Matthew-114

Religion is dangerous; we need spirituality

In my last message, I talked about the vital difference between being spiritual and being religious, and I have touched on this from time to time in the past. The reason I do so is because this important distinction gradually becomes blurred and forgotten.

I also mentioned that being religious is extremely dangerous. Being religious can even lead to murder in God’s name. Imagine that! This was the very thing that the Lord Jesus warned about in Matthew 23:37, “You stoned and killed even the prophets of God.” And this kind of thing is going on until this very day. It is a strange, strange thing that some of the great servants of God, like John Huss and others were killed not by unbelievers, but by the church.

Look at the situation today, where it is almost embarrassing to read the news about Northern Ireland for example, that Protestants and Catholics are fighting and bombing each other. Also, only a short time ago in the news, when a Catholic and Protestant couple married, the wife was shot to death in bed! You find that even Protestants are slandering and attacking each other, all in the name of “religion.” This is not confined to Christianity as the Muslims fight and kill each other too. We see it for example, almost every day in Lebanon. Religious extremists kill people of their own religion or of other religions by putting powerful bombs in cars or litter bins to blow up innocent passers-by. In fact, a news report said that these car or litter-bin bombs were designed to go off at the time when the most people would be on the street. The bombs also contain nails and jagged metal that have a shrapnel effect not just to kill, but to cause maximum personal injury and damage to property. But what is the purpose of killing children and innocent passers-by? Can you understand the mentality of blowing up planes in the air, or the mentality of suicide bombers blowing up themselves and as many people around them as possible, in the name of the Muslim religion? I cannot understand this kind of mentality. All “religions” as they are called, keep on doing this kind of thing in the name of God and of religion. They perform the external rituals, and there is no fear of God in their hearts. I beg of you to understand, whatever you do, please do not become religious. You must be very, very conscious of the fact that religion is a dangerous thing; what we need is spiritual­ity. This is the message that we looked at the last time.

God will judge the religious most severely through Christ

Becoming a Christian is not a matter of joining this or that denomina­tion. It has to do with a living walk with God. God himself cannot tolerate this kind of religion, and that is why his Christ, Jesus, severe­ly condemned the religious leaders of his day in Matthew chapter 23. So the religious leaders committed yet one more murder, that is, they put Jesus himself to death. Remember that they dragged him into the council of leaders called the Sanhedrin in the middle of the night, and they all shouted, “He is worthy of death! Put him away!” That is religion. They put to death the one who is sent by God to bring life for you and for me. So I say God cannot tolerate this kind of religion which even blinded their eyes so that they could not see who Jesus was.

Today, the most difficult people to reach sometimes are the “Christianized” people, the people who have grown up in the Christian religion. We were in Germany recently, and visited my dear friend, Pastor Rudy. His heart is so pained because he sees what has happened to the German people. They have grown up “Christianized,” and when you try to bring the gospel to them, it is like talking to the wall. They are spiritually blind and very cold. When you walk in and when you leave the church, no one greets you, no one is interested in you. They live for themselves. I would imagine if you go to a non-Christian meeting that someone would come and shake your hand. I said to Helen, “Look at these people and see if anyone would so much as say hello and shake your hand.” This is Christianity? It’s too painful to think about! Pastor Rudy has been trying to preach the Word of God to them, and he said it’s like talking to stone. So he is determined to retire by the coming summer. It simply exhausts him because of the total lack of response. You might say that “Christianity” has killed them spiritually. Trying to turn them around so that they become spiritual by walking with God, is almost impossible. When I think of that, I rejoice that the gospel did not spread into China in this way. Perhaps God in his kindness, has prevented China from being immunized against the gospel by this type of Christianity.

So I say again, God cannot stand religion! Even the prophet Isaiah denounced the Jews for their external practices of observing rituals and bringing bulls and goats into the temple to be slaughtered all the time. God spoke through him to say, “Who wants to look at all these sacrifices? I want ears that attend carefully to my Word, a spirit that is humble and contrite, and a heart that delights to do my will” (cf. Isa. 66:1-4). This is spirituality. God could not tolerate religion so badly that his severity is reflected by the Lord Jesus in Matthew 23, which ends with a pronouncement of judgment in Matthew 24:2, that Jerusalem, including the temple, will be destroyed because of their disobedience. Indeed, God’s judgment will also be severe in the extreme against religious Christians.

We will continue the message that we started in Matthew chapters 23 and 24. Matthew 24:48-51 concludes with a message of extreme severity. And I would like you to notice that this is talking about Jesus the master and his own servants.

This passage is speaking about the Lord Jesus coming back again. In the meantime, some of the servants of Jesus started to get arrogant, attacking fellow servants, and eating and drinking with drunkards. “Drunkards” does not mean literal drunkards but people who are living careless lives. Drunkenness refers to an unholy, ungodly life. These servants of Christ are now happier in their association with unholy people than with holy people. Who are the people you like to get together with? Do you feel happier with the ungodly? Do you feel happier with people who don’t walk with God? What will Christ, the master, do when he returns? This statement in the ESV, NIV and NAS is quite shocking to the commentators: (the master) “will cut him in pieces.” (The Greek word is dichotomeō, which means to cut into two.) This does not mean the Lord Jesus will literally do this but it is designed to show how severe will be the punishment against the disobedient.

“Cutting in pieces” was the death penalty practiced in Persia. It was not practiced in Israel at all. But it seems the Lord Jesus could not find another way to express his anger towards this kind of servant, and the severity with which he will be dealt with. This kind of servant of Christ will be put in a place together with the hypocrites mentioned in chapter 23. So let us be very clear how important it is to be spiritual. That is what God wants.

Avoid decline to religion by fixing your eyes on the coming of Christ

Now 2 Timothy 3:5 tells us that this peculiar problem about being religious is the problem of these last days in which we now live.

In Matthew 24:14, the Lord Jesus says that the gospel must be preached to the ends of the earth before he returns. This has been going on, especially in this last century. But with the preaching of the gospel, there has come with the wheat a lot of tares (darnel), in fact, there is so much darnel that one has difficulty telling where the wheat is. The result is that we have “the Christian religion” spreading all over the world. This is the unique problem in these last days before the Lord Jesus returns, and I repeatedly turn my attention to this problem because God forbid that 2 Timothy 3:5 will be fulfilled in this church! In these last days, there will always be this process of steady decline of “having the appearance of godliness but denying its power” if you don’t press forward towards the mark. There are some who just don’t press towards the mark, so they decline towards religion.

How can we avoid this decline? One way is to keep our eyes on the coming of Christ. That is why the Lord Jesus moves from the present to the future, from chapter 23 to 24, where he speaks about his coming. There are many Christians who don’t particularly want to think about the coming of the Lord Jesus. How much you love the Lord Jesus’ coming is a very good way to measure your love for God because Christ represents God as the Judge to reward you if you are faithful to the end, or to punish you if you are not.

If you love a person, and if that person says, “I’m coming,” do you say, “No, no! Don’t come! At least not so soon! Maybe after 20 to 30 years, but I don’t want to see you before 20-30 years!”? Who is going to believe a person who says he loves the Lord Jesus but he doesn’t want to see him until 20-30 years later? Do you really love God that much? Think on it. It’s not surprising that when many Christians are asked, “What happens if the Lord Jesus comes tomorrow?” they would say, “Oh! Too soon! I’m not ready! Besides, all my plans would be ruined! I was going to have a delicious supper at that restaurant. I’ll miss all the good food! What’s more, I’m not married yet!” I don’t see much enthusiasm for the Lord Jesus’ coming in the church, do I? Love for God and love for the coming of his Christ are very, very closely related. Unfortunately, we may actually think we love God, but if our lives are not quite in order, the coming of his Christ at any time is never a good time for us.

The Lord Jesus spoke very specifically about his coming, and he will certainly come. His coming will be as precise as his prophecy on the destruction of the temple, that not one stone will be left on top of another in God’s judgment against the religious people. (Mt. 24:2) He didn’t say the temple will be destroyed or partly destroyed so that there will be a shell left. He said specifically that not one stone will be left on top of another! So precise is his prophecy that there is nothing vague about it. When the first temple was destroyed, there was still something left of it. They had to rebuild most of it, but there were parts that could be repaired. But in this case, the Lord Jesus said not even one stone will be left on top of another. There is nothing left of the temple building which the Lord Jesus was talking about, when you walk through the temple compound in Jerusalem. All that is left standing is some of the outer retaining wall.

Prophecy in the Bible has always been, and will always be fulfilled

Now I want to stop for a few moments and think about the nature of prophecy because a large part of the Bible is composed of prophecy. The Lord Jesus said, “Heaven and earth will pass away but my words will never pass away.” Prophecy can be checked for its accuracy. One could quite literally say that if one stone still stood on another one, the Lord Jesus’ words were not fulfilled to the last detail; his state­ment, “My words will not pass away,” would not be literally true. One can only apologize by saying, “Well, don’t take it too literally.” If the Lord Jesus did not mean it in this way, he could say, “It will be utterly destroyed.” Why did he say, “not one stone will be left on top of another”?

When the Romans took the temple Mount, for some reason which we don’t seem to be entirely clear about, they decided to literally flatten the temple to the ground. Perhaps they were so angered by the fierce resistance that the Jews had put up for three years. Originally, they did not have the intention to destroy the temple, but in the heat of the battle, one of the soldiers threw a torch into the holy place and that set the whole temple on fire. It is also hard to understand what caused the change from the original intention not to destroy the temple to the decision to flatten it completely and to put all the wreckage into what is called the Tyropoeon Valley below. Whatever the reason, the Lord Jesus’ words, spoken 40 years before the temple was completely destroyed, were fulfilled to the last detail. That’s how amazing it is! It is as though he made his prophecy today in 1986, and 40 years from now, it will be fulfilled in 2026. Could you predict what will happen in one month’s time? No one has the vaguest idea what will happen in 40 years’ time! It is remarkable that we have the word of God by the prophecy of the Lord Jesus! One test of the genuineness of a prophet in Deuteronomy 18:22 is whether or not that prophecy is fulfilled:

So if you want to prophesy, stick to the secret of prophesying so vaguely that no one can quite figure out how this is going to be fulfilled. But you really have to know from God what is to be said in order to say that one stone will not be left on another. Prophecy means God’s revelation to his people through his prophet, because God knows and controls the future. That is why prophecy is so important for us. In this sense, you can say that prophecy itself is a miracle. It is supernatural. It means that the Bible, the book with so many prophecies in it, could be discredited if there is any falsehood in any prophecy. There is no book of any religion in the world that dares to speak so specifically of the future, otherwise its falsehood could be very quickly detected.

The book of Daniel is another amazing book, and the Lord Jesus mentions it in Matthew 24:15.

Daniel prophesied the future with such incredible accuracy that even some modern scholars have trouble accepting it. It is so accu­rate that they claim this is not prophecy but history, that is, it is actually written after the event. Of course, that notion is quite ridicu­lous. Let us ask what would be the purpose of putting something forward as prophecy which in fact is only history?

Supposing I wrote a history of the WWII in great detail. To make this prophecy, I would have to fiddle around with the date this book is published. I have to find a secret printing press somewhere, then I have to put the date of publication, let us say, in 1930, nine years before the start of the WWII. The problem is I can’t put my name as the author of that book because I wasn’t even born at that time! So I had better put someone else’s name on this. What is my motive for doing that? Anyway, whose name shall I use? Shall I take the name of a well-known religious leader from earlier days? What about Martin Luther? So I say, “Martin Luther made this prophecy back in the 16^th Century.” Of course, if anybody checks the written works of Martin Luther, I’ll be in trouble. But then I can say it was a secret document written by him that was discovered somewhere. What would be the point of this exercise? Is it to glorify Martin Luther? Why do I want to glorify Martin Luther when I wrote the book? Surely, I would want the glory myself!

But now I run into an even further problem. If you read the book of Daniel, you will find that God is glorified, and all the time Daniel is emphasizing the holiness and the glory of God. Imagine if Daniel is writing a piece of deception—history rather than prophecy—he is trying to proclaim holiness by doing something unholy. This is totally absurd, isn’t it? In other words, a person who is truly concerned about the holiness and the glory of God would not do this.

The fact is that Daniel was so accurate speaking God’s word through God, that the unbelieving scholar cannot grasp this! How can a prophecy 300 years beforehand about Antiochus Epiphanes, “the abomination of desolation,” be given with such accuracy? The scholars know they cannot even tell what will happen in 3 days’ time never mind 300 years! It is solely because they have not reckoned with the fact that our God is the living God! Do you know this God? It’s so amazing to walk with God!

Now when the Lord Jesus spoke of his coming on the Day of Judgment, he was referring to an event not just 40 years later, which was the destruction of the temple, not just 300 years, but 2,000 years later! That is how amazing the Lord Jesus is!

History spirals upward, forward – increasing and intensifying events

Let us look again briefly at Matthew 24. You will notice many of the things he mentioned from verses 4 to14 are quite general. There will be wars and rumors of wars, there will be persecution, there will be lawlessness. There is an important principle to grasp here: history moves upward and forward in a spiral fashion. The Lord Jesus could not cover in detail what will happen in 2,000 years. He’s saying it will move on in the spiral way, with every event becoming more and more intense. In 2,000 years there have been many earthquakes. The Lord Jesus also speaks of earthquakes and famines in verse 7:

I saw a statistical survey in which the frequency and the severity of the earthquakes in this century alone are statistically recorded, and you can see how the earthquakes have been increasing in frequency and severity all over the world. This statistic is not produced by Christians. It shows there have been earthquakes throughout 2,000 years, but in this century alone, these quakes have been more frequent and stronger. There have been wars throughout 2,000 years, but never in the history of mankind have we had wars on the scale and with the death rate as within this century alone; and it is such that no one dares to think what will happen with the next war. So the Lord Jesus covers these 2,000 years simply in these rather general statements of increasing quantity and intensity. We can see for ourselves that it has indeed been the case.

But suddenly, in verse 15, he becomes very specific. He refers now to the “Abomination of desolation.” Now this term, “Abomination of desolation” also comes from Daniel. An interesting thing to notice is that in Daniel 9:27, the “Abomination of desolation” is a person, but in Daniel 11:31 and in 12:11, it refers to a thing. This prophecy was at least partially fulfilled during the days of a Greek king called Antiochus Epiphanes. He has become the symbol of the “Abomination of desolation.” He entered into Jerusalem and the temple, which he was not allowed to do. Then, he put a heathen altar on top of the holy altar in the temple, and he dedicated this altar to the chief of the Greek gods, Zeus Olympias. That was called the “Abomination of desolation” in the temple in the book of the Maccabees. This happened in the 168 B.C., 168 years before Christ. This event was prophesied by Daniel some 300 years beforehand, and he described this king and other political events in remarkable detail which has amazed scholars.

In Matthew 24:15, the Lord Jesus is not talking about a past event but a future one. What he is saying is, “Do you remember those terrible days in Israel? But that will be nothing compared to what will happen in the future. There will be another world ruler coming up and he will go into the temple as Antiochus did. This time, he will not just put up an altar there, he will demand that he himself be worshipped as ‘God’.” Paul explains all this in 2Thessalonians 2:3-11. So the Lord Jesus has now become very specific in verse 15. He is referring to a past historical event which will be the model of what will happen again just before his coming back.

The temple will be rebuilt!

The remarkable matter about this prophecy of the Lord Jesus is that he already prophesied the destruction of the temple. But now, he prophesies that this man, this “Abomination of desolation” will be standing in the Holy Place. This means that the temple will have to be rebuilt. When I was in Israel this time, I could see what is happening. There are all kinds of plans and discussions about build­ing a so-called “synagogue” upon the holy mountain, but that syna­gogue will in fact be no different from a temple! Apparently, they are already preparing a priesthood for the new temple.

The rebuilding of the temple is already implied in the Lord Jesus’ words, and Paul is saying the same thing in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-4. There are some Christians who think that the Lord Jesus will come at any moment. The Thessalonians thought so too, and they thought they will have a holiday so that they can prepare their hearts and minds better for the Lord Jesus’ coming. But Paul will not have that. In fact, he says, “If you don’t work, don’t eat. When the Lord comes, he wants to see you getting on in living for God’s glory in whatever you are doing. However, the Lord Jesus will not come back until another thing happens first.”

Here we see a very fearful figure appearing in the history of the world. Although Antiochus is remembered by the Jews as a most terrible dictator and king, he would not be much compared to this one who is coming. There is the abomination that causes desolation or destruction, and he will not just put an altar there, but he will have himself worshipped. He is called “the man of lawlessness.” If you translate from the Greek, it is literally the man who is committed to and lives only by lawlessness. He represents everything that is unholy and vicious, and yet, he will put himself forward in a very presentable manner.

No salvation without holiness

This word “lawlessness” also occurs in Matthew 24:7 where the Lord Jesus says, “Because lawlessness will increase, the love of many people will grow cold.” Here lawlessness is precisely opposite to what is holy. So we read in 2 Thessalonians 2:13-14 [NAS]:

Paul says “salvation through sanctification.” True spirituality is sanc­tification. It is inner holiness, not outward display of holiness. That is why Paul said, “sanctification by the Spirit” (of God). It is a work that God has done in you. This work of God in you is remarkable because you love what is holy, what is pure. Formerly, you did not like those things. But now you love the things of God. The religious person is only interested in his church, in his religion, but he doesn’t love what is holy. There is no salvation without sanctification as Paul says here.

The end is near: Churches separate sanctification from salvation

A very strange thing has happened in our churches today, which marks the end time. They want to tell us that sanctification has nothing to do with salvation.

The other day, I was in a bookshop and I saw a book by A. W. Tozer by the title, I Call It Heresy. What does he call heresy? He said I call heresy that notion which says we can simply accept Jesus as Savior, but we don’t have to live under his lordship by a holy life. Unfortunately, this heresy has become official doctrine in almost all Chinese churches today! I am sure you are aware of that.

Tozer was saying that the practice in the churches in the United States is simply to get people to raise their hands to make a profession of faith first, and tell them they are saved. Only after this do they say, “Now that you are saved, how about trying to live a more presentable Christian life?” So Tozer said, “I call this heresy. Indeed, Scripture calls it heresy. Just because that is the practice, it doesn’t make it right.” Further along the book, he goes on to say, “Holiness is not optional.” That is why someone said to me some years ago, “Your preaching reminds me of Tozer’s.” I had to confess at that time I didn’t know who was Tozer, so I had to hurry and find a few of Tozer’s books. Indeed, I agree with him wholeheartedly that this is Scripture. Notice carefully Scripture says here: “salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth.” Faith is put after sanctification. I emphasize again that, true spirituality has to do with holiness.

I do pray that God will so work in every one of your hearts that, because you love the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he sent (Jo. 17:3), you love the coming of the Lord Jesus. You are saying, “Lord Jesus, please come. Even if it ruins my plans of going to a restaurant, it doesn’t matter really. I would much prefer to see you than go to a restaurant. Perhaps I’ll be getting married next year, but I prefer your coming to my marriage!” Can you say that? If you can say that, praise be to God! You are on the path to spirituality. Let us pray.