Greetings MOL Family!
Welcome back to our “Survival” series…
He That Endures to the End
I invite your attention to Luke 21. This 21st chapter of Luke is one of the great chapters on survival. We’ve already drawn from a number of its verses as texts on various aspects of this great subject of how to survive the great time of trouble that’s ahead, and leave this world alive instead of being left on it dead. The 21st chapter of Luke, you remember, is largely taken up with the words that Jesus spoke to His disciples on the Mount of Olives. Matthew tells it in the 24th chapter of his gospel. Luke has written it in the 21st chapter of his gospel.
And ye shall be betrayed both by parents, and brethren, and kinsfolks, and friends; and some of you shall they cause to be put to death. – Luke 21:16
In the great persecution that came upon the early church, and later the church in the wilderness during the Dark Ages, these words were fulfilled again and again. But they have a special application down here in the closing time of trouble. I’d like to have you notice the 10th chapter of Matthew for a parallel statement of Jesus concerning the persecution which those who will survive the wreck of the world must go through:
And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death. And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake: but he that endures to the end shall be saved. – Matthew 10:21-22
Here are the survivors, those who go through all this time of betrayal, persecution, and even death for Jesus’ sake, they will survive this wreck of a world and be with Jesus in the glory land forever.
But I would have you notice the particular statement about the breakup of the home.
…the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death. – Matthew 10:21
It’s hard to imagine isn’t it? But that’s what Jesus predicts. And these words have been literally fulfilled in recent years in certain parts of the world. In one of the great world divisions of our work the enemy has caused an anti-Christian power to take over in a great way.
A dear doctor and his wife were brought before a great audience, and there they were put on trial. Their little children of 10 and 12 years old were brought in to witness against them. Those children, they stood up there before their parents and before that great audience and said, “Our father and mother are guilty. They deserve to die.” They claimed that they had been agents of a foreign power. It was all a lie, but nevertheless there stood those little children with the blood-thirsty, satanic spirit of the unseen enemy, manifest in their faces, their words, their actions.
I want to tell you my dear friends, it is no longer true that we must wait until people grow up and get old in order to see what the harvest is. Have you ever noticed in the autumn days, when the frost is nearing, that even little plants go to seed quickly. We are in the closing hours of harvest time, and every plant is going to seed. Children today are either going to be old, mature Christians, or they’re going to be old, mature sinners before Jesus comes. I’m talking about those, of course, who are old enough to have reached the age of accountability; I’m not talking about babies in the cradle.
The world about us today is filled with all kinds of evidences that this is so. I shall not weary, or bore you, or make you sick with the awful recital of what is happening today out in the world around us. We’re all too familiar with it. My point is, the Bible predicts this very time, and it tells you and me how to have an experience of survival, not only individually but our families together. This is what I want to study with you today: the survival of the Christian home in these closing hours of earth’s history; when the world is breaking up, and all ties of home will be dissolved, as hate and selfishness take over.
Survival of the Christian Home
Turn to another prophecy dealing with our times, in 2 Timothy. The words of the Scripture are very specific, describing the last days.
This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves [What is one word that describes loving one’s self? – Selfish or selfishness – that’s it. This is the problem. The last days are perilous because everybody is what? – Selfish] covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy. Without natural affection… – 2 Timothy 3:1-3
Now I suppose that there has never been a time in the history of the world since Adam and Eve rebelled in Eden, and Cain killed his brother, but that there have been cases of disobedient children. This is a problem that parents have had to deal with for 6,000 years. But there is to come a time, says inspiration, when disobedient children will be so prevalent, when disobedience will be so widespread that it will constitute what? — A sign of the times. And when you see blazoned across the news headlines of these riots of young people; when you see these pictures of youth entering and trying to take over great universities; when you see these various pictures that show the rebellion of the modern generation, remember it is a fulfillment of Bible prophecy. This is an evidence that we are witnessing the breakup of civilization. The Judge is at the door. Jesus is about to come…
My question is, friends, will your home survive? Will your children survive?
We hear about the generation gap: the gap between the older people and the young people. As I shall show you, this is an invention of the devil. If you have the least idea that any attention ought to be given to such teaching, and room left for that, listen to the Word of God as we study it my friends. Listen to the Word of God.
Turn to the last page of the Old Testament, Malachi 4. God has not given one gospel for old people to be saved, and another one for children and young people to be saved by – not at all my friends. Malachi 4, the last words of the Old Testament. The prophet looking down the ages to these last hours makes a prediction and a promise:
Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. – Malachi 4:5-6.
Ah, my friend, a curse is coming. It’s already here: The curse of the breakdown of the home, the breakdown of civilization, the breakdown of authority in church and state because of the breakdown of the home. But God in His tender mercy, His wonderful love He promises to send a message spoken of here as the work of Elijah the prophet. What will he accomplish? He shall turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers.
I wonder friends, and I trust I shall not be misunderstood; I wonder if there will be any meetings miles apart or even yards apart when this prophecy is fulfilled? I say to you that one of the great needs of this hour is a message that draws parents and children together into a Christian experience which is built around the family altar. Not with a religious experience in which the young run as clubs and groups by themselves with little regard for parental authority. Oh, no friend, this is not the program.
Dear young people and children, hear the Word of God from the Bible today; and parents hear it, and do not be misled by this idea that the way for young people to be saved today is to have a lot of fun. Oh, no. The way for young people to be saved is the way that both young and old have always been saved — Through repentance, sorrow for sin, and faith in the shed blood of Jesus, and an experience which draws us back to harmony with the law of God.
Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. – Malachi 4:5-6.
Oh, my dear parents, you cannot turn this responsibility over to either church or school and wash your hands of it. The church and the school are to be your allies, your aid, but the primary responsibility is with you, dear fathers and mothers. God has promised you the help of the Great Father in Heaven. His Father’s heart longs for every one of these children, and He will help you, dear parents, to be to your children what He is to you. He promises to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children. And oh, the other part of the promise is so sweet, so precious. It says, He will turn the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.
Dear children and young people, will you let God fulfill this promise in you? Will you let the Holy Spirit turn your hearts to your fathers and mothers? Will you let Jesus put love in your hearts so that you love to obey what father and mother says? So that you have no interest in young companions who seek to draw you away from parental authority?
Ah, my friends, such an experience today would be a real conversion. I tell you, I care not if your children are baptized, baptism will not accomplish this. Don’t misunderstand me, baptism is a part of God’s plan of salvation, but there are thousands of children these days who have been dipped in the water who know nothing of the experience I’m studying from God’s book. They were disobedient before they were baptized. They are disobedient after they’re baptized. And we look in vain for the fruit that ought to be born on the Christian tree. Concerning those who shall survive this wreck of a world, it is written:
Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. – Revelation 22:14
We’re told by inspiration that the peace of the ransomed will never be marred by disobedient, unruly children. Children and youth today may stir up all kinds of trouble in this wicked world, but they will never stage a riot on the golden streets of Heaven. They will never spoil a religious service there as from one Sabbath to another the ransomed come to worship at the feet of Jesus. If we are to live in the joy of eternal peace, there as united families, shall we not let God give us an experience of peace in united families here?
Thousands of parents today have given up the job, thinking it’s impossible.Thousands have succumbed to the idea that this is a new age, a new time, that there’s a new morality. Let me tell you friends, there’s nothing new about it. It’s as old as Sodom and Gomorrah, as old as the antediluvian world. The spirit of rebellion against all law, human and divine, had its origin in the heart of Lucifer when he rebelled against the government of God, and he is seeking to infect our own homes, the homes of the remnant.
This promise is for you and me. Elijah has come. If we will listen to the prophet, the prophet of God for these latter days, the hearts of parents will be turned to the children, and the hearts of children will be turned to their fathers. But we’ll not get such a spirit looking at TV or listening to the radio, unless it be in these rare broadcasts where the message of God for this hour is being sent… But if even that is taking away from the needful time and effort needed to build up the Christian home, please, it’s time to have a heart-to-heart with God and your family…
Until next week – Invite a friend, and we’ll see you then…
–Continue on to the next study–
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Has the work of Elijah begun in your heart and in your home? “Society is composed of families, and is what the heads of families make it. Out of the heart are “the issues of life”; and the heart of the community, of the church, and of the nation is the household” {AH 15}. If it is your desire to establish and maintain the greatest institution in this world (the Christian home), please enter into this experience, without delay. >> Learn More
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* This study has been adapted from classes taken by Elder W.D. Frazee.