The Holy Hassock

We say it every week in our Sunday worship service.  “He ascended into heaven; and is seated on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from where He shall come to judge the living and the dead!”

This is what we profess to believe as Christians in what is called The Apostles Creed.This portion of the Creed always takes me back to the 110^th Psalm, verse 1”The LORD said to my Lord, "Sit at My right hand, Till I make Your enemies Your footstool."

The” Lord saying to the Lord” is God the Father speaking to God the Son (Jesus) and telling Him to sit at His right hand (the position of authority) where Jesus is right now and will remain until God makes the enemies of Jesus His “footstool.”

In other words, Jesus will return when God’s enemies are stuffed into a hassock! Kind of a weird picture isn’t it? What is meant by “footstool?” I believe it is a metaphor for a place of rest and theonly true place of rest is Jesus.

So this Psalm speaks of conversion of unbelievers (enemies) to the footstool, the resting place of Jesus! When the last person(enemy) has been converted , the end will come. This coincides with what Jesus said in Mt 24:14 "And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.

This is comforting in one respect. God will not lose any! He knows those who are His. (2 Tim 2:19) but on the other hand it’s a little discomforting  because it tells of a time when people will flat out refuse the saving grace of God.  There comes a time when conversion to Christ will cease! A spiritual stupor (apostasy) will fall upon the world. 2Th 2:3 puts it this way:  Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first,”

This “falling away” should not restrain us from preaching the Gospel! 2Ti 4:2 reminds us to remain faithful in preaching the Gospel even though no one will receive it!  Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.  3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers;  4 and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.  5 But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

This “spiritual stupor” of the end times is difficult for us who have received the saving grace to understand. How can God (who desires all to come to repentance (2 Pet 3:9) allow this to happen?

Short answer is God will have mercy on whom He will have mercy! (Ro 9:15)

This dulling of spiritual hearing is nothing new with God, He has done it before if for no other reason to show us that He is capable of doing it, and will do it on the largest scale ever near the end!  He does it when large scale resisting of the Holy Spirit is evident! For instance:

He hardened the heart of Pharaoh.

He dulled the hearts of the Israelites in the wilderness: De 29:4 "Yet the LORD has not given you a heart to perceive and eyes to see and ears to hear, to this very day.

 Iaaiah, Jeremiah, and Exekiel preached to deaf ears:

Isa 6:9 And He said, "Go, and tell this people: 'Keep on hearing, but do not understand; Keep on seeing, but do not perceive.'

 10 "Make the heart of this people dull, And their ears heavy, And shut their eyes; Lest they see with their eyes, And hear with their ears, And understand with their heart, And return and be healed."

Jer 5:21 'Hear this now, O foolish people, Without understanding, Who have eyes and see not, And who have ears and hear not:

 Eze 12:2 "Son of man, you dwell in the midst of a rebellious house, which has eyes to see but does not see, and ears to hear but does not hear; for they are a rebellious house.

Stephen spoke of this resistance to the converting work of the Holy Spirit in  Ac 7:51 "You stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you.

Paul spoke of this “spiritual stupor in Ro 11:8, “ Just as it is written: "God has given them a spirit of stupor, Eyes that they should not see And ears that they should not hear, To this very day."

 And in 2Co 4:3,4 we see the work of Satan in this apostasy as he seeks to oppose the gospel: “ But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing,  4 whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.

This “God-allowed” apostasy is brought on by people who give heed to Satan and his workers rather than giving heed to Jesus and His workers (the church)

1Ti 4:1 Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons,

 2 speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron,

This final apostasy is on the way, and it ought to be frightening to you and I! But we in the church are not to lose heart. We are to be like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, faithfully proclaiming the Word of God and trusting God for the results.

So we preach and live the gospel, confident that none will be lost, and assured that the end will not come until the final soul is converted and stuffed into the holy hassock!