I just wanted to add some information to last Sunday’s sermon entitled “ Are You the One?” I said, “Church leaders like John MacArthur and Jack Hibbs (there is quite a list) are men just like Trump, accept they are supposed to be ministers of the gospel. These men and others like them are rebelling against authority, downplaying the pandemic. Some of them are also participating in telling their people the election was stolen. This rebellion is also happening here in Canada as you can see with someone like Henry Hildebrandt of the Church of God (Restoration) who has joined in the nonsense of the anti-maskers. The truth of the matter is these efforts by these men and their followers make them look like fools yet they think they are men of God standing for truth. Since the church has followed this pattern of ignorance and foolishness, this has made the church look like a bunch of fools. At this point in time the church does not need any more evidence that it is off-track. Even the ones who are not rebelling against the government or following Trump, remain powerless and are off-track. This passage talks about bringing the way into disrepute. Disrepute means “the state of being held in low esteem by the public.” 2 Peter 2:1 “But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. 2 Many will follow their depraved conduct and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. 3 In their greed these teachers will exploit you with fabricated stories. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping.”
It is really important to understand that views concerning the end times directly effect our present rational. End time views also effect our interpretation of scripture and vice versa. Faulty interpretation leads to faulty end time views, which lead to faulty present rational. It becomes a vicious circle. The church is supposed to be about truth. John 16:12 “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14 He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. 15 All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.” Jesus had promised to not leave us as orphans John 14:15 “If you love me, keep my commands. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. 18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” So we see that loving God means following His word. Following His word means as John 14:23 “Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.” Revelation 21:3 “And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” God’s presence means we will have the Spirit of Truth and will be guided by the truth. But notice what John 16 tells us. “He will guide you into all truth and he will tell you what is yet to come.” God has turned His face from us so this is why there is so much confusion and false teaching about the end times.
If the church disobeys, not only will we miss out on the power available to the church but also our understanding of the end times will be wrong Because of our disobedience, we have been taken captive and are in desolation just as Daniel warned and just as Jesus warned us would happen. Daniel 9:27 “He will confirm a covenant with many for one ‘seven.’ In the middle of the ‘seven’ he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And at the temple he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him.” Daniel 11:31 ““His armed forces will rise up to desecrate the temple fortress and will abolish the daily sacrifice. Then they will set up the abomination that causes desolation.” Mark 13:14 “When you see ‘the abomination that causes desolation’ standing where it does not belong—let the reader understand—then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.” Jesus said Matthew 24:21 “For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again. 22 “If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened. 23 At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Messiah!’ or, ‘There he is!’ do not believe it. 24 For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. 25 See, I have told you ahead of time.” The church stands desolate. Luke 13:35 “Look, your house is left to you desolate. I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”
Today I want to show an example of how this happening and why we were warned about deception in the church. This is not new but seems to be coming to an climax as we see in Daniel 7:21 “As I watched, this horn was waging war against the holy people and defeating them, 22 until the Ancient of Days came and pronounced judgment in favor of the holy people of the Most High, and the time came when they possessed the kingdom. 5 He will speak against the Most High and oppress his holy people and try to change the set times and the laws. The holy people will be delivered into his hands for a time, times and half a time. 26 “‘But the court will sit, and his power will be taken away and completely destroyed forever. 27 Then the sovereignty, power and greatness of all the kingdoms under heaven will be handed over to the holy people of the Most High. His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all rulers will worship and obey him.” We have borne witness to the decimation of the church, as it is nowhere near looking like the church Jesus is the head of. Millions of churchgoers have been deceived even though Jesus warned us this would happen. Matthew 24:3 “Tell us,” they said, “when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” 4 Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you.” Deception is rampant in the church. Jesus also said, Matthew 7:15 “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.” Paul told us Acts 20:9 “I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. 30 Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. 31 So be on your guard! Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears.” He also said then that he was shocked at how many people were being deceived by other gospels. Think about it as we have had 2000 years of deception take place in the church. Galatians 1:6 “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7 which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse! 9 As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!” Earlier we read 2 Peter 2:1 “But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. 2 Many will follow their depraved conduct and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. 3 In their greed these teachers will exploit you with fabricated stories. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping.” Jeremiah 23 and Ezekiel 13 also talk about these false teachers and prophets who lead the church astray.
The great deception is that the false teachers tell you this deception is coming down the road and if you believe in the rapture you will be gone and won’t have to worry about it. The lie comes from false teachers, the very ones telling you this lie. Lamentations 2:14 “The visions of your prophets were false and worthless; they did not expose your sin to ward off your captivity. The prophecies /oracles they gave you were false and misleading.” Jeremiah 23:36 “But you must not mention ‘a message from the Lord’ again, because each one’s word becomes their own message. So you distort / pervert the words of the living God, the Lord Almighty, our God.”
Last Saturday I noticed a video from a guy who had posted about some newfound facts that change everything about the severity of the pandemic when it comes to the number of deaths. He made sure to tell you this was straight from Johns Hopkins University and valid. So he showed you the video of a webinar and a link to the articles with the facts. It only took about two minutes to find out this was not true. Yes there was a webinar and an article with the facts. But before I go on there are two words that are very important to understand but we are without excuse if we participate in them. I am well aware how easy it is to miss something and participate in faulty information. These words talk about information. As you know news sources, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram whatever you choose to receive information is not necessarily going to be true yet there are those who think because they read it on the internet it is true. It is really important to do your research. As you have seen with Donald Trump, he is the master of distorting information. Actually let me rephrase that. He has a following that will believe anything he says. The truth is he acts like a raving lunatic as he continues his efforts to tear down the results of his lost election. It is said that false and misleading information has spread like never before in 2020. It really is astounding to watch. There are two words that describe the spread of false information. The first word is misinformation, which is defined as “false information that is spread, regardless of intent to mislead.” This means that you have been misinformed. This is a little bit subtler. An example would be the telephone game where the information has changed drastically by the time it gets to the end of the line. Much of the time misinformation is because of a certain level of ignorance. People don’t check to see of what has been passed on to them is true or not before they pass it on. This is one a major problem these days especially in the church even though we are told 1 John 4 “Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.” I will talk more about the antichrist in a moment. Today there is a complete lack of discernment. Now you are seeing this lack of discernment as people are being called to rise up. So there are those rising up, some violent and some threatening lives, some protesting over things that are not even true. Death threats are becoming the norm for people just doing their jobs all because people have been misinformed and did not check to see if what they heard or read is true. Now it can look very official coming from Fox or Newsmax or OAN; the latter two even worse than Fox. The level of false information from these sources is at a whole different level and now would be called disinformation. What Trump is doing can be labeled disinformation. This is flat out intentional false information. This means “deliberately misleading or biased information; manipulated narrative or facts; propaganda.” Trump does this all the time.
You would expect this from him or these media sources but not from the church so when I listened to this guy excitedly giving his newfound information to his followers, I saw a guy who was spreading misinformation without even checking to see if it was accurate before he spread his news. Now if he saw what I saw and still spread this information that would move from unintentional to intentional. What this You-tuber had found was a webinar with a coinciding report talking about number of deaths not really being different during this pandemic. Although he stated this was from Johns Hopkins University, it was actually from the Student Newspaper, which is independent of Johns Hopkins. Now if you were to just follow the links he gave you, you would find the same as he reported but in less than 2 minutes of just checking into this you would find that there was more to this story. I looked at the comments and knew there was no use posting something, so I wrote an email to him. Here is what I said. “I was going to post but after looking at your viewers comments it really wouldn't matter. I am writing to ask you to be careful in your reporting, as the world we now live in has turned to chaos. I realize that you are a big fan of MacArthur’s but you should be a bigger fan of truth. His statement there is no pandemic will come back on him, as I believe it already has. You should not fan the flames of misinformation / disinformation as it is blazing out of control on its own. You don't want to be part of knowingly or unknowingly spreading misleading information. I briefly watched your video on Johns Hopkins findings but you did not share all the information. Instead you helped fan the flames of misinformation and disinformation. (If you have updated, my apologies.) A few seconds of research showed there was more to the story. You owe it to yourself to spread truth especially if you call yourself a Christian. You made it sound like this was an official statement from Johns Hopkins but it was not. Note this is from a Student run newspaper. Also notice there was an update by the editor:
- https://www.jhunewsletter.com/article/2020/11/a-closer-look-at-u-s-deaths-due-to-covid-19 Good for them for keeping the article to be seen showing it has been retracted by the paper. Yes there will be those saying this was a nefarious.
- The video said, "Briand’s study should not be used exclusively in understanding the impact of COVID-19, but should be taken in context with the countless other data published by Hopkins, the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
- As assistant director for the Master’s in Applied Economics program at Hopkins, Briand is neither a medical professional nor a disease researcher. At her talk, she herself stated that more research and data are needed to understand the effects of COVID-19 in the U.S."
- "Please note: Dr. Briand’s views expressed here have not been peer-reviewed. Her statements are not the views of the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences or of Johns Hopkins University."
I am from Canada and we too are now beginning to have higher levels of misleading information. You should be more afraid of spreading misinformation than a response from YouTube for saying there is no pandemic. Today's church is a disaster. Meeting together in a building isn't really what the church is about. That just continues in a form of godliness and continues to deny power. The true church goes out in power from on High to carry on doing as Jesus did in the authority of His name. No I'm not a charismatic but I do believe God has turned His face from the church and we no longer have the available power therefore the church must repent just as Israel and Judah had to in order to have God turn His face back to us. While you support a pastor who has disregarded his own teaching on Romans 13 and has put his hope in the constitution and Trump / FOX, be careful! For some reason they always seem to leave this part out Romans 13:2 "Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves." I am not looking for a fight, just be careful to stand on truth. You seemed pretty excited to share this tidbit of information. I would also say be careful elevating man to high.”
And no I do not expect a response but it would have been interesting to discuss. So why is this Youtuber’s information important when he has only 49,000 subscribers. You may say what is the big deal so few are listening to this. Well another Youtuber also shared the information except this time it wasn’t just sharing the webinar and report, he was sharing what John MacArthur said about the report and then another and so on. Now it’s a big deal. Why? From Grace Community churches website you can find this information. “John is also president and featured teacher with Grace to You. Founded in 1969, Grace to You is the nonprofit organization responsible for developing, producing, and distributing John's books, audio resources, and the “Grace to You” radio and television programs. “Grace to You” radio airs more than 1,000 times daily throughout the English-speaking world, reaching major population centers on every continent of the world. It also airs nearly 1,000 times daily in Spanish, reaching 23 countries from Europe to Latin America. “Grace to You” television airs weekly on DirecTV in the United States, and is available for free on the Internet worldwide. All of John's 3,000 sermons, spanning more than four decades of ministry, are available for free on the Grace to You website.” Now during this pandemic he has made more of a name for himself while rebelling against authority and taking the government to court and of course appears on Fox to promote his ideas. One of his lawyers representing the church is Jenna Ellis who makes headlines daily, so yes John MacArthur is even a bigger deal and people hang on his every word.
Recently MacArthur oddly enough took his 2 months off during one of the most crucial elections ever and just before vacation appeared on Fox news October 11, 2020 to encourage pastors to rebel against authority and open their churches. He had even made a video, and then he went on holidays. He airs a video of protest then leaves of which I think is pretty strange. So he’s back and this last Sunday evening he had a question and answer period. Now earlier I shared scriptures about false teachers. Strangely enough the world seems to know but the church remains unclear. When you hear Kenneth Copeland declare the virus is no more and shout at it but then the pandemic ranges throughout the United States and now after Biden is declared President Elect, laughs demonically about that declaration. I even saw it put to music as was done with Paula White, Trump’s spiritual advisor who was prophesying about the sound of victory. So the world mocks these agents of satan, while the church remains confused and continues to give them money. Now these false teachers and prophets, usually charismatic are easy to see. Just in case you are unaware, the charismatic movement is not a movement of God. It became about speaking in tongues of which satan easily deceived them yet there was no power. Yes tongues are real just not blah blah blah. Scripture tells us this is a language with a purpose as seen in the book of Acts, not chaos. Ok we can spend all day on that but herein lies the problem.
John MacArthur is not charismatic but is doing the exact same thing. During this evening service at Grace Community church you can see it. Here is the link to it on Facebook. Honestly I hate doing this but if you need to see this be careful not to be deceived as he sounds quite convincing. This is the evening service December 6, 2020. https://www.facebook.com/gracecomchurch/ Jump ahead to about 36 minutes where MacArthur starts sharing his information. He states he is not an expert yet his people will listen to him as if he is. He also said he was not an expert when he declared that this was not a pandemic. Remember if you listen to this, this pandemic has to fit into his own narrative / doctrines which why he shares so much false information. Otherwise his doctrines have issues. I classify this as disinformation as this talk is very calculated so that his people will continue to follow. His talk starts off with suicides and businesses owned by black people struggling. Then moves on to the pandemic causing fear with births down, nursing homes and failure to thrive, then on to children and education. Then moves on to his statistics that he always shares and always compares it to the flu. He says some people should be protected but still not a big deal. To go with his earlier declaration that there is no pandemic he now has found those who will call it a syndemic. He again declares that it is not a pandemic. He still fails to see how covid intensifies other diseases. He then states masks were useless. He then uses statistics from UCLA that seem to agree with his beliefs that covid really is insignificant but if you go to UCLA’s website about covid they do not give you that picture. https://www.uclahealth.org/coronavirus You can be sure he has distorted the findings as he always does. What you do see are articles like this that MacArthur ignores and mocks. Title of article – “UCLA Health infectious disease experts tout critical role mask wearing plays in limiting spread of COVID-19” -“With thousands of new cases logged daily and a vaccine to fight COVID-19 still in development, UCLA Health infectious disease experts are encouraging people to continue to wear masks as the best method of protecting against virus transmission.“ Overwhelmingly, Infectious Disease and Public Health experts recommend the use of masks in order to prevent the transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Data demonstrate that masks reduce viral shedding by infected individuals and prevent uninfected individuals from getting sick.” They don’t wear masks at MacArthur’s church!
Now this is what I was getting at. Not only has he distorted findings and flat out is lying to deceive those with the information he has found. I say lying because he is intelligent enough to find what I found. So then he says a study from Johns Hopkins, one of the great medical schools says this and then talks about the study. But again this is not a study from Johns Hopkins as you can see in my letter. Now one more - He then talks about the Great Barrington Declaration. This is herd immunity, which has proven to be deadly dangerous and most disagree with it. Anthony Fauci, the director of the American National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and lead member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, called the declaration "ridiculous", "total nonsense" and "very dangerous", saying that it would lead to a large number of avoidable deaths.” Now if your are thinking this is the United States what does that have to do with us here in Canada. Here is Alberta’s website with an article from Dr. Deena Hinshaw who is Alberta's Chief Medical Officer of Health. This was written October 28, 2020. She summarizes by saying, “There has been a significant amount of discussion recently about the Great Barrington Declaration. Its authors promote an approach to COVID-19 that they call "Focused Protection". They describe this approach as follows: “…to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection, while better protecting those who are at highest risk.” This is a very appealing statement to those who are tired of restrictions and in a context where the economic and social impacts of the restrictions are being felt keenly by those under 60, (“retirement age” is the cut off proposed in the Barrington document) who are at lower risk of severe outcomes. Unfortunately, the claim that this approach is achievable with minimal impact is not correct for several reasons.” She then lists why this approach is incorrect. https://www.alberta.ca/herd-immunity-and-the-great-barrington-declaration.aspx
Now MacArthur wants you to believe him. He is so confident, he even tells you to look it up but most won’t because this is John MacArthur; according to him he is God’s chosen one and many think the same. It takes very little time to check his information out and then you will find he is wrong, but not only wrong he is misleading and deceiving you to believe what he wants you to believe. This is how deception works. Hundreds of thousands of people are listening to this deception. This disinformation will lead to misinformation, as those who hear will continue to spread this false information. He wants you to believe he is God’s agent of truth but stands at the front of the church and leads people astray. He says we are people of the truth and will do the very best we can to tell you the truth while lying at the same time. He doesn’t want to be accused of putting his people in jeopardy yet he does anyways as he is deceiving his people and they are a gullible bunch. He refuses to talk about the devastation in the hospitals while downplaying the pandemic. He did talk briefly about people not getting their medical care and consequently they have serious medical complications which was strange because covid is causing hospitals to be overrun not lockdowns. You may think why pick on John MacArthur? Actually he represents thousands of others doing the same. You can even hear the same type of teaching right hear in Strathroy, Ontario. You can hear the same rhetoric just less than an hour from here. We are not just talking about his views on the pandemic and draconian measures taken by the government, he is false teacher who teaches doctrines of demons. Ask yourself if he lies about simple things that are right in front of you if you took the time to look, will his teaching be built on a foundation of truth. Yes everyone can make a mistake but this is no mistake because all this about the pandemic and the government lines up with his view of the end times. Since he will not veer from those views, he distorts scripture and facts to make it so.
MacArthur then goes on to talk about conspiracy theories that line up with his view of the one world order. He then starts talking about world power by talking about “they and them.” He says they are changing the world to fit them, a collective group some known and some unknown. They have done something never done in human history, something global. People listening should be asking who is they; who is them? There has been for a long time the conspiracy theory about the illuminati. “They are often alleged to conspire to control world affairs, by masterminding events and planting agents in government and corporations, in order to gain political power and influence and to establish a New World Order.” He offers no proof of who these people are. Trump and others say the democrats had the power to change results of an election but offer no proof. The funny part is the republicans were part of it. MacArthur just keeps repeating they and them. He now talks about the antichrist and the new world order. He talks about the mark of the beast while trying to equate what is happening during this pandemic to end times. He then says we have to be aware of the fact that we are not being told the truth and that’s not surprising is it. He said satan is a liar and he established his kingdom on lies. Now when listening to MacArthur remember satan is so arrogant he will reveal himself and tell you what the problem is. This part I find interesting is that he uses the word us when talking about the decision by the Supreme Court in New York for the Catholics and Jews and in California a Pentecostal church. Have you heard MacArthur rail against Catholics and charismatics but now says us? He is basing everything on their constitutional rights while ignoring scripture. He even said he thought he had this virus a couple of weeks before Shepherds Conference back in March but it is said that a man died after that conference. “Our pastor and the conference team is committed to your health and safety at all the conferences we host,; consequently, we want to update you concerning the 90-year-old Shepherd’s Conference guest who recently passed away. The doctors confirmed that he passed away from COVID-19.” He then again cites another study, this time the Red Cross and make it sounds like it has been around a long time but the study talks about December 2019. He says it’s been around a long time and it will run its course just like other bugs does. He then says 90% of testing is invalid. I think you see why this is important to talk about.
Now its time for questions and people come forward and praise MacArthur. This is where it gets dangerous. Get the MacArthur study bible and all will be revealed. Then a man wants to go back to the Philippines to evangelize what he has learned from MacArthur. What MacArthur is teaching, will continue in other countries. Then at the end the new members came to the front and the front is covered with people. The question is what have you been saved into. What have you made covenant to? He then says come down and welcome these people. Few were wearing masks.
We are at the end of the end. I still find it interesting that the doomsday clock shows how close we are to the end. Closer than ever: It is 100 seconds to midnight 2020 Doomsday Clock Statement Science and Security Board Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. To: Leaders and citizens of the world Re: Closer than ever: It is 100 seconds to midnight Date: January 23, 2020. So as John tells us, this is the last hour and 2000 years have gone by we are literally seconds away from the end. 1 John 2:18 “Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour.” The spirit of antichrist is everywhere and even standing in pulpits. I trust this small article will show you how desolate and deceived the church is. Those people think they have found the way, truth and life but have been deceived. They wont’ check probably because they don’t know enough to check, not because they are not smart enough but because they have been blinded. Daniel tells us all about what is happening in the world today. No its not the illuminati but satan decimating the church because of disobedience. Paul said 2 Thessalonians 2:9 “The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with how Satan works. He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie, 10 and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. 11 For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie 12 and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.” The church is deceived and under delusion and only a few will make it. I know that is not the message that you have probably heard all your life. You were told God is love and that implied that God would never turn His face from us. That also meant God would probably not send someone to hell for being lukewarm. This is a deadly assumption. Well God did turn his face and the only hope is to repent. Isaiah 54:7 ““For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with deep compassion I will bring you back. 8 In a surge of anger I hid my face from you for a moment, but with everlasting kindness I will have compassion on you,” says the Lord your Redeemer.” There is only a remnant left. There is no rapture, there is no tribulation as they describe that is coming and there is no millennial kingdom coming in the future for a thousand years. The tribulation has been ongoing for generations and the church is loosing but as Revelation tells us Revelation 7:9 “After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. 10 And they cried out in a loud voice: “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.” 11 All the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, 12 saying: “Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen!” 13 Then one of the elders asked me, “These in white robes—who are they, and where did they come from?” 14 I answered, “Sir, you know.” And he said, “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” Jesus said only a few would make it. Luke 13:23 “Someone asked him, “Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?” He said to them, 24 “Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to.” And again Jesus said Matthew 24:22 “If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened.” These days have been devastating for the church. The hard part is that in war you can see the results as death is all around but in spiritual warfare you don’t always see the results until its too late. In fact churches like MacArthur’s look as if they are prospering. Even with all those people there really has not been an outbreak of covid so they think God is blessing them but that is not the case. God will reveal Himself as He always has. Even though they tell them nothing will happen, Jeremiah states otherwise. Jeremiah 14:13 “But I said, “Alas, Sovereign Lord! The prophets keep telling them, ‘You will not see the sword or suffer famine. Indeed, I will give you lasting peace in this place.’” 14 Then the Lord said to me, “The prophets are prophesying lies in my name. I have not sent them or appointed them or spoken to them. They are prophesying to you false visions, divinations, idolatries and the delusions of their own minds. 15 Therefore this is what the Lord says about the prophets who are prophesying in my name: I did not send them, yet they are saying, ‘No sword or famine will touch this land.’ Those same prophets will perish by sword and famine.”
So be careful who you listen to and put your hope in as we are surrounded by deception. Test the Spirits and seek God with everything you have. Don’t be afraid to turn from these wicked ways. 2 Chronicles 7:13 “When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, 14 if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land. 15 Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place. 16 I have chosen and consecrated this temple so that my Name may be there forever. My eyes and my heart will always be there. Peter said Acts 2:38 ““Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call. 40 With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” 41 Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.”
