“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.” (Matthew 23:15)

(Twofold- Greek; diploûs: meaning, two-fold, double.)

Christ said about the Pharisees that they went to great extremes to make people 200% “children of hell.” It is uncertain how committed as children of hell the Pharisees were. However, all lost souls are 100% aimed toward hell. Did the Pharisees make them twice as likely to arrive in hell? One wonders how 200% more destined for hell is even possible.

It is just my opinion, but I believe the Lord meant that after being influenced by the Pharisees, people would be twice as difficult to reach with the true Gospel. If that is the case, then we understand how great a mistake it was to allow the heretics and hirelings to slither into Christianity. I am old enough to have witnessed the tragedy. Not only was the leadership guilty of that invasion, but the rank and file professing Christians were hungry for such deception. How alluring it was to be informed that God wants them to be rich, comfortable, and disease-free! Why wait for heaven in a miserable, sin-plagued, environment? How much easier it is to “win” souls when you tell them that everything they are searching for in the World System can be had by coming to God in salivating expectation—even demanding and ordering Him to keep His promises? They eagerly invited the deceivers.

When the Word of Faith doctrine emerged, Pentecostals, and also Charismatics exiting the liturgical denominations, were the primary adherents. Unscrupulous pastors recognized the opportunity to build their churches numerically. They abandoned soul-winning to become proselyters. It was all downhill from that point. Once the gate was opened to Hagan, Copeland and their ilk, other ones with increasingly bizarre heresies came strolling in. Religious television became popular and heretics of all stripes rose to prominence. Religious networks such as PTL and TBN provided a steady stream of good and bad doctrine. Eventually, the programming was reduced to totally spiritual unclean programming.

However, apostasy already existed in the denominations that adhered to false soteriology. They had the nation saturated with apathy and complacency. When the millions of liturgical and other dead denominational escapees joined the Charismatic heresy, they did not leave their belief systems behind. They merely added the Charismatic heresies and became more the children of hell. In that period no one challenged the false soteriology of individuals exiting dead religions, i.e., the Methodist, Baptist or Roman Catholic churches. Pastors counted heads, rejoiced over the increase in attendance, and erecting massive, ornate, buildings to honor their accomplishments. Continue reading

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“Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.” – Hebrews 3:12

CNN reports that professing Christian recording artist, Toby Mack’s son, died of an “accidental overdose of fentanyl and amphetamines.” There is no such thing as an accidental overdose of that combination of drugs. The risk is clear that to submit ones life to be medicated by the agents of Satan is to invite spiritual and physical death. It may be slow and years into the future, or quick.

There was a time when such incidents only occurred in the hopeless and sin-bound people of the World System. Now that the Great and Final Apostasy has occurred, the majority of professing Christians are apostates. The young generations are with the blessing of leadership accepting the influence of the kingdom of darkness. They are dying of sin-caused maladies.

Everyone makes mistakes and no one is perfect, but true Christians do not commit flagrant and willful wickedness and rebellion against God. To do so would require rejecting the indwelling Holy Spirit and defiling His temple. It is to depart from God.

It is a great mistake, and extremely dangerous to young and impressionable professing Christians, to project dying from a combination of illegal drugs as a mere Christian mistake. Instead, it should be identified for what it is—the consequence of departing from God. It should be a warning to the ones who are on the verge of doing the same thing.

No one wishes to injure the grieving friends and family members. But they will grieve matter what. So why marginalize the rebellious and dangerous behavior, leading more young people to take the same risk. Why make certain that more parents will be awakened in the night with the tragic news that their son or daughter is in eternity?

Maybe if the true path of discipleship, what it means to be a genuine child of God, was preached and taught more often and thoroughly, fewer young men and women would depart from the “Fountain” of living water to drink from Satan’s broken cisterns.

Tragically, that is not the case. Instead there are millions of people claiming to be Christians but are unwilling to live or accept what that truly means. They believe it means—under the guise of loving lost people—to conform to the World System and its lust of the flesh, lust of the eye, and pride of life. To listen to their music or preaching is like drinking from a sewer pipe.

TobyMac offered the following statement about his son:

“He didn’t want to be a child star, he wanted to be a man with scars and a story to tell. I always admired, respected and encouraged that stand.

“Truett always had a soft spot for God. The Bible moved him. His heart was warm to the things of his King. He was by no means a cookie cutter Christian but give me a believer who fights to keep believing. Give me a broken man who recognizes his need for a Savior every time. That’s who Truett was and how he should be remembered.” (TobyMac releases statement on son’s sudden death: ‘He had an untamable grand personality’; Matthew Leimkuehler, Nashville Tennessean)

And people wonder why so many individuals in the younger generations have no clue about true, biblical, Christianity.

This is not a game! Satan has no pity for his victims. We are temporarily on this earth, invited to spend eternity with God, or can choose to spend it with Satan. It’s that clear. Choose wisely!

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I once was an associate to a popular pastor in a large church. A big mistake that I never repeated. However, I learned a lot about “playing it safe.” The game has several rules that I broke and continue to break today. The reason is that God did not call anyone to “play it safe.”

Nevertheless, “playing it safe” is considered a necessary paradigm to advance one’s career. About the career thingy, I’m not interested in that either. One of my friends disinvited me as a speaker for a large event because he believed one of my beliefs would create a problem. He remarked that he did not want to build someone’s career that he might not agree with. I thought, “I don’t have one of those (career).”

To someone who is called by God unto a position, he or she does not seek a career or a carefully crafted image to protect by compromise or “wise diplomacy.” Certainly, there is room for tact, and we should not be perceived as scurrilous and carnal individuals. But Christ made Himself of no reputation (Philippians 2:7). He certainly did not become a man of ill repute but took on the form of a servant.

That is what a man or woman of God is—a servant, not only to people but to God. That is not “playing it safe.” They put their lives in the crosshairs of gossip hunters, pointy fingers, tongues on fire with bile and bitterness, and nowadays, weaponized Social Media. Our “safe space” can only be accessed on our knees. Otherwise, we do not have a “safe” place on the frontline of God’s will. Continue reading

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