The Mystery of Iniquity
Unleashing the power of IMAGINATION AND VISUALIZATION
FOR MATERIALIZATION using:
POSITIVE THINKING / CONFESSION:
… The Mystery of Iniquity!
Conceive it + Confess it + Claim it = ?
FOR MATERIALIZATION using:
POSITIVE THINKING / CONFESSION:
… The Mystery of Iniquity!
Conceive it + Confess it + Claim it = ?
The Falling Away!
“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...” (2Thes. 2:3).
The above verse is an unmistaken characteristic of the end time that we are presently in: the ‘falling away first’ of those who are already ‘standing’ in the faith; as it takes someone who stands to fall, for he that is down needs fear no fall.
Many times we erroneously think that the falling away will be among the ‘unserious’ Christians. But that is not true. The Bible is talking about those who are not just Christians, but disciples. The Born Again, Spirit-filled believer. The book of Hebrews 6:4-6 describes them further as those who have once
those who are ‘hot’ for the Lord. But the Bible says at the last days many of these shall fall away!
What will make people like this to fall away? The devil will front put up a spirited fight of frustration against the saints to the extent of despair. Men’s heart will fail them for fear (Lk. 21:26). Satan will fight the saints vehemently with all his arsenals and might; to force (influence, manipulate) them to give up their faith (Rev.12:17).Young Christians will have very slim chances of continuing in the faith that they know little about because the message have both been diluted and polluted 1Pet.4:18.
Daniel saw by revelation in the book of Daniel 7:21: “I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them”. Because of frustration, many ministers’ anointing will turn to annoyance. Satan will make the heart of many sick by hope deferred (Prov. 13:12). He will pour so much iniquity into the earth to the extent that sin will be so common, rampant and familiar. It will no longer be taken with such seriousness as it was, just as we see that the topic is becoming scarce on our altars today, unlike prosperity and the likes.
Satan will crown it all in the last days by raising and ‘anointing’ his own ministers as ‘angels of light’ (2Cor.11:14), to bring to pass the prophecy of the falling away of the end time saints. He will deceive with such a powerful sway that it will take the grace of God alone not to be deceived by his subtle antics.
One of his tools is to make ministers of God pervert the real gospel by preaching liberal messages: message of facts, wisdom, possibility and rituals. Faith in God will be replaced by faith in objects like the anointing oil, mantle, man of God, etc (idol worshipping). They will arrest the souls of many with a spell-bound, calculating and captivating display of psychology and philosophy. He will put logical, sensible words, quotable quotes, rhymes, rhetorics, grammar, etc, in their mouth and bless them with crowd, fame, money, etc., so much that those genuinely called by God would doubt their own calling. He will send politicians, entertainers and magicians to the pulpit decorated with multiple titles.
Peter warned ahead in 2Pet. 2:1: “… there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And MANY shall follow their pernicious (very harmful and destructive) ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. And through covetousness (that is their real motive) shall they with FEIGNED WORDS (fables, words that carries no spiritual weight, lies, philosophy, entertaining words, etc) make merchandise (financial gain) of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not”. Lamentably, MANY shall follow them.
Jesus Himself said: “they will perform GREAT signs and wonders so that, IF IT WERE POSSIBLE, they would deceive the VERY elect” (Mat. 24:24). Nobody is interested in a church where the undiluted Word of God is being preached any longer, but the church where entertainment and miracles, healing, prosperity, signs and wonders happen. Remember, “in the latter times some shall depart from THE FAITH’. How? by ‘giving heed to SEDUCING SPIRITS AND DOCTRINES OF DEVILS”. Through ‘the cares of the world and deceitfulness of riches and the lust of other things’ (Mk. 4:19).
They will ‘give heed’ to seducing spirit. The word ‘heed’ means pay attention, attend to, regard, observe, entertain. The Bible call such messages ‘doctrines of devils’ although many call it ‘anointed messages’ because of miracles, healing, breakthroughs, etc. Their means of preaching the message is through seducing spirits: ‘enticing words (sweet, logical words) of man’s wisdom’. Paul earlier calls it ‘excellency of speech or of wisdom’. It’s too factual and too perfect that you can’t fault it! It is based on research and findings of human knowledge that is foolishness to God. Arranging words in sequential order to captivate the tender but unguarded souls of the innocents. You are already warned ‘that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God’ (1Cor. 2:5). Hebrews warned that we should ‘exhort one another daily, while it is called today; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin (Heb. 3:13).
Such messages are carefully wrapped, presented, delivered and consumed by those who have been seduced such doctrines preached by those Jesus calls ‘workers of iniquity’ and deny ever knowing them! (Mat.7:23).
Iniquity Defined.
Why would Jesus call them workers of iniquity when they call themselves workers of miracles? What is that iniquity? Perhaps they are not even aware of what Jesus refers to as iniquity. The Greek word for iniquity is ‘anomia’ which means illegality, violation of the law, unrighteousness. The Oxford Dictionary defines it as wickedness and gross injustice. It is a great sin with God: the very sin that made Satan fell from heaven: ‘thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, TILL INIQUITY WAS FOUND IN THEE.” (Eze.28:14-15. Emphasis mine). Satan will use it to bring unwatchful saints to their knees.
Saul was appointed by God over the nation Israel and he was in God’s good book until iniquity was found in him: he usurped the place of Samuel the prophet! It is when comfort comes that we attempt to go beyond our boundary. We suddenly think ‘I can do it’. What was the result of Saul’s affront to God? He was instantly rejected by God and replaced with his neighbour!
At the last days, the Bible says in Mt. 24:12 that ‘iniquity shall abound’. That is, it shall be so rampant, common and cheap. True to the prophecy, it is so common today that even the church is preaching it, unknowingly.
Iniquity, at first glance, does not look like sin because it is wrapped in the beauty of ambition and aspiration. Our churches today preach ambitious messages of imaginations, aspirations and possibilities. It is sad that the church today has not only gone metaphysical, but ritualistic! There is nothing that the New Agers do that the church is not doing. Pastors are no longer asking people to have faith in God but faith in themselves; using the innate power to get what they want by imagination and release of mental force into the cosmic. They have been deceived that their destiny is in their own hands not in the hand of Him that paid with His own blood and bought them with a price (1Cor. 6:20). Faith Confession has given way to Positive Confession. They have been erroneously informed that they are the same when they are as far apart as the earth is to the heavens. Their faith is no longer in Christ but in the objects and elements (Gal. 4:90).
The power of imagination belongs to Satan and that is the iniquity that made him to be thrown out of heaven. He imagined, confessed and desired! Today, they call it Positive Confession. There is nothing like Positive Confession in Christianity, even as recent as few decades ago until big title holders begin to explore quicker ways to get personal benefits like prosperity other than waiting on God, unknown to them, they are delving into pure metaphysics! Achieving the things of the spirit through the power of the soul! There are abundant books by so called Christian authors, teaching innocent people on how to use the soul power to get what they want (‘just anything you desire’) without necessarily depending on God! Amazingly, it works! Does that make it of God?
Why do you think God sent Satan out of heaven? Why do you think God sent Adam and Eve out of Eden? Why do you think God scattered the people of Babel? It is the same sin, the sin of iniquity, ambition, positive confession. Hidden beneath it is the mystery of iniquity. To Adam and Eve, God said, ‘behold, the man has become as one of us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he should put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore, the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden (Genesis 3:22-23). Look at the result: he has become ‘one of us’. Is that not what Satan told them: ‘You shall not surely die’, ‘you will become like God knowing good and evil’, ‘your eyes will be opened’. God had to send them out of Eden so that they would not eat from the tree of life. If they did, they would ‘live forever’ in their fallen state! Imagine that! To prevent that, God sent them out.
Nimrod also gathered people together and psyched them with the possibility message of building a tower that reaches up to God. God had to come down personally and confused them and dispersed them, saying: ‘Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have IMAGINED to do. Come, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the LORD scattered them abroad…’ (Gen.11:6-8).
Notice what they used: the power of imagination! They imagined! Satan also imagined himself as God and God sent him away from heaven. He sent Adam and Eve away from Eden. He scattered the peoples of Babel. The offense is the same: the power of positive thinking: they all want to be a god. ‘I can do it’. We have the means! We have the power, etc.!
Saul and all others who could do it were rejected by God. The power of imagination is the tool of Satan. The church is teaching it: ‘conceive it in your brain, imagine it in your heart, desire it in your mind, confess it in your mouth and bum… you get it’. Right? Wrong!
Innocent people are taught to ‘confess’ it many times so that it can get to their subconscious. ‘Say it, dream it, confess it, believe it, talk it, see it with your inner eyes, etc’. Imagine the type of husband you want to marry, see yourself driving in that type of car you desire. Get the mental picture of the baby in your womb, etc. Friends, don’t be deceived; it’s all demonic. God is not there! It is a New Age practice, foreign to the early church, only smuggled into Christianity by kingdom touts and religious charlatans. No wonder Jesus would say to them: ‘I NEVER knew you, you workers of iniquity’. That is the iniquity; a false god of self. ‘You belong to your father, the devil’, Jesus said; He worked iniquity from the beginning. He aspired to be like God with his five ‘I will’s.
God is a God of order and He will not lower His standard because of man’s ignorance! Iniquity is trusting in yourself, your vision, more than God. Jesus said ‘without me, ye can do nothing’. But these preach that you can do all things not necessarily through Christ but through the power in you. That is the difference! It is through the anointing oil, through the man of God! Worshiping the gift and the means instead of the giver. ‘Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? Rom 6:16 They are servants to oil, mantle, incantations, and other concussion being prepared by the ‘man of God’.
This spirit alone would account for the largest percentage of those who fall as the Bible has said that the day shall not come except there be falling away first of the saints who are misled by these workers of iniquity who preach doctrine of demons with a seducing spirit of excellency of speech and wisdom of men. The man of sin will be revealed through this message. He will preach Christ in apostasy and champion positive thinking. He will talk with oratory finesse. He will tell people to look inward and use the power within. He will warm himself to the heart of the people by helping them to invoke the innate, mental power in them to get result.
Satan was having little successes launching the positive confession strictly through the New Age Movements. Then, real Christians never believed in Positive Confession (self), but faith confession (Christ). Faith confession is confessing what Christ and the word says you are. Positive confession is confessing what YOU want to be. It is you doing it not Him doing it in you. You are in control.
But now, Satan knows that he has but a short time and so he is introducing it to the church using the so called ‘men of God’ to get to people’s mind. He knows they will believe them because of their titles.
Iniquity is violation and usurpation of the authority. Doing it our way, contrary to the laid down rule. Thinking that we can do it without God. All we need is a correct heart and attitude. All we need is positive confession. All we need is to visualize it and see it from our spirit and confess it out and we get it. This is what Satan did and he was thrown out of heaven, despite his ambition. Eve got death, despite her confession. Saul was rejected, despite his intention. Aren’t many fire brand ministers of God preaching sense and logic today instead of the ‘foolishness’ of the cross? ‘For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error. While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage’ 2Pet. 2:18-19. Their words is great and swelling but it is vanity. Although they promise them liberty, but they themselves are servants of corruption.
Although sinless, Adam innocently disobeyed God for the first time by simply listening to the harmless message of lawlessness; a strong, persuasive and logical message that appeals to the soul. Such message elevates and magnifies the facts but hides the truth, the consequence. Remember it’s the ‘tree of the knowledge of good and evil’. It’s ‘good and evil’ because Satan will never call his product evil for he know no one will patronize him and because he cannot speak the truth (he is the father of lies) he calls it the ‘tree of the knowledge of good and evil’. The good there is only the wrapper, which is uselessly beautiful, but the product is actually evil to the core. When Eve saw the package, she said it ‘was good for good, pleasant to the eyes, a tree to be desired to make one wise’.
That is the characteristic of the message of iniquity and that is why the Bible says ‘the love of many will wax cold’ towards Jesus and shall burn towards iniquity. Many will be lured into this harmless, practical, but strange gospel because of its attraction but it will eventually destroy their faith. Our churches are filled to capacity simply because of this message; it is preaching what the people want to hear. We call it church growth but growth towards what?
This type of strange gospel is becoming more popular. In fact, many Pastors are shifting grounds to align with it, knowing that it is the guarantee for continued membership by the congregation; otherwise, they will lose them to the other church who preaches it. I have noticed with utter disappointment many orthodox churches, although known not to posses as much fire as the Pentecostal, but still manage to preach Christ, albeit, in the ‘letter’ (2Cor. 3:6). But in the realization of losing their members to the Pentecostal, especially the youths, now also changing gear and towing the footsteps of lawlessness to maintain their membership, as this is the yardstick to measuring the ‘anointed men of God’ and prosperous churches.
Message of iniquity subtly ensures that dependence on God is sacrificed on the altar of self esteem and appraisal. Bye and bye, passion for salvation (the love for God) will wax cold until it diminishes and fizzles out completely to give way to passion for prosperity, healing, miracles, breakthrough, etc. The Gospel is a life of total dependence and abiding IN Christ, not in things as prosperity, healing, miracles, etc, which Jesus said ‘for after all these things do the gentiles (they that do not know God) seek: for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things’ (Mt. 6:32).
Jesus said: ‘Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. These can bear fruits of their own without abiding in the vine. They bear any type of fruits they like or desire or imagine. Their mango branch can decide to bear a carrot fruit … ‘without me ye can do nothing’ (John 15: 4-5). He said ‘if anyone does not abide in me he is cast off’. These have been cast off, but because their time of withering, gathering and throwing into fire has not arrived, (vs. 6) they think they are still part of the vine.
Jesus did not ask us to go out and gather crowd, but to go out and make disciples out of the crowd. (Mat.28:19). True message of salvation is not always for crowd. Crowd do not become disciples just like goats can never be sheep. Not all that throngs Him touches Him. The only thing that brings crowd together is unrighteousness, because it appeals to the soul, not the spirit. Ants cluster round sweet things but they end up dying there. Sweet things kill! Because people have itching hears naturally, they don’t want to listen to the truth, which is bitter. Except the Spirit of God comes in into the people they wont to listen to their sins but their potentials. As long as they have that, they will hail the man that is making them believe in themselves, rather than God.
It is easy to know the preachers of iniquity: they are men of the people, loved by the people and applauded by the people. Friendship with the world is enmity with God, remember! Everybody wants to hear them because they preach what people want to hear. They appeal to their logic and sentiments. They help people to build a false god in them, an all sufficient god that does not need the Holy Spirit. A god that loves them and work things out for them, despite their sins. Peter says they have ‘eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children… who loved the wages of unrighteousness; … wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever’. 2Pet. 2:14-16. The priest should be clothed with righteousness (Ps. 132:9) but these are clothed with covetousness.
THE FATAL CONSEQUENCE
Unfortunately, when Spirit-filled people like these are lured out of the faith walk and fall, the Bible says it will be impossible to bring them back to the fold again ‘seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame’. ‘For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning. For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them. But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire’ 2Pet. 2:20-22.
They have been entangled again, i.e lured back by the deceitfulness of riches and obtaining results at all cost using the power in them rather than God. Many who have believed Christ before now believe miracles. Christ is miracle but miracle is not Christ. You can have miracle, prosperity, breakthrough, etc, and never have Christ but you cannot have Christ without having all these things. Peter says it is better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than after they have known it to turn from the holy commandment.
When you look around you, it may be difficult for you to find a single gathering where such message is not celebrated. It is the craze of the moment. Satan will never disturb them because they are ‘partners in crime’. They are building the same kingdom, his kingdom. So he blesses that he may destroy them later. That explains why Jesus Himself said, ‘except the days are shortened, NO FLESH WILL BE SAVED’. Everywhere you turn, the message is the same. Jesus sighed and looked forward into the future, almost weeping. He asked rhetorically: when the son of man come, would he find faith? Lk. 18:8.
TAKE HEED.
I want you to rejoice in your salvation, if you have not lost it to the workers of iniquity. But rejoicing alone will not do it. We are warned by Paul in 1Cor.10:12: ‘those who think they stand to take heed lest they fall’. Guard your heart, lest your soul be deceived by the logic in their message. It is those who think they stand that must take heed as he that is down needs fear no fall. Don’t be like the man that the seed falls among the thorns in his heart. ‘He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful’. Mat. 13:22. It is the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches that lures people away because they find ready made answer in the message of possibilities.
Many preachers fall into the sin of iniquity out of the quest to solve the people’s problem instead of leaving it to God: the same sin Satan committed by saying he would lift up his throne beyond the throne of God. When people come with various needs and problems, we want to do all within our power to solve it so that the people will not be disappointed and think we don’t have power and go to someone else with their gifts. We use God to solve the problem instead of allowing God to use us to solve it. The people see us as the one doing it, instead of God. They thus make a god out of us. Don’t we hear many of such blasphemies in the testimony time, singing the praise of the ‘man of God’?
Take heed, the message of iniquity abounds; harmless, full of facts and life application, looks good to change situation and circumstances, brings testimonies, etc, but it is of the soul, never of the spirit although preached by ‘great men of God’.
Take heed! Before someone can ‘stand’, he must have passed the stage of sitting and crawling. This stand is not an ordinary stand, but stand with great footings. It suggests the stand like a soldier in a warfare that cannot be intimidated or shaken. It is those who think they stand that are asked to take heed lest they fall. They are not baby-Christians. Not a few of them will fall at the last days but many that are first. (Mat. 19:30).
The warning is already coming to pass. Many have become tied down with titles of deacons, deaconess, elders and pastors in churches, pastored by people who are toddlers in the faith, those who are supposed to be sucking breast milk from their mothers but now commands multiple titles because they have money to launder their spiritual ambition of becoming pastor/founders. They are full of exuberance, performing all sorts of gimmicks, magic and acrobatic display on the pulpit, psyching up people with quotable quotes of dead philosophers, who never believed in God, let alone Jesus Christ. They quote with detestable abandon, words of wisdom of men, which is foolishness with God! They are motivational speakers not ministers of the gospel. The ignorant congregation who have no spiritual understanding to search the scripture themselves hail them so as to hasten the wrath of God on them!
HOW ARE THE MIGHTY FALLING?
How are the mighty falling! Where is the old time faith? Where is the faith of yesteryears? Where are those who were born again when the message was not as diluted as this? Where are they? Where are those gave their lives to Jesus and not to the church? Where are those who gave their lives to Christ and not to iniquity? Is there no one who believed the Gospel, except healing and breakthrough again? Have they been carried away into Babylon by the touts in the kingdom? What happened to their old time faith? Has it been watered down by the weightlessness of the preaching of today? Have they been deceived by the festivities and celebrations that our worship service have been sadly reduced to? Have they been held by the shackles of titles, positions and profits?
If there is no reason, we wouldn’t have been asked to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. (Phil. 2:12). Those who think they stand will not be asked to take heed lest they fall. Jesus would not say ‘for the sake of the elects, the days will be shortened’. Paul would not tell the Galatians to curse any one, including himself or any angel who the preach Gospel than that which he had preached (Gal. 1:8). Must we continue to mortgage our eternity for inanities? Many have exchanged their souls for their lives, their seed for bread that will not satisfy. The cosmetic on sin is becoming thicker and finer. The package is becoming better. The pulpit is giving sin a simplified definition for greater accommodation. No one is talking about sin but mercy. It is so easy to compromise because everybody is doing it. It may not be allowed but permitted. It may not be right but it’s OK. ‘I know it’s a sin but God will understand’.
The end time church has totally missed it. She has lost her first love. The meaning of Christ has slipped away from her grip. She is embracing and celebrating iniquity thinking it is Christ. No wonder she thinks she is blessed and increased in wealth and have no need of nothing. Not knowing she is sick, blind, naked and wretched!
Must we continue to lessen the gravity of sin in our midst when it is as serious as delivering the person to Satan for the destruction of the flesh so that the spirit, may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus? (1Cor. 5:5). Must we watch as spirituality is giving way to sensuality and kingdom touts are decorated with titles? Christianity is being reduced to a religion daily, no longer a fellowship but a rendezvous, a meeting place of fashion, friendship and freedom. A safe haven for sinners and a ripe soil for investment.
The Church no longer introduces people to Christ but miracles. They no longer introduce them to Jesus but prosperity. They no longer know the God of judgment but the God of miracle. They only desire the power of His resurrection not the fellowship of His suffering.
I pity those who are just making their entrance into the Gospel and pray that God will sustain them amidst the great perversion. Many have believed a lie. Many have gate-crashed and entered on wrong premise. The lure of music has deceived many. After all, the church today has ‘woken up’ in her music. There is no discernable difference between the secular music and gospel music. They call some R&B, they call others Rap, the list is endless. They sing satanic songs on the pulpit with the man of God, also who has been burning inside secretly but containing because of his big title, dancing like a pardoned criminal. He had longed for such. We should cry and weep to learn that secular musicians are heavily paid and imported to the church so as to attract crowd who come in to display satanic gifts and pollute the altar leading others in a weird dancing orgy. If Paul were alive, would he have joined in the celebration? God forbid! How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land? (Psa. 137:4)
Many of those who are lured into the Christianity on the bill of positive confession, healing miracles, prosperity, deliverance, music, etc don’t know Christ but religion, as they do not have personal revelation of who Christ is. They are robbed of the joy of giving their lives directly to Him but the pastor, rituals, church, doctrine, creed and denominations. That is why when they leave their denominations, they cannot fit in into any other denomination easily. It has become a cult. They never believed Christ, it is denominations they believed for Christ is the same everywhere, every time. That is the spirit of the Pharisee. They have been indoctrinated.
Some denominations will also require fresh baptism, fresh course, etc because they are not accepting them to Christ but THEIR denomination and they have their own style of doing things other than the Bible. The Bible is just a guide but they have laid down rules and procedures which they follow. Their doctrine is different and exclusive and they are right and others are wrong. Their preaching is full of doctrine which put people in bondage more than liberate them. The people obey the doctrine out of compulsion from the denomination not out of faith in Jesus.
Brethren let us have faith in God not faith in faith (objects and things). We can do all things THROUGH CHRIST not through our positive senses. Without Him we can do nothing. Our confession must be in Christ, it is faith confession that sees Christ as the one doing it in us. It is no longer we that we are living but Christ in us. It is what he wants not what we want. He must increase, we must decrease. It is Christ in us the hope of glory. Whatever things we do, Christ is the focus and Christ is the one who does it all. ‘And this I say, lest any man should beguile you with enticing words (Col. 2:4)
Finally, it is not only they which commit such things that are worthy of death, but those who have pleasure in them that do them. You are warned! We must earnestly contend for the faith ‘which was ONCE delivered unto the saints For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ Jud. 1:3-4. Take heed! “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...” (2Thes. 2:3). This is the mystery of iniquity. It is a mystery but you no longer have any excuse.
What will you do friend? Will you continue in the message of iniquity because it is popular, cheap and harmless or reject it and declare your stand for Christ amidst the crooked and perverse generation? Christianity is much more than all that we see around us. It is more than conceive it, confess it and claim it. They that comes to Him must believe that He is and he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him not His.
It is never too late to run from self to Christ. It is never too late to run from religion and denominations to Jesus. There will be no religion in heaven, let alone denominations or titles: Only sons and daughters of God who are born of the Spirit in Christ and not in miracles, prosperity, possibility or positivity. Come out from among her and be ye separate, says the Lord. He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee. Mic. 6:8.
“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...” (2Thes. 2:3).
The above verse is an unmistaken characteristic of the end time that we are presently in: the ‘falling away first’ of those who are already ‘standing’ in the faith; as it takes someone who stands to fall, for he that is down needs fear no fall.
Many times we erroneously think that the falling away will be among the ‘unserious’ Christians. But that is not true. The Bible is talking about those who are not just Christians, but disciples. The Born Again, Spirit-filled believer. The book of Hebrews 6:4-6 describes them further as those who have once
- been ‘enlightened, (GENUINELY born again. Not lured into the ‘born again’ club via miracle, prosperity of healing messages) and
- have tasted of the heavenly gift, (not human gift of working miracles that we see today but the true gifts of the Spirits) and
- have been made partakers of the Holy Ghost, (Holy Ghost enduement and empowerment) And
- have tasted the GOOD word of God, (Not the word of man that psyches people up with quotable quotes and other self-beneficial gimmicks but sound doctrine).
- the powers of the world to come (Heaven bound. Eternity not miracle conscious. Setting their affections and treasures on things above where moth never reaches)’.
those who are ‘hot’ for the Lord. But the Bible says at the last days many of these shall fall away!
What will make people like this to fall away? The devil will front put up a spirited fight of frustration against the saints to the extent of despair. Men’s heart will fail them for fear (Lk. 21:26). Satan will fight the saints vehemently with all his arsenals and might; to force (influence, manipulate) them to give up their faith (Rev.12:17).Young Christians will have very slim chances of continuing in the faith that they know little about because the message have both been diluted and polluted 1Pet.4:18.
Daniel saw by revelation in the book of Daniel 7:21: “I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them”. Because of frustration, many ministers’ anointing will turn to annoyance. Satan will make the heart of many sick by hope deferred (Prov. 13:12). He will pour so much iniquity into the earth to the extent that sin will be so common, rampant and familiar. It will no longer be taken with such seriousness as it was, just as we see that the topic is becoming scarce on our altars today, unlike prosperity and the likes.
Satan will crown it all in the last days by raising and ‘anointing’ his own ministers as ‘angels of light’ (2Cor.11:14), to bring to pass the prophecy of the falling away of the end time saints. He will deceive with such a powerful sway that it will take the grace of God alone not to be deceived by his subtle antics.
One of his tools is to make ministers of God pervert the real gospel by preaching liberal messages: message of facts, wisdom, possibility and rituals. Faith in God will be replaced by faith in objects like the anointing oil, mantle, man of God, etc (idol worshipping). They will arrest the souls of many with a spell-bound, calculating and captivating display of psychology and philosophy. He will put logical, sensible words, quotable quotes, rhymes, rhetorics, grammar, etc, in their mouth and bless them with crowd, fame, money, etc., so much that those genuinely called by God would doubt their own calling. He will send politicians, entertainers and magicians to the pulpit decorated with multiple titles.
Peter warned ahead in 2Pet. 2:1: “… there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And MANY shall follow their pernicious (very harmful and destructive) ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. And through covetousness (that is their real motive) shall they with FEIGNED WORDS (fables, words that carries no spiritual weight, lies, philosophy, entertaining words, etc) make merchandise (financial gain) of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not”. Lamentably, MANY shall follow them.
Jesus Himself said: “they will perform GREAT signs and wonders so that, IF IT WERE POSSIBLE, they would deceive the VERY elect” (Mat. 24:24). Nobody is interested in a church where the undiluted Word of God is being preached any longer, but the church where entertainment and miracles, healing, prosperity, signs and wonders happen. Remember, “in the latter times some shall depart from THE FAITH’. How? by ‘giving heed to SEDUCING SPIRITS AND DOCTRINES OF DEVILS”. Through ‘the cares of the world and deceitfulness of riches and the lust of other things’ (Mk. 4:19).
They will ‘give heed’ to seducing spirit. The word ‘heed’ means pay attention, attend to, regard, observe, entertain. The Bible call such messages ‘doctrines of devils’ although many call it ‘anointed messages’ because of miracles, healing, breakthroughs, etc. Their means of preaching the message is through seducing spirits: ‘enticing words (sweet, logical words) of man’s wisdom’. Paul earlier calls it ‘excellency of speech or of wisdom’. It’s too factual and too perfect that you can’t fault it! It is based on research and findings of human knowledge that is foolishness to God. Arranging words in sequential order to captivate the tender but unguarded souls of the innocents. You are already warned ‘that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God’ (1Cor. 2:5). Hebrews warned that we should ‘exhort one another daily, while it is called today; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin (Heb. 3:13).
Such messages are carefully wrapped, presented, delivered and consumed by those who have been seduced such doctrines preached by those Jesus calls ‘workers of iniquity’ and deny ever knowing them! (Mat.7:23).
Iniquity Defined.
Why would Jesus call them workers of iniquity when they call themselves workers of miracles? What is that iniquity? Perhaps they are not even aware of what Jesus refers to as iniquity. The Greek word for iniquity is ‘anomia’ which means illegality, violation of the law, unrighteousness. The Oxford Dictionary defines it as wickedness and gross injustice. It is a great sin with God: the very sin that made Satan fell from heaven: ‘thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, TILL INIQUITY WAS FOUND IN THEE.” (Eze.28:14-15. Emphasis mine). Satan will use it to bring unwatchful saints to their knees.
Saul was appointed by God over the nation Israel and he was in God’s good book until iniquity was found in him: he usurped the place of Samuel the prophet! It is when comfort comes that we attempt to go beyond our boundary. We suddenly think ‘I can do it’. What was the result of Saul’s affront to God? He was instantly rejected by God and replaced with his neighbour!
At the last days, the Bible says in Mt. 24:12 that ‘iniquity shall abound’. That is, it shall be so rampant, common and cheap. True to the prophecy, it is so common today that even the church is preaching it, unknowingly.
Iniquity, at first glance, does not look like sin because it is wrapped in the beauty of ambition and aspiration. Our churches today preach ambitious messages of imaginations, aspirations and possibilities. It is sad that the church today has not only gone metaphysical, but ritualistic! There is nothing that the New Agers do that the church is not doing. Pastors are no longer asking people to have faith in God but faith in themselves; using the innate power to get what they want by imagination and release of mental force into the cosmic. They have been deceived that their destiny is in their own hands not in the hand of Him that paid with His own blood and bought them with a price (1Cor. 6:20). Faith Confession has given way to Positive Confession. They have been erroneously informed that they are the same when they are as far apart as the earth is to the heavens. Their faith is no longer in Christ but in the objects and elements (Gal. 4:90).
The power of imagination belongs to Satan and that is the iniquity that made him to be thrown out of heaven. He imagined, confessed and desired! Today, they call it Positive Confession. There is nothing like Positive Confession in Christianity, even as recent as few decades ago until big title holders begin to explore quicker ways to get personal benefits like prosperity other than waiting on God, unknown to them, they are delving into pure metaphysics! Achieving the things of the spirit through the power of the soul! There are abundant books by so called Christian authors, teaching innocent people on how to use the soul power to get what they want (‘just anything you desire’) without necessarily depending on God! Amazingly, it works! Does that make it of God?
Why do you think God sent Satan out of heaven? Why do you think God sent Adam and Eve out of Eden? Why do you think God scattered the people of Babel? It is the same sin, the sin of iniquity, ambition, positive confession. Hidden beneath it is the mystery of iniquity. To Adam and Eve, God said, ‘behold, the man has become as one of us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he should put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore, the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden (Genesis 3:22-23). Look at the result: he has become ‘one of us’. Is that not what Satan told them: ‘You shall not surely die’, ‘you will become like God knowing good and evil’, ‘your eyes will be opened’. God had to send them out of Eden so that they would not eat from the tree of life. If they did, they would ‘live forever’ in their fallen state! Imagine that! To prevent that, God sent them out.
Nimrod also gathered people together and psyched them with the possibility message of building a tower that reaches up to God. God had to come down personally and confused them and dispersed them, saying: ‘Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have IMAGINED to do. Come, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the LORD scattered them abroad…’ (Gen.11:6-8).
Notice what they used: the power of imagination! They imagined! Satan also imagined himself as God and God sent him away from heaven. He sent Adam and Eve away from Eden. He scattered the peoples of Babel. The offense is the same: the power of positive thinking: they all want to be a god. ‘I can do it’. We have the means! We have the power, etc.!
Saul and all others who could do it were rejected by God. The power of imagination is the tool of Satan. The church is teaching it: ‘conceive it in your brain, imagine it in your heart, desire it in your mind, confess it in your mouth and bum… you get it’. Right? Wrong!
Innocent people are taught to ‘confess’ it many times so that it can get to their subconscious. ‘Say it, dream it, confess it, believe it, talk it, see it with your inner eyes, etc’. Imagine the type of husband you want to marry, see yourself driving in that type of car you desire. Get the mental picture of the baby in your womb, etc. Friends, don’t be deceived; it’s all demonic. God is not there! It is a New Age practice, foreign to the early church, only smuggled into Christianity by kingdom touts and religious charlatans. No wonder Jesus would say to them: ‘I NEVER knew you, you workers of iniquity’. That is the iniquity; a false god of self. ‘You belong to your father, the devil’, Jesus said; He worked iniquity from the beginning. He aspired to be like God with his five ‘I will’s.
God is a God of order and He will not lower His standard because of man’s ignorance! Iniquity is trusting in yourself, your vision, more than God. Jesus said ‘without me, ye can do nothing’. But these preach that you can do all things not necessarily through Christ but through the power in you. That is the difference! It is through the anointing oil, through the man of God! Worshiping the gift and the means instead of the giver. ‘Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? Rom 6:16 They are servants to oil, mantle, incantations, and other concussion being prepared by the ‘man of God’.
This spirit alone would account for the largest percentage of those who fall as the Bible has said that the day shall not come except there be falling away first of the saints who are misled by these workers of iniquity who preach doctrine of demons with a seducing spirit of excellency of speech and wisdom of men. The man of sin will be revealed through this message. He will preach Christ in apostasy and champion positive thinking. He will talk with oratory finesse. He will tell people to look inward and use the power within. He will warm himself to the heart of the people by helping them to invoke the innate, mental power in them to get result.
Satan was having little successes launching the positive confession strictly through the New Age Movements. Then, real Christians never believed in Positive Confession (self), but faith confession (Christ). Faith confession is confessing what Christ and the word says you are. Positive confession is confessing what YOU want to be. It is you doing it not Him doing it in you. You are in control.
But now, Satan knows that he has but a short time and so he is introducing it to the church using the so called ‘men of God’ to get to people’s mind. He knows they will believe them because of their titles.
Iniquity is violation and usurpation of the authority. Doing it our way, contrary to the laid down rule. Thinking that we can do it without God. All we need is a correct heart and attitude. All we need is positive confession. All we need is to visualize it and see it from our spirit and confess it out and we get it. This is what Satan did and he was thrown out of heaven, despite his ambition. Eve got death, despite her confession. Saul was rejected, despite his intention. Aren’t many fire brand ministers of God preaching sense and logic today instead of the ‘foolishness’ of the cross? ‘For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error. While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage’ 2Pet. 2:18-19. Their words is great and swelling but it is vanity. Although they promise them liberty, but they themselves are servants of corruption.
Although sinless, Adam innocently disobeyed God for the first time by simply listening to the harmless message of lawlessness; a strong, persuasive and logical message that appeals to the soul. Such message elevates and magnifies the facts but hides the truth, the consequence. Remember it’s the ‘tree of the knowledge of good and evil’. It’s ‘good and evil’ because Satan will never call his product evil for he know no one will patronize him and because he cannot speak the truth (he is the father of lies) he calls it the ‘tree of the knowledge of good and evil’. The good there is only the wrapper, which is uselessly beautiful, but the product is actually evil to the core. When Eve saw the package, she said it ‘was good for good, pleasant to the eyes, a tree to be desired to make one wise’.
That is the characteristic of the message of iniquity and that is why the Bible says ‘the love of many will wax cold’ towards Jesus and shall burn towards iniquity. Many will be lured into this harmless, practical, but strange gospel because of its attraction but it will eventually destroy their faith. Our churches are filled to capacity simply because of this message; it is preaching what the people want to hear. We call it church growth but growth towards what?
This type of strange gospel is becoming more popular. In fact, many Pastors are shifting grounds to align with it, knowing that it is the guarantee for continued membership by the congregation; otherwise, they will lose them to the other church who preaches it. I have noticed with utter disappointment many orthodox churches, although known not to posses as much fire as the Pentecostal, but still manage to preach Christ, albeit, in the ‘letter’ (2Cor. 3:6). But in the realization of losing their members to the Pentecostal, especially the youths, now also changing gear and towing the footsteps of lawlessness to maintain their membership, as this is the yardstick to measuring the ‘anointed men of God’ and prosperous churches.
Message of iniquity subtly ensures that dependence on God is sacrificed on the altar of self esteem and appraisal. Bye and bye, passion for salvation (the love for God) will wax cold until it diminishes and fizzles out completely to give way to passion for prosperity, healing, miracles, breakthrough, etc. The Gospel is a life of total dependence and abiding IN Christ, not in things as prosperity, healing, miracles, etc, which Jesus said ‘for after all these things do the gentiles (they that do not know God) seek: for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things’ (Mt. 6:32).
Jesus said: ‘Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. These can bear fruits of their own without abiding in the vine. They bear any type of fruits they like or desire or imagine. Their mango branch can decide to bear a carrot fruit … ‘without me ye can do nothing’ (John 15: 4-5). He said ‘if anyone does not abide in me he is cast off’. These have been cast off, but because their time of withering, gathering and throwing into fire has not arrived, (vs. 6) they think they are still part of the vine.
Jesus did not ask us to go out and gather crowd, but to go out and make disciples out of the crowd. (Mat.28:19). True message of salvation is not always for crowd. Crowd do not become disciples just like goats can never be sheep. Not all that throngs Him touches Him. The only thing that brings crowd together is unrighteousness, because it appeals to the soul, not the spirit. Ants cluster round sweet things but they end up dying there. Sweet things kill! Because people have itching hears naturally, they don’t want to listen to the truth, which is bitter. Except the Spirit of God comes in into the people they wont to listen to their sins but their potentials. As long as they have that, they will hail the man that is making them believe in themselves, rather than God.
It is easy to know the preachers of iniquity: they are men of the people, loved by the people and applauded by the people. Friendship with the world is enmity with God, remember! Everybody wants to hear them because they preach what people want to hear. They appeal to their logic and sentiments. They help people to build a false god in them, an all sufficient god that does not need the Holy Spirit. A god that loves them and work things out for them, despite their sins. Peter says they have ‘eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children… who loved the wages of unrighteousness; … wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever’. 2Pet. 2:14-16. The priest should be clothed with righteousness (Ps. 132:9) but these are clothed with covetousness.
THE FATAL CONSEQUENCE
Unfortunately, when Spirit-filled people like these are lured out of the faith walk and fall, the Bible says it will be impossible to bring them back to the fold again ‘seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame’. ‘For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning. For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them. But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire’ 2Pet. 2:20-22.
They have been entangled again, i.e lured back by the deceitfulness of riches and obtaining results at all cost using the power in them rather than God. Many who have believed Christ before now believe miracles. Christ is miracle but miracle is not Christ. You can have miracle, prosperity, breakthrough, etc, and never have Christ but you cannot have Christ without having all these things. Peter says it is better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than after they have known it to turn from the holy commandment.
When you look around you, it may be difficult for you to find a single gathering where such message is not celebrated. It is the craze of the moment. Satan will never disturb them because they are ‘partners in crime’. They are building the same kingdom, his kingdom. So he blesses that he may destroy them later. That explains why Jesus Himself said, ‘except the days are shortened, NO FLESH WILL BE SAVED’. Everywhere you turn, the message is the same. Jesus sighed and looked forward into the future, almost weeping. He asked rhetorically: when the son of man come, would he find faith? Lk. 18:8.
TAKE HEED.
I want you to rejoice in your salvation, if you have not lost it to the workers of iniquity. But rejoicing alone will not do it. We are warned by Paul in 1Cor.10:12: ‘those who think they stand to take heed lest they fall’. Guard your heart, lest your soul be deceived by the logic in their message. It is those who think they stand that must take heed as he that is down needs fear no fall. Don’t be like the man that the seed falls among the thorns in his heart. ‘He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful’. Mat. 13:22. It is the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches that lures people away because they find ready made answer in the message of possibilities.
Many preachers fall into the sin of iniquity out of the quest to solve the people’s problem instead of leaving it to God: the same sin Satan committed by saying he would lift up his throne beyond the throne of God. When people come with various needs and problems, we want to do all within our power to solve it so that the people will not be disappointed and think we don’t have power and go to someone else with their gifts. We use God to solve the problem instead of allowing God to use us to solve it. The people see us as the one doing it, instead of God. They thus make a god out of us. Don’t we hear many of such blasphemies in the testimony time, singing the praise of the ‘man of God’?
Take heed, the message of iniquity abounds; harmless, full of facts and life application, looks good to change situation and circumstances, brings testimonies, etc, but it is of the soul, never of the spirit although preached by ‘great men of God’.
Take heed! Before someone can ‘stand’, he must have passed the stage of sitting and crawling. This stand is not an ordinary stand, but stand with great footings. It suggests the stand like a soldier in a warfare that cannot be intimidated or shaken. It is those who think they stand that are asked to take heed lest they fall. They are not baby-Christians. Not a few of them will fall at the last days but many that are first. (Mat. 19:30).
The warning is already coming to pass. Many have become tied down with titles of deacons, deaconess, elders and pastors in churches, pastored by people who are toddlers in the faith, those who are supposed to be sucking breast milk from their mothers but now commands multiple titles because they have money to launder their spiritual ambition of becoming pastor/founders. They are full of exuberance, performing all sorts of gimmicks, magic and acrobatic display on the pulpit, psyching up people with quotable quotes of dead philosophers, who never believed in God, let alone Jesus Christ. They quote with detestable abandon, words of wisdom of men, which is foolishness with God! They are motivational speakers not ministers of the gospel. The ignorant congregation who have no spiritual understanding to search the scripture themselves hail them so as to hasten the wrath of God on them!
HOW ARE THE MIGHTY FALLING?
How are the mighty falling! Where is the old time faith? Where is the faith of yesteryears? Where are those who were born again when the message was not as diluted as this? Where are they? Where are those gave their lives to Jesus and not to the church? Where are those who gave their lives to Christ and not to iniquity? Is there no one who believed the Gospel, except healing and breakthrough again? Have they been carried away into Babylon by the touts in the kingdom? What happened to their old time faith? Has it been watered down by the weightlessness of the preaching of today? Have they been deceived by the festivities and celebrations that our worship service have been sadly reduced to? Have they been held by the shackles of titles, positions and profits?
If there is no reason, we wouldn’t have been asked to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. (Phil. 2:12). Those who think they stand will not be asked to take heed lest they fall. Jesus would not say ‘for the sake of the elects, the days will be shortened’. Paul would not tell the Galatians to curse any one, including himself or any angel who the preach Gospel than that which he had preached (Gal. 1:8). Must we continue to mortgage our eternity for inanities? Many have exchanged their souls for their lives, their seed for bread that will not satisfy. The cosmetic on sin is becoming thicker and finer. The package is becoming better. The pulpit is giving sin a simplified definition for greater accommodation. No one is talking about sin but mercy. It is so easy to compromise because everybody is doing it. It may not be allowed but permitted. It may not be right but it’s OK. ‘I know it’s a sin but God will understand’.
The end time church has totally missed it. She has lost her first love. The meaning of Christ has slipped away from her grip. She is embracing and celebrating iniquity thinking it is Christ. No wonder she thinks she is blessed and increased in wealth and have no need of nothing. Not knowing she is sick, blind, naked and wretched!
Must we continue to lessen the gravity of sin in our midst when it is as serious as delivering the person to Satan for the destruction of the flesh so that the spirit, may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus? (1Cor. 5:5). Must we watch as spirituality is giving way to sensuality and kingdom touts are decorated with titles? Christianity is being reduced to a religion daily, no longer a fellowship but a rendezvous, a meeting place of fashion, friendship and freedom. A safe haven for sinners and a ripe soil for investment.
The Church no longer introduces people to Christ but miracles. They no longer introduce them to Jesus but prosperity. They no longer know the God of judgment but the God of miracle. They only desire the power of His resurrection not the fellowship of His suffering.
I pity those who are just making their entrance into the Gospel and pray that God will sustain them amidst the great perversion. Many have believed a lie. Many have gate-crashed and entered on wrong premise. The lure of music has deceived many. After all, the church today has ‘woken up’ in her music. There is no discernable difference between the secular music and gospel music. They call some R&B, they call others Rap, the list is endless. They sing satanic songs on the pulpit with the man of God, also who has been burning inside secretly but containing because of his big title, dancing like a pardoned criminal. He had longed for such. We should cry and weep to learn that secular musicians are heavily paid and imported to the church so as to attract crowd who come in to display satanic gifts and pollute the altar leading others in a weird dancing orgy. If Paul were alive, would he have joined in the celebration? God forbid! How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land? (Psa. 137:4)
Many of those who are lured into the Christianity on the bill of positive confession, healing miracles, prosperity, deliverance, music, etc don’t know Christ but religion, as they do not have personal revelation of who Christ is. They are robbed of the joy of giving their lives directly to Him but the pastor, rituals, church, doctrine, creed and denominations. That is why when they leave their denominations, they cannot fit in into any other denomination easily. It has become a cult. They never believed Christ, it is denominations they believed for Christ is the same everywhere, every time. That is the spirit of the Pharisee. They have been indoctrinated.
Some denominations will also require fresh baptism, fresh course, etc because they are not accepting them to Christ but THEIR denomination and they have their own style of doing things other than the Bible. The Bible is just a guide but they have laid down rules and procedures which they follow. Their doctrine is different and exclusive and they are right and others are wrong. Their preaching is full of doctrine which put people in bondage more than liberate them. The people obey the doctrine out of compulsion from the denomination not out of faith in Jesus.
Brethren let us have faith in God not faith in faith (objects and things). We can do all things THROUGH CHRIST not through our positive senses. Without Him we can do nothing. Our confession must be in Christ, it is faith confession that sees Christ as the one doing it in us. It is no longer we that we are living but Christ in us. It is what he wants not what we want. He must increase, we must decrease. It is Christ in us the hope of glory. Whatever things we do, Christ is the focus and Christ is the one who does it all. ‘And this I say, lest any man should beguile you with enticing words (Col. 2:4)
Finally, it is not only they which commit such things that are worthy of death, but those who have pleasure in them that do them. You are warned! We must earnestly contend for the faith ‘which was ONCE delivered unto the saints For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ Jud. 1:3-4. Take heed! “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...” (2Thes. 2:3). This is the mystery of iniquity. It is a mystery but you no longer have any excuse.
What will you do friend? Will you continue in the message of iniquity because it is popular, cheap and harmless or reject it and declare your stand for Christ amidst the crooked and perverse generation? Christianity is much more than all that we see around us. It is more than conceive it, confess it and claim it. They that comes to Him must believe that He is and he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him not His.
It is never too late to run from self to Christ. It is never too late to run from religion and denominations to Jesus. There will be no religion in heaven, let alone denominations or titles: Only sons and daughters of God who are born of the Spirit in Christ and not in miracles, prosperity, possibility or positivity. Come out from among her and be ye separate, says the Lord. He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee. Mic. 6:8.