“And Because Lawlessness Will Abound, the Love of Many Will Grow Cold.”

“And Because Lawlessness Will Abound, the Love of Many Will Grow Cold.”

This is what Jesus Christ, the Prophet of all prophets, has predicted. There is no way around it. Therefore we have only one thing to do; namely, to take it seriously to heart in order to save ourselves and as many of the others as possible from such an end!

According to this word of Jesus, everyone in particular has a blessed opportunity to be found among the fewest in whom love will stay warm in spite of gross unrighteousness among God’s people.

These fewest will be able to apply this word with boldness: “For what if some did not believe? Will their unbelief make the faithfulness of God without effect?” Rom. 3:3. Likewise we ask with all boldness: “If unrighteousness increases ever so much, do we therefore have to follow it?” And we reply just as boldly: “Far from it!!!” If the majority lose courage and faith in things that are good and perfect and become lukewarm and cold, we do not need to do the same, do we? Not at all! God be praised! He is the same faithful and true God. He will and can purge all the dross of unrighteousness from everyone who hungers and thirsts for it to be done. He has sufficient fire, and He loves to use it. No one needs to become lukewarm or cold!

Where righteousness and the truth that belongs to and leads to the fear of God are preached, there love and everything good will necessarily prosper and increase.

Where only love and grace are being preached exclusively in the sense that Christ has done everything for us and that we shall only look up to Him and not at our own or the church’s and the others’ actual state—there all unrighteousness, laziness, hypocrisy, superficiality, love of money, conceit, greed, wantonness, lukewarmness, immodesty, and all kinds of wretchedness prosper—even Satan himself can thrive there.

This is precisely how it has gone in these latter years in all kinds of assemblies. The so-called “free” assemblies have led the way. They have gone thoroughly astray in the faith by completely and openly rejecting godliness, righteousness, and a love for the truth. They have spoken badly, even very badly, about the Way of God as it was, is, and will be in truth until the Lord’s return. See Acts 19:9.

It has been and it still is forbidden to let the light shine into the true condition of the congregations. If you preach about the wretchedness of the members and unrighteousness (so that they could have an opportunity to turn away from their folly), they call out in a loud voice: “Preach Christ, preach about the blood; speak about grace,” etc., shouting it in anger, hatred and rage—in the same way as they called out “Crucify! Crucify!” to the blessed Son of God because He told them the truth in perfect purity so that it cut their hearts.

Nevertheless, the time has now come when all the upright will and must come out of this deception. The light shall and must shine into all this ungodliness among God’s people. The tree can and shall and must be known by its fruit!!! And the unmistakable fruit that shall be illuminated is righteousness. Not just righteousness on a human level, according to civil law, but a righteousness that is many times stronger and deeper and more encompassing and broader, according to God’s laws!!!

They have explained away and lied themselves away from this godly, precise, and detailed personal righteousness in every way possible. They have not entered into this righteousness themselves, and have hindered those who wanted to enter! What are you going to answer before Christ’s judgment seat? What excuse will you make before the Judge and all those whom you have deceived?

I will, by God’s grace which I have not received in vain, point out two grave injustices. 1. The one concerns the mutual ministry of the saints. 1 Cor. 14:26 and 31: “Each of you . . . all . . . .” 1 Thess. 5:11: “Each other . . . .” 1 Pet. 4:10: “Minister it to one another . . . .” “Where the Spirit of the Lord is [reigning], there is liberty.” There has been much talk about liberty, but the reality is the opposite. Not even in the “free” assemblies is there any liberty; neither is there opportunity to serve according to the grace God gives. People are thoroughly smothered and cowed. Leaders and traveling preachers swallow everything and everyone. They simply do not have opportunity to serve and edify one another through exhortation, instruction, comfort, chastisement, etc. Thus they do not have opportunity to grow in their ministry. This is precisely why people stagnate and become lukewarm and cold. Liberty, then, is essentially defined by permission to remain sitting as approving and nodding bench fillers, so there is hardly anything to prevent them from putting everything they can into the collection envelopes, etc.

One has done nothing less than thrown away the key to an unspeakably glorious and lovely, precious, interesting, comprehensive, and exalted church life of serving each other, of mutual growth in all that is good! They say that the way to it is being cursed and condemned! They say it is bondage, false doctrine, apostasy, a terrible spirit, etc.; it is even satanic!!!

2. The other one is money—sordid gain. 2 Cor. 2:17; Phil. 2:20 and 21, and 3:18 and 19; 1 Tim. 6:3 and 11! What has happened to contentment? How do the leaders conduct themselves? They live frugally, do they not? They are examples worth following, are they not? They do not lead a life of luxury like other people, do they? They do not collect the gifts of the poor for their personal enrichment and comfort, do they? They live frugally and with contentment, like their Master and the first Christians? Especially in these days when there are so many unemployed! They do not like gifts, do they? Prov. 15:27; Acts 20:33-35. They use everything they receive with the utmost faithfulness and in the fear of God, do they not? The rich man is certainly never esteemed more highly than the poor man? They are not partial, are they? Jas. 2:1-10.

The poor have just as much to say in the church as the rich, do they not, even considerably more than the rich? The leaders finally have the boldness to exhort souls with the ardor of zeal to follow their example just as they have followed Christ in all things, He who did not have a place where He could lay His head, who did not even have it as comfortable as the foxes in their holes! Phil. 3:17; 1 Cor. 4:8-17.

Shall we test them? Yes, their words as well as their deeds. Is it Christian to do that? Yes, that is the only Christian thing to do, as well as biblical. See Revelation 2:2. Test them thoroughly! It will benefit the sheep as well as the shepherd! It will oblige them to repent from living for themselves. Test them with little money, simple fare, not much praise, and offer them an abundance of hard and simple labor—then you will soon get to know each one of them according to the Spirit, according to the inner life, according to their true attitude of mind and their content. See 2 Corinthians 10:7. This is healthy and good for everyone.

Unrighteousness has soon exceeded all limits. It is said that one has begun a hair-raising system of monetary pressure: each member of the congregation is to give his gifts in an envelope with his name written on it. In other words, the complete opposite of the noble teaching of Jesus Christ that one hand should not know what the other hand is doing. This system is pure ungodliness.

Furthermore, this becomes a kind of unavoidable financial pressure because people will feel obliged to give more than they would have done otherwise; they will give more than they can give cheerfully—more than according to the law of liberty.

Moreover, it will have the effect that it flatters the rich and despises, oppresses, and crushes the poor and God-fearing who have little or nothing to give; at the same time it will tempt and fool the poor (but not as God-fearing) to give to God’s “cause” what should (according to the most basic righteousness) have been used for other things.

This inequality was bad enough before. Now it is to be made worse; now it is to go beyond all imagination. Of course, the consequence will not be lacking. Jesus’ word will be fulfilled to the uttermost: “The love of many will grow cold.” They will lose courage and give up everything as being hopeless.

Happy is everyone who then meets a righteous people where love is warm and where everything good blossoms and flourishes and bears mature fruit!!!

3. A third ungodliness should also be mentioned. This concerns the members, followers. What is it here that is unrighteous? It is that the greatest effort is made to have as many members as possible registered, so that the number (and therefore honor and gain) can be as large as possible, while they do the least amount possible to lead them to righteousness. One doesn’t even dare to mention righteousness for two good reasons: They are not righteous themselves, and they know that most of the members do not like to hear anything about it. In that case, they would take offense and go their way. However, the number must first of all be large! Therefore righteousness can fend for itself as good as it can. This is guile!

When the name is on the membership list and one has become an adherent of the congregation’s teaching and their way of doing things, and people fill the benches, nod and say “Amen” and “Hallelujah” plus put as much as possible in the collection and in the envelopes and similar things, then that should suffice.

All of this is a terrible image of an assembly of the living God where one is meant to grow up to Him as one body by serving one another in spirit and truth in all righteousness and goodness.

Wherever some rays of light should shine into the true condition in such assemblies, this would soon—and presumably right away—result in a “Babylonian confusion” because of all the unrighteousness, partiality, and crying lack of true godly fear.

Man has always been mostly interested in outward appearances—in water baptism, the baptism in the Spirit, many people, much money, large, splendid churches and meeting halls, dignified, handsome, and ell-spoken people, nice music and songs, healings, all kinds of signs and wonders, etc. Because of their superficiality and folly, people think that God is also mostly interested in these things, but they are thoroughly mistaken and go badly astray—if not from their faith, yet in their faith.

If you do not come to another understanding of life, you will be terribly disappointed on that Day! God is interested only in inward things!!! But don’t the outward things also come from Him? Yes, of course! But all that is only given and arranged for the sake of the inward things!!! Therefore when things have failed concerning the inward things (righteousness and mercy according to His standard—2 Cor. 6:11), then everything has failed. All of God’s manifold grace and gifts have been in vain!!! They have not served their purpose.

God desires the truth in the innermost parts of the heart and on the outermost parts of the lips. He desires the purity of wisdom and goodness in every detail. He loves righteousness and hates iniquity!

We can—if we want to—learn this with all reliability and strength from Matthew 7:22 and 23 together with hundreds and thousands of other places in the Scriptures. We can read about this from cover to cover with all desirable clarity. It is my wish that such instruction will please you, dear soul! Imagine: “Prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name.” Then you would be very beloved in God’s eyes? Not at all! This weighed extremely little in His scales! They also committed unrighteousness, and this outweighed all the other things! “Depart from Me, you who practice unrighteousness!”

I wonder what this unrighteousness was? For all the upright it is very easy to discover and to understand, besides abstain from it. But it is difficult for the others. We do not have too many main interests to choose from in this world. There are two main interests when it concerns unrighteousness:

1. Sordid gain—money (all material things). Jer. 6:13 and 14.

2. Honor of man (flattery, partiality, speaking in order to please people, etc.).

Why does one never speak about the love of money and that godliness with contentment is great gain? That speaks for itself. Because neither the preacher nor the majority of the listeners want to forsake the love of money which they have inherited from their fathers and in which they have been instructed since they were children. Therefore one is “prudently” quiet about this topic. Thus one lives in unrighteousness “up to your ears”; so it is no wonder that one becomes lukewarm and cold, ending up on a membership list and filling a seat on the bench.

In this state people sleep and dream about a life of comfort in the Millennium and in heaven together with praise and honor and glory at Christ’s return. As a reward for their unrighteousness and lukewarmness?? By pleading the righteousness of Christ and His grace? In order to receive this false comfort all year round, year after year until their dying day, people maintain an entire army of preachers who, generally speaking, are worse than themselves!

Now it is high time for people to wake up!!! The Bridegroom is coming soon! Who can and will be awakened? All those who are upright! All those who have grieved and sighed under this superficiality and injustice. Read and reflect on 2 Peter 2 and Hebrews 1:9!

What is the right thing to do? Be finished with all this clamor for money for God’s cause! God is not poor or needy. He Himself is sure to know how to plead His case in the proper manner, you vain, well-intentioned, and proud person! Be finished with collections, tithing, the envelope system, and similar things. Let God work in the hearts to give according to the perfect law of liberty, gladly and joyfully, of their own volition! Speak about righteousness, love of the truth, moderation, and judgment; about flattery, hypocrisy, love of money, and sordid gain; about a life in the fear of God, about self-denial, about the cross, death, and grave, and the destruction of all flesh, of all the works of man! Be finished with ruling over souls! Let the Spirit of the Lord reign so that there is liberty for every poor and lowly person to testify—to comfort, edify, exhort, instruct, rebuke, chasten, etc. Be finished with “singing down” and forcefully removing those you do not like. Listen to them and convict and guide them to what is good. Give up your authoritarian rule over them! Let those who are rich and who are good speakers sit in the back, and let the poor and awkward sit up front.