July 6
A Serious Look at Commitment
For many years, I've been dealing with a nagging concern over the question, “Why do some 'Christians' fall away?” Time and time again, I have been confronted with believers who appear to fall away from the faith. Many of these people were active in the church for years before they lost their faith.
What makes this matter all the more puzzling is the reaction it gets from the church. The subject of “Christians” abandoning their faith is about as pleasant as talking about rectal cancer at the dinner table. The typical reaction by Christians is to ignore that it ever happens.
I recently spoke with a well-known evangelical leader who has spent decades as a Christian counselor. I asked him to tell me about the experiences he had with people who had deserted the faith. He surprised me by saying he didn't know of any such cases. When I pressed the issue, I found that he had a mental block about the idea of sheep wandering from the herd.
Some Christians seem to think salvation is based on the power of positive thinking. The Bible warns that becoming a believer is a difficult decision--one few people will make. If the professed faith of someone turns out to be in vain, people need to be made aware of this information. We'd all drive on the road in a more reckless fashion if there were a conspiracy to hide the carnage that results from auto accidents.
A lot of the debate centers on conditional security vs. eternal security. We used to have a section on the site that gave both views, but I removed it because I found it to be nonproductive. On one end of the scale, some people think we can lose our salvation several times a day. On the other end, some people believe that Adolf Hitler might have been saved if he once had mouthed some pledge about Christ being his savior.
I think a better way to approach this problem is with the question, "Where are you now?" People need to examine themselves to see if they believe in the tenets of the faith. If people admit they no longer believe in a God and the validity of the Bible, we have to take them at their word. If someone rejects Christ, it's pointless to argue over any previous confessions of faith.
We live in time when it's hard to tell the difference between believers and non-believers. Society doesn't require us to make any sacrifices for our spiritual convictions. The freedom from religious persecution can create some stunning examples of people appearing to be believers for a long time before eventually renouncing their faith. Over the years, I've witnessed several such cases here at Rapture Ready.
We once had an administrator on the message board go through a process of remission. She eventually told me, "I can't stand being around you Christians." Not only did she quit working on our board, but she also closed down an apologetics site that dispensed information about various cults. Another moderator left after he decided he was gay and wanted everyone to know it. Yet another guy who helped write to several rules for the board walked away from Christian fellowship.
The only sure test of your faith is what enduring works you do for the Creator. We can make all kinds of verbal commitments, but our willingness to labor for Christ is the only litmus test for true faith. James said, "For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also" (James 2:26).
I've noticed something very interesting about the people who contribute in some way to RR. Several times I've had people commit to financially supporting the site, only to quickly develop a problem with their pledge. They suddenly become uneasy about trivial things on the site. Many of them leave the site all together.
The most telling area is the personal testimonies we have in three key sections. I've had some people submit testimonies who, weeks later, came back asking me to remove them. When I inquired about the reason, nearly all of them told me they had recanted their faith and didn't want their testimonies posted on RR. One guy told me that the same day he sent me his article, he began to be mentally bombarded by thoughts that called for him to rescind his testimony.
I think the source of this strange behavior is demonic. The devil effectively came to these people and said, “You're still my child. What are you doing putting a testimony on a Christian site? You tell them to remove it!” It can take weeks, months, or even years, but eventually Satan will force people to revert to their true nature.
The act of doing good works causes people realize they are lukewarm in their commitment. If it wasn't for their involvement, they would have been perfectly happy living as Christians in name only. It's better to know the truth than to live a lie. Jesus said the worst state one could be in is that of a lukewarm Christian: “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou were cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth” (Revelation 3:15-16).
With over a quarter million people visiting this site each month, I realize many of you folks have a commitment that you never bothered to verify. If people who claim to have faith can fall away, I have far less hope for individuals who feel no obligation to serve the kingdom of God. I challenge you to put your faith to the test.
-- Todd
Tribulation Temple Tremors
Planet Earth’s most supernaturally sensitive spot experienced spiritually seismic activity over the last two weeks. The seismic action, however, amounted to little. Time is not yet right for when the earth-rending shaking will take place for real.
Recent talk of things surrounding Mt. Moriah, the "Temple Mount" in Jerusalem, is not yet at the level indicating that a crisis point has been reached. The almost mesmerizing pace of things of prophetic portent shaping up around that sacred plateau, however, should alert all who watch for things to come that the Temple Mount is the central point of the final battle between good and evil, just as God's Word foretells.
"Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. 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; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God" (2 Thessalonians 2:1-4).
Antichrist, it is clear, will one day enter a Jewish temple and declare himself to be God. We get a deeper look into that future desecration with the prophecy given through John: "And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him? And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months" (Revelation 13:4-5).
There is no sign of a Jewish temple; Antichrist is not on the scene. Why liken Moriah, now dominated by the familiar golden-hued Dome of the Rock, to experiencing tremors such as those that occurred around Mount St. Helens before that volcano blew its top in 1980? There is no violence going on in the area directly surrounding the Temple Mount. Or is there?
The fact is that Mt. Moriah has always been the one place on earth that is the most spiritually seismic. This is the place Abraham took his son Isaac to offer him as a sacrifice, following God's instructions. The Lord then stopped the plunge of the knife toward Isaac's heart and provided the ram caught in the thickets by his horns.
This is the spot David purchased rather than accepting as a gift, and the place the Lord chose David's son, Solomon, rather than King David and his war-bloodied hands to build God's dwelling place on earth--the Temple. God's tablets of Law—the Ten Commandments—resided within the Ark of the Covenant within the Holy of Holies at the Temple's center, a fifteen-foot cubed room behind a thick veil that separated God from His people—
the people of the book—the House of Israel.
Now, I know I will receive all manner of emails explaining the difference between the Jews and Israel, between the split among the tribes, etc. So I ask respectfully that we, rather than get into all of that for now, just consider the Temple in terms of God's dealing with all of mankind through the Temple and His fulfillment of that Law through His Son, Jesus the Christ.
Lucifer the fallen one—that old serpent, the devil—has always desired to usurp the throne of God since the time he and one-third of the angelic hosts rebelled in Heaven and were cast out. Satan's goal hasn't changed. He wants to put himself above the throne of god. God chose Mt. Moriah in Jerusalem as the place of His touchstone to humanity. He had His dwelling place constructed there, and when Jesus died on the cross for the sins of man near the Temple Mount, and the Temple veil was torn in two from top to bottom, giving all of mankind who accepts Christ direct access to God, Satan's hatred intensified.
The devil still wants to establish his own throne where God says will reside the future throne of the King of all kings--the Lord Jesus. Satan intends to install his own man God's Word calls the beast on a throne in a rebuilt Temple, as we have just read from 2 Thessalonians, chapter 2. This man of sin, the Antichrist, indwelt by Satan, will declare himself to be God, and will demand worship from everyone on earth. It is no wonder, then, that spiritual tremors reverberate from that spot God considers holy, the closer the people of earth come to the time of Christ's return. Such tremors are on the increase, as we might expect, considering all of the many signals of the end of the Church Age manifest today on the prophetic horizon.
The Islamic mosque, the Dome of the Rock, has always been a question mark for those who believe there must be a future Jewish Temple on Moriah. The question made its way into news recently:
"A new Jewish interfaith initiative launched last week argues building the Third Jewish Temple in Jerusalem would not necessitate the destruction of the Dome of the Rock. ‘God's Holy Mountain Vision’ project hopes to defuse religious strife by showing that Jews' end-of-days vision could harmoniously accommodate Islam's present architectural hegemony on the Temple Mount. 'This vision of religious shrines in peaceful proximity can transform the Temple Mount from a place of contention to its original sacred role as a place of worship shared by Jews, Muslims and Christians,' said Yoav Frankel, director of the initiative...Until now Jewish tradition has assumed that destruction of the Dome of the Rock was a precondition for the building of the third and last Temple..." (Matthew Wagner, “Can 3rd Temple be built without destroying Dome of the Rock? Jerusalem Post).
Despite the optimism by the Jewish scholar, the Islamics, the ones in charge of the Temple Mount since 1967 when Israeli General Moshe Dyan gave the Islamic religious leaders authority over Moriah, have a much different—and deadly—view of any such attempt to put a Jewish Temple there.
"As long as there is a Muslim alive, no Jewish Temple will be built on Al-Haram Al-Sharif [the Temple Mount]. The status quo must be maintained, otherwise there will be bloodshed," said Sheikh Abdulla Nimar Darwish, founder of the Islamic Movement in Israel.
Indeed there will be bloodshed. The Tribulation, with the rebuilt Temple atop Moriah, will produce the worst bloodshed in human history, according to Jesus: "For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be" (Matthew 24:21).
That same Jesus, however, will burst through the gloom of that desperate hour to put an end to man's self-destruction. He will establish His throne on Mt. Zion, when the topography is supernaturally changed. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.
--Terry
