The Church – a Source of Deception
Chapter 8
by Dene McGriff
In
the last days, there will be a falling away, tribulation and deception and
Christians will be persecuted. What will be the greatest source of deception
and persecution for true Christians?
The apostate church! How could this possible be? Can you even imagine it
happening to you? All disclaimers aside (that within the institutional
churches there will be some who overcome) the modern church is a tradition
bound, moribund unbiblical institution that does nothing to express the life
of Christ in the saints. What do churches accomplish? Do the programs,
sermons, counseling and entertainment produce a vital living church? Do allow
each person to minister and share, to develop their own gifts?
Or is the modern church merely a reflection of our culture – a religious corporatocracy, an entertainment extravaganza, endless sermons that exhort, teach and inform and programs to take care of all of the needs of the people? Churches may bring people into a relationship with Jesus Christ but do they really bring people to mature, living, fruitful Christians? The average “born again” Christian never grows up but sits year after year in the pew being bottle fed the “milk of the Word” by the pastor. The more zealous usually turn to full-time ministry. Most “part-time” Christians remain just that for the rest of their lives…nominal participants in “church” for most of their lives. For the vast majority of Christians, “church” is something you do once or twice a week, not what you are 24/7. There is little commitment or real community, certainly no organic participatory meeting life.
The church today has produced some devoted followers who are loyal to their church, the pastors and the way things are done – but do these things have anything to do with the true expression of the church? New converts are efficiently programmed to accept the way things are done without questioning. They are under the authority of the church and questioning is considered rebellion.
A church without the fresh flowing life of Christ in all the members becomes a dead, self-righteous organization – people who think they are better than the “unbelievers” around them. So they set out to change the “evil” secular society and bring their own ranks under control – what their concept of being a good Christian may be. Over the 2,000 years of church history, the “Church” has shown itself to be capable of the most ruthless treatment of dissenters. Witness the Inquisition, the Crusades, the Salem witch trials, the persecution of the Huguenots and the Wars of Religion at the time of the Reformation. And look at the persecution of real Christians by the apostate church in the last days. “Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other…” (Matthew 24:9-10)
Why will Christians be persecuted? Why will Christians turn on other Christians? There are two basic reasons. First, Christians have been deceived by a lifeless, apostate church that follows rituals, forms and dogma rather than the Lord Jesus Christ. If someone is critical of the religious system, that system will punish or expel them. Second, western church is the seed bed of patriotic thinking. Many American Christians believe America is chosen and blessed by God and is a beacon of light to other nations. A wave of patriotism sweeps the churches when the country is under attack (e.g. 9/11). These days, Christians are eager to let their influence be felt politically. Religion and politics! What a mix.
Most Christians believe sincerely that the church they worship in and the way they worship is ordained by God. They believe that the United States, although not perfect, is about as good as it gets on this earth and that it was put here to bring the gospel to the nations. They believe their country stands for Israel (and will therefore be blessed), the poor and oppressed. As the inscription on the Statue of Liberty says, "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" They have no idea what the rest of the world thinks of this once shining beacon and our support of Israel has always been two faced lest we upset the oil rich Arabs.
The evangelical churches today have no idea that their churches may have rejected some of the worst practices of Roman Catholicism, but kept most of it in tact. I have just read the reviews of “Pagan Christianity” by George Barna and Frank Viola on Christian Books.com and Amazon.com. The reviews are extraordinary. People either love or hate the book. It gets zero stars or five stars and very little in between. There is nothing more sacrosanct to some than their beloved “church”. To attack the church practices is to attack God and His “anointed” leaders. As I pointed out in previous articles, Frank Viola notes that many today in the “post-Christian” era are beginning to ask some of the right questions, but they aren’t going far enough because they haven’t rejected the building, the clergy system, the form of worship, etc.
As long as Christians think of “church” as something you go to and attend rather than what you are; as long as Christians look to a pastor or teacher for ministry instead of one another for life, ministry and encouragement; as long as Christians have the form of religion rather than the reality in their own lives, they will be deceived. As George Barna and Frank Viola show in their scholarly book “Pagan Christianity”, the practices and programs of the church today have nothing to do with the early church. It is next to impossible for a Christian to come to maturity in Christ apart from a normal, spontaneous, participatory organic “church life.” The system is designed to keep Christians in their place as good givers and supporters of the system, the clergy, the buildings and programs. Church is designed to serve and entertain the laity. Whereas in the organic church all the members participate and build one another up in love. It is not a one man show, not a bunch of programs, but a living organism led by the Spirit of God not a man, not an “order of worship” printed on a program.
A Little Personal History
I am not saying the modern church can’t be
used by God but I am saying that it is highly unlikely that the church will
ever produce mature, productive Christians. You may be the exception. But
based on my experience in the system, this is not what I have observed. I met
Jesus in a Baptist Church in Montebello, California on Easter Sunday in 1953
at age 11. I was just a normal kid attending church until the summer between
high school and college when I worked at Forest Home Christian Conference
Center during the summer of 1960. That summer was an incredible introduction
to the best, most inspiring speakers in the world plus a staff of more than a
hundred young people my age who were totally in love with the Lord. It was
there I first experienced a real community of believers. After that, it was
off to college, meeting more wonderful Christians in church, InterVarsity and
Navigators. But as time went by, it seemed like the more I learned, the less
real God was in my life. Frankly, I just didn’t see anything authentic in the
Christian system and was about ready to drop out (if that were even
possible). My dissatisfaction with “church” and my own life grew until August
of 1963 when I went to a Navigator’s Conference at Hume Lake. I listened to
Chuck Farrah (who later taught at Oral Roberts University in Tulsa) share
about
how God wanted a living body of people who were all connected to one another
by their living relationship with Christ where each person functioned and as
in a body were connected to one another.
I knew this is what God wanted, so I prayed the Lord would lead me to something like that and within three months, He did just that. I met such a group of people and experienced it for the next ten years. We met informally in homes or hotel meeting rooms. The chairs were in a circle and everyone had the freedom to pick a song, share an experience or revelation, pray. It was so spontaneous and real. These weren’t just home meetings but some time there would be from 100 to 200 people but it was still completely open to the moving of the Spirit. The meetings would usually have a theme that was guided, directed and developed by the Spirit of God. Spontaneously people shared, sang, prayed and praised – exactly as Frank Viola shared in his experience in his books. (Pagan Christianity and Reimagining Church – Pursuing the Dream of Organic Christianity). Viola’s second book is fantastic because it describes how it is done. According to Viola, we don’t need forms but the DNA of the Holy Spirit moving in our midst. He knows how to build the church as a living organism. I experienced this and know that it works.
In 1975, that era ended for me. Just as the Calvary Chapels and Vineyards sprung out of the Jesus movement, what I was in also became institutionalized and began to take on the form of a traditional denomination with buildings and the beginnings of a clergy/laity distinction. The next few years were tough for me because I felt like a child who had lost his family. After a year in grad school in Arizona, we moved to Wheaton, Illinois where I began to work with World Relief (of the National Association of Evangelicals, the NAE). Talk about going from the body life in the Jesus movement to the buckle of the Bible belt! I was back in a Baptist Church and working for the NAE! Later, I was the country director of Bolivia for Food for the Hungry. Over the next 20 years, we lived in Chicago, Bolivia, Tulsa, Minneapolis, Madrid (Spain), Maryland, Denver, Connecticut and Houston and I tried the smorgasbord of everything Christianity had to offer – everything from Word-Faith to “latter rain” churches, Vineyards, Calvary Chapel, community churches, etc. I tried to follow the Lord as best I could and make the best of the situation. But everything I observed only reinforced my feeling about the institutional church. The people were wonderful but they were never really released to fellowship and minister freely – only in the ways the “church” made available.
In 1993 I was led back to Sacramento where I linked up with a brother in a prophetic ministry. The material in “Recognizing Apostasy and Deception” was written back in the mid ‘90’s. Over the next few years, we made numerous attempts at home meetings but they weren’t all that fulfilling and nothing like we had experienced in the 60’s and early 70’s. I began to realize that what we had was commitment and community back then. We were there for each other 24/7 and the meetings were just the frosting on the cake. As long as people drove across town to attend a meeting once a week, it was pretty artificial and not real “church life”. What made the early days so special was that we all lived close by and were always reaching out to new people. The focus of our meetings was on the fresh experience we had with the Lord that week. The longer you have been a Christian, the easier it is to rely on the past and knowledge rather than the fresh touch with the Lord.
I will conclude this little history with an observation. I have attended some absolutely fantastic churches lately – one down in the San Diego area and another up in Yakima. The pastors are incredibly sharp, solid in the Bible, in their teaching, worship, breadth of programs and so forth without being into Charismania, or the purpose driven, seeker friendly stuff. These two churches are about the best I have ever seen in over 50 years. And yes, they are developing lay leadership, ministries and so forth, doing about as good a job as you can possibly do. The one has three services a weekend and the other four and the church is packed each service. The people are warm and friendly and obviously there are some great relationships there that go beyond meetings. This is just about as good as it gets in today’s Christian experience. But if George Barna could do a survey of people attending these churches, I suspect he would find that there is a small core that gets things done (say 10 percent), and two groups equally split between regular attendees with some commitment and the audience which makes an appearance and leaves. The great majority are merely spectators.
The Organized versus the Organic Church
Now
let’s drill down a little deeper. Why are these two churches so successful?
The pastors are caring, brilliant, articulate, tremendous communicators,
visionaries, great organizers and motivators. They meet the needs of the
community with every program imaginable for kids of all ages and adults in
different stages. There is something for everyone, including a sense of
community. They each have large staffs with pastors specializing in different
ministries. Again, I’m not being critical – just stating the facts. The
church in Southern California has a huge campus, worship center, rec. center,
class rooms and more. It’s lay out resembles a Roman forum with columns and
courtyards – tasteful but not opulent. The meetings are crisp, professional,
on time and to the point. The teaching is solid no-nonsense Bible
exposition. Both are dynamic and growing.
As good as these two churches are, and as sincere as the leaders and the congregation are, it will never produce mature functioning Christians and a spontaneous organic body life. Highly trained clergy do everything in their power to energize and feed the laity, but the laity will not likely learn to feed themselves and minister to one another in a meaningful way. The service, order of worship and sermon will continue to challenge and spoon feed the great majority of the spectators. The members will not have the opportunity to develop their gifts and minister to one another on a daily basis, developing deep relationships. Most of the resources will go to building expenses and pastor/staff salaries. The home meetings are not even open but in one of the churches rehash the sermon of the previous week. There is little opportunity for open sharing or straying from the topic at hand. The programs and many special meetings and concerts provide a lot of activity but little real building together beyond the activity. Most people wouldn’t even know what to do with their freedom because their relationship with the Lord is so minimal and they are so programmed to be spectators, responding only when asked by a group leader.
An organic church is a meeting of equals. There are no offices or positions; only different gifts and functions. The Holy Spirit is the head – not the senior pastor or worship leader. Everyone is free to share, request a song, develop a ministry. There is no hierarchy, no super specialists. Everyone participates and their portion is valued. In an organic church, the contact between people is all week long – not just the once a week meeting. We are involved in one another’s lives, encouraging one another, praying for one another, doing things with one another. As Frank Viola points out in his book, sometimes the Spirit will lead us to just sing. At other times praying or sharing but the leader is not a person. The meeting flows with the Spirit and is never the same. You can’t put the move of the Holy Spirit in a box or print it on a bulletin.
As we see from Viola and Barna’s book, there is absolutely nothing about today’s institutional church that bears any resemblance to the early organic church. The modern church is nothing more than the tradition of men passed down through the years. If anything, it was patterned after the fourth century churches long after it had degenerated and fallen away from its early simplicity. Jesus sought to abolish the sacrifice, the temple and the special caste of priests. He was the one and final sacrifice. We are the temple (not some building/church sanctuary) and we are all a priesthood of believers. There is no caste of priest, clergy or laity. The fact that the church got so far off track from the original simplicity, it also got off track in many other areas. If we are to avoid deception in the last days, it behooves us to question everything we have been taught and accepted as truth – not to say we throw everything out, but at least take a fresh look and ask the Spirit of God to enlighten us.
It is my rather sad conclusion that during the deception of the “last days”, most Christians will not reject traditional “churchianity”. People don’t like change. They don’t suddenly turn against what is comfortable, the way it has always been done. Apostasy, or “falling away” is a gradual process much like the proverbial frog in a pot of water who doesn’t realize there is anything wrong until it is boiling! Certainly there will be some overcomers. Please see my analysis of the letters to the seven churches in Asia. The only thing that will shake Christians loose from the grip of the world and the religious system will be economic calamity forcing a half dozen families to implode into a single house, growing apostasy in the church and a softening of hearts to the voice of the Lord along with a desperation for real fellowship with other believers. Just ask yourself, if the Tribulation were beginning, would you want to go through it alone or with others? If the latter, I would suggest you start looking for them.
The Institutional Church – the Source of Deception
Deception
will be rampant in the last days, and the Bible tells us that brother will
turn against brother thinking he is doing God a favor. How could this
possibly happen? We don’t have to look very far. Any time anyone challenged
the status quo, the church followed with persecution – and not just the
Catholic Church, but Protestant as well. There is nothing more emotional than
patriotism which is often hard to separate from the church. Last November, I
was in Yakima for Veterans Day and went to a special service at the church.
God and country were hard to separate and it was obvious that God and country
were closely linked. Although people around the world may see the change in
America, we have a very hard time seeing how the rest of the world sees us.
Please see my book on line titled, “In
Search of Mystery Babylon”. There is an apostate Christian nation that
dominates the world as the consumer nation, sole superpower and friend of
Israel (a nation that will make a defense treaty with Israel). I would
encourage you to read through the website and play 20 questions. What nation
could that be? What nation fits that description? And now I ask you. What
Church or pastor would ever dare to preach this message from the pulpit? How
long would he last before the congregation asked him to leave?
Deception takes many forms. Not only are Christians deceived by not recognizing the true spiritual, organic nature of the church, they are deceived by being led to believe that they should be under the authority of the church and its hierarchy. If you don’t believe me, just see what happens when you go against it. Today, the church is divided when it comes to their view on prophecy. Part of it believes the true Christians will rapture before the tribulation, leaving the world in chaos and another growing part believes that the church should take dominion over the earth. Both views are wrong and either one will leave the Christian deceived, not understanding events happening around him. Clergy have learned certain doctrinal positions which have been passed down through the years and pass them on without question. They are the experts who “rightly divide the word of truth”, not you or me. Please see what Viola has to say about this in his practical book, Reimagining Church – Pursuing the Dream of Organic Christianity.
The church in the West is so invested in this world, jobs, homes, possessions and pleasures, that it is hard to discern the times. The Laodicean Church certainly represents the “last days” western church. Congregants want to be entertained. Pastors pander to the people. The preachers tickle the ears of the congregation, but have to be careful not to alienate or upset them or they are out of a job. In fact, they need to give the laity what they want or else. This is not to say that there aren’t some out there who declare the truth, but many of those are now unemployed or unemployable. The pastor’s job is fairly thankless anyway. People expect him to do everything and blame him if anything goes wrong. The attitude of the laity is that the clergy is to take care of their needs, help them with their problems and they are in turn paid a salary. Rather than a body where all members function and pull their weight, the modern church expects the pastor to be expositor, administrator, counselor, fund raiser, manager, teacher, etc.
The Individual Christian – Vulnerable to Deception
Christians
are vulnerable to deception, first and foremost, because their relationship
with the Lord is so hit and miss. They are like a person flailing around in
the dark and every now and then they hit the light switch. Every now and
then, they open their hearts to the Lord and get zapped by His presence. Most
Christians don’t know how to consistently fellowship with the Lord using their
human spirit. They use their soul (mind, will and emotions) rather than their
human spirit. They try and think, feel way or will their way to God. They
think they can study their way to being spiritual. They read book after book
thinking that they become better Christians by learning more. Some may ask
“what Jesus would do” as a way of making a decision rather than really
asking. And at other times preaching or singing can lead to a trance like
state that they think they are in the “spirit” because they “feel” something.
But this is soulish Christianity.
Christians may accidentally have touch with the Lord at a special meeting or a retreat of some sort. The Lord may speak during that special occasion but once they get back to the hum drum of life, that still small voice and sweet fellowship with the Lord is drowned out by the cares of life. People today are working harder than ever and have more demands on their lives than ever before. They are overwhelmed and exhausted as they slump before the easy entertainment of the TV rather than fellowship with God. It takes a lot of work to maintain a fresh relationship with the Lord.
In my many years of experience I have found that few even know they have a human spirit and how to use it to open to the Lord and fellowship with Him. Some pastors may have hit on this but they sure don’t share the secret with their congregations! Most Christians think the more they learn, the more spiritual they become so they study and listen, study and listen. They go through life absorbing sermons, teachings and Christian books, but have no real relationship with the Lord or other Christians. How could I possibly make such a statement? Isn’t that awfully judgmental? I’ve been around. I know the act. I can go through the motions of being the good Christian for weeks at a time but have nothing real going on between God and me. I’ve been around long enough and have been fortunate enough to learn the difference – not that I have attained. At least I know when my relationship with God and others is real and when it is phony. So if we don’t have a fresh relationship with the Lord, we will be deceived. It is a lot easier to just be religious and go through the motions.
The Nature of Deception
Man is deceived when he doesn’t know or doesn’t want to know the truth. This sounds simple. We are brought up to think a certain way about life, the world around us, other people, even God and religion. Most people grow up and believe what they are taught. At one time people believed the earth was flat. They were absolutely convinced because the grown ups and other experts told them so. Tomatoes were thought to be poisonous. Breaking a mirror brought seven years bad luck. You had to be good or Santa Claus wouldn’t come. The tooth fairy put money under your pillow in exchange for a tooth. Man couldn’t fly. Of course, it was impossible to go to the moon. The sun moved around the earth every day. There are thousands of things that man once believed to be absolutely true and have since discovered not to be true at all. We were deceived because we didn’t know or recognize the truth.
Our attitudes toward one another, toward classes of people (as in India) or during slavery in America or apartheid in South Africa, man held all kinds of truths to be self-evident. Palestinians are raised to hate Jews and do so with a passion. So-called Christians hated Muslims and went on crusades; they burned witches and heretics, and later Jews. Christians and non-Christians alike have been convinced they were right in killing and persecuting others. Remember the lyrics of the song from South Pacific?
You've got to be taught
To hate and fear,
You've got to be taught
From year to year,
It's got to be drummed
In your dear little ear
You've got to be carefully taught.
You've got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade,
You've got to be carefully taught.
You've got to be taught before it's too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You've got to be carefully taught!
How unfortunate, but true. We are taught by our parents, our schools, churches and society and we absorb that system of values because they are the experts, the grown ups and they know better. One day we will be the grown ups and teachers and we will know better and teach our children just what we have been taught. Our churches are no different. The pastors have attended Bible School and Seminary and teachings the teachers were taught are passed on down, and then the professional clergy passes the same teachings on to the laity who pretty much accept what they are taught by the experts. And even more so because of the spiritual authority they carry as representatives of God on the earth or at the very least or their full time job is to stay up on religious teaching.
I’m not saying that it is all bad – but that
is the way it is. We get life as a package deal. We realize some things –
that there is no Santa Clause or tooth fairy, but things like God and what He
has to say about us, remain mysterious. Now there comes a time in every
person’s life when they realize they are pretty rotten and that even when they
want to be good, they can’t. There is something in them that likes to cheat,
lie and covet (if not steal) at the very least. We try and satisfy our soul’s
cravings with things, food, sex, money, entertainment – whatever until one day
we are given an alternative. We are trying to fill our lives with so many
things when we were made to contain the life of God. We were made to have a
relationship with God, to be filled with His life and through Jesus Christ.
He forgives our sins, clean us up and comes into our human spirit and begins a
life long process of transformation. The day we were “born again” by His
Spirit coming into us, something changed. The lights went on. We saw the
darkness we walked in, the attitudes we held, the things we did for the first
time
from a different light. We acquire a new inward strength, a new life inside
guiding and directing us, changing our attitudes and actions.
For those new to all this or who never experienced it, believe me, it is awesome. But it doesn’t happen over night. It is a transforming process that takes place over a life time and at any point in time, a Christian can stop the process and fall back into his old ways. If he loses touch with the “life source” – that relationship with Jesus and starts to act like he thinks a Christian ought to act, what do you have? AN ACTOR! A HYPOCRITE! But if you want to see what a changed life is all about, read some of the letters of the apostle Paul. Here was a Jewish leader, a Pharisee of the Pharisees who was running around killing Christians. One day going down the road to Damascus, he was struck blind and met Jesus. “Then Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord… As he journeyed he came near Damascus, and suddenly a light shone around him from heaven. Then he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” And he said, “Who are You, Lord?” Then the Lord said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goads.” So he, trembling and astonished, said, “Lord, what do You want me to do?” Then the Lord said to him, “Arise and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.” (Acts 9:1, 3-6) If you read the rest of the Book of Acts and Paul’s letters to the churches, you will see a changed man. He had gone from one who was so deceived he persecuted the church to the one who did more than any other to pour his life out for it.
Paul knew the battle that goes on inside from the experience in Romans 7 of being a Christian still trapped in the old sinful nature, to one freed by the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus in chapter 8, to one fighting being conformed to the world and being transformed by the renewing of the mind (Romans 12). Only this process of transformation will protect us from the conformity of the world. Only learning to walk in the Spirit will free us from walking in the flesh (Galatians 3). For those of you who don’t have a “Christian” background, I’m going to tell you a little secret. A real Christian has a war going on inside. He always has the capacity to act like the worst sinner in the world if he lives by his own nature, or as a saint if he lives by the Spirit. His attitudes and actions, though not perfect as long as he is alive, will reflect the growing inward life and relationship he has with Jesus Christ.
What I have just described in a few paragraphs is what should be the normal Christian life which is characterized by stumbles and falls, and of a human being that has discovered a relationship with God, who confesses his weakness and failures and who day by day endeavors to live in the Spirit rather than the flesh, who tries his best not to act like a Christian but to maintain that relationship with God that gradually transforms his life. So what does this have to do with deception? A Christian has a clear choice. He can live in the flesh or in the spirit. He can try and act like he and others think a Christian should or he will live in the Spirit. There is a huge difference and any honest born again Christian will admit it. They may go through the motions of acting as they think a Christian should act and have no real relationship with the Lord! Working on that relationship every day is job one for a Christian. Everything should flow out of that relationship, including a normal church life with other Christians in the same process.
“But
we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of
the power may be of God and not of us”. (2
Corinthians 4:7) We are made of dirt, but there is a treasure
inside. It is time spent in His presence that transforms us. “But we all,
with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being
transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of
the Lord.” (2
Corinthians 3:18) We are imperfect but we are in the process of
being transformed as in Romans 12:2 where Paul exhorts us to “not be
conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
This world has never been more powerful. Once we had a few books, then radio, then TV, then Sirius radio and satellite TV, then Blackberries, I-pods, I-phones, the internet and more stimuli in one day than the average man got in a year! The world is full of things – things you are told you must have, you must work harder for. You will be happy if you have a bigger car, a bigger house, more speakers on your stereo, a faster computer, a slimmer more toned body, etc. There are more things to do, more places to go, more distractions, harder work, soccer games, swim meets….than we possibly have time for! The media screams at you all day long. It presents candidates for President and discusses their different positions ad nausea. Your church teaches you week after week. You go on retreats. You go to home fellowships. You tend to take on the beliefs of those you spend time with. So what is my point?
Very simply. If the spirit of this world is overwhelming you; if you are play acting as a Christian rather than maintaining a fresh daily relationship with the Lord, you will be deceived. “No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” (Luke 16:13) God only knows, but after having been walking in “Christian” circles for over 50 years, I would guess that many “Christians” are play acting. I know there were times in my life when I deserved at least a best actor Emmy. It isn’t easy to maintain a fresh daily relationship with the Lord.
We have no idea how much of what we do and think has been programmed in us and is no more true than a man in the moon. Satan’s goal is to deceive us and he has a lot of means at his disposal. But beyond that, because we have never questioned, there are a lot of “truths” we accept just because we have been raised with them. My job and yours is to question these things, including the things we have been taught as Christians. Are they really true? Or are we just passing things on? One thing I will mention several times through here but want to emphasize is this. When it comes to prophecy, a lot of well-meaning Christians have tried their best to make sense of prophecy but that was always within their own historical context. The prophet Daniel had a lot of questions and in Daniel 12:8-9 he asked, “My Lord, what shall be the end of these things? And he said, “Go your way, Daniel, for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end.” The reason for so much confusion is that we have been trying to make sense of it but prophecy was sealed and concealed until the end or until (as we say in the intelligence community) we had a “need to know.” I would submit to you that much of what you have been taught about prophecy is wrong for this very reason. The result is that the study of last days prophecy has been discredited by many because it just doesn’t make sense the way it is taught. It doesn’t add up.
This also points out part of the deception. I’m not saying that it is part of some huge Christian conspiracy. But there is a conspiracy to deceive and Satan is using the fact that assumptions were made decades and even hundreds of years ago which have been incorporated into Christian thought. Once a teaching or practice becomes entrenched there is a tremendous amount of inertia which seeks to defend and perpetuate it. Unfortunately, flexibility is not a common human trait. Rather, our tendency is to hunker down and defend what is commonly taught rather than to take a fresh look at Scripture and let the Holy Spirit illuminate it for this generation. As I have said before, I have been at this internet ministry for 12 years and I have never had someone write and say, “Gee thanks, you changed my mind completely.” Rather they all say, “Thank you so much for confirming and putting into words what the Lord had begun to already show me.”
It took revelation to see our need and become Christians. It takes fresh revelation every day to walk with the Lord. It takes revelation to have the prophetic scriptures revealed. We don’t claim to have a corner on the truth. We work with other ministries and find that the revelation is given to many who are seeing similar things. We urge you to go to the Lord and let Him guide you through the process of discovery and the unveiling of the mysteries.
It also takes revelation to see that the church is the sum of all the parts – all the people who are “born again”, who experience the Lord every day and then come together to celebrate and share that experience with one another.
God’s Ultimate Intention
Some
years ago a friend, DeVern Fromke, wrote a book titled “Ultimate
Intention”. Very few people, Christians included don’t have a clue as to
why they are here. Some think it is to preach the good news of Jesus, and
certainly that is a part of it. Others think it is to grow and become like
Jesus, and certainly that transformation is part of it. But God’s ultimate
intention is not that you or I should be some kind of spiritual giants but
that we should be bricks in a living building. The whole book of Ephesians
follows this theme. God is looking for a corporate expression. Here is just
one passage:
“For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” (Ephesians 3:14-21)
We use the following verses to describe marriage, but really God is trying to explain the kind of relationship He wants with us corporately.
“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless... This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.” (Ephesians 5:25-27, 32)
At the end of Revelation, we see the church, the New Jerusalem, the Bride descending
“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.”(Revelation 21:1-3)
If I had time, I could go from the beginning of the Bible to the end and show how this theme runs through the whole Old and New Testament. God wants a people, a corporate expression, a bride, a companion, a dwelling place in man, an expression to the world of His love and handiwork. We are talking about a living people – not a “sanctuary”, a “house of worship” or a church with a steeple. The idea of a “temple” is Old Testament. Today, we are the temple, the dwelling place of God! It is in our human religious nature to think of a church building as “God’s house.” It is our religious nature to want a priest – someone else to take care of spiritual matters for us.
The early church didn’t know much but they knew Jesus was real and they knew they were born again with other brothers and sisters and they had a simple relationship with the Lord and one another. As Barna and Viola point out in “Pagan Christianity,” it wasn’t long before the church was corrupted – by the end of the first century! And it went downhill from there! In Jesus, the sacrifice, the priesthood and the temple were all abolished. Jesus was the final sacrifice that brought us back into a relationship with God, establishing every single believer as a priest and the temple (the dwelling place of God). That is what a Christian is – a person who was dead inside with an inactive spirit unable to have any relationship with God but when He is born again, his human spirit is now indwelt by God. It is made alive and each person has access to God. But just as the children of Israel constantly rebelled against God and began to follow the other nations and their gods and way of doing things, Christians abandoned the simplicity and began to add all of the trappings of religion – again the process is brilliantly described by Barna and Viola from a historic point of view.
What Should We Do?
I would humbly submit that the great majority of Christians today will be deceived in the last days because they have never learned to have a normal healthy relationship with Jesus, and they have a stultified and formal relationship with other Christians within the context of a hierarchal church dominated by the professional class we know of as clergy. And not to judge or attribute evil intentions to anyone including the dedicated clergy, the religious system will do what it has done down through the ages. It will oppose true Christians who seek to be free of the system. Over the years we have heard from hundreds of people telling their stories of how they were black balled and ostracized by churches and Christians they thought were friends. This is the pathology.
The
institution should be abandoned, but will fight for its life and demonize any
who try and leave it. Those who buck the system are labeled as rebellious,
unwilling to be under authority, to be accountable, heretical and worse. I
really want to be careful here so you don’t misunderstand. I fully recognize
that there are wonderful brothers and sisters within the institution we know
of as the “C”hurch, both laity and clergy, who are sincerely following the
Lord as best they can. I am not saying that all will be deceived or that God
can’t enlighten them. We all, including me, “work out our own salvation with
fear and trembling.” We are all susceptible to deception at any time as well
as the greatest deception that has ever been coming in the last days. I am as
weak and vulnerable as anyone. I don’t set myself up as being anything. But
I do feel compelled as I am warned to warn others that we are all at peril if
we stay in a corrupt, dead system. We need to look beyond any system or
organization and see our brothers and sisters in Christ as precious gifts
which need to be set free so we can build one another up in love.
We must have a vital, living relationship with our Lord and one another. We need each other. The “church” will throw the verse at you in Hebrews 10:25 “that we not forsake the assembling of ourselves together and so much more as we see the day approaching.” But the question is, what kind of assembly? Sitting in a pew listening to a one man show, and being entertained or gathering with other saints in a loving organic community to share and build one another up. As the writer of Hebrews said, “Let us go forth to Him, outside the camp, bearing His reproach.” (Hebrews 13:13)
I originally titled this chapter “The Church – the Heart of Darkness” because I truly believe that the church is the greatest source of deception, lulling Christians into a feeling that they are okay. They think their spiritual lives are being taken care of by those who watch over them and they have nothing to worry about. Not only is this keeping them from developing the kind of relationship with the Lord and other Christians that they should have, but it is putting many in harms way as they listen to lukewarm teaching that lulls them into a false sense of well being and deadens their prophetic senses. The institutional church is the greatest impediment to the growth of the saints, to their ability to get their own fresh living Word from the Bible, to the establishing of their own gifts and ministry and the building up of the saints as a glorious corporate expression to the world.
If you see how far the church has strayed from God’s ultimate intention, how corrupt and worldly it has become, how there is such an internal conflict that it can’t really stand for the truth any more, you will see a church that is falling away. That institution many hold to is not really the church. The people in it are but pawns in a worldly corporate system that has no resemblance to the church envisioned by Jesus. If you want specifics as to what to do, I would urge you to order and read the books by George Barna and Frank Viola mentioned at the very beginning. I know you have many questions as to what to do, but there are answers. We may see prophecy as clearly as can be, have the chronology of events down pat, but the point of “the tribulation network” is that God still wants a glorious triumphant testimony in the face of the worst tribulation the world has ever seen. And that will only happen if we rediscover the true meaning of and the simplicity of church – a body of believers who simply share the life and love of Jesus with a frightened world.
Dene McGriff, Sacramento
August 2008