Month: July 2013 (Page 7 of 10)

If anyone believes that it is easy to maintain a stand against the encroaching darkness, let me offer a bit of testimony here. It is not easy at all. Oh, it’s easy to make the stand, but maintaining it is quite another matter. I’ve been at this for 35 years, and it has not gotten easier. I’m not going to get into all the details lest someone thinks that I’m setting the table for a pity party. I just want people to know that they are to expect the opposition to be fierce when they stand for truth and righteousness. That’s why many have quit standing and many more will not even make an attempt to stand.

However, one day we will all be called before God’s Judgment Throne to give an account of our lives here on earth. There are all sorts of doctrines that people can hide behind to avoid being alarmed at that prospect. However, Christ clearly said that “whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 10:33) In my opinion, not to oppose the evil that denies Him before the masses makes the guilty Christian culpable with that denial.

The fact is that Satan wishes all professing Christians to become passive, apathetic, and so anemic that they cannot even stand for basic truth. Then he can come unrestricted to pollute and spoil everything that is left. But it is now time for all true Christians to speak and stand up for truth. When the enemy says “sit down”, then stand up. When he says “shut up”, then speak up. Can you hear me shouting now? When he says “stop writing”, write a book. Don’t wait on someone else to do it.

I know that some people feel inadequate to speak and write against heresies. Let me encourage you to wipe that feeling from your spiritual system. Some people can speak and write in simple terms so that even children can understand them. To whom that applies, will you please pick up your pen, open your mouth, or head to your word processor. The enemy is rampaging through Christianity with a hoard of heretics at his heels. He is flinging false doctrine about like a madman throwing hot coals in a ripe grain field. It is time for every Christian man, woman, and young person to rise up to defend what God has placed in our care. Don’t become part of the generation that sits idly by while evil darkens every sacred truth with lies. You want Christ to be standing there as your advocate when you come before the awesome and holy God. Who is defending God before this mass of false teachers, spiritual directors, shamans, wizards, gurus, witches, and other New Age heretics that are flowing into churches like a hoard of hungry cockroaches?

I realize that this is not a very dignified post, but the enemy has breached the gate. There is no time to piddle about with benign platitudes. If there is any love at all for God in your heart, you cannot sit quietly breathing the foul odor of spiritual death and hoping someone else will carry out the garbage. You need to rise up in the power of the Holy Spirit and make a stand. It will not be an easy path. However, Satan hates you no matter what and he is committed to making your life miserable. All that is gained from allowing him to work unmolested is a period of false peace. Eventually, he will come to pay you in full for your silence with destruction and death. So you may as well experience the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings as a courageous defender of the truth.

Take a stand against the Emerging/Emergent Church movement and its contemplative spirituality. Don’t support the apostate people who are spreading this deadly heresy. Equip yourselves and get educated about this growing evil doctrine that threatens to destroy Christianity. Arm yourselves with God’s word, stand up, speak out, and don’t back down. Truth has just as much right to be heard as error.

The Pursuers Have Now Become the Pursued

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. 1 Peter 5:8 (NKJV)

I watched some incredible videos recently of very popular demon possessed “ministers”. Yes, they are demon possessed. I realize that some people will take issues with me making that declaration, but it is not a simple matter of doctrinal disagreement, new methods, or even heresy. Although those are elements of their activity that true Christians ought to be concerned about, these elements are not of themselves the reason I say that those “ministers” are demon possessed. Instead, it is the complete package, the utter disrespect for holy things, contemptuous treatment of that which is sacred, the total lack of fear in referencing Almighty God or the Lord Jesus Christ, and the steady stream of lies. The reaction of the congregation to the demon possessed individuals in each situation was wild hilarity.

As I pondered about this video and the demonic “ministers”, I remembered a documentary I once viewed about Africa. At one point a herd of water buffalo was chasing a single lion. Had they cornered the lion, they would have trampled it to death. However, during the chase the tables were turned within a few seconds. The lion went into hiding and there was a hint of confusion in the leaders. Instantly, the lion broke out of hiding and raced toward the herd. As they fled in terror, the lion brought down a calf. The thought came to me, “The pursuers have now become the pursued.” The forces of darkness sense weakness and confusion in Christianity and have attacked with a vengeance. They weak ones are being devoured.

There was a time when such demonic individuals would have not gained the pulpit in even one church meeting. However, now there are blasphemous and demonic individuals that are so outrageous that mere words cannot describe them adequately. Even notorious charlatans such as Father Divine and Reverend Ike appear mild by comparison. It wasn’t that there were not an abundance of heretics, hirelings, imposters, and other diabolical people slinking about in Christianity probing for weak spots. The fact is that there were still enough true Christians that in most cases the door was slammed in their faces.
During that era, the news media, the government, and practically every other sector of the world system feared the public. It was a time when there was still lasting outrage over indecency and flagrant wrong against society. There was a healthy respect in the public for Christianity. Individuals making a public slur against Christianity or a popular Christian would be immediately assailed from all sides and shamed to silence. Even a public apology would save them from being ostracized from favor. The culture was different then. I watched it change and it was a painful thing to witness.
One could come up with many reasons why wicked people have entered Christianity relatively unopposed, but there is only one reason that makes sense. That reason is that people want the diabolical individuals rather than godly people. Consider the words of God as He speaks to Jeremiah about the apostasy of the people.
“An astonishing and horrible thing has been committed in the land: the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own power; and My people love to have it so. But what will you do in the end?” Jeremiah 5:30-31

I watched another video where a minister rebuked one of the diabolical “ministers” in a meeting where he was to perform. When the minister and his associates were being escorted from the building, the people clapped and cheered. The truth is that those people and other ones like them created this monster. He feeds off their response to his antics and diabolical spiel. They are indicative of how fond people have become of darkness. Light is offensive to them. A true man of God is as an alien and the truth is to them as heresy. Also culpable are professing Christians and especially ministers that refuse to identify wicked people. In that error they further obscure the definition of Christianity so that even more wicked individuals can come in unopposed.
There is a generation that is pure in its own eyes, yet is not washed from its filthiness. (Proverbs 30:12)

This is a generation that is composed of individuals that imbibed deception by increments until they lost all touch with truth and righteousness. Additionally, a significant number are biological and unregenerate professing Christians. Their number has now reached critical mass. Outrage at evil people and their actions has all but disappeared. They laugh at or ignore rebukes. There is no shame or remorse in them concerning their vile condition. Although many have not joined in their error, a large portion of those individuals are so spiritually weak, complacent, apathetic, and undiscerning that they pose no threat to the encroaching darkness. That leaves a small remnant of true believers, a minority that must now defend the true Gospel. They are too small in number to turn back the tide of evil. The majority of their effort must go toward defense rather than offense. The pursuers have now become the pursued. Unless God steps in and grants the world one last reprieve from judgment, we are posed on the threshold of tribulation.

Guard your hearts and minds! This is the time of great deception and apostasy. There is little room for error.

They Have no Wedding Garment

Since the fall of Adam, there have been innumerable attempts to establish religions that omit the true God, creator of heaven and earth. It isn’t that people were unaware of God, or that they had no opportunity to believe in or ability to obey God. Rather, it is because God and His ways go against the nature of the flesh and the way of the world system. Cain set out to establish his own religion. God sent His law by Moses, but His chosen people discovered that their flesh did not want to obey it. They repeatedly rejected God and immersed themselves the religions of the nations about them. Their apostasy brought the judgment of God upon their nation. Another generation would repent and rise up against the apostasy. Sadly, it seems that the apostasy would repeat with every third generation.

It stands to reason that eventually there would arrive a final apostasy that will usher in the Antichrist and the false prophet. Christ taught about that apostasy and the deception that would cause it in Matthew 24. Additionally, the Apostle Paul wrote in detail about the nature of the final deception and apostasy (2 Tim. 3 and elsewhere). A sad fact is that in spite of all the warnings, anointed teaching and preaching, plus the availability of God’s word, many professing Christians have succumbed to that very deception and apostasy. This is not the time to have an Ostrich Complex. The blunt reality is that the day has finally arrived.

There are two sections of scriptures that provide a view of what type of individuals perpetrate and succumb to deception in the final days. First, in Matthew 25:1-5, there are two types of professing Christians indicated; five wise and five foolish. How do I know they are professing Christians? The answer is because it is obvious that they are all waiting for Christ. Christians are the ones that Christ is coming back for. Consider that all ten are exactly alike in every detail except one, and that is that half of them failed to bring a reserve of oil.

In the second section of scriptures, Matt. 22:10-14 a man managed to enter the wedding hall without a wedding garment. He was summarily cast into outer darkness. This man is different than the five foolish ones. In my opinion, he represents the type of individual that has never accepted the lordship of Christ, but is able to deceive people into believing that he or she is a Christian. Understanding this truth is essential to understanding the strength of last day’s deception.
Let’s first look at individual represented by the five unwise virgins. The five unwise virgins represent the deceived professing Christian. I do not believe the elect can be deceived because they are sensitive to the Holy Spirit who will warn them about deception and lead them into all truth. However, the problem with a great number of professing Christians is that they do not know the Scriptures and they seldom pray. Another crucial factor is that they have no personal relationship with God and no sensitivity to the Holy Spirit. They are filled with everything but what God offers them and thus have no defense against very clever and satanically empowered deception. I know a number of professing Christians that never take their Bibles to church meetings. Most of them cannot find their way to a particular book in the Bible and cannot quote a verse other than John 3:16. Some of them use translations and paraphrased “bibles” that are antithetical to the true word of God. These professing Christians will know less and less of the truth because the hirelings whose ministry they imbibe seldom present truth in their sermons. They have no spiritual thirst or hunger for righteousness. It is a fact that we will be filled with whatever we are thrilled by. Likewise, these individuals are filled with whatever titillates their emotional systems. It will be easy for them to fall for a deception that is so clever that the elect can barely escape from it.

Next, let’s consider the individual represented by the man with no wedding garment. If five of the virgins could not get in with wedding garments, then how did someone get in without a wedding garment? Who was this individual? First, I must point out is that the man without a wedding garment was not qualified for acceptance into the Bride of Christ. If so, then he would have been included in the group of virgins. Thus, although he may have been involved with Christianity in some way, he was not a Christian. He had attempted to get in by another way rather than through Christ who is the only Way, Truth, and Life. He may have been a clever individual, but it would have taken more than human cleverness to deceive the angels that gather the masses (Matt. 24:31). The man must have been satanically enabled to have escaped detection. This fact defines who he is. The man represents the false Christian, a deceiver, someone under full submission to the prince of darkness. He was possessed with diabolical power of deception.

If he is able to deceive even the angels who are gathering the Bride of Christ, what prevents him from deceiving the unprepared, the spiritually weak, and the ones weighed down by substance flowing from the world system? Consider that Satan was able to deceive a third of the angels in his rebellion against God. Christ said that there would be people coming with such powerful deception that if it were possible the very elect would be deceived. That type of deception flows directly from a diabolical supernatural source. In fact, the Apostle Paul describes the source as Satan and declares that he will throw everything in his bag of dark tricks at humanity (2 Thess. 2:9-10). The deceiver will have the full power of Satan with lying sings and wonders, and different gospel with a different Jesus. It will be that full-scale assault of deception that will deceive the entire world according to Luke 12:35 and Rev. 17:8. The ones who are unprepared for it are represented by the five virgins that had no extra oil. The ones who perpetrate it are represented by the man who had no wedding garment.
Millions of professing Christians today have been lulled into a state of complacency with apathy. They attend church meetings, but they have no clue if they are hearing the truth or a clever deception. The saddest part is that they do not seem to care. They are more concerned with getting to the restaurant on Sunday morning, and finishing their lunch in time to watch whatever television event they are obsessed with. Although they readily profess that they are Christians, possess some moral qualities, and even express indignation against certain evil activities, they have no abundance of power. These are the ones that Paul prophesied about who have a form of godliness without power (2 Tim. 3:5). Slipping further and further each day into doldrums, they are prime targets for the satanic deceiver and the ultimate deception.

Now we know why it is important to know about the pressing wickedness that has infiltrated the church with heresies and occult practices today. This deception threatens to lead millions of professing Christians into the final apostasy. The deception is being facilitated in great part in the form of the Emergent Church and the New Age Movement. They have wormed their way into leadership and corrupted entire denominations. If one is not a devout follower of Christ Jesus, is not equipped with God’s Word, is without knowledge, is not sensitive and responsive to the Holy Spirit, then he or she may not recognize these deceivers. Looking only at the outward appearance, they will succumb to smooth words, fables, and follow the pied pipers of deception and apostasy. They will not recognize the deceivers who lead them into destruction because they ignored truth to the extent they lost their love for it. The deceivers will be unrecognizable as such by everyone except the ones who are prepared to endure this dark period. The only way they will be recognizable in eternity is the fact that they will not have wedding garments.