Preparation For Suffering
The Causes of a Difficult Season
By John Fast
“But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come.” – 2 Timothy 3:1
I take it for granted that virtually everyone who will read this study considers themselves a Christian. You profess to believe the Bible. You affirm key Christian doctrines. You read Christian books. You listen to Christian radio and Christian music. You regularly attend a place of Christian worship. You follow one or more famous and popular Christian preachers. But the question I have for you is, will all this save your soul? Will it do your soul any good when you die? If the common opinion of the world as to the number of those who will go to heaven were correct, then there would be no need for Christianity. And if all that professes to be Christian, and goes by the name of “Christian”, was Christian, then I would save myself the trouble of writing these studies, but such is not the season in which we live. The words penned at the beginning of the 20th Century by the staunch defender of biblical Christianity, J. Gresham Machen, are a fitting description of the times in which we now live. The spiritual condition of professing Christianity has not improved, but grown progressively worse in the ninety-plus years since the following words were first written.
“Presenting an issue sharply is indeed by no means a popular business at the present time; … The type of religion which rejoices in the pious sound of traditional phrases, regardless of their meanings, or shrinks from “controversial” matters, will never stand amid the shocks of life. In the sphere of religion, as in other spheres, the things about which men are agreed are apt to be the things that are least worth holding; the really important things are the things about which men will fight. In the sphere of religion, in particular, the present time is a time of conflict; the great redemptive religion which has always been known as Christianity is battling against a totally diverse type of religious belief, which is the more destructive of the Christian faith because it makes use of traditional Christian terminology.” (J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism, Eerdmans, (1-2), 1923)
Such is the Christianity of the mass of professing Christians today; it is “a totally diverse type of religious belief” from that taught by the Bible. It rests on a faulty foundation.
A stable, secure, and solid foundation is essential not only for the construction of any structure, but for any undertaking. A person going into business has their foundation which they build upon, and from which they promise themselves success. A scientist has their data and principles on which they base their assumptions, build their theories, and conduct their experiments. Likewise the Christian has his/her foundation. The difference between the Christian’s foundation and all others, and what makes it vastly superior to all others, is that the Christian’s foundation is laid by God. It consists of one simple and pure truth which is clearly revealed in both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. “Therefore thus says the Lord God, ‘Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a tested stone, a costly cornerstone for the foundation firmly placed. He who believes in it will not be disturbed’” (Is 28:16); “For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ” (1 Cor 3:11). Now I ask you, what words can be more simple and clear than these are? Yet the mistakes which have been made about them are endless, even by those who profess to believe them; mistakes which they that persist in and hold to them, do so at the cost of their immortal soul.
Roman Catholicism has multiplied God’s one foundation into a whole slew of them. They build on the Virgin Mary just as much, if not more, than they do Jesus Christ. They build on the authority of the Pope, on their church traditions, on their good works, on their sacraments, and on a multitude of patron saints. Jehovah’s Witness, Mormonism (LDS), Word of Faith, Seventh-Day Adventists, and other forms of counterfeit Christianity have laid their own foundations upon which they have built their diverse systems of religion. Many denominations are built on a particular English translation of the Bible, or on strange, unbiblical, and mystical manifestations of the Holy Spirit. The modern seeker-sensitive and church growth movements have built on the foundations of humanistic psychology, of secular business models, on the pragmatic strategies of mega-church pastors, and on the carnal tastes, opinions, and preferences of the dominant culture. Human wisdom, emotion, and reasoning have been made the foundation on which the revealed word of God rests, as if the human mind is not fallen, hostile to, and darkened in its understanding to spiritual truth, especially that truth which leads to eternal life. What else is this but a razing of the foundation of Jesus Christ, and replacing Him with human wisdom as the foundation that bears up Christ and His word?
Many churches today are built on a foundation of child and youth-centered programs and entertainment-driven worship. Even many once sound churches, denominations, theologians, and pastors have drifted from the foundation laid by God and have since built upon a foundation of human wisdom, liberal theology, unbiblical practices, adulterated gospels (including, but not limited to the modern social justice gospel), greedy commercialism, worldly showmanship, false doctrines, their own experiences, and pagan mysticism. Many, if not most professing Christians, build on the teachings and practices of some favorite teacher and personality. But the vast majority of people, even the bulk of professing Christians, have no foundation whatsoever other than their own feelings, preferences, works, and opinions. Their faith rests on their faith. They believe that they believe, even though their belief rests on nothing more solid than a conventional belief in a general God; in belonging to a particular denomination or church; in a Jesus of their own invention; in their own opinions and works, and their self-made religion. They think their own faith, and their own godliness, because they are their own, and because they are what the times and the bulk of professing Christians favor most, is the best. They shape and fashion their faith to conform to their own best self-interests. What they believe and how they live is shaped by the course of the times, not by the unchanging word of God. They live careless and unconcerned about the state of their soul, never examining whether they are founded on Jesus Christ the Rock of Ages.
Each of these mistakes currently has their own numerous, prestigious, and popular advocates, and an abundance of loyal adherents. Some of these errors have enjoyed a long and prosperous tenure, while others are relatively recent. All who hold to and espouse these various forms of godliness have something specious to offer in its defense, which, being dressed-up with intricate but false theological and emotional arguments, and appealing to our own corrupt fleshly wisdom and carnal desires, are apt to seduce us away from the simplicity and purity of devotion to the One Foundation of truth laid by God. Once this occurs, professing Christians and churches begin to decline spiritually, and when this decay continues and multiplies over a period of time it will culminate in a dangerous season. When the beliefs, tastes, practices, and lives of the mass of professing Christians grow more and more compatible with those of the world; when the line of demarcation between who is and is not a Christian becomes less and less distinguishable; when human wisdom and emotion become the foundation on which the mass of professing Christians build their theology, then it is inevitable and unavoidable that a perilous season will overtake them; a season in which it will be hard for them to escape its dangers. Look at this world and consider the storms which are now breaking out upon it. Because the mass of professing Christians are not founded on the Rock, but upon some other “totally diverse type of religious belief”, they will never be able to withstand the “shocks of life”, and the onslaughts of a dangerous season. I urge you to consider some of the signs which the Bible gives that distinguish a season as perilous. You ignore and scorn them at the risk of your eternal soul.
The Things that Make a Season Difficult
The first thing that makes any season difficult is when the profession of a true faith in Jesus Christ is outwardly maintained under a visible and obvious predominance of the most atrocious lusts, ungodliness, and wickedness. The reason I name this first is because it is what the Apostle Paul first names as the reason for which “difficult times will come”. Why will the times be perilous? “For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God; holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power;” (2 Tm 2:2-5). Professing Christians maintain their profession of faith and belief in the Bible, even though they live under a visible, open, and unashamed practice of the most blatant sins and worldliness. They tenaciously “hold to; cling to” their own forms of godliness which they have invented, but without its power. Notice, Paul states that they resolutely cling to “a form of godliness”, or religion, not to the form of godliness. In other words, there are many forms of godliness and religion to which people cling, but the one thing all these various forms have in common is they all deny the power of true godliness.
Judge for yourself reader if this does not define the season in which we are now living. Judge for yourself if this does not describe the vast majority of professing Christianity today, no matter what form it takes. Do not deceive yourself and think that you or the particular church you attend is an exception to the rule. Such thinking only leads to your continuing to hold to a form of godliness without its power. Very little more of true Christianity has been preserved among us than the mere name. A form of godliness has been kept up, but so little of its power remains and so many counterfeits have been substituted for it, that it is denied and rejected when it is taught and seen. No nation on earth rivals this one in its infidelity to and corruption of God’s word and worship, and it exceeds all others in its invention, practice, promotion, and exportation of immorality and various forms of godliness, all carried out under a profession of a belief in God.
You may ask, “What exactly is a form of godliness”? A “form of godliness” is any system of religion which professes to be Christian, yet denies, either in word or actions, the transforming power of a true faith in Jesus Christ. It is a form that bears the name of Christian, but denies the nature of the new birth and the effects of true conversion. It is a form that uses traditional Christian terminology, but the new meanings that are attached to the traditional words, “does not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness,” (1 Tm 6:3). The true power of godliness consists in a conscience cleansed from the guilt of sin, and a new nature free from the dominion of sin and under the dominion and government of Jesus Christ. It promotes holiness of life; loving obedience to God’s word; and trust in God’s faithfulness which in some measure sincerely answers the faithfulness of God, that is, His faithfulness to both His promises and warnings. It involves separation from the world (Jm 1:27; 4:4), an increasing hatred of sin, and the crucifying of your lusts. It instructs “us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus;” (Tit 2:12, 13). A mere form of godliness has no concern for these things. A form of godliness is the work of our own hands and the invention of your own mind. It is a system of religion that forms its own conception of God and Jesus Christ and worships that. Today the conception of God and Christ that dominates and is held to by most professing Christians is one of love and only love, but not the love that is the fruit of the Spirit. Rather it is a form of love; one that is humanly and naturally defined; a love that is a monstrous caricature of that taught by the Bible and which is the fruit of the Spirit. All forms of religion can be reduced to two heads. There is a natural form of religion, and there are anti-Christian forms, which are but corruptions of true Christianity and that in some way change it into the pagan’s natural religion.
Natural Form of Religion
First, there is natural religion. It is natural in the sense that something of it is to be found everywhere and in everyone. It is deeply engrained in the heart of man so that all people in the world hold to some form of religion. This form of religion is in every one of you who are reading this, and unless God, through the gospel, shines in your “hearts to give the light of the knowledge of God in the face of Christ” (2 Cor 4:6), and expels it, you are lost forever. There are in all natural religion these three particulars.
First, there is some notion of the being of God, that there is a God, and that this God is to be worshiped, served, and obeyed. All the world acknowledges some form of this (Rm 1:20). All people are able to come to this conclusion by their own natural powers of reasoning. Absolute atheism is against nature; it is unnatural and not to be found anywhere except where the principles of natural religion have been extinguished by the blinding power of Satan and by the judicial blinding of God for a people’s abuse and rejection of His revealed truth. When people reach the point where they struggle with the right way to the true knowledge of God revealed in His word, and close their eyes against it, God will give them over to blindness in things that even pagans understand; things such as the distinction between good and evil; male and female; the definition of marriage, etc. I have no doubt that there are more atheists in the United States, Canada, and Europe than in all the pagan nations of the world. The only place where such brutes are to be found is where the gospel is professed and people corrupt it and rebel against it.
This brings us to the second particular in natural religion, and that is there is always some distinction made between good and evil. There is some conviction of conscience about these. Conscience is as natural to humans as are thinking, reasoning, and emotion. It is natural for you and I to have a conscience. Conscience is nothing more or less than a person judging themselves according to some standard of right and wrong, good and evil. Speaking of those who did not have God’s written Law, the Apostle Paul declared that they still “do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness, and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them,” (Rm 2:14, 15). Their natural religion provides them with enough natural light to make basic distinctions between right and wrong. However, where the light of God’s standard of good and evil has been known and rejected; where people no longer see fit to acknowledge God’s standards of right and wrong, even the light of natural religion is extinguished and God gives such people “over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper” (Rm 1:28); things which in previous generations would have shocked the consciences of even the most pagan among them. Those who make a profession of faith in Jesus Christ yet deny their profession by their practice (Tit 1:16), and openly live under the most blatant sins and worldliness, become worse than unbelievers (1Tm 5:8). They reach the point where they will even call evil good and good evil, and substitute darkness for light and light for darkness (Is 5:20), and their spiritual leaders make no distinction between the holy and profane (Ezk 22:26).
Third, there is in all natural religion, and in all people naturally, some notion of forgiveness, mercy, and goodness in God. Amidst all their darkness concerning the true nature and knowledge of God found only in Jesus Christ, there is some willingness to ascribe to God a benevolent and gracious readiness to forgive. Wherever the light of conscience has not been extinguished, and there remains some conviction of sin, there will be this notion that God is one who is ready to forgive. All natural religion appeals in their various ways to their notion of God for this forgiveness. Where this notion of forgiveness comes to be refined by the light of God’s word, it will appear much better to a natural mind, and there are multitudes who have been deceived into holding to false notions of it. Notions such as forgiveness without any true repentance; forgiveness by means of absolution by a human priest; forgiveness by means of compensating for sin with good works; forgiveness by performing a religious ritual; even by redefining sin so as to have nothing for which to be forgiven.
All natural religion is plagued by at least two major defects. First, with all their natural light, and with all their understanding of God which may be known naturally, they do not know the true God. They do not know the Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. They do not know God in Christ. No natural man by means of their natural religion has ever come to know the one true God, “For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God,” (1 Cor 1:21). They do not know God in Christ and all gods outside of Christ and not seen in Christ are but idols of the mind that invented them. And secondly, all the notions which natural religion and natural people have of God’s goodness, mercy, and grace in saving and forgiving, know nothing of God’s way of doing it. They do not know of God’s forgiving by a substitutionary sacrifice and by the satisfaction of His wrath. They do not know of His saving by a Mediator, and by a righteousness that is none of their own making. There are many who may subscribe to and honor these truths with their lips, who still know nothing of the power of them upon their hearts.
All this natural religion that fills the world is only a faint and dim light; it is a false and strange fire that leads people into a ditch, and never has led a single person to heaven. No one can be made wise unto salvation except by the unadulterated word of God, and no one can know the word of God savingly except those to whom God wills to reveal it, and “to give the light of knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Cor 4:6). The rest remain blinded by the god of this world, “that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Cor 4:4). Their minds are imperceptibly led astray by false Christs from the simplicity and purity of devotion to the one true Christ, who is the only true image of God (2 Cor 11:3, 4). This brings me to the second form of religion, those that are anti-Christian.
Anti-Christian Forms of Religion
The second great form of religion that fills the world is the religion of anti-Christ; those which substitute a false Christ for the true Jesus Christ. The spirit of antichrist is alive and well in the world today (1Jn 4:1-6). This form is called the way to heaven, but it leads to hell. They have another way to heaven which is worse than that of natural religion because it comes closer to the true way. These ways are attractive to the minds of worldly people because they offer an easier way to heaven, a way in which many rather than few will be saved, therefore the world listens to and holds to them. The Bible speaks very differently than these forms about the number of people who will be saved and go to heaven. According to the Bible it is hard to be saved, but according to these forms it is easy. According to the Bible only a few will be saved, but according to these forms there will be many. These forms say that few, if any, are going to hell, but according to the Bible there are few who will go to heaven. Nevertheless, the Bible has never yet been wrong, while multitudes who have held to these various forms of religion have too late found them to be tragically mistaken. I am convinced that very few professing Christians, whether pastors or church-goers, have any conception of how narrow and hard the way to heaven is, and how few there are who will be saved.
All these forms are but various and assorted ways to lead people away from Jesus Christ. They propose a way to heaven by the merit of being baptized; by the merit of making a decision and praying a prayer; by the merit of good works, sometimes by your own, and sometimes by those of others; by resolutions of making some sort of compensation to God; by hopes of a universal salvation; by belonging to a church, not knowing that the church, even the true church, is not the way to heaven, but Christ is the way to heaven. What can be the reason for so many people falling into and holding to so many fatal mistakes about the way to heaven, especially where the light of the gospel has been so long known? The reason can only be the great natural darkness and hostility there is in the heart and mind to the true way to heaven. This darkness leads people to mistake the true way, and to take up and hold to other ways.
Today there are the Jehovah’s Witness, Mormon, Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox forms. There are the seeker-sensitive, self-esteem, emergent, and Spiritual Formation Movement forms. There is the Open-Theism form, the health, wealth, and prosperity forms, and forms for “carnal” Christians. There are forms for antinomians and forms for legalists; forms for liberals and forms for conservatives; forms for feminists and forms for traditionalists. There are liberation theology and social justice forms. There are forms for Millennials, Generation X, and Baby-Boomers. There are forms that preserve and flatter human pride by mixing a person’s own works with grace; forms that turn grace into license; forms that pander to and entice by fleshly desires; forms that accommodate the wisdom and love of the world and that leave a person secure in their sin. There are forms that are humanitarian, but not redemptive. There are forms that place a person’s mystical experiences, extra-biblical revelations, and own opinions on a par with Scripture. There is one form for this demographic, and another form for that. There is a form that is commercially viable, financially lucrative, and popular with the masses, and another form that allows people to be their own authority and sit in judgment over Scripture. Today there are a multitude of forms in existence which were unknown and unheard of less than a hundred years ago.
What all these multiplied and accumulated forms of godliness have in common is the god they worship is not the God of the Bible. The foundation on which they rest is not the true Son of God, but on a Jesus of their own invention. The gospel they hold to is not the gospel of Jesus Christ, but a different gospel. The true God can only be known savingly in, by, and through His Son Jesus Christ. No man comes to the Father but through the Lord Jesus Christ. All people are born naturally blind to a true knowledge of God, and it can never be discovered by the wisdom of man (1 Cor 1:21). Satan blinds people to the true God by blinding their minds to the glory of God in the face of Christ (2 Cor 4:4-6). Satan suggests and offers different Jesus’ more in keeping with a person’s own conceptions, and one that is compatible with their own lusts. It is upon the foundation of one of these Jesus’ which people will rest their faith and build their various forms of godliness. All of these false Jesus’ obscure and pervert the true Son of God, thereby effectively blinding the mind to a true knowledge of Him.
Professing Christians may jump from one form of godliness to another, but it is still a mere form without its power to which they tenaciously hold. Most people, even the ungodly, have a kind of faith, such as it is. There is no scarcity of faith to be found among professing Christians, but it is not a faith that will bring them to heaven. They may know divine truth; they may give an assent to the teachings of the Bible. Sometimes this assent may be strong; it may produce some alterations in their lifestyle and behavior. They may “have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ”, and “known the way of righteousness” (2 Pt 2:20, 21), and still have no saving faith at all. They may “have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come,” (Hb 6:4,5), but otherwise, for all of this, they are utter strangers to true saving faith. For all their believing, they bring forth nothing but thorns and thistles (Hb 6:8), and they are, as the apostle Peter calls them, dogs and swine still (2 Pt 2:22). Their nature remains unchanged. They may fill their heads with theology and teach it to others; they may be active in their church, and decorate the walls of their homes with Bible verses, but they remain utter strangers to the power of godliness, and so they deny such a thing exists. This is the sad condition of the mass of professing Christians today. This is one sign that we are now in a dangerous season.
Contrary to much popular teaching, there are not multiple paths to Jesus any more than there are multiple paths to God. Unless God in His grace shines the true knowledge of Christ into your heart, you will remain blinded by your vain, false, and unprofitable notions of Christ that are to be found nowhere in Scripture, but only in the minds that invented, harbor, cling to, and perpetuate them. True godliness is more than just its outside appearances, this world’s conceptions of it, and the devil’s imitations of it. If the season in which we now live is any indication, it is to be feared that the godliness which the bulk of professing Christians hold to consists of nothing more than one of its assorted forms which abound today; forms that bear little distinction from the pagan’s natural religion.
All true believers may and ought to bear witness against such a season. True Christians have a divine mandate to expose and reprove the unfruitful deeds of darkness (Eph 5:11). We should mourn for and bear witness against the public sins of the season in which we live, not participate in and with them. It is a glorious thing to be persecuted for the sake of righteousness (Mt 5:10). You are blessed “when men hate you, and ostracize you, and cast insults at you, and spurn your name as evil, for the sake of the Son of Man” (Lk 6:22). As professing Christians openly engage in all their sins and worldliness – love of self, love of money…love of pleasure, etc. – they continue to hold to an outward profession of a belief in God and faith in Jesus Christ, and despise and resent anyone who points out the error of their ways.
In a difficult season it is wisdom to examine yourself to see if you are in the faith, or if you are among the mass of professing Christians whose minds have been led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ into a form of godliness without its power. These forms do not spring up overnight, but are the result of false teachers who “secretly introduce destructive heresies” (2 Pt 2:1). They introduce human wisdom and extra-biblical teachings under the cloak of traditional Christian terminology. They strive to integrate and harmonize the wisdom and reasoning of man with divine truth. Over time these false gospels multiply and accumulate until the mass of professing Christians come to associate Christianity with these diverse systems of religion, so that the only Christianity they will accept is one that conforms to their form of godliness.
Why Such Times are Dangerous
Whenever and wherever these conditions are found, the season will be dangerous, and it will be dangerous for several reasons:
First, because this is infectious. According to the number of those who visibly practice and live in sin and worldliness while under an outward profession of faith, it becomes more toxic, because it spreads its infection by example. When the multitudes condone and agree to do evil, the restraint of shame is removed, until people reach the point where “they do not know how to blush” (Jer 8:12). When forms of godliness proliferate and are increasingly embraced by those bearing the name of “Christian”, then the restraint of sound doctrine is removed. If the times are favorable to them, and they prosper in their sin, then they harden and encourage one another in their sin, worldliness, and forms of godliness until they become the norm. Then a general self-indulgence and love of ease and pleasure take possession of the heart. They flock together into large bodies to encourage and corrupt one another in their particular form of godliness. The principles of sound doctrine become neglected, and as they grow out of fashion, they are no longer endured (2 Tm 4:3), and sinful practices prevail. The authority of God and His word is cast off; His commands and His gospel are first corrupted, then abandoned, and then, by degrees eventually despised (2 Tm 4:4). Consequently, unfaithfulness to God and His word takes deeper root, and immorality, lawlessness, and self-centeredness, which are the natural fruit of infidelity, becomes more common and abundant. As a society becomes more pagan, so does its morals and its religious beliefs and practices.
Secondly, it is dangerous because of its effects. Having removed the restraint of God’s divine law, human laws lose their force on the conscience, because when the knowledge, love, and fear of God is gone, there is no sufficient motive left to influence the heart and conduct. Having cast off God’s restraints, how long can human restraints be expected to maintain order? People will then enter into sin without any fear or sense of danger to their soul, all while under an outward profession of faith in God and a visible form of godliness. When they come to reject all human restraints as they have rejected all of God’s, then they fill all things, both secular and religious, with confusion and ruin, even to the point where an institution as foundational to society as marriage, is corrupted by equating it with something as depraved as homosexuality. When a nation’s sins have come to this height – especially in a nation that has known the word of God and experienced His blessings, and where people profess a belief in God – then God has declared in His word, and by His providential works throughout history, that He will intervene to maintain the cause of His law and government. This makes it a dangerous season.
Thirdly, such a season is dangerous because of its consequences, which are the judgments of God. When people, even professing Christians, have deeply corrupted themselves, God’s word, His gospel, and His worship, then God will remember their defection; He will visit their sins with His judgments, “Shall I not punish them for these things?” declares the Lord. “On a nation such as this shall I not avenge Myself?” (Jer 9:9). When people who have been given God’s truth, do not receive the love of the truth, but take pleasure in wickedness, worldliness, and forms of godliness, “God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they might believe what is false” (2 Th 2:11). Nobody thinks that what they believe is false; otherwise they would not believe it. People believe what is false because they are convinced in their mind that what they believe is right and true. They hold to their form of godliness because they are persuaded it is right. It is not the believing of what is false that receives the judgment of God, rather it is continuing to believe and hold to what is false even after being given and shown the truth; it is “because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved” (2 Th 2:10). When God empowers His gospel and applies it savingly so that a person receives the love of the truth so as to be saved, this is godliness with power. But where only a natural power reaches a carnal heart, people are drawn in only to a profession of faith and a form of godliness without its power.
Are you, or are you not warned in the Bible about false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing; about false witnesses, false apostles, false brethren, false words, false doctrine, false worship, false hope, and false professions? Were these things not written for our instruction? Do you think there are less deceptions and forms of godliness now than when these warnings were first written? Do you think you are immune from all of these falsehoods and deceptions? Does not the vast majority of people today, even of professing Christians, embrace and believe the false philosophies of feminism, evolution, psychology, and the prevailing wisdom, practices, habits, tastes, morals, and opinions of the culture? Are you among those who are demanding solutions for all the evil around us, yet insist on clinging to your love of self, money, pleasure, the world, and your form of godliness? Have you not already been deluded into believing what is false and holding to a form of godliness without its power? In a season such as this you would be a rare exception if you have not. Nothing could be more clear than the words of Jesus, “He who is of God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not hear them, because you are not of God” (Jn 8:47; cf. 1 Jn 4:5, 6).
The mass of professing Christians today continue to falsely believe they can be Christians and still indulge their lusts, pleasures, fleshly desires, and worldly lives. They falsely believe they can serve two masters. They falsely believe God will not judge their sin. They falsely believe everyone goes to heaven when they die. They falsely believe they can integrate human wisdom and popular opinion with God’s divine word without polluting and adulterating the divine. They falsely believe they can accomplish spiritual ends with worldly means without corrupting the ends. They believe what is false over what is true because they want to believe it; they want to do the works of their father the devil (Jn 8:44), all while holding to their form of godliness. To believe the truth would require that they renounce and forsake the world, the things of this world, their false beliefs on which all their self-interests depend, and all the sin they love. They profess the truth of Jesus Christ, and hold to a form of godliness, while at the same time they are lovers of self, lovers of money…lovers of pleasure, etc. Unless God opens their heart and graciously grants them a love for the truth as it is in Christ Jesus, they will continue to believe what is false and hold to their particular and preferred form of godliness.
God sends these distresses to discipline and correct His professing people and awaken them so that they humble themselves, repent, and return to the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ. God is never at a loss for means to execute His judgments. God interposes with His judgments either to correct or to destroy. When they are from His loving rod of correction, they humble; they bring a sinner to their knees, they repent, and they turn from their error and wicked ways and are rescued and reformed by the correction. It produces “the peaceful fruit of righteousness” (Hb 12:11). But when God’s judgments are sent for destruction, He gives warnings before the blow; He provides signs which indicate that a season is dangerous, yet the people sin on securely, as if their sin and their distresses were unrelated, and their continuance in their sin under their profession of faith and forms of godliness would not be the cause of the continuation and increase of their calamities.
It is horrible to see how all of God’s judgments up till now have had absolutely no effect in turning this nation from its wicked ways. Instead we continue to provoke and spurn the one true God, disregard His word, refuse to receive correction, and attribute all our disasters and social ills to second causes rather than admit they are the consequences of our sin. Professing Christians continue to revel in their lusts, indulge their fleshly desires, and conform themselves to this world, all while holding fast to a false security, a hollow profession of faith, and their multiplied forms of godliness. The mass of professing Christians still refuse to deny themselves of their pleasures, their self-indulgences, their entertainments, and their vices. As long as this pattern continues, God will continue His punishments, and it is to be feared that if we remain hardened and unrepentant under them, God will at last give us over to destruction. Will you profess the truth and at the same time love unrighteousness? Will you profess to love God and at the same time reject, despise, and remain willfully ignorant of His word (Is 5:24)? Will you profess to love Jesus Christ and at the same time trample Him under your feet (Hb 10:29)? The consequence is a false security under superstitions, wickedness, calamities, and ungodliness. This is the ultimate end of a dangerous season, not to mention all the temporal judgments that are the consequence of these spiritual judgments.
This is the first cause which makes a season dangerous; when professing Christians hold to a form of godliness without its power. They cling to a profession of faith and belief in God while at the same time they openly and unashamedly live in and practice the most blatant sins and worldliness. Not only do they live in and practice them, but they turn them into virtues and incorporate them into their forms of godliness. This describes the bulk of professing Christianity today. I ask every reader of this study, does this describe you? Do you comfort yourself with the thought that so many others cannot be in the wrong way to heaven? Given all the ways which claim to lead to heaven, a person might be tempted to think that the entire world was going to heaven, and that hell was nothing but a fable and a myth. I warn you to beware of this state of mind and this form of godliness.
It is a painful conclusion to arrive at, and I know full well that many will not accept what I am saying, but I do not see how it can be avoided. It is useless to close our eyes and pretend not to see the danger of the times in which we live. Tragically most will continue to cling to their form of godliness and flatter themselves that they are in the right way to heaven, until destruction comes upon them suddenly, and then it will be too late. They will continue to clamor in vain for humanistic solutions to all the evils which are now around us. They will still refuse to draw any connection between their sin and God’s judgments. They will persist in refusing to acknowledge the hand of God in all the calamities they dread. They will still insist they are Christians even while living in sin and pursuing their pleasures. They will still continue to believe what is false and to think that everyone goes to heaven when they die. It is a terrible thought that there should be so many professing Christians, so much religious activity, so many mega-churches, so many famous and popular preachers, and yet, for all of this, so few who shall be saved, so few who will endure sound doctrine, and so few whose godliness consists of anything more than a mere form without its power. This makes for a dangerous season.
In our next study I will continue to highlight some of the more general causes that mark and make a season dangerous.