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Selfies in the End Times · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Speaker 1: You pull out your phone, you find the right angle,
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  Speaker 1: you spin to get the right lighting and just the
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  Speaker 1: right backdrop. You snap a picture of yourself and post it.
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  Speaker 1: Many do this. Selfies are a language of communications today.
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  Speaker 1: But underneath all the selfies and the hearts and the
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  Speaker 1: comments and the feeling of being seen by others, is
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  Speaker 1: there something darker going on? Are we feeding a bottomless
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  Speaker 1: hunger in seeing our own reflection like narcissists staring down
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  Speaker 1: at his own reflection in a pool? Today an asbestor
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  Speaker 1: John selfies in the end times. Smartphones are at the
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  Speaker 1: topic again. We looked at doom scrolling two weeks ago.
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  Speaker 1: Doom Scrolling done right. That was episode twenty two seventy six.
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  Speaker 1: I hope you heard that. Don't miss that, go back
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  Speaker 1: and listen to it today. Selfies. The attention economy appears
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  Speaker 1: in Luketh seventeen, verses twenty six to thirty three, which
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  Speaker 1: is our reading tomorrow. There, Jesus describes people being so
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  Speaker 1: caught up in the daily things of food and buying
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  Speaker 1: and selling the kinds of things that we snap on
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  Speaker 1: social media. And then we read two Timothy three, verses
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  Speaker 1: one to five. The day after that, Paul's warning that
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  Speaker 1: in the last days, people will be lovers of self,
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  Speaker 1: which means to us in this modern digital culture. Discussing
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  Speaker 1: platform building today on ask Pastor John selfies at the
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  Speaker 1: dawn of eternity? This question just came in from a
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  Speaker 1: young man, Pastor John. It feels like we are living
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  Speaker 1: in the very final moments of the last days. When
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  Speaker 1: I look at two Timothy three, it says that people
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  Speaker 1: will be lovers of self, and it can't help but
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  Speaker 1: see that emerging right now in a way that's never
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  Speaker 1: happened before in history. I'm talking about digital media and
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  Speaker 1: selfies and the self obsession of my generation on social media.
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  Speaker 1: It feels like these are final experiences of sin that
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  Speaker 1: signal the end. As someone who uses these platforms, I'm worried,
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  Speaker 1: is my phone just a tool for self exaltation? What
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  Speaker 1: would you say to my generation? Here's how Pastor John
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  Speaker 1: answered this very question in twenty eighteen.
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  Speaker 2: Let me answer with a double yes and no, two
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  Speaker 2: yes and nos. First, yes, vlogs and selfies and self
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  Speaker 2: focused social media are often not always an expression of
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  Speaker 2: the self exaltation and self preoccupation and self fascination of
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  Speaker 2: the last days, but No, these new technologies are not
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  Speaker 2: the quote this is to quote him, to quote ed.
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  Speaker 2: They are not the emerging of such final experiences of sin,
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  Speaker 2: because they've always been there. The new technologies are giving
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  Speaker 2: new ways to express old sins. So that's my first
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  Speaker 2: yes and no. Yes, these are the manifestations of the
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  Speaker 2: end times self love, and no they are not just
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  Speaker 2: now emerging. Here's the second yes and no. Yes, these
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  Speaker 2: are the last days, and we should be looking keenly
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  Speaker 2: and expectantly and hopefully and joyfully for the coming of
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  Speaker 2: our precious longed for all satisfying Lord Jesus. But no,
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  Speaker 2: these are not yet the very last days, but are
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  Speaker 2: very much like the last days that began two thousand
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  Speaker 2: years ago in the first century. Now, let me try
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  Speaker 2: to explain. When Jesus came into the world as the
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  Speaker 2: long expected messiah, he declared the arrival of the Kingdom
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  Speaker 2: of God, which the Old Testament anticipated as part of
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  Speaker 2: the last days. So when Peter stood up on the
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  Speaker 2: day of Pentecost and tried to explain the extraordinary events
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  Speaker 2: of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, he said, this
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  Speaker 2: is what was uttered through the prophet Joel, and in
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  Speaker 2: the last days it shall be, declares the Lord, I
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  Speaker 2: will pour out my spirit on all flesh. In other words,
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  Speaker 2: these events that you're looking at right now what thirty
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  Speaker 2: three AD are the fulfillment of promises made for the
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  Speaker 2: last days. So the last days were there in the
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  Speaker 2: first century, right after Jesus had come, or Hebrews Chapter one,
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  Speaker 2: verse one and two. Long ago. At many times and
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  Speaker 2: in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets.
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  Speaker 2: But in these last days he has spoken to us
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  Speaker 2: by his son. So the coming of Jesus is it
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  Speaker 2: is the beginning of the last days. Or Peter one
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  Speaker 2: Peter one, verse twenty. Christ was foreknown before the foundation
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  Speaker 2: of the world, but was made manifest in the last
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  Speaker 2: times for your sake. So ever since the time of
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  Speaker 2: Jesus two thousand years ago, we have been living in
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  Speaker 2: the last days, looking expectantly to Jesus, who stands at
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  Speaker 2: the door. We know this is the way that Paul
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  Speaker 2: was thinking, even in the very text that Ed quoted
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  Speaker 2: about self love, because Paul says, understand this that in
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  Speaker 2: the last days there will come times of difficulty for
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  Speaker 2: people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, et cetera.
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  Speaker 2: And then he says to Timothy, avoid such people. I
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  Speaker 2: guess they're here, and not just come in two thousand
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  Speaker 2: years later. In other words, Paul is talking about Timothy's
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  Speaker 2: own situation. So this kind of person comes in the
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  Speaker 2: last days, and now Timothy's to avoid them because these
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  Speaker 2: are the last days, and there they are, and you
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  Speaker 2: shouldn't be surprised or swayed by them. Well, besides saying
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  Speaker 2: that the judge is at the door, we should be
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  Speaker 2: always alert and ready to give an account to the
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  Speaker 2: Lord Jesus when he comes and asks me. What I
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  Speaker 2: would say to people on vlogs. That's what I want
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  Speaker 2: to say. The Judge is standing at the door. Be ready,
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  Speaker 2: be alert, You're going to be called to account. That's
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  Speaker 2: the first thing I'd say. And then here's the last
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  Speaker 2: thing I'd say. God gave us a self, not so
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  Speaker 2: that we would have something to exult in, but something
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  Speaker 2: to exult with. He gave us a self, not to
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  Speaker 2: be the object of our joy, but the subject of joy.
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  Speaker 2: That is, not to be the focus of happiness in
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  Speaker 2: front of the mirror of the selfie, but the furnace
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  Speaker 2: of happiness in front of Jesus. He gave us a self,
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  Speaker 2: not as an instrument of self worth, but as an
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  Speaker 2: instrument of worship. The self is and is meant to
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  Speaker 2: be meant to be a desire factory. And the point
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  Speaker 2: of all those desires is that there is a joy
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  Speaker 2: outside ourselves. That they point to, the endless manufacture of
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  Speaker 2: desires for something beyond the self. This factory of desires
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  Speaker 2: is not the dream. This factory has a dream. It
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  Speaker 2: isn't the dream. It it is producing all these desires
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  Speaker 2: because out there, somewhere there's a dream. They're all meant
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  Speaker 2: to lead us outside ourselves, indeed outside the world, because
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  Speaker 2: nothing in this world finally satisfies the desires of the
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  Speaker 2: human self are meant to lead us to God, in
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  Speaker 2: whose presence is fullness of joy, at whose right hand
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  Speaker 2: our pleasures forever more. That's what I'd say to the
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  Speaker 2: self absorbed user of social media. The self was never
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  Speaker 2: meant to satisfy us. The self was never meant to
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  Speaker 2: find satisfaction in the perception or promotion of self. The
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  Speaker 2: self was made for God.
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  Speaker 1: Hey man, man. One of my all time favorite lines
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  Speaker 1: in the history of this podcast. God gave us a self,
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  Speaker 1: not so that we would have something to exalt in,
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  Speaker 1: but something to exalt with. Yeah, it's not about looking
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  Speaker 1: in the mirror. It's about using your life to reflect
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  Speaker 1: something greater, imaging God in our lives to the world,
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  Speaker 1: because at the end of the day, the self was
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  Speaker 1: never meant to satisfy us. Yes. Amen. When it comes
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  Speaker 1: to social media, we've covered a lot of ground on
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  Speaker 1: the podcast when it comes to the worst of our
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  Speaker 1: compulsive phone habits. See my summary digestive all those many
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  Speaker 1: episodes over the years in the Aspesto John book on
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  Speaker 1: pages two seventy seven to two ninety on smartphones, social media,
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  Speaker 1: and selfie sticks. I've heard from a number of you
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  Speaker 1: who find that section really helpful and just getting a
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  Speaker 1: lot of things are just reminders, just reminders about smartphones
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  Speaker 1: and social media, what's good, what's bad, was ugly, and
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  Speaker 1: how to use those gifts in a godly way. Pastor
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  Speaker 1: John rejoins us in the studio on Monday. We will
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  Speaker 1: both see you then. Thanks for listening.