Saturday, August 01, 2009

Wolves

I'm no heresy-hunter or blogging guardian of the faith, but I just wanted to mention something I've been hearing a lot about lately from "Christian" sources. Maybe you've heard the one about how "the world" is going to give its wealth to the church in the end times! One prophet/guru guy (who shall remained un-hyperlinked) says we need to start "thinking like billionaires" in order to position ourselves for the great flow of cash that is going to come to Christians in the end times.

Ummm, that's just poop.

Anyway, have you noticed that these prophetic Christian gurus always present their case in the form of:
  1. We are in the end times
  2. The Bible says [though often in some veiled or coded manner only discernable to the great prophet] that in the end times such-and-such will take place
  3. Therefore, you should . . . buy my latest dvd series on how to be ready for such-and-such
Anyway, this sort of thing has always been around, it doesn't surprise me much, but I admit I can still be surprised by the propensity of Christians not to see through this stuff. In the NT, whenever people get to talking about the "end times," there's one particular warning that frequently repeats, but none of these end-times-prophets of our day ever seem to mention it. In other words, people are looking for this sign or that sign proclaimed as "near" by the guru, but they never look for the one sign that Matthew, Mark, Paul, Peter, and John all mention. Here's a sample:

Matt 24:11
Matt. 24:24
Mark 13:22
2Cor 11:13
2Thes 2:9-11
1Tim 1:3
2Peter 2:1
1John 4:1

See what I mean? They all warn against false prophets coming along in the end times, misleading many. So why then isn't that the sign these people are looking out for, since it's apparently the sign that all the major NT authors very clearly warned about. In other words, if assertion 1 above is true, then assertion 2 ought to be, therefore be watchful for wolves disguised as sheep, invading the community of believers and misleading many.

I'm just sayin' . . .

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

and this is probably one of the easier ones to spot...

Bob Spencer said...

You would think so, Nancy, but thus my surprise that it is not so easily recognized by many others.

Nate said...

Well I've been "thinking like a billionaire" for some time now and it seems to have gotten me a lot further into debt. But I don't worry, i'm sure that the billions will come soon enough, after all Joel Osteen says I can "think cancer cells away" so why not think myself a fabulous fortune as well? While I'm at it, I think I'll "think myself" an entourage of 77 virgins. That should do the trick

Nate

Bob Spencer said...

Hmmmm . . . you have clearly reached the higher level of guruhood!