Monthly Archives: February 2013

So Who Is Right?

Apologetics,

SO WHO IS RIGHT?

Before I conclude these studies on the Biblical picture of antichrist in relation to the widespread popular teaching found in books, movies and current preaching and teaching, let me do a quick review.

Popular teaching presents the picture like this:

1. There will be a silent and secret rapture of the church during which Jesus will snatch believers away from the earth and the Holy Spirit will be removed with the church. This implies that Jesus’ return will happen in two parts; when He raptures the church and when He returns to the earth with the saints, separated by a period of time.

2. After the rapture, the antichrist will make his appearance in the world, an evil and powerful world leader who will come from outside the church. His appearance will trigger seven years of tribulation during which time people will still become believers in Christ.

3. He will invade the rebuilt temple in Jerusalem after three and half years, stop the daily sacrifice and proclaim himself to be God.

4. At the height of his power, Jesus will return with His saints in power and glory to overthrow the antichrist and set up His millennial reign on earth.

A serious study of Scripture contradicts these teachings on the following points:

1. Antichrist, as presented by both Paul and John, is not a single, evil individual who arises outside the church in the end times but a spirit that was already operating in people from within the church in their day. “Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour.” 1 John 2:18 (NIV).

Anyone who manifests the treacherous spirit of Judas, one of Jesus’ trusted followers whom Jesus called ‘the one doomed to destruction,’ (John 17:12b; 2 Thessalonians 2:3b), is operating in the spirit of antichrist. “Every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of antichrist…” 1 John 4:3a (NIV). He is not an obvious evil character from outside the church but a less obvious trend in people within the church who occupy positions of leadership and influence.

2. The rapture will not be silent and secret: “For the Lord Himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.” 1 Thessalonians 4:16, 17. (NIV). This is a fulfilment of the Feast of Trumpets which heralded the Day of Atonement in which God judged His people.

3. The Roman Empire, not the church or the Holy Spirit, was the restrainer, holding back the power of the Church until Rome fell and the centre of government moved to Constantinople.

4. The influence of antichrist arose after the restrainer was removed and in the wake of a massive falling away during which the churches moved away from the simplicity and power of the early church with it devotion to Christ and faithfulness to the teachings of the apostles and became more and more ritualistic and dominated by the church of Rome.

5. The Roman church, led by a succession of corrupt popes, became self-exalting, usurping the authority of God in His own temple, the church. It became a man-led and man-centred kingdom (Daniel 7:19-21), making great claims for itself. It was powerful and made war on the saints, (between the 6th and 18th century, the Roman Catholic Church has murdered 150 million in the name of the church!).

6. According to historians, it was the church, not the barbarians who came down from the north, that cause the Dark Ages. It was the church that stifled learning, reasoning, scientific discovery and philosophy. The Bible was taken away from the people, illiteracy was encouraged and even the priests could not read the Bible.

The church, which had been an organism of life and blessing to the world, had become a monster. The Reformers of the 16th century stood up against Rome and called the people back to the Bible.

(To be continued…)

Be Careful Who You Follow

Christian Life, ,

BE CAREFUL WHO YOU FOLLOW

(Jesus) quoted a proverb: ‘Can a blind man lead a blind man?’ Wouldn’t they both end up in the ditch? An apprentice doesn’t lecture the master. The point is to be careful who you follow as your teacher.” Luke 6:39,40 (The Message)
Wise counsel! Be careful who you follow as your teacher. Some people are leaders and others are followers; perhaps the majority are followers. Why do people choose to follow who they follow? Is it because the leader is clever, rich, beautiful, handsome, successful, or popular? Something elevates another in our eyes and so we follow but with very little regard to where they are leading us. The focus is on the present. We are dazzled by appearances and set off after them because we aspire to being like them.
Believers in Jesus are just as prone to follow all kinds of spiritual leaders, those who are eloquent, or appear to be blessed because they are wealthy, or successful because they run big churches or because they have spectacular ministries.
In Jesus’ day, it was the religious boffins that people followed, those who appeared to be far more “holy” than the common people. There was no shortage of visible religious performance from them, for example, from the Pharisees. However, Jesus questioned their destination. “If you are following them as your teachers, do you know where they are going? What is the end result of what they are teaching you?” He urged people to examine their fruit. Is it good fruit? Did their teaching bring them into greater bondage to keeping rules and “doing” stuff, or more freedom to love, trust and worship God?
Jesus called the religious leaders blind. Why? Because they had no idea where their teaching would land them and they were unaware that their destination was “the ditch”. What makes such leaders blind? The Apostle Paul gives us the answer in 2 Corinthians 4:4 – “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of glory of Christ who is the image of God.” They refused to accept the truth that Jesus is the Son of God and the way to the Father. They created their own way which they thought would take them to God but instead led to judgment because they believed that God would receive them on their terms.
Jesus declared categorically, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6. How do we know He spoke the truth? How do we know we can trust Him? He predicted His own death and resurrection and pulled it off. That should be enough to convince us that He spoke the truth! He said that if we believe in Him, entrust ourselves to Him and follow His way, He would give us eternal life and take us to the Father.
When we choose who we are going to follow, we need to look carefully at where that allegiance is going. Is the person we are following trustworthy? Is he/she capable of delivering on their promises, even if they have said nothing? What is the expected outcome of their way of life?
Sound counsel indeed! Be careful who you follow as your teacher. They are going somewhere. Do you want to go with them?

Messiah’s Biblical-Historical Time Line

Apologetics, ,

MESSIAH’S BIBLICAL-HISTORICAL TIME-LINE

Having examined what the Bible has to say about the identity of antichrist and the circumstances in which he would be revealed, it is time to answer a few important questions.
The first question is: Does the Bible accurately predict the time of the coming of Messiah and the events surrounding His earthly life? How does this fit into God’s time frame?
When Daniel realised that Israel had been in captivity for almost seventy years, and that, according to Jeremiah’s prophecy (Jeremiah 25:11,12), God would bring judgment on Babylon, he began to pray for God’s mercy on His people and His city. In response, Daniel was visited by the angel Gabriel, who came with a message from God. “Seventy sevens are decreed for your people and your holy city to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the Most Holy.
“Know and understand this: From the issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven ‘seven’s and sixty two ‘sevens’…After the sixty two ‘sevens’, the Anointed One will be cut off and will have nothing…” Daniel 9:24,25a (NIV).
Historically, the picture looks like this: In 445 BC Artaxerxes, king of Persia, issued a decree for the Jews to rebuild Jerusalem (Daniel 9:25,26). (The first seven ’sevens’ probably refer to the time of the rebuilding of the temple). According to Biblical scholarship, Jesus, ‘the Prince’, entered Jerusalem on a donkey in 32 AD and a few days later He was rejected as Israel’s king and crucified, ‘putting an end to sin, atoning for wickedness, and bringing in everlasting righteousness’ because He would be ‘cut off and have nothing.’
There is a discrepancy between the lunar calendar of the Jews and the solar calendar we use today. Daniel’s timeline was calculated according to the Jewish lunar year of 360 days, not the solar calendar of 365¼ days. (For a fuller discussion of Daniel’s prophetic timeline, go to http://www.harvardhouse.com/prophetictech/new/linear.htm#top).

ANTICHRIST’S BIBLICAL–HISTORICAL TIMELINE
The second question we must ask is: Can we verify the identity of antichrist as the papacy and Daniel’s fourth beast as Rome and subsequently the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages from history? How does this fit in with Biblical prophecy?
First of all, as we have already discovered, the Apostle Paul made it clear that the day of the Lord would not come until after the ‘rebellion’, the falling away from the faith, occurred, after which the antichrist would be revealed. He described the nature of the antichrist as someone who would come in the nature of Judas, from within the church, set himself up in God’s temple (the naos – the Holy of Holies which Paul consistently equated with the church), and proclaim himself to be God (2 Thessalonians 2:3,4). Daniel adds that he would have eyes and a mouth that would speak boastfully and that he would make war on the saints (Daniel 7:20).
(We have already discussed the ‘rebellion’ in a previous article – Antichrist Revealed)
The western section of the Roman Empire fell in 476 AD, but the Byzantine Empire continued to be ruled by Caesars from Constantinople, the capital. The power and influence of the Church of Roman was growing and began to dominate the known world until the Emperor Justinian who ruled from 527-565 AD, re-organised the government of the Empire and issued a decree in 538 AD, giving the pope total control of all the churches. (This marks the beginning of the 1260 years of oppression of which the angel spoke in Daniel 7:25b).
Daniel (in Daniel 7:15-28), records the angelic interpretation of his dream of the four beasts which parallel Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of the statue recorded in Daniel 2. The fourth beast is a kingdom which would devour the whole earth with terrifying cruelty. A king would arise from this kingdom who would speak against the Most High God and oppress His saints for a time, times an half a time. This time period is generally accepted among biblical scholars to mean three and a half years, forty two months or 1260 days according to the interpretation that a day is equivalent to a year in the prophetic calendar. “For forty years – one year for each of the forty days you explored the land – you will suffer for your sins and know what it is like to have me against you.” Numbers 14:34, hence 1260 days would equal 1260 years.
Justinian’s decree in 538 AD gave the pope absolute power over all the churches and over the whole of Christendom. From then on the papacy and the church began to control even the politics of the empire. In 800 AD Charlemagne, king of the Franks, was crowned emperor by Pope Leo III and founded the Holy Roman Empire. In the years that followed 538, the power of the papacy was absolute and the persecution of believers escalated until at least 150 million Christians were slaughtered at the hands of the church.
In 1798, exactly 1260 years later, Napoleon’s Chief of Staff, Louis-Alexandre’ Berthier, “entered Italy, invaded the Vatican, organized the Roman republic, and took the pope Pius VI as prisoner back to Valence (France) where, after a torturous journey under Berthier’s supervision, the pope died, dealing a major blow to the Vatican’s political power.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis-Alexandre_Berthier)
According to Revelation 13:3 (NIV), “One of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed. The whole world was astonished and followed the beast.” History bears witness to the fatal wound and the healing of the wound – today the papacy has a following of 1.2 billion people.
(To be continued…)

Antichrist Revealed

Apologetics, , ,

ANTICHRIST REVEALED

“Don’t you remember that when I was with you I used to tell you these things? And now you know what is holding him back so that he may be revealed at the proper time. For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so until he is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of His mouth and destroy by the splendour of His coming.” 2 Thessalonians 2:5-8 (NIV).

So far we have established from the examination of Scripture, that antichrist is a spirit operating in people which denies both the deity and humanity of Jesus. It was already at work in the time of Paul and John. It was at work in people who had fallen away from the truth and were leading others astray.
The beast, of which Daniel and John wrote, is a kingdom, not a person, which opposes the church and persecutes the saints. Antichrist, meaning a succession of people who lead and represent the beast, sets himself up in the ‘temple’ of God, the church, and claims to be God. The full of force of antichrist’s power would be held back by the Roman government until its fall after which the beast and the antichrist would be let loose upon the world.

In spite of the depravity and debauchery of society in the time of the apostles, the early church was devoted to Jesus and the gospel spread rapidly across the Roman Empire. By the time the last of the apostles had died, around 100AD, there were Christian churches across the entire Roman world. Believers honoured God’s Word above tradition, they held to Jesus as the only way to the Father and the only Mediator between God and man. They were obedient to the truth and willingly suffered for their faith.

During the first three centuries of the church, the saints were mercilessly persecuted by emperor after emperor, starting with Nero during the lifetime of the apostles, because of their refusal to participate in the cult of Caesar worship. An early Christian theologian, Tertullian, in his “Apologeticus” chapter 50, claimed that ‘the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church’.

After the death of the apostles and their immediate successors, things began to change. Constantine the Great, (who ruled Rome from 302 – 337AD), made Christianity the dominant religion of the Empire. Instead of being persecuted, Christians were favoured but, with the change a flood of pagan practices came into the church and were ‘Christianised’ to make them acceptable to the church; idolatry became ‘honouring’ the saints, and pagan festivals like Christmas (Roman Saturnalia, a harvest festival that marked the winter solstice—the return of the sun) and Easter (honouring the resurrection of Tammuz who was brought back from the underworld by his wife/mother, Ishtar), were brought into the church calendar.
“The Church made a sacred day of Sunday … largely because it was the weekly festival of the sun; for it was a definite Christian policy to take over the pagan festivals endeared to the people by tradition, and to give them a Christian significance. – Source: Arthur Weigall, The Paganism in Our Christianity, p. 145. Copyright 1928 by G. p. Putnam’s Sons, New York.” http://www.essene.com/Church/Sunday.htm.

As the Apostle Paul had predicted, there was a gradual but massive ‘falling away’ from the simplicity of the apostolic gospel message. False theories, unbiblical practices and manmade traditions replaced the simple truth that Jesus is the atoning sacrifice for our sins and the only mediator between God and man.
By the 1500s people were confessing their sins to priests, praying to Mary, bowing to saints and buying forgiveness in the form of ‘indulgences’. Although Christian apologists would have us believe that the period of history called the ‘Dark Ages’ was caused by the ‘heathen barbaric hordes’ that overran the Roman Empire from the north, honest historians such a Gibbons have discovered that this era was brought on by “the corruption of a counterfeit Christianity” (The Truth About the Dark Ages – http://www.hermes-press.com/DAtruth.htm.

Examples of official church policy reveal how far the church had moved from its roots. “The fourth Council of Carthage in 398AC prohibited everybody, including ‘Christian’ bishops, from studying pagan (non-Christian) books – on penalty of death… Illiteracy became official Christian policy… The Roman Emperor Theodosius II In 448 AD, ordered all non-Christian books to be burned…In the new Christian tyranny all scientific thought which contradicted the Bible was suppressed…knowledge which did not serve the purposes of the church was suppressed…within a few generations most priests could not even read.”. http://www.hermes-press.com/DAtruth.htm.
Into this thoroughly corrupted and pagan ‘church’ of the 16th century, the Reformers came with their rediscovery of the simple gospel of faith in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus for the forgiveness of sins. These men sought honestly to study and understand the Scriptures, including the falling away, the man of lawlessness in the temple, the world-wide power of the corrupt church and the war being waged against the saints – the Anabaptists, the Waldenses and other groups that stayed true to the gospel of Jesus. During this period, up to 150 million believers were murdered by officials of the church.

Their unanimous conclusion is reflected in the following quotes:
 Martin Luther was the first to speak publicly. On August 20, 1520 he declared, “We are of the conviction that the papacy is the seat of the true and real antichrist.”

 John Calvin (1509 -1564) declared: “Daniel and Paul had predicted that the Antichrist would sit in the temple of God. The head of that cursed and abominable kingdom, we affirm to be the pope.”

 John Knox (1505 -1572) concluded that the papacy was “the very antichrist, the son of perdition, of whom Paul speaks.”

 Thomas Cranmer (1489 -1556) wrote “Whereof it follows Rome to be the seat of the antichrist, and the pope to be the very antichrist himself, I could prove the same by many other scriptures, old writers and strong reasons.”

 Roger Williams (1603-1683) spoke of the pope as “the pretended Vicar of Christ on earth, who sits as God over the temple of God, exalting himself not only above all that is called God, but over the souls and consciences of all his vassals, yea over the Spirit of Christ, over the Holy Spirit, yea, and God himself…speaking against the God of heaven, thinking to change times and laws, but he is the son of perdition.”

 Westminster Confession of Faith – “There is no other head of the church but the Lord Jesus Christ.” Nor can the pope of Rome in any sense be head thereof; but is that Antichrist, that man of sin and son of perdition that exalteth himself in the church against Christ and all that is called God.”

 John Wesley (-1791) “He is in an emphatic sense, the man of sin. And he is too properly styled the son of perdition, as he has caused the death of numberless multitudes, both of his opposes and followers…He is that…that exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped…claiming the highest power, and highest honour…claiming the prerogatives that belong to God alone.”

These were sincere and godly men who based their conclusion on the prophecies of the Bible – Daniel, Paul and John – and who had tasted of the cruelty and evil of a thoroughly corrupt papacy and church.
At this point I must add that this is not intended to be an attack on the Roman Catholic Church and the papacy but rather a resume’ of church history and a summary of the conclusions that the Reformers who were victims of the corrupt papacy and church, came to in their study of history, prophecy and Scripture. The issue here is not people but a system, a kingdom, and leaders who believe and propagate the counterfeit gospel handed down from their forebears.

Satan is the great deceiver. His intention is to lead people astray into every kind of false belief and away from a true and sincere faith in Jesus Christ as the only Saviour. We become a part of the counterfeit church insofar as we deceive or are deceived by believing or propagating anything that is contrary to the true, simple and Biblical gospel.

Those who hate us for exposing the truth can kill the body but they can never kill the truth or extinguish the light that comes from the pure word of God.

“All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the Word of the Lord stands forever.” 1 Peter 1:24,25 (NIV).
(To be continued…)

Pastor’s Desk

Pastor's Desk, ,

Dear Family,

paul

There is something very magical for me about building.  I have no training and very little knowledge or skill in this field, but to see or be a part of something being built gets something inside of me going—a real adrenaline rush!  One vital little piece of equipment in any building project is the simple spirit level.  Without its regular use, the building is certain to fail.  It’s really quite amazing that a little bubble of air inside a tube of liquid, if not used all the time, can result in a real disaster.  Lining up that little bubble where it should be ensures that walls are horizontal and perpendicular—hallmarks of a proper building.

It is likewise quite amazing how, when we line our lives up with God and his word, everything else comes out like it should.  2 Peter 1:3,4 reads: “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.”

Simply, we need to line up our lives with God’s word so that we can participate in his divine nature.  Not the other way around!  Many people spend an enormous amount of time trying to persuade God to see things from their perspective, or trying to line the word up with their lives. Often this is done through so called prayers, some of them very passionate, but wasteful nonetheless.  God only hears things which are according to His will.  The rest is just a waste of breath.

Let us together commit to a new season of allowing the Holy Spirit to lead us to line up with the Father in all things.  Time on earth does get shorter and shorter—that’s biblical—but we can use our time profitably while we still have it.  Get that spirit level called the Bible active at all times, in all things, and be a part of building your life and others’ in the process in a way that brings glory to the One who deserves it.

Paul