22 Dec WORD War III (Never live in a gray world when you have a black and white Bible!) Part 1

What a unique time we live in!  In my almost 59 years of living and in 36 years of ministry, I have never seen anything like it!  I am watching people, pastors, churches and entire denominations walking away from the Word of the living God!  This should not, however, surprise us.

It certainly appears that we are at the beginning of the last of the last days.  If I am wrong about this possibly being the last generation, I am certainly right in saying this is your last generation!  All of us only have one life to live… this is not a dress rehearsal!  I don’t say this to scare you, I say this to prepare you.  Live like He is coming back today, plan like He’s not coming back for 50 years.  

As we are navigating these challenging times, the Bible tells us clearly the number one sign of Jesus’ return.  Now you may be thinking earthquakes or pestilence or famine.  While these are clearly Biblical signs of the last times (see Matthew 24:3-8), the primary sign associated with the period of time preceding the Rapture of the Church is deception (see Matthew 24:3-4, II Timothy 3:13, II Thess. 2:3).  

The Bible tells us in I Timothy 4:1, “Now the Spirit speaks expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils.”  In this powerful verse the Greek word translated “expressly” means “clearly or vividly.”  The Greek word translated “last” is “hystemos” which means “last of the last.”  The Greek word for “depart” is “aphistemi” which means “to step away from, to resist, to desert or withdraw.  The Greek word for “seducing” is “planos” which means to “slowly wander away.”

If you’ll give me a little liberty, this verse could easily be paraphrased from the Greek language like this:  ‘The Spirit speaks clearly or vividly in the last of the last days, that some should step away from and desert the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits (which will tempt people to slowly walk away from the Word) and doctrines of devils.’  In other words, deception will be a huge weapon of the enemy to get some to slowly walk away from the Word of God!

Here is the good news…YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE A ‘SOME’!  

As you can see, the war in the last days is over the Word of the Living God! 

Join us for the next few weeks as we continue in this series…