You want to know what’s really odd:  you could save someone from drowning, from a building fire, from a possibly fatal accident, or from driving off with a serial murderer, and they would be very grateful. They would never forget what you did for them, and you would have a lifelong friend. But if you attempt to save them from the deadly wiles of a heretic, they will not only tell you to mind your own business, but they will forever treat you as an enemy.

Deceived people think I’m deceived.  The problem with that is they believe in a new doctrine, heresy that I have observed from its introduction to its acceptance as revelation from God.  Conversely, I believe in the same God, the same truth, and I am on the same path that I got on when God delivered me from the bondage of alcohol and drug addiction nearly four decades ago.  It is unreasonable to believe that I was saved by a false god, false doctrine, and entered a false path.  Why would Satan do that when it is not only of no benefit to his kingdom, but has actually been a significant hindrance to his work?

It is like talking to an adolescent that believes he or she knows what they are doing, and has all the knowledge necessary to make the right decisions.  At some point a young person will reject everything his or her parents say concerning their direction, choices, and behavior.  The reason is because another influence is stronger.  The influence that deceives them is involved in the natural transition from childhood to adulthood.  The powerfully compelling desire to makes one’s won decisions is intoxicating.  Casting off the restraints for the first time causes the harsh rejection of the parent’s advice.

Concerning professing Christians that have accepted heresy and are under deception, the strong influence that causes them to make the same volatile rejection of truth is deception’s powerfully compelling sense of rightness.  Without a doubt it is very essential to avoid heresy and deception altogether.  It is getting increasingly more difficult to do so for nominal and culture-influence Christians.

One of the most repeated defenses before God’s judgement throne will be, “No one warned me.” What they mean is, “No one grabbed me by the arm, slapped me in the face, screamed at me concerning the risk, and dragged me away to safety, kicking and yelling.” That’s what it would take to get most professing Christians to see the danger in the evil they are submitting their souls to. Even then, no matter how far away you took them, they would come running back to their heretic.

They were warned alright…repeatedly. The truth is, they hated the warnings and despised the ones who kept repeating them. There are few people speaking or writing warnings, but technology has made it possible for them to still be heard or read.

One of the saddest moments I experience, and it happens repeatedly throughout most every day, comes with the recognition that I cannot speak to some people about the bondage they are in and getting deeper into. It is like watching someone starve to death when you have enough food to share with them, but they believe your food is poison. This is an extremely dangerous period to submit to a heretic.

The silence of America’s Christian leaders concerning the Homosexual Movement’s full-scale assault on Christian-owned business in America is a pusillanimous dereliction of their duty.  There is not even a token outrage from most of them, a show of sympathy, or even a statement distancing themselves from supporting the Homosexual Movement.  No, they are too busy blindly conducting religious business and protecting their positions (sources of income).

Please consider the predicament with extremely dire consequences that we are in.  Our nation is in an unprecedented political and cultural battle for its very soul.  The Homosexual Movement is running roughshod over the country, practically unopposed.  Christianity is being systematically relegated to obscurity to the point of complete social alienation.  Why will Christians not rise up en masse and make a defense?  Because Christianity is anemic and infested with paganism, hypocrisy, materialism, Emergent and Seeker Friendly heresy, ecumenism with cults, etc.  Its leaders are too willfully ignorant and cowardly to stand up against the diabolical flood of heresy, much less the outright militant attack on Christian freedom of expression.  Christian weakness and affinity for easy believism and heresy are beyond the critical mass.  Many Christians are spiritually bankrupt and have no clue.  Consequently, Christianity is in a free-fall plunge into great apostasy.

Concurrently, Islam is sweeping through the world either by violence or by guile and intrigue.  Entire families and villages are being murdered by beheading, burning, dismemberment, or else forced into sex slavery.  We are poised on the precipice of one-world religion, one-world government, and a global cashless economy.  The entire world despises Israel.  Even America’s president is attacking her.  There are few signs left to be fulfilled before the advent of the Antichrist and False Prophet.  Conversely, millions of do-nothing, cowardly, carnal Christians are completely apathetic to this state of affairs, because they believe they can coast their complacent, unfaithful, hides all the way to the Rapture.  Good luck with that one.  You’re going to need luck when your faith is as mushy and rotten as two-day-old manna with Pharisaical elitism.

To put it more bluntly, this is not a period for cowardly silence or for softening our words for fear of rejection or reprisals.  We should not cower in sequestered positions of quasi-diplomacy.  I heard Bill O’Reilly declare that with the exception of Dr. Robert Jefferies, in all of Roman Catholicism and Protestantism he could not find one high ranking leader to come on his program in opposition to the homosexual agenda.  It broke my heart.  Where are the Holy Spirit-filled men and women of God?  Why are they so weak with so much power?  And most importantly, why should any Holy Spirit-filled Christian consider becoming spiritually and physically mute at a time that calls for trumpet voices and steel-backboned prophets?

I say to every true Christian pastor, stop supporting evil by placid submission to this outrage.  Where is your courage?  Are you not filled with the Holy Spirit?  Does He not give you the unction to speak the truth boldly and unflinchingly?  Where are the “Jeremiahs”, the “Amos’s” and the “Elijah’s”?   Where is your voice, pastor, evangelist, bishop, Christian author, journalist, denominational leader, blogger, etc.?  What about you, so-called Faith Healer, prophet, Word-of-Faith super apostle?  Satan got your tongue?!!  You claim to cast out demons, but you can’t heal yourself of the mealy mouth!  You can speak boldly and harshly against people that oppose your doctrine, and call for “Holy Ghost machine guns” to blast your detractors.  But you are as silent as a grave when the gargoyle of homosexuality sinks its slobber-poisoned fangs into Christian liberty.  Hypocrites!!!

Don’t believe a lie!  The Homosexual Movement is not a minority race struggling against discrimination.  The same spirit of darkness that is in the diabolical brute beasts who are massacring Christians in other nations operates in the Homosexual Movement in America.  There is no greater and lesser Satan.  It is all pure Satanism demanding preeminence!  This is not the time to put on diapers, grab a pacifier, waddle to the pulpit, and declare a version of, “Your best life now!”  It is our generation’s turn to stand up for truth and righteousness no matter what the cost!!!

Don’t like what I’m saying?  Find another social media venue.  I’m through mollycoddling tenuous Christians who stick their big toe into the water of boldness, and draw it back complaining, “It’s too cold.”   If you are afraid of the cost, why did you ever decide one day that you would carry the cross?  The commitment to this journey was not, “until we reach the rough place in the road,” but all the way to the finish line.  May I suffer torture and death rather than believe that my silence and inaction are the way I show God how grateful I am for His mercy, grace, and love, unto the saving of my wretched soul.

In Acts 8:9-24, Simon the Sorcerer was a very popular worker of magic.  He was drawn to Christianity, not because of the essence of its message, but because of the powerful effect it had on people.  He recognized that there was more to the Gospel than just a message.  There was supernatural power in the vessels God sent to proclaim the Gospel, because they were filled with the Holy Spirit.  He wanted that power, not to please and obey God, but because he wanted to take his “smoke and mirrors” show to a higher level.  I do not believe that Simon desired to be free from his sins, or to surrender to God.  He merely coveted a power greater than the trickery that he employed to deceive people.

Simon came to Peter offering money, not for the gift of the Holy Spirit, but for the ability to give people the Holy Spirit (19^th verse).  Peter, full of the Holy Spirit, recognized immediately the intent of Simon’s heart and rebuked him.  He exhorted the sorcerer to repent.  However, God’s word does not say that the sorcerer repented.  Instead, he pleaded with Peter to pray for him so that rebuke would not come to fulfillment.  That proves that Simon did not have a relationship with God, and thus no confidence to repent and plead forgiveness.

Just as many professing Christians today, who want to be free from the consequences of their sins, but are unwilling to repent sincerely of their sins. Had Simon been truly saved, it would have never crossed his mind to purchase the ability to “give” people the Holy Spirit.

I believe the spirit of Simon is working in Christianity today.  It is clearly evident in the “Elmer Gantry” types who clog television channels, faces shining with greed.  They sell miracles.  I watched two men, Mike Murdock and David Cerullo, on different occasions offer to sell the favor of God.  One of them even offered 1000 times the favor of God for $1000.00.  Some would call that simony.  However, Simon did not offer to sell the favor of God.  He offered to purchase power so that he could “give” people the Holy Spirit.  Therefore, the act of simony would have been committed by the ones who sent their money to Murdock and Curello.  (By the way, I could not physically or spiritually survive 1000 times the favor of God.  No doubt I would explode and die with delirious joy.)

This begs the question, “What should those who sell the gifts of God rightly be labelled?”  They are correctly called thieves when they sell the favor or gifts of God (Matthew 21:12-13).  They are not common thieves, who because of a corrupt nature steal material things.  They are religious thieves who embody the nature of Satan, who sought to steal God’s throne.  It is obvious that they have no respect for sacredness.  As blasphemers of the Holy Spirit, they callously disregard the implications of their thievery and brazenly market sacred things.

No one has the authority of their own volition to give anyone a gift of God.  Individuals that claim to have that authority are as Simon intended to be.  The gifts of God are free, but He gives them only to whom He will.    They cannot be bought or given to people indiscriminately.  If one attempted to use such a “gift,” he or she is inviting demon spirits to operate in and through his or her life.

Another great concern is that conferences and conventions selling the gifts of God also train mostly unqualified people how to use them.  There are schools of Prophets, schools that teach people how to raise the dead, how to interpret dreams, to speak in heavenly languages, and schools that flagrantly impart supernatural gifts.  They purport to have the wisdom and authority to teach people how to use them.  Other conferences advertise that attendees will discover and receive their gifts and callings.  They promise to help people discover their destiny, and to equip and train them for it.

Those conferences, schools, and seminars, etc., are also nothing more than “Simony” events conducted by thieves.

The problem is that none of the recipients of those “gifts and callings” are vetted as true Christians, so any charlatan can come in and learn how to pretend and deceive.  Some of those people watch religious television and fantasize that they should be able to do what they are observing.  I’ve known people on medication for personality disorders, very unpredictable and unstable, people with illusions of grandeur, etc., who head off to conventions to get their “gift” or anointing and approval for a presumed “gift.”  There may be individuals attending that are living in rebellion against God, are immoral, demon-possessed, or otherwise completely unqualified and incapable to minister.

The local churches and pastors would know those things.  However, it appears to be of little concern to the conference hosts and participants.  A registration fee is the only qualification for “receiving” a gift or calling, learning how to be a prophet, or absconding with some other supernatural ability.  They go away from the conference and are unleashed on a community.  The conference organizer(s) and participants do not have to deal with the consequences.  Pastors and members of the local churches do.  They will have a “Simon” in their midst.

I remember an instance when a young woman in our church with Tourette syndrome attempted to lay hands on people who were praying at the altar.  If someone had asked if she was qualified to be in ministry, I would have said, “Not under any circumstances.”  However, at the conferences they are accepted without question.  No one asks their pastor if they are qualified or requests a letter from the pastor stating their qualifications.

What Peter refused to do they have no compunction about doing.  They masquerade as skilled and God-gifted individuals, but they are deceivers birthing a hoard of “Simonites.”  In the process they are taking away the responsibility of the local church to identify and train those who are qualified to minister.  In Ephesians 4 God’s word declares that the five leadership offices are for such equipping and training.

“Simon” events are so accepted today that the thieves involved rise up in indignation that anyone would dare question their enterprise.  Further, so much occurs today that is unbiblical that it is difficult to get people to see it for what it is and reject it.

Sometimes in life we have to fast and pray, shake off the religious barnacles, and reestablish our foundation on God’s word.

People had better get it right before they enter eternity.  It will be impossible to make it right then.  We need to consider that just because many people are doing it does not make it right.  We must be right in the eyes of God.  In my opinion there will be people who were involved in large ministries standing before the judgement astonished that they are found guilty.  Consider the man who came to the wedding feast without a wedding garment.  Who was he?  He was called, “friend,” but cast out because of his lack of a proper garment. So go the thieves of sacred things and the “Simonites” that they enable.

So he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you come in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. – Matthew 22:12