Here is the untarnished truth, however unpalatable it may be for some.
"..There
have always been men (and women!) 'ordained of old' who have had a
mission to infiltrate Christian congregations and subvert the
essential Christian message with teachings which render the gospel
ineffective and meaningless! Effectively, Satan has sought to lead
visible congregations astray by placing false, unconverted people in
congregational leadership!! Sounds far-fetched? Just read on....."
Around the year 90 AD,
the apostle John wrote his second and third epistles. These epistles
carry a strong warning, yet it is a warning which we often seem to
read right over in our day.
The Church of God was being
infiltrated by certain outsiders who obviously had a mission to
subvert the Church (whether or not they were aware of it). The
situation was so serious that some of these subverters had gained
leading positions within congregations and were able to bar God's
true apostles from preaching in those congregations!! Let us note a
few verses:
'I wrote to the church, but Diotrephes, who
loves to have the preeminence among them, does not receive us.
Therefore, if I come, I will call to mind his deeds which he does,
prating against us with malicious words. And not content with that,
he himself does not receive the brethren, and forbids those who wish
to, putting them out of the church'
(3 John 9-10)
Are
these words not incredible? Here - even before the ending of the
first century - was a 'visible' congregation taken over by
subverters, with true Christians actually being disfellowshipped!
Even in his first epistle, John had expressed some concern
about these infiltrators, and he clearly describes some of their
beliefs in 1 John 4:1-3. Let us read these verses:
'Beloved,
do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are
of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By
this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that
Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that
does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of
God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard
was coming, and is now already in the world'.
Of course,
many Bible scholars have long noted that John's comments here are a
fairly clear reference to the early heresy of Gnosticism. The
Gnostics believed that Jesus was not fully human, at least during
those more pivotal periods of His life, such as during the
tranfiguration and, especially, on the cross. John is very anxious
that nobody should be taken in by this false teaching realising that
Jesus had to be fully human as well as fully divine in order for His
sacrifice to be efficaceous in paying for the sins of mankind!
Any
concept that Jesus was merely an apparition, or spirit, seriously
undermines the veracity and validity of His sacrifice.
Now
some say, 'Hey-ho - we have long recognised that these were
Gnostics, or, proto-Gnostics, so lets move on...'
But we
should not be too fast about this; Would these words have been
recorded, plus all the other New Testament warnings about false
teachers, if this was just a reference to a first century group of
heretics? In this study we will learn that, whatever the particular
heresy, there have always been men (and women!) 'ordained of old' who
have had a mission to infiltrate Christian congregations and subvert
the essential Christian message with teachings which render the
gospel ineffective and meaningless! Effectively, Satan has sought to
lead visible congregations astray by placing false, unconverted
people in congregational leadership!! Sounds far-fetched? Just read
on.....
Around the time that the apostle John issued his
heresy warnings through his epistles, a certain Jude was also issuing
a similar warning. 'Jude' is a form of the common Jewish name 'Judah'
and while we cannot be absolutely certain who this Jude was, the
strongest candidates are Judas the apostle ('Judas' was the Greek
form of the name) who is mentioned in Luke 6:16 and also Acts 1:13,
but probably the strongest candidate is Judas the physical brother of
our Lord (Matthew 13:55, Mark 6:3).
Jude said this:
'Beloved,
while I was very dilligent to write to you concerning our common
salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to
contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to
the saints. For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago
were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the
grace of our God into licentiousness and deny the only Lord God and
our Lord Jesus Christ'
(Jude 3-4)
Since this warning
was probably written fairly close to John's warnings, the question
which immediately arises is, was this the same heresy??
We cannot
be entirely sure but apparently not, for the people that Jude is
referring to apparently taught a 'cheap grace' message which seems
rather different to the 'secret knowledge for the purest of the
elect' and asceticism of the Gnostics. The people that Jude is
warning about were determined to continue in their former sins since
they held an understanding of grace which allowed a sinful and
licentious existence to continue. Of course, they were plainly wrong
and Jude is concerned about their activities and influence. But the
net effect is the same as the Gnostics that John warned
about;
Christ's sacrifice is rendered of no effect! True
Christian teaching has been seriously diluted by additional,
syncretistic, elements. The result is that naive and gullible people
coming under the influence of such false teachers could be fooled
into a 'false salvation'!
So Satan's strategy was
(and is) two-pronged:
1. Introduce a subtle, syncretistic 'mix'
which has elements of the gospel, but renders the gospel of no
effect.
2. Get this message (in whatever form it might take) into
congregations through the use of false/unconverted leaders.
If
one should want a third example of a false, heretical teaching which
included a message about Christ but rendered the gospel
useless, just carefully check through Paul's epistle to the
Galatians. In that particular epistle, Paul strongly attacks
judaizers who talked about Jesus but insisted that Christians also
stood under major parts of the law of Moses. Paul is white hot with
anger at their activities. Check out Paul's anger in Galatians 1:6-9.
But my case is not yet fully made and established.
Did
Jesus Himself warn about false teachers affecting groups of sincere
believers?
Yes, He did. Lets look at Matthew 7.
'Beware
of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly
they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Do men
gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every
good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good
tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every
tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the
fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them. Not everyone who
says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he
who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that
day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out
demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?' And then I
will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who
practise lawlessness!'
(Matthew 7:15-23)
Please notice
that some of these people will even have cast out demons (or so they
will claim) and 'prophesied' (the Greek for 'prophesied' could mean
'inspired and persuasive preaching'), yet it will be to no avail, for
they (apparently) had not upheld the biblical gospel, and their works
had upheld 'lawlessness' - What does this mean? This is Greek word
number 458 in Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (anomia) and it means,
'wickedness' 'iniquity' 'transgression' or 'illegality'. In this
context, it plainly refers to those who may have pointed to Christ
but did not lead true Christian lives. Might some of these people
have been too concerned about....money, a following, prestige, the
world, success, their own 'image'?? Might their private lives have
contradicted their professed calling? These are some of the possible
reasons why this particular Greek word was chosen here.
In
Acts 20, Luke quotes some of the words of Paul in warning about those
who would infiltrate Christian congregations with a different
'gospel';
'For I have not shunned to declare to you the
whole counsel of God. Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all
the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to
shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. For
I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among
you, not sparing the flock. also from among yourselves men will rise
up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after
themselves. Therefore watch, and remember that for three years I did
not cease to warn everyone night and day with tears'
(Acts
20:27-31)
So often we ignore such warnings today. Why? Well
perhaps we simply see such Scriptures as a reference to the cults and
sects, but please note that Paul's warning here goes beyond that;
These are false teachers/teachings which would directly affect
Christian congregations! We should certainly realise that if Satan
already has the cults and sects tied up in errors which render the
gospel meaningless for those people, he will certainly be keen to go
on the attack against the 'stragglers in the pack' of real Christian
congregations!! Indeed, isn't this precisely what Peter warns about
in 1 Peter 5:8-9? The apostle Peter also said this:
'But
there were false prophets among the people, even as there will be
false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive
heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on
themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their destructive
ways, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed. By
covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words; for a long
time their judgment has not been idle, and their destruction does not
slumber'
(2 Peter 2:1-3)
Notice again, that these
people will use 'deceptive words' - some of it will sound good, some
of it will sound appealing! But, as we noted in the earlier examples,
the 'net effect' of their labours is that they are, "denying the
Lord" - the gospel is rendered useless in changing lives, since
these people are intent on affecting the message of the holy
gospel! They keep Jesus, but they make changes in the substance of
the gospel!
The great, but nowadays sadly neglected, Bible
commentator, Henry Halley, made these comments about Peter's
warnings:
'It is a sorry picture. Even within the Apostolic
generation the World and the Devil had succeeded in making heavy
onslaughts on the Purity of the Church. Then followed the long
centuries of Papal corruption. And, even now, in our own enlightened
age, the Gospel of Christ, in its original beauty and simplicity and
Purity, in many sections of the Church, still is buried and hid from
view by the rubbish of forms and doctrines heaped upon the Church,
through the ages, by the World and the Devil'
(Halley's Bible
Handbook, Zondervan, 1965, pages 668-669)
Of course, Halley
could have gone further; there have been numerous attempts, from the
time of Christ until now, to attack Christ, His Church and the
Gospel.
We may think of the concentrated attacks of the 19th
century theologians of 'Liberal Protestantism' - these people decided
that the Bible was unreliable and that we could not count on its
words. The message of Jesus was best understood on a romantic and
inspirational level, but there was no real Atonement. This school of
theology permeated most (though not all) of the great seminaries, and
'ministers' were churned out by the hundreds who did not believe that
the Bible was truly the inspired Word of God. These ministers went
into Anglican/Episcopalian, Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist and
other denominational congregations. Of course, it is now known that
'Liberal Protestantism' was a DESTROYER of church congregations, and
many denominations still have not recovered from the onslaught!
Of
course, this was just another tactic of our great adversary, Satan,
in getting false, unbiblical teachings into the churches which spoke
of Jesus, but completely undermined the veracity and momentum of the
gospel!
Of course, Liberal Protestantism is now a dead duck,
but has our adversary been idle?? YOU BET HE HASN'T! The 20th century
brought the so-called 'death of God' theological movement, and - more
recently - 'Process theology' and the 'Theology of Hope' of people
like Moltmann. Much of this is more subtle than the old-fashioned
Liberal Protestantism, but the Bible is still attacked as is the
authority of Jesus. Often a 'Jesus' is upheld who has not yet made up
His mind about the future or - in some cases - hasn't got a clue
about what may happen in the future! And, yes, you guessed it,
ministers are being churned out who have accepted some of these
wholly unbiblical concepts; again, effectively, the gospel is
rendered meaningless and useless - apparently, its just what Jesus
thought and His thinking was much like any other first century Jew!!
But while Satan has freely attacked through the univesities
and seminaries, he has also attacked through various 'lower level'
teachers and teachings. Some of the teachers were not always wholly
incorrect in every area but tended to introduce unbiblical
approaches; typical of such people was Charles Finney and the
resultant 'Finneyism' - Not everything that Finney said and did was
wrong by any means, but Finney seemed to believe that it is entirely
within our own power to have 'Revivals' - we must use
emotional pressure, and get folks to walk the 'sawdust trail' in
making a committment! Yet many such sincere people were never taught
to 'count the cost' of becoming a Christian, although the New
Testament suggests that we do so. Also, thousands who 'made a
decision for Jesus' during a period of great emotional pressure,
perhaps during a 'camp meeting' later walked away from the Faith.
This is not simply my opinion, but the opinion of people such as
Billy Graham who once used a Finneyite approach.
We would not
wish to attack all areas of the Charismatic/Pentecostal
movements, but here too many false teachers and teachings have freely
reared their heads, and church congregations have been freely
infiltrated by unbiblical influences! To just take one or two of many
possible examples, the teaching that so-called 'unknown tongues' is
the only proof that one has the received the Holy Spirit is wholly
unbiblical and very easily debunked from the Bible, yet thousands
have accepted it and countless congregations have been split up
because of it - SATAN HAS SMILED!
The teaching that, upon
anointing, one should be healed, otherwise one is secretly sinning
and/or lacks 'faith' is, biblically, a nonsense, yet, here again,
congregations have split and many have been offended - SATAN HAS
SMILED!
But one of Satan's greatest successes of recent years
has been the rapidly spreading influence of the 'Word-faith'
movement; this movement, also somtimes called 'the health, wealth and
prosperity gospel' or the 'positive confession' movement has now
infiltrated huge areas of evangelical Christianity. This is not the
place to debunk the serious and unbiblical flaws in this movement (we
have other articles which do that), but all Bible-believers should
grieve that so many sincere people have become ensnared by this 'New
Age'-rooted perversion of biblical faith. It has just been brought to
my attention, for instance, that large areas of the once so highly
promising 'house church movement' are now seriously affected by
Word-faith. Yes, its the usual mix; Jesus gets preached (in a manner)
but the gospel becomes fatally compromised by a message all about our
use of words, finances, positive-thinking and success!
A
Bible-believing minister known to myself spent several years
preaching in various rural congregations as something of a travelling
preacher. He sought to revitalise the Christian witness in UK's more
remote areas, especially in the south. This man came to the firm
conclusion that as many as 70-80% of country-based, or rural
congregations were controlled by unconverted leaders!!
Does that sound incredible? Maybe it does, but this is all part
of the mystery of iniquity and Satan's determination to infiltrate
Christian congregations, so I don't think we should be
surprised!!
Since this man preached the biblical gospel clear and
unabashed while warning of error in all of these places, he was not
surprised that he was rarely invited back! In some cases,
congregations were down to just 10 or 15 people, all over 70 years of
age. Occasionally he gently suggested to the leaders that that was a
dying congregation if nothing was done, but his comments were almost
always met with indifference. Some of these congregations had not had
their own pastor for many years nor did they seem interested in
having one. My friend sometimes offered to go out and pray for the
sick if needed, but he was never taken up on this.
So I
maintain that the 'mystery of iniquity' refers to Satan's
determination to infiltrate congregations of Christians with false
teachings/false teachers/false leaders who/which actually deny the
message of the gospel (however subtley). We must remember that John
clearly saw the spirit of antichrist beginning to be at work in his
own day and he associated it with attempts to subvert the Church (1
John 4:3).
It is a mistake, therefore, to see this as just an
end-time phenomenon! It began a long while ago as the New Testament
writers make abundantly clear.
Before I move on to dicuss the
vital Scripture in 2 Thessalonians 2 with its reference to the 'Man
of Sin', I just need to underline what I am NOT saying!
I am not saying that we
will ever, during the present dispensation, be able to have a wholly
pure Church - that just is not possible; several Scriptures seem
to show that the righteous and unconverted alike are likely to make
up visible church congregations. Any attempts to form a purist,
pietist Church of the spiritually pure in the present world could
only ever lead to a witch-hunt. This, in itself, is a heresy; the
heresy of Donatism, which Augustine so rightly opposed in the fourth
century AD.
What I am saying is a little different, though
not entirely unrelated. I speak of unconverted people who are,
perhaps, natural leaders tending to take leading positions within
congregations, then using their position to encourage compromised
theological teaching which seeks closer accord with this society, and
tends to make Jesus a great religious leader, but not necessarily the
Saviour of the world!
While such people have certainly controlled
liberal churches for a very long time, I believe they are now
starting to gain more and more prominence within evangelical
churches; we should expect it - it is the mystery of iniquity at
work!
But we must be on our guard to protect biblical truth
and the veracity of the gospel of Jesus Christ in all Bible-believing
congregations!!
2 Thessalonians 2:1-12
Verses 1-3:
Even in
Paul's day, some were thinking that Christ had either returned or was
on the very brink of returning. But in verse 3 Paul shows that a
great 'falling away' must occur first of all. We do not need to spend
much time considering what form this 'falling away' would take since
Paul makes it clear (One might also look at 1 Timothy 4:1). The
falling away would lead to the manifestation of 'the man of sin'
(some, though not all, tie this 'man of sin' in with Daniel 7:25).
This 'man of sin', then, will be revealed before the rerturn of
Christ.
Verse 4:
And here is the famous and most intriguing
verse which so many have wondered about! Let me quote it in
full:
'Who opposes and exalts himself above all that is
called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple
of God, showing himself that he is God'
Just who is
this?
There are several opinions about this among Bible-believing
Christians.
The Protestant reformers had little doubt that this
was a reference to the Papacy with popes ruling over a counterfeit
'church' organisation.
Others see this as just a reference to an
end time false religious leader who will gain prominence shortly
before Christ returns. This man (ruled by Satan himself), will wage
all-out war on true Christians. While some see this as a revitalised
Papacy, others are increasingly wondering whether this might be
either Islamic in nature, or a new world religion!
Verses
7-12:
For the mystery of lawlessness ('iniquity' KJV) is
already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is
taken out of the way.
Vs 8: And then the lawless one will be
revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and
destroy with the brightness of His coming.
Vs 9: The coming of the
lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power,
signs, and lying wonders,
Vs 10: and with all unrighteous
deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the
love of the truth, that thet might be saved.
Vs 11: And for this
reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe
the lie,
Vs 12: that they all may be condemned who did not
believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness
While
we cannot say that the reformers were wholly wrong in their view that
this is descriptive of the Papacy, the evidence here is very
strong that this is primarily a reference to a final, end-time
leader, especially when we note that the returning Christ will
apparently destroy him (verse 8).
But another intriguing thing
here is that while this false leader will sit in the temple of God
(verse 4), he appears to be an irreligious figurehead! -
Apparently he will be the epitome of 'lawlessness' - he will,
apparently, have the greatest appeal to those who reject Christ
(verses 10-12), and to those who 'had pleasure in unrighteousness'
(verse 12). This does sound more like the irreligious, secular world
than the followers of any religion! Don't forget that 'religion' can
be defined extremely broadly; it was said, for instance, that
Communism fulfilled many of the 'world religion' criteria, as does
Darwinism! A religion does not have to believe in a personal God but
can be primarily atheistic (Buddhism).
For this reason, it could
even be speculated that anti-God materialistic secularism itself will
- at the last - be granted miraculous powers by Satan!
Without
doubt, this speaks of the same time as the destruction of the Two
Witnesses (the final destruction of the witness of the Church) in
Revelation 11:7-12. The Witness' mission too obviously finishes as
Christ returns. Interestingly, the world will rejoice when all
Christian witness is finally stamped out (Rev 11:9-10).
Putting
all possibilities together, however, it does appear that this final
anti-Christ figure will represent some kind of religion, whether it
is a revitalised old religion, or a new 'World Religion'.
What we MUST note!
But while considering all
such possibilities, we MUST hold on to one clear fact:
While the
Anti-Christ only comes 'to the full' when all worship of Christ is
finally wiped out upon this earth, yet - in a very real sense - 2
Thessalonians 2:4 is even now fulfilled......
WHEREVER
UNCONVERTED LEADERS/FALSE UNBIBLICAL TEACHINGS 'SIT' IN AUTHORITY IN
'TEMPLES' OF GOD!
Let us never forget that it was ALWAYS
Satan's strategy to infiltrate God's people in order to weaken them
whether through the undoubtedly voluptuous and seductive Midianite
women in the Israel of Moses' day, or through false teachers
infiltrating the spritual Israel of the Church in more recent days:
NOTE THIS TOO:
Such false teachings can be expected to
be equally 'seductive' yet will tend to point back to the world and
its values (as liberal theology, for instance, and 'Word-faith' so
clearly do), rather than pointing toward our spiritual 'Promised
Land' of the New Heavens and New Earth! So the 'seduction' of these
false unbiblical influences will be toward the seduction of this
world, its morals and values. The seductive influences which Satan
will use will tend to seek common cause with this world and will seek
to weaken the impact of the gospel; make no mistake, Satan would like
to destroy the Church! But God will not allow that, so Satan's next
tactic will always be to make the Christian message just another
religion.
I hope that all of us who are Christians understand that
Christianity was never intended to be just another religion, rather,
IT IS THE ANTIDOTE TO ALL RELIGIOUS CONFUSION WHICH OUR ADVERSARY
HAS PLANTED IN THE WORLD!!
Brothers and Sisters
in Christ.....LETS KEEP THE FAITH!!
Robin
A. Brace, 1995, further clarified 2003.
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