So now were on to some lightweight work like
Biblical Demonology and Eschatology
lol...
(my poor brain people...
if you only knew.)
CHAPTER XII
BIBLICAL DEMONOLOGY AND ESCHATOLOGY
ALTHOUGH DEMONIC activity in human history has always been undeniably great since the sin of our first parents exposed mankind to its baneful attacks, yet the full realization and augmentation of its destructive power are reserved for the consummation of the age. Demonism bears a striking relation to the doctrine of last things; and all classes of mankind, Jew, Gentile, and the Church of God (I Cor. 10:32) will be intimately and vitally affected by the last-day upsurge of evil supernaturalism. Despite the fact that the Holy Scriptures are not only clear but quite emphatic in their repeated warnings against augmented latter-day demonic activity, the professing church of the twentieth century to an alarming extent refuses to recognize the existence of evil supernatural forces. This condition of unbelief can be attributed only to the low level of spiritual life and power in the church. "The existence of evil spirits is recognized by the heathen, but it is generally looked upon by the missionary as `superstition' and ignorance; whereas, the ignorance is often on the part of the missionary, who is blinded by the prince of the power of the air to the revelation given in the Scriptures concerning the Satanic powers."' In the light of the prophesied onslaught of deceiving spirits against the Church in the last days (I Tim. 4:1-3), so apparent in its incipient fulfilment now, the unbelief of Christian people is all the more tragic as many believers suffer demonic deception and despoliation because of sheer ignorance of Satan and his devices.
(“Another reason that an understanding of Genesis 6 is so essential is that it also is a prerequisite to understanding (and anticipating) Satan's devices and, in particular, the specific delusions to come upon the whole earth as a major feature of end-time prophecy.”
~
Chuck Missler)
Even many spiritual believers are unable to wage a successful war against this army of wicked spirits, through lack of knowledge of what is involved. Many shrink from the subject altogether, insisting that so long as Christ is preached, occupation with Satan and demons is unnecessary and spiritually unhealthy. All the while, however, Satan is continuously gaining advantage because of the believer's ignorance. Many untaught in the prophetic Scriptures, knowing little or nothing of God's ultimate purposes for the Jew, the Gentile, and the Church of God, and the momentous role of evil supernaturalism in future events as they pertain to these three distinct groups of humanity, suffer great disadvantage in their Christian life and testimony.
(I said it in Church during worship, on a Sunday:
"This is why we need to study end-times prophesy,
so that we will recognize it for what it is when we see it."
Explaining Rev 17:8-11 as it related to the fall of Damascus a few hours previous.)
A. THE DEMONOLOGY OF THE LAST DAYS AND THE CHURCH
From its very birth in the riven side of a crucified and risen Lord, the Church of the living God, as the body of Christ (Eph. 1:23), and "the pillar and ground of the truth" (I Tim. 3:15), has ever been the object of Satan's most venemous attacks and the special target of demonic malignity. Scarcely had the infant Church been born when Satan loosed a storm of persecution against it to stamp out its very life (Acts 4:3; 5:18; 8:1). Failing in this, he stirred up false teachers to harass the Apostles in their work of spreading Christianity.
(I have brought this up before, what other faith had so many false teachers from the start?
Buddha? Confucius? Mohamad?
Not like this faith they didnt, not even close, so the question becomes why?
And the answer is obvious,
CAUSE ITS THE SOLE, COMPLETE TRUTH
that Satan doesn't want you to know about, or? Tries to confuse you with etc.)
What Satan failed to do by schismatics and heretics, he tried to accomplish by fire, sword, and death in the first three centuries, but with as little success. He won a triumph, however, when, under imperial favor, the Church became wedded to the world in the Pergamos and Thyatira periods (Rev. 2:12-29).The Sardis period of the Reformation promised a great blessing and revival, but soon the Church of that age lived only in name; it was dead (Rev. 3:1). The blessings it missed were realized in the great world-wide missionary movements and the modern revivals of the glorious Philadelphian era (Rev. 3:7-13). The secret of the Philadelphian power and growth is revealed in the commendatory words of Christ to this, His favored Church: "Thou ... didst keep my Word, and didst not deny my name" (Rev. 3:8). They kept the impregnable fortress intact against demon incursion. They retained their fidelity to the Word of God, and the doctrine of the deity of Christ. This is precisely what the Church of the latter days is failing to do, with the inevitable result of the terrific inroads of demonic power and delusion.
(Review time:
"This is precisely what the Church of the latter days is failing to do, with the inevitable result of the terrific inroads of demonic power and delusion."
Speaks for itself.
It really does.
(But?
Its supposed to happen that way.)
1. DEMONISM AND LAODICEAN MODERNISM
In Christ's very significant prophecy concerning the founding of His Church, He not only clearly implied that perpetual and implacable Satanic assault would be relentlessly directed against it, but also distinctly promised that "the gates of Hades" should not prevail against it; for it was built upon the rock of His deity and lordship (Matt. 16:18).
(Christian church was built
on the faith
that God came to be among us in the flesh
NOT
built on a man, (Peter)
as is so commonly misunderstood.)
But in the last days, under the powerful impact of augmented demonic activity, the very foundations of truth will be blatantly denied;
and already in Laodicea even the doctrine of the deity of our Lord is found to be discarded. In a church which is no longer the true Church, against which the gates of hell are promised never to prevail and in which Christ walks in the midst of the golden candlesticks (Rev. 1:13; 2:1), Satan is seen to triumph, and Christ is found to be excluded. "Behold, I stand at the door and knock" (Rev. 3:20).2
(Are we not guilty of the same?
Look at our world and ask yourself:
"What kind of church doesn't want to hear about end-time prophecy coming true?"
Only a church that doesnt care to hear the truth of Christ Revelation.
WHY?
SATAN.)
What a tragic scene! Christ outside what was once His own Church, knocking for entrance! And why is He shut out? The answer is plain. In contrast to Philadelphia, Laodicea does not keep His Word and wickedly denies the power of His name.
(I love it when he says:
"Jesus Christ of Nazareth!
all hail his Holy Name!"
A perfect genius at compromise, a mixer of unmixables, of righteousness with iniquity, of light with darkness, of Christ with Belial, of the portion of a believer with that of an unbeliever, and of the temple of God with idols, this offshoot of the church of the latter days
stands as a stern prophetic warning to modernistic Christendom of the nauseating effects of spiritual lukewarmness. Outwardly religious, inwardly apostate; having a form of godliness, but having denied the power thereof; temporally rich, but spiritually destitute; self-satisfied and contented, but wretched and miserable; boastedly wise and scientific, but utterly blind to God's truth; clothed in self-righteousness and the garments of man-made salvation without vicarious sacrifice, but shamefully naked and sinful before God; proudly democratic and free, but enslaved by license, and victimized by anarchy. Such is Laodicean modernism, the master delusion, the chief doctrine of demons of the predicted latter-day apostasy. This treacherous and deadly error stands revealed, in all its demonic craftiness and cunning, by the application of the simple yet searching test which the Apostle John gives to determine teachings instigated and promulgated by "spirits not of God," which Paul calls "doctrines of demons"
(I Tim. 4:1
The Spirit clearly says
that in later times
some will abandon the faith
and follow deceiving spirits
and things taught by demons.
So how is it not the last days hum?)
It is this: "Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God; and every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God; and this is the spirit of the antichrist" (I John 4:2-3). Modernism denies this foundational truth of Christianity, the doctrine of the incarnation, that Jesus Christ, the Eternal Word (John 1:1), became flesh (John 1:14) to take upon Himself man's iniquity and sin, and to make reconciliation for them (II Cor. 5:19, 21).
Instead of an incarnation,
it substitutes an apotheosis:3
(He was like a deity, but not one is what is substituted for the truth.
Yeah, run from these people.)
Jesus was, like other children, begotten by natural generation. In no sense was He virgin-born, nor the eternal Christ made flesh. He was merely a remarkable youth, in many respects superior to any other child, a great religious genius, who, from His earliest years, was so pre-eminently God-conscious, and God-occupied, so perpetually and insatiably eager for greater knowledge and appropriation of deity, that eventually He became so absorbed in Him, that He became like Him. Therefore, in Him we see God manifested.
(That's what certain "Modernist" would want you to believe.)
But all such theological bombast that professes to honor Jesus as the mightiest of the mighty, and the greatest of the great men of the world, the most superlative of all its ethical teachers, goes down in disgrace and defeat, branded as a doctrine of demons, denounced as an ignominious degradation of Him who alone "is over all, God blessed forever" (Rom. 9:5). The very name given Him at his nativity, "Immanuel" (Matt. 1:23), calls for a Godman, not a superman, and demands, not One who began to be when He was born into the world, but One who was from all eternity and who came from heaven. All such inane objections as "biological miracle," or "biological impossibility," which would mean only a superman, are too foolish to discuss.
(His life, death and resurrection prove it.
And?
If God is the creator and owner of the life force?
(He is.)
Why wouldn't he come to be with us
and show us how he wants us to be towards each other?
Somebody needs to ask Joe Rogan that
the next time he says he mentions the difficulty with the resurrection.
(Mel Gibson episode here just recently.
Just saw the clip.
I don't watch Rogan lol.
Just one time.)
W. H. Griffith Thomas says: "In the Incarnation there was, and still continues, a union between God and man."4 It is a mistake to think of so-called "modernism" as a recent fad, or something progressive, and entirely new. While Laodicean or `modern" modernism takes its descent from the academic toys and theological inanities of so-called "higher criticism," the real source of this troubler of the Church, as a particular mode of thinking, can be clearly traced to the Satanic method employed in the Edenic temptation. As the first protagonist of the cult, Satan reveals its essence. "Yea," representing a diplomatic affirmative, hath God said ... ?"-a subtly expressed doubt, immediately negativing the affirmation, presented as a question. "Ye shall not eat of any tree of the garden?"-a perversion of God's utterance, "Ye shall not eat of it" (Gen. 3:1). "Ye shall not surely die" (Gen. 3:4) -a complete denial of God's Word.
Although the most characteristic marks of modernism can be clearly discerned in some heresy in practically every century of the Christian era, the modern revival of this unbelieving sect can be traced from the latter part of the seventeenth century to the present day, through such representative names as Spinoza, Jean Astruc, Eichhorn, De Wette, Julius Wellhausen, and Harry Emerson Fosdick.
2. DEMONISM AND
LAODICEAN MORAL DEGENERACY
Vitiated and corrupted doctrine cannot help producing distorted and degenerate morals.
The rampant spirit of compromise and easy-world conformity, so saliently characteristic of the Church of the latter days, will result in all manner of complicity with evil among professing Christians, with worldliness sweeping in, paralyzing all spiritual life, and counteracting all efficiency and testimony. The salt losing its savor (Matt. 5:13), moral putrefaction inevitably sets in. If the popular preachers and teachers in Laodicea, who promise their followers "liberty," are "themselves the bondservants of corruption" (II Pet. 2:19), little can be expected from their disciples. "Like priest, like people" is a saying that expresses a perennial truth. Sin countenanced among the professing people of God, there will be little spiritual power to act as a deterrent upon the sweeping cataclysm of immorality among the people of the world. Satan and demons will be free to augment their mischief in human hearts both within, and without, the Church. The Apostle Paul warns thus of this perilous sag in morality: But know this, that in the last days grievous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, haughty, railers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, implacable, slanderers, without control, fierce, no lovers of good, traitors, headstrong, puffed up, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God; holding a form of godliness, but having denied the power thereof.
2 Timothy 3:1-5
1599 Geneva Bible
3 1 He foretelleth the dangerous times that are to ensue: 9 but with the certain hope of victory, 10 he encourageth him to the combat, 14 setting out especially the trial of sound doctrine.
1 This [a]know also, that in the last days shall come perilous times.
2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, cursed speakers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, [b]unholy,
3 Without natural affection, truce breakers, false accusers, intemperate, fierce, no lovers at all of them which are good,
4 Traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God,
5 Having a show of godliness, but have denied the power thereof: [c]turn away therefore from such.
Footnotes
2 Timothy 3:1 The seventh admonition: we may not hope for any Church in this world without corruption: but there shall be rather great abundance of most wicked men, even in the very bosom of the Church, which notwithstanding shall make a show and countenance of great holiness and charity.
2 Timothy 3:2 Which make no account, either of right or honesty.
2 Timothy 3:5 We must not dally with such men as resist the truth not of simple ignorance, but of a perverse mind, (which thing appeareth by their fruits which he painteth out here lively) but we must rather turn away from them.
TRANSLATION?
US.
NOW.
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