Be Sure to Save Your Own Life

Be Sure to Save Your Own Life

“And because unrighteousness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. But he who endures to the end shall be saved.” Matt. 24:12-13.

The kingdom of Christ consists of love, but the kingdom of Satan consists of hatred. If you abide in love, you are of God and belong to Christ’s kingdom. If your love grows cold, you will end up outside Christ’s kingdom and in Satan’s kingdom. We know that the entire world is under the sway of the wicked one, so we cannot expect anything good to come from there. 1 John 5:19. The Beast and the Antichrist will gain power over the nations—that will be the time of the lawless one. All of this has been foretold, and we shouldn’t be amazed at it; but he who endures to the end will be saved.

What does it mean to endure? It means that we have to keep our love warm in spite of all unrighteousness. That is the only way in which to be saved. You can be a professing Christian without having love. You can also profess that Jesus died for our sins on Calvary, and have no love. These are the people who have a form of godliness, of whom there will be many in the last days, but they deny its power.

Many people have had a warm love, but it has cooled off because of what they have been exposed to by their fellow men. Their reasoning is that the people who are so evil don’t deserve any goodness. They should reap what they have sown; they shouldn’t expect to be loved by anyone. But you who think like this and even act on it—don’t you understand that you need to save your own soul? By letting your love grow cold, you are losing your own soul! It is not enough that the unrighteous person is lost, but you are also dragged down with him. It is the person who endures—who keeps his love warm until the end—who will be saved.

It is not our business to judge and requite the unrighteous. Jesus committed these matters to Him who judges righteously, and so He kept His love warm. He had more than enough goodness to show toward Judas so He could say to him, “Friend”! Our concern is to keep ourselves in love—in Christ’s kingdom—so that no one and nothing can drag us away from it. We must first and foremost make sure to save ourselves, which is also the only way by which we can save others.

Here we can learn from David when he was the object of Saul’s unrighteousness and jealousy. He left it up to God who had other instruments to avenge him. David was a vessel of honor and would not be used for this purpose. “Wickedness proceeds from the wicked. But my hand shall not be against you.” 1 Sam. 24:13-14.

Remember this, brother and sister; you are a vessel of honor. God wants to use you to let His goodness flow out to people; He has others for the purpose of letting them feel His wrath if that is what He chooses to do.

“In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us . . . .” 1 John 4:10. “We love Him because He first loved us.” V. 19.

The fact that we are good to those who are good to us does not prove that we love, but our love is manifested if we love people regardless of how they are. If you want to be saved at all, you will have to seek God fervently so that you keep your love warm until the end regardless of what you have to endure.

It is good to have light and clarity in this matter so we can find the narrow way that leads to life. And if the sufferings are so intense that they are difficult to endure, they are, nevertheless, to be reckoned as nothing when compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. Rom. 8:18.