by BY DAVID BOWEN/HARBING’S DAILY
In 2 Thessalonians 2:3, Paul also prophesized and warned: “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. Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things?”
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This apostasy or rebellion is when people turn from their faith.
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Sleeping Churches
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I used to wonder how it would ever happen. What would this look like? I have had a passion for Bible prophecy for years. However, reading and studying Bible prophecy and seeing it lived out before your eyes is totally different. It is extremely exciting to live in a day when so many prophetic events are converging, yet when I speak with my peers, many pastors and churches are sleeping, not concerned about the events unfolding right before us.
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I routinely have people attend my church who say they have been searching for a church that would preach the truth about the day we live in. They say they have been trying to find a pastor who will speak about what’s happening in the world. People regularly tell me the only pastors they can discover who go deep into God’s word and explain how it applies to what’s happened in our world today are online. They can’t find a physical church where they can be part of a real like-minded community of believers who understand the days we live in.
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To my fault, I have heard these voices, but I have been slow to acknowledge how correct they are. I didn’t want to fully acknowledge that our Christian pulpits have gone silent at a time when we need to be blowing the trumpet the loudest.
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A Christian Worldview
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I ask myself, when did this slide away from prophecy and prophetic events take place? A 2004 survey by Barna Research found that only 9% of all born-again adults have a Christian worldview. Worse, the same report said that only half of evangelical Protestant pastors, 51%, have a biblical worldview. 9% of adults and 51% of pastors! That is sad and tough to comprehend.
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To define a worldview, it is believing that absolute moral truth exists and that it is based on the Bible. To have a Christian worldview, Barna’s research listed six core beliefs:
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– the accuracy of biblical teaching,
– the sinless nature of Jesus,
– the literal existence of Satan,
– the omnipotence and omniscience of God,
– salvation by grace alone,
– the personal responsibility to evangelize.
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That was in 2004. In 2022, the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University did another survey on this topic. They found that just slightly more than a third (37%) of evangelical pastors possess a biblical worldview, and the majority, 62%, hold a hybrid worldview known as Syncretism. Syncretism is the fusion of differing systems of belief. It is the blending of multiple and different belief systems. In 18 years, the percentage of Christian evangelical pastors with a Christian worldview dropped from half to a third.
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The Remnant
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There is a remnant of believers who want to be awake and help sound the trumpet of the soon return of Christ and the coming judgment on this world. There is a remnant of believers who want to connect with like-minded believers. The issue is that this group of remnant believers is often separated. They are mixed in with the 91% of adult churchgoers who do not hold to a Christian worldview.
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The Tipping Point
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Again, how did we get here? Was there a tipping point? Yes, there was. It was Covid-19 — when churches decided to close.
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Many churchgoers have shared with me that when their churches did reopen, Wokism had become the new religion. Sermons dealing with current events were now messages incompatible with biblical Christianity. The themes switched to social justice and equality; the key phrase was that we had to be tolerant. The motto switched to, “Do not preach anything that will offend anyone.”
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Not of the World
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Years ago, the Seeker-Sensitive Movement compromised biblical values and truths and replaced them with entertainment. The trend was to offer whatever it took to get people to attend church. The focus was no longer on being salt and light. The focus was to make it loud, add colorful lighting, and focus on motivating, not correcting. Enough time has passed now that we know that that direction did not work.
I once had a professional rock-and-roll star share his view of the church being what it was not called to be. He received Jesus and started to attend church. He was shocked to find church services use fog machines, strobe lighting, and stadium sound systems. He told me he wasn’t attending church for a concert; he wanted to hear about Jesus and be taught the Bible. He said he wanted to yell at these churches and tell them to stop trying to be like the world. Besides, he said, churches stink at it anyway. That conversation was years ago, but his words still ring true.
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Universalism
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In this woke culture, churches need to stop preaching a Universalist view of salvation. Universalism promotes the idea that all people will be saved regardless of their beliefs. They need to stop using the word “diversity” all the time. Instead, we need to teach a literal interpretation of Scripture. We must stop straying away from the purity and truth of God’s Word.
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Israel in the Pulpits
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Since October 7th, Israel has been in the news, but not in the pulpits. Research shows that Amillennialism has become a prominent view. Scripture details that Christ will return to establish His Kingdom, which He will reign over for a literal thousand years. Amillennialism sees the thousand years as spiritual and non-literal. This teaching leads directly to Replacement Theology, which teaches that the Church has replaced Israel. That’s heresy! It seems some want the Kingdom without the King.
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In 1 Timothy 4:1, the Holy Spirit says, “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;” This prophecy of falling away is spoken to those in church, not those in the world.
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In 2 Timothy 4:3-4, the Apostle Paul prophesied, “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.”