Peace in God - The Text Messages

Jesus’ words in Matthew 24 begin with a question from His disciples, “When shall these things be? And what shall be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?” (Matthew 24:3) With all the things that have happened in the last year, many people think that we are living in those last days which Jesus made mention of in this chapter of Matthew’s gospel. Tucked away in almost the middle of the Lord’s words on the subject is a statement which identifies the biggest issue of our day. I don’t believe that Covid, Antifa, or who will be the next president is the biggest problem facing people and especially Christians today; Jesus identifies it right here in (Matthew 24:12):

“Because lawlessness shall abound, the love of many will grow cold.”

We live in a day of woe. A day made mention of by the prophet Isaiah through whom God said, “Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil...” (Isaiah 5:20). I have heard this verse many times and have seen times when people reversed the polarity between good and evil but in our day it has become commonplace. God’s will, word and way have been turned upside down by men who would throw off all authority be it God’s or mans. Thus, because of hate, because of wickedness in the streets, because of violence, because of evil in all its various forms and because everything has been turned upside down the love of many not only will grow cold but is doing so even now.

Are the words of Christ in (v.12) directed towards the hater, the wicked or the violent? Who’s love was Jesus referring to when He said that it would grow cold? He was referring to the love of the one professing faith in Jesus Christ and there are many people today professing to know Jesus who do not possess a relationship with Him. You see, I believe that the Christian man or woman will bear witness to their faith and that there will be evidence in their life that he or she is in fact a true believer, and of these evidences, love stands out. Jesus associated love for Him with obedience to His commands (John 14:15) and one of those commands is “Love one another. As I have loved you so you love one another.” (John 13:34) Jesus was not talking about sentimental, emotional or erotic love as the kinds of love which would grow cold in the days leading up to His return; He was speaking of something much less common – He was speaking of condition-less love. He was not speaking of the love expressed to someone who loves you or does good to you; He was not talking about the kind of love expressed to people who treat you right – He was talking about the kind of love that just loves. The reality is that we are known not so much by what we say as what we do; Jesus makes that clear in (John 13:35) where He says:

“By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Is it possible for a Christians love to grow cold? What I can say is that with the increase in lawlessness in all its forms today, a great tension has grown up in me. I am constantly needing to yield to the push back of the Holy Spirit when in my flesh I want to lash out against the evil I see with my eyes. Circumstances beyond our control can, if we let them, turn us from loving like Jesus.

What can we do?

The answer comes in remembering Who is in control and turning our eyes back onto Him. Jesus said in (John 16:33): “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” To keep Christian love from growing cold we need to turn our eyes away from one thing and onto something else. Jesus did not say that the world around us MIGHT give us trouble – He said that it WOULD and in the same breath He said, “but I have overcome the world.” What was He telling us? Was He bragging? No, He was telling every believer to focus on Him in order to overcome the troubles around them. He was telling us how we can have peace in days like these – peace within our hearts rather than around our lives. The only way a Christians love will not grow cold is if the Christian’s heart is constantly focused on Jesus.

We focus on Him when we pray. We focus on Him when we study His word. We focus on Him when we see the needs of others before we see our own needs and when we focus on Him, we trust that because He is in control and we are His, come what may to our world or to us, everything is going to be alright.

Let me circle back to something I said a little while ago; I said that the are many professing Christians who are not possessing Christians. There are may people who sentimentally and emotionally refer to themselves as Christians but who do not know Jesus, worse still, Jesus does not know them either. You cannot love like Jesus if you do not know the love of Jesus towards you. Jesus said that a day is coming when such people (those who base eternity on the wrong things), people who falsely call Him Lord will say, “We ate and drank in Your presence, and You taught in our streets.’” To which He will respond, “I tell you I do not know you, where you are from. Depart from Me, all you workers of iniquity.’” (Luke 13:26-27) Did Jesus mean that He was not aware of these people? No. He knows everything and is aware of everyone; when He tells those who falsely call Him their Lord that He does not know them He is saying that He has nothing to do with them and that He has no relationship with them.

The fact is that there is a day coming when all wrongs will be made right and when hate, evil, lawlessness and violence will be done away with, of that day, the Bible says:

“…that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2:9–11)

Are you ready for that day?

God so loved the world that He sent His son (John 3:16) and Jesus so loved His Father and us that He gave His life willingly (John 10:18) – He was killed in our place for our sin, our crimes, our iniquity and our lawless deeds so that we may believe in Him and through Him gain eternal life. Do you believe? In that day which is to come, will you bow from love and loyalty to the Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world or will you bow by force?

“Believe on the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved.” (Romans 10:13)

“You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.” (Isaiah 26:3)

Today, in the midst of a global pandemic and the overwhelming political use of it to accomplish certain goals and intentions against our nation and our faith, the population is stuck and divided between two positions: Some of us are in fear and some of us are angry – some are both.

Some of us are in fear – fear for our health and the health of our loved ones, neighbors and friends; fear for our economy and the future of our nation. Others are just angry – angry that some people don’t seem to be as afraid, alarmed or concerned as they are about the health risks concerning the virus and /or that those same people are refusing to heed the cry of the “experts” on the issue (either concerning the virus or the economy) OR they are angry with those leaders who have taken advantage of the crisis to advance their own socio-political and radical environmentalist agendas.

Both the fearful and the angry people have one thing in common – no peace.

Isaiah wrote that perfect peace is only available to those whose minds are stayed (fixed or centered on) God – such a person is at peace because he or she has placed their trust in God. That, “stayed mind” is the third position being expressed today because it takes into account and considers what God’s word says – what it predicts (or prophecies) and what it promises.

Consider this, in (Matthew 24) Jesus both predicts (prophesies) and promises that days like these would come. I say promises because according to (Isaiah 55:11) in which God declares:

“So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.”

Every word of God WILL come to pass!

In (2 Timothy 3:1-5) Paul speaks to a young minister about the “perilous times” to come and the kind of behavior and attitudes which will mark those days and be manifested through both false teachers and worldly men:

“But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away!”

In the gospel of (Luke 17:26-30), Jesus made mention of the days prior to His return characterizing them to be like the days of Noah and Lot:

“And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot: They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed.”

Was there a great revival in those days? No – they were marked by judgment.

The people ate, drank, gave their children in marriage, they bought, sold, planted, built and they were immoral – they lived but they did NOT seek God!

Some view their political party rivals as their enemy but in (Ephesians 6:12), Paul makes it clear that “we do not wrestle (war or fight) against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.”

The tension we feel and the stress upon us because of the evil we see in the world may come through or by the hand of our fellow man but it originates with Satan.

The Bible tells us how to wage a spiritual war in (2 Corinthians10:3-6). First, it says that the weapons we wage war with are NOT carnal – “we do not war according to the flesh.” We don’t mock, don’t shoot, don’t slander, don’t assault – don’t let our flesh respond to the emotional and or physical stresses upon it; instead, we bear the weapons of God and wage a spiritual warfare. We prayerfully use the word of God – even if it only assails our own attitudes rather than the issues around us. We bring EVERY thought into captivity (v.5) to the obedience of Christ! Such was Paul’s warfare, so it should also be the warfare of all who have believed in Jesus Christ.

The Lord Jesus Christ said in (Matthew 24:12) that “because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold.” What love, emotional love, physical love? No, more like empathy and compassion for our fellow man will grow cold. More than that, a lack of “love for the truth” (2 Thessalonians 2:10) of God – to deny His truth is to reject God. When we face oppression, the flesh wants to lash out against our oppressors but as we have seen, God would not have us to respond according to the flesh. When our answer to His word is “yeah, but…” we are NOT loving His truth! I think that this is part of what the “apostasy” which Paul mentions in (2 Thessalonians 2:3) looks like – a departure from loving God and the people He created AS WELL as a rejection of His authority and truth.

Both are taking place today!

Somehow, those of us clinging to either fear or anger in response to the world around us MUST return to seeing this world and reacting to it in light of the words and promises of God rather than the carnality of our emotions.

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