For who in the skies can be compared to the Lord? Who among the heavenly beings is like the Lord, a God greatly to be feared in the council of the holy ones, and awesome above all who are around him? (Psalm 8:”6-7)

As I begin this piece I remind you that the one true and living God has given us a most powerful weapon in this life, the fervent prayer of faithful saints. While there’s no power in the act of prayer itself, there most assuredly is power in the One Who answers our prayer in Christ.

With this in mind then, we wish to thank you for your continued prayer. Please know it is appreciated and I’ve no doubt that the Lord is using it for His glory. I’m still battling what seems like a flood of physical issues, which is what has been slowing me down right now.

Even so, we do feel glimmers here and there that this time of testing is going to come to an end one day “soon.” For now, I turn to a major reason why we are currently witnessing an accelerated apostasy within the mainstream of the professing Christian community.

It really began within more conservative evangelicalism when it made the fateful decision to embrace the enemy’s Church Growth Movement, which slithered out of Fuller Theological Seminary (FTS) in the mid-60’s. And it’s quite easy to see where FTS would derail.

They lost faith in the perspicuity (clarity) of Holy Scripture—the inerrant and infallible Word of God—as I outlined some time back here at Apprising Ministries, e.g in Teachings of Demons on Church Growth. FTS turned it’s back on how God revealed we should grow churches.

And in rushed men like Rick Warren who would teach scores of evangelical pastors to compromise Biblical doctrine in order to gain converts to what became a quasi-Christian Purpose Drive/Seeker Driven religion. Tragically, this ushered in many false concepts about God.

Here I offer that it should be obvious that the Christian faith is only as strong as it’s view concerning Who God really is. Sadly, what is passing for the Christian faith before the majority of the world right now is portraying things about God that simply aren’t true.

Add to this the satanic syncretism that has also snaked its way into the very heart of Christendom, through its bowing before the altar of Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism—along with its twin pillar of charismania—and you have the recipe for spiritual disaster.

However, the Lord had already warned us in Scripture long ago — Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons (1 Timothy 4:1). Well, they’re now here.

Instead of preaching the God of the Bible, these Warrenites and their fellow postmodern liberals have settled for a mystic mush god who wouldn’t hurt a fly; essentially, he/she/it is simply just a bigger version of themselves. Yet God has also revealed that:

I am the LORD, and there is no other. I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the LORD, who does all these things. (Isaiah 45:6-7)

I’m afraid that the following words from Charles Spurgeon are as true now as when he spoke them concerning those who succumbed to the mythology of the original liberals:

At the present day, I am afraid that nine people out of ten do not believe in the God who is revealed to us in the Bible. “What?” you say. It is so, I grieve to say. I can point you to newspapers, to magazines, to periodicals, and also to pulpits by the score, in which there is a new god set up to be worshiped; not the God of the Old Testament, he is said to be too strict, too severe, too stern for our modern teachers.

They do not believe in him. The God of Abraham is dethroned by many nowadays; and in his place they have a molluscous god, like those of whom Moses spoke, “new gods that come newly up, whom your fathers feared not.” They shudder at the very mention of the God of the Puritans. If Jonathan Edwards were to rise from the dead, they would not listen to him for a minute, they would say that they had quite a new god since his day.

But brethren, I believe in the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob; this God is my God—ay, the God that drowned Pharaoh and his host at the Red Sea, and moved his people to sing “Hallelujah” as he did it; the God that caused the earth to open, and swallow up Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, and all their company—a terrible God is the God whom I adore—he is the God and Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, full of mercy, compassion, and grace, tender and gentle, yet just and dreadful in his holiness, and terrible out of his holy places.

This is the God whom we worship, and he who come to him in Christ, and trusts in him, will take him to be his Instructor, and so shall he learn aright all that he needs to know. But woe unto the men of this day, we have made unto themselves a calf of their own devising, which has no power to bless or to save them! (source)

Tragically along this same line, as a consequence of the gospel of humanism perpetrated by these purveyors of the postmodern liberalism of CSM and their charismaniac compadres, the Lord of Glory has been reduced to A “Jesus Who’s Gandhi with a Beard. In closing this, for now, here’s something to contemplate.

While commenting on John 14:13, Martin Luther now explains to you just Who Christ Jesus of Nazareth truly is. The fact is, He’s the exact imprint (Hebrews 1:3) of the one true and living God in human flesh. In other words, Jesus is the very God just described by Spurgeon above.

Or, do you not remember that Jesus says — Whoever has seen me has seen the Father (John 14:9). So yes, you will often hear evangelical leaders affirm Jesus as the God of Holy Scripture, but too often today exactly what that means is largely lost upon the visible church:

What does Christ mean when He says, “I will do whatever you ask in my name”? I would think He should say, “What you ask the Father in my name, he will do.” But Christ is pointing to Himself in this passage.

These are peculiar words coming from a human being. How can a mere man make such lofty claims? With these simple words, Christ clearly states that He is the true and almighty God, equal with the Father.

For whoever says, “Whatever you ask, I will do,” is saying, “I am God, Who can and will give you everything.” Why else should Christians pray in Jesus’ Name? Who do people call on saints as helpers in times of need?

Some call for Saint George for protection in War, Saint Sebastian for protection from pestilence, and others for other circumstances; obviously, they believe that these saints will somehow answer their prayers.

But Christ claims this role for Himself. In other words, He is saying, “I won’t command others to do whatever you ask for, I will do it Myself.” So He is the One Who can help in every situation with what we need.

He is mightier than the devil, sin, death, the world, and all creation. No being—whether human or angelic—has ever had, or ever will have, such power. Christ possesses all of God’s power and strength.

Here Christ sums up what we can ask Him for in prayer, He doesn’t limit His promise by adding, “That is, only if you ask for gold and silver or for something that other people can give you.”

Rather, He says that He will do “whatever you ask.”

Further reading

• KAY ARTHUR WITH ERRONEOUS CONTEMPLATIVE INTERPRETATION OF PSALM 46:10
• LATEST CONCERNING APPRISING MINISTRIES
• T.D. JAKES HOSTS CHRISTINE CAINE ON TBN’S PTL TONIGHT