Signs of the Times (24)

 

In the last forum article, I continued our discussion of verses 21-22 of Matthew 24. Perhaps it would be good to quote the verses again. “For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world unto this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days shall be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened.”

 

Jesus certainly impresses on us that this final persecution will be a dreadful one. When He tells us that there never has been a persecution worse than this one, it seems to me that He means, not so much in the severity of the suffering that the people of God will have to endure; but that He means especially that this persecution will be world-wide.

 

This interpretation seems to fit with what the Lord says in verse 22: “Except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved.” I do not mean in any way to belittle the severity of that final persecution: it will be dreadful. But if you read the history of the persecution of the church in a book such as Fox’s Book Of Martyrs¸ (which, by the way, is worth reading and is easily available), the suffering God’s people endured in times gone by was terrible. But the Lord means to emphasize that this last tribulation, if allowed to go on for more time than it does, will actually completely destroy the saints.

 

The picture is of the systematic slaughter of God’s people. They are hunted down and butchered. The wicked are very near the end of their task. Only a few saints, here and there, are still alive. If the wicked are given a couple of more days, they will succeed in destroying every one of the saints. It won’t be like it was in the days of Ahab, when God assured Elijah that He had reserved 7000 who had not bowed the knee to Baal. It won’t be like it is in the times of the new dispensation, when the people of God in one part of the world are persecuted, but in other parts of the world God’s people live in peace. But it will then appear as if Satan has won. Satan cannot rest until every saint is gone. If Satan accomplishes that goal, he will have won and Christ’s cause will have gone down to defeat.

 

The suffering imposed on God’s people will be dreadful. No saint, because he refuses to take the mark of the beast, will be able to live in society. He will not be able to buy or sell, according to Revelation 13. He will have to search for a few crumbs to eat for himself and his children in garbage cans and in dumps. He will have to go without medical care, without different clothing, without shelter. He will have to flee to some place where he can hide, but he will have to travel on foot, thus making himself an easy target. Or, if he escapes some persecution, he will be alone, with no companionship, no fellowship, no one to encourage him. He will think that Christ will come any moment; but if that does not happen, he will, in all his suffering begin to think that the world was right in denying Christ and that he was wrong. He will be tempted to consider the possibility that he was chasing a mirage, believing something that was not true, pursuing a dream of heaven that was like a balloon that bursts in his face. And the wicked will be sure to remind him of all this. And Christ doesn’t come, and doesn’t come, and doesn’t come . . . .  (See the parable of the virgins in the next chapter where Jesus describes the faithful virgins also as slumbering and sleeping because the bridegroom does not come at what is the appointed hour.)

 

Yet, at the same time, while the persecuted believer sees all his acquaintances, fellow members of the church, friends and family give in and escape persecution, he will have to be very sure he is right, and all the others wrong. He will not be able to follow the crowd or to find anyone to stand with him.

 

And, in the meantime, everyone in the world will have luxuries beyond counting, pleasures that are enticing and lives of plenty. All he sees will be sleek and fat people eating their rice and stuffing themselves with delicacies, while he starves. Everyone will be having fun, while he wraps his skimpy rags around him to keep warm. Other children will be plump and laughing, while his children will be crying for a crust of bread.

 

Yet God’s people will be faithful. God will not allow anyone of His beloved children to deny Him or His Christ. This will take grace, much grace, grace that is greater than all our sins, but it will be a grace that is more powerful than Satan and all his demons, for it will be God’s grace. We might worry that we will not be able to endure when we lose everything; but it is not so. If we hold firmly to Christ, walk with God and trust in Him, we will stand. There is no question about that. God Himself has promised. And God’s promises cannot fail.

 

God says that He will shorten the days so that not all the elect are destroyed. I am not absolutely sure what that means. It does not mean that a day will no longer be composed of twenty-four hours, but perhaps only twenty or eighteen. It does not mean that time will go more swiftly during the time of persecution than it does now. It does not mean that the sun will move very rapidly through the sky so that its speed can be seen – although our God can do all these things.

 

If I understand Revelation 11 correctly, then it seems to me that the meaning is that at that very point where the wicked are confident that they have rid themselves of the saints and that now they can do as they please without being bothered by those who condemn them; and that at that point that they begin a huge world-wide celebration to rejoice in their success, that God will take His people to glory before the very eyes of the wicked. It won’t be a rapture like the pre-mils claim, for it will be immediately followed by the pouring out of the vials, the final judgment of God upon the wicked, the destruction of this old and sin-polluted world, and the coming of our Lord Himself. Read Revelation 11 yourself and see what you think.

 

We must prepare ourselves for that persecution now. We must work while it is day, before the night comes in which no man can work. Specifically, we must ask ourselves in all honesty, whether we love Christ more than what we possess; whether we will give it all up in order to be faithful; whether we will endure shame, pain, grief, suffering for the sake of Christ Who died for us.

 

If we are God’s people, we will do all these things; if our religion is only outward and for other motives than that we love the Lord, we will go along with the world – and go to hell. Faithfulness means heaven – and Christ, and God, and the church, and the angels, and life everlasting.

 

Prof. H. Hanko.

Signs of the Times (23)

 

In our discussion of the signs of Christ’s coming as Christ describes them in Matthew 24, we are up to and have begun to discuss the sign of persecution. The text in which this sign is described in Matthew 24:21-22 reads: “For then shall be great tribulation such as was not since the beginning of the world till this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened.”

 

The word that is used here for the final persecution that shall come on the church is “tribulation.” The Bible uses two words to define persecution: one word means “to be chased, to be harassed, to be hunted:” -- as a wolf hunts its prey. The word Jesus uses here is a word which means, “to be squeezed into too small a place.” It brings up in our minds a picture of a room in which one finds himself, but in the room, the floor, the ceiling and the walls are slowing moving inward making one’s place small and smaller until at last the one inside is crushed when all the boundaries of the room come together.

 

The figure is powerful. Satan’s purpose is to take over God’s creation so completely so that it is his kingdom in which all men worship him. But God puts the church in the middle of that kingdom, and God commands the church to shout as loudly as it can, “Not Satan, but Christ is King; and this creation is part of Christ’s kingdom.” The church is also commanded to marry and produce other citizens of the kingdom who are charged with saying the same thing.

 

It is evident that Satan cannot tolerate the presence of that church in the world. The church is always small and one would think that it could not be so bothersome to Satan. But it is. It is a thorn in his side. It is always a fist blow in his face. It is like the king of a country like Singapore who has a group in his country that wants the premier of China to be Singapore’s king, and this group does everything it can to put Singapore under China’s rule. The government of Singapore could not tolerate that for long.

 

The whole history of the world is really a history of Satan’s attempt to make his kingdom universal. In the old dispensation, he did all he could to keep the King from being born. When the King was born, he tried to kill Him – when Herod sent soldiers to kill all the babies in Bethlehem. Finally the devil thought he had succeeded when the King hung on the cross and died. But He rose and seemingly slipped out of Satan’s claws. He went to heaven and now rules over everything. But the King has His citizens in “enemy” territory who will not keep still and who keep saying, “Christ is King!”

 

There was tribulation from the ascension of Christ on, and it still is present today. I read a while ago that 200,000 Christians are killed every year. The devil persecutes God’s people here and there, wherever he has a chance. But there is so much else he has to do to keep wicked nations and people in line and serving his purpose that he does not have time to concentrate his forces on the church. Today there is persecution in Muslim countries, in places in the Orient, in South America, and elsewhere. But much of the church has little or no persecution.

 

But when Antichrist sits on the throne, then Satan has made the whole world his kingdom and has achieved his purpose – except for that pesky church. It is not most of what calls itself “church” that bothers him, for most of the church joins with Antichrist. But there is that remnant according to the election of grace; those “stubborn” people who will not worship the image of the beast. And Satan will concentrate his full attention on them. Get them out of the world – and, “Ahhhh; it’s all mine! God is defeated and Christ is banished from His creation.” And Satan smirks.

 

And so gradually with the passing of the years, the place for the faithful people of God gets smaller and smaller as the walls and ceiling of this creation push in upon the church. The world passes laws to kill unwanted babies and to permit and encourage fornication of every sort: divorce and remarriage, homosexuality, open sexual perversion, etc. And when the church says, “These are dreadful sins against God,” the world puts them in prison for “hate crimes”.

 

I just read an article about the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States that ruled, by a 5-4 majority, that a large company did not have to pay medical costs to its employees who wanted to have abortions. It seemed like a victory for the people of God. But congress is preparing legislation to overthrow this decision, and people are screaming at the top of their lungs that the company who won the case in the name of freedom of religion is now destroying the freedom of religion of people who claim it is their religion to kill babies and allow men to marry men and women to marry women. We all know who will finally win.

 

And so the place of the people of God in this world gets smaller and smaller until there is no place left for them at all. That is also the meaning of the text when it says, “tribulation such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.” The text does not mean that the torture inflicted on the child of God will be worse than any saints have endured before – although that may be true; but the text means that finally tribulation shall be directed against the whole church everywhere in the world in one last (and nearly successful) attempt to obliterate the church completely.

 

Nor will it be difficult to tell the true people of God from the people who claim to be of God, but are not. Every man, woman and child in the whole world will be required to take the mark of the beast (Rev. 13:16). So Antichrist can easily tell who are true people of God and who are not. It will be a decisive distinction. If one takes the mark of the beast, he disowns Christ, takes the side of Satan, and joins the godless world. There will be no deception, no halting between two opinions, no secret Christians: just those with the mark and those without. Everyone with the mark will be friends of Satan; everyone without the mark will be a servant of Christ. It will be easy to tell. There will be no hypocrites.

 

We will finish our description of these verses next time.

 

Prof. Hanko.

Signs of the Times (22)

 

The time has come to continue our discussion of the signs of Christ’s coming, as our Lord describes them in Matthew 24. The sign we are now going to discuss is the most difficult sign for us to accept, for it is the sign of persecution. The text reads: “For then shall be great tribulation such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days shall be shortened, there shall no flesh be saved; but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened” (Matt. 24:21-22).

 

Before I begin a discussion of the sign itself, I want to mention one truth that needs to be emphasized and that gives us a great deal of comfort in our dread of the coming of this sign. That truth is the great truth of the sovereignty of our God, a truth which is our comfort in all of life, and especially in its sorrows and afflictions. If God is sovereign, and He is, then God wants His people to go through such a time of suffering. God rules over the wicked too, you know; nothing happens without His will. If God wills that persecution is a necessary part of our salvation, we cannot be saved unless we are persecuted.

 

The Scriptures give us several reasons why persecution is important and necessary for our salvation. I want to mention one or two. For one thing, we are very carnal and worldly-minded even though we are God’s people. Persecution tears us away from our attraction to the things of this world and fixes our thoughts and desires on Christ, for persecution makes us choose Christ rather than the things of this world. During times of persecution we can’t have both: we can’t have one foot in the world and one foot in the church. We can’t confess Christ’s name and enjoy the pleasures of the world. God purifies us by means of persecution.

 

But even more importantly, persecution makes us one with Christ. This is a profound truth. Jesus warns His disciples that the world hated Him and they will hate His disciples as well. There is a passage in Colossians 1 that teaches this profound truth, but in an unexpected way. The passage reads: “Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the sufferings of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the church” (Col. 1:24).

 

The main teachings of this verse are these. Christ also suffered at the hands of wicked men. Of course, He suffered the wrath of God for our sins as well; but this aspect of the sufferings of Christ is not the apostle Paul’s concern here. He is talking about Christ’s sufferings at the hands of the wicked. Think of how He was a perfect and sinless man in the company of sinners whose wicked minds and hearts He knew and who hated Him for His holiness. How would you like to live with a sinless person who could read every thought and desire of your mind?

 

Think of how His own brothers did not believe in Him until after the resurrection. Think of how His own disciples never understood Him until the Spirit Was poured out on Pentecost. Think of how the wicked Jews and leaders of the church (the Session of the church in that day) dogged His footsteps looking for something He did or said that in their minds could serve as a ground for His condemnation; and how they used lawyers to try to trick Him into saying things contrary to the Scriptures. 

 

And, worst of all, when they had Him helpless in their hands, in the Sanhedrin, they mocked Him, spit in His face, socked Him with their fists and pushed Him back and forth between them. Pilate gave Him over to the soldiers who pushed thorns woven into a wreath into His head until the blood streamed from His scalp and forehead. If that were not enough, they opened the skin on His back to the bone with whips with many leather thongs, on the end of which were tied bits of bone or iron to make the blows hurt the worse.

 

And then He had to carry His own cross to Golgotha where the cross was laid on the ground, Jesus himself laid on it, and rusty nails were driven into His hands and feet. When this was done the soldiers lifted the cross up and dropped it into a hole dug in the earth with all the weight of his body hanging on the nails. There He hung; our Lord; the Son of God; the sinless one; our Savior. And there the soldiers played gambling games to divide His clothes. And there the whole crowd mocked Him, shouted curses at Him, and laughed in His face at His agony.

 

All these sufferings are in addition to the suffering of the wrath of God, which our Savior bore to take away our sins.

 

Now the text in Colossians says that our Lord left some of His afflictions behind. That means that God in His counsel has determined the precise amount of sufferings that Christ had to endure. But Christ and His church together are one body. And so the exact amount of suffering necessary to save the church is determined precisely by God. But Christ did not endure all the suffering. He left some for His church to suffer so that Christ and His church together might fill the cup of suffering that God had determined as necessary for the salvation of the church. The persecution of the church is the suffering that is left of the sufferings of Christ.

 

But that has all sorts of practical implications. When we suffer, we are suffering with Christ. Actually Christ is suffering in us and with us. We are suffering together. So it is with a body. If one part of our body suffers, the whole body is affected and cannot function properly; the whole body suffers. But if Christ suffers in us when we are persecuted, Christ is also our strength and help. Christ conquered all the suffering that He endured, and Christ will conquer the suffering that we suffer for His sake.

 

There is more benefit. When suffering persecution we are driven by the force of persecution to cling more and more to Christ to Whom we are connected by faith. Faith is the living bond that unites us to Christ and makes us one body with Him. When our faith is tried by persecution, our faith is strengthened. We are like a scrubby pine tree high up the mountains above the timber line.  I have often seen them myself. Climbing the mountain one reaches an altitude where there are no more trees, and is called the timber line. Vegetation grows here, but it is only the most hardy and it is very fragile. Among the vegetation are a few scrubby pine trees that are more like shrubs than trees. The altitude is high, the oxygen is sparse, the winters are long and it can snow any month of the year; the winds are fierce and strong and the storms violent. But these scrubby pine shrubs are not killed; they endure. In fact when the storms rage and the winds blow and howl with snow and ice, these shrubs are not blown away, but are forced to sink their roots more deeply into the soil to survive. The fierce winds and violent storms of persecution assail the Christian. But they do nothing else but cause the Christian to sink the roots of his faith more deeply into Christ. He clings to Christ more strongly and hides in Christ who is his protector. And so God uses persecution for our salvation.

 

If you read the record of the martyrs, such as Fox’s Book of Martyrs, which every Christian should read at some time in his life, you will read of unbelievable courage in the face of terrible persecution. These stories, true in their telling, put steel in our spines and strengthen our resolve to be faithful. Christ has won the victory and has gone to glory on the path of suffering. He has won the battle for us. Joined to him by faith, we are sure to be victorious ourselves. The martyrs sang Psalms when lions were chewing on their legs. They prayed when hot fires were cooking their feet. They praised God when their bodies were being pulled apart on the racks. They witnessed to their tormentors when they were being led to the gallows. Persecution need not frighten us, for we suffer with Christ.

 

With warm regards,

Prof. Hanko