Post by Basilikos on Jan 26, 2009 13:16:30 GMT -5
"Many use the term "antichrist" to designate an end-time super-deceiver who will embody the spirit of opposition to God and who shall emerge upon the world scene, grasping the reins of international political power, inaugurating an unprecedented reign of terror and time of tribulation over all the peoples and nations of earth. This unscriptural usage is unfortunate. The Bible nowhere speaks of "the end-time antichrist"! The Church today is full of energetic and sincere preachers and teachers who are just full and bubbling over concerning things that are going to happen. Almost daily I receive across my desk their dire prophecies of doom and terrifying predictions of the coming antichrist, economic collapse, earthquakes, assassinations, Illuminati conspiracies, that this or that is the mark of the beast, etc., often complete with dates and time tables, none of which ever come to pass. It should be very humiliating to have world events continually follow a course exactly opposite to that which has been mapped out by one's prophetic teaching, and to have one's predictions proven false almost before the ink is dry on his paper. But not these false prophets! They are masters at glibly side-stepping their repeated failures with the assertion that they said merely that such-and-such "might" happen or "could" happen, or enough people prayed so that it "didn't" happen, or their vision of the date involved was a little "hazy" so that it "may" have been 1990 instead of 1980! With feigned words and deceit they dupe and delude their sensation-seeking followers.
The world pays no attention to the modern day preacher when he always cries "Wolf". By that I mean that the world today pays no attention to all this "calamity howling" being broadcast by the preachers. it is just something to joke about or to be endured by the world at large. Prophecies and sermons are given in the thousands of words. Books are published by the hundreds of thousands, giving dates and times and cycles and calamities that are to take place and NEVER DO THEY COME TO PASS. So the world scarcely notices, and goes on about its business of trying to make ends meet and keep up with the demands of daily living in a technological world. People sell or give away all their possessions and loudly proclaim the end of the world or the coming of the Lord, and many times assemble themselves in various places to await the supposed coming events. The time for their happening comes and goes, and the disappointed and disillusioned people are left destitute. Yet there are countless others waiting to be duped and disillusioned by some one else! Ah, beloved, it is high time for all the preachers and teachers and would-be prophets to leave their ignorance of God and His majestic purposes and acknowledge publicly their desperate lack, forsaking forever the delusions of their dead letter-of-the-Word interpretations of prophecy, and turning to the Lord for true SPIRITUAL wisdom and understanding.
This is the day of false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming THEMSELVES into the apostles of Christ, and no marvel, for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light; therefore it is no great wonder if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness (II Cor. 11:13-15). The world is filled with those who claim to be prophets, messiahs, or heralds of the messiah. A day seldom passes when we do not receive such claims from people who say they are "the anointed" to lead God's people through the dark and troublesome days at the end of the age, or God's "special messenger" to get the saints ready for the Lord's return, or God's prophet commissioned to "seal" the elect before the fury of the tribulation breaks, or that they themselves are Elijah, or the Two Witnesses, or the manifested Sons of God, or the Melchizedek Order. One claims to have a golden altar powerful enough to stop an invading horde of two hundred million Chinese. Another claims that their group of "sons" already control the events of the whole world. A dozen more claim to be "God's man of the hour". All these and many more claim to be the anointed of God, and every one of them have hundreds of followers, while some of them count their followers in the millions. These are false prophets and false Christs, false anointed ones, DECEIVING MANY by their crafty claim to be anointed of God.
It is true, wonderfully true - THE CHRIST IS HERE! Ah, He has come in mighty Spirit power to indwell a people, the body of Christ, and to be formed in all perfection and fullness in that people, as the apostle asserts, "to be glorified in His saints, and to be admired in all them that believe in that day" (II Thes. 1:10). "I am the vine; YOU are the branches" were the living words that fell as the dew of heaven from the anointed lips of the Christ of God. As the branch grows out of the vine, so in like manner do we, the Sons of God, grow out of the VINE WHICH HE IS. The vine bears the branches. The branches bear the fruit. And there shall be an abundant harvest as many Sons come to His very own glory! Press on, saints of God. The Christ IS HERE in a many membered body. Let us not sell the groaning creation short - let us yield ourselves into His loving hands until HE IS REVEALED in all His glorious and eternal reality!"
Excerpted from J. Eby's: The Antichrist, Book 11
"if you wish to opine, remember to keep it pithy!"
Basilikos
The world pays no attention to the modern day preacher when he always cries "Wolf". By that I mean that the world today pays no attention to all this "calamity howling" being broadcast by the preachers. it is just something to joke about or to be endured by the world at large. Prophecies and sermons are given in the thousands of words. Books are published by the hundreds of thousands, giving dates and times and cycles and calamities that are to take place and NEVER DO THEY COME TO PASS. So the world scarcely notices, and goes on about its business of trying to make ends meet and keep up with the demands of daily living in a technological world. People sell or give away all their possessions and loudly proclaim the end of the world or the coming of the Lord, and many times assemble themselves in various places to await the supposed coming events. The time for their happening comes and goes, and the disappointed and disillusioned people are left destitute. Yet there are countless others waiting to be duped and disillusioned by some one else! Ah, beloved, it is high time for all the preachers and teachers and would-be prophets to leave their ignorance of God and His majestic purposes and acknowledge publicly their desperate lack, forsaking forever the delusions of their dead letter-of-the-Word interpretations of prophecy, and turning to the Lord for true SPIRITUAL wisdom and understanding.
This is the day of false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming THEMSELVES into the apostles of Christ, and no marvel, for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light; therefore it is no great wonder if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness (II Cor. 11:13-15). The world is filled with those who claim to be prophets, messiahs, or heralds of the messiah. A day seldom passes when we do not receive such claims from people who say they are "the anointed" to lead God's people through the dark and troublesome days at the end of the age, or God's "special messenger" to get the saints ready for the Lord's return, or God's prophet commissioned to "seal" the elect before the fury of the tribulation breaks, or that they themselves are Elijah, or the Two Witnesses, or the manifested Sons of God, or the Melchizedek Order. One claims to have a golden altar powerful enough to stop an invading horde of two hundred million Chinese. Another claims that their group of "sons" already control the events of the whole world. A dozen more claim to be "God's man of the hour". All these and many more claim to be the anointed of God, and every one of them have hundreds of followers, while some of them count their followers in the millions. These are false prophets and false Christs, false anointed ones, DECEIVING MANY by their crafty claim to be anointed of God.
It is true, wonderfully true - THE CHRIST IS HERE! Ah, He has come in mighty Spirit power to indwell a people, the body of Christ, and to be formed in all perfection and fullness in that people, as the apostle asserts, "to be glorified in His saints, and to be admired in all them that believe in that day" (II Thes. 1:10). "I am the vine; YOU are the branches" were the living words that fell as the dew of heaven from the anointed lips of the Christ of God. As the branch grows out of the vine, so in like manner do we, the Sons of God, grow out of the VINE WHICH HE IS. The vine bears the branches. The branches bear the fruit. And there shall be an abundant harvest as many Sons come to His very own glory! Press on, saints of God. The Christ IS HERE in a many membered body. Let us not sell the groaning creation short - let us yield ourselves into His loving hands until HE IS REVEALED in all His glorious and eternal reality!"
Excerpted from J. Eby's: The Antichrist, Book 11
"if you wish to opine, remember to keep it pithy!"
Basilikos
on the tops of the mountains and over the waves of the air, for I have not given you an ear to hear their voice nor to tremble at their command. 