Standing Firm in the End Times (Part 1)
Matthew 24:9-14
March 15, 2009
Me: I’ve never been a person who seeks out hard times or rough situations. I’ve had a lot of them, but it’s been those times where I’ve felt God’s presence and His strengthening to help me move on and do what I needed to do.
One example of this was when my wife and I lived in Florida. I had taken a job as the assistant manager of a Christian bookstore.
Four months into that job I was fired. It’s safe to admit that now that I’ve been here almost 9 years, right? Okay. That was about 18 years ago, by the way. I’ve had a good bit of success in jobs since then, and that was the only time I’ve been fired.
Anyway, I remember holding my little daughter, Dani, on my chest as I laid on our couch, tears going down my face and wondering how I was going to provide for my family.
While I was laying there, though, God spoke to my heart, and I knew that He loved me and wanted to care for me, if I would just let Him.
I knew everything would be okay, and the next day I was looking for a job, with the goal of having something concrete within a week.
God gave me the fortitude I needed at the time. It was still tough after that. We had to go on food stamps, Medicaid, and the job I found made me work 12+ hour days with little or no break, even for meals. It was not good, and when we found we could move back home to Brookings we jumped at it.
Coming home without a job presents its own challenges. But I determined, that with the help of God, I would have a job within a week. As it turned out, I had one that very afternoon we returned home.
One of the reasons I could do these things was because I knew that God would take care of me.
I could stand firm in the face of hardship because God was with me and I knew I could count on Him to help me fulfill my Scriptural obligation to provide for my family.
We: We rarely look forward to hard times, I think.
I’m not talking about looking for challenges – that’s a natural thing. I’m talking about looking for opportunities to suffer.
Jesus says we’re going to suffer, if we’re serious about living for Him in a world that hates Him.
Can we stand firm in the midst of that? Can we trust God to help us face these times?
I believe we can, and over these next two messages I hope to show you that we can lean on God to help us meet the hard times, whether it’s the rough and tumble life we happen to live in now, or it’s the harsh atmosphere of the end times, should they come our way in our lifetimes.
God: We’re continuing to work our way through the gospel of Matthew, and we’ve just started chapter 24, where Jesus begins to describe what He calls the birthing pains indicating the coming of the end times.
He’s not saying that these things mean the end times are upon us, but that they are coming, just as when labor pains start for a woman, you know the baby is coming, although you don’t know just when the baby will arrive.
We’re picking it up in verse 9 and reading through verse 14.
Matthew 24:9-14 (p. 701) –
9 “Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. 10 At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, 11 and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. 12 Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, 13 but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. 14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”
Five indications of what is to come:
Again, we’re not saying that seeing these things means that the end is upon us, but rather that the end is coming.
We simply don’t know the date and hour, and I’m willing to take Jesus’ word on the idea that we don’t need to know.
What we do need to know is that this stuff is coming so we can be ready for it, okay?
The first indication that the end is coming is…
* Increase of persecution. (v. 9)
People will be arrested, tortured, and even put to death for their faith in Christ.
Persecution is nothing new to the Church of Jesus. It’s been around since the beginning, when the Stephen was made the first martyr.
Our brothers and sisters in China, the Sudan, and other places are like, “Persecution? Tell us something we don’t know.”
Jesus tells us that persecution and martyrdom will be coming on a global scale.
“You will be hated by all nations because of me.” (v. 9)
Jesus said in John 15 that people will hate us because they hated Him. Persecution is part of the package of being a believer and follower in Jesus.
Here in America we don’t get real persecution but I believe that that’ll change, if Jesus is telling the truth here, and whattya know – I think He is.
The day is coming when persecution will be all over the world.
And at that time you’ll find out who the real believers are. False Christians will fall away, and in fact will be involved in the second thing Jesus talks about here in this passage, which is…
* Betrayal from within the Church. (v. 10)
“At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other…”
Here is what I think may hurt the most for those who experience this persecution.
Someone they know in the Church – a supposed brother or sister in the faith will betray them to those who do the persecuting.
Part of it will be because they are afraid of the persecution. They’ll see that life is much more comfortable if you’re not a Christian, and so they’ll distance themselves from their Christian acquaintances and from Christ Himself.
They’ll reject Jesus altogether and sell out the faithful.
The third indicator that the end times are on the way is that there will be…
* Deception by false prophets. (v. 11)
Not only will false messiahs try to deceive the world (v. 5), false prophets are going to surface within the community of the Church around the world to try to deceive Jesus’ followers.
Verse 11 here says –
“…many false prophets will appear and deceive many people.”
The apostle John warns about deceptive voices both within the church and in the world (1 John), and we’re supposed to test these people according to whether or not they acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah in the flesh (also 1 John).
This same test will be employed throughout this age to test cults and false theology, but sadly, these false prophets will deceive many. (NIVAC)
The thing about these false prophets is that they’ll be really good about hiding the error in the midst of some truth.
It’s not like they’re going to be real obvious.
“The true path to God is mayonnaise. Worship the mayonnaise and offer yourself as the bologna sandwich upon which it can manifest itself…”
As I mentioned last week, they will call on certain parts of the truth to disguise their falsehoods.
Here’s the fourth indication of the impending end times, and I doubt this’ll be a surprise to anybody here:
* An increase in sin. (v. 12)
“Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold,…”
I don’t think that there is any denying that wickedness is growing in the world, particularly in regard to sexual sin, in my opinion.
It’s a sad day when it’s big deal on the national news when someone does something good and heroic, because the rest of the news is filled with bad stuff, especially crime.
But that’s reality nowadays, isn’t it?
And this wickedness will cause the love of those who don’t really love Jesus to grow cold.
And where there is no love, there can be no holiness and righteousness in that person.
But in this same passage, Jesus gives us a piece of good news regarding the Kingdom and the gospel of Christ, and that is the fifth indication that the end times are on their way:
* The spread of the gospel of Jesus around the world. (v. 14)
Look at verse 14 with me –
“And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”
Now isn’t that amazing? In spite of increased wickedness, in spite of betrayal within the church, in spite of the deception by false apostles, the name of Jesus and the good news of forgiveness of sins and a home in heaven will go around the world.
Even in spite of persecution – and maybe even because of it, according to some, the gospel of Jesus will be taken to the whole world.
People are going to continue to hear about Jesus and put their faith in Him, in spite of all the hardships experienced by believers.
That’s good news. The Kingdom won’t be stopped, and God’s purposes won’t be thwarted by the evil that’s coming.
That’s because we serve a mighty God, folks!
Okay.
So what are we supposed to do in the midst of all this? Stand firm.
Verse 13 –
“…but he who stands firm to the end will be saved.
We’re supposed to stand firm so that we might be saved.
Let me clarify some things about the words of Jesus saying about being saved here:
* First, Jesus is not saying we’ll be saved from death by persecution.
Countless numbers of people have died through persecution, and every one of the guys hearing this would be put to death because of Jesus, with the exception of Judas, who killed himself, and John, who lived to be a very old man, although he was persecuted and suffered physically for his faith.
* Second, Jesus is not saying that we earn our salvation into heaven by standing firm.
That would be earning our salvation and Scripture is clear that we can’t do that, either.
* Third, if I could boil down what the conservative commentators are saying, the consensus seems to be that standing firm to the end saves a person from the end of the wicked. They won’t suffer spiritual or eternal loss. (LACNT)
You: One of my plans for this message was to give you some ways to help you stand firm in hard times, particularly if the end times arrive while we’re still around.
But as I was working, I realized that I had enough to share with you today, and so we’re going to look at those things next week.
Today all I want to tell you is to simply be aware. That’s the goal of today’s message. Be aware.
Part of the despair I felt when I lost my job in Florida was that I was facing unknown territory. I had never been fired before, I was thousands of miles from South Dakota, not a lot of friends, and not a lot of prospects for feeding my family. I wasn’t really aware of what I was facing, for the most part.
So really, the main thing for today is simply not to be surprised.
Next week I’m going to give some more “ABC, 123” kinds of things to help us with that, but for today, I just want us to be aware so we can prepare.
We: One of the things that I think will be a hallmark of these times will be fear. Those who aren’t aware of what Christ says – both the good and the bad, will be afraid of what’s coming.
But I’m also convinced that those whose faith in Christ is genuine will be able to face the hard times.
Sure they’ll be scary. This isn’t Disney cartoons Jesus is talking about. This is hard stuff.
But for those in Christ, it can be a time for us to show the world that our confidence isn’t in world events, but in Christ alone.
That we can face the hard times, both now and when the end times come our way, not because we’re super-human or because we’ve got some super secret to standing firm, but because we have a hope.
A hope in Christ that nothing can take away if we cling to it. A hope that says one day all this will be history, Christ will be King, and we’ll be in His presence forever more.
God grant us a tenacious hold on that hope. Let’s pray.
