LIVING WATERS
For the proclamation of the Gospel and the edification of the Body of Christ
Enemies of the Cross
"For many are going about, of whom I have often told you, and even now have told you weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ; whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is their shame; who mind earthly things only" (Phil. 2:18-19).
Rarely does Paul speak with the drama with which he says these words in Philippians. The reason for his pain is very precise: they are the enemies of the cross of Christ. What do we know about them?
Two things can be seen in these verses as characteristic of this class of Christians: their sensuality and their love of the world. "...whose god is their belly", Paul says. This speaks to us of people who live in delights: good food and abundant drink; but, evidently, this also has to do with 'good living', with attachment to comfort and riches.
Paul, in another place, identifies this class of Christians as "lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God" (2 Tim. 3:4). Peter points them out as "those whose delight it is to enjoy pleasure every day" (2 Pet. 2:13). Jude describes them as "mockers who walk according to their own evil desires... sensual ones, who have not the Spirit" (18-19). If in the days when Paul wrote Philippians they already existed, in later times (those of the epistles of Peter and Jude) they abounded. In the last days (ours), they will be a real plague.
In some Christian circles, prosperity has become a banner of struggle and a fashionable slogan. Those who promote it claim that Christians can not only enjoy material goods, but that they are called to be rich, and that material wealth is an unmistakable sign of spiritual prosperity. Consequently, poverty is a sign of spiritual failure and lack of faith.
This trend has been termed by some as a "new cross", easy, pleasurable, worldly, worldly, aimed at satisfying carnal desires, and yielding profit for its promoters. Of course, this cross has nothing to do with the cross of Christ. Its followers are the same "enemies of the cross of Christ" of whom Paul spoke so painfully.
The enemies of the cross of Christ do not want to lose their life in this world; they want to enjoy the day, to forget pains and sufferings for Christ's sake. They eagerly seek their happiness apart from Christ, no matter how many victims are left in their wake. They are very well enjoying the world and, in their opinion, the Lord takes too long to return.
The belly is the god of many today -as it was in the days of the apostle Paul- and even the lower belly seems to be the god of many others who have forgotten the holy warnings of the Scriptures, and have plunged into concupiscence. May God deliver his beloved from the unholy current that envelops the world!