Isaiah 5:20 Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!
Matthew 24:12 And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many (some translations say, “most”) will grow cold.
As we continue to inspect our hearts and take spiritual inventory of our lives during this month of Elul in preparation for the fall feasts, we should stay particularly aware of Yeshua’s prediction in Matthew 24:12, “The love of many will grow cold.” He warned that a sign of the last days would be abounding lawlessness and that callousness and hardness of heart would characterize the end times. The evidence of this is everywhere.
Mass looting, street violence, and robbery are commonly reported in thousands of mobile phone videos and mainstream news to an alarming degree unheard of even a few years ago. Meanwhile, much legislation has been perverted and manipulated to persecute Christians for their beliefs. Isaiah plainly described this present social and moral catastrophe, “Woe to them that call evil good, and good evil!”
In the midst of this, we have to ask ourselves, “Are our hearts becoming calloused? Are we losing our love to the increase of wickedness?” The atmosphere itself breathes strong temptation to be isolated, self-protective, and loveless, even toward our brothers and sisters, much less the multitude of lost and wayward souls around us. If the day is looming when “no man can work” [John 9:4] have we already begun to decide that loving for Christ’s sake is hardly a worthy cause any longer?
D.L. Moody once said, “(If) we have got the true love of God shed abroad in our hearts, we will show it in our lives. We will not have to go up and down the earth proclaiming it. We will show it in everything we say or do. “He also said, “Out of 100 men, one will read the Bible, the other 99 will read the Christian.”
How are you being read today? Are you gradually becoming stoic and isolated like your neighbor? Is your heart slowly but surely growing tough skin? “The love of many (or most) will grow cold.” Such a terrible expectation; God forbid that environmental and reactive fear, anger, and manipulation steal the fruit and character you’ve spent years cultivating in the Lord. God is love. There is no fear in love; perfect love casts out fear. [1 John 4:18] Allow yourself to be consumed by the love of God — and in doing so, you’ll be more than a conqueror through Him [Romans 8:35-39] in these last days!
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]A few years ago, I was in a debate with an atheist who had a legal background, and the Lord gave me a revelation about the tactics of the enemy. At Yeshua’s first coming, his tactic was to destroy the infant before He could grow up; [Revelation 12:4-5]. After the Lord’s death and resurrection, Satan continued his direct assault by attacking the church through persecution, which lasted through the first three centuries. The tactics of the enemy were to destroy any “eyewitnesses” of God’s goodness.
An interesting parallel exists between these two passages of scripture: Isaiah 53:9 and Acts 3:15. Isaiah renders the “death” of the messiah in the plural form, “deaths” (“motav”). Acts renders the life of the Prince of Life as “lives” (“chaim”). Some scholars suggest that the plurality of the word death indicates a violent death this servant would suffer, and that making the noun plural is a way of emphasizing the terrible intensity of his experience. Jewish counter-missionaries suggest that the “death” in plural shows that the suffering servant is not an individual man, but a group of people, specifically the nation of Israel, thus denying that the passage refers to an individual messianic figure.
Proverbs says the “highway of the upright is to depart from evil”. It’s a highway — a way of life so to speak. And this proverb coincides with the central teaching of Yeshua (Jesus) — “Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand.” What does it mean to repent? The Greek Word is “metanoia” which simply means to change your mind about sin or to depart from evil.
D.L. Moody has been influential in my personal life as I study and read about his life and ministry in the 1800’s. I remember reading a story about how D.L. Moody was preparing to lead a revival throughout England to which an elderly pastor protested and said, “Why do we need this ‘Mr. Moody’? He’s uneducated, inexperienced, etc. Who does he think he is anyway? Does he think he has a monopoly on the Holy Spirit?”
If these really are the “Days of Noah,” we would expect to see a world filled with increasing violence. The Hebrew for “violence” is , by coincidence, the name of the terrorist organization Israel has been fighting for decades. And simply perusing my news briefs in recent years gives abundant evidence for the conclusion that this terrible season is well underway. Noah’s day was filled with violence and also false witness, which is a second meaning for the word “Hamas” [e.g., ; ]; violence and lies, then and now…
As Israel braces for retaliation from Iran, Hezbollah, and its terrorist proxies following the assassinations of two terrorist leaders in Tehran and Beirut last week, many are praying through these tense times as Tisha B’Av begins tonight (Monday night).
Tonight, Jewish people around the world will mourn through Tisha B’Av, the ninth day of the fifth month on the Hebrew calendar. This day has been marked by numerous tragic events throughout history. It began with the spies returned with an evil report of Canaan, the Promised Land, as recounted in Numbers 13 and 14. This day marks the destruction of both the First and Second Temples, which occurred on the same date, separated by hundreds of years. The Crusades were launched on Tisha B’Av in 1095. In 1290, Jews were expelled from England, and in 1492, they were expelled again from Spain and Portugal on this very day. In the modern era, World War I began on the 9th of Av, and the call for the “Final Solution,” which led to the Holocaust, was announced on this date. To say that Tisha B’Av commemorates a series of horrific events is an understatement.
The Bible tells us that the last days would be like the days of Noah. As the mass of humanity witnesses the signs of increasing violence and evil manifesting in ways that seemed incomprehensible even just a decade ago, we are focusing on the peace that faith brings through the present storm. Though the ark he built for the flood was perhaps not the most luxurious boat ever made, Noah and his family were able to abide in God’s rest through the most terrible weather in human history.