The Final Deception of the Church

During the church age, over the last 2000 years, there have been sweeping movements of God’s Spirit while at the same time there have been major inroads by what Paul calls, “seducing spirits and doctrines of demons” in 1 Timothy 4:1.

The Scriptures have a great deal to say about the unique spiritual characteristics of our generation as distinct from other times in history. We face the greatest dangers of any generation of Christians thus far; in global persecution but also in the deception of the elect.

We’ll start with a story to illustrate one of the primary issues we need to look at;

The Enterprise arrives at planet M-113 to provide supplies and routine medical exams to Doctor Robert Crater and his wife, Nancy, with whom Dr. Leonard McCoy was once involved. M-113 has been home to the Craters for five years, during which time they have conducted an archaeological survey of the planet's ruins. They are the only known inhabitants of the planet.

Kirk, McCoy, and crewman Darnell beam down to the planet and meet Dr. Crater and, apparently, Nancy Crater, but each of the landing party sees a different woman. McCoy, who says he is amazed at how little Nancy has changed since he last saw her, sees Nancy as he knew her 12 years ago. Darnell sees a completely different, younger blond woman who looks exactly like someone he met before. Kirk sees a woman similar to the woman McCoy sees, but more appropriately aged.

Nancy Crater has been dead for four years, but the creature is a Shape Shifter who can read minds and assume whatever form would be most useful to its purposes. After living on the planet with this creature for so long, Dr. Crater has learned to recognize it no matter what form it takes – no one else can do so.

Now keep this fascinating story in mind as we look at a couple of key verses in 2 Timothy 3,

But mark this: There will be dangerous times in the last days . . . people will be lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God having a form of godliness but denying its power. . . always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth. Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these teachers oppose the truth.

We’re going to focus on two phrases in this passage: vs. 5 (form) and vs. 8 (Jannes & Jambres)

“Form” is (Gk.) Morphosis and means, “Exact or identical form, not relative or ambiguous, not partial or inexact”.

It’s like a clone that is so exact that no one can tell the clone from the original.

The “dangerous times” spoken of in 2 Timothy 3:1 point to the rise of a deception in the last days that presents a Christianity in exact form and likeness to the real thing; but it lacks the spiritual reality that would make it true (we’ll look at what that means in a few minutes).

The means of achieving this deception is done by activities identical to that of Jannes and Jambres. These were the magicians of Pharaoh who opposed Moses in Exodus 7:8-13.

To understand the deception we face, we have to see the nature of these magician’s opposition to the truth.

The mode in which “Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses” was simply by imitating, as far as they were able, whatever he did. What Moses did, they could do, so from an objective observer’s viewpoint, there was no significant difference. A miracle is a miracle. If Moses wrought miracles to get the people out of Egypt, they would work miracles to keep them in.

If the spiritual Christian feeds the hungry, visits the sick, teaches sound doctrine, witnesses to the lost, goes to prayer meetings and home groups, and sings contemporary worship songs - then the imitator will do exactly the same things.

Again, this is the special character of the resistance offered to the truth “in the last days”. This is the spirit and work of “exact form” imitation through 21st century Jannes and Jambres.

Only spiritual discernment can distinguish the imitation from the real. External observance alone can’t separate the two.

See what you think of this historically documented event:

“The whole assembly stood there with the greatest reverence before this highest Majesty and most powerful Inspirer of awe, before which the greatest of souls becomes so little as to be almost nothing. And if we had not been witness to the movement of the body during this event, the raising of hands during the songs and prayers, and the expressions of humility – and if we had not heard the beating of the hearts before this immeasurable grandeur – we would have thought ourselves transferred to another life; to heaven. And, truly, we were at that hour in another world; the world of the Spirit. We were in the house of God, in God’s immediate Presence, and all with lowered heads and humble tongues and voices raised in prayer and praise, (were surrounded by) weeping eyes, awestruck hearts and pure thoughts of intercession.”

This is a description of an Islamic Ka’aba worship service which occurred in the early 1900’s.

What if an event like this was held in a Christian church on a Sunday morning and instead of being saturated with the forms and words of Islam, was instead saturated with Christian forms and words?

Would we know whether we were dealing with the Holy Spirit or with the spirit of Jannes and Jambres?

If you experienced all those incredible things in a Christian church, how would you know whether your experiences were actually from God?

In 2 Thessalonians 2:3 Paul says that in this last generation, there will be a great apostasy or falling away in the church from the Truth. The word “apostasy” means to depart from a previously held position.

So, we’re talking about born again believers who started their Christian life on track and then at some point succumbed to this final deception.

And ironically, even though this falling away involves a majority of believers, my experience has been that most believers in contemporary evangelical Christianity in our country believe they are impervious to such a deception.

We may be evangelical, doctrinally orthodox and eternally safe in Christ, but we are not immune to deception.

There are too many warnings in the scriptures given to the church regarding the intensity and subtlety of the last day’s deception for us to consider ourselves invulnerable to being deceived.

So, how exactly does this deception take place?

The natural world operates in the realm of the sensual; the five senses coupled with logic, reason and instinct. These systems of perception are all that humans are capable of outside of Christ. Without being born again the human spirit is not engaged in the perception of reality or in relationship with God.

That which is born of flesh is flesh; that which is born of Spirit is spirit.

The Christian is a spiritual being and has the capacity (if developed) to see through the visible and sensual to the spiritual realities behind what is seen: In 2 Cor. 2 Paul writes,

“The Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God . . . The natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.”

There has never been a generation in the history of the church when spiritual understanding and discernment were more important than now.

The deception of the church at the end will be based on that which is seen through natural eyes, so the church must be a company of people who are able to see through the surface and penetrate to the spiritual reality of all things.

We must be able to give a spiritual interpretation to all that is around us.

Remember, faith isn’t trusting God to help us live the Christian life – faith is trusting God to live that life for us. The Christian life is Christ – how could we live His life? As Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life”. The world and angels aren’t looking for, nor are they impressed with seeing, committed Christians – they want to see Jesus, Himself, living in His second body. Only He can do that!

And Paul’s statement to the Galatians confirms the practical reality of this in the apostle’s life, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me . . .” (paraphrase of Gal. 2:20)

Many Christians know God as Father but not Christ as life – so they don’t recognize His presence or absence from whatever claims to be Christianity.

It’s similar to Sardis in Revelation chapter 3

“To the angel of the church in Sardis write: These are the words of Him who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your works; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead.”

This group of believers was totally convinced they were an alive church – but they were dead.

Jerusha (our daughter in Olympia) told me about a lady she was talking to that said, “Are you telling me that if I’m sincere, if I love the Lord, and if I ask Him to bring me the truth – He won’t!?”

Let’s go to a passage that will show us how far sincerity, commitment to Christ and love for Him will get us in terms of avoiding deception: Matt. 16:21-23

"From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that He must go to Jerusalem . . that He must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. ‘Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to You!’ Jesus turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.’”

To know the “concerns of God” requires spiritual discernment; “human concerns” are simply our natural approach to evaluating what’s going on around us.

Is there any doubt that Peter had left all to follow Christ, or that he was sincere and that he genuinely loved the Lord? No! But he was clueless in regard to what God’s plan was in Christ.

One writer called it “unenlightened enthusiasm”

The church in America is being conditioned to evaluate Christianity by emotion, empiricism and reason - not by spiritual discernment. Our largest churches are characterized by that which appeals to the natural senses (video clips, stage lights, celebrity-status preachers, contemporary inspiring worship songs, Biblically based sermons, local community and international outreaches and missions, etc.).

We’ve come to believe that high energy services, compassionate fellowship, orthodox doctrine and programmatic activity equals “spiritual life”.

If these things were removed, the church would no longer be popular because spiritual life has been redefined from that which is based on spiritual reality, to that which is based on sight, feelings, intellect and sensory presentation.

This is the conditioning of the church in the final generation to replace the spiritual with the natural; to replace the original with a clone.

We are being conditioned to operate by our natural senses and reason rather than by our spirit.

Satan has had 6000 years to study us and to learn what works and what doesn’t work when it comes to neutralizing our spiritual vitality and discernment.

According to Paul in 2 Timothy 3, ours is the generation that will see the establishment of an outward exact “form” or imitation of what was meant to be.

The church in America is not spiritually weak because it’s comprised of unbelievers; it is weak because it is comprised of Christians who can’t see the invisible – who can’t tell the difference between Christ expressed in His people and people sincerely and impressively committed to Christianity.

Let me see if I can paint a picture of a first century church that we see reflected in many twenty-first century churches. Here’s what the church in Ephesus looked like 2000 years ago based on the description given in Revelation 2:1-7;

1. They had sound doctrine
2. They had a sincere and determined commitment by the majority of the congregation to love one another
3. The leadership of this church could protect the sheep from false doctrine and false teachers
4. They were aggressive and faithful in ministry, outreach, and fellowship
5. And they were willing to suffer hardship to insure that the Name of Jesus was honored in all things

In Ephesus the saints were being cared for, protected and loved. The lost were being reached with the gospel. Everyone was experiencing the joy of high-energy activity. They sang together, prayed together, laughed and cried with each other. They explored the Scriptures with great skill, consistency and accuracy.

If you were attending a church with these qualities, wouldn’t you want to tell everyone that you’ve found the best church in town?

All these things are what you would have seen if you walked into the church at Ephesus in AD 95.

It’s probably similar to what you’d see if you walked into many of our contemporary evangelical churches today; and like the early Ephesians, you’d probably be very impressed.

However, listen to our Lord’s evaluation of the church at Ephesus:

“To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: These are the words of Him who holds the seven stars in His right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands: I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. You have persevered and have suffered hardships for my name, and have not given up. Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.”

It appears that in spite of all the good things they had going for them, they were on the verge of losing everything in terms of true spiritual life. I doubt any of them saw that coming! This letter which was sent to them must have really freaked them out.

They saw what they saw – but the Lord saw what He saw.

He was gracious in commending their good qualities, but completely honest about their true spiritual condition.

Why didn’t they see what He saw?

An equally important question would be: If the Lord evaluated our church, would He see something other than what we see? Is it possible that we could be like the Ephesians and not know what’s really going on?

Could we be so focused on the “seen” that we are completely out of touch with the “unseen”?

Listen carefully to Paul’s instruction on this in 2 Corinthians 4:18

“We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”

The things “not seen” are the ones which have eternal value – they have substance. They are more real and much more important to the Lord.

In other words, do all those wonderful things we looked at earlier regarding the church in Ephesus comprise what the Lord is really after? Apparently not.

Look at them again:

1. Sound doctrine
2. Love for one another
3. Pastoral protection from false doctrine and false teachers
4. Aggressive and faithful in ministry, outreach, and fellowship
5. And willing to endure hardship to honor the Name of Jesus

In the midst of all their programs, outreaches and inreaches, they were missing the one thing that matters most.

They had an exact “form” of godliness, but lacked spiritual power – they didn’t have the presence of Christ Who alone is the light for their lampstand.

We have to see as the Lord sees. It’s not what we think but what He thinks that ultimately matters. It’s not what looks good to us – it’s what looks good to Him. And what looks good to Him is His Son - not Christianity.

As T.A. Sparks writes,

“I am quite sure that those who have any knowledge whatever of the time, spiritually, will agree with me when I say that the crying need for our generation, is for spiritual interpretation. There never was a time when there existed so extensively the need for a voice of interpretation, when conditions needed more the ministry of explanation. We must know the true spiritual condition of things.”

If we were a part of the church in Ephesus and tried to objectively consider all we were doing in the light of the letter we’d received, our initial response to that letter would probably be: That doesn’t make any sense!

Everything we have going for us proves that we haven’t left our first love! What better evidence could you ask for in a church to prove a vital and living relationship with Jesus than what you see with your own eyes in Ephesus!?

In one commentary I read on this section of Revelation 2 the author wrote,

“As far as we know, the Church at Ephesus went on with its meetings. It had its Bible studies; its prayer meetings; its evangelistic outreach; people made decisions for Christ and got baptized; it had elders, deacons, and workers and the apostles who come in and go out. Everything continued. It was still, in one sense, a church, but the heart of the matter was gone. What a terrible thing it is that we can just rumble on with all our meetings and not realize that the lampstand has been taken away.”

The reason this end-time deception prophesied by Paul is so effective is because at our time in history we have nearly no ability to discern between what is spiritual and comes from the Lord and what is natural and is generated through the creativity and religious commitment of Christians.

We don’t know the difference between Christianity at its best and the living expression of Christ Himself in His people.

We believe, based on what we see that the contemporary, cutting edge, authentic, relevant and enthusiastic Christianity in our churches is the spiritual lampstand of the indwelling Christ.

We are a busy, faithful, sincere, loving, doctrinally sound, compassionate, emotionally charged, creative people. And we have no idea what the difference is between that and spiritual life in Christ.

Paul’s instruction in 2 Timothy chapter 3 warned us that this deception was coming and yet we go on, business as usual, as if it could never happen to us.

For the most part, Christianity today is a human reproduction or clone of the original intent. The soul can imitate what it learns from the Scriptures about what it believes should be happening; but only God can produce the reality.

Sincerity plus ‘doing our best for Jesus’ equals Christianity. Christianity have become man’s best effort to reproduce what it sees in the Bible.

But the early church was a miracle – it was something only God could do.

The issue is not the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, it’s the tree of life – it is Christ Himself. The church has become a system of differentiating good from evil and truth from error, but what is needed is Life.

Jesus Himself sought to make this clear in John 5:39-40,

"You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life."

False doctrine is not, itself, the deception; it’s merely a symptom of our inability to recognize the Truth as it is in Christ. Those who can see Christ simply know that certain doctrines are not representative of Him – He is not that.

This, then, is the bottom-line, essential characteristic of the end time deception – The inability to recognize Christ.

I’m going to close with this, but please think carefully about what is being said in these next few verses. This happened at a time in history when Israel was in apostasy and Christ was in His first advent. The same thing is happening now at the close of the church age just prior to Christ’s second advent.

I’ll be reading in Luke chapter 2:

“And there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon . . . And he came in the Spirit into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to carry out for Him the custom of the Law, then he took Him into his arms, and blessed God, and said,
“Now Lord, You are releasing Your bond-servant to depart in peace,
according to Your word; For my eyes have seen Your salvation, which You have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a Light of revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel.”

And there was a prophetess, Anna. . . She never left the temple, serving night and day with fasting and prayers. At that very moment she came up and began giving thanks to God, and continued to speak of Him to all those who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.”

What distinguished Anna and Simeon from all the other people who were worshiping in the temple that day? They knew who Christ was when everyone else didn't.

And when John the Baptist recognized Jesus as “the Lamb of God” – did anyone else notice that!?

Who are the modern day Annas and Simeons; those who represent in the church age what the “sons of Issachar” represented during the age of Israel (1 Chronicles 12:32)?

When hundreds of thousands of people come together in our generation all around our nation to worship in our churches, who among them can tell whether Christ Himself is present? Who can recognize His presence or absence?

My prayer for all of us is the same as Paul’s in Ephesians 1:18, “. . . the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; so you may know. . .”

As was the experience of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, “. . . and their eyes were opened, and they recognized Him.”

We can’t “see” Him as He is unless He reveals Himself (Matthew 16:17, 11:27).

Spiritual discernment is not simply knowing right from wrong or truth from error; it is the ability to recognize the presence or absence of Christ in a person, church or movement.

The lack of this ability in a majority of Christians in our generation has laid the foundation for the apostasy or “falling away” described by Paul in 2 Thessalonians 2.

Ephesus and Sardis looked perfect to those in their community and to those inside their churches. The form was exact; but Christ, the light of their lampstand, was absent.

That is the characteristic of the end time deception which has fallen on the Western church in our generation.