The Judgment of Deception

By Mike Ratliff

I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. (2 Timothy 4:1-5 ESV)

Idolatry, as I have been teaching you for these last many years, always produces spiritual blindness. It also brings God’s judgment. As we see in Romans 1:26, God “gave over,” or παρέδωκεν the unrighteous to the their own lusts as an act of judgment. Carefully read the passage I placed at the top of this post from 2 Timothy. This accumulating for themselves of teachers to suit their own passions by ose who will not endure sound teaching, but have itching ears is the very same thing. God has given them over to their false gods, to their idols. Their deception is willing. Think of all those people lining up to to become incarnational, missional servants in the big push of dominionism by these false prophets with their false gospel of works righteousness which preys upon the post modern’s inability to think critically about anything.

There are some who still want to go back to “church as we used to know it” as it was 50 years ago or so, but we can forget that. This downgrade has been going on for a lot longer than that. What is known as Evangelicalism has becoming more and more apostate until it is just a relic of what it once stood for. When I first started this ministry my goal was revival and recovery of the Gospel and I think both are still worthy goals, but God has allowed things to go a different way.

A friend sent me an email this morning to encourage me. In it she shared how she read Jeremiah 24 and God’s analogy of the two baskets of figs. One basket held good figs while the other held bad figs that could not be eaten. The good figs represented those Jews who went into exile in Babylon. They were told to settle there and live quiet godly lives while God’s judgment would fall on those who remained in Judah which represented the bad figs. In any case, she believed, and I agree with her, that those of us who have been rooted out of our churches by the apostasy and are now able to see the evil that is happening in the visible Church all around us are the good figs. We are to simply be good Christians and obey the Lord where He has us. His judgment has already begun in the spiritual blindness and apostasy against the bad figs, but the final judgment is coming.

Another friend sent me the link to the video below. I recommend you watch it to completion my brethren for Paul Washer does indeed explain very well here what I have been attempting to say to you through these last several posts about deception.

If you are still in a good biblical church that has not apostatized then praise God! However, if you are reading this and you know things are just not right there then you must take it to God, seek His face and obey Him and what He wants you to do. I can tell you that it is never His will for you to sit at the feet of false teachers my brethren. Those who tell you different have been deceived and are part of the problem.

(HT: Possessing the Treasure)