Are We Witnessing the Great Apostasy? - Part 2

Welcome to the program. So glad to be with you once again this week. My name is Brian Thomas being joined by my cohost, Dr. Bruce Logan.

Doc, how you doing today? Oh, great. Glad to be here.

All right. It's always good to speak with you. And before we get into our topic, folks, I want to remind you, as I always do that your eternal state is far more important than your current state. So I don't want you to be bogged down and lose hope and joy because of life is not played out the way you had dreamed of or hoped of, because if you put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ, the best is yet to come in eternity. But for those who have rejected him, if you've not received him as Lord and savior, the worst is yet to come for you because you are headed to eternal damnation in the lake of fire. So I encourage all, if you've never received Jesus as Lord and savior, confess your sins and profess him as Lord and savior on today, where we're going to continue this week, our question of, are we witnessing the great apostasy today?

Last week we began this. So if you miss part one, please visit our website, blessings to Israel.com, go to the media section and you can hear that episode there. And I encourage you to do so because last week we listened to clips from pastor TD Jakes, pastor Joel Osteen, and former pastor Carl Lentz. And we, again, was just looking at topics or things that they were speaking on that are just clear examples of apostasy that we see taking place. So once again, we're looking at what is described in second Thessalonians chapter two, verses one through four and first Timothy chapter four, verses one through two. So I mentioned those in part one, so I would not go through those today, but, uh, again, go back to that episode. If you want to get up to speed, if you missed it. So we're going to pick up where we left off. Again, we had listened to those pastors who were speaking heretical things.

So today we want to listen to the other side of the aisle. So we're going to begin with pastor John McArthur, and he's preaching on bewitched churches and leaders. Most churches in our society are bewitched. Most church leaders are bewitched at the core. They may believe the true gospel, but they have allowed so many things to be added to the gospel or to corrupt the gospel that they are bewitched. This isn't just a problem in the pew. It is a problem in the pew because it's a problem in the pulpit. So, so doc, many people today are deceived.

I think into thinking they are true Christians when really they've been following doctrines of demons, because when people are saying things that are direct violation of scripture, there is no way that they can be a true Christian and embrace certain things, such as what we heard last week from pastor Carl Lentz in saying that, well, even though Jesus said, there's only one way to come to the father, there's only one way, and that is through Jesus Christ. But yet people can reject him and still be saved. And we see today, so many people, they just fall to this appeal to emotions, you know, but what God is, is telling us to do is die to ourselves. That is what Jesus said to be a follower of him.

We must, what? We must die to ourselves and live in accordance to his will. But today it just seems like there's this me centered theology that for most people, it is all about them.

What are your thoughts? Well, first of all, you just kind of summed it up great when you just in that one term, you said me centered theology, and that also ties directly into what pastor MacArthur said in that clip. And if you notice, he said these words, he said, they have allowed so many things to be added to the gospel, added to the gospel. And there's many things that have been, as we talked about last week, have been eisegeted into the biblical text as opposed to being exegeted. And there's some examples, you know, this idea that the gospel is all about how we can live our best life now, how we can live the Jesus came so we can live the abundant life so that we can, you know, have all the blessings.

So we can live the good life, so we can enjoy everyday life. This is the general thrust of almost all of the, especially the mega programs that you, you know, that has become so popular. You know, this positive, you know, almost like a, a motivational, uh, sermons like every Sunday morning. And I kind of like summarize it when I call it the Jeremiah 29 and 11 effect. And if you're familiar with Jeremiah 29 and 11 has become one of the most popular verses of all the Bible.

As a matter of fact, why I know the plans that I have for you, right? That plans of blessing so on and so forth. But here's the thing, I've, I've, I've got into discussions and debates with other pastors when I mentioned the fact that the Jeremiah 29 and 11 is arguably one of the most misrepresented biblical texts in all the Bible. Because if you, if you do an exegesis of that text, Jeremiah was speaking to people who were in captivity for 70 years in Babylon and they were in captivity because they were in sin and rebellion against God.

That's why they were in captivity in the first place. And the majority of the people that received that initial message did not enjoy the benefits because they, you know, the plans that God had for them, quote unquote, because most of them, you know, by the end of that 70 years were long gone by the time that 70 year period was up. So it's just a terrible misrepresentation. And it always kind of startles me when people or, or kind of, you know, kind of frustrated to be a better term when people use that or quote that verse because they never quote the next verse, but they never quote the verse after that or they never quote verse one or verse 20 because of your sin and rebellion against me. I call the King of Babylon to come and to be the instrument of my wrath of my judgment. They don't ever quote that. Okay. So the point, the point of it is that I'm trying to make it, I want a long way around by saying that that's an example of what pastor MacArthur was saying when so much has been added to the gospel.

And I'll just close this part with this. You know, the Bible says that we should not add or take away anything from the biblical text. And so we always need to be on alert when we hear this positive, all about me, how I can be blessed in this life. Because the truth of the matter is the gospel is more about how we can live eternally than how we can live and be blessed in this life. And even though there are, I'm not saying that because it's just a human instinct to want to be blessed, to want to, you know, to, to enjoy life. But, and there are some blessing, you know, Bibles said in Old Testament, for example, if you do this, you enjoy the fruit of the land.

If you obey me, if you, but it was contingent, you know, upon you do X and I'll do Y it was not just something, just blanket. So anyway, so that's, that's, that's an example or we can go on and on and talk about different examples, but that just stuck with me when he pointed out that so many things have been added to the gospel. And that was just very, very true.

Yeah, exactly. And as you were mentioning, when you just said those words, positive, encouraging, it made me think about and I'm sure I'm going to ruffle some feathers with what I'm about to say, but there's a radio station that my daughter loves to listen to and we're riding a K love and K love there. Their motto that they say is we're positive and encouraging. And don't get me wrong. Like you said, doc, human nature is to want blessings in the Bible does say we will receive blessings by following God.

So there is no doubt about that. But there is also a part of life living in the sin falling world that there are certain things that we have to face that is just not positive and it's not encouraged. And I'll be honest with you, it's just not, but the, but where we draw our encouragement and positivity from is looking at Jesus Christ and the way that he endured the suffering. Look at the early church, the apostles, the early church, I'm sure when they told them either you deny Christ or we're going to throw you to these hungry lions, they were, they did not feel positive and encouraged by that. But what they drew on, yeah, but what they drew on was what eternity, what was to come. And so it's not about the here and now.

And that's why I opened our programs by stating your eternal state is far more important than your current state. The early church, they face hungry lions. Some were burned to death.

Some had meat, raw meat tied to their bodies and then let loose so that wild animals would, would eat them. Some were sold in half because of being followers of Jesus Christ. But you don't hear that today in many churches that we should be willing to suffer for our Lord Jesus Christ. And let me just share this passage here, just to help our listeners for, for anyone that may not have been with us last week, second Timothy chapter three, verses three and four States for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers and they will turn their ears away from the truth and be turned aside to fables. And that is what we see so much.

And I thank God for men like John MacArthur who is speaking the truth. And we're going to hear from Vody Baucom here, uh, shortly because they are speaking what we really need to hear that there is a part of life that means suffering. If you are going to be a follower of Jesus Christ.

So let's jump to Vody Baucom and then we'll, we'll come back with some more thoughts. Your view, what is the strongest enemy the church faces today? I think it's idolatry in the form of man centeredness. I think this dethroning of God and this pragmatic utilitarianism that sees man and his desires at the center of all things, both inside the church and outside the church. And, and I'm, I'm reminded of Paul's words in second Timothy four, um, about, you know, people wandering off into myths and no longer being willing to abide sound doctrine and, and accumulating for themselves teachers in accordance with their own desires. And so you see this kind of, uh, you know, pragmatic utilitarian, what do the people want?

What will draw a crowd? Um, which goes to our low ecclesiology and you know, which, which goes to our syncretism and which goes to, you know, all these other things. I think at the root of it, there is, you know, this, this endemic plague in our culture of man centeredness, this desire to put man and his wants, his desires, his needs.

When you look at the practical issues, when you look at, um, you know, same sex marriage and things of this nature, what's the argument for that? You know, if two people love each it's just man centered, you know, it goes back to, well, it's, well, it's what we want. Um, so for me, that, that's what I see kind of as an epicenter of it all.

You know, doc, I think Vody Bockham hit a grand slam with that one. Absolutely. Absolutely. When he said that the epicenter and I liked, I liked the way he put that, that is the epicenter. That's, that's, that's idolatry in the form of man centeredness as opposed to God centeredness.

That's, that's just powerful right there. When you, you know, that's powerfully summed up in other words, what I'm trying to say because that is exactly what we're seeing in our culture. And we talked about it some last broadcast that mankind have heaped upon themselves, teachers who are just want to give them what their itching ears want to say.

They would have no desire to abide sound doctrine, but they just want to hear what they want to hear. They want to hear, how can I be blessed? How can I be a millionaire? How can I live the abundant life? And the truth of the matter is that here, here's a hard lesson or hard message that will be controversial to some, but I would just like the listeners to just think about this for a second. All of us, the Bible tells us is going to have to stand in front of the judgment seat of Christ at some point in the future. And when we're judged, when we face our final judgment, we're not going to be, we're not going to hear the words, well done thou good and faithful servant. You lived your best life. You live the abundant life. So enter into the joy of my Lord that you live your best life. Now you live, you know, you were abundant, you walked in victory, you walked in abundance. So enter into the joy of my Lord.

I don't think we're going to hear that when we stand before we stand before the judge, but that's not going to be, that's not going to be what we are going to be judged by. And then when Jesus was here on earth, he ministered to things that was going to happen. You know, they were going to be, he said, he that suffers with me shall reign with me. He didn't say he that lives the best, their best life, he that walks or live the abundant life shall reign with me, but he that suffers with me shall reign with me. And the thing, the whole idea is that Jesus preached the gospel of the kingdom. He preached the gospel of the kingdom, which was future center, which was God centered and not man centered. And everything that we're hearing is simply, uh, is man centered. Going all the way back to the garden of Eden, Satan appealed to Eve's human inclination, gave her a man centered message. You shall be as God.

Okay. And then that again, as we talked about last week, that is the thrust of his tactic ever since. And I just want to close this particular comment out, um, by quoting a verse of scripture in second Corinthians 11 and three.

And this is kind of what summarizes, I think what Bode Bachmann was commenting about. It says, uh, Paul said to the Corinthians here in second Corinthians 11 and three, but I fear less by any means as the serpent be gowed Eve through his subtlety. You remember the Genesis tells us that the serpent was the most subtle beast, that the Lord God had made. He was the most cunning, the most tricky, the most tactful, the beast that the Lord God had made. It says that the serpent be gowed Eve through his subtlety. So your mind should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. So basically the whole idea is how our, our mental or our mindset is being manipulated. That's the reason why Paul emphasized to the Romans that we have to be transformed by the renewing of our mind and the way that we become transformed by the renewing of our mind is through transformation of the right, the divided word of God. Yeah.

Yeah. Doc, you're so right. And I'm glad that you are stressing also the suffering that is required because again, you just don't hear that in church very often. You can go to sermon after sermon church at the church.

And what do you hear? How are you going to be blessed? How God is going to give you the victory over your enemies and all of this and all of that. And again, folks, it's not to say that those things are not true in the sense that they will not happen. We do believe God will give you the victory.

God will bless you, but there is a suffering that comes along with it. And as you said, Jesus said, we have to deny ourselves, deny our desires. And we've talked a lot about abortion in the past. And that is one of the things why that is so rampant and there's so much of a fight for it is because people don't want to deny their flesh. They want to go after the desires of their flesh. And then when a pregnancy comes, they want to have the option to abort it, to kill the baby. And, you know, I have to say as a, even as a believer in Christ, was I tempted before I got married to fornicate?

Yes, I was. There was a temptation there, but Jesus said you have to deny yourself and deny yourself daily, take up the cross and follow him. But today, so many want to profess to be a follower of Christ, but yet they do not want to deny their flesh. They are not willing to suffer what it means in order to be a follower of Jesus Christ.

So let's listen to one more clip from John McArthur and then we'll wrap things up for this week. Maybe you never thought about the fact that believers, true believers can be bewitched, but every warning in the New Testament, every warning about false teachers and false doctrine is an assumption that believers can be bewitched. Every command to hold to the truth, guard the truth, rightly handle the word of truth is also based on the assumption of our susceptibility to bewitching. Yes, believers can be seduced into believing lies about the gospel. The apostle Paul anticipated this in 20th chapter of Acts when he pulled the Ephesian elders together and said, after I'm gone perverse men are going to rise up among you to lead you astray and wolves are going to come from the outside to do the same thing. You're going to get hit from the inside and hit from the outside because Satan is always, always assaulting the church with deception.

Now, Doc, you have spoken before, audiences, live audiences. I've done the same and many, many preachers out there do it all the time. And we must admit that there is a temptation when you get up to speak that you, you want to be liked by people.

You want people going away saying you, you gave a good message and you want to be liked. And so that temptation sometimes can, can make you not want to speak on the tough, true matters of life because you know, you're going to step on some toes. But I want to share a couple of passages related to that for those out there who out of fear do not want to speak about seeing the first one is in Luke chapter six, verse 26. It says, woe to you when all men speak well of you for so did their fathers to the false prophets. Second Timothy chapter four, verse five, but you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. We have to be willing to speak the truth and not be bewitched as pastor McArthur was saying.

Yes. And also again, pastor McArthur kind of nailed it perfectly because he used the term and I'm a big believer in terminology, you know, succinct terminology and he succinctly summarized the whole issue when he says or emphasize the fact that as human being, in other words, referring to our fallen state, that we are all susceptible to be seduced. And it is that susceptibility which opens up a door or window for false teachers and false doctrine to influence our mind. And so the fact that we are susceptible is meaning that as believers, we need to always be conscientious about that and always be on guard, which is a big reason why I believe that we have to place more emphasis on hermeneutical, exegetical, biblical teaching, line by line and precept upon precept. We need to be more than it needs to be more emphasis or more of a priority on apologetics and on in depth Bible study. And that's the only way we're going to be able to safeguard ourselves against this, uh, susceptible part of our human nature to be seduced because all of us can be influenced by something that sounds good to our ears or to our hearing.

And if we are not really rooted and grounded in the truth, that's a, we're going to put ourselves in the position to be vulnerable to, uh, being seduced. And if I got a moment, I just have an example comes to my mind that I used to quote all the time that somebody told me that I don't remember who it was. A friend of mine that used to years ago worked in a bank and they talked about the fact that they were trained over and over and over how to detect counterfeit bills.

And so they would handle like hundreds of thousands of billions of dollars like over and over again, just touching it, handling it. And one day, one day this friend of mine asked who, I mean, why are we doing this? He says, because I want, we want you to become so familiar with real dollar bills or what real 10 or what real 20s and hundreds feel like that when you detect it or when your fingers touch a counterfeit, you wouldn't know it immediately because you have become so, so familiar with what's real. And I say, that's a great example as to why we need to become familiar with the truth of God's word with the right divided word of God. Because when we hear something that's false or something that's counterfeit, then we'll be able to discern it right away. And that's, I believe should be, you know, the goal that we as believers should strive for.

Yeah. I agree with you 100% because you're right. There is a temptation to want to have our ears tickle. As the Bible talks about, there is a temptation to want to tickle ears because who does not want to be liked?

Who does not want to be popular? You know, people are going to enjoy that, but you have to speak the truth. And what's most important is that we are popular with the heavenly hosts, not popular with man.

And one of the things I did, doc, I don't know if you've ever did this intentionally or maybe just happened to notice it. But one day, I decided to go and look out of curiosity out of these YouTube channels, some of the ministries that have huge followings. And I noticed that for the ones that typically have the most number of prescribers, subscribers, I should say, those were ones who taken safe, easy, middle of the road type of message. They don't get into issues.

Like we heard Joel those things they say last week, well, you know, I don't get in that lane. They stay away from the controversial things and their subscriber number is way up. But then you see the ones who are speaking the truth who are really standing on the truth of God's word when it comes to seeing and speaking about judgment and suffering and all of those things.

And you see maybe 10 times less the number of subscribers. So there is a temptation to want to have more people to follow you and like you. But folks, what's most important is, are you being approved and liked by God for the message that you are given? So doc, we're down to just a few seconds left. So any closing thoughts before we wrap things up? Yeah, just real quick, I just want to mention and just piggyback on what you just mentioned about the YouTube subscribers and uh, versus like discernment ministries and people want to hear things that are tickling. And I just want to make this, this closing remark and which is, there's a sad reality that we have to come to grips with, especially as minister. Um, and that's the fact that convicting messages and messages that deal with hard or controversial issues, those types of message, and here's the reality, they don't sell a lot of books or tapes.

They don't garner a lot of YouTube likes or Facebook likes because they're hard. People are not, people don't want to hear that. People don't, people want to go buy books to tell them how they're going to be blessed, how they're going to be rich. They want to hear tapes about how we're going to live the abundant life. They're not interested, you know, in being convicted of sin or having their mind transformed.

Not really interested in that. And that's just the sad reality of the time that we're living in. Um, and cause I've actually noticed that a lot as well that you were, as what you were referring to about, you know, the number of likes that these bigger churches have or bigger, you know, very popular YouTube channels and how, you know, uh, they have just hundreds of thousands of likes and, you know, whereas other individuals that try to preach something, you know, the true gospel, you know, can barely get a hundred likes. Right. Exactly right. You know what, you know, it doesn't sell, doesn't sell, it doesn't sell. And so listeners go out, if you've never did it, just go out on YouTube and look at discernment ministries and look at the number of subscribers and then go out and look at some of the ear tickling ministries and compare and you will see a huge difference because as you said, doc is, it's not popular to call out truth and to speak against sin. And all we have to do is just look in the Bible, read what the prophets of the old Testament went through. They were not popular in terms of the people loving them and liking them. They were infamous.

You know, when the people heard about them coming, they, they wanted to stone them, run them out of town, put them in prison because they did not want to hear the word that God was sending to them was to repent or else there would be judgment. So great way to close this out this week, doc, always good to speak with you. Look forward to speaking with you again next week. Yes, sir. God bless you.

All right. And to our listeners, thank you for joining us. Please come back again next week as we continue to encourage you to discern the times by viewing life through the window of the Bible until then remember to pray for the peace of Jerusalem, bless God's great nation of Israel. And to the only wise God be glory through Jesus Christ forever.

Amen. Thank you for tuning into discerning the times. Please come back and join us next week as we continue to encourage you to view current events through the lens of the Bible until next time. Remember to pray for the peace of Jerusalem, bless God's great nation of Israel and seek first the kingdom of God. Discerning the times is presented by blessings to Israel.