© 1999, Pastor Bill Randles, Believers in Grace Fellowship
'Appendix 4' in "Beware the New Prophets" and used with permission from the author.
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(T. Austin Sparks. Called Unto the Fellowship of His Son. page 46)
These are interesting times. If someone would have told me 20 years ago, that the end of the millennium would be a time of extreme and diverse religiosity, I wouldn't have believed it. At that time, the overarching concern for Christians was the specter of an ever increasing secularism, which looked with disdain on religious devotion as "outdated superstition."
"Securlar humanism" was the "Goliath" taunting us Christians. But now look around you. Are we not living in the most religious time in recent history? Spirituality has made a comeback and it seems to be back with a vengeance! In this "Post Modern" ara, all religious opinions are treated as equally valid in the name of tolerance. Eastern religion, Zen Buddhism, and even Kabbalah and Ramadan, are respectfully being treated in today's media and by sports figures and celebrities. Even within the Church of Jesus Christ, there seems to be a revitalization of the "old time religion." The overnight expasive growth of phenomena such as Promise Keepers, March for Jesus, the Toronto Blessing, Willow Creek Church and other various expressions would seem to indicate (as many Christian leaders proclaim) that we are in the "great last days revivial," and that these are the greatest moves of God since the days of the apostles!
Far from being atheistic and materialistic, America seems to be more spiritual and God-conscious than ever. This recent flood of spirituality requires all of us to make choices, to discern. At some levels, the choices for believers are obvious: blatant Christianity or blatant mysticism, Eastern relition or paganism. At other levels, they can be quite difficult, for example, is Roman Catholicism Christian? Should we have the Pensacola "anointing" in our church? Should we be part of the "city wide church?" Am I to pursue racial reconciliation as a Christian?
These are just some of the serious issues coming across through Christian media and requiring thousands of ministers and tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of Christians worldwide to be for or against.
Hopefully, this article can be a help to you who love the Lord Jesus and seek to be faithful, both to His call for His own to be united in love, as well as His command and warning to be discerning, ever critical, in these last days. I would say at the outset (since I do believe these are the last days) that the great issue which confronts the flock of God is neither unity, nor power signs and wonders. The question is not, "Will the churches ever come together like the Lord prayed in John 17?" Nor is it, "Will we ever have the power to do signs and wonders, and miracles like the book of Acts?" The issue is Truth. Will we receive the love of the truth or will we believe the lie?
Though indeed there are so many different spiritualities fourishing in the world today, there are in essence only two religions underlying them. All religious expression or experience can biblically be put into only two categories, two spiritual principles or mysteries as the Bible calls them. They are either the Mystery of Godliness or the Mystery of Iniquity. As far back as the Garden of Eden (and even before that) these two spiritualities have coexisted.
The first of two mysteries to appear in scripture is called the Mystery of Iniquity. It found its first expression in the very Mount of God, in the Garden of God where Lucifer the angel of God proclaimed his now infamous "I Wills"
How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weakened the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation On the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High. Isaiah 14:12-14.
Now this is the essence of iniquity, lawlessness, that the created being can assert himself up out of his God assigned role, by an act of his will, to become equal with God! This spiritual principle, this essence of all false religion, starts with the creature, who would "ascend up to heaven." You can follow this all through the Bible and human history to this present day. Adam and Eve, willing to believe that they could be "like God" even if it meant trampling love, loyalty, commitment and gratitude in the dirt, as they grasped their own "personal fulfillment." Nimrod, whose very name means "Let us rebel" (The Genesis Record, page 251, Henry Morris, Baker Book House), organized a worldwide revolt against the binding restrictions of the God of the Bible and could only be stopped by the catastrophe of the confusion of tongues at Babel--they wanted to "ascend up to the heavens," "to make a name for ourselves." This is the ancient lie, the recurring techniques, Masonic degrees, gurus, Christian Scientists, Mormons, New Agers, Yogis and countless other world religions testify to, that somehow or other "man can ascend up to God's level and be like God." This principle of creaturely ascent is at the heart of all false religion including the occult, for all time and in every culture. It is the Mystery of Iniquity.
The Mystery of Godliness however, is the opposite of the Mystery of Iniquity. If iniquity says, "Man can ascend and be like the Most High," Godliness says, "God must descend and become a man" in order to save us who are desperately lost, completely bankrupt, and unable to save ourselves." This is the sprituality that originates from Heaven and which requires an incarnation, "God was manifest in the Flesh." There can be no compromise, not mixing of these two religions. The scriptures warn us that the two would coexist, mature and come to their fullest expression in the last days before the bodily return of Jesus Christ. The spirituality of iniquity, whose motto could be "Let us (creatures) ascend," or the spirituality which produces godliness which would have the opposite motto, "He (God) must descend to us."
And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that come down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven. John 3:13