Warning Signs
By John Fast
“But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come.” – 2 Timothy 3:1
The second and third chapters of the final book of the Bible, the Book of Revelation, consist of seven letters to seven different churches that once existed in what is now modern day Turkey. Five of these letters contain severe warnings in which Jesus Christ calls these churches to repent of some false doctrine or practice or else face the judgment which He threatens. Jesus’ warnings are never empty threats as history has proven over and over. When the Apostle Paul was leaving the Ephesian elders, never to see them again, his final parting words were words of warning (Ac 20:28-31). It is a principle found throughout the Bible that God does not send His judgments upon any people unless in His grace, mercy, and compassion He first gives them ample and repeated warnings. He alerts His people to approaching dangers, trials, and sufferings before they actually experience them, “Surely the Lord God does nothing unless He reveals His secret counsel to His servants the prophets” (Am 3:7).
God forewarned Adam and Eve of the judgment that would befall them if they ignored His command and ate of the forbidden fruit. God warned the world for 120 years, through the preaching of Noah and his building of the ark, of His coming judgment of a world-wide flood that destroyed the world that then was (Hb 11:7). He warned Israel of the devastating curses they would suffer if they violated His covenant which He had made with them at Mt. Sinai (Lv 26:14-43; Dt 28:15-68). He sent His prophets to warn the Northern Kingdom of Israel of their destruction by the Assyrian Empire (2 Kgs 17:13-18). He sent His prophets again and again to warn the Southern Kingdom of Judah of their captivity by the Babylonians, “And the Lord has sent to you all His servants the prophets again and again, but you have not listened nor inclined your ear to hear” (Jer 25:4; cf. Jer 35:15). Read the book of Lamentations for yourself to see how unsparing God’s judgment was upon His own people, all because they refused to heed His gracious and repeated warnings, “For the Lord has caused her grief because of the multitude of her transgressions;” (Lam 1:5); “The Lord has become like an enemy, He has swallowed up Israel” (Lam 2:5). Read how even His faithful servant Jeremiah suffered as a result of God’s wrath on His chosen people, “I am the man who has seen affliction because of the rod of His wrath….I have become a laughingstock to all my people, their mocking song all the day” (Lam 3:1, 14).
In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, the rich man pleaded with Abraham to send Lazarus back from the dead to warn his brothers, “lest they also come to this place of torment” (Lk 16:28). Despite all of his pleadings, he was told that his brothers already had all the warnings they needed, “They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them…If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone rises from the dead” (Lk 16:29, 31). The Bible contains ample and sufficient warnings and examples. The rich man had no reason to expect any special, personal, private, or extraordinary extra-biblical warning or revelation to be given to his brothers, and neither do we, especially since we have not only Moses and the Prophets, but the entire canon of Scripture, both the Old and New Testaments.
Paul warned the Corinthians that the same sins that brought judgment and suffering on Israel would bring the same suffering on professing believers (1Cor 10:6-11), as did the author of Hebrews (Hb 3:14-4:6). The same sins that brought God’s judgment on others in the past will still bring His wrath today. What was the ultimate sin that brought such suffering and hardship to God’s people? It was the sin of disobedience and unbelief, “And to whom did He swear that they should not enter His rest, but to those who were disobedient? And so we see that they were not able to enter because of unbelief” (Hb 3:18, 19); ….those who had good news preached to them failed to enter because of disobedience” (Hb 4:6). Their unbelief and disobedience was not from any innocent ignorance of truth, or from a lack of truth, but just the opposite; they “had good news preached to them”. And what lesson were these New Testament believers to draw from God’s dealings with Old Testament Israel? “Therefore, let us fear lest, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you should seem to have come short of it” (Hb 4:1). The same disobedience will bring the same judgment.
Two Sides of the Same Coin
Unbelief and disobedience go hand in hand. They are two sides of the same coin. No one will obey what they do not truly believe. No one will trust in what they doubt is trustworthy, so they will place their trust in something else, “This is your lot, the portion measured to you from Me,” declares the Lord, “because you have forgotten Me and trusted in falsehood” (Jer 13:25). Those who deny that God will carry out His threats of judgment for disobedience cannot really trust that God will fulfill His promises for blessing. They may profess to believe and to have a kind of faith, but it is not the faith which the Bible describes. It is not obedience that gives life to faith, but true faith will always produce obedience along with all the other fruit of the Spirit. Reader, beware of any teaching or teacher that attempts to separate faith and obedience, or that tries to define obedience as anything other than conformity to the commands of God. It is true that obedience cannot save your soul. It cannot justify you in the sight of a holy God. It cannot wipe out or make amends for your sin. It cannot deliver you from the wrath of God. It cannot earn you any spiritual merit badges with God (Lk 17:10). But just because obedience cannot save you does not mean it is of no importance. The person who thinks so is terribly deceived.
Faith does not exist in isolation from what is inseparable from it. Water is composed of H2O, and these are indispensable to the substance of water. If one of these properties are removed or altered then what we are left with is no longer water. If something is added which pollutes and corrupts then the water is no longer pure but putrefied. Likewise, there are certain properties that are inseparable from and indispensable to true saving faith. These qualities are not themselves faith, any more than O without H2 is water, but they are inseparable from true faith, one of them being a sincere heartfelt desire and active effort to be obedient to all the commands of God, motivated by a sincere and thankful love for God. To the one who truly loves and trusts in Jesus Christ, “His commandments are not burdensome” (1 Jn 5:3). Despite much modern teaching by popular preachers to the contrary, the commands of Christ cannot be reduced to His one commandment to love one another. Jesus said, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” (Jn 14:15). The word “commandments” is plural, not singular. The apostle Paul taught, “Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but what matters is the keeping of the commandments of God” (1 Cor 7:19). Such obedience is inseparable from and indispensable to true saving faith.
True faith is not a dead, inactive faith, but a living, abiding, and growing principle of new spiritual life. It is a complete transference of trust from self and others to the person of Jesus Christ and His word. It is not faith in faith that saves, or believing that you believe, but faith in Jesus Christ; the faith that is a gift of God and not from ourselves (Eph 2:8). He is the author and perfecter of faith (Hb 12:2), and as such excludes any conception of faith which makes it an attribute that is inherent, dormant, or partially existing in us. It does not come from our own strength and virtue. It is not something that is innate within us, but it is a gratuity from God in the course of His saving work, and given only to those who are graciously chosen of God to receive it (2 Th 2:13). The saving power of faith does not reside in itself, but in the Person in whom it rests. Salvation is never conceived as a reward for faith, nor is faith an attitude of mind that predisposes God to act in a person’s favor. It is not even, strictly speaking, faith in Christ that saves, but Christ who saves through faith. The saving power resides exclusively, not in the act of faith or the attitude of faith or the nature of faith, but in the object of faith. Where your soul will spend eternity, heaven or hell, will depend, not upon your religion, your morality, good works, the church you attend or the popular preachers, traditions, and opinions you follow, but upon the object of your faith; upon who and what you are trusting for your salvation. It is a trust so strong that no trial, no sufferings, no apparent circumstances to the contrary, no failure, no human reason and wisdom, or no arguments can shake it. This faith is always contrasted, not with unbelief, but with disobedience, “He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation” (Hb 5:9).
Right at the Door
God has given us ample and sufficient warnings in His word; warnings which we are to heed, believe, trust, and obey by faith. It was, “By faith Noah, being warned by God about things not yet seen, in reverence prepared an ark for the salvation of his household, by which he condemned the world,” (Hb 11:7). We have the most obvious and certain signs of a dangerous season and approaching calamities. If they come upon us unawares, the fault must lie with our own inexcusable negligence, carnal security, willful ignorance, and unbelief. We have an immutable principle of Scripture to govern our thoughts in this matter, and it is this: When the same sins that brought down God’s wrath on one nation are found in another, it is a certain sign that God’s judgment is right at the door, because God is unchanging in His nature, holiness, and justice and will not tolerate in one people what He has punished in another, nor bless in one age what He has cursed in another.
It is this very principle which was the basis for Paul’s warning to the church in Corinth; a warning drawn from God’s dealings with Old Testament Israel, “Now these things happened as examples for us, that we should not crave evil things, as they also craved…Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the end of the ages has come” (1 Cor 10:6, 11). Paul points back to all the dead bodies of the Israelites scattered in the wilderness to serve as a warning to present day professing Christians, “And do not be idolaters, as some of them were… Nor let us act immorally, as some of them did… Nor let us try the Lord, as some of them did… Nor grumble, as some of them did” (1 Cor 10:7-9). If you follow the same coarse then expect to receive the same curse. If you tread the same paths, then you must expect the same judgments. If you live in the same unbelief and disobedience, then you cannot avoid the same punishments. God today is as righteous, holy, and just as He was then. He hates sin as much now as He did then. He will punish disobedience and unbelief now as much as He did then; even more because such unbelief is perpetrated in the face of much greater light and blessings than they had.
There is no form of ignorance more full of pride, obstinacy, futility, and folly as a willful ignorance; an ignorance which people persist in and cling to in the face of an abundance of light, knowledge, and warnings. He who is in the dark when the sun is blazing in the sky must be totally blind. He who is blind to the obvious forewarnings of God is willfully blind. Such was the ignorance of the scribes and Pharisees. Such is the ignorance of those who ignore and deny God’s clear warnings, commands, and prohibitions. Such is the ignorance of those who deny God’s less severe present judgments and scoff at the warning they are meant to convey of more severe judgments to come. And such is the ignorance of spiritual truth that exists today, even among the mass of professing Christians. Prejudicial, stubborn, and prideful beyond description, and maintaining its darkness at noon day; expressly refusing to yield to the authority of Scripture light and heed its warnings, but like unreasoning animals are driven by their own lusts, desires, preferences, and self-interests.
Provocations to Wrath
Let us then consider what it was that provoked God to poor out His wrath on His own Israel; a people that were the apple of His eye; a people whom He showed more patience toward than any other nation in the world; a people whom He loved with a love greater than that of a mother for her child, “Can a woman forget her nursing child, and have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, but I will not forget you” (Is 49:15). Let us consider these provocations so we may determine what is to be the fate of this evil and provoking generation in which we live, and I am certain we will find from the testimony of Scripture that these provocations were the immediate causes of all Israel’s sufferings, hardships, and ultimate partial judicial hardening that exists to this day (Rm 11:25).
First, it was the great corruption of God’s worship, both by adding their own inventions, traditions, and doctrines of man, and by their assimilating and integrating the philosophies and practices of the pagan cultures around them, that kindled the wrath of God and brought about the ruin of Israel. Nothing will so grieve the heart of a husband than unfaithfulness on the part of his wife. Israel was a perpetual spiritual harlot always chasing after other lovers, “with all her idols she defiled herself. And she did not forsake her harlotries from the time in Egypt;…Therefore, I have given her into the hand of her lovers, into the hands of the Assyrians, after whom she lusted….Because you have forgotten Me and cast Me behind your back, bear now the punishment of your lewdness and harlotries” (Ezk 23:8-9, 35). Sadly, there is not a more fitting description of the bulk of what passes for the worship practiced by the mass of churches today. Everything from ritualism and rote liturgy, to choreographed and entertainment-driven performances, to psychologized, ego-boosting, and self-affirming messages, to the crass and greedy commercialization of Christianity, to assimilating and integrating the practices, values, and wisdom of the world, to the acceptance of the most flagrant disobedience and worldliness as being compatible with Christianity – the worship of God for the most part has degenerated into the carnal and adulterous worship of the idols of the culture and the idols of self and the world. Because the mass of churches and the people who belong to them have lusted after the things of this world, it is to be feared that God has given them into the hand of their lovers after whom they lusted.
The fact that God has allowed in various times and places material and temporal blessings to fall into the hands of people who have exploited, desecrated, plundered, abused, and polluted them cannot be denied. Likewise, what is there in the way of His truth, His means, His gospel, and His worship that God, in some season or another, has not delivered over to the men and women of this world to abuse, corrupt, exploit, and pervert for their own destruction, and the destruction of those who persist in following them (1 Pt 2:8; 2 Pt 2:3; Jude 11-13)? Today multitudes of people and organizations are obsessed with saving the planet from the corruptions of man, but precious few show any concern for reclaiming God’s truths and worship from the practices and errors that have corrupted them. The difficulties of reaching people steeped in absolute falsehood with the good news of Jesus Christ are nothing compared to those encountered in striving to reach people who cling to forms of perverted, corrupted, and adulterated truth. In all forms it is the same – prayer, praise, love, grace, faith, worship – all are perverted, and yet the name is retained. No people can contrive a faster way to their own ruin than to bring their own inventions and doctrines into God’s worship.
Second, it was a false confidence and dreamy security that they were right with God, despite the fact that they openly lived in and practiced disobedient, worldly, and sinful lives which grew worse with each passing generation, “Now it will come about when you tell this people all these words that they will say to you, “For what reason has the Lord declared all this great calamity against us? And what is our iniquity, or what is our sin which we have committed against the Lord our God?’ Then you are to say to them, ‘It is because your forefathers have forsaken Me….You too have done evil, even more than your forefathers; for behold, you are each one walking according to the stubbornness of his own evil heart, without listening to Me,” (Jer 16:10-12). Refusing to submit to any authority other than their own mind, they imagined themselves to be living in a right relationship with God, and therefore they saw no particular reason why God should be angry with them.
Likewise with the church of Laodicea; their self-confident assessment of their spiritual condition was the polar opposite to that of Jesus’. They thought they were rich and in need of nothing, but He who knows the heart accused them of being “wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked” (Rv 3:17). They considered themselves to be in perfect health, but the Physician of the soul diagnosed them as being dangerously sick. Jesus’ declaration, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock” (Rv 3:20), is usually turned on its head to make it out to be an evangelistic appeal, but it is not. This is not the connotation which first century Christians would have drawn from this word picture. Why would Jesus give an evangelistic appeal to people who were persuaded they were eminent Christians? No, they would have understood it as presented by James, “behold, the Judge is standing right at the door” (Jm 5:9), and from the Gospels, “recognize that He is near, right at the door” (Mt 24:33; Mk 13:29; Lk 12:36). It is a warning of certain and imminent judgment if they do not heed His warning and repent of their false, self-confident, and carnal security. The security of many of the Jewish leaders was based on nothing more solid than the persuasion that they had Abraham for their father, even though in reality they were a brood of vipers (Mt 3:7-9). To continue to cling to a false security while living in open disobedience to the commands of God, even when given repeated warnings, is a great provocation that will inevitably bring down the wrath of God.
Third, incorrigible obstinacy and unrepentance under milder calamities and lesser judgments will pave the way for total ruin and destruction. The prophet Jeremiah complained, “O Lord, do not Your eyes look for truth? You have smitten them, but they did not weaken; You have consumed them, but they refused to take correction. They made their faces harder than rock; they have refused to repent” (Jer 5:3). The prophet Amos ministered during a time of great national optimism in Israel. Business was booming and borders were expanding. Materially the nation was prospering and economic and military circumstances were almost ideal. During this time Israel’s enemies were comparatively weak, therefore the people of Israel found it hard to take Amos’ warning of God’s judgment seriously. Their prosperity only increased their materialism, worldliness, immorality, and false security. Their sins were heaped as high as heaven; empty ritualism, exploitation of the poor, idolatry, deceit, self-righteousness, arrogance, greed, materialism, worldliness, ostentatious self-indulgence, and a callous disregard for God’s gracious warnings. True worship had been replaced by hypocritical, man-centered religious activities, creating a false sense of security and an increasing callousness to God’s divine discipline, “But I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities and lack of bread in all your places, Yet you have not returned to Me,” declares the Lord. “And furthermore, I withheld the rain from you while there was still three months until harvest. Then I would send rain on one city and on another city I would not send rain; one part would be rained on, while the part not rained on would dry up…Yet you have not returned to Me,” declares the Lord (Am 4:6-12).
Five times in these verses God declares “Yet you have not returned to Me”. Scarcity, drought, pestilence, plagues, death, destruction, the very things we now attribute to “climate change”, were all tried on them, but nothing could drive them to their knees. The prophet Hosea, who ministered to Israel during the same time as Amos, identified the reason for their obstinacy, “Their deeds will not allow them to return to their God, for a spirit of harlotry is within them, and they do not know the Lord” (Hos 5:4). They did not know the holy and righteous nature and character of God. They imagined Him to be something other than He really is. Their own self-interests, fleshly-indulgences, and worldly lifestyles were utterly dependent on maintaining and defending their false system of religion and their own conception of God. The personal costs involved in repentance would not allow them to return to their God, so they remained recalcitrant in their false system of religion that accommodated their idols, lusts, and self-interests, “Ephraim is oppressed, crushed in judgment, because he was determined to follow man’s command” (Hos 5:11).
As a result of its hypocrisy, harlotry, and spiritual indifference the nation, like a basket of rotting fruit, was ripe for judgment (Am 8:1-3). Even the remnant that were spared God’s judgment, “like a firebrand snatched from a blaze;” (Am 4:11), even these were not brought to repentance by these milder judgments, thereby making their ultimate judgment inescapable, “Though they dig into Sheol, from there shall My hand take them; and though they ascend into heaven, from there I will bring them down, And thought they hide on the summit of Carmel, I will search them out and take them from there; and though they conceal themselves from My sight on the floor of the sea, from there I will command the serpent and it will bite them. And though they go into captivity before their enemies, from there I will command the sword that it slay them, and I will set My eyes against them for evil and not for good” (Am 9:2-4). To persistently ignore all of God’s gracious and moderate judgments is to invite and pave the way for utter ruin and desolation. Only thirty-years after Amos’ prophetic warnings were ignored the nation of Israel was ruthlessly and mercilessly decimated by the Assyrians.
God’s judgment on Israel should have served as an unmistakable warning to the Southern Kingdom of Judah, but such was not the case, “And I saw that for all the adulteries of faithless Israel,…yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear; but she went and was a harlot also….And yet in spite of all this her treacherous sister Judah did not return to Me with all her heart, but rather in deception,” (Jer 3:8, 10). Even after winnowing them with a winnowing fork, they still refused to repent, “And I will winnow them with a winnowing fork at the gates of the land; I will bereave them of children, I will destroy My people; they did not repent of their ways” (Jer 15:7). After 150 years of further warnings and lesser judgments, the Southern Kingdom also, along with the Temple and the city of Jerusalem, were brutally decimated by the Babylonians and the surviving remnant taken into captivity, “And I will abandon the remnant of My inheritance and deliver them into the hand of their enemies, and they shall become as plunder and spoil to all their enemies; because they have done evil in My sight, and have provoked Me to anger, since the day their fathers came from Egypt, even to this day” (2 Kgs 21:14, 15).
The collapse of the tower in Siloam which killed eighteen people should have served as a warning that “unless you repent, you will all likewise perish” (Lk 13:4, 5). Because Israel refused to recognize the time of their visitation and remained stubbornly unrepentant under the signs, teachings, and warnings of their promised Messiah, in 70 A.D. Jerusalem, its citizens, and the Temple were mercilessly annihilated by the Romans (Lk 19:42-44). More than ordinary judgments seem necessary to break the obstinate pride and disobedience of a proud and contemptuous people.
Fourth, a complete insensitivity and blindness to the hand of God and the signs of His wrath were great provocations and forerunners of Israel’s desolation. They neither saw nor acknowledged the hand of God when it was lifted up against them, nor humbled themselves under it when it was laid on them. There may have been a fleeting recognition of God in their circumstances, but it was only vague, marginal, and temporary. “Who gave Jacob up for spoil, and Israel to plunders? Was it not the Lord against whom we have sinned, and in whose ways they were not willing to walk, and whose law they did not obey? So He poured out on him the heat of His anger and the fierceness of battle; and it set him aflame all around, yet he did not recognize it; and it burned him, but he paid no attention” (Is 24, 25); “Strangers devour his strength, yet he does not know it; gray hairs also are sprinkled on him, yet he does not know it” (Hos 7:9); “Then the Lord spoke to Manasseh and his people, but they paid no attention” (2 Chron 33:10); “O Lord, Your hand is lifted up yet they do not see it” (Is 26:11); “The righteous man perishes, and no man takes it to heart; and devout men are taken away, while no one understands (Is 57:1). When the providences of God are such that they tend towards afflictions and suffering; when the clouds of judgment gather over our heads and grow blacker and blacker as they did upon Israel, and as they do at this time, and we take no notice of them as they did, and remain insensitive, obtuse, and undiscerning to the hand of God in them and as tokens of His wrath, this will kindle the fury of God’s judgment.
It was not some small tokens of God’s anger to which they were blind, but “the heat of His anger”. It was not some milder judgment to which they paid no attention, but “the fierceness of battle”. It was not some isolated incident to which they were insensitive, but “it set him aflame all around”. Even after their return from Babylonian captivity, the priests of Israel did not take the tokens of God’s anger to heart, “If you do not listen, and if you do not take it to heart to give honor to My name,” says the Lord of hosts, “then I will send the curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings; and indeed, I have cursed them already, because you are not taking it to heart” (Mal 2:2). I want to ask you reader point-blank, are you taking all the signs of God’s anger to heart? Do you see the hand of the Lord lifted up against all our blessings? Do you recognize the anger of God in all the evil, apostasy, presumptuous security, immorality, idolatry, spiritual harlotry, deceit, greed, materialism, and lawlessness that abounds today, not just in the culture, but even among the mass of professing Christians? Or are you like the overwhelming majority of people today, even the bulk of professing Christians, who remain utterly blind and insensitive, not only to the hand of God in His tokens of judgment, but also to the enmity, hostility, willful disobedience, and unbelief that is the reason for them? Are you one of those horribly deceived people who think that everyone goes to heaven when they die? Are you among the majority who have a counterfeit faith that cannot believe in a God of wrath and judgment, or that only a few shall be saved? Are you one of those sad people who think that God would never inflict pain and suffering on anyone, even when they repeatedly provoke Him by refusing to take all of His gracious and compassionate warnings to heart? I urge you, for the sake of your precious and immortal soul, read and heed the warnings of the Bible and take them to heart and flee to Christ from the wrath to come.
Fifth, a steady, progressive, and general decay in their spiritual and moral condition was a precursor to Israel’s devastation, and a sign that judgment was right at the door. This is both a provoking sin and a harbinger of national calamity. Such was the deadness, formality, and carnality of their devotion and worship, “Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and offer sacrifices to Baal, and walk after other gods that you have not known, then come and stand before Me in this house, which is called by My name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’ – that you may do all these abominations” (Jer 7:9, 10)? They were the equivalent of what we now label “carnal” or “cultural Christians”. Their profession of faith in God never translated into any change in the way they lived day-to-day. They never demonstrated the least interest in living lives of obedience and personal holiness, but instead “now they sin more and more” (Hos 13:2). They made virtually no attempt to be separate from the pagan cultures around them. Rather they became incorrigibly syncretistic (Jer 44:16, 17), “So My people are bent on turning from Me,” (Hos 11:7). They were essentially indistinguishable from the surrounding pagan culture, even in their worship practices, except they professed a belief in the God of Israel.
The post-exilic prophet Micah declared that seventy-years of Babylonian captivity had done nothing to correct and purify Israel’s dead, heartless, and degenerate spiritual and moral condition, “But when you present the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? And when you present the lame and sick, is it not evil? Why not offer it to your governor? Would he be pleased with you? Or would he receive you kindly?” (Mal 1:8). Their captivity did nothing to cure their syncretistic ways, “Judah has dealt treacherously, and an abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem; for Judah has profaned the sanctuary of the Lord which He loves, and has married the daughter of a foreign god” (Mal 2:11).
After 400 years of prophetic silence Israel’s spiritual and moral life was just as dead, formal, carnal, and heartless, so that Jesus could say, “This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. But in vain do they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men” (Mt 15:8). They had turned the worship of God into a lucrative commercial venture that enriched the religious elite and their system of religion, “Take these things away; stop making My Father’s house a house of merchandise” (Jn 2:16). So misguided was their religious zeal that their guides and leaders would “travel about on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves” (Mt 23:15). They attempted to cloak their greed and immorality with displays of external spirituality, “You devour widows houses, even while for a pretense you make long prayers” (Mt 23:14). One sect, the Sadducees, had sunk so low that they no longer understood the Scriptures, or the power of God (Mt 22:29). Their spiritual and moral decay had reached the point to where Jesus had to characterize them as a morally evil and spiritually adulterous generation (Mt 12:39; 16:4). They had become so spiritually and morally degenerate that they had rather ascribe the works of Jesus to the devil than admit that Jesus is the Son of God to whom they owed all devotion, worship, and obedience.
For several decades now the mass of churches and professing Christians have been quietly setting aside the teachings, commands, warnings, and doctrines of the Bible in deference to the changing sensibilities of the culture, the theories of modern science and psychology, and the marketing strategies of modern business. In this way the foundational truths of Scripture are surrendered one by one. By this, worldly-minded professing Christians think to attract the worldling to Christ by being like them. What folly! What a vain delusion! This practice has not resulted in the conversion of the worldling, but in the corruption and decay of the spiritual and moral life of the church. Is this the way Jesus Christ sought to lead sinners to faith in Himself? For Jesus, “it is written” and “have you not read” was sufficient, whether speaking to sinners or devils, and He did not stoop to arguing and innovation when people rejected Him and His teachings, and when God had already spoken.
How can the attributes of love, faith, mercy, grace, goodness, kindness, compassion, honesty, loyalty, purity, and hope – attributes which the Bible extols and commands and which most people admire – survive in an age, a church, and society severed from the spiritual roots from which they grow? They cannot. Therefore cheap, humanistic, natural, corrupted, and self-serving counterfeits are gradually substituted for what is exclusively the fruit of the Spirit. They then come to vilify the genuine because it does not align with their counterfeit and carnal conceptions. Because they are unwilling to submit their conceptions and definitions to the rule and standard of the Bible they eventually degenerate to the point where they call evil good and good evil. A general spiritual decay will always evidence itself in a general moral decay, and the moral decay will be in exact proportion to the spiritual decay. A wicked, unrestrained, materialistic, and immoral society is a natural consequence and conclusive evidence of a Christianity that is spiritually compromised and corrupted, has drifted from its biblical moorings (Hb 2:1), and has been led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ (2 Cor 11:3).
One of the saddest consequences of the general spiritual and moral decay of our times is the universal “tolerance” that condones virtually every form and degree of false and corrupted doctrine and practice yet has no tolerance for sound doctrine and practical holiness. In both the church and the world, absolutes and certainty in divine things are denounced as presumption, intolerance, and pride. To say, “we know”, even though God has plainly spoken in His word, leads to hostility, opposition, censure, and ridicule. To say this or that belief, teaching, teacher, doctrine, opinion, practice, or lifestyle is false, worldly, sinful, man-centered, and cannot stand the test of Scripture, is to expose oneself to scorn, derision, and rejection from both the church and the world. To declare the plain, naked, and unadulterated facts and doctrines of the Bible as the authoritative and sufficient word of God to which all are commanded to yield, is deprecated as oppressive, tyrannical, narrow-minded, unloving, and unscholarly. But when anyone becomes convinced that the Bible, and only the Bible, is the one and only rule by which all they hear, read, and have imposed upon them must be judged and justified, and therefore the necessity of rightly knowing and understanding it, this principle then upsets at once the entire system which is now called, or thought to be, the religion of Jesus Christ held and clung to by the mass of professing Christians today. Surely nothing is more humble than to submit the heart, the mind, and the will to the authority of God’s word, and to say, “I know”, when God has clearly spoken, especially when doing so comes at a great personal cost.
When people call good things by bad names this does not make those things bad. In this age in which we live, the knowledge of true, vital, experimental, practical Christianity is so far deteriorated and lost that when the generality of professing Christians hear of it and see it they do not understand it. And because they do not understand it, they reject it under the hard and odious names they attach to it; names like “unloving, harsh, narrow-minded, opinionated, intolerant, judgmental, legalistic, irrelevant, archaic, oppressive, unfair, pietistic”, etc. The names do not reflect any bad qualities in the things to which they apply them, but only signify their dislike and rejection of them. They express their dislike of divine truth, sound doctrine, and practical holiness by the hard names they give them. Can that be bad which receives and desires to submit all to the word and will of God, trust His promises, heed His warnings, love His truth, promote His glory rather than our own, deny self and the world, forsake all sin, and suffer all things for the cause of Jesus Christ?
Today the dominant practice is to try and make “unchurched” people “churched”; to draw people into the church and then try and teach them some watered-down, man-centered doctrines or the doctrines and practices of their particular denomination and system of religion. Emotional manipulation, programs, entertainment, religious busyness, and “worship experiences” are substituted for true heartfelt devotion, the power of godliness, and personal holiness. The result is a sizeable number of people who consider themselves Christians without possessing any real knowledge or understanding of the gospel, the nature and necessity of the new birth, or aspiring to any high degree of practical Christian holiness, and who are essentially syncretistic, thereby making them, their values, their lifestyles, and their practices indistinguishable from the culture in which they live.
It is impossible to deny that the spiritual and moral condition of not only this nation in general, but of professing Christians in particular, has reached an all-time low. Carnality, immorality, worldliness, biblical ignorance, disobedience, superficial spirituality, materialism, and syncretism are the norm while holiness, obedience, purity, biblical literacy, simplicity of devotion, and godliness are the rare exception. Most seem determined to know, teach, and preach everything except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. “Growth” is the ultimate goal, not holiness, faithfulness, godliness, and simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ. When they assemble in their buildings it is to build one another up in worldliness, earthly-mindedness, self-importance, pooled ignorance, their own opinions, practices and preferences, adulterated truths, and the doctrines and teachings of men. What is to be said of the bulk of the literature that is published and consumed today, and which consistently dominates the Christian best-seller lists? It is the poorest, weakest, most self-centered, unbiblical, and downright heretical in the English language. This is the season to which we owe such theological gems as The Power of Positive Thinking, Wild at Heart, The Shack, Your Best Life Now, Jesus Calling, Heaven is Real, and Purpose Driven Life.
This is the age which has produced the seeker-sensitive movement, self-esteem theology, Liberate theology, Spiritual Formation theology, the social justice gospel, the Word of Faith heresy, and all the errors and chicanery introduced by the Charismatic movement, none of which have been more corrupting than the teaching that God is still giving new, extra-biblical revelation to people today. This is the time that has produced every kind of strange, aberrant, and blasphemous opinion, the celebrity preachers to endorse them, the willingness of people to accept them, and the technology to disseminate and propagate them as never before. This is the age that has given us the mind-numbing, repetitive, man-centered mantras that go by the name of Christian music, and that now dominate what passes for Christian worship today.
What are the morals of today compared to 100, to 75, to even 50 years ago? The answer is self-evident. Behaviors and practices that would have shocked even the most callous conscience a few decades ago are today not even considered vices, much less wicked and immoral, and no one is thought the worse for indulging in them. In fact, many are now considered virtues. This is the day in which abortion, homosexuality, and transgenderism has achieved a level of acceptability unprecedented in human history, which in itself is evidence of an unparalleled spiritual and moral decay. What was once seen for the perversions they are, now are not only accepted but fanatically protected. Many churches and even entire denominations now ordain practicing homosexuals as ministers. Fornication, cohabitation, and out of wedlock births are now commonplace, even among professing Christians. Divorce is just as common among professing believers as among unbelievers, as is the indulgence in pornography. Modesty has all but disappeared; rather, people now dress themselves in as little as possible and stuff themselves into clothing that makes them look like ten pounds of sausage shoved into a five-pound wrapper. Animals now have more rights than unborn children, and pets are given the same (or better) care and affection as people. We are insensible and blind to what was once obviously morally evil. We struggle, not to restrain and be free from these evils, but to legitimize, justify, promote, celebrate, propagate, and indulge in them without restraint, and even desensitize and indoctrinate our children in them. Nationally and culturally we are unquestionably, infinitely, and unimaginably much worse spiritually and morally now than we were even twenty years ago.
I confess this paints a very dark and gloomy picture, one which many people today do their best to whitewash. I wish it were not so. I wish that I could paint it with brighter colors. But facts are stubborn things, especially facts of which there are an abundance of written historical records against which we can contrast the spiritual and moral condition of today. It is not that there are no bright spots, but the effect and influence they have on the general spiritual and moral decay that characterizes the bulk of professing Christianity is infinitesimal. This spiritual and moral decay is an exceedingly provoking sin because it is a sin against known truth. It is a general decay from an objective standard of righteousness to a subjective standard; even to the point where something as obviously objective as a person’s gender is now alleged to be subjective and where everyone does what is right in their own eyes. This spiritual and moral decay is not the result of an innocent ignorance or absence of truth, but of a willful and purposeful corruption, adulteration, ignorance, and rejection of truth which will invite the wrath of God today just as it did in the past, “It is your destruction, O Israel, that you are against Me, against your help” (Hos 13:9).
Sixth, Israel’s persecution of God’s faithful servants, both ministers and people, was another sin that secured, and was a warning sign that foretold the destruction of their nation. Persecution can take many forms. Very little persecution involves actual physical violence. Often it takes the form of ridicule, apathy, marginalization, and ostracization, “And the Lord, the God of their fathers, sent word to them again and again by His messengers, because He had compassion on His people and on His dwelling place; but they continually mocked the messengers of God, despised His words and scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against His people, until there was no remedy” (2 Chron 36:15, 16); “They hate him who reproves in the gate, and they abhor him who speaks with integrity” (Am 5:10); “because for me the word of the Lord has resulted in reproach and derision all day long” (Jer 20:9). Sometimes it consists in attempting to corrupt and pressure into compromising biblical truths and principles, “When Israel remained at Shittim, the people began to play the harlot with the daughters of Moab, for they invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods” (Num 25:1, 2); “And in all this, they are surprised that you do not run with them into the same excess of dissipation, and they malign you” (1 Pt 4:4). Sometimes it is by false accusations, slander, exaggerations, misrepresentations, or imputing ulterior and malicious motives, “they have persecuted me with a lie,” (Ps 119:86).
How many people today, be they Christians or not, have been blackballed, passed over, demoted, brow-beaten, bullied, and even lost their jobs all because they dared to voice their conviction that it was morally wrong to give preferential treatment to people based on their deviant lifestyles? How many have had their lives ruined because as a matter of conscience they refused to be a party to a homosexual “marriage”? How many careers have been destroyed because someone dared to voice their conviction that homosexuality and transgenderism is immoral and degenerate, and that those who practice such things will not enter the kingdom of God? How many employers have made it crystal clear that unless their employees sear their consciences and wholeheartedly affirm behaviors and practices that would have once been obviously immoral but are now embraced by the culture, that their life will be made miserable and their job will be tenuous? How many Christians must now endure the snide remarks, the constant stream of profanity, and the lude, lascivious, and pornographic conversations of not only unbelieving co-workers, but oftentimes from professing Christians who would rather sin than suffer?
How many faithful pastors have lost their ministries because they dared to confront the sin of some prominent person in the church, or because they had the audacity to actually take the Bible seriously and exercise biblical church discipline against an obstinate and unrepentant church member, or because they attempted to correct some unbiblical and erroneous practice that had become entrenched in the church? How many pastors have experienced the mass exodus of people from their ministry when they sought to faithfully teach the mind of God on salvation, sanctification, holiness, the biblical roles of men and women, parents, worldliness, or any other unpopular subject, and then had all sorts of slander, misrepresentations, and false accusations plastered on social media? How many faithful saints have been labeled a troublemaker because they dared to question some unbiblical practice and teaching in a church or simply asked, “Is that what the Bible teaches”? Yes, persecution against God’s faithful servants, while not as intense as in many other places in the world, is nonetheless widespread and overt in this nation, both in and out of the professing church. Cain is always ready to persecute Abel, “because his deeds were evil, and his brother’s were righteous” (1Jn 3:12). Once again “he who turns aside from evil makes himself a prey” (Is 59:15). This is an unmistakable warning of devastating judgments yet to come from the hand of God.
Surely it is abundantly plain to anyone with eyes to see that all these provocations which brought the threatened punishments of God upon His beloved people Israel, to say nothing of His judgment upon the gentile nations which surrounded them, are now the new norm. When such evidences of God’s indignation are seen to be upon any people, the Lord, by them, is warning that His more severe judgments are near, even right at the door. What provoked God’s judgment in the past will provoke it in the present. These things are meant to serve as warnings of more severe and ruinous judgments yet to come on all who refuse to heed them, humble themselves under the mighty hand of God, and repent of their false securities, carnal worship, corrupted doctrines, worldliness, idolatries, immoralities, and evil ways. But for the Lord’s true children His command is clear, “Let not your hearts be troubled”. The servants of Christ are called to live and proclaim His gospel, call sinners to repentance and faith, seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, set their hearts and minds on the things above where Christ is, not on the things of this earth, to live as citizens of heaven, and leave all other concerns to Him, entrusting “their souls to a faithful Creator in doing what is right” (1Pt 4:19).
Reasons for These Warnings
If you should ask why God normally gives such warnings of His more severe blows and judgments, the reasons are:
To prevent their execution
To make them more tolerable to His true saints
To remove all excuses from the recalcitrant and incorrigible
First, God sends His warning judgments to prevent the execution of His more severe and destructive judgments. The prophet Ezekiel was commanded to proclaim to the Jews already exiled in Babylon, “Say to them, ‘As I live!’ declares the Lord God, ‘I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn back from his way and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil ways! Why then will you die, O house of Israel?” (Ezk 33:11). This was the design of God for sending Jonah to the great city of Nineveh, at the time the mightiest city on earth with walls 100 feet high and wide enough to accommodate three chariots side-by-side. In addition it had at intervals towers that extended another 100 feet above the walls, was surrounded by a moat 150 feet wide and 60 feet deep, and could withstand a twenty-year siege. It was the capital of the most powerful gentile nation on earth, Assyria, and Israel’s archenemy. There was not a more wicked and brutal people than the Assyrians. Its kings were cruel and ruthless. By the time of Jonah Assyrian cruelty and barbarity was notorious. Graphic accounts of their brutality, especially to their captives, are found in ancient Assyrian records. From a human perspective people living in such a well-fortified and impregnable stronghold would be unlikely to take Jonah’s message seriously. Yet it was to these people that God sent Jonah to proclaim His warning of imminent judgment, “Arise, go to Nineveh the great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before Me” (Jon 1:2).
Jonah’s hatred for the Assyrians was greater than his devotion to his God, so he attempted to avoid representing God and proclaiming His warning of judgment. The last thing Jonah wanted was for God to be merciful to the Assyrians. He suspected this was God’s intention for sending him to warn them of God’s impending judgment, and thereby moving them to repentance, “and let men call on God earnestly that each may turn from his wicked way and from the violence which is in his hands. Who knows, God may turn and relent, and withdraw His burning anger so that we shall not perish?” (Jon 3:8, 9). Jonah knew the gracious and compassionate nature of God, and it was this knowledge that caused him to head in the opposite direction of Nineveh, “Please Lord, was not this what I said while I was still in my own country? Therefore, in order to forestall this I fled to Tarshish, for I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, and one who relents concerning calamity” (Jon 4:2).
Tragically Nineveh’s revival was short-lived. They evidently forgot God’s gracious and compassionate dealing with them and soon reverted to their old habits of idolatry, violence, and arrogance. The biblical principle, “And from everyone who has been given much shall much be required; (Lk 12:48) was upheld by God in a way that would have been inconceivable to anyone living at the time. Nineveh had been given the privilege of God’s gracious warning, to which they initially responded in earnest repentance. But less than 100 years later the prophet Nahum proclaimed the total destruction of this same city; a prophecy fulfilled in painful detail when the Babylonians totally obliterated the city, leaving not a single trace that it ever existed, “But with an overflowing flood He will make a complete end of its site, and will pursue His enemies into darkness” (Nah 1:8). God sends His gracious and compassionate warnings to prevent the execution of His more severe and devastating judgments, but when people who have been the recipients of God’s compassionate relenting grace later return to their same sins, then judgment is right at the door. Or as the apostle Peter so graphically warned, “It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn away from the holy commandment delivered to them. It has happened to them according to the true proverb, “A dog returns to its own vomit,” and, “A sow, after washing, returns to wallow in the mire” (2 Pt 2:21, 22).
Second, God forewarns His people of imminent judgments to make them more bearable when they come. Who has not experienced the pain, hurt, and confusion that comes with being blindsided by some unexpected news or event? In such a state people are much more prone to being deceived. In a panic they will grasp at anything that promises to alleviate their suffering and hardship. How many suffering and desperate people are hoodwinked by the false promises of charlatan faith preachers? Expected hardships, trials, sufferings, and evils are much easier to bear than those that come by surprise. Judgments that are expected are not as bitter and debilitating as they would be had they caught us off guard. How terrible will those judgments be that come upon a people who imagine, “The overwhelming scourge will not reach us when it passes by, for we have made falsehood our refuge and we have concealed ourselves with deception” (Is 28:15).
Those who recognize and heed God’s gracious warnings are able to prepare themselves mentally and spiritually to meet them when they come as Paul did, “For I am ready not only to be bound, but even to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus” (Ac 21:13). Both Jeremiah and Ezekiel were forewarned that their preaching would only meet with opposition and hostility, “And they will fight against you, but they will not overcome you, for I am with you to deliver you,” (Jer 1:19; cf. Ezk 2:1-7). Jesus forewarned the church in Smyrna not to fear what some of them were about to suffer, “Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and you will have tribulation ten days. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life” (Rv 2:10). Knowing of their impending suffering gave them time to prepare themselves to be faithful, even unto death. The apostle Peter wrote to believers who were facing the sadistic persecutions of Nero to, “gird your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ (1 Pt 1:13). Paul sent Timothy to strengthen and encourage the Thessalonians in their faith, “so that no man may be disturbed by these afflictions; for you yourselves know that we have been destined for this. For indeed when we were with you, we kept telling you in advance that we were going to suffer affliction;” (1 Thes 3:3, 4). To prevent the disciples from being surprised by the times of suffering and persecution that were coming upon them, Jesus foretold them, and gave them fair warning beforehand, “But these things I have spoken to you, that when their hour comes, you may remember that I told you of them” (Jn 16:1-4). It is a great mercy for God to forewarn His people of suffering times, a mercy which if ignored and scoffed at will only result in greater suffering for those who do not heed and act on His gracious warnings. It is when, even in the face of all of God’s gracious warnings, people are saying, “Peace and safety”, that destruction will come upon them suddenly, and they shall not escape (1 Thes 5:3).
Third, God forewarns His people of His approaching judgments so as to leave the obstinate, incorrigible, and recalcitrant without any excuse or defense. Those who refuse to see their danger or acknowledge their sin, who feel no shame or guilt for their sin, nor take any care to prevent their utter ruin and devastation, will have nothing with which to cloak their folly when judgment overtakes them. It will be as impossible for them to plead ignorance as those who were warned by the Old Testament prophets, “Now what will you do in the day of punishment, and in the devastation which will come from afar? To whom will you flee for help? And where will you leave your wealth?” (Is 10:3). Many a professing Christian has lost their soul because they were too preoccupied with filling their barns, pursuing the world, gratifying their fleshly and worldly desires and ambitions, storing up treasure and making a name for themselves on earth, and therefore content themselves with a form of godliness without its power that will accommodate their lusts and life in this world. Those who refuse to heed and act on God’s gracious and repeated warnings will not be able to say they were ruined before they were warned, “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin” (Jn 15:22).
When any person, group, or entity makes their own human logic, their own moral sensibilities, their own prejudices, and their own understanding of science, history, and the nature of man the yardstick by which to measure the truths, the doctrines, the historical accounts, the warnings, and the morality of the Bible, they are engaging in a great act of arrogance, presumption, and folly. Natural human logic and wisdom breaks down in the presence of divine wisdom. Human theories are constantly changing and evolving and are infamously untrustworthy. Opinions concerning the human psyche are endless. Human morals change from culture to culture and age to age. To place the fallen human mind with its corrupted powers of reasoning, and fickle human emotion and subjective experiences in judgment over the divine record and truths of the Bible is indeed, by all biblical accounts, an act of utmost folly and of a mind blinded by the god of this world. The fault lies not with the word of God and His gracious warnings, but with the minds of those who refuse to believe, obey, and take His warnings to heart. Their destruction can be blamed on nothing and no one but themselves. In what group will you be found reader? Will you be found among the prepared, or among the complacent, secure, and scoffers? I pray that all who read this will make it their business , and show all diligence to be found among the prepared, “You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard lest, being carried away by the error of unprincipled men, you fall from your own steadfastness” (2 Pt 3:17).
In our next study we will demonstrate the exceedingly great blessing of having a heart prepared for even the worst of sufferings, and what a holy thing it is to be ready, even as the Apostle Paul, to be bound or die for Christ.