There is a Last Time for Everything

“Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets.  Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers.  Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?”  Matthew 23:31-33

In Old Testament times, the religious leaders of Israel killed some of the prophets that God had sent to warn them to turn from their sin and idolatry.  The religious leaders of Jesus’ day pretended to honor these deceased prophets by making improvements to their tombs and insisted that if they had been in the days of their father, they would never have done such atrocities.  But they were the descendants of these murderous leaders and refused to acknowledge that they possessed the same hatred of those who called attention to their own wickedness.  The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.  They vowed that they would not have killed these prophets, yet they had already met to discuss how they were going to destroy Jesus (Matthew 12:14).  They were no more righteous that their ancestors.

In John 8:33-47, the Pharisees and other Jews boasted about their descent from Abraham.  Jesus told them that if they were the children of Abraham, they would act like Abraham and not like men who sought to kill Him.  Abraham spent his time searching for a city whose builder and maker was God (Hebrews 11:10) and not in trying to destroy anyone who got in his way.  Jesus told them plainly that their father was the devil because they were doing Satan’s will, not God’s.  Their insistence that they would have gladly listened to the prophets of their father’s day was shown to be a lie because of the way that they were treating Jesus and John the Baptist before Him.  It is funny how folks react or behave differently from how they picture themselves reacting or behaving.  People usually see themselves as much more righteous and upstanding than their real behavior indicates.

After rebuking the scribes and Pharisees for their hypocrisy, Jesus called them “serpents” and sons of “vipers”, and then asked them how they thought they could “escape the damnation of hell”.  I can only imagine the looks on their faces.  His truthful and in-your-face description of them only made them more determined to destroy Him.  However, they weren’t the only ones who should have been worrying about escaping the “damnation of hell”.  Just think of the millions, maybe billions, of people who think they are escaping hell, and have no idea that hell is their final destination because they have rejected Christ, just as these religious rulers did.  Jesus said in Mark 16:16b that those who don’t believe in Him shall be damned.  It doesn’t get any clearer than that.  God has been more than patient with man, but His patience will finally come to an end one day.

Matthew Henry wrote over 300 years ago some comments concerning men’s and nations’ march to utter destruction:  “There is a measure of sin to be filled up, before utter ruin comes upon persons and families, churches and nations.  God will bear long, but the time will come when He can no longer forbear, Jeremiah 44:22”.  There will come a day when the last baby will be aborted, the last homosexual couple “married”, the last person murdered, the last pornography printed, the last government cover up made, the last adultery committed, the last lie told, the last seed of discord sown, and the last prideful deviant act before God is done, and He will say, “Time’s up”.

God does not force Himself on any, but He has laid out a plan by which those who follow His plan reap the rewards of benefits by obedience while those who reject His plan suffer the consequences.  God’s ultimatum was laid out long before He sent His only Son to pay the penalty for the sins of man.  It is written in Deuteronomy 30:19: “I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore, choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.”  People choose to stay under the curse if they reject life, and they have no one to blame but themselves.  And so, we find this to be the case of the scribes and Pharisees and all others who cling to their own self-righteousness.