When I was a young boy, I had to build the fire in the stove as one of my morning chores.  I remember so well placing the wood on glowing coals.  The smoke billowed through the open door until the fire caught hold.  Fire drove the smoke up the flu and out of the house.  An old godly minister once remarked regarding the apostasy of his time, “I was born in the fire, and I’m not about to die in the smoke”.  I understand what he meant.  The fire is the passion and blazing wonder of God that one experiences in the new birth.  It arrives with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.  The fire propels one to go deeper into the folds of God’s love, to know Him fully, and to discover His will, among other things. God is a consuming fire.  To love Him is to dwell in the fire and with the fire in you.

The day I was delivered from the darkness was a day I will never forget.  The fire burned in my spirit.  All I wanted was to know and serve God more.  My rude wakening was to discover that all professing Christians do not have the same passion.  Some of them looked at me with condescending pity when I exuberantly described my experiences with God. Other ones excused themselves with a disinterested air. Eventually I discovered that there existed a Christianity void of passion for God.  I’ve come to believe that it is nearly as bad as a religion with a false god. Individuals in both groups will vociferously attack anything and anyone that hints of the fire of God.  Anything that challenges our passion to be pure and obedient to God is an attempt to quench our fire.  It does not matter what the cost, how many people reject us, how isolated and alone we may feel, we must not lose our fire.

I came to the realization that simply complaining about a fire-quenching situation is insufficient to overcome it.  One can sit in the smoke and complain, its acrid vapor burning the eyes and the nostrils, its fumes permeating the clothing and hair, but God’s fire won’t fall.  The children of Israel had to follow the cloud by day.  But when it came the night, they had to follow the fire.  If you do not move when the fire is present, you will eventually find yourself in the smoke.  The darkness from Satan and his world system presently wafts its deadly spiritual dearth into Christianity.  It can only be countered by fire.  Complaining in the smoke does nothing to conquer smoke.  I have observed many professing Christians, some of them dear friends, in power-drenching, fire-quenching, ministry-hindering, joy-killing, smoked up situations.  The smoke was draining them of passion for God.  They had two choices.  First, they could take the first step, and head to the nearest door leading to the closest path to victory.  If that is not an option, then they must start a fire.  After over three decades of being a Christian, I have endured many attempts by various forces to quench my fire.  I’ve pastored churches that were smoked up with compromise, sin, apathy and lethargy.  They didn’t remain long in a passionless condition.  Either they caught fire for God or burned with rage to get rid of me.  I left a denomination because of the smoke.  It wasn’t an easy path, but I had to have the fire.  I’m dead without it.  My souls knows no sense of purpose, no wealth of meaning, and I wither on the vine without God’s fire.

Every true Christian must keep his or her fire burning in this Laodicean age.  God’s fire and a fiery passion for God is the answer to lukewarm, compromising, Christianity today.  The smoke of dying faith and compromise is mingled with heresy and even licentiousness in many professing Christians.  I pray that God will raise up people with a fiery passion for Him, that will not fear to speak truth with boldness, and will not back down from apostate hirelings.  How exhilarating it would be to see fire-born men and women of God stepping up to challenge this present satanic surge of spiritual wickedness that threatens to destroy Christianity!  God is calling such people from all walks of life; people who do not believe they are worthy, some that believe that they are useless and incapable, and other ones that feel inferior and insignificant.  He has rejected the confident ones, the educated idiots and hirelings, and the braggadocios crowd of professing and confessing self-proclaimed “super apostles” that have not a clue to what true faith is.  The ones God is calling will not read the latest WOF book, the bestselling “telepastor” book.  They will reject the steady stream of spiritual filth that flows from most religious television networks.  They don’t need spiritual directors to help them sit cross-legged, turn their palms up in Yoga position, count their breaths, and enter an altered state of consciousness. The ones that God is calling already have intimacy with the true God.  They are ablaze with passion to do His will!  They are rising up with a prophetic voice; not like the modern false prophets that are nothing more than fortune tellers.  They will preach repentance from dead works to serve a living God. They will warn of the danger of lukewarmness, of living in shadows, and being unprepared to defeat deception and avoid apostasy.  Love them or hate them, but they will not yield to demands that they shut up and go away.  God is going to shake everything that can be shaken until only that which cannot be shaken will remain.  Only fire-born, fire-bathed, and fire-filled believers will endure to the end.  I plead with the ones who are withering on the vine and close to becoming a castaway, don’t die in the smoke.  Allow the word of God to convict you.  Repent before Him and ask for His Holy Spirit to possess you with holy fire.

Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split, and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the graves after His resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many. (Matthew 27:51-53)

The night after the crucifixion of Christ must have been unsettling for the ones who were responsible for the death of God’s Son.  And how could they have slept with all the supernatural events occurring in the night?  They must have considered that it was possible that they had crucified the Son of God.  But after Christ rose from the dead, they tried to suppress that information as well.  They continued to persecute Christians in an attempt to defeat the work of God in spite of the fact that miracles continued.  This indicates that they were deceived beyond deliverance.  They could not be delivered from the deception no matter how great the evidence that they were wrong.

Christ prophesied that another equally intense and deadly period of deception will arrive with the last days.  The ones who fall into its snare will undoubtedly not be recovered.  If that were not true, He would not have warned us so strongly about it and with implications of eternal consequences.  It will be the final deception.  Individuals will pass from this deception into delusion and then apostasy, a complete abandonment of faith in Christ.  All of the ingredients for a malignant, worldwide, apostasy are present in the world today.

I believe that the period of great deception has arrived.  Professing Christians that refuse to avail themselves of information are in denial about the great deception, apostasy and the possibility that we are in the last days.  Their willful ignorance is part of the reason deception has worked so well, grown and spread so rapidly.  However, if one is not aware of the enemy, he will certainly do him or her harm.  To be without essential knowledge is to be susceptible.  Not being aware of deception is an invitation to Satan to come forth as a devouring lion.

There are two solid facts about deception.  The first is that no one knows when he or she is deceived.  Second, no one can be delivered from deception that does not believe he or she is deceived.  Therefore, one must be convinced that he or she is deceived before deliverance can occur.  However, there are two types of deceived people.  One type will continue to believe in their doctrine in spite of evidence normally sufficient to defeat or expose it.  That is the definition of delusion.  The other type is non-delusional and may be convinced that they are in error.  The only factor that determines whether a non-delusional individual becomes delusional is love for truth.  Loving ones belief system may appear as love for truth, but that is not necessarily true.  One must love truth, and his or her belief system is the result, not necessarily the object, of that love.  Individual’s that do not love truth can be convinced of anything but truth.

To illustrate how powerful and widespread the deception has become, consider the following statistics.  There are approximately 41,000 Christian dominations and organizations worldwide.  A statistic from the late 1980’s indicated that over 270 (about 5 per week) denominations were being added yearly.  They are divided over at least one point of doctrine.  Imagine 41,000 denominations and their constituents (2.1 billion people) believing beyond reasonable doubt that they are right, while equally believing that everyone else is wrong.  At the onset, each of the groups of professing Christians declared that no existing denomination had correct doctrine, so they were led by God to form another one.  These statistics indicate that a very large number of people including professing Christians are deceived to some extent.  They cannot all be right and in God’s perfect will or else being wrong does not matter.  Additionally, there are several billion people involved in non-Christian religions that also believe that they are right.  In fact, of the over 7 billion people that populate the earth that are in their right mind and are old enough to reason about spiritual matters, nearly everyone has settled on a belief system and are certain that they are right.

How did Christianity arrive at this point?  No doubt deception was a factor.  To understand it more clearly consider that most of the division occurred over peripheral doctrine.  Of course, it is common for most denominations to be right on the essentials, and wrong on peripheral doctrine.  However, while all essential doctrine is explicit in the Scriptures, nearly all peripheral doctrine is inferred.  When peripheral doctrine becomes essential doctrine or is added to essential doctrine, another denomination is born.  Peripheral doctrine is difficult to determine and debate because there are no clear scriptures for its basis.  Therefore, it is defended because of emotional attachment, or because it has become essential to denominational affiliation.  After peripheral doctrine passes down to the third generation, it may be equated with essential doctrine.

Another danger of elevating peripheral doctrine to essential status is that it opens a door for heresy to be added to ones belief system.  Having no clear scriptural basis, peripheral doctrine can be infiltrated by or merged with heresy including paganism.  Without explicit scriptures to ward off heresy, peripheral doctrine can easily become “wild card” doctrine, mutating into doctrine that produces dangerous practices such as contemplative prayer.  Only individuals that have discernment, or that understand the continuum of God’s divine order, are capable of recognizing such an infection of heresy.  The soteriology of some professing Christians does not permit any eternal consequences of being doctrinally wrong.  Thus, the banter about heresy and deception for them is more of a game than a battle of life or death.

The bottom line is that we dwell in a vast evil domain where powerful satanic forces prey at will on the masses of secular individuals, adherents of false religions, and professing Christians that are not grounded in truth, making no distinction.  As the deception thickens and delusion spreads, it will become increasingly more difficult to detect it with our senses.  We will have to rely more heavily on the leading of the Holy Spirit.  It will be like walking through “the valley of the shadow of death” with our eyes closed.  God is more than able to lead us through.  However, we have to be diligent in preparing ourselves for this period.  There must be truth in us in order for the Holy Spirit to be able to guide us.  If one falls into the final deception, he or she may not be delivered from the deception no matter how great the evidence that it is wrong.

The Roman Catholic Church is ratcheting up their program to evangelize Christianity.  They wish to convert us to their aberrant belief system and pagan practices.  I don’t know about the rest of the world, but there is a reason why Rome believes it can successfully evangelize American Christians.  They evidently believe that we are ripe for the “harvest”.  That should offend every true Christian.  We should be disturbed that they believe we are weak and carnal enough to want what they have to offer.  Imagine how you would feel if someone thought you were recruitable as a pimp, a junkie, or to join some other reprehensible group or activity.  It might make you do a careful self-examination to discover why they would consider you as such.

Let’s examine Christianity in America to discover why the RCC believes that we are susceptible to their advances.  It is a given that the liturgical denominations are spiritually comatose.  As Vance Havner once said, “I don’t see any harm in changing the label on an empty bottle.”  But consider that most of Evangelicalism has now been stricken by the same dearth of life.  A recent poll revealed that 91 percent of evangelical Christians do not believe there is absolute truth apart from themselves.  Further, 96 percent do not believe that the Bible is inerrant in every situation.  63 percent believe that Jesus Christ is “a” son of God, not “the” Son of God.  Statistics also indicate that internet porn has become a major problem in Evangelical Christianity.  (Source: Josh McDowell)

Additionally, American Christianity is riddled with heresies disguised as new revelations from God.  It is inundated with false teachers, preachers, prophets, apostles, New Age Gurus, pagan mystics, masquerading as God’s 21^st century army.  Christian book stores are flooded with heretical and dangerous New Age literature.  Christian music has denigrated for the most part into music that is practically indistinguishable from the music of the world system.  Homosexuality has infiltrated deep into the Christian music industry and is being increasingly accepted throughout Christianity.  At least one denomination that I know of has completely apostatized and other ones are on the threshold of apostasy.  Several major evangelical denominations have been infiltrated at the top level of leadership by Warrenism (The belief system of Richard Duane Warren).  Warrenism is being cleverly inseminated into their churches or is being forced on the ones that have alertly rejected it as heretical.

Add to those statistics the fact American Christianity has become obsessed with entertainment.  Worship services and preaching in many evangelical churches are more entertaining than spiritual.  Sports have commandeered and now rule the male emotional system.  Most evangelicals do not know any more about Christianity than what very little they retain from sermons and teaching.  They cannot reason, cannot defend their belief system adequately, and seldom if ever witness to non-Christians, pray, or read the Bible.

The truth is that American Christianity for the most part is dressed like a harlot and the Roman church is seeking her out.  The ones who are not dressed as such are spiritually naked.  Instead of being offended or ashamed, some popular evangelical leaders are fawning before the Romans, apparently thrilled that they are being courted.  Since they are supposed to be “married” to Christ, is this not adultery?   Guard your hearts!  Prepare your souls for we are living in dangerous times!

 “I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth. Because you say, ‘I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing’—and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked— I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich; and white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent.”  (Revelation 3:15-19 NKJV)