This extract from a long piece blogged two years two weeks ago is reprinted as lead-in for the next post on how last week’s events in the Church of England and Parliament fulfill End-time prophecy of the soon return of Jesus Christ.

After writing about Humanism being the Forerunner of the Antichrist I looked at the spirit of Humanism’s offensive and its role in the Greece-EU crisis. A couple of letters to one of the first churches planted in Europe warn about its deceitful effects upon beliefs and values.:

EXTRACT from FUNDAMENTAL FLAW IN WESTERN SOCIETY…HUMANISM

APOSTASY and DECEPTION

The Book of Acts records that, whilst on a mission in Asia Minor, the apostle Paul was supernaturally called to visit Macedonia over in mainland Europe (Acts 16). In about 49 AD he arrived in the port of Philippi in northern Greece and planted a house church led by a business woman known as Lydia. From there he and his companion Silas went south to Salonika (Thessalonica), found the Jewish synagogue and preached there. A thriving church of devout Greeks and some Jews was established, but they helped Paul to escape from his violent opponents. Within a couple of years he wrote from Corinth two concise letters to those new believers to clarify points arising from his teaching.

One of those themes was upon the expected return of the Lord Jesus Christ and Paul’s second letter clarified the brief reference in the first, as follows (emphases added).

‘Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you, ² not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ had come. ³ Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, ⁴ who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.’ (2 Thess 2 NKJV)

He proceeds at length to explain that the ‘mystery of lawlessness’ is already at work, but that someone who will be the very personification of evil will be revealed and come onto the world stage. Then the Lord will come from heaven and destroy him by the glory of His physical return to earth (2Thess 2:8)

Today – now – we’re well into that first stage, the ‘falling away’ from true faith in Jesus Christ, and which is also known as the ‘Great Apostasy’, as is so abundantly evident across the once-Christian Western world. (Eg. recent video clip on John Kilpatrick vision: ‘The United Apostates of America’.)  Paul proceeds,

‘The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, ¹⁰ and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved.‘

This means that those who fall away from the fullness of faith as originally taught by the Apostles, will become so unrighteous in God’s sight that they will be wide open to being deceived by Satan and his agents. They bring a distortion and twisting of the Gospel to accommodate people’s preferences and desires instead of obeying God’s commands.

It is clear this deception is the consequential result of not loving the truth, who is the very Word of God in the person of Jesus Christ, and thus not desiring Him and the salvation He bought them by dying in their stead on the cross.

The next verse is extremely ominous. Paul explains that, because their attitude remains deliberately ungodly, the Almighty is not only allowing them to be strongly deceived but is sending an irresistible delusion, the consequences of which will condemn them:

‘And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, ¹² that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.’

By way of a careful caveat we need to note that a number of believers too readily quote verse 9 about some people through whom miracles, signs and wonders are displayed. As in my recent post on the accuser of the brethren attacking prophecies such self-appointed inquisitors claim all such demonstrations are deception. But upon reading and understanding the chapter in its entirety (as here) we find their claims to be rather judgemental.

Verse 12 gives the game away! Only those who despise the truth of the Gospel will be misled and suffer the consequences.