Are We Witnessing the Great Apostasy? - Part 1

Blessings to Israel presents, Deserting the Times, a program committed to encouraging you to view current events through the lens of the Bible. Now, in honor of the one and only true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, please join us for today's program. Welcome to the program. So glad to be with you once again this week. My name is Brian Thomas being joined today by my cohost, Dr. Bruce Logan. Doc, how you doing today?

I'm doing real good. Happy to be on and just looking forward to today's program. It's always a blessing to talk with our audience and to be able to get with you to discuss these issues as we are here to discern the times, to have people view life through the window of the Bible.

And that is exactly what we do. So before we get into today's topic though, I want to remind everyone that is listening that your eternal state is far more important than your current state. And maybe life hasn't played out the way you had hoped of or dreamed of. But I want you to know, if you have accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, the best is yet to come because eternity will be perfect and all of your hopes and dreams will be fulfilled in the presence of our Lord. And so I say that not to dismiss the current state as if it holds no importance because actually your current state is going to determine your level of rewards in your eternal state. But I just want to remind you today. So if you have not received Jesus as Lord and Savior, confess your sins, profess him as Lord and Savior, and you too can have eternal life.

All right. So today we're going to look at the topic of, are we witnessing the great apostasy today? It is a question that when you look around today at the church, a lot of people scratch their heads, including myself, when I see things that are taking place. So I want to share two passages to get us started concerning where the Bible speaks of the great apostasy. So I want to look first at second Thessalonians chapter two, verses one through four, we find the following texts.

Now, brethren concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to him, we ask you not to be soon shaken in mind and troubled either by spirit or by word or by letter as if from us as though the day of Christ had come, let no one deceive you by any means for that day will not come unless the falling away comes first and the man of sin is revealed the son of perdition who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worship so that he sits as God in the temple of God showing himself that he is God. And then the second passage I want to go over to his first Timothy chapter four, the first two verses, which reads now the spirit expressly says that in the latter times, some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies and hypocrisy, having their own conscious seared with a hot iron. And so you don't have to look far today to see apostasy that is taking place. But the question is, are we witnessing the great apostasy that the Bible speaks of in these verses? And one of the things that Satan has been doing from the beginning has been his longterm, long time tactic is to twist truth into heresy.

He came to Adam and Eve in the garden and he, he said to Eve, did God really say, and even today he calls his people to question the deity of Christ and the Virgin birth and the resurrection. And he is using pastors and preachers as vessels to lead people astray. And so that is what we're going to focus on today. That very topic of pastors, preachers who are speaking things that I believe is fulfillment of this great apostasy. So doc, we're going to begin by listening to a couple of clips. This sentence, this is from an interview with Mark Lamont Hill.

You're going to first hear TD Jakes, and then we'll look at Joel Osteen. Question coming in from a black one 85 in our, in our digital community said, do you, do you think I'm assuming a LGBT community in the black church can coexist? Absolutely. Let me push that question.

Cause that's sort of an obvious, yes. Church ain't turning nobody away. How should the black church and LGBT community? I think it's going to be diverse from church to church. Every church has a different opinion on the issue and every gay person it's different. And I think that to, to speak the church, the black church or white church or any kind of church you want to call it are all the same.

It's totally, totally not true. And all gay people are not the same. The types of relationships that are afforded are based on the types of people in each individual case and LGBTs of types and sorts have to find a household of worship that reflects what your views are and what you believe like anybody else.

All right. So doc, you know, that, that subject of race and LGBTQ seems like are the things that we see and hear all the time now. But what do you think about what TD Jakes is saying as far as how the LGBTQ and the black church can coexist? Well, first of all, if you noticed, and if you listen to that, uh, he, he, when, uh, Lamont Hill asked him the question, he responded in radically. If you notice, he said, absolutely with some emphasis behind it, meaning that he, you know, it is his belief that absolutely, uh, a gay and a Christian are one in the same and can, uh, coexist.

But that is completely contrary to scripture. And, and again, we must, we got to realize that this in our day is three why I believe it is that a great apostasy because in our day it is one of the most, when you talk about race and when you talk about the LGBT movement, those are arguably the two most, uh, hotly debated and controversial, uh, topic that we face in our culture today. Um, those two topics, uh, generate the most, uh, anger, the most trauma, you know, the, the most, uh, uh, confusion and a culture. Those are the two topics that are getting the most media push. And, and, and the fact of the matter is the fact that we're getting such a high level of emphasis in the culture on those two particular, uh, two particular topics are, uh, signs that we are indeed living at the great apostasy.

And the fact of the matter is it has gone as far as people identifying or relating the LGBT, uh, movement to the civil rights movement as being comparable or compatible or one in the same, which is totally false. Uh, so, you know, yes, in fact, you know, that, that is in fact a part of the great apostasy with beyond a shadow of a doubt. But let me just say this also, and this is, I know will be controversial because Bishop Jake has a great following or says we all know.

And I personally have, uh, been in service, uh, or attended services where he was the guest probably three or four times. And one of the things that keep this undeniable, which is also, I believe something that they tend to manipulate is the fact that him and others that we could name are phenomenal orator. I mean, they have the ability to stir the audience and stir people's emotions. And once people's emotions are stirred to the level that they're able to do, you are able to then in turn manipulate and say things because you're in your emotions and you're not in your mind. And, you know, it's almost like when people of that stature, uh, state, uh, makes a claim, it is like, you know, Moses coming down the mountain with the 10 commandments, with the tablets of the law under his arm. I mean, people, uh, giving it that level of, uh, authority because who it came from. And so that's what makes it, uh, you know, comments like that extremely dangerous.

Um, and so yeah, but unless you have discernment, unless you go student of scripture, unless you, you know, engage with programs like what we're doing, um, then just, it will be very easy to be deceived and manipulated with that type of language from individuals with that level of ability to be able to manipulate an audience. Yeah. I agree with you totally. I do think we are witnessing the great apostasy and to the point that you were making about the, the correlation between race and LGBTQ. I was listening to a pastor just a few days ago, and he mentioned that the NAACP started with good intentions, uh, in the civil rights movement, but it was sort of like, he said, well, once they kind of had won all the victories, they could win for that cause. Now it seems as though they're championing this, this, this LGBT, uh, topic or, or issue.

And so it is one of those things that you do see people are trying to make a tie between the two as if it is a civil rights movement. Um, now today, you know, and, and so, yeah, I, I agree with you 100%. And I love also that you mentioned about how he, along with so many others that are great orators. And one thing people that you need to be cautioned with is the Bible says concerning the anti-Christ, it says one of the things that he will possess when he comes is being a great orator.

He says his words will be smooth like butter. And it shows how people are so easily deceived by those who are great speakers, but you have to look at the content. And I've always told people, listen, I'd rather hear a preacher any day that is giving good content. Maybe he doesn't have the best speech as opposed to someone who is smooth in his speech, but it's not speaking things that are truly of the Bible. So, so I'm glad you pointed that out.

Let's, uh, let's continue listening as Mark Hill is now talking with Joel Osteen on the same topic. The big ones are easy, right? Like you probably shouldn't steal. You probably shouldn't kill people. Um, those are the things that probably all religious kind of agree on, right? There's no contention, but like an issue like gay marriage, people look to the ministers for leadership. Is that an issue that's for you against the rules? Um, you know, it would be, but Mark, I don't, you know, I don't really focus on a lot of those things.

I try to stay in my lane of what I feel called to do. And that does come up in, in interviews and things, but just don't feel like that. That's not my core message. My core message is how do you, how do you help us help the self image? How do you let go of the past? How do you raise good children?

How do you reach your dreams? Now I know that is part of it because if you have 45,000 people, some of them are gay. Oh yeah. For example, absolutely. Absolutely. And everybody's welcome. But my, my take on it is, you know, it's easy to make one issue to become known for that or to, or to let it sidetrack your message.

And you know, if you look at our congregation or the people that come to Yankee stadium, including myself, we all have issues. Everybody's on a journey. So I try to say, here's, here's my focus. Here's my lane.

You know, that's, that's kind of where I've, I've stayed in that. Now doc, as I listened to these two pastors, I think about this topic of sexual morality. This is Christianity one-on-one because the Bible is very clear concerning sexual morality. The Bible states that any sexual activity outside of one man and one woman as husband and wife is sin. And that's just one of the basic, like I said, Christianity one-on-one.

And as I hear, and I think back to also TD Jakes in which he was saying, well, you have to find a church body, a congregation that, that is doing things that, that fits what you were doing or fits your lifestyle. And, and again, this is, this is basics, but, but these guys are really just talking around it. What are you, what are your thoughts? Well if you notice what, what Joel said is that he doesn't even want to touch the issue at all. Basically what he said at that jail, he stays away from it.

I mean, he don't want to go near with a 10 foot pole. And the fact of the matter is, is that like you stated, this is gospel one-on-one. And the reality of it is, no matter how sensitive the issue might be, there was, this was the only, well, this is one of only two reasons that God like destroyed entire civilization. One was because of homosexuality and one, and the other one was because of apostasy and false, false religion and false gods and the occult.

Those were the only two reasons why whole entire civilization were destroyed. God did not destroy Sodom and Gomorrah because they had some racist police. I know that's a hard topic and that might be hard for some people to hear, but the fact of the matter is that the reality in terms, looking at it from a biblical worldview, not from a secular worldview, from a biblical worldview. And that's what we're, we're trying to convey in this ministry is that when we look at it through God's lens, through the lens of the Bible, as you so aptly state when we do our introduction, that God said that it is an abomination.

He didn't say that about anything else. It is an abomination and that's just a true reality. And so when we saw, when we walked gently around the topic, basically saying, we just want to love everybody, you know, we just want to, you know, be nice to everybody. Basically what we're doing is we're condemning people to hell when we don't preach the true gospel, when we don't call sin out, we don't call sin for what it is. And that is the, that is the true assignment that we as the church and as ministers has been given from our Lord and savior before he ascended back up into heaven.

He gave us the great commission to go and teach the world all the things that he had taught. And that's the whole idea. And one of the things that here's a, and I'm going to just close this point out with this last statement, but again, it's a touchy subject because you know, the, the idea of Joel's message, you know, it's a reason why, you know, he has tens of thousands of followers because his easy going message, you know, that's that people, people gravitate to that. People don't really are, aren't really interested in hearing, you know, you, you know, hell and brimstone in these days, they want to hear, you know, how you can live your best life now, you know, how you can, you know, walk and live the abundant life and so forth.

And that's what our itching ears or many people's itching ears want to hear. But the truth of the gospel is that homosexuality is a sin. And as you also stated that God made male and female, that's it. You know, there's no like 52 genders.

He made them male and female. That's it, period, point blank. And so to say anything else is legitimate is like calling God a liar. And it is in fact, you know, the truest or the most important message that we can convey, you know, as a gospel minister that we have to take what God said over what man has said. Yeah. Amen, brother. Amen.

And yeah, you're right. We only have male and female, but now you see people out there and they are saying, declare your pronouns and you get emails from people and in their email signatures, they have their pronouns declared. And I heard about just the other day, Kamala Harris and several of the, the administrators in the white house, how they have it declared.

They declare their pronouns in their email signatures. And so it's just, people are, people are just jumping on this stuff, but it's nothing but a deception, uh, from Satan. And I'm glad also that you mentioned the fact that love true love tries to rescue people from destruction. And you hear people today all the time saying, well, you know, love is love. You love who you love. You can love anyone. We just need to love people. And of course we love people, but when you truly love someone, you don't pat the person on the back while they're walking into a burning fire. No, you, you grab them and you snatch them and you say, no, don't go that way.

That's going to, to cause you to be destroyed. And the sad thing about it is so many people today, including pastors, unfortunately are cheering these people on as they are headed to eternal damnation in the lake of fire. And, uh, and doc, it's just heartbreaking. It's just, it's really heartbreaking, but I'm, I'm glad that you pointed that out because that is the truth.

But, but Satan has twisted the truth, uh, to try to go along with his deceptive ways. So let me just interject this real quick too. Also, just on that same note is just yesterday.

And I just thought this was interesting. Um, just yesterday I read an article where a teacher, I believe, I'm not really sure. I think it was in Florida, but don't quote me on that. But, but there was a teacher that was fired from a school district because she refused to acknowledge their students. And this was an elementary school teacher by the way, which makes it even worse.

She refused to acknowledge her students by their pronouns. So she was, she was dismissed from her job in a public school system. And, uh, and, and of course the key to that is the term public school system because the public school, this, this whole idea is being infiltrated into the public school system.

I heard one commentator go as far as to say that in today's culture, the public school system has become Satan's youth ministry. Now think about that. Wow. You know, is that not, is that not an indication that we are in a great apostasy?

I mean, if that's not an indication that I don't know what it could possibly be. Yeah. Yeah. I agree with you. Totally.

Yeah. It's, it's insane. It's really insane. And similarly I heard and, uh, of an account a few days ago of where a boy in middle school was suspended because he refused to call someone by their preferred pronoun.

He was calling them by what they really were and he was suspended from school. So it's, it's really insane. And we need preachers. We need pastors to be the leaders. Churches need to be the leaders in speaking the truth concerning these matters.

So let's continue. We're going to now listen to an interview. This is Oprah Winfrey.

She's interviewing Carl Lentz on paths to God. Do you believe that only Christians can be in relationship with God? No, I believe that when Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life in the way I read that Jesus said, he is the, he's the road marker.

He's the map. So I think God loves people so much that whether they accept or reject him, he's still gracious and he's still moving and he's still giving you massive red blinking lights for chances to take a right turn where maybe you would take a left, but I believe God loves people. And that's what this whole gospel is based on. It's love. You take the love out of it. We've got a moral book, but the love is what makes it different.

All right, so there you go again, doc, that, that word love. I mean, to him, to him, love he is accepting everyone, even if they reject Jesus Christ, but he quoted the scripture in which Jesus Christ said, I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the father, but by me, but yet here, Carl Lentz and for anyone that's not familiar with him, he is a pastor as well. He's saying that, well, you can reject Christ, former, former pastor, former pastor. That's right. Former pastor.

Yeah. So, so what are your thoughts? Well, again, when you, when you get down to like interpreting the Bible, you have two different wood lenses in which you can, you can look through and just to make it short, we can eisegete the text or we can exegete the text. Eisegete, eisegete the text is basically you start out with your own preconceived idea, with your own default presupposition. And then you try to twist the scripture in order to fit into your default presupposition.

Or if you exegete, you can exegete, which basically the only thing you want to know is what did the original writer mean? What did Jesus mean when he said what he said to the original audience, basically in a nutshell. And what, what the, what Lentz did was a classic case of eisegesis, which means that he just decided upon himself to determine what Jesus actually meant. But what Jesus said, I am the way. He literally meant that he was the way, the only way.

In other words, because he wouldn't, because if you finish that text out, which I don't believe he did in that clip, he said, no man can come to the father except by me. Right. Right.

Right. And that's just as plain as day. And as a matter of fact, he was taking it even further because the scribes and the Pharisees got angry with him for making that comment because he was actually identifying himself with the actual door of the temple and the previous door in the tabernacle, which the only way you could get into the Holy of the Holy was through the door. And he was saying that I am the door. I am the way. I am the truth that the door of the tabernacle, the door of the temple, which was the only way to the Holy was symbolic of me. This is what he was saying.

And that is as true then as is true as it is true now. Yes, he loves us. He loves, you know, that's why he died.

You know, I would that none would perish, but that all come to repentance, you know, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. But but but that does not mean that you can not accept him and still get in. That's right. Or that you could you can ice a Jeep what he says and and and base your life or your belief on your own preconceived presupposition or your default presupposition and not accept what he actually said and what he actually said. Yeah, yeah, exactly right. And contrary to what Oprah Winfrey says, she's another one that is said for years that, well, there are many paths to God and Barack Obama.

He said it as well during his presidency. There are many paths to God. And of course they are not pastors. But, you know, to be honest with you, they probably influence more people than than a lot of pastors do.

And that is 100 percent true. And that's the saying and that's very sad because, you know, the pastor should be the spiritual leaders. But it's one of those things that it just troubles you the way people twist what real love is, because you and I both, we're parents and we've raised children and we want them to go into the way of God. And we know what's best for their future if if they turn away from God, if they don't do things in the proper manner. And so therefore we discipline them and they don't like that discipline.

They don't enjoy it. You know, you may have to take some privileges away from them to show them the right way, but we do it because real love wants them to be corrected so that they don't go down the wrong path. And it's one of the things I told my son, he's now 14, but several years ago when I was explaining to him in disciplining him, I said, listen, son, you have to understand that the reason I have you to to want to change the reason why I correct you and I want you to change is because there are certain patterns in life that if you continue on certain roads or paths, it could land you in prison and you won't have freedom. And I said, you don't want, you don't want to end up in prison as an adult, do you, where you, you can't come and go as you please and do what you wish. And he said, of course, no.

And I said, and I, as a dad, I love you. I don't want you to, to end up in prison either. But the sad thing about it is that many people today are, like I said before, they are cheering people on as they're headed to prison, uh, essentially spiritual prison. And in this prison that we're talking about is going to be eternal if they do not turn from their sins. So, um, so we're going to pause there for this week, but we're going to pick back up next week because there's more, we're going to hear from the other side of the aisle on this topic. We're going to hear from John McArthur, Vody Bockham as they address this, this topic of apostasy.

So doc, in the final few seconds, do you have any closing thoughts for this week? Yeah, I just want to say, uh, you know, as you, you pointed out earlier at the beginning of this program that, uh, one of the enemy's greatest weapons is, has been, uh, deception and apostasy. Um, making good appear or making sin or making bad appear good, um, is the tactic that he used in the garden with Eve. You know, he just twisted God's word. Had God not, had God not said, well, God didn't say, no, God said, uh, he, you know, he didn't, in the garden, he didn't say, you know, you shall not eat, but he just said that you shall be as God that you do. I mean, he just twisted God's words around and Eve fell for it.

That's been the same tactic that he has been using throughout the century, but it has escalated to, and these days. Yeah. Yeah. Well said. Well said.

Great way to close us out. That is why we're here to discern the times is folks. We don't go around, it's not our, we don't get a joy out of finding things that are wrong, but this is something that God has called us to do. He calls us to be watchman and God says, if, if I call you to be a watchman and you don't warn the people, then I'm going to hold you guilty for anything that comes upon them. So, so that is why we do this.

And again, we don't want people to head to destruction because we love people. We want people to come to the, the saving knowledge and grace of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. So again, folks, we're going to be back next week to continue this topic and a doc always good to be with you. Looking forward to having you back again next week and to our listeners, please come back and join us as we continue 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 until the only wise God be glory through Jesus Christ forever. Amen. Thank you for tuning in to 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.