"It is remarkable how taking opposition to the issue of current revival phenomena is already a factor in separating believers in churches. If there are powerful deceptions at work, we look forward to a day in which those who have been deceived would recognize it, and deeply repent, that they would be restored to God, and in that restoration, be made fit to stand in the last days. In other words, I believe the Lord will get His value out of what is presently taking place in His church.
What we are experiencing is not so much the deception in itself, but the final consummation and consequence of a longer standing softness and shallowness in the faith. Our giddy desires have finally resulted in manifestations of false signs and wonders, which have been made possible by what preceded them: the lack of a disciplined faith in a people who have been moved toward experience rather than the Word, and by soft pastors who are afraid to offend and thus speak only general, biblical messages. Our present condition is the summation of an error of spirit that has had a long history, and now we are fast coming to a day of reckoning.
It is not out of place to consider our present condition to be analogous to the crucifixion of Jesus by the Jewish nation. It was not the sin in itself, but the final consummation and statement of a longer standing Jewish apostasy that finally had its outworking in that tragic crime. To say that that was the thing in itself, and not to see that it was preceded by a history of apostasy, is to miss the point. We are reaping the harvest of what these last decades of charismatic casualness and evangelical indifference have sown. This lack of discipline is now coming to roost in phenomena that are of a seriously, dubious kind. In running after places, making of them a kind of Mecca, we act as though God is only to be found there, and this is a continuation of the same kind of propensity toward mindless deception.
In my opinion, we have already come to the point of no return, in view of the fact that so many believers have become open and susceptible to the kinds of things that are now taking place. God surely wants us to pray for those in this lamentable condition. We have a whole generation being raised up that has never known the holiness of God, and who talk about God too glibly. But which God? I am even wondering if the central personalities leading the revival phenomena have covenanted with someone other than God, and do not even know it themselves. In some Faustian way, they are receiving a power to affect bodies and lives that they thought was coming from God. In response to their cry for something to happen, these souls really think that they are thereby communicating with God as well as being a channel for Him. We need to be continually reminded of the last days' deceptions, of things false and deceitful:
"For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. No wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Therefore it is not surprising if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, whose end will be according to their deeds" ( 2 Corinthians 11:13-15).
We need to be sobered by statements of this kind. Satan's devices and wiles are uncanny. The most powerful of them is that which is not an appeal to our carnality, but an appeal to the spiritual realm, but spirituality of what kind?
Even if what we have been observing in recent years is not the lying signs and wonders about which we have been warned as characteristic of the last days, when those lying signs and wonders do come, how will they be substantially different in form and appearance from the signs and wonders we presently see? How will we exercise then the discernment that we are incapable of exercising now? There will be signs, wonders, miracles, demonstrations of power, accompanied by much ostensible benefit for the recipients. But they will be lying or false signs and wonders, and if we are concerned only with the benefit of them, and not all that much with their source, we will not be able to discern the one from the other.
PRAYER:
Lord, we appeal to You in Your great mercy. Come, my God, and breathe a sense of Yourself to congregations who have never known You as they ought. In our mindless superficiality, we have made ourselves candidates for deceptions of many kinds. We lack a broken spirit. We are not chastised or affected by what is going on. We celebrate the things that are contradictory to Your holiness and say that they are from You.
Lord, we are in a low and pitiful state, and if these are not the last days' deceptions, of which You have warned us, how shall we be guarded from that which shall come? How will we recognize it then, if we are unable now to exercise even the most minimal cautions and discernments? Lord, I am appealing to Your mercy. Who is the greater candidate for deception than he who thinks that his spirituality is so secure that he cannot be deceived?
Lord, we ask that You bring Your humility and brokenness to the church to save it from these terrible things. We look to You, Lord, and know that You are going to have a church that will be a glory to your name forever, that Israel will be restored through the good offices of Your church, through its mercy and through its witness.
Grant us fresh strength to go on and be what we ought to be in Your sight, and to Your people, as these last days become indeed so much the fulfillment of that of which we have been warned. We look to You and thank You for Your precious provision of Your Word, Your Spirit, and the church itself in its configuration as a body of believers who can speak the truth in love, that can exhort and encourage one another daily, speak to each other as we ought, and receive from each other what can only come to us through Your church, Your great sanctifying provision to save us, so that we might not have to stand before You with shame at the day of Your appearing, but with joy to hear the precious words, ?Well done good and faithful servant.' In Your holy name we ask it. Amen."
"It is remarkable how taking opposition to the issue of current revival phenomena is already a factor in separating believers in churches. If there are powerful deceptions at work, we look forward to a day in which those who have been deceived would recognize it, and deeply repent, that they would be restored to God, and in that restoration, be made fit to stand in the last days. In other words, I believe the Lord will get His value out of what is presently taking place in His church.
What we are experiencing is not so much the deception in itself, but the final consummation and consequence of a longer standing softness and shallowness in the faith. Our giddy desires have finally resulted in manifestations of false signs and wonders, which have been made possible by what preceded them: the lack of a disciplined faith in a people who have been moved toward experience rather than the Word, and by soft pastors who are afraid to offend and thus speak only general, biblical messages. Our present condition is the summation of an error of spirit that has had a long history, and now we are fast coming to a day of reckoning.
It is not out of place to consider our present condition to be analogous to the crucifixion of Jesus by the Jewish nation. It was not the sin in itself, but the final consummation and statement of a longer standing Jewish apostasy that finally had its outworking in that tragic crime. To say that that was the thing in itself, and not to see that it was preceded by a history of apostasy, is to miss the point. We are reaping the harvest of what these last decades of charismatic casualness and evangelical indifference have sown. This lack of discipline is now coming to roost in phenomena that are of a seriously, dubious kind. In running after places, making of them a kind of Mecca, we act as though God is only to be found there, and this is a continuation of the same kind of propensity toward mindless deception.
In my opinion, we have already come to the point of no return, in view of the fact that so many believers have become open and susceptible to the kinds of things that are now taking place. God surely wants us to pray for those in this lamentable condition. We have a whole generation being raised up that has never known the holiness of God, and who talk about God too glibly. But which God? I am even wondering if the central personalities leading the revival phenomena have covenanted with someone other than God, and do not even know it themselves. In some Faustian way, they are receiving a power to affect bodies and lives that they thought was coming from God. In response to their cry for something to happen, these souls really think that they are thereby communicating with God as well as being a channel for Him. We need to be continually reminded of the last days' deceptions, of things false and deceitful:
"For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. No wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Therefore it is not surprising if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, whose end will be according to their deeds" ( 2 Corinthians 11:13-15).
We need to be sobered by statements of this kind. Satan's devices and wiles are uncanny. The most powerful of them is that which is not an appeal to our carnality, but an appeal to the spiritual realm, but spirituality of what kind?
Even if what we have been observing in recent years is not the lying signs and wonders about which we have been warned as characteristic of the last days, when those lying signs and wonders do come, how will they be substantially different in form and appearance from the signs and wonders we presently see? How will we exercise then the discernment that we are incapable of exercising now? There will be signs, wonders, miracles, demonstrations of power, accompanied by much ostensible benefit for the recipients. But they will be lying or false signs and wonders, and if we are concerned only with the benefit of them, and not all that much with their source, we will not be able to discern the one from the other.
PRAYER:
Lord, we appeal to You in Your great mercy. Come, my God, and breathe a sense of Yourself to congregations who have never known You as they ought. In our mindless superficiality, we have made ourselves candidates for deceptions of many kinds. We lack a broken spirit. We are not chastised or affected by what is going on. We celebrate the things that are contradictory to Your holiness and say that they are from You.
Lord, we are in a low and pitiful state, and if these are not the last days' deceptions, of which You have warned us, how shall we be guarded from that which shall come? How will we recognize it then, if we are unable now to exercise even the most minimal cautions and discernments? Lord, I am appealing to Your mercy. Who is the greater candidate for deception than he who thinks that his spirituality is so secure that he cannot be deceived?
Lord, we ask that You bring Your humility and brokenness to the church to save it from these terrible things. We look to You, Lord, and know that You are going to have a church that will be a glory to your name forever, that Israel will be restored through the good offices of Your church, through its mercy and through its witness.
Grant us fresh strength to go on and be what we ought to be in Your sight, and to Your people, as these last days become indeed so much the fulfillment of that of which we have been warned. We look to You and thank You for Your precious provision of Your Word, Your Spirit, and the church itself in its configuration as a body of believers who can speak the truth in love, that can exhort and encourage one another daily, speak to each other as we ought, and receive from each other what can only come to us through Your church, Your great sanctifying provision to save us, so that we might not have to stand before You with shame at the day of Your appearing, but with joy to hear the precious words, ?Well done good and faithful servant.' In Your holy name we ask it. Amen."
