Matthew 24…
12"
Because lawlessness is increased, most people's love will grow cold.13"
But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved.
14"This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.
Revelation 14.
9-10
I would begin by pointing out the necessary element here: as the world and society conform more and more to the "politically correct," and "everyone is right," type of mentality, our contrast between truth and lie; right and wrong; good and evil...becomes muddled. There then becomes no "black and white,'' but only a constant "shade of grey," in which each person can find a comfortable place to rationalize and validate those things which are not of truth, of God, and of good. In essence, this first verse speaks of the "desensitizing," of the Body and world to the idea that sin is indeed sin; wrong is indeed wrong; and evil is indeed evil. This is what John's revelation here was referring to folks.
We are now in this age; where truth and lie become mixed in doctrine and preaching even from the pulpits; as some would preach,'acceptable sin,' implying that some are not so bad...or are not sin. Because of this hardening of heart to truth; and failure to maintain accountability; "lawlessness," is running rampant; in the church as in the world. Folks, we are again regressing for the most part into the Pharisaic society of Jesus' day; with hard hearts, absence of sincere love and a focus on politics, processes, and patterns of man-made tradition over authenticity and godly intention of heart.
Then another angel, a third one, followed them, saying with a loud voice,
“If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand,
10he also will drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mixed in full strength in the cup of His anger; and he will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.
let us keep in mind the figurative and illustrative purposes of almost all the scriptures. Far too long have we simply taken at face value these refer to literal marking; which may perhaps also be true, but let us not limit God here. WE do well to note the symbolism; especially given the great amount of illustrative and figurative context in Revelations relative to the church body, the believers and the process. We are told that wolves will come in wearing "sheep's clothing," (false prophets, preachers, teachers, etc.) but that we will know them by their fruit. From where does the fruit come? From the
inside; the heart, the mind...we choose freely our course, our intentions dictate our actions; thus we do well to realize that there is a process from internal choice f fruit and external delivery of it. So, could it be that this symbolizes how we are to recognize the enemy and who is of the enemy by the actions(fruit, illustrated by the hand,) which come from the heart/mind(intention, illustrated by the forehead.)? Christ is the head of the church, the body of believers in Him right? So our "hand,"(fruit,) will always reflect the marking of His nature; His being literally our "
forehead." Just so, the "hand," (fruit,) of the enemy will always be accompanied by the "marking," of its own "head," which is Satan; and bears his own mark. Just things to ponder anyway.
There have been lots of comments from churches and those who are acquainted with the bible. They believe that once you are saved you cannot lose your salvation. I believed that too but the above scriptures tend to baffle me a bit.
- IF those who ENDURE will be saved, would not the reverse be true, IF you do not ENDURE you will not be saved. I have often wondered about this text as this is the one that those who believe that you can lose your salvation.
- IF anyone is saved have accepted Christ and because of the conditions during this time they received the mark and worship the beast.. we can see the result..
We absolutely MUST take the entire book of revelation into account, according to context to have any shot at all of grasping what is said here. If you read Revelations ENTIRELY, even the passages in the Gospels where Jesus spoke of end times; you will see clearly to avoid stumbling here. This specifically speaks of the End-Times believers who were either specifically chosen for their value towards fulfilling God's plan; or those who are being given a final season to "get right," and attain salvation they have obliviously missed. (IE: Works-based focused believers, insincere believers, etc.) On the one hand you have the sincere; chosen specifically because God can use what He gifted them with and prepared them for in order for all things to come together. They will be fiercely persecuted, tortured, tried, tested, abused, starved and otherwise pressed to give in to the enemy and get some measure of "quarter," from him. However, should they not endure; they will have at the last second completely turned away with full knowledge of God and complete disregard of the salvation bought them; thus blaspheming the Holy Spirit. The others are given this season at the last as discipline and temporal punishment to redirect them back to sincerity and truth of faith rather than the illusion of works and deceptions that are leading them otherwise towards death.
Finally, there is a current day to day application also here: due to free will we can be so fully given to refusing or "throwing away ," our salvation that we also come perilously close to blasphemy of the Spirit. While one cannot traditionally "lose salvation," per se; one can potentially disqualify themselves with this one rare exception Christ made a point to bring up. Keep in mind when Jesus referred to this sin it was in confronting the Pharisees for refusing to see and accept Him for Who He was....just food for thought.
