Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Signs of the Times (13)


In the last two or three forum articles, I discussed the sign of Christ’s coming that is mentioned in Matthew 24:12: “Iniquity shall abound.” But to this sign, the Lord attaches a warning and a promise.
 
Let’s look at the warning first: “The love of many shall wax cold.”
 
The love of which our Lord speaks here is, most importantly, love for God. Love for God is the keeping of the whole law. If we love Him, we desire to be obedient to Him; if we do not love Him, we turn away from His commandments and do that which He forbids.
 
But if we do not love God, then we do not love His commandments (“Oh, how love I thy law” – we can’t sing that any more). We do not love His church. We do not love His word. We do not love His people.
 
If we do not love these things, we love other things: we love the wicked; we love the world; we love the pleasures of the world; we love money and wealth; we love the wicked things the world does.
 
And really, deep down in our hearts, we love most of all, ourselves. We do the things we want to do and not what God wants. We enjoy the pleasures the world enjoys in movies, wicked songs, pleasures to please the flesh, but we do not love what God wants: meetings in church, devotions, reading spiritual books, working for the church.
 
We love ourselves; that is, we love what pleases our wicked flesh.
 
The warning of Jesus is that the love of many shall wax cold. That would seem to mean that those of whom Jesus speaks did at one time have a warm love for the things of God, but that warm love gradually became weaker and weaker until it disappeared. But that can’t be, for if one truly has love in his heart for God, he can never lose it – although, because we are still sinful, it can become less warm at times. But we repent of this sin and love our God fervently once again.
 
But Jesus means that there are periods in our lives, usually when we are new to the church, when we show great zeal for the things of God. But it is not genuine and the warmth of it is not really a true passion for God himself. When we become used to living in the church, hearing the preaching, working for the church and walking in holiness, we weary of it all and return to our old ways. Our “love” was only on the outside. It is like those of whom Peter speaks in II Peter2:1: people who deny the Lord who bought them. They were not really bought by Christ, but they confessed that they were bought by Christ’s blood.
 
We all know what that means. We see it in our own lives. We gradually lose interest in spiritual things. We are not enthusiastic any more in the way we once were. We call it “back-sliding.”
 
There is a serious warning here for all of us. If we are truly God’s people, we will see our spiritual danger and will repent and turn to God for forgiveness. We will ask for grace that the same warm love that once was ours may once again characterize us.
 
But if we are not truly God’s children, we will drift farther and farther away from the church and our fellow saints, and the zeal and love we once had will grow weaker and weaker – wax cold!
 
We all do well to examine ourselves and our lives if this waxing colder is characteristic of us. It is important, far more important than we realize. It is a matter of heaven or hell. It is finally a question of whether we belong to Christ or to Antichrist, whether we look forward to the coming of Christ or whether we either do not care about it and never give it a thought, or are frightened by it.
 
And so Jesus adds a promise: “But he that shall endure to the end, the same shall be saved.”
 
There is something frightening about the way Jesus words this: the love of many shall wax cold, but he that shall endure to the end shall be saved. Jesus moves from the plural “many” to the singular, “he.” Many people make an outward profession of religion and try to show a love and zeal for God. In our day they number in the thousands. But what are they going to do when the persecution Jesus speaks of in verse 5 comes? Where will be their love and zeal when they are dragged before courts and sentenced to prisons? Where is their zeal and love when they have to give up everything they own and flee to the jungles? Even now, in times of prosperity we cannot maintain zeal and love for the things of heaven, what will we do when we are tortured for the sake of the gospel?
 
Wasn’t it Jeremiah who said somewhere: “If you have run with the footmen, and they have wearied you, how shall you contend with horses?”
 
“Many . . . he . . .” The crowds. . . one young lady. . . . Friends and relatives. . . a lonely man . . . . That is the way Jesus says, it will be. Maybe not now; maybe not yet. But shortly; when Antichrist comes; where will you be?
 
It isn’t easy to “endure.” That word surely means to stay on a right path no matter how difficult it may be to walk thee. That means to maintain one’s convictions even though everyone else calls you a fool. That means to be found with Daniel at the window, praying, even though he knew it meant certain cruel death in a den of lions. That means to stand with Daniel’s three friends when Nebuchadnezzar offered them a second chance to worship the golden image: “We don’t need a second chance because we are not going to worship the golden image, fire furnace notwithstanding. If God wants to deliver us, He will. But if He is not pleased to deliver us, we won’t worship your image.”
 
That one shall be saved. Not the others. For them is only judgment before Christ’s throne and everlastingly in hell. The one who endures will hear Christ say (and I can’t think of words I would rather hear): “Well done good and faithful servant. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord!”


Prof. Herman Hanko 

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