpart of the withered fig tree, people claiming great light above all others whose daily life and unholy character belie their profession through pride and selfishness, peevishness, fretfulness, frivolity, discontent, uncharitableness, censoriousness, evil thinking and evil speaking against brethren, with no inward crucifixion of sin and no mold of Christ, bearing leaves of profession to conceal deformity but no fruit. Faithful sentinels and missionaries with light must work with all their powers to show such victims the cleansing fountain, give them the last message of mercy, reform the debased, and restore the moral image of God in man.
Its fulfillment was seen in Miller's time as proof the present era was nearing its close, for the condition of the world then corresponded to that prophetic picture of the last days. It repeats the condition in the days of Noah and marks a second period when human probation is to close as it closed then, when the Son of man is revealed. Its description shows that wickedness will increase as Christ's coming approaches, contrary to claims that the world will first be converted in a temporal millennium, and it warns Bible students not to mistake outward religion or assurances of peace for genuine godliness since these vices can exist among people who retain a form of godliness while denying its power.
The chapter's description was fulfilled in San Francisco and to a lesser degree Oakland before the earthquake, especially among officials whose corruption showed disloyal, reckless, arrogant traits and devotion to pleasure more than to God. The verse describes people who are headstrong and proud and who love pleasure more than God, and this condition characterized widespread wickedness there. Those practices belong to a prophecy describing practices that would be seen in every city, making the prophecy relevant to contemporary dishonesty and fraud and giving people reason to heed the warning.
The sins it describes existed before the Flood and in Sodom, taking part in worldly demoralizing amusements that God's word forbids places even professed followers of Christ who await His coming among the world's pleasure-lovers and severs their connection with God. Loving pleasure more than loving God means the hearts of the young filled with thoughts of getting married, becoming disobedient to parents, becoming wanton, and marrying without counsel of parents or church, not having God in all their thoughts and not inquiring whether marriage is according to His will, marrying not to glorify God but to gratify loose passions and depraved lusts. Such sins brought the Flood upon sinners who would not bear God in their thoughts, and the world is now almost ripe for destruction with the unmingled fury of God to come upon it for the awful sins of these last days.
As this portrayal of wickedness and corruption in the last days is fulfilled, faith in the final triumph of Christ's kingdom should increase and be strengthened.
Selfish Last-Day Character
The verse gives the representation of selfishness inside the church matching the selfishness of the world. That selfishness makes a person sacrifice to self as God, worship the reflection of his own image, and set his own practices, self-indulgence and peculiar tendencies of nature where God's law should be. The condition shows itself in betrayal, recklessness, pride, and putting love of enjoyment above love of God, with a form of godliness that denies its power.
It belongs to a wider last-day character of lovers of self, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of good, uncontrolled and hostile to good. This class keeps a form of godliness while denying its power, professes to belong to God and even to love and obey Him while denying Him in daily life, resists the truth, and is corrupt in mind and disqualified concerning the faith. It will be developed among God's own people as well as in the world, including in popular churches, so there is great need to stand where every jot of power is used to magnify God and His truth. The traits may be present in different people rather than all in one person, and believers should guard against displaying them and influence others away from them.
The condition appears especially among youth and children who are headstrong, proud, disloyal, disobedient, disrespectful, unwilling to be controlled or instructed, scorning religion and making sport of sacred things, just before God pours out the vials of wrath. They do not entertain serious thoughts nor cherish fear and love of God, and as judgment approaches their conformity to the world shows their need to turn from pleasure and respond to Christ's love. Such youth corrupt others by low conversation and example, weaken spiritual judgment, lead others to distrust God's servants into unbelief, and ruin principles and morals while practicing corrupt habits and secret iniquity behind a fair exterior to keep favor. Minds left unguarded drift where they will, accept Satan's suggestions and cheap things until trained in his army to decoy other souls, and though professing religion keep only outward godliness because they put pleasure above God and fail to work together with God.
Children come into this company through parental neglect in training, which is registered in the books of heaven. That neglect is failure to restrain, educate and train, putting worldly things first, so that the younger children become disobedient, unthankful, unholy and given to pleasure, the youngest following his brother. Ministers' children are especially targeted, as Satan works most zealously to lead them to dishonor parents, refuse instruction, follow their own inclinations whatever happens, and find selfishness and sin sweeter than the pure and holy things of God, destroying parental hope and comfort and leaving parents weighed down and full of continual sadness. For children left to that condition it would have been far better never to have been born, so parents must make it their careful, diligent study not to fail in duty.
Being heady and high-minded appears in willful courtship and marriage by strong feeling and self-confidence, closing eyes to danger and ears to warnings from parents, friends and ministers. It is self-will and self-sufficiency showing disrespect by refusing caution from father, sister, church friends and Christ's ambassadors, persisting as if no one knows as much as oneself and salvation depends on following one's own judgment. Such infatuation destroys interest in religious things, makes a person think only of self instead of the glory of God, brings no good and no blessing of God, proves character not yet established for marriage and care of a family, and leaves a person in great darkness without realizing peril. If followed by all it would ruin the condition of families and the church, and a woman's choice to marry against her family's wishes in this spirit led to an unhappy life, bitter repentance, and difficulty in Christian living.
Form Without Power
Joined to the next verse, the text describes last-day people who profess to belong to God and keep an outward form of godliness and religion while denying its power, with little thought for God and no heart union with Christ. They are headstrong and self-important, traitorous and reckless and proud, loving pleasure more than God as part of a larger character of selfishness, pride, disobedience, ingratitude, unholiness and rejection of good, resisting truth and corrupt in mind and disqualified concerning the faith. This class will be found both in the world and among God's own people, and its selfishness inside the church matches the selfishness of the world, sacrificing to self as God, worshiping the reflection of one's own image, and putting self, self-indulgence and one's own practices and peculiar tendencies where God's law should be. The picture includes many whose lives and characters contradict their profession through pride, selfishness, irritability, frivolity, discontent, uncharitableness and speaking evil of others, including popular churches whose ministers commit serious sins hidden beneath Christian profession, so there is great need to stand where every jot of power is used to magnify God and His truth and to direct minds toward the things of God rather than encouraging pleasure-seeking and worldliness.
Like the withered fig tree and the barren fig tree they have leaves of profession but no fruit, because sin has not been inwardly crucified and Christ's character is not formed in them. Their daily life and unholy character belie a claim to great light above all others through pride and selfishness, peevishness, fretfulness, frivolity, discontent, uncharitableness, censoriousness, evil thinking and evil speaking against brethren, bearing leaves to conceal deformity but no fruit, like corrupt trees bearing only leaves and speaking fair words while seeking selfish gain and working against God. Mere profession and outward forms without inward cleansing and the fruit of true conversion through repentance and faith are worthless, bearing only bitter unusable fruit that does not bless others through good works and unselfish deeds, and their fruitless lives deny the power of the religion they profess while hiding selfishness and hypocrisy. Their state is the living counterpart of the withered fig tree in these last days of perilous times, lukewarmness and apostasy and every kind of deception, leaving more hope for the open sinner.
Entrusted churches that possess light and privileges but fail to share the light, bear fruit, or work for souls fall under this description and under God's condemnation and curse. Having the form of godliness without going beyond it leaves them fruitless, clinging to selfishness and ease, earthly comforts and attractive homes, falling back into deathlike slumber instead of arousing to exercise talents in personal efforts to set forth present truth and lift up the standard in missionary fields and cities where it has never been proclaimed. Ceasing as moral agencies to use powers and voices for the saving of souls, with indistinct voices, they love pleasure more than God, and the charge is inscribed upon the walls of their homes while stones are given a tongue to speak and the command comes to go forth.
The description applies to popular churches whose ministers commit serious sins hidden beneath profession, to churches turning from truth toward the world, and to straight truths being shunned to keep lovers of pleasure, which causes loss of power. As churches move farther from truth and closer to the world, the difference widens between them and faithful followers. The straight truths the church stopped declaring would shut out lovers of pleasure and friends of the world, and when the church seeks the favors and honors of the world under pretense of benefiting the world and shuns declaring those truths in order to keep such people, she loses favor with God and gradually loses her power.
It marks false teachers and false prophets who have departed from the faith to follow seducing spirits and doctrines of devils, resist truth, deceive and are deceived, tear down what God builds, and seduce others by falsehood and misrepresentation. They are ravening wolves in sheep's clothing whose work is to tear down what God through His agencies is seeking to build up, among whom evil men and seducers wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived, while the faithful are to continue in the Holy Scriptures which make wise unto salvation and to preach the word. Being traitors, reckless and self-important, loving pleasures more than loving God, along with loving self, covetousness, boasting, pride, blasphemy, disobedience to parents, unthankfulness, unholiness, lack of natural affection, trucebreaking, false accusation, incontinence, fierceness, despising the good, and having a form of godliness while denying its power, belongs to the character of men God's servants will have to confront and against whom Timothy is charged to war a good warfare by holding faith and a good conscience. The warning applies to false teachers seeking entrance into the church, whose deceptive influence the faithful must resist with Scripture while working humbly and lovingly for their salvation.
It is a special mark of those represented by the foolish virgins, who may value and promote truth yet remain unchanged because they do not yield to the Holy Spirit, their religion being only an outward form without the power that transforms character.
Those who love God supremely will eventually have to separate from people characterized by this love of pleasure and empty form, and from such people there must be separation. Their love of pleasure, worldly pursuits and display leaves little thought for God and shows no heart union with Christ, and as churches turn from truth and draw closer to the world those who love God supremely will eventually be unable to remain connected with them. Loving pleasure more than God separates people from those who love God, for choosing worldly company and amusements over religious meetings, sacred duties, self-denial and the cross reveals misplaced affections and weakens Christian influence, and they will not enjoy the company of those whose Christlike conversation and conduct rebuke their spirit and give no support to their vain desires. Those who profess the truth must choose Christ rather than the world and turn away from worldly influences.
Satan urges this charge of loving self and pleasure and the things of the world more than loving God, placing own interests above His service in selfishness, malice and hatred toward one another, against those who profess to obey the law in the closing of the great day of atonement, declaring that by such sins they have forfeited divine protection and are as deserving as himself and his angels of exclusion from God's favor with no right to take their place in heaven. While followers of Christ have in many respects been very faulty and have committed the sins Satan tempts them to commit, they have not given themselves to the control of evil but have put away their sins and sought the Lord in humility and contrition, and Jesus as their Advocate gives His life for them and rebukes Satan in their behalf.
In the present age of signal rejection of the grace purposed to keep His people from being overcome by prevailing iniquity and uniting with the hostility of the world against His remnant people, this far-spreading and manifest ungodliness under a cloak of Christianity and sanctification will prevail to a terrible degree until Christ comes to be glorified in all them that believe, enacted even in the very courts of the temple. In that time God's people are proved and tested to discern between him that serves God and him that serves Him not, while vengeance falls on unfaithful stewards in responsible positions who sit in the gate deciding what the people should have, take away the key of knowledge, refuse to enter themselves and hinder those who would enter, and bear not the seal of the living God.
Pleasures That Displace God
Absorbing exercises, games and amusements that conflict with Christ's lessons show love of pleasure above love of God, strengthening lower passions and creating appetites that work against the Spirit and counteract the Holy Spirit's operation on the heart. Such intensely absorbing pursuits as football and ball games do not bring participants into closer relation to God but cause loss of hold on Him, while heavenly intelligences record the charge in the books against many teachers and students in Christian schools whose education, self-training and physical exercise follow what is given to the world instead of the lessons Jesus gave His disciples. Physical powers are to be trained as well as the mental, but in character in complete harmony with Christ's teaching, and Satan and his angels lay snares for souls by working upon teachers and pupils to induce them to engage in these exercises. This misplaced love, with levity and letting opportunities for learning pass by, weakens character and leaves people less capable in whatever work they undertake.
Absorbing devotion to gambling, horse-racing, sports, holidays and worldly achievement wastes God-given time and ability and causes loss of sight of the crown of immortality promised to those who win the race for eternal life. Love of pleasure is a most dangerous and subtle temptation pressing hardest on children and youth in the cities, seen in numerous holidays, games and horse-racing that draw thousands, pulling minds away from sober duties of life and wasting money that should have been saved for better uses, even the scanty earnings of the poor. Continual craving for amusement reveals deep longings of the soul, yet worldly pleasure cannot satisfy soul-thirst, those who drink from it are deceived mistaking mirth for happiness, and when excitement ends many sink into despondency and despair, forsaking the Fountain of living waters for broken cisterns. Those coming for an education and families drawn to schools should as far as possible be withdrawn from these seductive and demoralizing influences.
Association with worldlings in musical entertainments looked upon as harmless is dangerous ground where Satan by smooth, plausible, unsuspected wiles leads men and women astray and gains control of souls. Through taking part in such worldly entertainments many church members become lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God, for there is a right way and a wrong way with no harmonizing or compromise between good and evil, light and darkness, truth and error, righteousness and unrighteousness. Safety is assured only when workers keep their armor on in the conflict raging between God and Satan ever since Adam yielded, trusting the divine vitality of righteousness to triumph at last.
Church festivals, feasts, lotteries, tableaux and theatrical performances to raise money under a garb of Christian beneficence to pay church expenses teach youth to love pleasure more than God and to excuse gambling. By connecting lotteries and scenes of festivity with sacred things, professed Christians giving a world-loving example teach youth to reason that they are safe in taking interest in lotteries and in engaging in gambling to win money for special objects. Satan covers delusive pleasures and unholy reveling with a religious garment to make them look holy, and consciences are quieted because money raised pays church expenses, while those described refuse to give from love for Christ, from the power of His lessons on benevolence, His example, and the grace of God on the heart to glorify God with substance, but for love of pleasure and indulgence of appetite and for selfish reasons they will part with money. These scenes of gaiety and folly injure physical, mental and moral health, and the day of final reckoning will show souls lost through their influence.
Luxurious living, extravagant dress, fashion, vanity and display are signs of the last days, with pride and vanity manifested everywhere, and devotion to fashion can consume resources and attention that should serve God. Those who adopt the fashions of the world do so because Christ is not formed within them, the hope of glory, and those inclined to look into the mirror to admire themselves have little inclination to look into the law of God, the great moral mirror. This idolatry of dress destroys all that is humble, meek and lovely in character and consumes precious hours that should be devoted to meditation, searching of heart and prayerful study of God's word. Pleasure-seeking and frivolity blunt the sensibilities of professed Christians, make eternal things seem less valuable, lead them to treat good and evil alike, absorb them in worldly fashions and artificial excitement neglecting godliness and the higher life, and cause them to overlook the beauty of God's creation and beauty of character, while pride, vanity, love of display and craving admiration as ruling passions feed an insatiable desire for pleasure and display that can persist to the point of death displacing concern for God. A worldly-loving spirit seen in clownish witticism of young men and vain trifling, simpering affection of young girls, love for dress, selfish pleasure and vain amusements, and delight in society of worldlings and in amusements where the Redeemer could not be welcomed, is grievous in the sight of God and angels and positively forbidden in the Word, needing a work accomplished by divine grace, and most youth will come short of everlasting life because they while away precious time with instrumental music to please fancy, with dress and vain conversation, panting after earthly enjoyments instead of panting after unmistakable assurance of the love of God.
Clinging to selfish ease, earthly comforts, attractive homes, dress, smoking, idle talk, instrumental music and vain conversation instead of using talents to save souls brings the charge of loving pleasures more than loving God upon homes. Those who have had great light fall back into deathlike slumber instead of arousing to exercise talents in personal efforts to set forth present truth and lift up the standard in missionary fields and cities where it has never been proclaimed, ceasing as moral agencies to use powers for saving of souls with indistinct voices, making dress, smoking, idle talk and amusement their ideal and spending time that should go to Scripture study and work for Christ, and upon them God puts His curse, inscribing those words upon walls of their homes and giving stones a tongue to speak while commanding them to go forth. Few after faithful examination can truthfully say they are not one of those thus described, and welfare and eternal happiness depend on building on Christ, with close self-examination in light of God's word, earnest agonizing prayer for sound experience, being dead to the world, living by faith on the Son of God, hid with Christ in God, with conversation in heaven and soul reaching after pardon, peace, righteousness and true holiness.
Indulgence of perverted appetite and fashionable intemperance in eating and drinking marks following pleasure more than God, through debasing customs, with youth especially on that path as victims who must not be left uninformed and unwarned. Indulging selfish desires and unhealthful appetites can make gratification seem second nature, and following such life-destroying practices sacrifices health, truth, righteousness and eternal life. Faithful sentinels and missionaries with light must work with all powers to show them the cleansing fountain, give them the last message of mercy, reform the debased, restore the moral image of God in man, and let light shine in clear strong rays to a world perishing in sin because the end of all things is at hand.
Ministers who please audiences with entertainment, amusing stories and approval of amusements rather than practical godliness serve pleasure-loving congregations who after their own lusts heap to themselves teachers having itching ears, following own lusts and engrossed by things of minor consequence and human science instead of grand, ennobling, saving truth, and will not endure sound doctrine. Against this turning from what the Father and Son deemed essential for salvation, all inspired Scripture is profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction and instruction in righteousness to make the man of God perfect and furnished unto all good works, and the charge is to preach the word with divine authority, in season and out of season, with reproof, rebuke, exhortation, longsuffering and doctrine.
An unbelieving husband who loves pleasure more than God can draw a believing wife's thoughts from Jesus toward his pleasures and hinder her on the steep path to eternal life when she needs help rather than hindrance. Such a marriage can add spiritual burdens, dull sensitivity to the Spirit's convictions, divert from the true source of strength, encourage association with unbelievers, and make a person a tempter to a spouse imperiling both their own salvation and the spouse's. Misplaced affection in marriage, such as a husband giving another woman his wife's place and letting his wife hold second place, or receiving affection from another's husband, dishonors God and shows this last-day wickedness. He must guard thoughts and remain faithful to marriage vows, and she shows need for repentance and conversion, while those who love and honor God have Christ take charge of affections and center them on proper objects, leading a husband to respect, cherish and love his wife as mother of his children and to guard mind and heart carefully against impurity.
Loving pleasure more than God includes wanton marriage without God, parental or church counsel to gratify passion, and chiefly violation of the seventh commandment. It means hearts of the young filled with thoughts of getting married, becoming disobedient to parents, becoming wanton, and marrying without counsel of parents or church, not having God in all thoughts nor inquiring whether marriage is according to His will, marrying not to glorify God but to gratify loose passions and depraved lusts, the same sins that existed before the Flood and will bring unmingled fury upon a world now almost ripe for destruction. Violation of the seventh commandment is an enormous knowing sin, not of ignorance, never regarded by God as so exceedingly sinful as now, which will receive awful visitation whether offender is old or young, and those who commit it disgrace the cause and think confession and sorrow alone restore them to all privileges and fellowship, while the church lightly esteems the sin, fellowships offenders, and says Amen to prayers and exhortations that are a stink in God's nostrils, bringing His frown, curse and wrath upon the camp so He will not dwell in assemblies and the ark is removed and Israel weakened. The frown can only be removed by vigilant, strict, thorough dealing, suspending breakers from fellowship and privileges of the house of God, for those who heedlessly plaster over these sins will be left to their own ways to be filled with their own doings, and anciently such offenders were taken without the camp and stoned to death with temporal and eternal death as doom, and because stoning is abolished the sin is now indulged beyond measure and thought a small offense.
Hardhearted stewards show it by taking money God entrusted to them and spending it to gratify selfish passions while the hungry, overworked, sick and distressed widow and fatherless are left to cry to God, and God watches this unfaithfulness and records it in books of heaven as embezzling His goods. Since every person uses God's money and Christ gave His life as Substitute and Surety to give probation for forming perfect character by obedience to all God's commandments in appreciation of that offering, being converted through the Holy Spirit, the faithful course opposite to this is to secure eternal riches by storing treasure in heaven and not on earth. At God's judgment wealth and fame will have perished, and those who failed to lay up treasure in heaven will lose eternal riches.
Those with this spirit are unfit for God's publishing work which requires self-denial and caretakers and burden-bearers, and half-hearted workers who put pleasure first cannot give wholehearted consecrated service. Men in responsible positions, even growing grey, become such when they mingle influence with pleasure-seekers, disgracing faith and profession by countenancing the curse of intemperance with families, closing lips against reproof of follies of the young, and showing themselves controlled by strong passions and set ideas while severe and exacting with others. Those entrusted with sacred work show it by feeling at liberty to be disobedient, unthankful, unholy, condemnatory and harsh, loving to serve themselves rather than the Lord, revealing how they regard the Lord's work, forming their own destiny by spirit and character revealed, with works to appear in judgment. If important truth for this time were an abiding principle in souls, they would strive earnestly to obtain perfection of character, that they might surround those with whom they come in contact with a life-giving holy atmosphere that revives hearts of the humble and contrite.
Putting pleasure first makes people effective agents of deception even when they profess godliness, whose intelligence and shared profession can draw others into worldly conformity, persuade them that Christ's requirements are less strict, and lead them away from Christ until they lose strength to resist evil and ridicule former zeal and devotion. A rebellious unsanctified heart easily affected by wrong influence, loving self and society, failing to discriminate worthy from unworthy for lack of experience and judgment, following bent of own mind and letting strong affections be placed on improper objects, takes a course proving all wrong and ending in ruin unless guarded. Such are rebellious by nature, despising restraint of home and parental authority, dishonoring father and mother, quarrelsome at home, unsubdued, unthankful, unholy, scorning religion and making sport of sacred things, practicing corrupt habits and secret iniquity while putting on fair exterior to keep favor, exercising strong influence for evil that ruins principles and morals of other young people, loving pleasure and following feelings and inclination instead of loving God and living to His glory, so that to give heart affection to such brings unhappiness and sacrifices eternal life. They press others to refuse restraint, saying not to restrict self, to enjoy pleasure while possible, and that constant self-denial is no virtue, being in friendship with the world and Satan, strengthening ardent pleasure-loving desires within a person, standing against laws God planted in the being that cry to restrain and deny world, pleasures and vanities, hiding miseries sure to follow and turning away from duty and religion to shipwreck.
Pride and self-sufficiency lead such people to betray truth, resent the narrow way, leave Christ, and make shipwreck of faith for lack of deep foundation and anchorage on the Rock. They fall away when testing comes because they have not dug deep and made foundation sure, and when the Lord's words come through His messengers they resent narrowness of the way and leave Christ as disciples did when displeased by His words, with some self-sufficient, rejecting the Lord's counsel, following own judgment and working against God's commands even among God's people. One who puts pleasure before God as wild and reckless sows wild oats and takes no care of health, exposing himself to harm until too late, and that reckless course brings sure result because abused nature cannot endure it, life forces give way, and death follows. Dying in that condition closes record for eternity without hope and leaves behind mourning, murmuring, sadness and darkness, unfitting the living for duty to families. To lovers of pleasure the mystery of godliness appears dark and mysterious, in contrast to faithful trusting Christians who clearly discern it, they are strangers to strength and happiness from God which sustain Christians through affliction, and they lose both things of this life and immortal life, while the faithful who endure hardship and self-denial for Christ are finally revealed as victorious and honored by God.
Warning and Faithful Response
The whole chapter is a warning for the last days now being lived in and is to be read carefully, with every word applicable at this time to all churches throughout the world and to every minister. It shows the character of those departed from the faith who stumble and fall and are broken and snared and taken, as traitors, headstrong, proud, and lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God, among whom evil men and seducers grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived, while the faithful continue in the Holy Scriptures which make wise unto salvation and preach the word. This condition calls brethren to wake out of lethargic slumbers, to trim their lamps with the grace of God and let them shine in clear bright rays to a world in darkness, to do the great work of fitting up a people to stand in the day of the Lord, and to come up to the help of the Lord against the mighty.
All inspired Scripture is profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness, to make the man of God perfect and thoroughly furnished unto all good works. On that ground stands the solemn charge before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom, to preach the word, be instant in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine, to watch in all things, endure afflictions, and do the work of an evangelist and make full proof of ministry. The charge is urgent because the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine but after their own lusts heap to themselves teachers having itching ears, turn away their ears from the truth and be turned unto fables, following their own lusts and engrossed by things of minor consequence and human science instead of grand, ennobling, saving truth deemed essential by the Father and Son. The burden of the message to all nations is Jesus Christ and Him crucified rather than carnal lines to please and attract people and bring means into the treasury.
Ministers must faithfully declare the unwelcome warning about the dangers around pleasure-lovers and the doom awaiting the unrepentant, through preaching and personal labor, correcting sin and error. Souls who have been converted and cannot rest till the light that illumined their minds shines upon others are to make warm, inspired personal appeals to professing believers who love pleasure more than God, together with the erring and the outcast, while multitudes of unbelievers are made acquainted with the reasons of the Christian's hope. The same applies in the family becoming devoted to pleasure, having received the Lord's warnings but not heeding them, where the one convicted must take serious thoughts to heart, yield to the Spirit's conviction, turn to the Lord, be converted, and give the heart to God.
Each person must honestly examine and deal with the soul and carefully search whether this description of pleasure-seeking above love for God fits, since few after faithful examination can deny it. Christians should seek assurance of standing in Christ and of God's love, build hope of eternal life surely on Christ, set affections on heaven rather than earthly pleasures, and recognize life has a holy purpose too precious to waste on amusement and self-indulgence instead of Scripture study and work for Christ. Freedom from what is described means being dead to the world, living by faith of the Son of God, with life hid with Christ in God, conversation in heaven, soul reaching after pardon, peace, righteousness and true holiness, to appear with Him in glory when He who is life appears, with welfare and eternal happiness depending on building on Christ with close self-examination in light of God's word and earnest agonizing prayer for sound experience. Most youth will come short of everlasting life because they while away precious time with instrumental music to please fancy, with dress and vain conversation, panting after earthly enjoyments instead of panting after unmistakable assurance of the love of God.
Young people are warned not to belong to this class in perilous times but to shun these evils so they can overcome, and not to follow the example of indulgence in fashionable intemperance, since reform seeks to restore the moral image of God. Those satisfied with low attainments who let the mind drift where it naturally drifts instead of striving to acquire in order to impart as laborers for God accept Satan's suggestions, become filled with cheap things, and are trained in his army to decoy other souls, and though professing religion and keeping outward godliness they put pleasure above God and fail to work together with God. Children thus serving Satan rather than Christ, if they recognized need of a Saviour and bowed at the cross, could influence others for good, and are invited to leave Satan's ranks and follow Christ though it requires self-denial, with condemnation following only if they reject the light they receive.
Safety from giving heart affection to one who is rebellious by nature, despising restraint of home and parental authority, dishonoring father and mother, quarrelsome at home, unsubdued, unthankful, unholy, scorning religion and making sport of sacred things, practicing corrupt habits and secret iniquity behind a fair exterior to keep favor, loving pleasure and following feeling and inclination instead of loving God and living to His glory, exercising strong evil influence that ruins principles and morals of other youth, is to stop the affection at once, sever all intimate connection, refuse to follow inclination, give self unreservedly to God, follow the Saviour, sit at His feet to learn of Him, and live to do good and fit for higher and more responsible work, since to give affection otherwise brings unhappiness and sacrifices eternal life. Children come to be found among the disobedient, unthankful, unholy company of Satan's kingdom doing his will and pleasure through neglect by parents in training them, which neglect is registered in the books of heaven, so parents must train children from infancy to follow the Lord's way and make it careful diligent study not to fail in duty lest children become pleasure-seeking and ungodly, for children left to that condition it would have been far better never to have been born.
Those awaiting Christ's appearing must not join pleasure-seekers in seeking amusement through games and pleasure parties. Attraction to worldly company and amusements can make religious meetings and sacred duties seem unimportant, draw a person gradually away from God, obscure the separation between those who love God and those who love pleasure, reveal misplaced affections and weaken Christian influence, so the disciple must choose Christ over the world, accept self-denial, lift the cross for truth, and separate from worldly influences. Putting pleasure before God is a peril of the last days pressing hardest on children and youth in the cities, seen in numerous holidays, games and horse-racing drawing thousands, pulling minds from sober duties of life and wasting money that should have been saved for better uses, even the scanty earnings of the poor, with continual craving for amusement revealing deep soul longings that worldly pleasure cannot satisfy, deceiving those who drink from it and mistaking mirth for happiness until excitement ends and many sink into despondency and despair, which is madness and folly forsaking the Fountain of living waters for broken cisterns, so those coming for education and families drawn to schools should as far as possible be withdrawn from these seductive demoralizing influences. Loving pleasure more than loving God is a captivity in great danger of taking hold even of professed Christians, and moving out of place into cities where a large church already exists weakens spirituality through this pleasure-loving and exposes children to many temptations, so unless absolutely needed to carry forward the work there believers should go where truth has not yet been proclaimed and prove ability to work for the Master.
Physical exercise is proper when in harmony with Christ's lessons to train body and mind together, but students' and teachers' sports or other amusements that do not bring them into closer relation to God show pleasure has taken priority, and amusement providing exercise and recreation though not wrong must be kept within limits, otherwise it fosters love of amusement for its own sake and selfish gratification. Love of pleasure draws the mind toward self-gratification and worldly amusement, distracting from examining spiritual condition, consuming attention so souls are neglected, spreading infectiously and driving the mind from one amusement to another, while obedience to God's law counters this natural inclination toward pleasure and self-gratification and builds barriers and guards against ungodliness. Hygienic restaurants established in cities are to bring truth before many absorbed in business and pleasure, including professed Christians putting pleasure ahead of God, with closing on the Sabbath showing there is a people who fear God and keep His commandments and will not give up the rest day for profit or to please others, while teaching choice and preparation of simple food that nourishes the body and preserves health.
Refusing pleasure and denying appetite for Christ's sake may bring suffering, but believers should not complain, since self-denial and suffering are a small share in the trials and sacrifice Christ endured to obtain eternal salvation. Those loving pleasure more than God may nevertheless feel the Holy Spirit striving with hearts and be softened toward spiritual truth, and response can become a moral crisis to choose the right side, in which obeying and seeking God in prayer and faith brings strength and grace from Christ to stand openly with Him. The picture of the close of time with perilous times, lukewarmness and apostasy, a large share having form of godliness but denying its power as living counterpart of the withered fig tree, claiming great light above all others while daily life and unholy character belie profession through pride and selfishness, peevishness, fretfulness, frivolity, discontent, uncharitableness, censoriousness, evil thinking and evil speaking against brethren, with no inward crucifixion of sin and no mold of Christ, bearing leaves of profession to conceal deformity but no fruit, leaving more hope for the open sinner, should cause trembling and anguish of soul and call for zeal, true contrition, humbling of heart, confession, conversion and repentance of backsliding before forever too late. Pleasure lovers are not among the white-robed people around God's throne, while those resisting prevailing corrupting influence and remaining pure pass through conflict and tribulation, wash characters white in the Lamb's blood, share Christ's glory, and only those thus washed will stand when Christ comes.
Safety in perilous times now present, when men exalt themselves and their capabilities with works that are foolishness in sight of the heavenly universe because they do not bear sweet fragrance of the Holy Spirit, requires coming to Christ, sitting at His feet, learning His meekness and lowliness, constantly guarding mind and soul and words and spirit to reveal children of God, demonstrating by experimental knowledge that His yoke is easy and burden light, heeding reproof and warning from God instead of lifting soul unto vanity and choosing own way and mind while the tempter clothed in angel robes unites power and influence to open attractive deceptive alluring things presented to God's people to deceive many into wrong lines, and working in His lines while listening to His call and last message of mercy to a fallen world. Love for God must take priority over worldly pleasures and dissipation, for a life shaped by public opinion will not withstand the Judge's scrutiny, and facing death a person will not regret refusing worldly pleasures but may regret not loving Jesus more fervently or spending more time helping others turn toward holiness and heaven. In the last days people puffed up with self-sufficiency putting pleasure above love for God become vulnerable to false plans and theories, so vigilance and resistance to error are called for, especially since pleasure-loving irreligious influence can endanger children leaving care and instruction of home.
The verse warns Bible students not to mistake outward religion or assurances of peace for genuine godliness, since these vices of being traitorous, reckless and conceited and loving pleasure more than God can exist among those retaining form of godliness while denying its power, showing wickedness will increase as Christ's coming approaches contrary to claims the world will first be converted in a temporal millennium. The chapter exposes one mind exercising complete control over another mind, which God forbids, having no place in work of a Christian physician and no place in health institutions, for innocent though it may appear, if exercised upon patients it will in development be for destruction not restoration, as one of Satan's greatest sciences by which he takes possession of body, mind and soul so it is no longer the man but Satan who acts. The passage portrays widespread rebellion against God before Christ's coming as disobedience, unthankfulness, unholiness and hostility to God's law, without explaining the specific terms or reference to love of pleasure.
Last-day professors with light on present truth and years of experience can become objects of scorn and contempt through avaricious spirit and dishonest practices. Misplaced love is shown by joining with pleasure-seekers and turning away from delight in God's service, dishonoring the Christian name and wounding Christ. Living as pleasure-seekers in vanity, frivolity and fashion despite knowing truth, then separating upon warning and reproof, is illustrated by Sister Ross, and by Sister K who after separating became overwhelmed by regret and unbelief. Enemies of truth and the wicked love pleasure more than God, and when they gather to worship God is not with them and gatherings are no longer solemn assemblies, with Christ rejected if He came now just as at His first coming to His own, shepherds telling peace when there is no peace, and sleeping on in carnal pleasure and security until sudden destruction comes and they will not escape.
Prevailing ungodliness before the second coming threatens to weaken and destroy true faith and piety, making it a time for followers to show Christian integrity and devotion by standing firm against evil with loyalty. Carelessness, lukewarmness and lack of religious zeal, devotion and fervor reflect loving pleasures more than God among professed followers of Christ, weaken influence, and may contribute to souls being lost through heedlessness and lack of devotion and piety. Sensual tendencies, resentment, bitterness and lack of trustworthiness with desires and habits governed by evil rather than God show superficial change in habits is not thorough conversion, and without being born again there remains lack of transformation causing dissension and strife in the church. Love of pleasure can coexist with outward form of godliness and even some acts of self-denial such as sacrificing time or money, while self remains unconquered and will unsubmissive to God, seen in an inconsistent course lacking stability, sobriety and devotion, loving display and pleasure rather than learning to deny self and resist desire for pleasure. The perilous crisis calls for discernment of true godliness, and the young need sanctifying religion and help that uplifts and encourages in a way forming sanctified minds.
Traitors are disloyal betrayers of truth and of God, the headstrong are reckless and rebellious against restraint, the high-minded are proud and self-confident, and lovers of pleasure put self-gratification and amusement above love for God.
It is a prophecy of grievous moral and religious decline in the last days before the Lord comes, and that condition is now present and being fulfilled as proof that His coming is near.
It pictures selfishness inside the professing church matching the world, keeping an outward form of religion while denying its power, with no inward crucifixion of sin and no heart union with Christ.
That love of pleasure displaces God through absorbing games and amusements, gambling and worldly display, luxurious dress and appetite, and money spent for self while souls perish.
The whole chapter is therefore a present warning to be read carefully, calling every person to examine himself, to separate from pleasure-loving empty profession, and to wake, repent, and stand firm for Christ.
Words and Sense
Traitors in the verse means being traitorous and betraying and disloyal, including betrayal of truth and of God. It belongs to the character of a class departed from the faith, among whom evil men and seducers grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. It is part of the perilous moral and religious decline of the last days before the Lord comes, an apostasy like that of the early church leading to the same results. Such betrayers, headstrong and conceited and more devoted to pleasure than to God, are found both in the world and among God's people. The trait stands within a larger last-day character of selfishness, pride, disobedience, ingratitude, unholiness, and rejection of good, developed among God's own people as well as in the world. It is joined with being headstrong and proud and choosing pleasure over love for God as part of the grievous conditions of that time. These traits may be present in different people rather than all in one person, and believers are to guard against displaying them and to influence others away from them.
Heady in the verse means being headstrong and self-important, reckless and proud, loving pleasure more than God. It also means being wild, uncontrolled, and rebellious by nature, despising restraint, with independence and disrespect for parental authority as part of a wider pattern of ungodly character. It marks the character of that departed class, among whom evil men and seducers wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived, while the faithful are to continue in the Holy Scriptures which make wise unto salvation and to preach the word. It describes perilous moral and religious decline before the Lord comes, an apostasy like that of the early church with the same results. Such headstrong, conceited persons devoted to pleasure more than to God are found both in the world and among God's people, warning against encouraging pleasure-seeking and worldliness and calling for minds to be directed toward things of God. The recklessness belongs to a larger last-day character of selfishness, pride, disobedience, ingratitude, unholiness, and rejection of good, with a form of godliness but denying its power.
Highminded in the verse means being proud, conceited, self-important, arrogant, puffed up with self-sufficiency, and self-confident. It appears in youth who are headstrong, proud, and disloyal, independent and disrespectful toward parental authority, whose low conversation and example can corrupt others, weaken spiritual judgment, and lead to distrust of God's servants and unbelief. It belongs to the character of the departed class that stumbles and falls and is broken and snared and taken, among whom evil men and seducers wax worse and worse. It is part of perilous moral and religious decline before the Lord comes, an apostasy like that of the early church with the same results. Such conceited persons more devoted to pleasure than to God are found both in the world and among God's people. The pride stands within the prophecy of perilous times in the last days, alongside selfishness, disobedience, ingratitude, unholiness, and rejection of good, in a class with a form of godliness but denying its power.
Lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God means putting love of enjoyment, self-gratification, and amusement above love for God, serving self and pleasure rather than God. Even those professing to love and obey God may deny Him in daily life by living this way, alongside other selfish and ungodly traits. It applies to Christians whose physical exercise and amusements do not accord with Christ's lessons, with choices recorded as love of pleasure above God. It gives the representation of selfishness inside the church matching the selfishness of the world, in which a person sacrifices to self as God, worships the reflection of his own image, and sets his own practices and peculiar tendencies where God's law should be. It means putting self and self-indulgence in God's place, with every feature of prodigality being selfishness. The trait belongs to those professing to belong to God while keeping a form of godliness but denying its power, applying to popular churches including those whose ministers commit serious sins hidden beneath Christian profession.
Time and Fulfillment
The verse belongs to the prophecy that perilous, grievous times shall come in the last days before the Lord comes, portraying moral and religious decline and apostasy like that of the early church with the same results to follow. It means men will be traitorous and reckless and proud, loving pleasure more than loving God, as part of a larger last-day character of selfishness, pride, disobedience, ingratitude, unholiness, and rejection of good. That class with a form of godliness but denying its power will be developed among God's own people as well as in the world, giving the representation of selfishness inside the church as matching the selfishness of the world. That condition shows itself in a person sacrificing to self as God, worshiping the reflection of his own image, and setting his own practices and peculiar tendencies of nature where God's law should be.
The last-day condition described is now present and being fulfilled, testifying that Christ's coming is near and that the end of all things is at hand. It is a warning for the last days in which we now live and is to be read carefully, with every word applicable at this time to all churches and ministers, calling brethren to wake out of lethargic slumber, trim their lamps with the grace of God, let them shine in clear bright rays to a world in darkness, and do the great work of fitting up a people to stand in the day of the Lord. This condition appears among children who disobey and fail to honor parents, and among youth who follow love of pleasure more than love of God through indulgence of perverted appetite, fashionable intemperance in eating and drinking, and debasing customs. It is the state of a large share of those who have a form of godliness but deny its power in these last days, the living counterpart of the withered fig tree, people claiming great light above all others whose daily life and unholy character belie their profession through pride and selfishness, peevishness, fretfulness, frivolity, discontent, uncharitableness, censoriousness, evil thinking and evil speaking against brethren, with no inward crucifixion of sin and no mold of Christ, bearing leaves of profession to conceal deformity but no fruit. Faithful sentinels and missionaries with light must work with all their powers to show such victims the cleansing fountain, give them the last message of mercy, reform the debased, and restore the moral image of God in man.
Its fulfillment was seen in Miller's time as proof the present era was nearing its close, for the condition of the world then corresponded to that prophetic picture of the last days. It repeats the condition in the days of Noah and marks a second period when human probation is to close as it closed then, when the Son of man is revealed. Its description shows that wickedness will increase as Christ's coming approaches, contrary to claims that the world will first be converted in a temporal millennium, and it warns Bible students not to mistake outward religion or assurances of peace for genuine godliness since these vices can exist among people who retain a form of godliness while denying its power.
The chapter's description was fulfilled in San Francisco and to a lesser degree Oakland before the earthquake, especially among officials whose corruption showed disloyal, reckless, arrogant traits and devotion to pleasure more than to God. The verse describes people who are headstrong and proud and who love pleasure more than God, and this condition characterized widespread wickedness there. Those practices belong to a prophecy describing practices that would be seen in every city, making the prophecy relevant to contemporary dishonesty and fraud and giving people reason to heed the warning.
The sins it describes existed before the Flood and in Sodom, taking part in worldly demoralizing amusements that God's word forbids places even professed followers of Christ who await His coming among the world's pleasure-lovers and severs their connection with God. Loving pleasure more than loving God means the hearts of the young filled with thoughts of getting married, becoming disobedient to parents, becoming wanton, and marrying without counsel of parents or church, not having God in all their thoughts and not inquiring whether marriage is according to His will, marrying not to glorify God but to gratify loose passions and depraved lusts. Such sins brought the Flood upon sinners who would not bear God in their thoughts, and the world is now almost ripe for destruction with the unmingled fury of God to come upon it for the awful sins of these last days.
As this portrayal of wickedness and corruption in the last days is fulfilled, faith in the final triumph of Christ's kingdom should increase and be strengthened.
Selfish Last-Day Character
The verse gives the representation of selfishness inside the church matching the selfishness of the world. That selfishness makes a person sacrifice to self as God, worship the reflection of his own image, and set his own practices, self-indulgence and peculiar tendencies of nature where God's law should be. The condition shows itself in betrayal, recklessness, pride, and putting love of enjoyment above love of God, with a form of godliness that denies its power.
It belongs to a wider last-day character of lovers of self, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of good, uncontrolled and hostile to good. This class keeps a form of godliness while denying its power, professes to belong to God and even to love and obey Him while denying Him in daily life, resists the truth, and is corrupt in mind and disqualified concerning the faith. It will be developed among God's own people as well as in the world, including in popular churches, so there is great need to stand where every jot of power is used to magnify God and His truth. The traits may be present in different people rather than all in one person, and believers should guard against displaying them and influence others away from them.
The condition appears especially among youth and children who are headstrong, proud, disloyal, disobedient, disrespectful, unwilling to be controlled or instructed, scorning religion and making sport of sacred things, just before God pours out the vials of wrath. They do not entertain serious thoughts nor cherish fear and love of God, and as judgment approaches their conformity to the world shows their need to turn from pleasure and respond to Christ's love. Such youth corrupt others by low conversation and example, weaken spiritual judgment, lead others to distrust God's servants into unbelief, and ruin principles and morals while practicing corrupt habits and secret iniquity behind a fair exterior to keep favor. Minds left unguarded drift where they will, accept Satan's suggestions and cheap things until trained in his army to decoy other souls, and though professing religion keep only outward godliness because they put pleasure above God and fail to work together with God.
Children come into this company through parental neglect in training, which is registered in the books of heaven. That neglect is failure to restrain, educate and train, putting worldly things first, so that the younger children become disobedient, unthankful, unholy and given to pleasure, the youngest following his brother. Ministers' children are especially targeted, as Satan works most zealously to lead them to dishonor parents, refuse instruction, follow their own inclinations whatever happens, and find selfishness and sin sweeter than the pure and holy things of God, destroying parental hope and comfort and leaving parents weighed down and full of continual sadness. For children left to that condition it would have been far better never to have been born, so parents must make it their careful, diligent study not to fail in duty.
Being heady and high-minded appears in willful courtship and marriage by strong feeling and self-confidence, closing eyes to danger and ears to warnings from parents, friends and ministers. It is self-will and self-sufficiency showing disrespect by refusing caution from father, sister, church friends and Christ's ambassadors, persisting as if no one knows as much as oneself and salvation depends on following one's own judgment. Such infatuation destroys interest in religious things, makes a person think only of self instead of the glory of God, brings no good and no blessing of God, proves character not yet established for marriage and care of a family, and leaves a person in great darkness without realizing peril. If followed by all it would ruin the condition of families and the church, and a woman's choice to marry against her family's wishes in this spirit led to an unhappy life, bitter repentance, and difficulty in Christian living.
Form Without Power
Joined to the next verse, the text describes last-day people who profess to belong to God and keep an outward form of godliness and religion while denying its power, with little thought for God and no heart union with Christ. They are headstrong and self-important, traitorous and reckless and proud, loving pleasure more than God as part of a larger character of selfishness, pride, disobedience, ingratitude, unholiness and rejection of good, resisting truth and corrupt in mind and disqualified concerning the faith. This class will be found both in the world and among God's own people, and its selfishness inside the church matches the selfishness of the world, sacrificing to self as God, worshiping the reflection of one's own image, and putting self, self-indulgence and one's own practices and peculiar tendencies where God's law should be. The picture includes many whose lives and characters contradict their profession through pride, selfishness, irritability, frivolity, discontent, uncharitableness and speaking evil of others, including popular churches whose ministers commit serious sins hidden beneath Christian profession, so there is great need to stand where every jot of power is used to magnify God and His truth and to direct minds toward the things of God rather than encouraging pleasure-seeking and worldliness.
Like the withered fig tree and the barren fig tree they have leaves of profession but no fruit, because sin has not been inwardly crucified and Christ's character is not formed in them. Their daily life and unholy character belie a claim to great light above all others through pride and selfishness, peevishness, fretfulness, frivolity, discontent, uncharitableness, censoriousness, evil thinking and evil speaking against brethren, bearing leaves to conceal deformity but no fruit, like corrupt trees bearing only leaves and speaking fair words while seeking selfish gain and working against God. Mere profession and outward forms without inward cleansing and the fruit of true conversion through repentance and faith are worthless, bearing only bitter unusable fruit that does not bless others through good works and unselfish deeds, and their fruitless lives deny the power of the religion they profess while hiding selfishness and hypocrisy. Their state is the living counterpart of the withered fig tree in these last days of perilous times, lukewarmness and apostasy and every kind of deception, leaving more hope for the open sinner.
Entrusted churches that possess light and privileges but fail to share the light, bear fruit, or work for souls fall under this description and under God's condemnation and curse. Having the form of godliness without going beyond it leaves them fruitless, clinging to selfishness and ease, earthly comforts and attractive homes, falling back into deathlike slumber instead of arousing to exercise talents in personal efforts to set forth present truth and lift up the standard in missionary fields and cities where it has never been proclaimed. Ceasing as moral agencies to use powers and voices for the saving of souls, with indistinct voices, they love pleasure more than God, and the charge is inscribed upon the walls of their homes while stones are given a tongue to speak and the command comes to go forth.
The description applies to popular churches whose ministers commit serious sins hidden beneath profession, to churches turning from truth toward the world, and to straight truths being shunned to keep lovers of pleasure, which causes loss of power. As churches move farther from truth and closer to the world, the difference widens between them and faithful followers. The straight truths the church stopped declaring would shut out lovers of pleasure and friends of the world, and when the church seeks the favors and honors of the world under pretense of benefiting the world and shuns declaring those truths in order to keep such people, she loses favor with God and gradually loses her power.
It marks false teachers and false prophets who have departed from the faith to follow seducing spirits and doctrines of devils, resist truth, deceive and are deceived, tear down what God builds, and seduce others by falsehood and misrepresentation. They are ravening wolves in sheep's clothing whose work is to tear down what God through His agencies is seeking to build up, among whom evil men and seducers wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived, while the faithful are to continue in the Holy Scriptures which make wise unto salvation and to preach the word. Being traitors, reckless and self-important, loving pleasures more than loving God, along with loving self, covetousness, boasting, pride, blasphemy, disobedience to parents, unthankfulness, unholiness, lack of natural affection, trucebreaking, false accusation, incontinence, fierceness, despising the good, and having a form of godliness while denying its power, belongs to the character of men God's servants will have to confront and against whom Timothy is charged to war a good warfare by holding faith and a good conscience. The warning applies to false teachers seeking entrance into the church, whose deceptive influence the faithful must resist with Scripture while working humbly and lovingly for their salvation.
It is a special mark of those represented by the foolish virgins, who may value and promote truth yet remain unchanged because they do not yield to the Holy Spirit, their religion being only an outward form without the power that transforms character.
Those who love God supremely will eventually have to separate from people characterized by this love of pleasure and empty form, and from such people there must be separation. Their love of pleasure, worldly pursuits and display leaves little thought for God and shows no heart union with Christ, and as churches turn from truth and draw closer to the world those who love God supremely will eventually be unable to remain connected with them. Loving pleasure more than God separates people from those who love God, for choosing worldly company and amusements over religious meetings, sacred duties, self-denial and the cross reveals misplaced affections and weakens Christian influence, and they will not enjoy the company of those whose Christlike conversation and conduct rebuke their spirit and give no support to their vain desires. Those who profess the truth must choose Christ rather than the world and turn away from worldly influences.
Satan urges this charge of loving self and pleasure and the things of the world more than loving God, placing own interests above His service in selfishness, malice and hatred toward one another, against those who profess to obey the law in the closing of the great day of atonement, declaring that by such sins they have forfeited divine protection and are as deserving as himself and his angels of exclusion from God's favor with no right to take their place in heaven. While followers of Christ have in many respects been very faulty and have committed the sins Satan tempts them to commit, they have not given themselves to the control of evil but have put away their sins and sought the Lord in humility and contrition, and Jesus as their Advocate gives His life for them and rebukes Satan in their behalf.
In the present age of signal rejection of the grace purposed to keep His people from being overcome by prevailing iniquity and uniting with the hostility of the world against His remnant people, this far-spreading and manifest ungodliness under a cloak of Christianity and sanctification will prevail to a terrible degree until Christ comes to be glorified in all them that believe, enacted even in the very courts of the temple. In that time God's people are proved and tested to discern between him that serves God and him that serves Him not, while vengeance falls on unfaithful stewards in responsible positions who sit in the gate deciding what the people should have, take away the key of knowledge, refuse to enter themselves and hinder those who would enter, and bear not the seal of the living God.
Pleasures That Displace God
Absorbing exercises, games and amusements that conflict with Christ's lessons show love of pleasure above love of God, strengthening lower passions and creating appetites that work against the Spirit and counteract the Holy Spirit's operation on the heart. Such intensely absorbing pursuits as football and ball games do not bring participants into closer relation to God but cause loss of hold on Him, while heavenly intelligences record the charge in the books against many teachers and students in Christian schools whose education, self-training and physical exercise follow what is given to the world instead of the lessons Jesus gave His disciples. Physical powers are to be trained as well as the mental, but in character in complete harmony with Christ's teaching, and Satan and his angels lay snares for souls by working upon teachers and pupils to induce them to engage in these exercises. This misplaced love, with levity and letting opportunities for learning pass by, weakens character and leaves people less capable in whatever work they undertake.
Absorbing devotion to gambling, horse-racing, sports, holidays and worldly achievement wastes God-given time and ability and causes loss of sight of the crown of immortality promised to those who win the race for eternal life. Love of pleasure is a most dangerous and subtle temptation pressing hardest on children and youth in the cities, seen in numerous holidays, games and horse-racing that draw thousands, pulling minds away from sober duties of life and wasting money that should have been saved for better uses, even the scanty earnings of the poor. Continual craving for amusement reveals deep longings of the soul, yet worldly pleasure cannot satisfy soul-thirst, those who drink from it are deceived mistaking mirth for happiness, and when excitement ends many sink into despondency and despair, forsaking the Fountain of living waters for broken cisterns. Those coming for an education and families drawn to schools should as far as possible be withdrawn from these seductive and demoralizing influences.
Association with worldlings in musical entertainments looked upon as harmless is dangerous ground where Satan by smooth, plausible, unsuspected wiles leads men and women astray and gains control of souls. Through taking part in such worldly entertainments many church members become lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God, for there is a right way and a wrong way with no harmonizing or compromise between good and evil, light and darkness, truth and error, righteousness and unrighteousness. Safety is assured only when workers keep their armor on in the conflict raging between God and Satan ever since Adam yielded, trusting the divine vitality of righteousness to triumph at last.
Church festivals, feasts, lotteries, tableaux and theatrical performances to raise money under a garb of Christian beneficence to pay church expenses teach youth to love pleasure more than God and to excuse gambling. By connecting lotteries and scenes of festivity with sacred things, professed Christians giving a world-loving example teach youth to reason that they are safe in taking interest in lotteries and in engaging in gambling to win money for special objects. Satan covers delusive pleasures and unholy reveling with a religious garment to make them look holy, and consciences are quieted because money raised pays church expenses, while those described refuse to give from love for Christ, from the power of His lessons on benevolence, His example, and the grace of God on the heart to glorify God with substance, but for love of pleasure and indulgence of appetite and for selfish reasons they will part with money. These scenes of gaiety and folly injure physical, mental and moral health, and the day of final reckoning will show souls lost through their influence.
Luxurious living, extravagant dress, fashion, vanity and display are signs of the last days, with pride and vanity manifested everywhere, and devotion to fashion can consume resources and attention that should serve God. Those who adopt the fashions of the world do so because Christ is not formed within them, the hope of glory, and those inclined to look into the mirror to admire themselves have little inclination to look into the law of God, the great moral mirror. This idolatry of dress destroys all that is humble, meek and lovely in character and consumes precious hours that should be devoted to meditation, searching of heart and prayerful study of God's word. Pleasure-seeking and frivolity blunt the sensibilities of professed Christians, make eternal things seem less valuable, lead them to treat good and evil alike, absorb them in worldly fashions and artificial excitement neglecting godliness and the higher life, and cause them to overlook the beauty of God's creation and beauty of character, while pride, vanity, love of display and craving admiration as ruling passions feed an insatiable desire for pleasure and display that can persist to the point of death displacing concern for God. A worldly-loving spirit seen in clownish witticism of young men and vain trifling, simpering affection of young girls, love for dress, selfish pleasure and vain amusements, and delight in society of worldlings and in amusements where the Redeemer could not be welcomed, is grievous in the sight of God and angels and positively forbidden in the Word, needing a work accomplished by divine grace, and most youth will come short of everlasting life because they while away precious time with instrumental music to please fancy, with dress and vain conversation, panting after earthly enjoyments instead of panting after unmistakable assurance of the love of God.
Clinging to selfish ease, earthly comforts, attractive homes, dress, smoking, idle talk, instrumental music and vain conversation instead of using talents to save souls brings the charge of loving pleasures more than loving God upon homes. Those who have had great light fall back into deathlike slumber instead of arousing to exercise talents in personal efforts to set forth present truth and lift up the standard in missionary fields and cities where it has never been proclaimed, ceasing as moral agencies to use powers for saving of souls with indistinct voices, making dress, smoking, idle talk and amusement their ideal and spending time that should go to Scripture study and work for Christ, and upon them God puts His curse, inscribing those words upon walls of their homes and giving stones a tongue to speak while commanding them to go forth. Few after faithful examination can truthfully say they are not one of those thus described, and welfare and eternal happiness depend on building on Christ, with close self-examination in light of God's word, earnest agonizing prayer for sound experience, being dead to the world, living by faith on the Son of God, hid with Christ in God, with conversation in heaven and soul reaching after pardon, peace, righteousness and true holiness.
Indulgence of perverted appetite and fashionable intemperance in eating and drinking marks following pleasure more than God, through debasing customs, with youth especially on that path as victims who must not be left uninformed and unwarned. Indulging selfish desires and unhealthful appetites can make gratification seem second nature, and following such life-destroying practices sacrifices health, truth, righteousness and eternal life. Faithful sentinels and missionaries with light must work with all powers to show them the cleansing fountain, give them the last message of mercy, reform the debased, restore the moral image of God in man, and let light shine in clear strong rays to a world perishing in sin because the end of all things is at hand.
Ministers who please audiences with entertainment, amusing stories and approval of amusements rather than practical godliness serve pleasure-loving congregations who after their own lusts heap to themselves teachers having itching ears, following own lusts and engrossed by things of minor consequence and human science instead of grand, ennobling, saving truth, and will not endure sound doctrine. Against this turning from what the Father and Son deemed essential for salvation, all inspired Scripture is profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction and instruction in righteousness to make the man of God perfect and furnished unto all good works, and the charge is to preach the word with divine authority, in season and out of season, with reproof, rebuke, exhortation, longsuffering and doctrine.
An unbelieving husband who loves pleasure more than God can draw a believing wife's thoughts from Jesus toward his pleasures and hinder her on the steep path to eternal life when she needs help rather than hindrance. Such a marriage can add spiritual burdens, dull sensitivity to the Spirit's convictions, divert from the true source of strength, encourage association with unbelievers, and make a person a tempter to a spouse imperiling both their own salvation and the spouse's. Misplaced affection in marriage, such as a husband giving another woman his wife's place and letting his wife hold second place, or receiving affection from another's husband, dishonors God and shows this last-day wickedness. He must guard thoughts and remain faithful to marriage vows, and she shows need for repentance and conversion, while those who love and honor God have Christ take charge of affections and center them on proper objects, leading a husband to respect, cherish and love his wife as mother of his children and to guard mind and heart carefully against impurity.
Loving pleasure more than God includes wanton marriage without God, parental or church counsel to gratify passion, and chiefly violation of the seventh commandment. It means hearts of the young filled with thoughts of getting married, becoming disobedient to parents, becoming wanton, and marrying without counsel of parents or church, not having God in all thoughts nor inquiring whether marriage is according to His will, marrying not to glorify God but to gratify loose passions and depraved lusts, the same sins that existed before the Flood and will bring unmingled fury upon a world now almost ripe for destruction. Violation of the seventh commandment is an enormous knowing sin, not of ignorance, never regarded by God as so exceedingly sinful as now, which will receive awful visitation whether offender is old or young, and those who commit it disgrace the cause and think confession and sorrow alone restore them to all privileges and fellowship, while the church lightly esteems the sin, fellowships offenders, and says Amen to prayers and exhortations that are a stink in God's nostrils, bringing His frown, curse and wrath upon the camp so He will not dwell in assemblies and the ark is removed and Israel weakened. The frown can only be removed by vigilant, strict, thorough dealing, suspending breakers from fellowship and privileges of the house of God, for those who heedlessly plaster over these sins will be left to their own ways to be filled with their own doings, and anciently such offenders were taken without the camp and stoned to death with temporal and eternal death as doom, and because stoning is abolished the sin is now indulged beyond measure and thought a small offense.
Hardhearted stewards show it by taking money God entrusted to them and spending it to gratify selfish passions while the hungry, overworked, sick and distressed widow and fatherless are left to cry to God, and God watches this unfaithfulness and records it in books of heaven as embezzling His goods. Since every person uses God's money and Christ gave His life as Substitute and Surety to give probation for forming perfect character by obedience to all God's commandments in appreciation of that offering, being converted through the Holy Spirit, the faithful course opposite to this is to secure eternal riches by storing treasure in heaven and not on earth. At God's judgment wealth and fame will have perished, and those who failed to lay up treasure in heaven will lose eternal riches.
Those with this spirit are unfit for God's publishing work which requires self-denial and caretakers and burden-bearers, and half-hearted workers who put pleasure first cannot give wholehearted consecrated service. Men in responsible positions, even growing grey, become such when they mingle influence with pleasure-seekers, disgracing faith and profession by countenancing the curse of intemperance with families, closing lips against reproof of follies of the young, and showing themselves controlled by strong passions and set ideas while severe and exacting with others. Those entrusted with sacred work show it by feeling at liberty to be disobedient, unthankful, unholy, condemnatory and harsh, loving to serve themselves rather than the Lord, revealing how they regard the Lord's work, forming their own destiny by spirit and character revealed, with works to appear in judgment. If important truth for this time were an abiding principle in souls, they would strive earnestly to obtain perfection of character, that they might surround those with whom they come in contact with a life-giving holy atmosphere that revives hearts of the humble and contrite.
Putting pleasure first makes people effective agents of deception even when they profess godliness, whose intelligence and shared profession can draw others into worldly conformity, persuade them that Christ's requirements are less strict, and lead them away from Christ until they lose strength to resist evil and ridicule former zeal and devotion. A rebellious unsanctified heart easily affected by wrong influence, loving self and society, failing to discriminate worthy from unworthy for lack of experience and judgment, following bent of own mind and letting strong affections be placed on improper objects, takes a course proving all wrong and ending in ruin unless guarded. Such are rebellious by nature, despising restraint of home and parental authority, dishonoring father and mother, quarrelsome at home, unsubdued, unthankful, unholy, scorning religion and making sport of sacred things, practicing corrupt habits and secret iniquity while putting on fair exterior to keep favor, exercising strong influence for evil that ruins principles and morals of other young people, loving pleasure and following feelings and inclination instead of loving God and living to His glory, so that to give heart affection to such brings unhappiness and sacrifices eternal life. They press others to refuse restraint, saying not to restrict self, to enjoy pleasure while possible, and that constant self-denial is no virtue, being in friendship with the world and Satan, strengthening ardent pleasure-loving desires within a person, standing against laws God planted in the being that cry to restrain and deny world, pleasures and vanities, hiding miseries sure to follow and turning away from duty and religion to shipwreck.
Pride and self-sufficiency lead such people to betray truth, resent the narrow way, leave Christ, and make shipwreck of faith for lack of deep foundation and anchorage on the Rock. They fall away when testing comes because they have not dug deep and made foundation sure, and when the Lord's words come through His messengers they resent narrowness of the way and leave Christ as disciples did when displeased by His words, with some self-sufficient, rejecting the Lord's counsel, following own judgment and working against God's commands even among God's people. One who puts pleasure before God as wild and reckless sows wild oats and takes no care of health, exposing himself to harm until too late, and that reckless course brings sure result because abused nature cannot endure it, life forces give way, and death follows. Dying in that condition closes record for eternity without hope and leaves behind mourning, murmuring, sadness and darkness, unfitting the living for duty to families. To lovers of pleasure the mystery of godliness appears dark and mysterious, in contrast to faithful trusting Christians who clearly discern it, they are strangers to strength and happiness from God which sustain Christians through affliction, and they lose both things of this life and immortal life, while the faithful who endure hardship and self-denial for Christ are finally revealed as victorious and honored by God.
Warning and Faithful Response
The whole chapter is a warning for the last days now being lived in and is to be read carefully, with every word applicable at this time to all churches throughout the world and to every minister. It shows the character of those departed from the faith who stumble and fall and are broken and snared and taken, as traitors, headstrong, proud, and lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God, among whom evil men and seducers grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived, while the faithful continue in the Holy Scriptures which make wise unto salvation and preach the word. This condition calls brethren to wake out of lethargic slumbers, to trim their lamps with the grace of God and let them shine in clear bright rays to a world in darkness, to do the great work of fitting up a people to stand in the day of the Lord, and to come up to the help of the Lord against the mighty.
All inspired Scripture is profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness, to make the man of God perfect and thoroughly furnished unto all good works. On that ground stands the solemn charge before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom, to preach the word, be instant in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine, to watch in all things, endure afflictions, and do the work of an evangelist and make full proof of ministry. The charge is urgent because the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine but after their own lusts heap to themselves teachers having itching ears, turn away their ears from the truth and be turned unto fables, following their own lusts and engrossed by things of minor consequence and human science instead of grand, ennobling, saving truth deemed essential by the Father and Son. The burden of the message to all nations is Jesus Christ and Him crucified rather than carnal lines to please and attract people and bring means into the treasury.
Ministers must faithfully declare the unwelcome warning about the dangers around pleasure-lovers and the doom awaiting the unrepentant, through preaching and personal labor, correcting sin and error. Souls who have been converted and cannot rest till the light that illumined their minds shines upon others are to make warm, inspired personal appeals to professing believers who love pleasure more than God, together with the erring and the outcast, while multitudes of unbelievers are made acquainted with the reasons of the Christian's hope. The same applies in the family becoming devoted to pleasure, having received the Lord's warnings but not heeding them, where the one convicted must take serious thoughts to heart, yield to the Spirit's conviction, turn to the Lord, be converted, and give the heart to God.
Each person must honestly examine and deal with the soul and carefully search whether this description of pleasure-seeking above love for God fits, since few after faithful examination can deny it. Christians should seek assurance of standing in Christ and of God's love, build hope of eternal life surely on Christ, set affections on heaven rather than earthly pleasures, and recognize life has a holy purpose too precious to waste on amusement and self-indulgence instead of Scripture study and work for Christ. Freedom from what is described means being dead to the world, living by faith of the Son of God, with life hid with Christ in God, conversation in heaven, soul reaching after pardon, peace, righteousness and true holiness, to appear with Him in glory when He who is life appears, with welfare and eternal happiness depending on building on Christ with close self-examination in light of God's word and earnest agonizing prayer for sound experience. Most youth will come short of everlasting life because they while away precious time with instrumental music to please fancy, with dress and vain conversation, panting after earthly enjoyments instead of panting after unmistakable assurance of the love of God.
Young people are warned not to belong to this class in perilous times but to shun these evils so they can overcome, and not to follow the example of indulgence in fashionable intemperance, since reform seeks to restore the moral image of God. Those satisfied with low attainments who let the mind drift where it naturally drifts instead of striving to acquire in order to impart as laborers for God accept Satan's suggestions, become filled with cheap things, and are trained in his army to decoy other souls, and though professing religion and keeping outward godliness they put pleasure above God and fail to work together with God. Children thus serving Satan rather than Christ, if they recognized need of a Saviour and bowed at the cross, could influence others for good, and are invited to leave Satan's ranks and follow Christ though it requires self-denial, with condemnation following only if they reject the light they receive.
Safety from giving heart affection to one who is rebellious by nature, despising restraint of home and parental authority, dishonoring father and mother, quarrelsome at home, unsubdued, unthankful, unholy, scorning religion and making sport of sacred things, practicing corrupt habits and secret iniquity behind a fair exterior to keep favor, loving pleasure and following feeling and inclination instead of loving God and living to His glory, exercising strong evil influence that ruins principles and morals of other youth, is to stop the affection at once, sever all intimate connection, refuse to follow inclination, give self unreservedly to God, follow the Saviour, sit at His feet to learn of Him, and live to do good and fit for higher and more responsible work, since to give affection otherwise brings unhappiness and sacrifices eternal life. Children come to be found among the disobedient, unthankful, unholy company of Satan's kingdom doing his will and pleasure through neglect by parents in training them, which neglect is registered in the books of heaven, so parents must train children from infancy to follow the Lord's way and make it careful diligent study not to fail in duty lest children become pleasure-seeking and ungodly, for children left to that condition it would have been far better never to have been born.
Those awaiting Christ's appearing must not join pleasure-seekers in seeking amusement through games and pleasure parties. Attraction to worldly company and amusements can make religious meetings and sacred duties seem unimportant, draw a person gradually away from God, obscure the separation between those who love God and those who love pleasure, reveal misplaced affections and weaken Christian influence, so the disciple must choose Christ over the world, accept self-denial, lift the cross for truth, and separate from worldly influences. Putting pleasure before God is a peril of the last days pressing hardest on children and youth in the cities, seen in numerous holidays, games and horse-racing drawing thousands, pulling minds from sober duties of life and wasting money that should have been saved for better uses, even the scanty earnings of the poor, with continual craving for amusement revealing deep soul longings that worldly pleasure cannot satisfy, deceiving those who drink from it and mistaking mirth for happiness until excitement ends and many sink into despondency and despair, which is madness and folly forsaking the Fountain of living waters for broken cisterns, so those coming for education and families drawn to schools should as far as possible be withdrawn from these seductive demoralizing influences. Loving pleasure more than loving God is a captivity in great danger of taking hold even of professed Christians, and moving out of place into cities where a large church already exists weakens spirituality through this pleasure-loving and exposes children to many temptations, so unless absolutely needed to carry forward the work there believers should go where truth has not yet been proclaimed and prove ability to work for the Master.
Physical exercise is proper when in harmony with Christ's lessons to train body and mind together, but students' and teachers' sports or other amusements that do not bring them into closer relation to God show pleasure has taken priority, and amusement providing exercise and recreation though not wrong must be kept within limits, otherwise it fosters love of amusement for its own sake and selfish gratification. Love of pleasure draws the mind toward self-gratification and worldly amusement, distracting from examining spiritual condition, consuming attention so souls are neglected, spreading infectiously and driving the mind from one amusement to another, while obedience to God's law counters this natural inclination toward pleasure and self-gratification and builds barriers and guards against ungodliness. Hygienic restaurants established in cities are to bring truth before many absorbed in business and pleasure, including professed Christians putting pleasure ahead of God, with closing on the Sabbath showing there is a people who fear God and keep His commandments and will not give up the rest day for profit or to please others, while teaching choice and preparation of simple food that nourishes the body and preserves health.
Refusing pleasure and denying appetite for Christ's sake may bring suffering, but believers should not complain, since self-denial and suffering are a small share in the trials and sacrifice Christ endured to obtain eternal salvation. Those loving pleasure more than God may nevertheless feel the Holy Spirit striving with hearts and be softened toward spiritual truth, and response can become a moral crisis to choose the right side, in which obeying and seeking God in prayer and faith brings strength and grace from Christ to stand openly with Him. The picture of the close of time with perilous times, lukewarmness and apostasy, a large share having form of godliness but denying its power as living counterpart of the withered fig tree, claiming great light above all others while daily life and unholy character belie profession through pride and selfishness, peevishness, fretfulness, frivolity, discontent, uncharitableness, censoriousness, evil thinking and evil speaking against brethren, with no inward crucifixion of sin and no mold of Christ, bearing leaves of profession to conceal deformity but no fruit, leaving more hope for the open sinner, should cause trembling and anguish of soul and call for zeal, true contrition, humbling of heart, confession, conversion and repentance of backsliding before forever too late. Pleasure lovers are not among the white-robed people around God's throne, while those resisting prevailing corrupting influence and remaining pure pass through conflict and tribulation, wash characters white in the Lamb's blood, share Christ's glory, and only those thus washed will stand when Christ comes.
Safety in perilous times now present, when men exalt themselves and their capabilities with works that are foolishness in sight of the heavenly universe because they do not bear sweet fragrance of the Holy Spirit, requires coming to Christ, sitting at His feet, learning His meekness and lowliness, constantly guarding mind and soul and words and spirit to reveal children of God, demonstrating by experimental knowledge that His yoke is easy and burden light, heeding reproof and warning from God instead of lifting soul unto vanity and choosing own way and mind while the tempter clothed in angel robes unites power and influence to open attractive deceptive alluring things presented to God's people to deceive many into wrong lines, and working in His lines while listening to His call and last message of mercy to a fallen world. Love for God must take priority over worldly pleasures and dissipation, for a life shaped by public opinion will not withstand the Judge's scrutiny, and facing death a person will not regret refusing worldly pleasures but may regret not loving Jesus more fervently or spending more time helping others turn toward holiness and heaven. In the last days people puffed up with self-sufficiency putting pleasure above love for God become vulnerable to false plans and theories, so vigilance and resistance to error are called for, especially since pleasure-loving irreligious influence can endanger children leaving care and instruction of home.
The verse warns Bible students not to mistake outward religion or assurances of peace for genuine godliness, since these vices of being traitorous, reckless and conceited and loving pleasure more than God can exist among those retaining form of godliness while denying its power, showing wickedness will increase as Christ's coming approaches contrary to claims the world will first be converted in a temporal millennium. The chapter exposes one mind exercising complete control over another mind, which God forbids, having no place in work of a Christian physician and no place in health institutions, for innocent though it may appear, if exercised upon patients it will in development be for destruction not restoration, as one of Satan's greatest sciences by which he takes possession of body, mind and soul so it is no longer the man but Satan who acts. The passage portrays widespread rebellion against God before Christ's coming as disobedience, unthankfulness, unholiness and hostility to God's law, without explaining the specific terms or reference to love of pleasure.
Last-day professors with light on present truth and years of experience can become objects of scorn and contempt through avaricious spirit and dishonest practices. Misplaced love is shown by joining with pleasure-seekers and turning away from delight in God's service, dishonoring the Christian name and wounding Christ. Living as pleasure-seekers in vanity, frivolity and fashion despite knowing truth, then separating upon warning and reproof, is illustrated by Sister Ross, and by Sister K who after separating became overwhelmed by regret and unbelief. Enemies of truth and the wicked love pleasure more than God, and when they gather to worship God is not with them and gatherings are no longer solemn assemblies, with Christ rejected if He came now just as at His first coming to His own, shepherds telling peace when there is no peace, and sleeping on in carnal pleasure and security until sudden destruction comes and they will not escape.
Prevailing ungodliness before the second coming threatens to weaken and destroy true faith and piety, making it a time for followers to show Christian integrity and devotion by standing firm against evil with loyalty. Carelessness, lukewarmness and lack of religious zeal, devotion and fervor reflect loving pleasures more than God among professed followers of Christ, weaken influence, and may contribute to souls being lost through heedlessness and lack of devotion and piety. Sensual tendencies, resentment, bitterness and lack of trustworthiness with desires and habits governed by evil rather than God show superficial change in habits is not thorough conversion, and without being born again there remains lack of transformation causing dissension and strife in the church. Love of pleasure can coexist with outward form of godliness and even some acts of self-denial such as sacrificing time or money, while self remains unconquered and will unsubmissive to God, seen in an inconsistent course lacking stability, sobriety and devotion, loving display and pleasure rather than learning to deny self and resist desire for pleasure. The perilous crisis calls for discernment of true godliness, and the young need sanctifying religion and help that uplifts and encourages in a way forming sanctified minds.