Matthew 24:10, “And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another.”
By this point, the followers of Christ are already being
delivered up to tribulation and killed. They are already hated by all nations for
His name’s sake, so who will be those that will be offended, become betrayers,
and hate?
What will trigger the offense? What will precipitate the
betrayal?
Strangers have never betrayed me because they were strangers.
I did not know them and never allowed them within my circle of trust. However,
a handful of people I considered friends or brothers in Christ have. Betrayal
of any sort presupposes a relationship and an existing trust between the
betrayer and the individual being betrayed. For someone to betray your
confidence, you must first allow them into your confidence.
The same goes for those being offended. The world already
trivializes believers; they’re already offended by the moral positions we hold
or the objections we have regarding sin, hedonism, debauchery, and a myriad of
other things that the godless see nothing wrong with. Those who live in darkness
are perpetually offended by the light, because it is as an unnatural environment
to them as the darkness ought to be for those in the light. That the goalpost
for what is deemed normal, natural, healthy, productive, or decent is being
moved at a dizzying pace is a conversation for another time.
So who will be these many that will be offended if not those
of the world? At this juncture, I have to step away from my laptop and consider
whether we should rip the band-aid off in one smooth motion or try to pull it
off gently and slowly. Either way, it’s going to sting.
I’m fully aware that we are living in the most easily
offended generation to ever walk the earth with people actively looking for
reasons to be offended, but that does not explain away what Jesus said and that
He once again used the word ‘many’ to describe those who would be offended. The
demarcation between the godless who will persecute the godly is made clear in
Christ’s words. If we account for the current spiritual climate of the church
and the extrabiblical doctrines they’ve embraced as gospel truth, it becomes
painfully apparent who the offended party will be and what will trigger their
offense.
I keep returning to Christ’s
first warning as a touchpoint of sorts. It is repeated throughout the chapter,
even describing the various iterations that would appear as time progresses.
There will be false christs, false teachers, false prophets, some even
performing great signs and wonders, yet through it all, the message of the hour
is to take heed that no one deceives you.
What of those who did not take
heed? What of those who built their spiritual houses and pinned their entire
hope and expectation of the future and their place in it on fables and
doctrines contrary to the Word of God and the words of Jesus?
What if rather than an easy ride
in the first-class cabin with no want or desire out of reach, lack and need,
and persecution was the thing they were confronted with? What if everything
happened in diametrical opposition to their expectations, and as things got
worse, they heard that any day now, the wealth of the wicked would be
transferred into their outstretched palms, and the only thing that happened is
that they got deeper into debt while the prosperity ship never docked in their
port of call? Throughout their descent into poverty, those making the promises
of thousandfold returns - because hundredfold returns would barely get those
they conned back to even - never seemed to miss a meal, drove ever newer and
more expensive cars, and those they fleeced wouldn’t be allowed to walk the grounds
of their gated communities, much less own a home in the development?
But hey, at least they had the
promise of being caught up before things got really bad to cling to. Surely,
their preferred evangelists couldn’t have been wrong about that. Granted, they
never pointed to a Bible passage that supported their theory, and the closest
they came was the church not being mentioned after the sixth chapter of
Revelation, but there was an almost unanimous consensus, and nine out of ten of
the most brilliant theological minds agreed on this singular theory.
Yes, Jesus talked about those
who endure to the end being saved and said that at the end of all these things,
and after the tribulation of those days, the sign of the Son of Man would
appear in heaven, but they explained that away by sighting translation
irregularities from the Greek and Hebrew.
To be honest, I’d be offended,
too. If everything I was led to believe about the last days of the world and
the church’s role in it turned out to be wrong, I’d be highly offended, and it
would take great effort to keep the bitterness I felt from consuming me
utterly.
This morning, I had to leave the
house early. By early, I mean before anyone else was up. Just because I wasn’t
present and accounted for when my wife and daughters woke up, it doesn’t mean
they automatically assumed I no longer existed or was gone for good. I just
wasn’t there when they woke up. They didn’t call the police and report me as a
missing person or start converting my den into a trampoline room.
Even without the words of Jesus
standing in stark contrast to the assertions that because the church isn’t
mentioned after Revelation 6, it’s no longer here, it would be an untenable
leap of logic. We’re trying to prove a negative without any substantiating
evidence other than our hope and desire that this is how things will play out.
I go weeks without mentioning or talking to people I know. This does not mean
they no longer exist or have ceased to be earthbound.
It started going south when Jesus
was no longer the end-all and be-all for the believer. Men who had no desire to
humble themselves, repent, or submit to God’s authority were drawn to the
promises of earthly treasures via prosperity or of finding their one true love
via men’s insistence that their mate is in reserve, God’s just waiting for them
to be a giver so He could reciprocate in kind, and countless other things which
omitted Christ, loving Him, serving Him, and worshipping Him as the singular
ideal.
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