As Jesus continued his prophetic discourse in Matthew 24, He gives His disciples a sense of the progression of the events that will happen in the last days. He warned that in the last days before the Great Tribulation, many Christians will be offended and betray one another:

Many shall be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another. And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. (Matthew 24: 9-12 KJV)

Now the brother shall betray the brother to death, and the father the son; and children shall rise up against their parents, and shall cause them to be put to death. (Mark 13:10 KJV)

You will be delivered up and betrayed even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and some of you they will put to death. And you will be hated (despised) by everyone because you bear My name and for its sake (Luke 21:16-17).

Many will turn away from the faith, be offended and betray one another to save their own lives. The Greek word for love used here is agape, which is Christian love shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. This love will grow cold because of multiplied lawlessness.

Many will start questioning God which will harden their hearts even more. Where lawlessness abounds, the love of God will be squeezed out of people’s hearts and will betray one another to the world government Gestapo.

They will not be prepared to be persecuted or hated for the name of Jesus. What is very frightening is that persecution of Christians is most likely to come from believers. The worst kind of persecution is Christians who persecute Christians.

We need to remind ourselves that infiltration of the churches by communists, atheists, occultists, even satanists, or other anti-God forces is a ply of Satan. Just because we assume someone is a believer with pure motives does not mean that he is. It is estimated that eighty-five percent of the Christians turned in fellow believers during the revolution in China.

David Wilkerson wrote in one of his Time Square Church Pulpit Series, “The Persecution of the Righteous” (4/13/87):

In His going–away message to the disciples, Jesus warned them of certainty of persecution. He said, “If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you” (John 15:20). Who are they? Who is it who will persecute the most intimate followers of Christ? It is the religious crowd! Those with outward forms of godliness without the power of the total heart surrender—these will persecute those who glory only in the Cross of Christ. The godless, humanistic Romans were not the real persecutors of the Master.

His greatest abuse was at the hands of those most steeped in the Law, the hierarchy of the church, and the masses who boasted that God was their Father. Money relief from suffering, and desire to save themselves are three motives for betraying others…..I have seen more than a few believers trade in their Christian birthright for a mess of earthly pottage…. Christians who talk about the possibility of persecution may be ostracized by other believers who think that they will be taken from this world before any trouble begins.

Now is the time for believers to ask the Lord for guidance, wisdom, and strength to face whatever the future holds. We need to watch and pray that we will not deny the Lord and other believers and to watch therefore, and pray always that we may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass and to stand before the Son of Man.” (Luke 21:36).

In these increasingly dark times, we need to be praying for discernment for the Lord to reveal the true motives of whom we call our friends. For true friendship cannot really be true unless that love that is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit cements the friends together (see Romans 5:5). We need to acknowledge that in many professing Christians, there is little evidence of true koinonia (fellowship).

You can’t assume a person is a Christian if he uses any religious language. Knowing in whom a person can confide and whether that person truly knows Jesus Christ may mean the difference between life and death.

We should take courage from God’s wisdom as the Book of Proverbs says: “Discretion shall watch over you, understanding shall keep you. (Proverbs 2:11).

Christians who understand the times need to develop discernment about people; seek the counsel of others they trust; find like-minded people who can be part of a mutual support group and who they can cooperate with, and develop an instinct for what doesn’t feel right.

No matter how good something looks or sounds on the surface, go with your gut feeling, with your instinct, with your intuition, with that green light or check in your spirit which the Holy Spirit gives you.

In his masterpiece classic book, The Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn describes how betrayal became a form of existence during the time of persecution in Russia. “All human emotions love friendship, envy, love of one’s fellows, mercy, thirst for fame, honesty-fell away from us along with the meat of our muscles

Given this constant fear over a period of many years—for oneself and one’s family—a human being became a vassal of fear, subjected to it. And it turned out that the least dangerous form of existence was constant betrayal. The mildest and at the same time most widespread form of betrayal was not to do anything bad directly, but just not to notice the doomed person next to one, not to help him, to turn away one’s face to shrink back. They had arrested a neighbour, your comrade at work, or even your close friend. You kept silence. You acted as if you had not noticed. (For you could not afford to lose your current job!).

Under the coming persecution, some Christians will renounce their faith and betray those who remain faithful to Jesus Christ. And it’s more likely that those who betray their fellow believers will betray them to the godless secular government.

What about your relatives? Can your close relative, son or daughter betray you to the secret police or worse still cause your death? To answer the question, let’s look at the words of Jesus. He said:

Now the brother shall betray brother to death, and the father the son; and children shall rise up against their parents, and shall cause them to be put to death. (Mark 13:12 KJV)

It happened in communist Russia during a trial of some Baptists at Nikitovka in the Donbas, in January 1964. Alexander Solzhenitsyn describes what really happened in one of the trials against Christians and their children:

While the trial was in progress there were shouts from the spectators: “Pour kerosene over the lot and set fire to them!” The court did nothing to curb this righteous indignation. Typical of its procedures: it admitted the evidence of hostile neighbours and also of terrorized minors; little girls of nine and eleven were brought before the court (who the hell cares what effect it has on them as long as we get our verdict). Their exercise books with texts from the Scriptures were introduced as exhibits.

One of the defendants, Bazbei, father of nine children, was a miner who had never received any support from the Union committee at his pit because he was a Baptist. But they managed to confuse his daughter Nina, a schoolgirl in the eighth grade, and to suborn her with fifty rubles from the Union committee and a promise to place her in an institute later on, so that during the investigation she made fantastic statements against her father: he had tried to poison her with a sour fruit drink; when the believers were hiding in the woods for their prayer meetings (because they were persecuted in the settlement) they had had a radio transmitter—“a tall tree with wire wound all around it.”

Afterwards, this lying statement began to prey on Nina’s mind, she became ill and was put in the violent ward of an asylum. Nonetheless, she was produced in court in the expectation that she would stick to her evidence. But she repudiated every word of it!

“The interrogator dictated what I had to say himself.” It made no difference. The shameless judge ignored her latest statements and regarded only her last statements and her earlier evidence as valid….”Now, what do you mean by that? It says here in your deposition….You testified during the investigation…. What right have you to retract now? That’s an offence, too, you know!”

“How can you talk about the end of the world when we are committed to the building of Communism.

This was the closing statement made by one young girl, Zhenya Khloponina. “Instead of going to the cinema or to dances, I used to read the Bible and say my prayers—and just for that, you are taking my freedom from me. Yes, to be free is a great happiness, but to be free from sin is a greater still….

The sentences: Two of them got five years in the camps, two of them four years, and Bazbei, father of all those children got three. The defendants accepted their sentences joyfully, and said a prayer. The “representatives from enterprises shouted: “Not long enough! Make it more!” (Throw kerosene over them and put a match to it….) 

Russia had just signed the World Convention on “the fight against discrimination in the sphere of education.” One of its points was that parents must be allowed to provide for the religious and moral education of their children in accordance with their own convictions.” But that is precisely what we cannot allow!

Anyone who speaks in court on the substance of the case, anyone who tries to clarify the issue, is invariably interrupted, diverted from his train of thought, deliberately confused by the judge, who conducts the debate on this level: “How can you talk about the end of the world when we are committed to the building of Communism.”

And who is building Communism today?  Progressive British, American, German, French and “left-wing” thinkers and students in the West!

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Not all Envy is Bad But Motive is Vital

Envy can motivate you to pursue success in life or be a positive motivation to make you do something worthwhile in your life. Solomon wrote that he “observed that most people are motivated to success because they envy their neighbours. But this, too, is meaningless— like chasing the wind” (Ecclesiastes 4: 4 NLT).

In Philippians 2:3 Paul warns us as servants of the Lord: Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. The fact is, the more we aim at personal success, the less secure we become. We are threatened by the possibility that someone else may succeed before we do.

This creates an atmosphere for jealousy and envy to thrive. Instead, we ought to be motivated less and less by personal ambition but to simply please the Lord. Even in times of frustration or failure, we should turn our focus from trying to solve the problem to maintaining an attitude that is pleasing to the Lord.

As servants of Christ, we will experience no competition or envy but we would strive to please our Lord who was utterly devoted to His Father’s will, honour, praise and glory and received no recognition from men (see John 5:30-31).

For we must all appear and be revealed as we are before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive his pay according to what he has done in the body, whether good or evil considering what his purpose and motive have been, and what he has achieved, been busy with, and given himself and his attention to accomplishing (2 Corinthians 5:10 AMP).

Again, according to his letter to the Philippians, Paul heard that some preached Christ out of rivalry and jealousy of him; he said he was delighted that the gospel was being preached, whatever the motives of those preaching it. He said he would go anywhere to tell anyone what God had done in Christ.

Let me add that I observed this spirit of envy and jealousy first and foremost in my own life and some of the main things I pray every day to be delivered from are: pride, lust and envy. Pride is the first sin of in most of us, as we imitate our parents Adam and Eve. Lust is probably second. But high on the list of the sins of our human race is envy, which could possibly be seen as a subsection of pride.

We hate to see our fellow human beings having any sort of success. For instance, it’s been noted that the British are very proud people and this pride results in envy and jealousy. From envy, it is often a short step to servility.

Whereas the Americans think of themselves as individuals created in the image of God. They resent being servants, and when given the opportunity to become their own masters, they seize it with enthusiasm and never look back.

Many people of different backgrounds have been elevated to positions of higher responsibility in areas of business, academia, politics, law and other professions because they knew in America you can compete effectively once given the opportunity.

But in some or even many black circles, pursuing learning is called acting white, and this (needless to say) is a criticism of the black person trying to be an excellent student. Apparently, envy seems to be at work here when Black people criticize their fellow Blacks for “acting white.”

If some Black person has acknowledged a real objective standard of intellectual excellence, and has bravely attempted to come up to that standard by his or her pursuit of learning; instead of saying, “You go guy or girl, and encouraging this admirable attempt, much of the black community instead mocks the person as having deserted his people.

He is “acting white” This is defined as envy which is “How dare you try to be smarter and better than the rest of us? You are a traitor to your race, you are acting white. We are going to put you down with the rest of us.” This is envy. It might be unconscious envy but it is still the sin of envy.

What about God’s Jealousy?

This is possibly the one thing about God of the Bible that the world hates most. We are told that the Lord is a jealous God (Exodus 34:14). The Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God (Deuteronomy 4:24).

Do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously?”(James 4:5). God doesn’t envy anybody or anything, because it’s all His anyway – but He is jealous. Jealousy is an appropriate emotion for God, even if we might not think so at first.

I heard a story of how Oprah Winfrey listened to the preacher in a Baptist church when she was around twenty-eight years old. The preacher was speaking about the omniscience, omnipresence and omnipotence of God. Oprah was apparently enthralled – until he quoted Exodus 34: 14, saying that God is a jealous God. She said ‘I was caught up in the rapture of that moment; until he said “jealous.”

She said it made her realize that ‘God is jealous of me’. She then added, “Something about that didn’t feel right in my spirit because I believe that God is love.”

It would have been appropriate for Oprah to know that God should be jealous for His people when they follow other gods. He is jealous for His name, His reputation, His people, and His world. These are not popular attributes of God, but we need to understand them if we are to gain a proper perspective of Who He is.

Godly Jealousy

The apostle Paul faced opposition wherever he went – human opposition, largely Jewish in origin, and the satanic opposition that was behind the human element. Both were due to jealousy, for both the Jews and Satan were jealous of losing followers.

In Paul’s letter to the Galatians, he describes godly jealousy to believers who he thought had been deceived by false apostles using the serpent’s cunning, and their minds somehow be led astray from their sincere and pure devotion to Christ (see Galatians 1:6-9).

It is clear from Paul’s teaching in Colossians and other letters, notably Galatians and Romans, that Christianity is not about giving up abstaining from legitimate bodily pleasures like food but is about giving up the attitudes and practices that displease God, such as pride, lust, envy, quarrelling, rivalry and prejudice. It means living consistently in Christ every day of your life.

Jude also focuses on the characters of false teachers and their similarity to the characters of three people in the Old Testament. He starts with Cain, who killed his brother out of jealousy. He tells the readers that the false teachers are motivated in part by jealousy, just like Cain, and so are bound to affect those who listen.

Look into the Mirror-The Word of God

James says that the Bible is like a mirror that can show us what we are like through the people we read about (James 1:23). We can compare ourselves with Bible characters and ask whether we would have behaved in the same way. We are envious of others because the more you have, the more you want, and the more you envy those who have got more. James says,

But if you have bitter jealousy (envy) and contention (rivalry, selfish ambition) in your hearts, do not pride yourselves on it and thus be in defiance of and false to the Truth…. For wherever there is jealousy (envy) and contention (rivalry and selfish ambition), there will also be confusion (unrest, disharmony, rebellion) and all sorts of evil and vile practices (James 3:14 AMP).

James goes on to tell us that strife, discord feuds, conflicts quarrels and fightings originate and arise from our sensual desires that are ever warring in our bodily members.  You are jealous and covet what others have and your desires go unfulfilled; so you become murderers.

To hate is to murder as far as your hearts are concerned. You burn with envy and anger and are not able to obtain the gratification, the contentment, and the happiness that you seek, so you fight and war. You do not have, because you do not ask. Or you do ask God for them and yet fail to receive because you ask with wrong purpose and evil, selfish motives. Your intention is when you get what you desire to spend it in sensual pleasures (James 4:1-3 AMP).

Like it or not, then, we all have envy and jealousy from time to time. But jealousy is envy that we failed to keep under control – as when the dam bursts, the volcano erupts, the tongue becomes the fire of hell (James 3: 6).

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who suffered decades of horrendous hardship as a political exile in the Siberian prison system known as the “gulag” wrote in the Gulag Archipelago:

Don’t be afraid of misfortune and do not yearn after happiness. It is, after all, the same. The bitter doesn’t last forever, and the sweet never fills the cup to overflowing. It is enough if you don’t freeze in the cold, and if hunger and thirst don’t claw at your sides.

If your back isn’t broken, if your feet can walk, if both arms work, if both eyes can see, and if both ears can hear, then whom should you envy? And why? Our envy of others devours us most of all. Rub your eyes and purify your heart and prize above all else in the world those who love you and wish you well.

Love endures long and is patient and kind; love never is envious nor boils over with jealousy, is not boastful or vainglorious, does not display itself haughtily (1 Corinthians 13: 4).

Don’t let Satan rob you of this privilege of loving others and wishing them well. Don’t give him a chance. Learn to recognize envy and jealousy in yourself as soon as possible, and then fear it. Fear jealousy and envy as you would fear being trapped by a violent bear. Run from it. When you see it in yourself, repent, be honest with God and do all you can to resist it.