MARK 13:9-13

MARK 13:9-13

MARK 13:9-13 - The suffering saints referred to here are clearly those of Israel who will be God’s final witnesses after the Church, as we know it, has been caught away to heaven, and the last week of Daniel 9 has begun. Then God will raise up a host of wise ones (the Maskilim of Daniel 12) to bear testimony and proclaim the gospel of the kingdom among all nations. These will be the special objects of Satan’s enmity and will be exposed to fearful suffering and relentless persecution; nevertheless the gospel must be proclaimed to all nations ere the end shall come.

We of this present age may appropriate these words to ourselves when found in similar circumstances, but it is important to see their exact application. 

  While portraying this time of persecution, verses 11 to 13 also give comfort and encouragement to those who will suffer arrest and imprisonment in those dark days. The Holy Spirit of God will enable them to answer those who accuse them falsely, in such manner that their adversaries will not be able to gainsay or resist. This passage might seem to suggest that these words could apply only to this present dispensation of grace when the Holy Spirit indwells all believers, but we need to remember that even when His present work in the Church comes to an end, and He will be no longer personally dwelling in the saints as now, yet He is ever omnipresent and so will be with all who turn to Christ in those dark days, even as He was with Old Testament saints before Pentecost. 

Betrayal by one’s own relatives, even unfilial children giving evidence against godly parents, or vice versa, will call for great patience and longsuffering on the part of those who shall be witnesses to the coming King in that time of stress. Hated by all who are subject to the power of Satan working through the atheistic governments of the last days, those who confess Christ as earth’s rightful King will be tried to the utmost, but “he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.” This is not to say that salvation in that hour of crisis will depend on individual faithfulness, but rather that endurance to the end is ever the evidence of reality. Mere profession will break down then, as now, but where one has actually been regenerated, power is given to continue in the path of devotedness to the Lord, no matter what he may be called upon to endure.