This is part three and final part of the series “Another Gospel” but first I would like to recap the first two parts. These are the Age of Laodicea” and “The White horseman”. These two parts lay the foundation of how the new Gospel comes about. The age of Laodicea lays the foundation and how it creates an environment for the White Horseman. The meaning of the name Laodicea means 'the rights of man'. This age elevates man's importance and lowers God's importance. This is done in two ways. Firstly, though, a worldly attack with the rise of Darwin's evolution theory's and Marxism with the concepts that there is no God and religion is the opium of the people. The seeds of doubt being sown. Then the industrial revolution started creating much more wealth, and until the last decade, each generation has been wealthier than the previous. Rev3 17 For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. Money, the enemy of the modern Christian. It makes us lukewarm, as Revelations says. We now have this poor environment for the White Horseman to raise the New Gospel. The horseman starts out in the 1840s, as the age of Laodicea does. Firstly, the Catholic Church is attacked, will the doctrines are, and this moves out to the other mainstream churches and to all the churches. We saw the rise of the pseudo Christian churches and, to complete the destruction, the introduction of new translations of the Bible. The Scofield and the Darby versions would be two of the worst. If I were to try to put these events into a sentence, I would say that this period stripped us of our fear of God. This is what the 144,000 have been preaching, “Fear God“ for judgement is coming. All the groundwork for another gospel is laid, and now I will show how this works out in the real world. Corinthian2-11/4 mentions this Gospel plainly and elaborates on it a bit. It is not just another Gospel, but also another spirit and another Jesus. Whenever I mention another Gospel, I also mean the other two as well. Revelations 10 is where I believe Revelations covers the subject.
The mystery of the seven thunders. Did God say these things in the thunders, then change his mind. Then he forgot to take it out, or is there something crucial in these apparently messed up verses. If a mistake is not possible, then what is God saying to us in Rev 12. Let us see if we can glean some information out of it. There is an interesting angel that has the book in his hand “Another mighty angel coming down from heaven, wrapped in a cloud, with a rainbow over his head, and his face was like the sun, and his legs like pillars of fire.” A powerful and important angel. In fact, the most powerful and colourful of all the angels mentioned. It has a heap of symbolism. The rainbow above his head is only seen elsewhere in a picture of Jesus on the throne. However, I can only speculate on the meanings and I want to keep speculations down to a minimum.
After the seven thunders speak and John is told not to reveal what is said, he says that the mystery of God would be fulfilled, just as he announced to his servants the prophets. When this angel appears, it says he has a book in his hand. At this point in the chapter, John is given the book to eat. It tasted sweet as honey, but was poisonous or toxic and made John's stomach bitter. So what happened here. A book has words in it that give some kind of information. So it will not be the book as such that is toxic but the words or to be more exact, what the words say. They also have to be toxic to John. This is John as a servant and prophet of God, so the words should be the opposite to the Gospel. Revelations 10 describes it as a scroll that tastes sweet but is bitter to the stomach. Before we look at some out workings of the false gospel, I want to talk about an intermediate step.
It is called the gospel of Christian Universalism. “Christian Universalism” is the position that all mankind will ultimately be saved through Jesus, whether or not faith is professed in him in this life. It claims that God's qualities of love, sovereignty, justice, etc., require that all people be saved and that eternal punishment cannot exist. That God's love is unconditional. There is no deigning that God's love is unconditional, but salvation from the consequences of sin is very much conditional. It is this deigning of conditions for salvation that allows a doctrine to take any form it wants to. Some examples are 1) Once you have salvation, you cannot lose it. The Scriptures say you can and in certain cases can lead to no chance of repenting from rebellion. 2) Unity is everything. This quest for unity, not the unity that Paul talks about but unholy unity that leads to compromise, the doctrine of accommodation. These compromises usually come from giving importance to our human traditions. Happiness and self-fulfilment idols. That if we follow the agenda of giving, praying, reading the word etc. we will not get problems in any area of our life.
These good characterises of God become a difficulty because they remove the characteristics that they do not like. God is a judge and there will be consequences of our actions. That there is a requirement for obedience which starts with confession and repentance. If you take only the positive aspects of God, then there is no need for repentance. Let us look at a few of the common out workings.
Divorce is rampant and adultery, but the stand-out is the promotion of homosexuality as some kind of acceptable norm. To think that this is promoted by leaders within mainstream churches. One day, these people are going to stand before the throne of God to be judged. We will get to see the unimaginable horror on their faces as judgement is handed down, and they are thrown into the lake of fire. I get no joy from the thought, only regret that I could not do more for them when I had the chance.
This Gospel has been attacked from all directions, and it is not difficult to find an excellent expose of it. My view is that no growth or maturity can be gained unless hardship is encountered. The idea that you will have trouble in the world again and again. But these problems come for our benefit and growth and should be rejoiced. The out working of this Gospel is if things are going well with you, then you must agree with God. The opposite side of that coin is, if things are going bad for you ,you must be out of tune with God. This leads to judgement of others on flimsy reasoning.
Extreme Grace Gospel. Or Hyper Grace.
Hyper-grace teachers maintain that all sin, past, present, and future, has already been forgiven, so there is no need for a believer to ever confess it. Hyper-grace teaching says that, when God looks at us, He sees only a holy and righteous people. That believers are not responsible for their sin. This is the total rejection of the adverse issues we can suffer as Christians. Once a Christian, always a Christian, and you cannot lose your salvation. A rejection of the judgement of Jesus.
For the most part, we understand that there is no salvation but through faith in Jesus. Not we get salvation because we have done good works, but we do good works because we are saved. However, there is a Gospel of works that is not so obvious. For example, the church is full of people because we have a great pastor. He is very capable and so must be blessed by God for what he does. The Pastor down the road is struggling because he has suffered for poor health. Because of this, God must not be with him. A rejection of salvation by grace.
The teaching of a Gospel that people want to hear. Do these churches exist because a Pastor has practised modern marketing and manipulation. Or has the rise of this kind of preaching been the result of the average Christian only intending to hear this Gospel. I think the latter. People flocking to what they intend to hear. To further inform yourselves, read articles about the New Apostolic Reformation.
Warwick