Take Heed

September 2

"But take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that Day come on you unexpectedly. For it will come as a snare on all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man," Luke 21:34-36.

This is a reiteration of the Lord’s warning in Matthew 24:44 and in Luke 12:40, “At an hour when you think not, the Son of Man shall come.” We are put on our guard about the promise that, after over 2000 years is yet unfulfilled. We are given notice that the human mindset that immediately precedes His return will be one of doubt.

And perhaps ‘doubt’ is too mild a word. Perhaps it should be stated, ‘The human mindset that immediately precedes His return will be one of disbelief.” Indeed, we in the Christian world have allowed ourselves to become aloof from our heritage of faith. We have allowed ourselves to become complacent, even indifferent, to the truth our forefathers were willing to die to espouse.

The founding fathers of the United States of America were willing to pledge their lives, their fortunes, their sacred honor in order to establish a country free of governmental tyranny, and we, their spiritual sons, are oblivious to the sacrifices they were willing to make because our history books have been so ‘dumbed down’ that we don’t even read about them anymore.

The exploits of our fathers in the faith are also relegated to the ash heap of history. We no longer study church history to be aware of the resolute and steadfast bravery with which the Apostles and those who followed them proclaimed the gospel. We hardly ponder the violent deaths they were willing to die in order that we might “know the truth that sets us free,” John 8:32.

We are too busy with the nothingness of our daily lives to ponder long upon the sacrifices of a group of men who were willing to lay everything upon the Altar of Freedom and Salvation. If we don’t investigate the truth that sets us free from oppression, how can we teach it to our children?

Deuteronomy 11:19-20 makes God’s command in the matter quite clear: “You shall therefore impress these words of Mine on your heart and on your soul; and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall teach them to your sons, talking of them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road and when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall write them on the door-posts of your house and on your gates, so your days and the days of your children shall be many in the land the Lord your God shall give you.”

We must begin again to “take heed” of ourselves. We must not be unchallenged by the admonitions of the Lord. Rather, we must take seriously His commands and drink in His truth and consume His words. If we want to live as a people, if we hope to survive as a culture, it behooves us to partake of the Word that sets us free and to share of the gospel of Christ’s good news among all our fellow sojourners through life.