Words Of Christ Devotions

[nChrist]

August 25

Saying and Doing

Mat_21:28-32

"Character counts," your mother told you, and in the usual sense she was right.  But this concept can be misused.

In the United States we have a very useful legal fiction:  all men are created equal.  Now it is clear that all men are not equal;  some are tall, some are short; some old, some young.  Even in the courtroom the jury is required to make distinctions among men.  Some are considered reliable witnesses, some are not, and their testimony is weighted accordingly.  So why then do we say they are equal?

It's because the alternative is worse.  Our founding fathers knew that all men were sinners.  A true gentleman should be expected to be honest at all times—but even the true gentleman might lie under oath if tempted enough.  So we are to start with the presumption of equality—in court.

But in life we don't do that.  We know some people to be honest, and others not.  Used car salesmen in yellow plaid jackets are not trusted as much as ministers in black suits.  Character counts.

But sometimes we can take that too far.  We may be misled into thinking, "I am an honest, upright individual.  God clearly owes me priority treatment compared to that car salesman."  We forget what our founders knew:  we are all sinners.

Jesus points out the same thing here.  They've just been talking about the authority of John the Baptist.  Jesus points out the comparison:

When John spoke, the used car salesmen in plaid jackets listened and repented.
If you were really righteous, you would have seen that as a sign and blessing from God.

But you didn't—and you ignored John.  What does God have to do to get your attention?

Sadly, some of us are so proud of our righteousness that we have missed this lesson.  We become judges over others, but not ourselves.  Jesus appealed to the judges to give judgment on themselves here.  When he returns, no such opportunity will be given.  So we had best examine ourselves now, asking:  on whose righteousness do I rely?  Mine—or His?

____________________

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[nChrist]

August 26

The Vineyard

Mat_21:33-46

For many ancient writers this parable was strikingly clear.  It is the sentence of doom upon the Jewish nation, and the sentence is just.  Consider the points of the parable:

The vineyard—the promised land given by God to Israel.

The wall—God's protection of his people.

The winepress—the Law

The tower—the Temple

The servants—the prophets

The son—Christ Himself.

There are varying interpretations;  this will do to make the point.  With all of this, the nation of Israel rejected its Messiah;  for that its destruction was sure.

We might be tempted to leave it at that, but the parable has a personal application as well.

The vineyard—has not God put us in America, the richest land the world has ever known?

The wall—are we not well defended?

The winepress—do we not have the Holy Spirit?

The tower—do we not have the church?

The servants—has not God sent his ministers to warn us?

And with all of this, some of us still treat his Son as one to be used and abused.

But consider the original parable and its application.  If the Christians of this favored land, with such blessings, turn their back upon the will of God, what will God do about it?  Will he not just as certainly withdraw his blessings from us?

What, then, should we do about it?  The answer is given in the last verse listed:

If you will be broken upon Christ—if we will humble ourselves, admit our sins and call out to Christ for his grace and mercy, then he will heal us.

But if we will not, the smiting stone will strike, and we will be ground to powder.

God is the same yesterday, today and forever—and so is His justice.

____________________

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[nChrist]

August 28

Render Unto Caesar

Mat_22:15-22

This is a beautiful comparison of the way of the world and the way of God.

The way of the world

The Pharisees wish to trap Jesus—so they enlist the aid of their enemies, the Herodians, so that whatever Jesus answers, they may have him in a bind.

They begin with the most common act of the hypocrite—the flattery of the one they would ruin.  Since they are so easily influenced by it, surely he would be too?
They guard against their own failings—since they can't find his.

First , they call him a "man of integrity."  If you are double minded, as they were, this pressures you to pretend to integrity.

Next, they state that he teaches the way of God.  Again, if you are a pretender, this is what you would pretend to be.  More pressure.

Finally, they say he is not influenced by other men.  Sure enough, the desire to be flattered is seen here again.

But these things do not work on the honest man;  much less the Son of God.

The way of Christ

Contrast their snake-like smoothness with the bluntness of "You hypocrites!"  He is blunt to the hypocrite, but tender to the repentant sinner.

He answers their thought, not their words!

The question is complex;  the example in reply, simple.

Using their coin, he convicts them with their own devices.

Convict them of what?  That which they knew to be the truth before they asked.

The words of our Lord match the need of the hearer.  His doctrine is deep and profound, but at the same time simple to understand so that no one might say they do not understand.  The matter is not one of doctrine, nor of intellect.
It is a matter of the heart.  If you try to outwit God he will outwit you.  But if you come to him with the pure and seeking heart, he will open the doors of heaven.

____________________

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[nChrist]

August 31

The Chair of Moses

Mat_23:1-12

This passage is often passed over as applying to the Pharisees only.  Or, for the more rabid species of Protestant, it is the prohibition of calling a priest, "father."  As for that, we would have to give up "teacher" as well.

This passage is much more about us.  Consider it this way:  suppose you are taken in by some pompous, self-serving teacher of the Gospel who is in love with the sound of his own voice.  Does this excuse you from living as a Christian?  It may condemn your teacher but it does not excuse you.

The military had an expression for it:  you salute the uniform, not the wearer.  You may think the lieutenant is an idiot, but he's a commissioned idiot—and you salute him.  Your teacher may indeed be pompous and self-serving, but you are to learn from him what you can, and follow Christ in doing it.

Jesus does not leave the matter at what the ordinary disciple must do.  He brings out a series of examples for teachers and ministers of all types which should serve as warning.

We are not to "call" - we are not to presume that our teachers and ministers are so like God as to be worshiped.  Indeed, we are to see that they are human like us.  We are to honor them for the service they perform, not the title they wear.

We are not to "be called" - not to seek the titles.  We are not be "rabbi" - Chrysostom translates this word as "guide."  We are certainly not to be master, and indeed teacher is out of reach.  Servant is the preferred role, whatever we are called.

Well, then, how does an ambitious teacher succeed in this?  By service.

If you pursue greatness in the church, you will never achieve it.  It's like being a hypochondriac:  the more often you take your malady to the doctor, the sicker you are.  You cure hypochondria by not going to the doctor.

If you pursue service, you will find greatness in the church.  Status and position are not the goal;  service is.  Status and position will follow as the church needs;  reward will flow from your Master.

For those who are accustomed to business life and climbing the ladder, look at it this way:  service is the key.  Therefore, there is unlimited opportunity in the church, for there is no limit to the service Christ can receive from us.

____________________

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[nChrist]

September 1

First Woe

Mat_23:13

One of the more humorous sights in sports is killer bee soccer.  This is soccer as played by six year old children.  After careful coaching about where each player is to position himself on the field, with position drills and practice, the coach finds out the truth.  When the game starts, everybody chases the ball.  It looks  like two swarms of killer bees.

If you watch closely, you'll see another bit of humor going on.  Once in a while someone decides that the fellow in front of him is running too fast.  So he grabs the collar of his shirt and slows him down—or puts him on the ground.

It's cute when you see it in kids, but the coach will immediately let the child know that this is not sporting conduct.  But you can see the kid's point of view;  why should the other guy get ahead of me?

When you see this in adults, however, it's not cute.  When you see it in the church, it is a disaster.  The usual cause is hypocrisy.  It is the disease of the hypocrite that he cannot stand to see anyone else be more righteous than himself.  It is the original meaning of "holier than thou."

So, like the soccer kid, the hypocrite holds everyone else back.  But are we really exempt from this charge ourselves?  Perhaps not.  Consider some possibilities:

Is there someone you know who is just not respectable enough to invite to your church?  It would be OK if they went to the Union Rescue Mission—but not our church.  Who's holding them back?

Is there someone you know with whom you are so angry that you could never speak to them of the love of Jesus Christ?  Who's holding them back?

Is there someone in your life who is just too dignified to talk to about the Lord?  Someone just a little too awesome?  Who's holding them back?

Is there someone in your life who is so important to you that you don't want to risk your relationship by sharing the Lord with them?

Whatever our motivation, we should not hold anyone back.  We think that knowing the Lord is the most important thing on earth.  Should we not love our neighbors enough to let them know as well?

____________________

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[nChrist]

September 2

Second Woe

Mat_23:15

Some years back one of my co-workers, knowing me to be a Christian, brought me a copy of Playboy magazine.  In it there was a letter.  The writer described himself as an atheist, and aired the possibility that he would become a minister.  He thought the hours suitable, the job respected and the pay good.

Playboy's reply showed some wisdom.  It began, "On the off hand chance you're not putting us on,." and said this was something like an ardent communist becoming a stock broker.

There were no further letters, as far as I know, so we will assume the writer took up some other occupation.  But there is a parallel in this verse.  Consider what it must be like to be an evangelist for the Pharisees, trying to convert some heathen.

First, the rate of conversion is very small.  After all, if you want to recruit someone into an honest religion, they have to believe that you believe.  This is like recruiting someone into the Mafia—you have to convince them of the profitability and also the necessity of the hypocrisy.

And for so little in the way of results, it takes a lot of effort.  Why would anyone put in so much work for so little result?  Perhaps it's pride when you do succeed;  more likely, it's self justification ("You see, we are truly religious.  We're evangelistic!")

But see the moral inversion you get!  The student is worse than the teacher at this.  Again, this is pride.  A student of a righteous teacher wants to imitate his teacher;  the student of a hypocrite wants to exceed his teacher.

Consider the result:  the poor heathen is condemned by the religion he left, and by the God he professes to worship.  He doesn't even have the consolation of being an honest heathen.

This is indeed a terrible fate.  History shows us that the average heathen is a ripe subject for conversion to Christianity.  Christ, in his earthly ministry, saved his condemnation for the hypocrites of his time, and none other.  Why?  Because the heathen who is converted to hypocrisy is almost invulnerable to conversion to the true faith.

Worse;  if you are the hypocrite doing the recruiting, you produce children of hell.  Think about that for a minute:  what does that make you?  Perhaps now you see why Jesus used such shock tactics in dealing with the hypocrites.

____________________

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[nChrist]

September 3

Third Woe

Mat_23:16-22

When my children were young there was a game called "Simon says."  Like its parallel, "Mother may I?", the essence of the game was to make sure that the wording was exactly right.  Small children find this game very satisfying—when they get it right.

The Pharisees used these oaths in a similar fashion.  To understand why, we must understand the oath first.  When a man swears by something or someone, he is invoking that thing or person as a witness that he is telling the truth, that his promises are sure.  To a Jew this would mean something related to God.  But you could not use God's name in the oath;  that was forbidden by rabbinical law (though the Old Testament explicitly commanded the Jew to do so).  So you needed some sort of substitute, as seen here.

Why, then, was there so much trouble with this?  Why would anyone play "Simon Says" with an oath involving God?  The answers are still important today:

Some of us have no real faith;  we have only a formal religion.  We "appreciate" a well run worship service like we would admire a fine concert.  It's an art form for us to appreciate;  of course, in art form follows function, and that leads to formalism here.

Some of us are simply looking for a reasonable excuse to give to God.  "I know I said I would do it, but I didn't really promise ."  We're stuck, and we're looking for a way to get out of our promises.  This is most common when looking for a convenient way to break a marriage vow.

Some of us hold to the "magic theory" of religion.  "If only I can word this prayer exactly right, God will do what I want."  We know that we can smooth our words past some people, and we hope we can do the same with God.

What makes this so much worse is the fact that the Pharisees actually had an elaborate set of rules for which oaths were binding.  But is that really so different?  Have you heard people telling you to "recite this prayer just the way it's written?"  Or to "pray the thus-and-such Psalm," as if it were a magic formula?  Have you ever offered an excuse to God—again and again?  Perhaps we are not so far from the Pharisees after all.

"Blind guide" - a double insult from Christ, it shows us the real problem.  It's one thing to be blind;  it's far worse to be unaware of it and offer yourself as a guide.  Teacher, beware.

____________________

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[nChrist]

September 4

Fourth Woe

Mat_23:23-24

You can but admire our Lord's command of language.  Here again we have a cliché of our language in the original form.

The example would have hit the Pharisees as well.  Both the camel, which was probably the largest animal they knew of, and the gnat, which would do for the smallest, are unclean in the ceremonial law.  The hyperbole would probably have
produced a couple of chuckles in the crowd.

The "more important matters" - "weightier," in the old King James Version, are an echo of the prophet Micah:

(Micah 6:8 NIV)  He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD
require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

Justice—we have seen in our own time the growing conviction that our courts do not do justice.  The guilty go free if they can afford a sharp lawyer, and the innocent poor man is too often convicted.  As Oliver Wendell Holmes once reminded a litigant, "This is a court of  law, sir—not a court of justice."  But if this disturbs you, should you not render justice as you can?  We may not expect justice, but we can always try to deliver it.

Mercy—the balance weight of justice is mercy.  It is a clear point of the New Testament that those who forgive, are forgiven.  But forgiveness is difficult, for it goes against our anger, our lust for vengeance, and so much of our culture.  "Don't get mad, get even," says our culture.  How is one to go against this, unless there is the great love of mercy?

Walking humbly with God—here is a word picture of faithfulness.  Faith is an action word.  To walk with God is to be faithful to him.  To do so in humility means that you have a clear understanding of who you are—and who God truly is.

We need to check ourselves on these three things.  Let's put it in personal terms:

When you have a dispute with someone, are you concerned about getting your way, or resolving the argument fairly?

When someone offends you, is it a pleasure to be forgiving, or are you grudging about it?

Do you trust God completely, as one in control, or do you barter with him as an equal?

____________________

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[nChrist]

September 5

Fifth Woe

Mat_23:25-26

One of the more pleasant forms of light reading is the English murder mystery.  The bodies always seem to be quite politely tidied away, leaving one brilliant detective, an inept sidekick and a completely bamboozled reader (me, usually).

What amazes me so often is that some tiny act of the criminal, so very ordinary and unnoticed at first, is inevitably the "obvious" clue which makes the solving of the crime (forgive me, Holmes) "elementary."  The villain betrays himself in something ordinary.

So it is here:  Our Lord uses the illustration of washing the dishes.  No ordinary man would wash only the outside—right, Watson?  So there must be something afoot.

There is indeed.  Such washings were not related so much to doing the dishes as they were to ritual purification.  Purification of things and people is a sign of repentance.  So what Christ is really talking about is this:  the tiniest outward signs of repentance masking the inner corruption.

Are we exempt from such a charge?  Perhaps not as much as we'd like to think.  Consider:

How many of us are good at repentance—for someone else's sins?  (We're so sorry there is abortion in our land).

How many of us are good at repentance—during two minutes of silent meditation during communion?

What is the result of this?  Christ gives us two specific things which come to those who are adept at two minute repentance:

The first is greed.  It is the constant desire for "more."  We forget that a man is rich when his blessings exceed his wants—and often the secret of wealth is trim your wants.  By calling it "thriftiness" or "investment" we dignify it;  do we deprive our brother of help by doing this?

The next is self-indulgence.  In our time this comes in either things (I must have a new boat) or sex (or a new wife).  In either case it is the pleasure of the new thrill on our senses.  We may call it "living boldly" or we may say, "I have arrived."  Either way, it is "me first."

It is the inner life of a man which produces the external fruit in his life.  Is your life filled with good works and good news, or is it filled with work to acquire new goods?  Are you known for your faithfulness to your spouse, or for your latest "affair?"  Examine your repentance and see if it is real.

____________________

Words Of Christ Devotions

Dist. Worldwide in the Great Freeware Bible Study package called
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(The goal of Rick Meyer is to distribute excellent Bible Study
Software to every country on earth in their own language FREE
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____________________

[nChrist]

September 6

Sixth Woe

Mat_23:27-28

It's one of the great clichés of Hollywood.  You see the gilded Egyptian coffin (strangely propped in an upright position).  The lid creaks slowly open;  the figure of The Mummy is revealed.  Suddenly, the eyes pop open!  The heroine shrieks;  the hero fires several useless shots from his revolver;  all flee in terror (from a creature who can barely make half their speed).

There is a basic fear involved here:  perhaps it is our fear of death, our fear of the unknown, or our fear of the power of things supernatural.  We see it in more mundane ways as people fear to walk through a graveyard at night.

But in the daylight we do walk in the graveyard.  We bring flowers and place them on the graves of our loved ones.  In their time, the tombs were whitewashed.  This had two purposes.  First, it was to mark the tombs so that no one would accidentally step on them, and become ceremonially unclean.  The other purpose was similar to our flowers, a gesture of love and beauty.  Coffins are beneath the ground;  terror is beneath our conscious mind.

Imagine, then, the image hitting the Pharisees in this woe.  They thought they had successfully deceived all with their hypocrisy (including themselves, probably).  But Jesus opens the lid—and  they see the eyes of their hypocrisy pop open.  Where once the world saw the white gleam of respectability there is now the rot of hypocrisy exposed to the world.

Why is this so decried?  It is because the Spirit gives life.  If you are truly a child of God, you are the temple of the Holy Spirit.  The Spirit is the source of life itself, and therefore you are a temple, not a tomb.  But if you are a tomb, then the Spirit is not in you, and you have no real life.

You see, then, that hypocrisy is a matter of life and death—eternal life and death.  Consider it another way:  you cannot be cured if you will not go to the physician.  You cannot be forgiven if you think you have no sin.  If you go around proclaiming your righteousness, your words crowd out your repentance.  If there is no real repentance, there is no real forgiveness.

We decorate the graves with flowers, flags and balloons.  Flowers for beauty;  flags for honor and balloons for freedom of spirit—and these are fine.  But let us not decorate our lives with the flowers of respectability, the flags of virtue in pretense or the hot air balloons of pious chatter.  Be the temple of the Holy Spirit, not the grave of a living soul.

____________________

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[nChrist]

September 7

Seventh Woe

Mat_23:29-32

A story is told of Attila the Hun.  When he came to Rome, ready to sack the city and destroy all within, Leo the Great came out to preach to him at the edge of the city.  Leo told him the story of the Crucifixion of Christ.  At the thought of an innocent man being condemned to death, Attila is said to have exclaimed, "If I and my men had been there, they would not have dared!"

Attila the Hun was more righteous than these Pharisees.  For Attila meant it.  He was a cruel man, but like most leaders he had a sense of justice.  He never pretended to be righteous, but his reaction at least was an honest one.

How safe it is to condemn injustice long after it is over!  Here we have an example of such hypocrisy indeed.  We need to see two principles by which God works:

First, we must realize that God allows sin to persist in a nation so that such a nation might be given a chance to repent.  To such a nation he sends his prophets;  in our time, his preachers and leaders of the church.  Repentance may indeed delay the doom of a nation, even until he comes again.

But if repentance does not come, the wickedness of the nation rises until it comes to its full measure.  The sign of such wickedness?  It is a brazen hypocrisy in which the prominent people of the land can smilingly proclaim their righteousness.  As the Psalmist put it, "The wicked freely strut about when what is vile is honored among men." (Psalm 12:8 ).

In our own time we have indeed seen what is vile honored among men.  We slaughter the unborn and are shocked that anyone would be so repressive as to object.  Homosexuality is honored;  marital faithfulness is derided as fit only for fools or incompetents.  Justice is perverted for money;  arrogant pride is now considered the greatest virtue an athlete can have.  Anyone who objects is obviously a villain, a horrible human being.

Is God asleep?  Does he not care?  Or is he simply waiting for the full measure of evil to be completed?  The Jews had less than two generations left to live in their homeland of fifteen hundred years, given to them by God.  They would then be dispersed over the world in blood, violence and sorrow.

Our Lord is patient and kind, always seeking those who would turn from evil and repent—whether that be a man or a nation.  How soon will it be too late—for us individually or our nation?

____________________

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[nChrist]

September 8

Brood of Vipers

Mat_23:33-36

Have you ever hunted snakes?

They are God's creatures, but some are poisonous and must be removed from the dwellings of men.  When that happens, the snake is hunted.  For a creature whose range is limited to a lunge from a body with no legs, facing a creature armed with a shotgun (or worse), you would think this to be no contest.  But the hunters consider this a test of manliness.  I know of no hunter killed by the snake, but there are hunters who would sooner hunt bear than snake.

Why is it that we consider the snake so vicious?  Even the common garter snake, a helpful creature which eliminates many harmful rodents, can provoke terror.  Somehow, as if we remembered Satan in the Garden of Eden, we view snakes as the embodiment of evil.

But nothing so defames the snake as this accusation here.  Of all creatures deadly, the hypocrite is far the more dangerous.  The snake, by comparison, is an honest fellow.  But as a metaphor, we understand Jesus in this after two millennia and in translation.  The snake looks evil.  Its presence is usually a surprise, too.  But the evil is in our minds—and it is in our minds that the evil of hypocrisy takes hold.  The snake is the picture of the evil in the mind.

What does the evil mind do?  Consider the two murders that are mentioned here:
The first—the first murder of the Bible—was done for envy.  In particular, envy at another man's acceptance by God.  The hypocrite wants God's approval—but on his own terms.

The second was the murder of a holy man in a holy place.  There are no social barriers to the hypocrite's evil, for he must appear righteous.

The fascinating aspect of this passage is in the verb tense that Christ uses:
"I am sending you."  Does God abandon even the hypocrite?  No, he continues to send his teachers and preachers, those who will warn and rebuke, even to the hypocrites.  Jesus tells us their fate:  it is the same as Abel and Zechariah.

It is a magnificent thing, the mark of God's love for his people.  As he often does, God sends punishment upon the hypocrites to shake them loose—and return to him

____________________

Words Of Christ Devotions

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[nChrist]

September 9

Lament Over Jerusalem

Mat_23:37-39

There is an exquisite pain reserved for the later years of life.  It is called "adult children."

How often have we seen it:  the child you raised so carefully, taught so well, does something stupid—or worse.  The frustration is that you have already made them an adult, and all the techniques that worked when they were a child are now counterproductive.  You search for ways to tell them what is so obvious to you and so hidden to them.

Jerusalem is like that to Christ.  In the time of Moses it was prophesied that God would select one city in Israel in which to put his Name—that city was Jerusalem.  From this city came the original priest of God—Melchizedek.  In this city the Shekinah glory of God filled the Temple.  Of all cities on earth, this one is closest to the heart of God.  In this passage, it is an aching heart.

Jerusalem, Jerusalem

Why does Christ repeat the word?

It may be simply a matter of emphasis, that he wanted to make it certain to his hearers how important this is.

It  might be a sign of sureness of prophecy.  You will recall that Joseph told Pharaoh that his dreams were the same—repeated because God had decided for certain.  The prophecy here is also certain.

It may simply be a lament, like a mother repeating the name of her lost child.
The passage is one of condemnation—but always there is that air of willingness to save, if only they would listen.

God speaks to us in much the same way with regard to our ways.  We are his children, and he longs to take us under wing.  But he repeats to us of our sins, over and again:

He repeats so that we will be certain he means it.

He repeats so that we will know his judgment is coming.

He repeats because he loves us like a father.

"If only.."  - the saddest phrase in the Bible, perhaps.  When he comes again, and Jerusalem says, "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord,"  will you be the one saying, "If only?"  He repeats so that you will repent.

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Words Of Christ Devotions

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[nChrist]

September 10

The Widow's Gift

Mar_12:41-44

Mrs. Esther Brown was a remarkable woman.  She was my wife's "house mother" at college, and a friend for the rest of her life.  I knew her only slightly, but I knew this:  if I needed someone to pray for me, she was at the head of the list.  The Almighty was pleased to hear the prayers of Mrs. Brown.

Like the lady in this story, Mrs. Brown was a widow of limited means.  Like this lady, she bore this well.

The widow's confidence

Recall that this widow had two coins—she could have kept one, but did not.  Why such confidence?

Her experience—she did not reach this state because God had abandoned her, but because He sustained her.

Her strength—see how she faces the potential ridicule for so small a gift—which comes from the Lord.

Her faith—forged in trial, she knows the One in whom she trusts.

The widow's joy in trial

In times of distress we can be sad or joyful—depending upon our commitment to God.  If we are partially committed, it is a sad time.  But a complete commitment brings us closer to God in time of trial.  That closeness, in turn, gives us clearer vision of his will.  We see his way, we walk in it, we rejoice.

The widow's reward

Does God promise reward for such suffering?  He certainly does.  God will reward this widow:

He will reward her for her sacrifices, for these are her imitation of Him.

He will reward her for her loss during trial a hundred fold, as our Lord promised.

He will reward her for her heart song, for even the cup of cold water does not go unrewarded.

Mrs. Brown taught me much—by the way she lived, by what she taught my wife.  She is with the Lord now, but her example, like this one, lives on.  Praise the Lord for such as these!

____________________

Words Of Christ Devotions

Dist. Worldwide in the Great Freeware Bible Study package called
e-Sword by Rick Meyer: http://www.e-sword.net/downloads.html
Full Featured - Outstanding - Completely FREE - No Strings Attached

(The goal of Rick Meyer is to distribute excellent Bible Study
Software to every country on earth in their own language FREE
of charge, and that goal gets closer by the day.)
____________________

[nChrist]

September 11

When Will It End?

Mat_24:1-14

A firm pronouncement upon prophecy is risky business.  But we can at least sort things out a bit.

There are two questions the disciples ask here:

When shall "these things" - the destruction of the Temple—happen?
And what are the signs of your coming?

These are not necessarily the same event!  The Temple has been destroyed;  we shall look at his return.

Before

In a section which seems to signal things that will happen frequently—and which will continue until his return starts—he tells us these common things:

There will be false prophets (Mohammed, Joseph Smith) and false Christs.

There will be wars and rumors of wars.

There will be natural disasters.

These things are not the signal;  they come first.

The signal

What, then, signals the beginning of the end?

First, there will be great persecution.

For this, many will fall away from the faith.

There will be a great increase in wickedness.

It is tempting to add, "Sounds like today, doesn't it."  Perhaps this is true;  it's been said before.  Those who "knew" the time of his return are legion, and I suspect they're not through yet.

So what?

The real question is not, "When?"  The real question is, "What shall we do until then?"

We must stand firm.  We've been warned, trouble is on the way and may already be here.  Stand firm.

But don't just dig a trench.  The Gospel must be preached to all nations.  Do that, or support that as you can.

When?  We don't know.  But we know what we're supposed to be doing until he returns.    Are we doing it?

____________________

Words Of Christ Devotions

Dist. Worldwide in the Great Freeware Bible Study package called
e-Sword by Rick Meyer: http://www.e-sword.net/downloads.html
Full Featured - Outstanding - Completely FREE - No Strings Attached

(The goal of Rick Meyer is to distribute excellent Bible Study
Software to every country on earth in their own language FREE
of charge, and that goal gets closer by the day.)
____________________