Increasing Apostacy

Read Isaiah 8:20-9:21. Isaiah 8:20 shows that the only resource for faith in any age is the Word of God. There is a distressing picture in Isaiah 8:21 and 22. In the midst of thick darkness without, there is a never-satisfied longing within the unregenerate heart. Looking up, the unregenerate heart finds no comfort in anything on the earth. Within, without, above, or below, such a person finds nothing but darkness and anguish.

The last verse of Isaiah 8 tells of some who prefer any source of assumed intelligence, even though it might be diabolical. However, there are some who cleave to the testimony of the Word of God; and on them, light shall shine.

Note the first word of Isaiah 9—“But” (“Nevertheless”—KJB). In the original, the word could be translated “notwithstanding,” “in spite of that,” or “except for the fact.” In Chapter 9, we see the light rising where least expected. Jesus Christ makes His dwelling in the dark place. Christ began His public ministry by leaving Nazareth and taking up residence in Capernaum. This was in order that the Scripture might be fulfilled (Is. 9:1, 2; Matt. 4:15, 16). Zebulun and Naphtali were under greater darkness under the Romans than under the Assyrians. The moral darkness was greater than the national misery.

Isaiah 9:3-5 will be fulfilled when Christ comes in power and great glory. It is here, as in Zechariah 9, that no distinction is made between the first and second advents of Christ, because it takes both to complete redemption. (Study Joel 3:9-14; Zech. 14:13; Is. 63:3; 66:15, 16; and Joel 2:30 in connection with verse 5.)

Isaiah 9:6 and 7 are to be viewed as if Messiah was just born to Israel as a nation (Is. 66:7)—as indeed He is, and that the nation itself is also just born again to welcome Him. The words “to us” refer to the only nation ever elected as a nation. God chose a nation, and then chose a spiritual group of people within that nation. So, there was a spiritual nation within the chosen nation (Rom. 9:4-7).

The promises of Isaiah 9:6 and 7 are followed by further denunciation of evil and warnings of impending judgments—just as the promise (Is. 7:14) had been followed. This division takes in the following verses—9:8-10:4. In this section, we have pride (9:8-12), false teaching (9:13-17), violence (9:18-21), and injustice (10:1-4).

We are in the midst of apostasy. What is the greatest sign of apostasy? It is seeking wisdom outside the wisdom of God, outside His word—the Bible. This sign of increasing apostasy is the result of demonic deception. Since man possesses a spirit (I Thess. 5:23), he is driven to seek support for that spirit in the day of mental strain and distress. The unsaved person who has no support is a fit target for demonic deception. Satan does not allow that vacuum to go without filling it his way for his purpose. Mediums will tell their clients what they want to hear. However, Isaiah declared that the only resource for faith in any age is the word of God (Is. 8:20). In the midst of thick darkness, the condition of everything outside the Christian life, some prefer any source of assumed intelligence even though it is diabolical. However, Christians depend on God’s word and testimony. “To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn [light]. And they will pass through the land hard-pressed and famished, and it will turn out that when they are hungry, they will be enraged and curse their king and their God as they face upward. Then they will look to the earth, and behold, distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish; and they will be driven away into darkness” (Is. 8:20-22 NASB).

There are factors contributing to increasing demonic deception:

1. The empty soul is an empty life (Matt. 12:43-45). As the soul of man becomes spiritually depleted and the idea of God grows increasingly dim, man’s soul becomes an undefended fortress into which evil powers have easy access. Nature abhors a vacuum; and wherever a vacuum is created, there will be a balancing to restore the atmospheric equilibrium. Error of any sort is always looking for an empty life, an empty soul, and an empty house. It has been said that an open mind is required to understand certain things. The word “mind” comes from the Greek word nous, and it refers to thought, reason, purpose, attitude, intention, understanding, discernment, faculties of perceiving and understanding, feeling, judgment, determining, faculty of perceiving Divine things, recognizing goodness and hating evil, judging impartially, etc. The word “open” means relatively unoccupied, no means of being closed, or disregard for all rules. An open mind without restrictions is a target for demons to enter. One who does not know Biblical principles is open to being led further down the road to destruction. Modern psychology is reducing man to a bundle of instincts, to a conscious or subconscious system of actions and reactions. This modern world has been repopulated by demons and spirits who have reentered houses by side doors and back entries. They are not less harmful, even though they are given harmless names; and people speak of them as complexes, neurosis, phobias, and obsessions.

2. There will be deception in the last days. Deception means to ensnare, take unaware by craft or guile, cause to believe what is false, mislead as to a matter of fact, lead into error, impose upon, or delude. The fall of man, which was the introduction of sin into the world of humanity, is traced back to the deception of Eve by God’s great enemy, Satan (II Cor. 11:3; I Tim. 2:14). Since that original deception, the heart of man has been infected with deceit. Out of this deceitful heart arises all the evil with which we are faced today. Mankind in a depraved condition is a deceived race, and there are also men who make it their profession to deceive and promote the deceptions of the Devil. This is the order of some forms of deception in the last days: (1) false teachers and deceiving spirits (I Tim. 4:1; II Pet. 2:1-18); (2) false christs and prophets (Matt. 24:4, 5, 11, 24; Luke 21:8); (3) antichrists (I John 2:18-26; 4:1-6; II John 7); (4) the Antichrist (II Thess. 2:8-11; Rev. 13:14; 19:20); (5) the city of Babylon (Rev. 18:1-23); and (6) Satan’s war against the beloved city of Jerusalem (Rev. 20:7-10).

3. God will send a working of error: “And for this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they might believe what is false” (II Thess. 2:11 NASB). Coming to the conclusion of the age, there will be widespread deep and awful deception when lies will be believed as truth. The reason is threefold: (1) ignorance of Scripture because of one’s lack of grace, (2) increased demon activity, and (3) prevalence of selfishness. Indoctrination is the only assurance against those who contrive a method of deception. Therefore, God has ordained the assembly that He is continuing to build and the local assemblies with their pastors/teachers to supply that indoctrination. Teaching is the backbone of Christianity (Eph. 4:8-16).

4. The final goal of Christianity is Jesus Christ, but the conclusion of professing Christendom is the Antichrist. The Bible unmistakably teaches that the goal of history is not the product of history, and the kingdom of God does not come through growth and ascent, but only after world-wide collapse and catastrophe. Lawlessness will increase. The love of many will grow cold (Matt. 24:12), and “...when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8 NASB). The reason Christ has not come is not because the world is not Christian enough, but the world is not unbelieving enough or as lawless or violent as it will become (I Tim. 4:1-3; II Tim. 3:1-5; 4:3, 4; II Pet. 3:3). A basic principle of the Divine government of the world is that all things, the good and the evil, must reach ripeness (Matt. 13:29, 30; Rev. 14:15, 18). The patience of God leads to more severe judgment or punishment. By the intensification of evil, not by reconciliation, God’s final judgment will come.

The kingdom will come not by glorifying human development but by its collapse, not by a compact between God and civilization but by the shattering of the kingdoms of this world by Divine judgment (Dan. 2:34, 35; Rev. 19:11-21). This is the manner in which the affairs of the Lord will triumph. However, all things will first appear to be the reverse of this. A system of civilization will arise that will appear to fulfill all the longings of mankind through thousands of years. (1) At its head will stand a mighty ruler, a genius for organization, who will be at once a world ruler (Rev. 13:7, 14). (2) He will be a counselor of the nations who will secure them against all danger of war. (3) He will be an organizer of mankind who will bring order into the hopeless chaos of the masses. However, all of this will be without God and grace. It will be solely in self-confidence, all of which will be to the glory of man’s own strength and deifying (II Thess. 2:4). We are fast moving in that direction. However, God will neither give His honor to another nor His praise to dust-begotten rebels (Is. 42:8). Pay day is coming. God’s answer to the challenge of the Antichrist will be to send His Christ; and God will destroy the Antichrist, whose arrival will be according to the energy of Satan, through the coming of Christ (II Thess. 2).

Satan will give authority to the Antichrist; thus, the antigod will give authority to the Antichrist (Rev. 13:4). The lawless one works through the method of deceit: “...whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders, and with all the deceptions [apate, which in the light of the context means every kind of deception] of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved” (II Thess. 2:9, 10 NASB). Those who are perishing will be the passive targets for Antichrist’s deception. That is not history. The second beast of Revelation 13 will exercise all the power of the first beast. This depicts the third person in the evil trinity, the antispirit. He, too, will do great wonders and deceive those who dwell on the earth. God will send the perishing who do not receive the truth “a strong [energeia, which means energy, power, or operation] delusion [planes, the genitive singular of plane, which means deceit, deception, delusion, wandering, or fraud] that they might believe the [to, the] lie [pseudei, dative singular of pseudos, which means lie, untruth, or that which is unreal]” (II Thess. 2:11—translation). God will send an operation of deception which results in the believing of the lie by those who are perishing. God has nothing to do with sin as sin. However, He punishes sin with sin.

Unregenerate people are foolish and disobedient, and they live in a state of deception. In Titus 3:3, Paul described himself as such prior to his regeneration. The Greek adjective for “foolish” in this verse is the plural of the word anoetos, which means foolish, ignorant, inconsiderate, unintelligent, or unwise. This is opposite to being considerate, intelligent, or wise in the wisdom of God. Foolish men live for the present and judge things in the light of time. Men who are wise in the wisdom of God judge things in the light of eternity. The foolish are also disobedient. The adjective for “disobedient” is the plural of apeithes, which means rebellious, disobedient, unpersuasive, noncompliance with what is heard, or disobedience to a direct command (Rom. 1:30; Titus 1:16; 3:3). The foolish and disobedient are being deceived. The Greek word for “deceived” is a present plural passive participle of planao, which refers to those who are being deceived. Nothing but the grace of the sovereign God can do anything for unwise and unyielding persons who are being deceived. The wisdom of the world is valueless in the things of God (I Cor. 1:18-31). Persons who are wise in their own conceits are unyielding to God’s wisdom. They would rather receive pleasing error than embrace a self-denying truth.

Idolatry is one of Satan’s many methods of demonic activity (I Cor. 10:19-21). There are demons in the vicinity of every idol. Idolatry is forbidden (Ex. 20:3, 4, 23; Deut. 4:27, 28). It is a heinous sin, because it is revolt against the true and living God. The whole city of Athens was filled with idols (Acts 17:21-23). Christians are warned against idolatry (I Cor. 10:14; I John 5:21). Idolatry is whatever is consuming your time.

Demonic activity is rampant in religion. Paul told the intellectual, religious Athenians that they were too superstitious (Acts 17). False teaching is inspired by demonization. Therefore, it is imperative that Christians avoid false teachers (I Tim. 6:20). Unlike promoters of false teaching who strive to win the affection, the proclaimers of sound teaching appeal first to the mind, because judgment is based on understanding truth. The soundly judging person rejects the concept that experience instead of doctrinal persuasion unites people of various doctrinal views. Christians proceed from having been taught to experiencing the things they have been taught. Conversely, religionists build their teaching around their experience. Since objective truth is the standard by which experience is tested, those who value experience above truth teach subjectivism. Religionists are persuaded by evil spirits to replace objectivity with subjectivity. Subjectivism is the teaching that knowledge is limited to experience. However, every subjective experience is required to be validated by objective truth. Human experience that cannot be validated by the word of God must be rejected.

The hope that disappoints has its foundation in a subjective experience not founded on the objective covenant of God’s grace. Many subjectively decide for Christ, but the decision is due to pressure that has been applied to the will. Therefore, these are people who decided to take Christ as Savior instead of Jesus Christ having laid hold of them (Phil. 3:12-14). This subjective experience will bring disappointment and despair. Seeking wisdom subjectively is vain. A subjective experience must be in harmony with God’s objective word.