Satanic delusion's big embrace

The other week Donald Trump was sitting with Hillary Clinton at a white-tie affair in Manhattan’s Waldorf-Astoria with only Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York, between them.

At the end of Trump’s speech to this very elite NYC crowd (Henry Kissinger among guests) gathered for the annual Jesuit-run Catholic fundraiser put on by the Al Smith Foundation (the same dinner Trump has attended with his father since he was a teenager), he said, “We can also agree on the need to stand up to anti-Catholic bias.”

Giving the “666 sign” with his right hand, as he's come to be noted for, Trump said, “And we’ve got to come together, not only as a nation, but as a world community . . . and the great religious leaders here tonight give us all an example that we can follow.” Obviously, this is one-world globalism talk.

*****

“Satan’s policy and M.O. involves human good; you always want to remember that,” Richard Jordan once advised. “His attempt is to ‘solve’ problems apart from God, and every attempt at solving the problems of mankind apart from God’s Word is only a satanic delusion, whether it’s socialism, communism, internationalism, capitalism, reformation, humanitarianism, welfare, government intervention, government coercion, liberalism, conservativism, organized Christianity, religion . . . 

“Whatever it is, no matter how humanly good you might think it to be, a satanic policy of evil is to use human good to solve men’s problems apart from God.”

*****

In his book A Woman Rides the Beast, Dave Hunt writes of the Inquisition in the 12^th Century, “Failure to give wholehearted allegiance to the pope was considered treason against the state punishable by death. Here was the basis for slaughtering millions. As Islam would be a few centuries later, a paganized Christianity was imposed upon the entire populace of Europe under the threat of torture and death.

“ . . . The inquisitors seemed to be drugged into insensibility until their normal sense of horror and sympathy had been numbed. Indeed, to be able to impose the most extreme torture without a twinge of conscience or compassionate thought became a mark of holiness and fidelity to the Church.

 “ . . . Imagine the torment of dislocated joints, torn and seared flesh, internal injuries, broken bones on the rack and other devices, mended by doctors so they could be torn asunder again by fresh torture . . . Such was the fate of millions.

“These were real people: mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters—all with hopes and dreams, with passions and feelings, and many with a faith that could not be broken by torture or fire.

“Remember that this terror, this evil of such proportions that it is unimaginable today, was carried on for centuries in the name of Christ by the command of those who claimed to be the vicars of Christ . . .  Remember that the doctrines which supported the Inquisitions remain in force within the Roman Catholic Church even at this present time.”

*****

Hunt writes, “If Antichrist pretends to be Christ and is worshipped by the world (Rev. 13:8), then his followers are of course ‘Christians.’ Not Communism, but Christianity will take over the world, and not real Christianity but an Antichrist counterfeit thereof.

“. . . Part of the apostasy is the ecumenical movement, which is literally setting the stage for a union between all religions and even influences evangelicals as well.  An Antichrist ‘Christianity’ must be created which embraces all religions and which all religions will embrace—precisely what is occurring today with astonishing speed.

“. . . The Latin equivalent of the Greek ‘anti’ is ‘vicarius,’ from which comes ‘vicar.’ Thus ‘vicar of Christ’ literally means Antichrist. Although the Roman Catholic popes have called themselves vicar of Christ for centuries, they were not the first to do so, but inherited that title from Constantine. His future counterpart, the coming world ruler over the revived Roman Empire, will be the Antichrist.

“As already noted, in the ancient Roman Empire the Emperor was worshipped as God. As such he was the leader of the pagan priesthood and of the official, state-sponsored pagan religion of the empire. An image was made to the Caesars, before which the citizens were required to bow in worship. Those who refused to acknowledge the emperor as God were killed."

Moooolah, mammon vs. going formless

Driving home from a work assignment last night I heard a local conservative radio talk show host tell about a primary school in a German ski resort village where children were forced this week to chant and memorize, “Allahu Akhbar,” and “there is no God but you.”

A German parent reported that his daughter came home from the school with a teacher handout that read: “Oh, Allah, how perfect you are and praise be to you. Blessed is your name, and exalted is your majesty. There is no God but you.”

Referring to the Islamic takeover now under way in countries like Germany, France, Belgium, etc., the talk show host lamented, “Europe’s toast, folks. There’s no going back.” He urged listeners who wanted to vacation there to do so as soon as possible. He said in another 30 years Europe won’t even be recognizable. He predicted that within a year a school somewhere in the U.S. would be under the same Islamic dictums. 

*****

Back in my car listening to conservative talk radio this morning, host Dennis Prager commented how, “I used to think being free was the greatest human desire. I have come to see that for many, being taken care of is the greatest human desire.”

One of the common themes of the Left today is, “We take care of our own.” That means, if you stay with our agenda and promote our cause, you won’t lose your job and you’ll be promoted to fame and financial success, on and on. Just look at Hillary’s campaign slogan: “Stronger Together.” As Jordan says, 

“Somebody over here is milking the cow and somebody over there's milking the cow and you know who the cow is? Moooolah.”

*****

“When the Antichrist tries to put ‘the last days’ together—you got to remember Satan doesn’t have a kingdom that’s made of peaceful, loving, sweet people,” says Jordan. “He’s crafty enough to keep all these different creatures--people who’d cut each other’s throats if they had a chance to get ahead . . . He’s crafty enough to stay ahead of it all. He sits on a boiling pot with the lid jiggling. The Antichrist is going to be that master craftsman putting this thing together.”

Of course, in ‘the last days,’ as Revelation defines them, all the nations of the earth, including the United States (which will be so insignificant at that point it won’t really matter), will gather themselves against Jerusalem and against Israel. The Antichrist will rule the Middle East as he harnesses the influence of the nations under his rubric to fight against God’s purposes.

*****

Jordan reminds, “Satan keeps up-to-date on what God’s doing so he can oppose it. He doesn’t shoot blanks and he doesn’t waste ammunition shooting at something God used to do and isn’t doing anymore. The Adversary knows God’s not trying to repossess the land of Palestine today. What’s He doing? He’s forming the Body of Christ.

“One brother said, ‘I fear for the future of our country.’ Well, I would, too, if I thought (the good times) were never supposed to end! What I fear about the future is (the Body of Christ) not being prepared for Winter; dressing like it’s still summertime.

“My answer to this guy is I’d say, ‘Get unplugged.’ By that, I mean what Paul says in Romans 12:1-2:

[1] I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
[2] And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

*****

“Don’t follow the cohort thinking. You go to get over seasonal thinking and learn not to evaluate the way things were yesterday, but understand the way it’s GOING to be.

“Get over the myth of the Christian nation, all that kind of stuff that makes you think the political action and the political arena is where the real action is. We’re not called to political dominion and law-motivated service.

“When you’re involved in that, that’s nothing but to be consumed with mammon. And everybody who’s always worried about the government and the politics--making the law do things, making people do things--all they’re concerned about is mammon. I say that and I know that grates at some of you.

“People are going to say: ‘Well, if that’s the way you feel, then just don’t have any of my mammon!’ Well, I don’t want that; I want your heart!

"You know what we need to do? We need to get busy talking to people about the Lord and sharing the revelation God’s given us today.

“Be involved in getting that out and get over all the form issues that say it’s got to be done ‘my way or the highway.’ Understand the key is to take the truth and put it in people and let that truth in them do the work of the ministry.

*****

“Paul says, ‘Only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ: that whether I come and see you, or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel;

“When he says one mind, the business way of saying that is we have ‘agenda harmony.’ We’re all on the same page about where we’re going and we’re striving, we’re working, we’re laboring together to the point of exhaustion to get there.

“And then he says ‘in nothing terrified by you adversaries.’ Because there is opposition. You and I have been called to radical risk-taking faith and service. We haven’t been called to living lives of ease. We've been called to lives of united, radical, risk-taking service for the gospel. That’s what you do in the Wintertime!

“It may look radical to the system, but if it’s based in the Book, it won’t be radical; it’ll be FAITH! In this Wintertime, you’re going to get the greatest privilege of your life, and if you’re older, people are going to need your wisdom. If you’re younger, you’re going to be building what you’re going to carry throughout the future."

An urgent kind of thing, as in 'RUN!'

“Every day of the dispensation of grace is called ‘the last day’ because we don’t have any promise of another day, but there is going to be a day that is THE last day and when the Rapture comes, BOOM! that’s the end of it and the dispensation of grace is over,” says Jordan. “So the closer you get to the Rapture, the stage begins to be set for the last days of prophecy.

“If you’re a Jew in the tribulation period, you know without even batting an eye that you’ve got at least seven more years to go until the Antichrist is revealed, and when he’s revealed and the 70^th week of Daniel begins to tick off, you can begin to count the days because there’s going to be 1,260 days and a break and then 1,260 more days.

“There are going to be 42 months and 42 months, 3½ years and 3 ½ years and then Christ is going to be there. So they have a time schedule to count. We don’t have that.

Jesus informs in Matthew 24:22, [22] And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened.

“When He says the days will be shortened, He’s not talking about making 1,260 into only 1,220. He’s saying, ‘If this tribulation such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be is allowed to run its course, there ain’t gonna be anybody left.’

“So what’s He going to do? He’s going to shorten it; He’s only going to go so far and stop it. He’s going to stop it after 1,260 days. Just like right now He withholdeth that (II Thessalonians 2), He’s going to stop it before it reaches its full end or before the deception is so great nobody would ever be saved. He’s not going to let it go to its conclusion because if it was left to run its natural course the stuff would be so bad everybody would be gone.

Christ's survival instructions in Matthew 24 include, [23] Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not.
[24] For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.
[25] Behold, I have told you before.

*****

Daniel 9:27 reports about this time in the tribulation, [27] And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.

“The reason the Bible says ‘the midst of the week’ is because there’s a specific middle point to it all. Instead of trying to find that one day, you’ll find a period of time. In the midst of the week that abomination of desolation is set up and now the die is cast.

“Now is the time they’re going to have to either decide to take ‘the mark of the beast,’ or not to take it. This is when there will be that division between parents where they’re literally going to have kids turning their parents in and parents turning their kids in.

“There’s going to be this dividing line based upon this and there’s going to be people who say about the Antichrist, ‘He IS the Messiah; he’s the one.’ You’re going to have other people say, ‘No, he’s not the one,’ and that’s why I John talks about how ‘every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.’

“They’re going to say, ‘No, he’s already been here,’ and the others are going to say, ‘No, he hasn’t. Here he is!’ and they’re going to be divided because of him. That thing becomes not just an idea; it becomes the issue they face directly and so Luke 21 says, ‘Then let them which are in Judaea flee to the mountains; and let them which are in the midst of it depart out; and let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto.’

“Who are the people who flee into the mountains? People in Judea, not Chicago. Why are they going to flee to the mountains?

“Revelation 12:13-14 says, [13] And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child. [14] And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent.

“Now, that takes place in the midst of the week. Same time period. They’re going to flee into that wilderness and the word ‘wilderness’ there is the idea of a place that’s not occupied.

“There are places in the Old Testament, in the books of Jeremiah (chapter 15) and Micah (chapter 7), for example, that tell them specifically where to go. And when they get there, they’re going to be nourished.

“They’re literally going to be fed with manna. Has that ever happened before? You think if it’s happened before it might give them some instructions about how it might happen again? That ‘fleeing’ is because in Jerusalem is where the persecution’s going to be. They’re told to get out of there and it’s an urgent kind of thing.

“Watch how Jesus Christ says it in Matthew 24:17: ‘Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house.’

“We don’t have structures like that, but when you go to that part of the world you discover most of the houses have flat roofs with gardens and living areas on the top. If you don’t know that go watch the Jason Bourne adventures and he’s jumping from housetop to housetop. This kind of construction here tells you that you’re talking about something that’s not just generic in its location.

“Christ says in verse 18, ‘Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes.’ He’s talking, ‘Listen, when the sound goes up, don’t go home and pack a bag-- RUN!’ It’s that serious. That’s the idea.

“He says, ‘[19] And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!
[20] But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day.’

“Again, the issue is if you’re ‘great with child’ you’re not really in a hiking mode. If you have to nurse children, that’s going to slow you down, too. Pray that that’s not what happens to you. The issue is the urgency of this. This is something they need to get on with quickly. ‘Get out of town, get there!’

“As verse 21 says, [21] For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. By the way, you notice it doesn’t say THE Great Tribulation? We use that term a lot but the Bible talks about ‘great tribulation.’ "

(to be continued)

Personal attention by 'the Lord himself'

When the blinding light of God’s countenance shone on Paul on the road to Damascus and he heard a voice say, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest me?” Paul responded by asking, “Who art thou, Lord?” but he knew it was God.

“It was the first time in his whole life that he’d ever really encountered God,” says Richard Jordan. “He’d had all of this religion but it never got him to God. Now God showed up and he says, ‘Who are you?’

“Now, I don’t know about you, but in the back of my mind I have the idea that he’s thinking, ‘Who are you?! PLEASE don’t say Jesus!’

“Paul didn’t say, ‘What new regulation do I need to follow?’ He said, ‘Who art thou, Lord?’ You know what Paul wanted? He wanted to know the Lord. He wanted to know who He was. He had a desire to know Him."

*****

Just as the dispensation of grace began with this very personal appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ to Paul, the dispensation of grace will end with the appearing of Christ to the Body of Christ as He takes us out of here.

“It was an unprophesied appearing over there; it’s an unprophesied appearing here (at the Rapture),” says Jordan. “By the way, it was a personal appearing there; it will be a personal appearing here.

“I Thessalonians 4:16 says, 16] For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first.

“Go through I and II Thessalonians sometime and notice that four times in those two books Paul says ‘the Lord himself.’ It’s a fascinating little Bible study. Personal attention by the Lord Himself. Paul emphasizes that. One of the things is He’s going to come and get us.

“But the Lord Himself reveals . . . When Paul says there’s a reward laid up, a crown for all those ‘that love his appearing,’ if you know about this first one, it tells you about that one.

“So the motivation is to understand what God’s doing today and to value and esteem above all other things God’s program today that He’s made us a part of, according to His own purpose and grace which is given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, and as that’s the thing that captivates your heart . . . Paul says when you love that, when the value and esteem you have . . .

“That love is not the l-u-v stuff. It’s wonderful to have a heart blessing time and hug necks and pat each other and say, ‘Good to see you,’ that kind of stuff. You know, whether you mean it or not, it’s nice that you do it. Makes everybody feel better. But it’s not that ‘there’s a sweet, sweet Spirit in this place.’

“Ever been to a football game and they’re singing the ‘Rah! Rah!’? Go down to the pub and they’re doing the karaoke.

“When we talk about love, Philippians 1:9 says, [9] And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment;
[10] That ye may approve things that are excellent; that ye may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ;

“It’s not an emotion; it’s a mental attitude. A love that abounds in knowledge. It’s an ability to evaluate and esteem something, think about it the way God thinks about it. That produces judgment, discernment, the ability to look at the details of your life and say, ‘Here’s what God’s will in that is.’

“God the Father believes if you see the value He sees in God the Son, you can’t do anything but love Him the way He does. And so He’s devised this plan, and set forth this system whereby He’s going to exalt His Son in the heavens and in the earth and bring everything to work together as one unit that honors and expresses the wisdom of the Father as it’s revealed in His Son. This is the fantastic plan He has for us.”

(new article tomorrow)

No end to man's 'absolute, total insanity'

A national report released yesterday by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (VOC) warns that the same young Americans “on due course to be state and federal politicians, teachers, law enforcement, and business people” are “going ga-ga for mass-murder-enabling ideologies such as socialism and communism.”

“Not only is this generation going to rule the population, but these folks embrace an ideology they think will change the world,” reads an article on the Federalist website about the new study’s findings, which include how “one third of millennials (32 percent) falsely believe more people were killed under George W. Bush than under Joseph Stalin.”

“History and current affairs provides more than enough evidence that the pleasant-sounding mantras of socialism and communism lead directly to death chambers, starvation, and mass graves. These are realities everyone, millennials included, need for the world’s sake to know.”

*****

From Adam on, the thing God’s been most concerned about in relation to His human race is freedom. That’s what faith is all about.

A great definition of faith is it’s the ability to have absolute, complete freedom in your inner person to do exactly what you choose to do. God knows inherently that without that total personal privacy, you can’t make a personal choice; a free choice.

*****

At a weekend Bible conference once, Columbus, Ohio preacher David Reid asked the Bible students in attendance to fully consider what the Bible testifies will happen at the end of the prophesied Millennium Kingdom.

Satan, who’s been locked in the bottomless pit, will be set free for “one last stand” in which he immediately goes out into the nations and gets men to rebel against the Lord Jesus Christ, at that time reigning as king over the entire earth from the city of Jerusalem.

“Think with me what’s happening here,” Reid said by way of introduction. “At the Second Coming, right before the Millennium is set up, there is war in heaven, Satan and his angels are kicked out, the sun’s turned to darkness, the moon’s turned to blood.

“If you’re on the earth, do you have an inkling that there may be a problem about to happen?! The Lord Jesus Christ returns on a white horse with the armies of heaven, and when you read through Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and what they have to say about this time, He goes through the earth and every single person who rebels against His authority is conclusively destroyed.

“With the Second Coming all His foes are just utterly destroyed and then He ‘rules with a rod of iron’ during the Millennium Kingdom.

“Psalm 2 says ‘kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way,’ and what happens is the Gentile nations of the earth come up to Jerusalem to acknowledge Him, and when they don’t, He causes it not to rain on their nation.

“When they come up to Jerusalem, they go over and literally see down into hell. In the process of coming and worshipping the Lord, they literally see, ‘Wow! The worm dieth not and the fire’s not quenched! Down there’s all the people in the past who rebelled against the Lord’s authority!’

“So then (when the thousand-year Millennium Period expires), Satan is let out of the bottomless pit and basically the entire earth says, ‘Hey, yeah, let’s go kill the Lord Jesus Christ!’

“After Christ’s just wreaked conclusive havoc on everyone who’s ever opposed Him and man says, ‘Yeah, we can take Him!’ It’s just absolute, total insanity! So, as I reflect on why people aren’t beating down the door today (to hear biblical truth and become saved), the issue with men is men are just crazy! They’re just rebellious and ornery and the sad thing is . . .

“We conduct a prison ministry in (central Ohio) and one of the things we tell the guys is there’s only way you end up in hell. You don’t end up there because you tried really hard to be good and, instead of getting a B minus, you got a C plus and God cut off the curve right there and sent you to hell.

“You end up in hell because you made a conscious decision to reject the grace of God! Think about how tragic that is because what He did on the Cross—when He said, ‘It is finished,’ it was finished for every single human being that ever lived, and the sad reality of what happens today is the vast majority of the earth says, ‘I don’t need that; I’ll earn it myself!’ And that’s just asinine stupidity because it’s not going to work.”

Believers captivated by the devil

The other day I was talking to a friend from church about how some true Believers, while certainly not satanically possessed, are satanically oppressed. She said, “I wonder what that entails exactly.”

Paul writes to Timothy in II Timothy 2:26, “And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.”

“A snare is a trap used to hold somebody so they can’t get away; it doesn’t kill you, it just holds you,” explains Richard Jordan in a Bible study, confirming that a Believer today can be “demon or devil-influenced, and even demon or devil-captured.”

“There’s the old joke from years ago about the two raccoons who got caught in a trap; it snapped and clenched their rights paws. They realized that if they were still in their predicament come morning when the trapper arrived, they’d be dead meat.

“The female raccoon says, ‘Well, the only option we have is just to gnaw our leg off and live with three legs and not be killed.’ The male raccoon agrees, ‘Okay, I can see that.’

“So, she gnawed her leg off and went on about her business and came back a half-hour later to find the male still in the trap.

“She says, ‘Well, I thought we agreed we’d gnaw our leg off and be free?!’ He answered, ‘Well, I’ve gnawed three of them off and I’m still in the trap!’

*****

“Satan can’t kill you as a Believer, but he sure can snare you. He can cause you to be entrapped by error. Notice he takes you captive by ‘his will.’ Satan has a will for Believers.

“His opposing will for the Body of Christ is to neutralize you so you can’t effectively function as a member of the Body; you can’t function in the identity God’s given you. You get your mind off who you are in Christ, vacillate and move away.

“When Paul talks about ‘instructing those that oppose themselves,’ that’s the condition of a Believer under satanic influence. What does it mean when he says ‘oppose yourself’?

“It means you are one way—you’re a saint of the most high God—but you’re living another way as if you’re not. You live in opposition to who you really are. You’re saved but you’re living like you’re really lost. You’re living in the Spirit but walking in the flesh.”

*****

Satan is the great tempter and two times in Paul’s epistles he warns against falling for “enticing words.”

He writes in I Corinthians 2:4, “And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.”

In Colossians 2:4, he stresses, “And this I say, lest any man should beguile you with enticing words.”

Jordan explains, “That idea of enticing words—it’s words that are really enticements, where you’re trying to entice somebody into doing something for some other reason than what the real issue is.

“If you were in the commerce world, they’d call it ‘bait and switch.’ Entice them to come in and then switch them to the thing you really wanted all along to do with them.

*****

Paul writes in I Corinthians 1:17, “For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect.”

Jordan explains, “That ‘wisdom of words’; that’s talking about making your own way, giving your own explanation. It’s human viewpoint; man’s plan to do things. And what it does is make the gospel ‘of none effect.’ Galatians 6 is another explanation of that. When Paul talks about ‘fleshly wisdom,’ he’s talking about religious show.

“Galatians 6:12 says, ‘As many as desire to make a fair shew in the flesh, they constrain you to be circumcised; only lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ.’

“They just really want to make a ‘fair show of your flesh.’ They got a system they’re promoting. And it gets to be this big fleshly operation. Paul talks about the Corinthians ‘being corrupted from the simplicity that’s in Christ.’

“He starts out II Corinthians 11 by saying, ‘For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world, and more abundantly to you-ward.’

 “That word conversation--look at I Peter 3. Sometimes you hear that word conversation, and oftentimes it’s chaffed at because it’s an Old English word that has more meanings to it than what we generally talk about.

“We usually mean our speech. You know, sit around and have a conversation, discussing things with people. But a conversation is more than just a conversational chat; it’s an entering into an inner play.

“Your conversation is not simply something that you hear with your ear; it’s something you can see with the eye. It’s more than just words. It’s something literally that you can see in someone. It’s the way they converse with life; it’s the way they interplay with life. It has to do with who you are and the whole circuit; the whole of what your life is about.

*****

Paul writes in II Corinthians 4:1-2, “But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.’

“I’ve learned for years that the truth will commend itself to a man’s conscience that wants the truth, and when it doesn’t commend itself to someone, you know why it isn’t? Because what they’re looking for is something different."

*****

In his 2005 book, The Apostasy of the Christian Church, Bible scholar R. Dawson Barlow writes, “But just to make sure we are not deceived by the niceties of some people and human ‘sweetness,’ it is at this point we must be very clear about the nature of apostasy. Apostasy does not usually deny the existence of God. It does not behave itself unseemly and cry out that it hates God.

“In fact, apostates are pretty nice people whose life philosophy is to get along with everybody, offend no one and attempt to make the world a better place.

“Apostasy pursues to serve a ‘god of his/her own imagination’ and serve ‘he, she, or even it’ through a form of religion whose foundation of authority is the subjective feelings they have on a certain matter.

“It matters not what the revelation of God says; the final, ultimate authority is, ‘How I feel about any issue in my heart!’ It rejects the objective authority of the Word of God as the final court of appeal, and, in the process of this rejection, embraces the deceitful, subjective message of the human heart and misinterprets it as God’s authoritative message.

“The buzz word of this growing number of people is, ‘Well, you have to do whatever is right for you.’ The conclusion is that nothing is really right or wrong, but what is right and wrong for me! This is nothing but a denial of any absolute truths.”

*****

In Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck reasons, “It don’t make no difference whether you do right or wrong, a person’s conscience ain’t got no sense, and just goes for him anyway.”

The conscience either “accuses or excuses,” and people who continuously violate their system of norms and standards learn to excuse sin. The thinking becomes, “Well, everybody else is doing it, so what difference does it make?”

Paul writes in Titus 1:15-16, “Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled.
[16] They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate.”

Southern California preacher John Verstegen explains, “Because individuals are unsaved and operate in the ‘vanity of their mind’ on the basis of false doctrine—the satanic doctrine of this world—what happens over time is they then change that system in their inner man and their conscience goes along with it.

“Sometimes you ask the question how a person could do such a heinous sin and so forth. It’s because, over time, they have been taught that those things are acceptable and they justify it. That’s what Paul says in Romans 2.

“Why would someone do such a thing as murder someone? Well, because they’ve been taught that in certain circumstances it’s okay to murder and that they’re doing it for their god who approves of that type of thing, etc. 

“So they adjust and change that system of norms and standards they were born with and replace it with a wrong system. Even though their conscience initially questioned, ‘Well, is this right?’ it’s now said to be defiled.

*****

Because a newly saved person’s conscience is said to be “weak,” needing to be fortified through a steady diet of biblical truth, as Paul tells us in I Corinthians 8, it can be in a mixed state of confusion.

“On the one hand, it’s recognizing, ‘Hey, this is right and that’s wrong,’ but like this guy (in I Corinthians 8), he still thinks an idol is something real,” explains Verstegen. “So because his conscience previously bore witness to that thing and sacrificed to idols, now that he’s a Believer—and has a little bit of sound doctrine in his inner man—his conscience is kind of thinking, ‘Wait a minute, I belong to Christ now so this idol is nothing.’

“Now, what’s interesting is that a weak conscience can become defiled again. It can go back to what it was before the guy got saved. That’s the real issue here."

*****

The other thing that is true for an errant Believer is that his conscience can become “seared with a hot iron,” as Paul writes in I Timothy 2:4.

Verstegen explains, “You ever burnt yourself? When you sear something it’s lost its sensitivity to pain because you’ve actually burned the nerve endings and that’s why you can’t feel it anymore. You actually fried it. It’s a conscience that has been so affected it doesn’t bear proper witness anymore because it’s totally lost its sensitivity to bear proper witness to what’s right and wrong.

“In the context in I Timothy, this actually is talking about a Believer; somebody who was in the truth but then departed from the faith and their conscience has become seared.”

*****

Paul reminds the Corinthians in I Corinthians 12:2, “Ye know that ye were Gentiles, carried away unto these dumb idols, even as ye were led.”

Jordan explains, “You know it’s very important that you understand that idolatry is more than just a man taking something and bowing down to it. There is a spirit in this world that leads men to worship idols. My friend, there is a satanic, demonic spirit that works in unsaved people and operates in them and it leads them around and it led these Corinthians to worship idols.

“Of that satanic spirit, Paul says in Ephesians 2:2, ‘Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.’

“That’s the prince of the invisible realm. It has to do with Satan and his combined host of subordinate demonic cohorts and their activities in the world. And you listen to me; the very creative genius of unsaved people is satanically inspired.

“People are led by this spirit and Satan’s object is to blind men’s minds to the truth and divert their worship from God Almighty unto himself and his cohorts. It’s religious kind of stuff a lot of times, but a lot of time its other stuff, too. It’s anything that diverts a man’s attention—his worship and his honor and what he concentrates on—away from Almighty God unto the god of this world.

“In the case of the Ephesians, they were religious. They went to church all the time and they prayed and they had a personal relationship with their god and they did all the rest.”

(new article tomorrow)

Deeply flawed men who don't draw back

One of the great proofs of inspiration of the Bible is the unvarnished exposure of the failures and blemishes of its heroes. “Mere human authors would hardly do so as openly and consistently as do the divinely inspired Scriptures,” reasons Jordan.

“Noah and Lot, for just two examples, were not exactly paragons of virtue. You remember how Noah, in Genesis 9, called upon to speak for the Lord as a prophet, spent the night before like a drunken sailor? He’s known as the world’s first drunken sailor.

“And Lot. . . Well, those two girls of his, you know where they wound up in the cave in Genesis 19? Victims of incest, and two of the most wicked opponents the nation Israel ever had resulted from that incestuous relationship Lot had with his two daughters.

“These men were losers by outward appearance, and yet you know what they did? They heeded God's Word.

“By contrast, who does Jesus Christ deal with in Luke 17? A bunch of Pharisees who are only interested in the outward, and then there's a bunch of publicans and sinners who aren't paragons of virtue, but they believe God's Word. And if they believe God's Word, they'll get through.

*****

Oklahoma TV preacher Les Feldick once noted, “Most of the giants of the faith in biblical times were unlearned and ignorant men by the world's standard.

“The Bible is a Who's Who of shortcomings: Noah's drunkenness, Moses' speech impediment, David's adulterous ways, Peter's denials, Paul's repulsive appearance, etc.

“Nevertheless, God used these souls mightily ‘to the pulling down of strongholds,’ despite their failures. As it has been said, ‘God took a handful of nobodies and made them somebodies in His sight.’

“While we are an advocate of higher education, intellectualism is not a prerequisite to be used of the Lord. God has accomplished great things through those who merely had a willing heart. Timothy, for example, wasn't educated at the Ivy League schools of Jerusalem; nonetheless, God chose him to carry the torch of grace after Paul's martyrdom.

“ . . . Oh listen, the world out there, I know, thinks that we're a bunch of kooks, and fanatic nuts, and I know they do. And I just tell them, ‘Hey, live it for 70 or 80 years. I've got an eternity of the things that will make the best this earth can offer seem like an old pig pen by comparison.’ But you see they can't understand that we have simply responded to an extended love, and that's why He went to the Cross; it was love.”

*****

The Apostle Paul warns in II Thessalonians 2:10-12 that for those who do not receive “the love of the truth, that they might be saved . . . God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.”

Jordan explains, “You see God gives truth, and when people don't want the truth, the Lie comes in and which one do they pick? When people choose the lie it's because they love the lie, not the truth. It's not because God pre-fixed them where they couldn't do differently.

The books of Hebrews, I Peter and James are specifically written to motivate Israel’s ‘little flock’ of believers to endure through the Tribulation. II Peter, I John, II John, III John and Jude are written to instruct them so as not to be seduced by the people who will try to deceive them away.

Hebrews 10:38-39 warns, “Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.”

Jordan says, “See the choice before these people? They can draw back from the truth, from the faith, or they can endure. Now if you go to Luke 17, you’ll see Jesus Christ apply that principle with two illustrations.

“He says in Luke 17, “And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man.
[27] They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.
[28] Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded;
[29] But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all.
[30] Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.
[31] In that day, he which shall be upon the housetop, and his stuff in the house, let him not come down to take it away: and he that is in the field, let him likewise not return back.
[32] Remember Lot's wife.
[33] Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it.

“Lot’s wife disobeyed God’s order not to look back as her family fled the burning city of Sodom and, as a result, she was turned into a pillar of salt.

"Lot’s wife took off lickety-split out of Sodom with Lot and her girls and then doubt came into her mind about whether she really wanted to leave her china, and the drapes, and the house, and the pictures, and the reputation and the friends.

“She stopped, and she turned around for one more look. What'd that verse in Hebrews say? When you draw back, you draw back to perdition. God’s saying, ‘Don't be one who is lured back.’

*****

“Remember in Numbers 11 how it talks about the ‘mixed multitude’ out of Egypt that ‘fell a lusting.’ They came out of Egypt and hadn't yet been into Canaan, so they had no idea what the corn of Canaan tasted like; they'd never eaten corn.

“But they had leeks, onions, cucumbers and garlic back in Egypt, and they'd had up it to here with the manna. Evidently manna didn't cook up so good. Just white bread. You get tired of that. To eat the same thing every day for 40 years—I'd get tired of it. I'd get tired of it after three days.

“They let their minds go back to where they used to be. All they had was faith to claim the new land but you know where they wound up? God found out who the mixed multitude was.

“He said, ‘There's a mixed multitude in Israel. I brought you out to bring you in. Who am I going to bring in? The believers. How am I going to find them? I'm going to let them sit out here in the wilderness—we'll find out who's going to endure and who isn’t.’ ”

*****

The great Chicago radio preacher of the ’40s and ’50s, J.C. O’Hair, pastor of the former North Shore Church which is today Shorewood Bible Church, once noted, “If you will fall in with God's present plan, submit to His will and turn the government of your life over to the Son of God. . . He’ll let you into all of the secrets that you need to know, and answer all the whys that He thinks you ought to know.”

O’Hair’s long-time associate, nationally renowned Bible scholar C.R. Stam, once wrote, “What then, is our greatest drawback in Christian service? Obviously it is our lack of appreciation of the infinite love of Christ. Why do we not serve our blessed Lord as Paul did? Because we do not share his sense of being loved by Christ. Mark well, we are not referring to our love for Christ, but to His love for us.

“Have you ever noticed that Paul says little or nothing about his love for Christ, while he is constantly talking about Christ's love for him? How can we overcome our natural indifference to His love? How can we cast off this evil drag on our Christian experience?

“Ah, the apostle explains this at length in Ephesians 3:14-21 . . . First, he says, Christ must dwell in our hearts by faith that we might be ‘rooted and grounded in love.’  We must draw our strength from His love as a tree, through its roots, draws its strength from the ground. All we do must be founded on His love to us, not a desire to gain His favor, or fear that we might displease Him.

“Thus alone will we be able to ‘comprehend,’ or appreciate, the breadth, length, depth, and height of God's great message of grace. And as we measure the dimensions of this glorious plan we find ourselves launching out into the depths of the love of Christ.”