False Prophets And The Broad Way by Zac Poonen - Part 1

[Music] [Music] there are a number of verses in the New Testament that tell us that one of the things that's going to happen before Jesus comes again is a great falling away and Jesus himself warned about that I want you to look at some of those scriptures in Matthew 24 first of all the thing is this falling away doesn't look like a falling away that's where we can be deceived since in Matthew 24 that verse 10 you know they were asking Jesus what when are these things gonna happen Matthew 24 and verse 3 and what is going to be the sign of your coming and the first thing he says is be careful that no one deceives you and because many will come to deceive you then he goes on to say at that time verse 10 many will fall away and will betray one another and hate one another and again he speaks about many false prophets will arise and will mislead many now when you read something like that as one of the things that's going to be very common in the last days our attitude should be Lord how am I going to be protected from this how am I going to know who is a false prophet how am I going to distinguish between the real and the counterfeit because you know that in every area the counterfeit looks very much like the real somebody produces a counterfeit five hundred rupee note it will look just like the real thing and people are becoming more and more clever at that nowadays they produce a counterfeit diamond it looked just like the real thing counterfeit gold they look just like the real thing and a counterfeit gospel will also look like the real thing so how are you going to find out if we can be deceived in the matter of things like currency and diamonds and things like that it's very easy to be deceived and when this happens it says here because of these false prophets lawlessness or sin is going to increase you know one of the results of the Ministry of false prophets is that people begin to take sin very lightly and when that happens most people's love I think that means love for Jesus he's gonna grow cold and their love for one another of course but the one who endures in love till the end he will be saved now as I have tried to study this matter of false prophets now before I come to that I just want to tell you that the Apostle said the same thing so I want to show you some other verses for example in 1 Timothy 4 if we speak about these things many times it's because these things are written many times in Scripture 1 Timothy 4 it says the Holy Spirit speaks explicitly that in the latter times some will fall away from the faith paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience so it's not going to be with gross sins like adultery and murder and things like that that deception is going to come because there's no deception in those things those are all obvious sins but it's going to be in things which don't look so bad because most people are doing it many keys but people are going to fall away from the faith that means once upon a time they were there they've gone down now let me show you another passage in second Timothy 3 it says the last days difficult times will come now when we talk about difficult times we think of you know it's gonna be difficult to live financially that's not what the Bible speaking about it's not saying it's gonna be very difficult to live financially in the Living Bible it he makes it clear it's gonna be difficult to be a Christian in the last days and it's not primarily because of persecution but because the difference between a true disciple of Jesus and the compromising Christian will be be very difficult to identify the churches that started out preaching discipleship will compromise and so that's what it says here the last days is going to be it's going to be difficult to be a Christian because the word poor means because men are going to be lovers of self lovers of money no there's not going to be any shortage of money in the last days people are going to love it and they're gonna be boastful and arrogant and revilers and disobedient to parents and so on and finally worse for lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God and doing all this all these things mentioned in verse 2 and three and four they will still hold to a form of godliness but denying its power the form of godliness is the doctrine of godliness that is the form like the form of a body you know ten fingers to eysan but it's a life in the body that makes the main thing so also in christianity we have a doctrine and the dot that means people aren't gonna preach wrong doctrine they're gonna hold the right doctrine a form of godliness but without the power of godliness it is the power of the Holy Spirit will be missing and it says here avoid such people no why should we avoid such people because if you mingle too much with them you will be influenced by them and you will yourself become like them because the vast majority are going to be like that is it possible there could be such people in our church who could influence you away from God I think so sure slowly they can make you a lover of pleasure more than a lover of God that's what it says here that's our deception comes very slowly

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Id: 6rfnz3i4vek

Length: 9min 47sec (587 seconds)

Published: Fri May 30 2008