5 – The Anti…
There’s another part to what’s coming our way. There are not just physical dangers coming. There is a great spiritual danger. The Bible says that many will fall away.[1] And there are many warnings about false spiritual leaders.[2]
There will be an anti-end-times revival going on as well. The book of Revelation talks about a false prophet who can do signs and wonders.[3] However, we are told not to seek after signs.[4] This is because many supernatural signs are not from God.
Now, let me make this clear. The ministers of the true gospel have signs following them[5], but they will be biblical signs and wonders. Healings will take place before your eyes, real healings like the blind seeing and the lame walking like nothing had ever been wrong! The Spirit is alive and active today and real healings have always happened because there have always been believers since Jesus’ day. But there have also been modern-day so-called revivals where people were saying real healings were happening, but upon closer examination nothing was happening. It all amounted to nothing.
Be warned. Some of these false “Christian” leaders will be able to perform signs and wonders, just like Pharaoh’s magicians were able to, though they only multiplied the curse, never actually making it better.[8]
These false leaders show themselves in two ways. One, they miss the mark biblically. For example, there are those who say that God wants us rich, wants to adorn His bride in jewels. The Bible says the bride is adorned with her righteous acts![6] Which leads us to the second way they show themselves: they lead unrighteous lives. God’s servants will be holy, above reproach.[7] So many leaders in their private lives are given to immorality and drunkenness. Don’t settle for excuses just because someone can do parlor tricks. God’s teachers are righteous and pure.
There is another segment of the church who say they are on a mission from God to “take back the land” and have as their goal to take charge in government, education, entertainment, science, etc. This is not how God establishes His kingdom though.
The disciples wanted Jesus to be king and rule when He came the first time.[9] But that wasn’t the kingdom He was bringing at that time. He wants to bring change from the inside out. A Christian teacher’s main goal should be to produce righteousness, Christ-likeness, in His hearers.
There is still another big “anti” religious spirit. It is what’s behind the idea that everyone’s okay just they way they are, and we shouldn’t try to change anyone or push our ideas on them. These people believe that God, Allah, Buddha, etc. are all the same God, and different cultures just have different ideas about how to find Him or present different paths to Him. They believe all religions are basically the same.
This is a lie. There is only one true God, and He can be differentiated from the rest by this: He is a triune God who sent His Son, Jesus Christ, Himself fully divine, to die on a cross, taking the punishment for our sin. By faith in the saving power of His blood to cleanse us and free us from unrighteousness, we can live in God’s kingdom now and forever.
As an example, let me apply these criteria to Islam. The god of Islam cannot be the same God that we worship because he is not a triune God and does not have a son, Jesus Christ. He demands ritual works to earn salvation but requires no actual inward righteousness and heart purity. Our God rejects works as a means to salvation but demands righteousness, which we receive as a gift from Him.
This push for pluralism and “unity” is all part of the antichrist spirit. Those pushing this “peace and unity” movement hate true Christians who say there is only one way to God and only one name under heaven where by we must be saved.[10] Peace and unity may sound like good things that God wants. But He wants no unity with Satan and his works. The Israelites were told to completely destroy everything they found when they conquered a new city.[11] They were to leave nothing that might taint them. We are to have no fellowship with darkness.[12]
This can be hard because we are told in Jude, the last book before Revelation, that darkness has found its way into our fellowships.
For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. (Jude 1:4)
There are people in the church who deny Christ by their sin. They are denying Christ by their choice to sin. They cannot be saved, just like those who deny Christ with their lips cannot.
During these last days the church is going to be sifted and the wheat and tares will separate.[13] Watch who you are following. The tares will try and get you to follow them. Don’t do it. Follow Jesus.
Being in the church does not keep you safe from God’s judgment. The next verse in Jude says:
Now I desire to remind you, though you know all things once for all, that the Lord, after saving a people out of the land of Egypt, subsequently destroyed those who did not believe. (Jude 1:5)
The Israelites who were killed in the wilderness were those who complained against God and didn’t trust Him.[14] They thought they were better off going back to what they were used to rather than having to rely on God to take care of them.
Don’t die of unbelief. All of God’s promises are true. He loves His children and cares for them as a good Father, the best Father. You don’t need money. You just need Jesus. Have faith, believe and live. Overcome.[15] Dig in your heels and hold fast[16] until either you enter God’s kingdom by death or by waiting for His appearing after The Tribulation.
Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen. (Jude 1:24-25)
[1] Matthew 24:10 “At that time many will fall away and will betray one another and hate one another.
[2] Matthew 24:24 “For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect.”
[3] Revelation 19:20 And the beast was seized, and with him the false prophet who performed the signs in his presence, by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image; these two were thrown alive into the lake of fire which burns with brimstone.
[4] Matthew 12:39 But He answered and said to them, “An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign; and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet;”
[5] Acts 14:3 Therefore they spent a long time there speaking boldly with reliance upon the Lord, who was testifying to the word of His grace, granting that signs and wonders be done by their hands.
[6] Revelation 19:7-8 “Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready.” It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean; for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.
[7] 1 Timothy 3:2-3 An overseer, then, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not addicted to wine or pugnacious, but gentle, peaceable, free from the love of money.
[8] Exodus 7:10-11 So Moses and Aaron came to Pharaoh, and thus they did just as the LORD had commanded; and Aaron threw his staff down before Pharaoh and his servants, and it became a serpent. Then Pharaoh also called for the wise men and the sorcerers, and they also, the magicians of Egypt, did the same with their secret arts.
[9] Acts 1:6 So when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, “Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?”
John 6:15 So Jesus, perceiving that they were intending to come and take Him by force to make Him king, withdrew again to the mountain by Himself alone.
[10] Acts 4:12 “And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.”
[11] 1 Samuel 15:3 ‘Now go and strike Amalek and utterly destroy all that he has, and do not spare him; but put to death both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.'”
[12] 2 Corinthians 6:14 Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness?
[13] Matthew 13:30 ‘Allow both to grow together until the harvest; and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up; but gather the wheat into my barn.”‘”
[14] 1Corinthians 10:8-10 Nor let us act immorally, as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in one day. Nor let us try the Lord, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the serpents. Nor grumble, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer.
[15] 1 John 5:4 For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world–our faith.
[16] Hebrews 3:6 but Christ was faithful as a Son over His house–whose house we are, if we hold fast our confidence and the boast of our hope firm until the end.
The Tribulation 