Spiritual Signs – Negative
The third category of end-time signs is what I call spiritual signs. Regarding these spiritual signs, let me begin by emphasizing that there are a great variety of them. There are negative ones and positive ones, and let me warn you, the negative ones are extremely negative.
False Christs and False Prophets
For example, in Matthew 24 Jesus three times — three times — emphasizes that one of the signs of the end times will be false Christs, false prophets and their cultic groups. It’s the first sign He mentions in verse 5. He says, “Many will come in my name and they will say, ‘I am the Christ’ and will mislead many.” In verse 11 He mentions it again when He cautions that “many false prophets will arise and will mislead many.”
Then again in verse 24 Jesus warns about “false Christs and false prophets” who will show “great signs and wonders.” Three times He warns us about cults. That’s the reason that all prophetic ministries are also cult watching ministries.
We are living in the age of the epidemic of the cults. It began in the mid-19th century, with the formation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints — the Mormon Church — which today is the largest cult in the world. It is a church that teaches a false Jesus.
That’s the fundamental, bottom line, characteristic of all cults — they preach a false Jesus. The Mormons teach that Jesus is the brother of Lucifer, one of 2,000 gods created by the super god, whom they identify as the exalted man Adam. Talk about something straight from the pit of Hell! The Jehovah Witnesses then came along later in the 19th century teaching that Jesus was the archangel Michael.
Since the 20th century we have had an explosion of cults. Consider all the spiritist cults that teach things like Jesus is “a medium of the sixth sphere of the astral projection,” whatever that gobbledygook means.
On and on it goes, with some cult leaders, like Reverend Moon, claiming to be the Messiah. The cults are all around us, and they’re a sign that Jesus is coming soon.
Satanism
The second negative spiritual sign is Satanism. The Bible tells us that in the end times there is going to be a tremendous outbreak of Satanism. In 1 Timothy 4:1, Paul writes these words, he says, “The Spirit explicitly says that in the latter times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons.”
Satan has gone public. He wants to take as many people to Hell with him as he possibly can. I first became aware of this trend back in the Sixties when the movie, “Rosemary’s Baby,” was released. It was about a woman abducted by a witch coven and impregnated by Satan. It was a horrible movie. But, that was just the beginning. Its success fueled copycats like “Exorcist I and II” and “Omen I and II”. The trend has intensified in recent years to the point that our movies and television programs today are obsessed with satanic themes like vampires. The success of these films simply reflects the fact that the American people have become obsessed with the occult. Americans are caught up in astrology and numerology. Just look at the checkout stands at your major supermarkets and you will see the horoscope books and the tabloids that traffic in the occult.
The number one best-selling publications in America today are the filthy tabloids, like The Star and The National Enquirer which are saturated from beginning to end with ESP, numerology, astrology, and other forms of New Age mumbo-jumbo, all of which is Satanism.
Apostasy
The third negative spiritual sign is apostasy. This is a sign that is mentioned repeatedly in the Scriptures. Paul refers to it in 2 Thessalonians 2 where he says, “That the Antichrist will not be revealed until the great apostasy takes place.” Jesus refers to it in Matthew 24 where He says that “men’s love will grow cold.” Paul refers to it again in 2 Timothy 3 where he says that, “In the end times the reason society is going to be so terrible is because men will hold to the form of religion but they will deny its power.”
Paul refers to the apostasy of the professing church again in 2 Timothy 4. He says that we need to stress the Word of God in the end times because he says, “The time will come when people will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires; and will turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside into myths.” All kinds of myths. All kinds of heresies. All kinds of gross apostasy.
In the Church at large today, you can find Christian spokesmen denying all the fundamental truths of the Bible, denying the words of Jesus, denying the virgin birth, denying the Resurrection, denying the Second Coming. They’re even arguing that there are many roads to God.
Most of our seminaries spend their time disparaging the Bible, arguing that it is Man’s search for God rather than God’s revelation to Man. Our mainline Protestant denominations seem intent on spiritualizing everything in the Bible.
You can even find heresies at the conservative end of the spectrum among fundamentalist groups that argue the Holy Spirit retired in the First Century. At the opposite extreme are those who emphasize the Holy Spirit to the point of overshadowing the Savior, Jesus Christ. Then there are the fads, the winds of doctrine, with things like the Discipling Movement, the prosperity doctrine, and the power of positive thinking. There is no area of Christianity that is immune to the heresy and apostasy that is sweeping through the Church today, and it’s all a sign of the soon return of Jesus.
In the seventh part of this series proving the fact that we are now living in the season of the Lord’s return, I will present as proof the positive end times spiritual signs and the signs of technology.
God bless you brother David, from Mexico my truly love for you and your team. You are in my prayers, regards and thanks for sharing the word of God and confort us with the soon return of Jesus!