And Jesus answered and said to them, "See to it that no one misleads you. For many will come in My name, saying, 'I am the Christ,' and will mislead many."
"And you will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars; see that you are not frightened, for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and in various places there will be famines and earthquakes. But all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs."
"Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations on account of My name. And at that time many will fall away and will deliver up one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise, and will mislead many. And because lawlessness is increased, most people's love will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end, he shall be saved."
Matthew 24:3-12
When I look out at our world today it seems to me that we are very close the the return of our Lord. When you look at what Jesus told His disciples in the above passage, you can really see these things coming to pass today.
In this passage Jesus mentions 3 things we need to look out for and they are the following:
- Increased Deception
- Increased Conflicts
- Increased Lawlessness
First - We see an increase in deception: There are many today posing as Christian leaders who are leading many people astray with false doctrines and false prophesies. One person who comes to mind was a guy, just this year, by the name of Todd Bentley who was leading something called the Lakeland Outpouring right here in Florida.
He talked about having a spirit guide/angel called Emma. He also talked about speaking with Jesus. He claimed to have the gift of healing. Yet when all was said and done, instead of glorifying the name of Christ, he had inflicted a great amount of harm against the name of Christ in the eyes of the world. He ended up divorcing his wife thereby hurting his family not to mention all his deceived followers. Yet the most amazing thing to me is that there are still people who defend him saying what a great man of God he is.
"See to it that no one misleads you. For many will come in My name, saying, 'I am the Christ,' and will mislead many... And many false prophets will arise, and will mislead many." Mt. 24:4-5, 11
As far as I'm concerned, there was never anything Godly about Todd Bentley or his ministry - ever. He never preached about sin and repentance, instead everything with him was self centered. In fact if you watch some of his video's on You Tube, you'll never see him open a Bible. He never warns the sinner about a hell to avoid; instead, he preached another gospel. Instead of patting this false prophet on the back, his followers should have been calling him out and rebuking him so that he might repent and turn to Christ for forgiveness.
That the church would put forth a charlatan such as this and line up behind him as one of its leaders, just shows the sad state of the Christian church today. If Johnathan Edwards or Charles Spurgeon could see this they'd roll over in their graves. Today's church is, unfortunately, no longer morally grounded on the Word of God. Instead, like a wicked generation it seeks after signs and wonders and none will be given it.
"For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance too their own desires; and will turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to myths." 2Tim 4:3-4
This is the Deception that more and more churches are falling for today.
Second - Increased Conflicts: We see an increase in conflicts world wide. I was listening to a recent sermon by John MacArthur and he had some great statistics showing how conflicts are increasing around the globe over time:
Historians have recorded all significant conflicts and grouped them as follows:
- 70 Major Conflicts before Christ
- In the first 1000 years after Christ there were 50 major conflicts.
- 500 years after that, there were 100 major conflicts
- 300 years after that, there were 250 major conflicts
- 200 years after that, there were 500 major conflicts
- In the last 4 years there have been 20 major conflicts
As you can see, the history of man has been marked by constant conflict and as time goes on things just get worse and worse. I think Pastor MacArthur puts it best when he says, "the only peace you can find in man's history is when he stops to reload."
Third - Today we definitely see in increase in lawlessness. Man in his infinite wisdom took God out of schools back in the 1950's and today we are reaping the rewards of what we've sewn.
Today we have generations of kids who are completely disrespectful to anyone in authority and fewer and fewer of them know who the true God of the Bible really is. We have legalized the inhumane murder of the innocent unborn and called it "freedom of choice." Like Genna Jessen said, "if the rights of women are so important than what about the rights of the baby?" Unfortunately today, the blood of millions of innocent babies is on our hands, and we wonder why God is removing His hand from our nation.
Then instead of recognizing the homosexual lifestyle for what it is - an abomination against the Lord, we have instead legitimized it by calling it an "alternative lifestyle." Yet God tells us in Romans 1:18-32 that not only has He given them over to these degrading passions and a depraved mind but even those who approve of this practice are worthy of death.
Everything in this generation today is backwards. Today we call evil, good and good, evil. When you have your very own courts of law twisting the Constitution to make it say that which was never intended just to suit a small minority of people you know we're in trouble. It's because of this continued confusion that I feel the Lord will be returning very soon.
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