Our Upside-down Reality
For the past few years we have been locked in a relentless trend where the world’s contact with reality has been continuously melting away. As we keep hitting milestone after milestone of craziness, there is no way to know how deep this world will descend into insanity.
Whenever I think the madness has leveled off, we get another event that reminds me that we are still hopelessly adrift. The terrorist attack in New York proves this point. It was “Oh no, not again” when the news flashed that several people had been killed by a guy driving a truck down a bike path screaming “Allahu Akbar.”
The madman in question turned out to be Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov, a recent immigrant from Uzbekistan. He rented a small truck from a New Jersey Home Depot because he suddenly felt inspired to murder people. This idiot ended his rampage with him dancing around in the street, waving fake guns, so he could be gunned down and be sent off to his 42 virgins.
A few hours after the attack, New York Mayor de Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo came before the cameras and offered the standard remarks for all Islamic terrorist attacks. These two clowns said this was a “lone wolf” who committed a “cowardly act of terror,” but don’t worry because “we’re not going to let them win.” We just need to “go forward stronger than ever.”
The crazy part is that I lost track of how many times I’ve heard these talking-point statements. After each terror attack, there is always some liberal reporter who adds a new twisted observation to the insanity archive. In this case it was CNN’s Jake Tapper. He said that the Islamic phrase “Allahu Akbar” can be said “under the most beautiful of circumstances.” It must be very beautiful to look behind you and see a guy yelling it as he is driving a truck in your direction.
Another bit of lunacy is how Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov got into America. This monster entered the US through the Diversity Visa Program. It’s a lottery that basically encourages people who hate America to come to our shores. The Democrats decided that we need people from every nation to come and join America’s diverse melting pot. People living in I-hate-America-Stan are given free passage to come here and kill as they please.
The problem that the US has with recognizing Islamic terror is nothing compared to what is occurring in Europe. If you read Europol’s last ten EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Reports (TE-SAT), you will find, year after year, that terrorism in Europe has been in sharp decline. Since the year 2007, terrorist events are down 75%. In 2007 there were nearly 600 terror attacks. By 2016 that number had dropped to 150 terror attacks.
The folks at Europol (European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation) are obviously on drugs. In the last two years, there were 150 and 140 people killed by Islamic terrorism. As late as 2011, there were zero reported deaths from terrorism in Europe. The increase in the number of dead from terror attacks in 2015-2016 compared to the period from 2007-2014 is a staggering 2,291%.
The cover-up of terrorism is the result of a change in the EU’s definition of the word. For an incident to qualify as terrorism, there now needs to be the intent of “unduly compelling a government or international organization to perform or abstain from performing an act.” Someone blowing himself up to kill others at a concert or driving over people for no logical reason simply doesn’t count.
The blindness to reality is not just with terrorism. In Mexico, drug-related murders are out of control. Last year there were more than 20,000 killings. This year is on track to be worse, exceeding the 2011 record, which was thought to be the drug war’s apex. The vast majority of those drugs come to America, and our media gives zero news coverage of the carnage.
As I’ve stated before, the only logical explanation for why the people of the world show little resistance to this invasion of evil is that we are clearly witnessing a form of end-time madness. The world has become so evil that demonic forces are able to control the minds of the lost. The level of insanity is now so profound, it should be absolutely clear to all believers that the end of the Church Age is very near.
“The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Corinthians 4:4).
— Todd
Departure Near
Author’s note: Because I’m convicted that we are so near the time when Jesus will say “Come up hither,” I wanted to again present an article, somewhat revised, from my past commentaries. It is vital that the Church (all born again believers) be aware of the nearness of our Departure.
The Scripture is haunting. It echoes and reverberates throughout the spiritual hallways of the Church with each passing hour.
“Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils” (1 Tim. 4:1).
This forewarning fits into the last-days pattern, also given by the Apostle Paul, in the familiar prophetic passage: “Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of Perdition…” (2 Thes. 2:3).
The “falling away,” apostasia in Greek, means a “departure from.” Paul prophesied in the 2 Timothy 4:1 passage that there will come a time at the end of the Church Age when people will depart from the “faith.” He foretells in 2 Thessalonians that this will be a general “falling away,” the apostasy of the endtime. What is this “faith” from which people will fall away, and who are the “people” who will fall away? Another crucial question is: Can the departure that God, through Paul, forewarned about be recognized when it occurs?
“Faith,” as here defined, must, by context, be the faith in the One who is at the heart of the Gospel–faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God, chosen from the foundation of the world to be the propitiation for the sin that separates fallen man from God. It is the faith you and I must have in order to confess with our mouths that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God, and to believe in the deepest part of our spirits that God raised Him from the dead.
“That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved” (Rom. 10:9).
A person can’t fall from a position (doctrinally speaking in this case) he never has attained. The “people,” then, whom Paul the apostle is writing about in his prophecies of 1 Timothy 4:1 and 2 Thessalonians 2:3 are those who have believed in Jesus Christ for salvation of their souls.
This brings us to the question: Can the departure God, through Paul, forewarned about be recognized when it occurs? To recognize that “falling away”–that apostasia, or apostasy— when it begins to happen, will almost certainly give the Christian attuned to God’s will a heads-up on the nearness of the Tribulation era, thus to the nearness of the rapture of the Church.
We have looked at the “faith” as faith in Jesus for salvation, and at the “people”who will “depart” from the faith as being the Church–that is, the true Christians who are alive at the time of the end, when the apostasy takes place.
Although there are those who think this departure includes the possibility of one losing one’s salvation, the “falling away” of 2 Thessalonians 2:3 cannot include that meaning. A quick look at Romans 8:38 and 39, to name just one security-of-the-believer passage, shows that God’s Word teaches that the believer can’t depart from the Heavenly Father to the point of losing his or her family status. Jesus, in John chapter 17, makes that absolutely clear. I suggest that if you have questions about this, read the Scriptures I just mentioned.
What, then, is meant by “departing from the “faith”? Glad you asked. The “faith” mentioned in 2 Thessalonians and 1 Timothy 2:3 is a collection of faith principles wrapped up in the Lord Jesus Christ. These principles are doctrines put forth by the Word of God. The Word of God is none other than the Lord Jesus: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1).
“People” at the time of the “falling away” will “depart” from the “faith” –the doctrines put forth by the Word of God, who is Jesus Christ. This departure will mark the generation of Christians at the very end of the Church Age.
The question that applies most relevantly to us today is: Are we seeing signals of the departure about which Paul forewarned?
We have analyzed, dissected, examined, and inspected every endtime signal found in God’s Word many times in these raptureready.com webpages: Israel again in the land of promise; the EU looking to be the reviving Roman Empire; Russia, Persia (modern Iran) and other nations looking to be a nucleus that will one day form the Gog-Magog force of Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39. These, plus, all of the other endtime characteristics of this generation.
However, I believe the most insidious of all the things taking place under the clever, devious hand of the devil –Satan—is the falling away, the departure from the faith being currently orchestrated by Lucifer, the fallen one This departure is evident to the spiritually discerning when looking at the church growth movement. This “seeker friendly” approach to both the saved and the lost (all who don’t know Christ) through New Age, corporation-type seminar seductiveness and brainwashing techniques that water down or completely eliminate true Bible doctrine is leading in a profound departure from the “faith once delivered” (see Jude 1: 3).
The new paradigm instituted by the champions of the church growth movement is the shift from New Testament Christianity to “New Spirituality-Driven Christianity.”
Like in the modern corporate organization, invented in large part by German economic guru Peter Drucker, who mentored some of the leading designers of the church growth movement, the system is more an organism than an organization –adopting Drucker’s model based upon Freudian psychology and Darwinian evolutionary principles. The individual is assigned a value, and he must fit in, or be removed from the system. To put it as I heard one person of the movement say: “Pillars just hold things up. So, they need to be moved out of the way.” So, those who hold to doctrine must get out of the way so no one will have their feelings hurt by talk of sin, and blood atonement, and eternal punishment in the place called Hell, if repentance is not forthcoming. Again, the Apostle Paul wrote God’s view of this watering down of doctrine: “But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed” (Gal. 1:8).
Are we at the point of departure from the faith that is prophesied for the very end of the Church Age? Maybe we can get a better sense by looking at one more area of Scripture pertaining to the matter: “I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables” (2 Tim. 4:1-4).
There is another prophetically scheduled departure to consider. It’s the one to which we should be looking forward. It is a God-ordained departure that will remove every child of God of the Church Age –living and dead—from Planet Earth in one millisecond of time:
“Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ” (Tit. 2:13).
–Terry