Ecumenism to Die For

I'm not the type of person who gets alarmed about things which relate to the end times. For one thing, the Bible tells us enough that we shouldn't be alarmed about any of it. Knowing about some of the things to come however, does not mean that we should lay down for them.

In the NKJV, 1st Thessalonians 2:7 states;
"For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way."

It's obvious because the "He" is capitalized both times in that verse, that the New King James translators believe that the one being referred to is God, the Holy Spirit. I think they are dead on. Exactly how, by His power, the Holy Spirit restrains lawlessness is a bit of a mystery, but there are those (and I am one of them) who share a belief that the body of Christ is one of the tools He uses to do this. I also believe that the church will one day be taken by God, and the restraints here, will be off, but lawlessness will certainly not wait for that to happen.

There is an old apostasy around that is picking up a lot of speed these days, and that is the evil notion that God has revealed Himself in many ways, in many religions, and that basically, everyone is worshiping God in their own way, and just calling Him by different names. If you buy into that, the Muslim, the Hindu and the Christian would all be worshiping the same god. The goddesses of those who practice Wicca and the many gods of Mormonism would be variations of a holy theme that would still all lead people's souls to heaven.

What is so ridiculous about this teaching is that Christianity is so completely opposed to it, yet it is lumped in with all the rest, with Jesus being, "only one of many ways to god." Things are getting so turned around that the World Council of Churches called Christian missionary activity "arrogant" and "anti-cultural." Revelation 13:12 speaks of a time when the entire world will worship "the beast."

The evil charisma of that man will be the uniting force for a one-world church at that time, but the world will have to be "prepped" before that happens. What will do that? From what I can see, the "prepping" has been under way for some time, and what is uniting the slow coalescing movement toward a one-world religion is a growing attitude of unbiblical ecumenism. A friend of mine at church mentioned this to me, and what I believe he was talking about is an open arms policy toward accepting into the church, those from all religions, without any regard to spiritual compromise.

Coupled with this movement is an intolerance for any kind of absolute. In this postmodern era, it is often difficult to get someone to say that something is right or wrong. I chatted online with a man the other night who found it difficult to say one way or another that there was any sort of absolute anything. That has become a very prominent issue for many people today. I've had conversations with people who have sounded so sure of their Christian faith one moment, and in the next breath, tell me that non-Christians will go to heaven. I've even had one person say to me of a cult member, "You don't know. They might be right." The problem with that is that Jesus is the truth, the absolute truth.

Without knowing it, some of these self-professed Christians are actually intolerant of what they claim to believe, while they are opening their arms to every sort of falsehood in the name of ecumenism. Right in there alongside this ecumenical intolerance of any absolutism, is the notion of man's "innate goodness." The exaltation of man, and his ability to earn his way to salvation through his "goodness" is a teaching that is very much alive and in the minds of people the world over. This is cultic thinking. All cults attempt to diminish mankind's need for a Savior. This is often accomplished by raising man, and by lowering God.

"Religion," has always been centered around man. Christianity has always been centered around the person of Jesus Christ. Religion is fast becoming more centered around man, government society, and Jesus is being left out of the mix.

Tolerance is one thing, but perverted tolerance is another altogether. Christian leaders with a bent toward advocating tolerance to a point where it becomes apostasy, will have their way, but only for a little while. It will be a nasty surprise when the man of lawlessness demands absolute worship, declaring himself to be god. Before he reigns, and demands to be worshiped, I believe the amalgamated religion that will be seen will not only own pagans, but the apostates who once clung so tightly to the title, "Christian."

No, I don't think we should be lying down for this. It may be coming, but we have the opportunity now, to see to it that as few people as possible will be deceived by any of this nonsense. After all, it's for God's glory, and it's why we're here.