Certain environments allow deception to take root more readily than others. An environment of lukewarm commitment and faithfulness is by far the most compatible with deception, which is not only surviving but thriving, running rampant, spreading, and growing in the contemporary church. One gives way to the other, allowing it to grow unchecked and choke off the truth of the Word in the process.
If you’ve ever had a lawn
invaded by dandelions, crabgrass, thistle, or other weeds, you know that if you
ignore them, they will continue to spread and grow until there are more weeds
than grass. Your only option is to find the most potent weed killer on the
market and spray your lawn until it first stops the spread and then begins to
kill off the existing weeds. The weeds don’t want to die. They will not remove
themselves from your lawn voluntarily, even if you ask nicely. Their mission and
purpose is clear, and unless confronted with similar conviction and steps are
taken to do away with them, they will continue to do what is in their nature.
The truth of God’s word is akin
to weed killer for deception. If the Word is absent in a given environment,
whether a church, a denomination, or a home group, deception will spread and
grow and become the dominant force. If it’s ignored, it will just get worse. If
confronted with the Word, it will first cease its progress and then die out
altogether. Death is a violent prospect. There is a finality to it, and
deception will do its best to either survive or go scorched earth in the
process of its demise. Deception will never go gently into that good night; it
will always do its utmost to destroy and divide.
There is great danger in the
love of an individual, a congregation, or an entire generation growing cold
while the hype man passing for a shepherd insists that their love for Jesus is
burning so bright that there are ushers with extinguishers on standby. The
reason they get away with it is because they’ve redefined what love is, and
what once used to be defined as surrender, trust, worship, and fellowship,
picking up our crosses and denying ourselves, have been reduced to surpassing
last week’s offering with this week’s offering.
Although the majority sitting in
the pew might be faithless, aimless, purposeless, and frigid when it comes to
the love of God in their hearts, if they happen to throw an extra dollar in the
offering plate, they’re reassured that due to their willingness to part with a
few shekels, their love has never burned brighter.
We’ve made this faith of ours
about things Jesus never did. We’ve transformed it from building up our most
holy faith, pursuing righteousness and holiness, dying to self, and living for
Him to something wholly tethered in the material. The more you give, the holier
you are. Glory hallelujah! But is that what Jesus said? You grow in holiness by
daily dying to the flesh and pursuing the righteousness of God.
Matthew 24:13-14, “But he who
endures to the end shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be
preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end
will come.”
What exactly will we have to
endure and do so to the end? Christ’s words are straightforward enough. It’s
not as though we can read them and draw another conclusion other than that he
who endures to the end shall be saved, but it doesn’t mean countless souls
haven’t tried in the last couple of centuries because the implications of those
words do not bode well for those whose entire existence revolves around this
present life and the ease thereof.
It’s hard to sell people on a
prosperous future full of sunshine and rainbows when you’re forced to point out
that they must endure something, anything, even the smallest of discomforts,
because that’s not the Jesus they were sold on, and it was the first time they
heard anything about the prospect of suffering or endurance.
The world will hate you; you
must endure it. Your brothers will betray you; you must endure it. False
prophets will rise up and deceive many; you must endure. You will be witness to
the love of many growing cold; you must endure it. You will be delivered up to
tribulation and killed; you must endure it. You must endure all these things to
the end because the end of a race makes you a beneficiary of the inherent prize
and not the beginning.
We cannot minimize the onslaught
that will come against the household of faith from without and from within
during the last days of the world because the enemy is fully aware that time is
running out for him to attempt and draw away from the path of truth those who
are not fully cemented therein.
There is only one way to endure to
the end: having our eyes firmly affixed upon Jesus and letting nothing to the
left or to the right capture our attention or distract us from our pursuit of
Him. Know the Shepherd’s voice, and you will know when another speaks in His
name that is not of His nature. If people knew what Jesus said about the last
days, perhaps so many wouldn’t have fallen for the theories plaguing the church
with people running to and fro looking for some hint or insight into things
Jesus explicitly declared were unknowable to us.
It’s not as though He didn’t
speak of things we should expect before His return; we just want to know the
actual date. Many are naturally curious; others think they can use the
knowledge to repent a day before His return, as though finding a loophole for
an extra pizza at the local pie shop in the wording of their weekly coupons.
If you’re spending more time
looking for loopholes and excuses than you ever did cementing a relationship
with Jesus and growing in Him, you were never His, to begin with. Among the
other things Jesus said that is met with discomfort by the modern-day church is
that many would stand before Him insisting that they prophesied in His name,
cast out demons in His name, and did many wonders to boot, yet Jesus will
declare He never knew them.
Matthew 7:22-23, “Many will say
to me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out
demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will
declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice
lawlessness!’”
With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea, Jr.
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