But First The Apostasy Must Come
(Continued from grampsmorningthoughts.blogspot.com Sept 18)
“Let no one deceive
you in any way, for it will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the
man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts
himself above every so called god or object of worship so that he takes his
seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being god” (2 Thess.
2:3-4).
“Know this first of
all, that in the Last Days mockers will come with their mocking, following
after their own lusts and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all
continues just as it was from the beginning of creation” (2 Peter 3:3-4).
Hey Gang: I believe I
could write five or more blogs every day and not cover what is happening,
prophetically, in our world. The tragedy, related to that, is most of the
people in our nation do not have a clue what is really happening all around us.
I watched a few minutes of the game
between Michigan State and Oregon and as they panned the stands totally filled
with screaming fans, I wondered how many vacant seats would there be, in the
eighty plus thousand, if Jesus came and removed His children.
In a recent Barna Group study it was learned that 84 percent
pf the inhabitants of this nation say they believe in the deity of Jesus Christ
and 45 percent claim to be born -again Christians but other such studies would
reduce that number to 23 percent. I have
seen estimates as low as 7 percent.
Seventy-seven percent believe their chances of going to
heaven are excellent. Thirty-three
percent believe one day everyone will go to heaven, and that hell and the Lake
of Fire are mere warning to keep God’s creation on the straight and narrow. Yet, America has the highest percentage of
single-parent families in the industrialized world, the highest abortion rate,
the highest rate of sexually transmitted diseases, the highest rate of teenage
birth by far, the highest rate of teenage drug us and the largest prison
population per capita than any county in the world.
Add to this that in the past 50 to 60 years the divorce rate
has doubled, teen suicide has tripled, reported violent crime has quadrupled,
the prison population has quintupled, the percentage of babies born out of
wedlock has risen six fold, couples living together out of wedlock have
increased sevenfold, and gay marriage is now man’s law in the land in America.
Add to this- in this past generation we have experienced an
overwhelming increase in lawlessness, permissiveness and selfishness, even
among Christians. Moral actions that
were considered unthinkable a few decades ago are now commonplace – Christian
leaders indulging in sexual sin and grossly immoral scandals, addicted to
pornography and accompanied by an exploding divorce rate that has greatly
factored in the rapid decrease of morals in the American church.
Tragically, as the church goes, so goes the world. In fact, the results of a survey among young
American adults showed that the percentage who follow biblically-based values
for living has now dropped from 65 percent to a mere 4 percent since World War
II.
Tragically, there has never been a society in the history of
mankind whose moral values have deteriorated so dramatically, in such a short
period of time, as those of American in the last 50 years and it shows no sign
of slowing down.
One does not have to be a brain surgeon or rocket scientist
to see that something is terribly wrong with our brand of Christianity. When we are willing to look at truth and
honestly evaluate, we find the church has done a lousy job of communicating the
true Gospel to mainstream American, opening the door for Satan to move in with
his favorite tool- deception.
Soooo, as per usual I got to the bottom of the page too
rapidly and must release you to the responsibilities of this day but, before
shutting down whatever device you are using to read this, let me let me make
one last point, without wisdom we are subject to the wiles of the devil! AND
the only place we can get wisdom is from the Lord: “The beginning of wisdom is the fear or awe of the Lord” (Prov. 9:10).
Our departure from the preaching of the cross, repentance,
holiness, and the empowering grace of God has increased the level of deception
in the church. But what is the root of
deception? In one word – humanism. We have bought into the lie that we can be
like God. In one words humanism has
become so much a part of the modern day church that we have diluted the power
of the real Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Something to ponder this day.
Blessings,
Gramps
