By Mary Fairchild
- Rob Bell’s Reframing of Mars Hill
- Doubting Bell and Despairing Kierkegaard
- Subversive Fuller Seminary
- The Culture: A Christain Review?
- Cultural Creatives
- Spiritual Formation: Esoteric Contemplation
- Ancient Babylonian Mysticism
Soren Kierkegaard was a nineteenth century philosophical theologian who’s writings are a denial of the basic tenets of the Christian faith and show disdain for those who do not agree with his intellectual pursuits.
Rob Bell’s Reframing of Mars Hill
In Acts 17 the Apostle Paul came to Mars Hill to correct disorders in religion and to turn people from the service of idols, and of Satan in them, to the true and living God in Christ. Paul was disturbed by their abominable ignorance and superstition that he did not want to appear publicly until he had met up with Silas and Timothy. He spoke boldly there for three months persuading the things concerning the kingdom of God (Acts 19:8). The major problem with the Ephesian church was a heresy that combined Gnosticism, decadent Judaism, and false asceticism.
Gnosticism is the thought and practice of various cults of late pre-Christian and early Christian centuries distinguished by the conviction that matter is evil and that emanicpation comes through gnosis. Gnosis is esoteric knowledge of spiritual truth held by the ancient Gnostics to be essential to salvation.
Fuller graduate Rob Bell is well-known at Bill Hybels’ Willow Creek. You can purchase sets of his preaching today at their bookstore (above picture). He is the founding pastor of the mega-church Mars Hill Bible Church in Grandville, Michigan.
Bell has been involved in the National Pastors Conventions where spiritual transformation is promoted along with labyrinths, yoga, spiritual direction, contemplative prayer.
World Magazine, April 10, 2004, in the article “Gen-X Churches” reports that Rob Bell is “keeping it real.” Bell was said to be promoting sharing personal struggles and being passionate about spiritual formation because this is what today’s generation wants. He felt that the “watered-down messages” were a turn-off today and that most likely there will be another new movement in another 20 years when the children of the Gen-Xers come of age.
The Webster Dictionary defines subvert as “to pervert or corrupt by an undermining of morals, allegiance, or faith; it is to “overthrow or overturn from the foundation—to turn from beneath.”
“There’s a mystery to a man or a woman in a room, when the text has done something and then its coming out of them–whatever that looks like… It’s a parable; its silence; its a series of desperate images that don’t seem to have any connection, and yet somehow they do. The true orthodox faith is deeply mysterious, and every question that’s answered leads to a new set of questions.” Bell continues, “There are thousands and thousands of pages of ancient writings that Christians are oblivious to… when Jesus becomes a kind of esoteric figure and not a real dude in a real place at a real time, the really subversive economic and political things he’s saying get lost in an effort to proclaim him as Son of God, which we do. But he’s also a Jewish rabbi who lived in a Jewish way in a Jewish time, and we have a lot of information about what that world was like.”
Taking a closer look at Rob Bell’s theme in preaching we don’t find him saying “great things” at all. In fact, he sounds quite sinister when he shares, “I preached that sermon one time at Willow Creek and the goat pooped right on the stage. A great moment in that fine church’s history—I feel like I helped them go to a whole new level of ministry in the Chicago suburbs. The same thing happened here at Mars Hill—I guess it’s a theme in my preaching (laughter)… I had a shepherd and a sheep on stage, and I brought all the kids down. Then I wanted them to run all over the building, all over the place shouting, ‘glory to God in the highest’ and at that moment the sheep is pooping on the stage. So I’m trying to tell the kids to go, and they’re all staring at the sheep. It was a great moment.”
Could Bell actually be “degrading the house of God subversively?” He certainly is caught “sharing New Age thought” throughout his ideas when he says, “Jesus said, ‘Look at those birds, look at the tree… The world of the Scriptures is full of pictures. Jesus says, ‘Spirit is like wind.’ The Eastern mind thinks in terms of pictures, the Western mind in words. The Eastern thinks, ‘God is a rock.’ The Western mind makes a statement of faith—more comfortable with definitions and precision… Today you have a culture that thinks in images. I’m a child of television, part of a whole generation that’s image-based in its thinking.”
Even the name of his church, Mars Hill, has a subversive element to it considering his new theme. The apostle Paul purposefully avoided the ideas of the culture, which happened to consist of various sects of philosophers. He called it a “vain thing” (Acts 17:21-25). These people were not genuinely interested in “old-fashioned ways” and at their “theater at Mars’ hill” they merely desired to “hear something new.” They preferred telling and hearing. Knowledge begot in this manner was flashy and superficial. They wanted new schemes and new notions in philosophy, and new forms of religion, for new gods that came newly up, new demons, new-fashioned images and altars; they were given to change. We are to deliver the Gospel the same way as Paul did without changing it. We don’t want to soften the Gospel just so we don’t offend anyone do to our cultural sensitivities of our day.
Doubting Bell and Despairng Kierkegaard
One of the major sins the Lord Jesus earnestly warns his disciples against and supplies a variety of arguments, is the sin of disquieting, distrustful cares about the things of life which are a bad sign that both the treasure and the heart are on the earth. Distrustful unbelieving thoughts are not to be found amongst the believer who God has promised to provide for. It is an act of faith that overcomes doubt. We are not to seek to independently comfort our own souls, but show how much we have Christ in our hearts. If we take care about our souls and eternity, which are more than the body, and its life, we may leave it to God to provide for us food and raiment, which are less. (Matthew 6:25-34). Jesus said that if we have a little as a mustard seed of faith, if it is placed in him, we can move mountains. But faith must have an object in order for power to occur. For Christians, our object is Jesus Christ and what he provided for us at the Cross. As you grow in your understanding of all the provisions God has made for you, you will begin to see God is bigger than all of your problems.
Bell references Soren Kierkegaard in his article on subversive preaching, “Kierkegaard talks about faith in fear and trembling as absolutely necessary for there to be real faith. It’s very easy to say, ‘Just believe. You got all the facts.’ But it doesn’t work that way. Two weeks ago I sponsored a ‘Doubt Night.’ I said, ‘I want to talk about my own doubts about God, Jesus, the Bible, salvation, faith, and if you have some bring them. Write them down and pass them forward, we’ll read and we’ll see what happens next.'”
Soren Kierkegaard was a nineteenth century philosophical theologian who’s writings are ‘a denial of the basic tenets of the Christian faith and show disdain for those who do not agree with his intellectual pursuits. Kierkegaard was the first man to launch a system of thought in which despair was the underlying current. Two of his books reflect this very mood of despondency, “Fear and Trembling,” and “Sickness Unto Death.” His belief was that everyone comes to a point where they cannot find any definite reasons for truth or for life and we need to take a leap of faith which has no rationality behind it at all. He introduced the tenants of Kant and Hegel into the theology of the Christian faith. The idea that there is no rational basis for things beyond the five senses, but that we must take an irrational leap of blind faith to find purpose in life came out of Kant’s teaching. The idea that there is no absolute truth and we must therefore find relative reasons on which to base our life resulted from Hegel’s teaching. This beginning of existential thought has provided the framework for “the doctrines of demons” which Paul said would sweep the world in the latter times before Christ’s return (pp. 87,88.)
“Finally, brethren, pray for us that the word of the Lord may have free course and be glorified even as it is with you; and that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men; for all men have not faith. But the Lord is faithful, who shall stablish you, and keep you form evil. And we have confidence in the Lord touching you, that ye both do and will do the things which we command you. And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ.” 2 Thessalonians 3:1-5
Christians know that they are saved by what God’s Word says and it testifies to your spirit. When you become a new creation you have a love for God that was never there before. He is your father now and you sense that. You now have a love for the Word of God that was not there–the Bible becomes alive to you. Now you have a love for righteousness, you don’t want to live the way you used to live and you have love for Christians and a love for the lost. These values and character qualities begin to produce a life of good works. God in the person of the Holy Spirit dwells within the body of the believer in Jesus (1 Corinthians 6:19). We do not have to try to consciously think of God throughout the day; it is something that comes natural. The Holy Spirit brings to mind the things he would have us know.
1 and 2 Timothy and Titus are both pastor epistles giving instruction to Timothy and Titus concerning the pastoral care of the churches. The recurring themes include: God the Savior (Titus 1:3); sound doctrine, faith, and teaching (Titus 1:9); and godliness (1 Timothy 2:2). The pastor is God’s spiritual example to the flock and the people of the community. We don’t find any theatrics or doubts in the role of pastors. The pastor is not only the head of the local church, he is an employee of the church and an elected servant of the people. The Lord has chosen the church as a means of spreading the message of salvation to the entire world. The pastor must be committed to feeding, organizing and leading a well-trained group of God’s people to fulfill his will.
Paul spoke of not offending a weaker brother; those who were new Christians who may be sensitive to what is right and wrong.
Subversive Fuller Seminary
C. E. Fuller began an ecumenical radio broadcast that would not only dominate television and radio evangelism, but go global. Fuller founded the Fuller Theological Seminary, which is an ecumenical “think tank” that promotes the idea of a mass people movement that is driven by a powerful manifestation of what they call the Holy Spirit. Fuller Seminary consists of three schools, Theology, Psychology, and Missions, and their mission is to take over governments for Jesus through altered states of consciousness and mind control techniques. (3)
The founding professor of Fuller’s School of Missions, Donald McGavran, taught that the job of the church was literally to ‘make disciples of nations’ not individual people, but the governments were to be discipled. In a methodology of “people movements” he developed the idea that cultures were to be “redeemed.” In order to accomplish his mission, the Gospel was perverted into a culturally relevant message that anyone could adapt to. This movement has enthusiastically incorporated paganism into Christianity. Dr. Arthur Glasser employs the “progression of Integration theory” for ecumenism. People are gathered together in order to dialogue to consensus. Ecumenical prayer breakfasts are the most successful. This is employed at the city level-regional level, national level, and global level. Groups like pastors prayer breakfasts, women’s prayer organizations, and Mission America are currently employed. As there is fellowship, camaraderie, co-operation, and finally association, there will soon be non-denominational churches where people leave their denominations to create all-new organizational structures.
Literally thousands of church leaders have been trained at Fuller. Billy Graham, Rob Bell, John Ortberg, Richard Foster, Bill Bright, John Wimber, and many more are all from Fuller. All of these men work in conjunction with David (Paul) Yongi Cho, under the guidance of whom they have modeled their cell group church structure. This cell church structure and software includes an integration technology that ties it to PK’s database, Bethany World Prayer Center, Brigada, et al…a global database that soon will include every man, women and child on the earth: where they are, what they are doing, and what ethnicity they are. Millions of Christian workers are being utilized to bring about their own destruction, all in the name of evangelizing the world. There is literally not one church organization that is not at least partially involved in this movement mainly because they do not understand that apostasy is prophesied, not end-time revival of masses. One of the more recent is the “Mission America” door to door data-basing in America…” (3)
Richard Foster, a “Fuller” psychologist, has fine-tuned the encounter group methodology that has pervaded the church by implementing “contemplative” virtues back into the church. The altered state of consciousness that is merging of Hinduism with Christianity has been very highly developed as a tool in this movement. The psychology at Fuller consists of an altered state of consciousness and mind control techniques and their mission is to take over governments for Jesus. (See also Beatles and the Cosmic Consciousness Movement and the goal of Hinduism in America.)
Dr. Arthur Glasser defined the technology of “progression of integration theory” which was the methodology imployed for ecumenism. It is still successfully being used to integrate their doctrines with peoples globally. The four steps include:
- Communications (dialogue and consensus); getting people together so they can “talk” and find areas of agreement–“consensus.” The most successful strategy for implementing communication has been to hold ecumenical prayer meetings. This has been employed at the city level, regional level, national leve, global level, and has been utilized in areas of interest and among people groups as well; pastor’s prayer breakfasts, women’s prayer organizations (Aglow), Businessmen (FGBMI), denomination, etc. Concerts of Prayer and Mission America are currently being employed.
- Fellowship: due to dialogue and consensus they now begin to like one another and have camaraderie.
- Co-operation; get together around a common goal or project like Billy Graham’s March for Jesus, Spiritual Warfare conferences, General of Intercession, Post-denominational church seminars. At this level there are still denominational differences.
- Association; creating a whole new organizational identity. Non-denominational churches are an example. People left their denominations and re-grouped into a new form. Promise Keepers; their small group structure promises to bind men together in groups that will find consensus as well as Antioch Networks and Cell churches. Where people leave their denominations and create all new organizational structures.
The Culture: A Christian Review?
In 2003, at the Willow Creek Community Church bookstore, I purchased the November/December issue of “Books and Culture: a Christian Review,” a publication of Christianity Today International. On page 22 I found a book review that helped me understand the “angle with the culture” that was surfacing.
“What Heresy?” by Frederica Mathews-Green, who claims to be a Christian, expresses and author’s interest in Gnostic theology and texts as she reviews his book. Not unlike Richard Foster’s non-Christian call for renewal promoted at Willow Creek, she felt that Christianity was called “afresh” to what she claims to be “the truth about God” in this book review. Her truth was the false idea that “God is within and permeates all creation” (pantheism–but, the God of the Bible is omnipresent and separate from His creation). Frederica believes that it is the culture that either emphasizes or neglects the fact that anyone can experience God directly. She goes on to describe it not only as a direct, but an electrifying encounter with the interior presence of God. She claims that she had her first contemplative experience as a non-Christian and that anyone can experience this because she believes that God is within everything he creates. She believes that when Gnostics claim that the Kingdom of God is within you it’s hardly a heretical statement. She goes on to report that today’s Neo-Gnostics would find a crowd around them from 17th century Spanish nuns to 21st century American Pentecostals saying, “that sounds like what I’m talking about.”
Cultural Creatives
A third population has emerged since the 60s. The philosopher Houston Smith talks about the distinction between traditional values, modern values, and then he calls them post-modern values. Rather than calling the cultural creatives post-modern they are considered transmodern, which is something that cuts across making their own synthesis of the traditionals and the moderns. Finding the best stuff and trying to create a new kind of culture. These are folks from all different social classes, races, ethnic groups, and heavily women who want a new way of life–not just a small group of hyper-modernism as found in the post-modern tearing down the last vestiges of modernism. They want a world that is ecologically sustainable. They are concerned about the whole planet, not just a nationalistic perspective, but a large planetary view–but also an inner development set of concerns with what is subjectively true is true for me has to really work and it also has to work in the big picture of the whole planet.
The cultural creatives’ subculture is a group of people who don’t really know each other. Each person go there all by themselves. They had to have become very individualistic and drop out of either modern or traditional cultures way of understanding the world. The cultural creatives have one thing in common, those concerns for environment, for women’s issues, for relationships, for social justice, and alternative healthcare which all grow out of the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s social movements–a whole set of changes in consciousness that we could call “consciousness movements”–big trends and movements with people demonstrating on the barricades, but all the cultural creatives are supporters of the people they don’t have to be the most active of activists.
Each of the movements engaged in reframing. They had cases like Martin Luther King of the mid to late 50s considered a real trouble-maker by the other black leadership because he didn’t play the game of ethnic politics, rather he said this condition of the blacks in the south is a violation of freedom, justice, the Constitution, basic human dignity, and it violates the promises we made to ourselves as Americans. He articulated our ideals and he articulated the concept of non-violence to go with it. About that time other people picked up “reframing the issues” as well. Betty Fredian in the “Feminine Mystic_–merely said, “this is about who women are.” At the same time Rachael Carson said, “this is about the death of nature..” Those reframings were really deep and fundamental because they took a casual explanation that was new and a moral explanation that was new and added new moral categories so Americans who consider themselves very moral are rather different than the Americans who saw the world in a moral stance in the 50s and the 60s.
Part of the issue with psychedelics, holistic health instead of standard medical care, personal growth psychology was dealing directly with the issue of what’s personally authentic; what’s real for me inwardly is a big deal and has gotten redefined just as the large planetary concerns or social justice concerns have gotten redefined. So we’ve literally added 15-20 moral categories that we did not have and we’ve created a kind of systemsy worldview instead of the fragmented factoids of modernism–nose tight to the grindstone focus, business as usual and the traditionals are kind of fending things off while the cultural creatives are picking this fact and that one and are creating a new worldview–a work environment that satisfies our inner being. (4; Paul H. Ray)
Spiritual Formation: Esoteric Contemplation
The Christian does not look for truth in esoteric contemplation. Actively engaging in emptying your mind through occultic/Hindu practices will leave you wide open to the demonic realm. Although we don’t fully understand how the mind (metaphysical) and the brain (physical) act, this is the realm which the demons work and they understand it perfectly. Demon possession has a logical explanation. If your mind can effect your own brain, then the similar non-physical nature of another mind might also be able to a effect your brain. This gives rise to hearing voices or seeing visions or having the mind speak or write by controlling your body the same way you normally control your body. God in the person of the Holy Spirit dwells within the body of the believer in Jesus (1 Corinthians 6:19).
The unconscious, or the subconscious, was something that Freud really made popular in his theories in psychotherapy the religious science. In the process of subjecting his patients to dream analysis and hypnotic trance in pursuit of childhood memories, Freud discovered that there was an unconscious side to consciousness. He concluded that it was in fact the most important part. He also suspected that it might be greater in scope than the individual’s own experience (tapped into a great universal something). Spirit-possessed Carl Jung decided, with encouragement from his spirit guide Philemon, that at this unconscious level all minds are part of what he called the collective unconsciousness (Hindu concept) and described it as the source of mystical powers.
Not in any scientific basis, these twin beliefs were accepted by faith by the disciples of Freud and Jung and became the foundation for the many psychologies and therapies that followed. Due to this, nearly everyone accepts, as scientific fact, the religious belief that this vast unexplored region of inner-space your subconscious, is a reservoir of magical powers. There is this great reservoir called the unconscious, or subconscious, that is the seed of all your motivations. You do all these things without your even understanding because if comes from somewhere deep inside you.
On the less than solid foundations of such theories and mystical experiences that seem to confirm them, the human potential movement has been built. Self-improvement seminar leaders assure us that by simply looking within ourselves we can discover all truth, all knowledge, and all power. In order to mind this supposedly unlimited potential, psychologists have attempted to explore unconsciousness through Eastern mysticism’s altered states–states of consciousness that were once explored through hypnosis and LSD. The further one retreats from normal consciousness, the more enlightened one becomes.
“When thou art come into the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations. There shalt not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord; and because of these abominations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee. Thou shalt be perfect with the Lord thy God (entirely obedient).” Deuteronomy 18:9-13
The work of James A. Connor is considered comparable to the work of Thomas Merton and Henry Nouwen. In his book “Silent Fire,” Connor, who was a Catholic priest and member of the Jesuit Order for 18 years, speaks of bringing the spirituality of silence to everyday life. He states, “In meditation the journey of an entire life will be manifest as a state of relaxation and a state of activity, forever a balancing act between sleeping and waking..” On page 2 he describes, “I found myself whispering over and over, drawing further into the thickening silence until all hushed. Until I was quiet inside. At last I lost all thought of myself. The hall of mirrors we call consciousness had opened. I was no longer doing anything. I was no longer looking at myself.” He described it as an insight that he does not exist–only one ineffable reality. It made him want to dance with joy and he looked forward to experiencing it again. When he discovered the writing of Thomas Merton and his Asian journal, he felt he found religion at its core and from that time on he studied both Western and Eastern meditation. He commented that studying both Christianity and Buddhism made him giddy. He was relieved to be away from the wars between organized religion that, in his opinion, were mainly theological disputes of frightened people who were afraid to love. He felt that if religion was to be authentic it needed to blend traditions. Thomas Merton describes contemplation as the highest expression of human intellect and the spiritual life, and expression that pulls together the entire person and goes beyond rational consciousness. It is supposed to be a connection between something higher and ourselves, an opening to God. Our human soul is described as an imperishable flame which is the same energy that permeates all things. At a Zen retreat he learned that Zen doesn’t end with sitting meditation–it is with you every moment of every day, drawing closer to the world in bits, until you are flat against it in an endless embrace. (47)
Ancient Babylonian Mysticism
We live in a day of great deception. The Bible tells us that Babylon was the womb of unparalleled evil. It was Satan’s headquarters of rebellion against God. It was also the site of the first false religious system that was a substitute for the worship of the true God. This mystery religion called Babylon the Great continues today. It enslaves people to superstition and darkness.
The apostle John is given a vision in Revelation 17 and 18 of the final destruction of this religious system. His vision describes a time just prior the Second Coming of Jesus Christ after his Church has been removed from the earth by the rapture. The world will be untied economically, politically (new world order by the Antichrist , and religiously (one world religion unified together in a worship system against God).
The signs of our day indicate that the formation of the end times false religion is very near. There are three factors working toward that goal:
- Ecumenism: The Roman Catholic Church is at the forefront of this movement to unite religions. The World Council of Churches promotes church unity and the unity of the human family. Ecumenism in the Middle East is in the process of making churches more open. It is also an attempt to bring the church, the synogogue, and the mosque closer to one another. It is a vision for one god for all the faiths. In the fall of 1985 a meeting was held between parliamentarians from five continents and spiritual leaders from Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. The meeting was to initiate a dialogue on issues of global survival. The new coalition named itself “The Global Forum of Spiritual and Parliamentary Leaders on Human Survival.” The global forum participant US congressman contended more directly that we need to merge the ethical and the practical, the political and the priest, the sacred and the secular. The 1988 gathering was hosted by the Arch Bishop of Canterbury who is the head of the Church of England. It was attended by Mother Theresa, Dali Lama, UN secretary general, and many others. It was stated that we are learning that we are all interdependent in spiritual matters, that there is certain incompleteness in each of our traditions, and that some claims about the exclusiveness of the church have to be renounced in the name of a new and larger vision of unity. All religions were believed to have only one portion of the truth, but none of them have the complete truth. The exclusiveness of the church that has been proclaimed for two thousand years as having the only gospel that saves people must be renounced for the sake of a larger vision of unity. The only group that was singled out as a problem in this conference, which included shamans, medicine men, and rain forest rituals, was against those fundamentalist, narrow-minded Christians who believe that the current global situation is a fulfillment of Bible prophecy. They don’t want to hear anymore about the coming of the end of the world and that it has no place in authentic religious awareness. Christians are outcasts.
- New Age Movement: This will be the glue that will cause these religions to adhere to on another. It is an ingenious application of the ancient Babylonian mysticism. The rebirth of pagan mystery religion. The three characteristics of the New Age Movement are monism–everything is one; the universe, this world, man, plants, we are all just waves int he cosmic ocean; pantheism–all is god and god is all–That is different from what the Bible teaches about omnipresence. The Bible teaches that God is omnipresent; he is everywhere at once at the same time. The Bible does not say he is in everything and everything is god;
- Deity of man: if everything is one, and everything is god, then you and I are god, too.
The heart of the New Age Movement is that man needs to rediscover his divinity; to be enlightened (Babylonian mysticism). The cosmic process that’s going on, the New Age Movement will tell you, is as a result of two great eternal principles; the principles of rebirth and the cause and effect. The principle of rebirth is reincarnation and the principle of cause and effect is called karma. How ever you live now sets up opportunities or possibilities in the next life. If you live a life that is bad you will suffer in your next life because of it.
The goal is to live a life that is so virtuous and to finally realize you own deity so that you will not be reincarnated again but you will join a hierarchy called the ascended masters. This is where the great delusion comes in. The New Age Movement will reinterpret all of the doctrines of the major world religions.
They will start first of all with the ascended masters, the ones who have gone on and have become part of the cosmic consciousness, they are in fact from the spiritual realm guiding humanity right now. They are benevolent and trying to help us to understand our deity. It is a case of spiritual evolution and we are heading toward that day when the whole planet is going to realize this and a new age is coming. When they appear at times to people, or talk to people through channeling, they call themselves divas–the Scriptures call them demons. They claim that there is a person called “the christ,” not Jesus Christ. That person is the head of the ascended masters. He is the great one. He has entered history at different times. He indwelt Nimrod, Krishna, Jesus, and Mohammed. Jesus was one who was simply very near to becoming part of the ascended masters and “the christ” came upon him and indwelt him. This is blasphemous. They say Jesus was only trying to teach us to understand our own deity. They believe all religions contain some insights into the ageless wisdom. But only a portion, no religion has all of it and christ (Satan) has promised one day to usher in that new age. They believe that when he comes he will fulfill the predictions of all the religions. We only have a limited understanding of this they say.
The last thing that will trigger all of this is the rapture; the removal of the Church. All that will be left will be Babylonian mysticism. “Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come, until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. He will oppose and exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped so that he sets himself up in God’s temple proclaiming himself to be God. Don’t you remember that when I was with you I used to tell you these things? And now you know what is holding him back, so that he may be revealed at the proper time. For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so until he is taken out of the way.”
The “He” that is the restrainer is the Holy Spirit through the Church. He is the only one that has been around for two thousand years (not just a person). He will continue to restrain the final formation of the apostasy and the revelation of the man of sin until he is taken out of the way (the rapture). When the Spirit is taken out of the way, and we who are joined to Him permanently, we are going to have to go, too. (5; see Revelation and Church History)
“And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming. The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs, and wonders, and every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refuse to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.” (2 Thessalonians 2:3-12)
Notes: Willow Creek/Faith/Politics
- Joseph Farah, Who the Hell is Rob Bell? ; World Net Daily. 3/22/13
- Dr. David A. DeWitt, Review of Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith” by Rob Bell; 9/05.
- Filling in the Blanks With Fuller; Watch Unto Prayer
- Paul H. Ray, Jeffrey Mishloves’ “Thinking Allowed.” The Wisdom Channel, July, 2003.
- Pastor Jim Mooberry, Revelation and Church History.