Giving Heed to Fables or to Sound Doctrine?

The time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.

 

How naïve the Pentecostal church was back in the late 70s when, as a new Christian, I was getting my first taste of end time teachings. We were all convinced that things were so bad in the world that The Lord could possibly return to snatch us away during the next few minutes, (in a pre-trib rapture), or if not, then at least before the end of the week.

 

40 years later and He still hasn’t returned, and those days seem so tame compared to the present day.
Clearly we’ve never really understood the potential depth of mankind’s depravity.
I wonder how much worse things are likely to become in the world before the Lord does come back.

 

One thing that has clearly changed is the increasing fulfilment of Jesus’s prophecies about false Christs and false prophets; and how they have increasingly become part of the mainstream.

 

In a comment on after earlier post, my friend Roger recommended an article here:
http://herescope.blogspot.co.nz/2017/10/selling-out-blessed-hope.html

Towards the end of the article examples are given of several books related to “biblical prophecy”. I found one of them stood out when I read the description. That particular book:

asks whether God raised up President Trump as a fearless leader to guide America and the free world through a series of major crises as the biblical end-time narrative unfolds, as many people with prophetic gifts are predicting, and shows why everyday Americans and evangelicals have rallied around Trump as their last hope of saving America and averting the horrors of the Apocalypse

 

I feel I should be able to ask “need I say more”?  – Surely that brief description is sufficient to expose that book’s premise as being deeply (and demonically) flawed; lauding Trump as a God endorsed saviour, who will basically nullify God-given biblical prophecy about end time events. But I suspect many “evangelicals” will eagerly lap up its claims.

 

I’m not sure that, back in the 70s, any Bible believing Christian could have believed that such attitudes would be ever held by anyone within “the church”, particularly the “evangelical church”. Could we have ever believed that things within the church would become so off-kilter?

 

Of course, there were books and teachings of the time that I can now see (with hindsight and significantly more awareness of what the Bible actually says) were highly flawed.  But those that I came across at least made a token effort to present a Biblical viewpoint, and kept the gospel in mind, even if they added far too much personal interpretation and speculation to their Biblical content. Today, books like the one mentioned above, seem more intent on pushing a different agenda, far removed from the genuine Gospel of the Kingdom.

Return of the Last Trump: the self fulfilling prophet?

https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/373743492151136256?lang=en

Watch out that no one deceives you (end time warning)

When Jesus’s disciples asked him about the signs of the end, and Jesus (2nd) coming, Jesus prefaced His answer with the warning:
“Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many.”

I’m sure that preface wasn’t insignificant or merely a throw-away line, not was it placed at the beginning of his answer by accident. End time teaching, speculation and prophetic claims are considerably prone to error and therefore we should be extra-wary – making sure we search the scriptures for ourselves, testing everything.

I started my Christian life at a time when “the end times” were a favoured topic, with best selling books devoted to near future events and the imminent fulfilment of end time Bible prophecy. In particular Hal Lindsay’s The Late Great Planet Earth was considered essential reading.

In keeping with Lindsay’s pre-trib. rapture message, I displayed a sticker in my car warning passengers of the danger of the car becoming driverless should the rapture occur during the journey.

The “threat” of an imminent rapture was commonly used in evangelism. Churches would screen a film Like a Thief in the Night and its sequels, showing the scary outcome for those who missed the rapture and were “Left Behind” (as in the popular, more recent, series of novels). It seemed many people could no longer be motivated to faith by a fear of hell, so fear of future events, of God’s wrath upon a post-rapture world were utilised instead.*

But how much of all of that was REALLY in line with biblical accounts of the end time?

Not a lot. That’s what I discovered when I finally took the time to study what scripture itself said, in contrast to what popular Christian media was promoting; or what was so often being preached in the churches I attended.

So much of what was stated as “gospel truth” turned out to be wrong. Henry Kissinger wasn’t the antichrist. The imminent rapture didn’t happen. Life went on and my passengers weren’t left alone in a driverless car. The antichrist’s Europe grew well beyond the beast’s ten kingdoms (and more recently has shown to be prone to imploding).
Most of the speculation that had been heralded as “biblical” has long become out-dated.

Maybe all of that has led to a weariness, instilling a feeling of disillusionment and forcing a reassessment of the importance of the “end times”, where the attitude has caused people to consider:

“Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.”

And that is the danger of unbiblical teaching. It leads to unbiblical conclusions and expectations and can make us weary of very important matters.

Regarding the end times, maybe more than many other issues, we NEED to be sure our understanding is grounded in the truth of scripture. As mentioned above, Jesus prefaced His prophecies of the end times with a warning: “Watch out that no one deceives you”. And he didn’t leave it there with a solitary statement. The whole section where He details end time events is full of warnings intended top equip the believer to overcome and survive through very difficult times, when it will seem easier to go with the flow instead of standing out from the crowd to proclaim the truth.

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* I would argue that fear isn’t necessary the best motivation to get people interested in the gospel – especially fears based on false expectations, such as missing out on a pre-trib rapture.

The Evangelicals’ Choice

The evangelicals’ previous choice.

_________

The evangelicals’ current choice.

__________

The evangelical future choice?

[T]hat Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.

I Sigh and Shake My Head…

I’d like to be able to say I sigh and shake my head in disbelief – but the following news clips don’t surprise me anymore.

From Eternity a publication of the Bible Society.

 

AND

 

From  Catch the Fire Ministries Inc. News, summer edition 2016.

 

Jesus said, ‘My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.’

In other words, the concerns and ways of Jesus’, Kingdom are NOT the concerns and ways of the world’s Kingdoms.

The second clipping from Danny Nalliah’s ministry is an example of his continued attempts to meddle in politics that was most infamously demonstrated in 2007 when he tried to influence the outcome of a Federal election by “prophesying” details of God’s (alleged) favoured candidate. His attempt failed miserably, but instead of repenting of his false prophecy, he turned the blame on Australian Christians for not voting according to his (“prophesied”) instructions.

 

More recently Nalliah (a Sri Lankan born Australian citizen), aligned himself with a commemoration of the 2005 Cronulla race riots – despite the fact that he, as a dark skinned man, would have found himself a target of the violence had he been present on the day of the riots.

(see articles here: https://onesimusfiles.wordpress.com/category/danny-nalliah/ )

The more things change…

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

A horrible and shocking thing
has happened in the land:

the prophets prophesy lies,
the priests rule by their own authority,
and my people love it this way.
But what will you do in the end?

How many thousands of years ago were those words spoken and written?

Are things any different today?

Some Christian teachers broadcast blatant lies and somehow they are still able to gather followers who love what they are giving.

As Paul warned the Thessalonians, “Test all things; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil.”

Often that’s not so hard to do, and yet the unwary allow themselves to be deceived.

At the heart of this matter is our personal desire for the truth. If we genuinely love and desire the truth, we won’t fall for lies so easily.

Danny Nalliah, False Prophet and Political Agitator

I mentioned Danny Nalliah in a previous post:
https://onesimusfiles.wordpress.com/2015/11/23/latest-isis-recruits-in-action/

Over the weekend Danny Nalliah attended and gave his vocal support at a meeting celebrating the 10th anniversary of the infamous, very violent Cronulla race riots.

“Nalliah addressed the crowd before an Australian flag, leading them in a chant of “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie”. He then denounced multiculturalism, the media, the United Nations (“United Nonsense”) and the politically correct left.”

www.smh.com.au/nsw/cronulla-riots-rally-outnumbered-on-anniversary-20151212-glm0ac.html#ixzz3uFK4RSJV

Ironically, the Sri Lankan born, dark-skinned Nalliah would have been a victim of the violence if he'd be in Cronulla ten years ago since those targeted in the attacks were anyone considered to have a "Moslem" or middle eastern appearance.

Nalliah is the proven, and unrepentant, false prophet who leading up to the 2007 Federal election prophesied that his party of choice, the Liberal-National coalition would be re-elected to Government, and that the victorious PM John Howard would hand over the reins he'd held for a decade to his Deputy, Peter Costello.

Nalliah had previously taken it upon himself to "anoint" Costello as God's chosen leader of Australia, in the manner of the prophet Samuel anointing David as King of Israel.

The election came, the Government changed, and John Howard not only lost the Prime Ministership, he lost his seat in parliament. Peter Costello subsequently resigned from politics.

Rather than confess to his error, Nalliah chose to blame the Australian church for not voting according to God's revealed will. Revealed of course through Nalliah's prophecy.

Therefore, to Nalliah, it was Australian Christians who failed – not the prophecy.

His response to the failure of his attempt to manipulate an election result was to establish his own political party: “Rise Up Australia”.

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see Nalliah’s unrepentant response about his own false prophecy on his ministries website:

http://catchthefire.com.au/2007/11/election-2007-did-i-get-it-wrong/

And his report of his involvement in the riot commemoration WAS here:
http://catchthefire.com.au/2015/12/cronulla-assignment-carried-out-by-the-the-grace-of-god/ but now seems to have been deleted from his site.