But understand
this: In the last days terrible times will come. For men will be lovers of
themselves, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their
parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderous, without
self-control, brutal, without love of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited,
lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God” (1 Timothy 2:1-3).
Is “terrifying” the best word to use to describe these
verses? Perhaps “upsetting” would be a better, or “worrying.” But whatever
adjective you wish to put in, these verses from the Apostle Paul do not give us
a warm, fuzzy feeling.
These verses are especially concerning to us because as we
look at each one of these descriptions of the last days, we can see that they
describe exactly the days in which we are living today. It leads to the
question that almost everyone in the Christian church today is asking, “Are
these days in which we are living the last days?”
Of course, this is not the first time in history that people
have asked this question. Nor is our own time in history unique in its
similarity to what Paul describes in these verses. There have been great
apostasies in the past, but there have also been great reformations. At the
same time however, there are certain aspects to our present day that are
unique, or at least that are indicative to an immanent intervention and
punishment from God.
Will this intervention by God soon be coming to our nation, or perhaps even to the entire world?
The Last Days of Ancient Israel
The prophet Isaiah lived at a time that in many ways had
similarities to our own day. He lived in a nation that was in decline and in a
society that was divided. One could actually say that the national society in
Isaiah’s day was divided into two distinct factions, the liberals and the
conservatives.
This division was so deep that the nation of Israel was
actually split into two separate kingdoms. The more liberal ten tribes were in
the north. They retained the name “Israel” as their national identity. The two
more conservative tribes of Judah and Benjamin were in the south, and were
known by the more predominant of these two tribes, “Judah.”
Three hundred years before Isaiah’s time, King David had
made a united Israel into what was then the most powerful nation in the region,
and perhaps in the entire world. His son Solomon even expanded this power, but
he had also begun to sow seeds of moral and national decline. That decline came
quickly when his own son, Rehoboam ascended to the throne after Solomon’s
death. The kingdom became divided and national decline followed quickly.
The prophet Isaiah came on the scene just as the two nations
were being threatened by the more powerful nation of Assyria. Assyria was one
of the most brutal nations that have even existed.
The Assyrian army was not content to defeat an enemy at war,
but they sometimes tortured the conquered people by skinning some of them alive
or impaling them on stakes. They would then engrave tablets of these acts to
strike fear into any enemy who would resist them. One of the Assyrian Kings,
Ashurnasirpal II, boasted on one of the tablets, “I flayed many and draped
their skins over the walls.” And on another, “I burned their adolescent boys
and girls…A pillar of heads I erected in front of the city.”
It is not hard to imagine why the declining nations of
Israel and Judah were living in fear of this powerful enemy to the north.
Facing the future with this type of uncertainty was not the way that the people
of God were historically accustomed to living.
The Cost of Rebellion
In the past, when the people of God were united as one, they
served their Lord God. And God blessed them. He protected them from outside
threats and he prospered them. But despite the obvious blessings of God that
they had received and despite the faithfulness of God, the people were turning
against him. Isaiah wrote of their condition:
Listen, O heavens,
and give ear, O earth, for the LORD has spoken:
“I have raised
children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against Me.
The ox knows its
owner, and the donkey its master’s manger,
But Israel does not
know; My people do not understand.”
Alas, O sinful
nation, a people laden with iniquity, a brood of evildoers, children of
depravity!
They have forsaken
the LORD; they have despised the Holy One of Israel and turned their backs on
Him.
Why do you want
more beatings? Why do you keep rebelling?
Your head has a
massive wound, and your whole heart is afflicted.
From the sole of
your foot to the top of your head, there is no soundness—
Only wounds and
welts and festering sores neither cleansed nor bandaged nor soothed with oil.
(Isaiah 1:2-6 BSB)
The strength that the United Israel that existed under King
David had been on the decline for years. Other nations were growing in their
power and threatening them—specifically the Assyrian nation to the north. But
the people of Israel, instead of looking to the Lord God for guidance and for
support and security, sought solutions in politics in this now divided nation.
Both Israel and Judah fought and squabbled with one another. They made
alliances with various nations to gain the upper hand and to strengthen
themselves.
An Abandoned Vineyard
They had forgotten who had made them great and where their
security rested. This is illustrated imaginatively in the poem of the vineyard,
of Isaiah chapter five:
I will sing for my
beloved a song of his vineyard:
My beloved had a
vineyard on a very fertile hill.
He dug it up and
cleared the stones and planted the finest vines.
He built a
watchtower in the middle and dug out a winepress as well.
He waited for the
vineyard to yield good grapes, but the fruit it produced was sour!
“And now, O
dwellers of Jerusalem and men of Judah,
I exhort you to
judge between Me and My vineyard.
What more could I
have done for My vineyard than I already did for it?
Why, when I
expected sweet grapes, did it bring forth sour fruit?
Now I will tell you
what I am about to do to My vineyard:
I will take away
its hedge, and it will be consumed;
I will tear down
its wall, and it will be trampled.
I will make it a
wasteland, neither pruned nor cultivated, and thorns and briers will grow up.
I will command the
clouds that rain shall not fall on it.” (Isaiah 5:1-6 BSB)
That was the condition of the nations of Israel and Judah in
those days. They were not yet destroyed, but they were quickly coming to that
point. It was only the presence of a few remaining faithful ones that their
destruction had not yet come.
Unless the LORD of Hosts had left us a few survivors or a
remnant” Isaiah writes, “we would have become like Sodom, we would have
resembled Gomorrah” (Isaiah 1:9).
Withholding Destruction
Do you remember the story of Sodom and Gomorrah when God was
about to destroy those cities? Before he did so, Abraham defended Sodom before
God, saying, “Surely if there are ten righteous left in the city you will not
destroy it.”
God agreed that he would not destroy it if ten remained, but
alas, even in that great city not even ten righteous existed. The cities of
Sodom and Gomorrah burned with a fire that fell from the skies.
Isaiah knew that this destruction would also come to the
nations of Israel and Judah:
For Jerusalem has
stumbled and Judah has fallen because they spoke and acted against the LORD,
defying His glorious presence.
The expression on
their faces testifies against them, and like Sodom they flaunt their sin; they
do not conceal it.
Woe to them, for
they have brought disaster upon themselves. (Isaiah 3:8-9 BSB)
A Thankless Task
Isaiah was given a difficult task. He was sent to prophesy
to a nation that not only was in decline, but which he was told would
eventually be destroyed. They were left without any protection against
invaders. Their hedge had been removed; their wall taken away. But they would
reject the message from God spoken by Isaiah and would continue to turn away
from God until they were destroyed.
God told Isaiah, “Go and tell this people, ‘Be ever hearing,
but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’ Make the hearts
of this people calloused; deafen their ears and close their eyes. Otherwise
they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their
hearts, and turn and be healed.”
Isaiah then asked: “How long, O Lord?”
God replied: “Until the cities lie ruined and without
inhabitant, until the houses are left unoccupied and the land is desolate and
ravaged, until the LORD has driven men far away and the land is utterly
forsaken.” (Isaiah 6:9-12 BSB)
Israel at that time was at the same place as was Sodom when
Abraham intervened for it. It was already marked for destruction by God. The
only reason that it had not already been destroyed was because of the presence
of a few who yet remained faithful to the Lord.
Limits of Grace
The grace of God is longsuffering. God takes much abuse from
people, but in his love, he continues to hold out his hand and send his
messengers in an effort to bring people to repentance. Nevertheless, God is no
fool, and he will not suffer at the stubborn wills of fools. There comes a time
that when rebellion against God becomes excessive and when God’s grace will no
longer be open to a nation. One of the indications that sin and rebellion has
become excessive is when the people not only sin, but they do so pridefully.
They take great pride in their rebellion against the teachings of God.
It is at that point that God’s grace ceases and when
judgment comes.
It did to Sodom, and it will to America if we do not repent,
and repent soon. We may think ourselves quite enlightened in our modern age
with all our talk of tolerance for any and every type of lifestyle, but to this
Isaiah writes, “Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their
own sight” (Isaiah 5:21 BSB).
At what point does the grace of God upon a nation cease? Do
we actually wish to find out in America?
A People in Rebellion
But understand
this: In the last days terrible times will come. For men will be lovers of
themselves, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their
parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderous, without
self-control, brutal, without love of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited,
lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God” (1 Timothy 2:1-3).
Like Isaiah’s story of the vineyard, Jesus also told a story
relating to the raising of fruit:
A man had a fig
tree that was planted in his vineyard. He went to look for fruit on it, but did
not find any.
So he said to the
keeper of the vineyard, “Look, for the past three years I have come to search
for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Therefore cut it down! Why
should it use up the soil?”
“Sir,” the man
replied, “leave it alone again this year, until I dig around it and fertilize
it. If it bears fruit next year, fine. But if not, you can cut it down.” (Luke
13:5-9 BSB)
We in America are a tree that is not bearing fruit. We are
so caught up in our own perceived importance and our twisted ideas of social
justice that we have forgotten that it has been the mercies of God that have
given us the bounty that we have enjoyed for many generations. But we have
ceased to be fruitful. God is digging in the ground to soften the soil. He is
applying fertilizer to encourage growth.
This is our final opportunity. We cannot continue on the
path that we are on and expect that the grace of God will continue. It is why
the Apostle Paul writes that in the last days terrible times will come.
This is dreadful news, but these are not the most terrifying
words that are written in the Bible. The most terrifying words are not spoken
to nations, they are spoken to individuals. God addresses nations and their
rulers about their sin, but in the end, it all comes down to us as people. It
comes down to you and it comes down to me. It is how we respond to God as
individuals that is the real issue.
Like a society who is walking in rebellion against God but
so proud of their enlightened views, we as individuals can put on a façade of
righteousness, but inwardly be dead and putrefying. We may be able to appear
healthy to other people, but nothing is hidden from God. He sees us as we truly
are.
“Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight;
everything is uncovered and exposed before the eyes of Him to whom we must give
account” (Hebrews 4:13 BSB).
We may think that if we put on airs of piety and hold what
we think are proper political views, we will be blessed in God’s eyes. But
these are not the things that bring the blessings of God.
The Most Terrifying Words in the
Bible
Jesus told yet another story about trees as they relate to
our lives. He again specifically speaks of fruit trees. All fruit trees may
look beautiful from a distance, but the true test of a tree is the nature of
its fruit.
Every good tree
bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad
fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear
good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, by their fruit you
will recognize them.
Not everyone who
says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who
does the will of My Father in heaven.
Many will say to Me
on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name
drive out demons and perform many miracles?’
Then I will tell
them plainly, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness!’
(Matthew 7:17-23 BSB)
There are no words that have been spoken or that will ever
be spoken that are more terrifying than those in that last day, if Jesus looks
at you and says, “Depart from Me!”
“I never knew you. Depart from Me, you workers of
lawlessness!”
Suddenly all of your self-pride and your self-righteousness
fall to the ground and mean absolutely nothing. All of your enlightened views
of society instantly vanish. Every word that you have ever spoken to justify
your actions is exposed as the lie that it is.
Grace as reached its limit. God has looked you in the eye
and has said to you, “Depart from Me!”
A Time to be Truthful
It is time for us in our Log Church to recognize the gravity
of some of our own words and some of our own actions. Bitterness exists here.
Jealousy exists here. Words of backbiting and malice have been spoken here.
There has been unhealthy criticism of one another and just plain meanness. We
hold on to grudges and we are unforgiving. I have seen it and so have you.
Unfair words of criticism have been spoken by some
individuals that have caused some others not to return to church. And on the
other side of the spectrum, these have chosen to take those words of criticism
as an indication that this is the way that everyone in church feels. They
choose to hold on to bitterness, and they stay away.
We may look at the mournful state of our nation, but I think
it is more important if we look at the mournful state of our church. I am
afraid that this past pandemic has brought out the worst in us. It has exposed
in yet another fashion our unwillingness to try to understand each other’s
opinions and concerns.
For a while we all wore masks because some said that they
would not come if we did not. They did not come anyway. Now we are not
requiring masks because some said that if we continued to do so, they would not
come. They don’t come anyway.
The entire affair is getting a little wearisome to me. We
need to learn to give each other space, and I am not talking about personal
distancing. I am talking about giving each other room to be who they are. We
need to learn to apologize, and we need to learn to give forgiveness to one
another.
The Rock of Offense
Have you noticed that in our society it is no longer enough
to simply disagree with someone else’s opinion? We now have to be “Offended” at
someone’s opinion.
“I’m offended by what you think about that!”
“I’m offended that you can back that presidential
candidate!”
“I’m offended by what it says on the hat that you’re
wearing!”
When people choose to be offended instead of simply
disagreeing, all opportunity for meaningful dialogue or a discussion disappear.
Being offended means that we have taken someone’s opinion as an attack upon
ourselves in a personal way, even though it may have nothing to do with us as a
person.
Jesus came to us and spoke to us the words of salvation and
peace. Some may have initially disagreed, but remained open to hear more. Many
of these, as they heard more, came to understand the true meaning and message
that Jesus brought to them.
But others were simply offended. These refused to have a
discussion. These ended up crucifying Jesus. These thought that the answer was
to say to Jesus, “I’m offended at your words. Depart from us!”
To these Jesus was, as Peter puts it “A stone of stumbling
and a rock of offense” (1 Peter 2:8, from Isaiah’s own writings – Isaiah 8:14).
Isaiah’s Hopeful Words
Despite Isaiah’s difficult task and despite the gravity of
the nature of the message that he was obligated to bring to the people of his
day, his book remains one of the most encouraging and hopeful books in the
Bible. It is hopeful because Isaiah writes not only about the situation of the
Israel of his day, but he shows that judgment and destruction is not God’s
final plan. In addition, he shows us that as long as we draw breath, the offer
of redemption remains open.
Wash and cleanse
yourselves. Remove your evil deeds from My sight. Stop doing evil!
Learn to do right;
seek justice and correct the oppressor.
Defend the
fatherless and plead the case of the widow.
“Come now, let us
reason together,” says the LORD. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they will
be as white as snow; though they are as red as crimson, they will become like
wool.
If you are willing
and obedient, you will eat the best of the land.” (Isaiah 1:16-19 BSB)
Getting Personal
On this July the 4th, it is time in our nation to
wash and cleanse ourselves and remove our evil deeds, but even more crucial for
us in our Log Church, it is time for us
to remove the evil from our midst. We
must discard the evil deeds and the evil thoughts. We must stop speaking evil
words. We must learn to do right.
Peter also writes of the judgment of God. “It is time for
judgment to begin,” he says. “And it begins with the family of God” (1 Peter
4:17).
We are about to participate in the Lord’s Supper. This time
of communion is not a test as to whether or not we are following the CDC’s
requirements on covid restrictions. It is a time of worship and it is a time of
introspection. We are not to look at how others are acting. We are to look at
how we, ourselves are acting. We are to judge ourselves.
Paul writes, “Now if we judged ourselves properly, we would
not come under judgment. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are being
disciplined so that we will not be condemned with the world” (1 Corinthians
11:31-32).
Let us come together and join our hearts in communion and
worship to the Lord. Judge yourself wisely. This is not social customs that we
are talking about. It’s a serious business. It is an eternal business.
Do not let the words that you hear on that last day be, “Depart
from Me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and
his angels.”
Rather, let the words of Jesus to you be, “Well done you
good and faithful servant! Enter into the joy of your Master.”(Matthew 25:41,
21)
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