I'd also like to take this opportunity to thank all the dear brothers and sisters from Australia for their hospitality. It seems to be not a very powerful enough word to describe their kindness to us in Australia. I hope you can take this opportunity to give those in the United States to express my gratitude. When I was in the United States, I would like to give this simple word to express their love in my heart.
Well, you saw what they did to me when I came back. You can see what happened to me. It was very visible in your eyes. I've had to work very hard to get myself into a reasonably presentable shape. I just want to thank the Lord and keep them in my thoughts with their love in the Lord. We really appreciate the Lord's love and all that the brothers and sisters have done for us.
Today I want to speak about the difference between being religious and being spiritual. This difference is one that I have touched on from time to time in the past. The reason for this is that as time goes on, the distinction becomes blurred. Gradually people forget the important difference. I wanted to mention last time that being religious is extremely dangerous. We saw in Matthew 23 that being religious can lead even to murder — to kill in God's name, imagine that. This is the thing that the Lord Jesus warned about in Matthew 23: "You killed the very prophets, even the prophets of God." 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 were actually killed not by unbelievers, but by the church. We see this constantly in the history of the people of God. And look at the situation today — it's almost embarrassing. It's a shame to talk about Northern Ireland, for example, and read this kind of thing in the newspapers. Protestants and Catholics bombing each other, shooting each other. And the other day, a Catholic and Protestant couple — they were married only a short time before — you read it in the newspaper, they were shot to death, at least the wife was shot to death in bed.
It is all these religions, as they are called — all the external things. There is no fear of God in their hearts, but they keep on doing this kind of thing in the name of God and in religion. You find this even between Protestants — you find them fighting each other, slandering each other, attacking each other, all in the name of religion. So I say this simply to keep you very, very conscious of the fact that religion is a dangerous thing. What we need is spirituality. This was the message we were looking at last time. We want not to be religious, but to be truly spiritual.
People who can do these kinds of things to one another — bomb each other, put a car bomb on the street and kill innocent passersby. In fact, the news reports were that these bombs, these car bombs in Lebanon, were designed to go off when the most people were passing through the street at that time. And they put splinters and nails and things like that — not just to kill, but those who cannot be killed will be as badly crippled as possible. I mean, what is the purpose of killing children and innocent passersby? This kind of mentality is beyond understanding. It really is beyond understanding. To blow up planes in the air in the name of some religion — in this case, very often in the name of the Muslim religion. This kind of mentality, done in the name of God — can you understand it? I can't understand this kind of mentality.
So I beg of you to understand: whatever you do, please don't become religious. Becoming a Christian is not a matter of joining this or that denomination. It has to do with a living walk with God. There is a relationship with God. And I want to tell you this: that God Himself cannot tolerate this kind of religion. And that is why last time we saw in Matthew 23 how severely He condemned the religious leaders of His day.
So you can see, they faced the council of religious leaders called the Sanhedrin. And they all shouted, "He is worthy of death. Put Him away." That is religion. They put to death the One who came to bring life for you and for me. So I say, God cannot tolerate this kind of religious thing. This kind of religion even blinded their eyes. They could not see who Jesus was.
And today, let me say that sometimes the most difficult people to reach are the Christianized people — the people who have grown up in Christian religion. We were in Germany recently and visited my dear friend, Pastor Rudy. He is so pained because he sees what has happened to the German people. They have grown up Christianized in the Christian religion. And when you try to preach the gospel to them, you are like talking to a wall. Spiritually blinded. Completely blinded.
And how cold are these people! You walk in and walk out — nobody talks to you. Nobody greets you. Nobody is interested in you. You don't exist. They live for themselves. I would imagine if you go to a non-Christian meeting, that somebody might come and shake your hand. But if you go to a church like that, see if anyone will even so much as say hello to you or shake your hand. I said to Helen, "Look at these people." This is Christianity? This is Jesus Christ? It is too painful to think about. And Pastor Rudy has been trying to preach the Word of God to them, and he sees that instead of talking to stone, he is talking to something even harder. And he is determined to retire by the coming summer. It is simply exhausting because of the total lack of response. You might say that Christianity has killed them spiritually.
When I think of that, I rejoice that the gospel did not spread into China in this sort of way. Because God in His kindness has prevented China from being inoculated, being immunized against the gospel by this type of Christianity. So I say again, God cannot stand religion. Even the prophet Isaiah in the Old Testament denounced the Jews for their external practices. All the time bringing bulls and goats into the temple to be slaughtered. He said, "Who wants to look at all these sacrifices?" Just keep your religious externals — God doesn't want them.
That is spirituality. Now, so much God cannot tolerate is that, as we saw by the end of Matthew 23, He said that Jerusalem and Israel will be destroyed because of their disobedience. Let me say to you: God's judgment will be severe in the extreme, also against these religious Christians. That is why in Matthew 24 — and we will continue from 23 and 24, the message that we decided on last time — we will continue. Matthew 24 concludes with a few verses with extreme severity. We can just read together the last four verses, verses 48 to 51.
I'd like you to notice that this is talking about the servants of Christ here. When it says "this slave or servant," it is talking in this parable, in this context, about His own — that is, the Master, that is Jesus — His own servants. The servant who says, "My master is delayed," and begins to beat his fellow servants and eats and drinks with drunkards. He is speaking about the Lord Jesus coming back again. But in the meantime, some of His servants — notice this — are starting to become arrogant and beating fellow servants, attacking them. And eating and drinking with drunkards. Drunkards does not mean literally drunkards, but people who are living a careless life. Here, drunkenness refers to an unholy life, an ungodly life. And 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? And when Christ comes, when the Master returns, it says here in verse 50, what will He do? And then there comes a statement which is quite shocking to the commentators. It says, "And the Master shall cut him in pieces." Literally, cut him in pieces. This does not mean that this is what the Lord Jesus will do literally, but it is designed to show how severe will be the punishment against this kind of servant. And the Lord Jesus cannot find another way, it seems, to express His anger against this kind of servant and the severity with which He shall be dealt with. This kind of servant of Christ will be put in the same place as the hypocrites mentioned in the previous chapter. So let us be very clear about how important it is to be spiritual. That is what God wants. We must be careful to become the real people of the Lord.
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, verse 14, the Lord Jesus said that the gospel must be preached to the ends of the earth before He returns again. 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. And that is why I turn my attention to this problem again and again, because God forbid that this should happen to this church. I pray that 2 Timothy 3:5 will not be fulfilled in this church — namely, that in these last days there will be a form of godliness, but denying the power of it. Because there will always be this process of steady decline, if you do not press forward towards the mark. And that is why I say, as Brother Joe was sharing, there are some in the church who just do not press on towards the mark, and so they decline towards religion.
So you see in Matthew 24 that the Lord Jesus moves from the present to the future. Now there are lots of Christians who don't particularly want to think about the coming of the Lord. How much you love His coming is a very good way to measure your love for Christ. Have you ever heard of somebody who loves somebody but when that person says, "I'm coming," they say, "Don't come"? Do you love Jesus — at least, not so soon? Maybe after 20 or 30 years, but you don't want to see Him before 20 or 30 years? If somebody says that they love Jesus but they say that in the next 20 or 30 years they still don't want to see Him, who's going to believe you?
Just recently Mr. Pratt was in England and Brother Jeffrey was here. I mean, if Brother Jeffrey said, "Oh, too bad, tomorrow Pratt is coming home," I would think, "What's happened to their marriage?" In the past, when Pratt's sister went to England — or was Jeffrey the one in Hong Kong — if he thought, "Pratt will come back, really sad," then you would say, "What's happening to them?" I'm sure that every day his neck was stretching longer and longer — when is she coming back? You would imagine that Jeffrey would be watching for Pratt to come back. So if you think you really love the Lord — would you really love the Lord that much? Think on it. What happens if He comes tomorrow? "Oh, too soon, too soon." If the Lord is coming tomorrow — what's going on? "It's too late, give me some time. All my plans will be ruined. I'm going to have this delicious supper in that restaurant. I'll miss all the good food." Well, where are you going to eat? Never mind. More specifically — but I don't see in the church much enthusiasm for the Lord's coming, do I? Love for Christ and love for His coming — these two things are very, very closely related. But if our lives are not quite in order — "Oh no, no, He's coming, it's not a good time."
But the Lord spoke very clearly about His coming. And in Matthew 24, which we can turn to so that we can see how precise is His prophecy — the Lord says in verse 2: "Not one stone will be left on top of another." He didn't say the temple will be destroyed or partly destroyed or destroyed so that there will only be a shell left. He said specifically, not one stone will stand on top of another. Anyone who has been to Jerusalem can see for themselves as you walk through the temple compound — there is literally not one vestige left of the temple, not one stone on top of another. You can't see anywhere even one face of the original temple.
When the first temple was destroyed, there was still something left of it. They had to repair it and rebuild most of it, but there were parts that could be repaired. But the Lord Jesus' words were that not one stone in this case would be left on top of another. And all you have to do is walk through the temple compound and you will see — of the temple buildings, nothing left. All that is left is the outer retaining wall. There is still some of that wall standing, but of the temple buildings, which is what the Lord Jesus is talking about, there is nothing left.
Now, I want to stop for a few moments to think about the nature of prophecy. Prophecy — 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." Now, what is the danger of prophecy, you can say? That prophecy can be checked for its accuracy. One could quite literally say that if one stone still stood on another one, that the Lord's words were not fulfilled to the last detail. And that means that His statement — "Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away" — that statement would not be literally true. One can only then apologize by saying, "Well, don't take it too literally." But then if the Lord didn't mean it in this way, why did He use the phrase "one stone on top of another"? He could have said it would be utterly destroyed, but why did He use that specific phrase?
When the Romans took the temple mount — the mountain where the temple stood — for some reason which we don't seem to be entirely clear about, maybe they were so angered by the fierce resistance that the Jews put up for three years, they literally decided to flatten the temple completely to the ground. Originally they did not have the intention to destroy the temple. But in the heat of battle, one of the soldiers threw a torch into the holy place and set the whole thing on fire. So from the original intention not to destroy the temple, to the decision to flatten it completely and push all the rubbish right into the valley below — what is called the Tyroponean Valley. What caused that change is also difficult to understand. But whatever the reason, the Lord's words were fulfilled to the last detail.
Imagine, as though He made His prophecy today in 1986. And forty years from now will take us well past the year 2000 — 2026, say. Could you predict what will happen in one month's time? No one has the vaguest idea what will happen in forty years' time. And that's what the Lord said would happen. This is the remarkable thing — that we have the Word of God in prophecy. And one test of true prophecy in the Old Testament is whether that prophecy is fulfilled or not. It's a test of whether the prophet is a genuine prophet. So if you want to prophesy, stick to prophesying so vaguely that nobody can figure out how this is going to be fulfilled. Then nobody can say it's wrong. But if you say "one stone will not be left on another" — you really have to know from God what is going to happen.
Prophecy means that God knows the future and is in control of it. That is why it's so important for us. In this sense, you can say that prophecy itself is a miracle. It is supernatural. And that means that a Bible with so much prophecy in it is a book that could be discredited if there is any falsehood in it. There is no religious book in the world — no book of any religion — that dares to speak so specifically of the future. Otherwise, their falsehood would very quickly be detected.
The book of Daniel is another amazing book. The Lord Jesus mentions Daniel in Matthew 24, verse 15. Now, Daniel prophesied the future with such incredible accuracy that even modern scholars have trouble accepting it. It is so accurate that they claim that this is not prophecy but history — that is, it was actually written after the event. But that notion, of course, is quite ridiculous. Let us ask: what would be the purpose of putting something forward as prophecy which in fact is only history?
Suppose I wrote a history of the Second World War in great detail. Now, to make this prophecy, I would have to fiddle around with the dates of when this book was published. I would have to find a secret printing press somewhere and then put the date of publication, let us say, in 1930 — that is, let us say, nine years before the start of the Second World War. The problem then is I can't put my name as the author of the book, because I wasn't even born at that time. So what do I get out of this exercise? What is the motive for that?
So I scratch my head and think, well, I wasn't born at that time, so I better think of putting somebody else's name as the author. So what name should I use? Let us take the name of a well-known religious leader from earlier days. How about Martin Luther? So I say, "Well, Martin Luther made this prophecy back in the 16th century." Of course, if anybody checked the actual written works of Martin Luther, I would be in trouble. But then I can say it was a secret document discovered somewhere else. But then what would be the point of this exercise? Is it to glorify Martin Luther? Why should anyone want to glorify Martin Luther in this way?
But there is a further problem here. If this book, as in the case of Daniel, doesn't glorify Daniel at all — it is glorifying God — then the whole purpose of putting it in the name of Luther to glorify Luther is also lost, because it is God who is being glorified. And all the time Daniel is emphasizing the holiness and the glory of God. Now if this is the case — imagine that you are doing a piece of deception and you are 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 will never do a thing like this.
But you see, Daniel was so accurate, through God, speaking God's Word, that the unbelieving scholars cannot grasp this thing. How can this prophecy, three hundred years before those events, be given with such incredible accuracy? Because they know they can't even tell what will happen in three days' time, never mind three hundred years.
And the Lord Jesus was referring to an event not just forty years later, which was the destruction of the temple, not just three hundred years — but two thousand years later. Amazing. That is the Lord Jesus.
Now let us look again at Matthew 24. And this one I will leave you to read in detail when you get home. But you will notice that between verse 4 and verse 14, many of the things that He mentions there are quite general: there will be wars and rumors of wars, there will be persecution, there will be lawlessness. And then suddenly in verse 15 He becomes very specific. There is an important principle to grasp here: history moves in a spiral form.
# Manifestation of True Spirituality (Part 2)
History does not move in a circle. It moves in a spiral fashion — like a circle, but it moves upward or forward. The Lord Jesus of course could not cover in detail what will happen in the intervening two thousand years. He is saying that it will move on in this spiral way, with every event becoming more and more intense.
In two thousand years there have been many earthquakes. The Lord speaks about earthquakes too, in verse 7, for example — famine and earthquakes. But in this last century alone, I saw a report on earthquakes. The frequency and the severity of the earthquakes are statistically recorded. And from that statistical survey, you can see how the earthquakes have been increasing in frequency and in severity, all over the world. This statistic, by the way, was not produced by Christians. So yes, there have been earthquakes throughout two thousand years. But the remarkable thing is, in this century alone, the whole intensity of the thing has become quite remarkable. It's becoming faster and stronger, these earthquakes.
There have been wars throughout two thousand years. But never in the history of mankind have we had wars on the scale and with the death rate within this century alone. And no one dares to think what will happen with the next war. So the Lord Jesus covers these two thousand years simply in this rather general statement of increasing intensity. And we can see for ourselves that that 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. Another interesting thing to notice is that in Daniel chapter 9, verse 27, the abomination of desolation is a person. And in the following two references — that is, in Daniel 11, verse 31, and in Daniel 12, verse 11 — they refer to a thing. And this prophecy was at least partially fulfilled during the days of the Greek king called Antiochus Epiphanes.
He went into the temple, which was not allowed for him to do. And he put a heathen altar on top of the holy altar in the temple. And he offered — he dedicated this altar to the chief of the Greek gods, called Zeus Olympus. That was called, in the book of the Maccabees, the abomination of desolation set up in the temple. This happened in the year 168 BC. This event was prophesied by Daniel some three hundred years beforehand. And Daniel described this king and all these other political events of the time in this remarkable detail, which has amazed the scholars.
But in verse 15 of Matthew 24, the Lord Jesus is not talking about a past event, but a future event. And what the Lord is saying is: do you remember those days, terrible days as it was in the history of Israel? But that will be nothing to compare with what will happen yet in the future. There will be another world ruler coming up. And he will go into the temple as Antiochus did. And this time he will not just put up an altar there to be worshipped — he will demand that he himself will be worshipped as God. Paul explains all this in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, which you can read for yourself there.
So the Lord Jesus has now become very specific at 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. Now the remarkable matter about this prophecy of the Lord Jesus is that He already prophesied the destruction of the temple. But then now He prophesied that this man, this abomination of desolation, will be standing in the holy place. This would mean that the temple will have to be rebuilt.
When I was in Israel this time, I could see what is happening. There is talk and there are discussions about building a so-called synagogue on the holy mountain. But that synagogue will have no difference in fact from being a temple. There are all kinds of plans and discussions. Apparently they are already preparing a priesthood ready for the new temple. And so, it is already implied in the Lord's words that the temple will be rebuilt. And this is the same thing as what Paul is saying in 2 Thessalonians 2.
As we are about to close for today, let us read 2 Thessalonians 2. Let us see what must happen before the Lord Jesus comes again. There are some Christians who are thinking that the Lord Jesus may come at any moment. The Thessalonians thought so too. So they decided that they might as well put themselves on permanent holiday until the Lord comes. But Paul will not have that. In fact, he says, "If you don't work, then don't eat." When the Lord comes, He wants to see you getting on faithfully with living a life to His glory in whatever you are doing. And he says, "I will tell you something else — 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 was remembered by the Jews as a most terrible dictator and king, he wouldn't be much compared with this one that is coming. There is the abomination that makes desolate, that causes desolation or destruction. And he will not put just an altar there, as I said, but he will have himself being worshipped.
He is called the man of lawlessness. Literally, if you translate from the Greek, it is a man who is committed to and lives only by lawlessness. He represents everything that is unholy. Everything that is vicious. And yet he will put himself forward in a very presentable manner, as we can see from the Old Testament.
This word "lawlessness" occurs, of course, also in Matthew 24. In Matthew 24, the Lord Jesus has already said in verse 12: "Because lawlessness will increase, the love of many will grow cold." Here lawlessness, of course, represents again precisely the opposite of what is holy. And so we read here in 2 Thessalonians 2 about these matters.
Paul says: salvation through sanctification. True spirituality is sanctification. It is holiness. It is inner holiness, not outward display of holiness. That's why Paul says "sanctification by the Holy Spirit." It is a work that God has done in you. This work of God in you does something remarkable: you love what is holy. You love what is pure. Formerly you didn't like those things. But now you love the things which are of God. The religious person is only interested in his church, in his religion, and all these external things. But he does not love that which is of God, which is holy. There is no salvation without sanctification. We read it here — "salvation through sanctification," Paul says here.
But 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. Amazing. The other day, I was in the bookshop. I saw a book by A.W. Tozer — I think it's well known to some of you. And the title of that book is, I call it "Heresy." And what does he call heresy? He says, "I call heresy that notion which says that we can simply accept Jesus as Savior, but we don't have to live under His Lordship with a holy life." But this heresy has become official doctrine, unfortunately, in almost all Chinese churches today. I'm sure you are aware of that.
But Tozer was talking about the churches in the United States in particular. He said, "Our practice today is simply to get people to raise their hands and make a profession of faith first. And then we tell them, 'You are saved now. Well, now that you are saved, let's try another step. So how about, as another step, try to live a little bit more presentable kind of Christian life?'" He said, "This is our practice in our churches today." And just because it's a practice in the churches, he says, that doesn't make it right. He said, "I call this heresy." No, he said, "The Scripture calls it heresy."
And so further along in that same book, he goes on to say, "Holiness is not optional." That is why when I preached some years ago, somebody said to me, "Your preaching reminds me of Tozer." I had to confess that at that time, I didn't know who Tozer was. I had to hurry and get a few books of Tozer. And indeed, I have to say, I agree with him wholeheartedly that this is Scripture. Scripture says — and notice carefully here — "salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth." Faith is put after sanctification, amazingly.
True spirituality, I emphasize again, has to do with holiness. Our time is gone, and I pray that God will so work by His Spirit in every one of your hearts, that because you love the Lord Jesus, you love His coming. You love His coming. And you are saying, "Lord Jesus, please come." Even if it destroys all my plans — going to a restaurant, it doesn't matter really. I much prefer to see You than go to the restaurant. Maybe I'll be getting married next year, but I'd rather have You come, even I prefer that to my marriage. Can you dare to say that? If you can say that, praise be to God. You are on the path to spirituality. Let us pray.