The Sabotage of Christianity from Within

Today's guest says the greatest danger to the church is not humanism, atheism, or agnosticism.

Stay tuned to learn what the greatest danger is. Welcome to Understanding the Times Radio with Jan Markell. This broadcast looks at current events and asks the question, what does the Bible say?

We try to keep you informed on national and global events. This hour, Jan Markell and Eric Barger meet with Dr. Mark Hitchcock to discuss the apostate church and what the Bible says about its role in the last days. Dr. Hitchcock has released two new books that will serve as a backdrop to today's conversation.

Those two publications are The Coming Apostasy, Exposing the Sabotage of Christianity from Within, and Russia Rising, Tracking the Bear in Bible Prophecy. You can come here, Mark Hitchcock, in person next month. You'll be one of the featured speakers at our October 7th conference in Eden Prairie, Minnesota.

For today's discussion, now let's join Jan and Eric with Mark Hitchcock. Man, can you believe it? Every time you pick the newspaper up these days, some preachers absconded with money, run off with a woman. A denomination is changing their doctrinal standards and worse than anything, people are advocating the ordination of homosexual clergy. It's as though they took the Bible and threw it out the window. The Scripture tells us beware in the last days of the rise of apostasy when people step away from long held biblical traditions and doctrines and truths, turn their back on the things of God, walk away from God, and promote themselves in the place of God. One of the most powerful, stunning, amazing prophecies of the end times is that of the ultimate rise of the apostate church.

And that's what we're going to talk about, at least for a portion of this next hour. My guest today says sound doctrine is under siege. He says the Bible is being reduced or outright rejected, replaced by how people feel about whatever moral or theological topic is under consideration.

My guest is going to be Dr. Mark Hitchcock, and he has a brand new book. It is titled The Coming Apostasy, Exposing the Sabotage of Christianity from Within. And he tries to sharpen your discernment because the wolves, quite frankly, are preying on the sheep like never before, just as the Bible prophesied. Let me just read from the back cover of the new book and it says the Bible warns us that in the last days that they will be tumultuous. In our age, the world seems to be spinning out of control, creating fear, confusion, and uncertainty. In addition to violence, pestilence, and epidemics, the Bible predicts a great falling away from God in the last days. Bible teachers call it the great apostasy.

Are we seeing evidence today in the church of this massive rejection of sound teaching? Eric Barger joins me in studio today. And Eric, interesting thoughts and interesting book. Yeah, it is. It's, it's written in a very unique way. And it's not like every other book you've ever read on apostasy. And I really appreciate what I've read in it. And Mark Hitchcock, welcome back to the program. Well, thanks for having me again, Jan. It's great to be back with you as always.

Thank you. Mark's one of my speakers, Saturday, October the 7th, Understanding the Times 2017. We'll say more about that later. Mark, I want to quote you here. I'm going to be quoting you quite a bit here in the coming few minutes.

And you say, I thought this was profound. You say the greatest danger to the church today is not humanism, paganism, atheism, or agnosticism. The greatest danger is not increasing hostility against our faith from the culture.

Our greatest danger is apostasy on the inside arising from false teachers, theological liberals who deny and distort biblical doctrine and lead others down the same path. I would agree with you. I'm quite sure Eric agrees with you. And I'm sure this prompted you to write this book, correct?

Well, it did, yes. Jeff Kinley is my co-author in this book. And, you know, we don't want to be people that are out there, you know, disguised as falling type people or something like that. When you look at our churches today and look what's happening in Christianity, this is a massive problem. We look at the things out there in the world and we decry those things that are happening out there in our culture and in the world. But the bigger problems are on the inside.

You know, Vance Havner, the old preacher, once said, you know, it's not the woodpeckers on the outside, it's the termites on the inside. And that's really what we see happening today. That's what we see in the Bible.

It happened back with the nation of Israel. We see it even in the early church. Think about how many of the books that are in the early church were written to combat false teaching that was already erupting back in the middle and late part of the first century.

And of course, the Scriptures tell us that evil men and seducers will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. And we see apostasy happening today. And just to define that word, the word apostasy means to abandon or means to depart. And so it's people who are abandoning or departing, again, from long-held truths such as the deity of Jesus Christ and the inerrancy of the Scriptures, the virgin birth of Jesus, the fact that Jesus did miracles. People are changing their views about hell, that hell either doesn't exist or that no one's going to go there. All kinds of things are shifting out there in our culture today, theologically, spiritually. So there's all of this changed theologically, but there's also—and I don't know, we'll talk about this more—but there's also moral apostasy. And those two are tied together, because as people go into spiritual and theological apostasy and lose the moorings and lose the Scriptures as their plumb line for what they believe, the same thing happens in the area of morality. And basically, biblical morality, godly living, gets kind of thrown overboard, and you kind of end up where we are today. So there's doctrinal and there's moral apostasy, abandonment, departure from the truth. And we see it all around us, and we see the tragic results of it all around us in churches and in entire denominations.

Dr. MARY LUCIA. Entire denominations, that is correct. And you also say, and I wanted to quiz you on this, you say, Many churchgoers yawn today over the truths for which their forefathers shed blood and even died. What are you meaning that churchgoers yawn today over the truths for which forefathers shed blood and died?

Dr. RODGERS. Well, you know, what you see in a lot of churches—and again, I don't want to be hypercritical of everyone else, you know, I try to often, you know, examine my own life to make sure that I'm where I need to be spiritually and all of that. So I don't want people to think I'm above everybody else looking down.

I'm just trying to observe and discern what's happening. But I see people today not even really—so many people are professing Christians not even interested in doctrine. Dr. MARY LUCIA. That's right.

Dr. RODGERS. They're really not even interested in different truths. And I was just talking about that with a friend of mine the other day, and he was talking about eschatology or end times, you know, for as one example, just how many people out there, they don't even care. You know, they don't even care about different truths related to that or things that people used to really talk about and discuss and sometimes really disagree kind of strongly with one another about. And of course, it's good in one way today, because people don't seem to fight as much over some kinds of doctrinal issues, but the downside of that is they don't even care, you know, basic fundamental truths that we hold to. You know, people go to a church where it's liberal, they don't even believe the Bible's inerrant, that it's the inspired Word of God and those things, and they'll say kind of, you know, well, it doesn't really matter whether we believe that or not. What just matters is that we all know Jesus and kind of things like that, but who is Jesus? You know, that's another question. It's just kind of everything has just kind of gotten really squishy out there and really with a lot of people trying to nail down what they believe.

You know, someone has said it's kind of like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall. That's my observation today. That's true, Mark. And what I've seen is that, you know, we concentrate so often on the leaders and what they're saying and the people who get the attention who are up at the pulpit. But what's happened is, slowly but surely, the church has been taught to believe that doctrine is somehow wrong or it's hurtful, painful, you know, run from it at all costs. The feel-good Gospels have replaced the truth, and people haven't studied the Scripture, haven't studied the Bible to learn what the church is all about.

And that's the problem. Yet they would sit in our churches, claiming to be Christians, and therein lies the problem. The sheep themselves are somewhat to blame at this point that they've been led this direction.

Well, no, you're right. I mean, over in 2 Timothy, there's a powerful statement. Of course, remember, these are the last inspired words of the Apostle Paul, and he says, You're to preach the word, be ready in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and instruction. For, and here's the reason for that, he says, the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine.

He's talking there about the people, about the sheep. But wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance with their own desires. So people in churches and denominations, this passage is telling us, ultimately get what they want. They're going to get what they want. If they want to have their ears tickled, they're going to accumulate for themselves teachers that are going to give them what they want. And that's one of the reasons I'm so grateful here for the church I've been able to pastor now for over 25 years, is that now the people here want to hear the Bible, and people ultimately get what they want.

If they don't want that, they're going to get rid of it, and now they're going to bring in people who will tickle their ears. So you're right about that. I mean, what we see happening in churches and denominations, it's the people, but it's ultimately then the shepherds who've not been giving them that, and been training them in the importance of that that causes them, I think, to kind of erode into that way of thinking ultimately and slip into that. So there's fault on both sides, I think, with the shepherds and with the sheep in many places and what's happening. Jan Markell You're listening to Understanding the Times Radio.

I'm Jan Markell. I have on the line from Oklahoma, Pastor Mark Hitchcock, Dr. Mark Hitchcock, Faith Bible Church in Edmond, Oklahoma, and Eric Barger's in studio with me. We're talking about Dr. Hitchcock's newest book, The Coming Apostasy, Exposing the Sabotage of Christianity From Within. You can order this on Amazon. You can find it in your local Christian bookstore. Mark's one of my speakers, Understanding the Times 2017, Saturday, October 7th, right around the corner now, along with Amir Sarfati, Pastor JD Farag, and Michelle Bachman.

There's no cost, no registration. Grace Church Eden Prairie. Come out early if you're going to be attending. We'll have CDs, DVDs about a month later. You also say in the bookmark, you say, many people today pray for a great revival and though it may happen, no such revival is prophesied. On the contrary, according to Scripture, a great apostasy is coming. Now, you know, I think we'd all like to think there could be some sort of even a mini revival on the horizon.

I agree with you. I don't see it in the Bible. And yet, you know, you and I and Eric, we sound like real gloom and doom to say no such revival prophesied. Only the great apostasy, the great falling away, that's what's prophesied.

That's kind of discouraging. I think it can be, certainly. I mean, we want to just hold to the truth, whether it's something that's positive or something that's negative.

We want to hold to that. I do believe that in the tribulation period, after the rapture, there will be a great revival. Revelation chapter 7, you know, there's going to be a number of people that you can't even number that are going to be saved. So I think there will be great revival in the great tribulation period. When I talk about great revival, I'm talking about during the church age, the church age comes to a close.

And we don't see that anywhere mentioned. In fact, again, we read passages like, you know, the Spirit expressly says, in the latter days, how many will fall away from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, doctrines of demons, how many evil men's seducers will grow worse and worse. I've always found it interesting, the book of Jude, a tiny little 25-verse book, is right before the book of Revelation. And I think obviously the books in the Bible are inspired, they're inerrant. And I think the order of the books of the Bible, certainly, you know, God would want to have them in a certain order. And Jude, which is a book basically about apostasy, about false teaching and how we survive in days of apostasy, is placed by the Holy Spirit right before the book of Revelation. It's kind of like the foyer, if you will, to the book of Revelation.

So I think in many ways it's telling us that these are the conditions that are going to be present when these events begin to occur. So I don't take that as something, though, that I go around gloom and doom every day. I still do everything I can do at the church. I teach at Dallas Seminary.

My Come and Speak at conferences like the one you're having, we hold these conferences. We still do everything we can do. I'm not a defeatist. I don't think we just throw up our hands and give up. We do everything that we can do. But I think we do all of that, recognizing that there is not a promise that I know of in the scripture of some great revival during the church age before the time of the rapture that it will occur.

And again, if people think that that's gloomy or negative, I get up every day and I'm very positive that I'm the ultimate optimist. I believe Jesus could come back at any moment and that his program is going to then come into full swing. But I think we want to be realists. You know, what does the Bible say? And we want to say what the Bible says and not just, you know, again, kind of come up with ideas just because they make us feel better. Like we said a minute ago, a lot of the church just wants to hear what they want to hear instead of what God is saying. And listen, I'll verify what you just said to the little bit that we've been around each other at conferences, especially at Unersaying the Times.

You're not a negative guy that walks around with a frown on your face. And, you know, we have a lot of joy as Christians. We just see all these things happening and we need to warn people about what's going on and point to the scripture.

This is a prophetic time we're in. So when you say you're positive, you are. I believe that.

No, that's right. We want to be realists. We want to say what the Bible says.

But I think as Christians, we are the ultimate optimist, but we want to call other people to come to the Lord before it's too late. Mark, some other quotes by you or Jeff Kinley. Again, the book is The Coming Apostasy, Exposing the Sabotage of Christianity from Within, authored by Dr. Mark Hitchcock. His co-author is Jeff Kinley and have had Jeff on here a couple of times as well. I think he has another book out.

You guys really are prolific in your writing, Mark. What number of book is this for you? It's around 30, I think. Is that right? I think it's around number 30.

Yeah, Jeff has a new book out called The End of America. Very good. I've got a copy that I've read. So it's very, very well done.

I have it sitting on my desk. Need to read it. And you have another book out and I want to talk to you about it a little bit later. Russia Rising, Tracking the Mirror in Bible Prophecy.

You have been busy. Mark, look, there's always been apostasy. We can go back 20 years. We can go back 50 years.

We can go back 100 years. I think the thing that you're emphasizing when you speak and what you're writing is that as we move further and further into the end times, the last days, according to the Bible and according to a verse you've even referenced here in the few minutes we've been on here, this intensifies, this increases, this gets worse and worse. No, that's right. I think that's what's predicted in the scriptures. In fact, you know, one of the key verses, and we'll talk about this a lot at the conferences in 2 Thessalonians, where it says it's talking about the day of the Lord that's going to come, which is the coming time of the tribulation. This is that day won't come unless the apostasy comes first and the man of lawlessness has revealed the son of destruction. So there's an ultimate final, it's often called the great apostasy, that's coming. And we title the book The Coming Apostasy. I've had a lot of people come up to me and say, well, why'd you call it the coming apostasy?

It's already here. And that's a good point. It is a good point. But what we're saying is the ultimate final apostasy that spoke of in scripture is coming. And what I think we see then today, living in these times in which we live, is that we're now on the leading edge of that. I think it's not happened yet, because I think that will happen after the rapture takes place, after the church is caught up.

I believe it's from this final great apostasy into the Antichrist and all that will occur. But what we see today is leading up to that. And I think the proliferation of this, I mean, it's just mushrooming today. A lot of it, too, is because of all of the media that we have today and all the ways that apostasy and false teaching can get out there.

It's wonderful that we have all the internet and television and all these various things, because it's a great vehicle to get the truth out there, but it's also a vehicle for the proliferation of error as well. And I think we see that really on every front today. And I'm sure a lot of the people who are listening probably are saying, you're right, that's happening in my denomination that I grew up in, or how I see it happening in my church is there's a drifting away from the Bible, from doctrine, from truth.

So the Bible tells us that as well. I've already quoted some of those verses, but 1 Timothy 4, verses 1-3, 2 Timothy 4, verses 1-3, these are passages that tell us, I think, that it's going to grow worse as time goes along. And that's what we are seeing today. We're witnessing that. And I think that's a discernible sign of the times, the sign of the times. The Bible tells us it's going to grow worse before the Lord comes back.

And I think that's one of the things that we're seeing today, actually being fulfilled right before our eyes. Eric, I think in your apologetics ministry, you would concur if things are worsening week by week, month by month. Talk about the proliferation of the messages, the wrong messages. When the mainline churches begin to apostatize, it took years, even decades, for the heresy to circulate to the professors and then down to the pastors of the churches. But now with the internet, error can be disseminated and circulated in just seconds, not decades.

So it can go much, much faster. And the research I've done concerning what happened to the church when it began to go down in the great liberalism that we saw happen today, it's much, much quicker with more tentacles. Okay, when I get back, I want to share a personal experience with you and my audience.

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It is. A lot of people out there today are just, they're weary, and it's a lot easier to just go along with our culture, our permissive culture that claims that they love everybody and they're tolerant. But what's interesting, the one thing they don't love and they're intolerant of is someone who preaches the truth of Scripture. A lot of this, too, comes from seminaries.

We talk about denominations, but there's a landslide away from trusting in the Scriptures. One quick reminder. You're invited to meet and hear Dr. Mark Hitchcock in person next month at the Next Understanding the Times Conference. That October 7 event begins at 9 a.m. and continues to 5 p.m. at Grace Church, Eden Prairie, Minnesota. There's no registration or fee to attend. A free will offering will be taken.

Now let's return to Jan Markell and Eric Barger and their conversation with Mark Hitchcock. Take your Bible, if you have it. Go to 1 Timothy. Find chapter 4 and notice the prediction that the Apostle Paul made in that passage as Paul writes to young Timothy to warn him what to expect in the future.

And he says this, Now the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, speaks expressly that in the latter times, in the last days, some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to sedecent spirits, to doctrines of devils, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot iron. It's as though they don't even care that the commandments of God and the principles of God are taught in the Bible. They throw all of that out the window and their attitude is, we're going to do what we want to do anyhow.

I want to live the way I want to live. I don't care what the Bible says about decency, morality, right and wrong, about standards for the ministry or anything else. Instead, we're promoting ourselves. We're moving into a time when people don't even have the decency to conduct a church service with respect and dignity.

It is as though the things of God have been demeaned. And welcome back. And that's the familiar voice of Dr. Ed Hindson. I'm playing clips from one of his messages on the growing apostasy because I have in the studio with me, my co-host Eric Barger, but online from Oklahoma is Dr. Mark Hitchcock. We're talking about his newest book, The Coming Apostasy, Exposing the Sabotage of Christianity from Within. It's a book by Dr. Hitchcock, co-authored with Jeff Kinley. I encourage you to look it up on Amazon or visit your local Christian bookstore.

You'll find it there. And Mark Hitchcock, let me just say this because you list in the book, you list some reasons for apostasy. Let me talk about a couple of them. You suggest compromise and love for the world. People love sin. You suggest superficial attention to God's word. You suggest blatant rebellion and defiance. You suggest the Bible can seem narrow and the allure of acceptance by people is so strong.

And yet you say swimming uphill is difficult and tiring. Compromise is easier. That's a sad commentary, but you know, it's very, very true. Well, it is, you know, so often when someone comes out and stands for something that's biblical, that's true, especially nowadays with all the social media, you know, it's just a barrage against the person. That's why I'm not on social media very much, to be honest with you, but it's just a barrage against the person. They're berated. They're narrow-minded. They're bigoted. You know, they're homophobic.

They're, you know, all these various slurs that are just thrown out there. And of course the Bible tells us that's what we're going to experience. But when that kind of thing happens, there are a lot of people who just go ahead and capitulate and give in to those kinds of things and say, well, you know, I want to be loving. I want to be broad. I want to be, you know, tolerant of different things. And so it's very easy for people over some period of time, you know, and again, just getting tired of swimming upstream, to just kind of give in to these things, and again, to begin to substitute their own wisdom, their own feelings about how things should be for what the Bible says. And we talk a lot, I'll talk about this at the conference, we talk in the book a lot about compromise and tolerance. So there's a good kind of compromise, and there's a good kind of tolerance. You know, we all want to be tolerant people in a lot of ways.

We all have to compromise in various areas, but there's a bad kind of compromise and a bad kind of tolerance when it comes to the truth of God, of God's inerrant word. And so it is, a lot of people out there today are just, they're weary, and it's a lot easier to just go along with our culture, our permissive culture, that claims that they love everybody and they're tolerant. But what's interesting, the one thing they don't love and they're intolerant of is someone who preaches the truth of Scripture. That's what fascinated me, those who claim to be so tolerant. You know, you go to a college campus and it's claimed here that we're searching for the truth.

That's what they would say. Far be it from anyone to claim that they've actually found the truth, then you're immediately castigated as a bigot and someone who's narrow-minded and so on. And you write, though, Mark, you say, doctoral discernment is a spiritual life skill. You learn it over time, not in a single sermon or book. And yet, you know, some people I meet seem to have a bent for discerning things and others seem to have zero discernment.

There are national Christian leaders I can spot who seem to have no discernment whatsoever, which is, to me, is shocking. So it is, and I think the way our discernment grows, though, is by maturing as a believer. Some people, just because you're older doesn't mean you're mature.

A lot of people, I think, have a maturity. In the book of Hebrews, it says that the solid food is for the mature who, because of practice, have their senses trained to discern good and evil. And so it's practice over time, and it's taking in the milk of God's Word. It's growing spiritually through time in the Bible and through attending church regularly, using our spiritual gifts. These basic things that we do just over and over again repeatedly in the Christian life, that's how we mature and grow. And of course, you see that in the physical realm, as we grow and mature physically.

You know, a 20-year-old has a lot more discernment than a five-year-old. And the same thing is true in the spiritual realm. If we're not growing spiritually, then we're not going to become more discerning. I've noticed the same thing, that it's kind of amazing that people that you would think, because they know the Scriptures so well, would be way more discerning than they are. But the church has been infected by PC thinking, and it's a lot easier to go along with the crowd than get beat up. And if you're looking for popularity, you just kind of go along with what everybody thinks is right in the culture.

That's why so often we see in paintings and even cartoons where the one fish is swimming against the current of 50 others. So it's the world we're in, and it's way more prevalent today with the shout-down type culture that Pastor Mark just mentioned, where people shout each other down instead of dialogue together and show each other what they're thinking, what they're basing their thoughts and opinions on. Yeah, and we've already referred to this. I think the electronic world is contributing to some confusion to even particularly the internet. You're listening to Understanding the Times Radio. I'm Jan Markell. Eric Barger's in studio with me, and I have on the line Dr. Mark Hitchcock, who's co-author of a new book with Jeff Kinley, The Coming Apostasy, Exposing the Sabotage of Christianity from Within.

We'll be talking about some of these issues at Understanding the Times 2017, now just a few weeks away, Saturday, October 7th. Grace Church, Eden Prairie, Minnesota, that's just outside Minneapolis, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Other speakers include Amir Sarfati, Pastor JD Farag, Michelle Bachman, and we go from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Encourage you to come out probably at least 45 minutes early just to get a good seat. And this is Omega Church.

We had about 6,000 in attendance last year. We expect a big crowd again this fall just because folks are seriously trying to understand the times, contend for the faith, and many want to become watchmen on the wall. You know, gentlemen, I just contributed a chapter to a new Terry James book, and the book Terry has written is going to be titled Deceivers, and he asked me to write a chapter on some of the apostasy in the church here in the last 100 years or so, and here's just a few things I highlighted.

And please give me your response here. I talked about, as Eric has referred to, the mainline Protestant mistake of 100, 120 years ago, evangelicals going down that same pathway, churches going secret-sensitive, gospel-lite, being feel-good, experience-driven. I talked about the postmoderns, the emergent. I talked about the so-called laughing revival, the Toronto blessing back in the 90s. These are things I knew nothing of when I started in ministry. I talked about the New Apostolic Reformation. I talked about Protestants flirting with Catholicism, mystical Christianity being promoted by Richard Foster, Henry Nouwen, Thomas Merton, the Contemplative Prayer, Christian yoga, walking the labyrinth. I talked a little bit about the religious left and social justice, and I can consider the fact that churches have dropped eschatology and the support of Israel to be a part of the great falling away as well. Many of these issues were non-issues 25 years ago, and today they're all raging.

Your response, Mark? Well, you know, you're right. I mean, you can trace the history of this, of what we've seen. And again, I think this is a discernible sign of the times. It's just, you've seen just this march, as you mentioned, mainline denominations.

It just kind of kept going. But I think, you know, a lot of this, too, comes from seminaries. You know, we talk about denominations, but there's a landslide away from trusting in the Scriptures.

And I teach at Dallas Seminary down in Dallas, Texas, and Dallas Seminary is a good seminary. I wouldn't be there if it wasn't, but I'm aware of what's happening in a lot of other places, and the liberalism that's there. There's a great statement I think I heard David Jeremiah make once, you know, liberals have taken the Bible away from us, you know, because they deny the Bible. All the people today, the feel-gooders, inexperienced, experiential people have taken us away from the Bible. You know, it's kind of both things. People are taking the Bible away from us, and then other people are taking us from the Bible, and saying, well, you don't really need the Bible.

It's just all about your own experience and what you think. And, you know, there's things in the Bible that kind of support what you believe, and you kind of use those. But again, the Bible is not the plumb line. We don't go to the Bible and say, what the Bible says that I believe, that's what I believe.

What the Bible says about how I live, that's how I want to live. It's just kind of piecemeal, maybe here and there, you know, kind of some feel-good things from the Bible that people want to believe. So we've seen just this steady march of apostasy, but I think within the last 10 to 20 years, it's on steroids now.

On steroids, yeah. As I was doing this chapter, Marc and Eric, I felt I should be doing a book. Just because the list is so long of things that have gone haywire, as you say, even in the last 10 to 20 years, certainly the last 30 years, I didn't even get into this so-called hyper faith. This, let me play a quick soundbite. Somebody's son is going to be set free from alcohol because of your $1,000 seat. Somebody is going to avoid a divorce because of the $1,000 seat. Some girl on drugs whose mama's been praying for her is going to be set free from drugs because of the $1,000. And what I make happen for others, Ephesians 6, 8, God will make happen for me. I don't want you to call until I finish my prayer. And as soon as I finish my prayer, I want you to go to the phone, dial the number on the screen, and simply say, I'm one of the 1,000. I'm going to faith in somehow in 90 days, a $1,000 seat.

You may already have the 1,000. It may be something you put aside for retirement or a college or a vacation. You may have put some money aside that nobody knows about and God's given you a picture.

It may be in the bottom of your closet, maybe in a sock, maybe between your mattresses. It may be an account that nobody knows about but you and God. That's not your harvest.

That $1,000 won't get you anywhere until God touches it. Again, the wolves praying on the sheep. It's endless. That's what we have out there today. And it's, again, that's a fulfillment. I mean, when you read 2 Peter 3, you read Jude, it talks all in there about false teachers. And again, it's not all of them, but often there's greed involved.

You know, love for money and greed and those kinds of things. So that's what you basically see there is just, you know, the old saying, they're not praying for people. They're praying on people. But you write, Mark, the relationship between the apostasy and the antichrist is clear. The final great falling away will prepare the world for the reception of the final antichrist.

No, that's right. I mean, I think, you know, again, 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 is where we see this idea of the final apostasy. The day of the Lord, the tribulation won't come, it says, until the man of sin is revealed and the apostasy comes.

And I think those two things are related. And, you know, the old saying I heard years ago, you know, the Bible began with the sin of man and ends with the man of sin. The man who's going to come and declare that he's God, that's going to be the final ultimate apostasy, the ultimate final abandonment and rebellion against God.

That's where a man comes and claims that he is God. But I think that what we see in our world today, again, once people abandon the Scriptures, as I've mentioned this several times now, this plumb line or this standard or what we have, then people will believe anything and will accept anything. And more and more we see in our culture, the Bible being abandoned, even people who claim to believe it, many times don't read it, they don't really know what it says, they don't have any discernment, they just kind of pick and choose things here and there. And so I think what's happening in our world today, the world's being set up for the coming of this ultimate final apostasy, then you're gonna have the rapture that's going to take place, all the believers are going to be taken out of the world and be gone. And so what you're going to have left, really what's left of the so-called church will just be the professing church, people who don't really possess Christ but just profess to know him, and that will even become more rampant than into apostasy.

And ultimately, this man of sin is going to arise, the world's going to receive him, and the world's going to be plunged into darkness unlike anything it's ever seen before. You and Jeff make a great point as you point out how that happens, that many people profess to be Christians, they profess these things, and that section of the book to me really spoke. Folks, if you have friends or loved ones who claim to be Christians but not following the scripture, this is no pick and choose, as we used to say in the South, this ain't a pick and choose thing, this is all or nothing. And the problem is, instead of taking the Bible as a work from God, the entire Bible, every word, we decide to take a line or two whenever we feel like it.

That's what's happened to us because we don't know sound doctrine. If I could sum up what we've talked about and what you just said, I think, Eric, and this comes out of your book again, Mark, that is telling people they can believe whatever they want and to live however they want is much more comfortable than telling people the truth, but only the truth can set them free. Why don't we conclude this topic on that kind of a thought, Mark, but only the truth can set people free. And Eric, you've said it so it's so much more comfortable and convenient and to dance around the truth, but only the truth is going to set people free.

Well, no, that's true. But it's even true in this life. People think that when they go out and can live how they want to live and believe what they want to believe that they're free, but actually they're enslaved.

And it's a strange irony in the Bible. It's when we come to know Christ as our Savior and believe in Him and become servants of most high God, that's when we're really set free. Tragically, the people that think they're free are enslaved. And they think we're enslaved to some kind of teaching that we have to follow or whatever, but we're the ones who are free. And there was a great quote years ago that someone made, you know, that the main goal of life is not to find our freedom, but to find our Master. And when we find our Master, that's when we really find true freedom.

It's easier to believe those things. I mean, that's Satan's lie. He's going to tell people, hey, be free, you know, throw off the shackles and come and live how you want to believe what you want.

And that's his lie. Now, but ultimately it's going to lead to a heartache in this life and it's going to lead to eternal separation from God and the life to come. But there's nothing greater in this life and certainly in the life to come than being a servant of the most high God and following Him, studying His word, trusting in Him, living our lives powered by the Spirit. That's where true freedom really comes and true joy and peace really come. Again, come on out and meet Dr. Mark Hitchcock, Saturday, October the 7th, Grace Church, Eden Prairie, Minnesota. It's right outside of Minneapolis.

We'll have CDs and DVDs about a month later. Other speakers include Amir Sarfati, Pastor JD Farag, Calvary Chapel Kaneohe, Hawaii, and Michelle Bachman. And you hear all of these folks on this program often. As a matter of fact, you've heard a number of them at a number of my conferences.

Mark Hitchcock's been to at least four or five of these events, as has Amir and Michelle. So come on out. It starts at nine. We finish at five and you can get a lunch ticket as you walk in the door or you can bring a lunch if you'd like as well. You want to come out a little bit early. I would suggest coming out at least 45 minutes early. There's lots of seating, but last year we needed to use a few overflow rooms as well.

Seating is for 4,300. Here's where I want to go in my last segment. And I think we're going to divert just a little bit, gentlemen, and talk about perhaps some current events. But I'm led to do that because Mark actually has a second new book out. It's titled Russia Rising, Tracking the Bear in Bible Prophecy. I have read the other one, The Coming Apostasy.

I've not read Russia Rising. You can find both at Amazon. You can find them at any Christian bookstore. We're not carrying these products, so best not to call here. You certainly can get a CD of any program, including this program. You can become a CD subscriber. You need to call us on that and get a program.

Every couple of times a month we mail them out. So I want to go, Mark and Eric, a little bit into some current events, including Russia Rising. I want to ask Dr. Mark Hitchcock his opinion about North Korea and perhaps where North Korea fits into the scenario of the last days. And we will do that. I'm going to take a couple of minute time out here, come back and wrap things up. We have a short segment. Eric Barger is in studio with me as we conclude my interview with Dr. Mark Hitchcock.

Back in just a couple of minutes. Two books written by today's guests are being featured on this edition of Understanding the Times Radio. Both of Mark Hitchcock's publications, The Coming Apostasy, Exposing the Sabotage of Christianity from Within, and Russia Rising, Tracking the Bear in Bible Prophecy can be found at your local Christian bookstore or at Amazon.com. We believe we're living in the time God's Word calls the labor pains.

Before our very eyes we're seeing how the Bible's predictions are coming to pass. It's important to stay informed and up to date on what's happening in the world around us. You can access the latest news headlines when you visit us at OliveTreeViews.org. The web address again, OliveTreeViews.org. Audio copies of today's program can be ordered at 763-559-4444. We welcome your tax deductible gifts at Olive Tree Ministries, Post Office Box 1452, Maple Grove, Minnesota, 55311.

Today's conversation continues right after this. Thanks to all of you who either pray or financially support this radio outreach. If you appreciate the inconvenient truth coming to your neighborhood, would you think about a one-time tax-deductible gift to Olive Tree Ministries? We have served the Christian community across North America and the world for 16 years. This ministry and radio outreach are committed to bringing you news and information you won't find many places. We are also committed to bringing you the good news that Jesus Christ is in charge of a decaying world, and He offers a lifeline of hope to everyone who calls on His name. You can give online at OliveTreeViews.org, or you can call 763-559-4444, 763-559-4444, or drop us a note. Olive Tree Ministries, Box 1452, Maple Grove, Minnesota, 55311. That's Box 1452, Maple Grove, Minnesota, 55311. We have a message about today and tomorrow. Because the King is coming back, we just want you to be ready and to know where you will spend eternity.