Why the End is Nearer than we First Believed

Written by Warren |Posted on August 1, 2008 | Comments

while i was doing my studies on the parable of the tares (mt 13:24-29)
one thing that struck me is the fact that we can tell if its a wheat or a tare by its fruit
meaning it must mature to bear fruit so one can tell the difference
as theyre maturing, we see evidences of their nature
we begin to raise our suspiscions of who the tares are
then at the end of the age they will be gathered together and to be thrown into the fiery furnace (mt 13:40)
take note that even in the end of the age we still dont know who the tares are 100%
that means deceitfulness still exists within the Church
the best we can do is doubt their salvation but we cant make the final judgement because it is not for us to judge their salvation
take note the tasks of the good seeds is not to sort out the tares from the wheat
but it is the job of the harvesters (or reapers in other versions) to make the sorting out (Mt13:30)
so when we see more and more cults being established like how Phil Johnson describes it
we know that the end is nearer
- – -
“For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine.
Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.
They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.”
2Tim 4:3-4
Rick Warren, known for authoring the popular book Purpose Driven Life discusses in his first book, Purpose Driven Church,how he deals with the unchurched:
“When I discovered that the greates complaint of the unchurched in my area was “boring, irrelevant sermons,” I decided I’d better seriously reexamine my preaching.
I reviewed ten years worth of sermons asking one question: Would this message make sense to a totally unchurched person?
It didn’t matter if I liked the message or not. Neither was it enough for a sermon to be doctrinally correct and homiletically sound. If I was going to start a church by attracting hard-core pagans, it would have to be a message to which they could relate. I ended up throwing out every sermon I’d written in the previous ten years,except two.”
Purpose Driven Church by Rick Warren, page 293-294
again on the same page…
“I do not believe verse-by-verse teaching through the books of the Bible is the most effective way to evangelize the unchurched.”
Purpose Driven Church by Rick Warren, page 294
- – -
this book was published in 1995
and millions of churches are buying into this
one of these is the chinese church where i went for several years
the church has many audience
having 3 services every sunday morning
i wrote to the pastor concerning this matter when i was in my late teens
the pastors and the deacons were greatly disturbed
and made an effort to “reach out” to me
but i refused their way of teaching so i moved to my present church
several years later i accompanied my mom to attend this chinese church once again (she loves to attend there)
the pastor mentioned in his message that several years ago a young man wrote to me this letter
and i was disturbed until now
this young man was so judgemental
our church must not be like this
we must be loving
accepting
etc
i bet i was the only one in their history who had noticed the flaw and stood up to confront him
- – -
this and many millions of churches worldwide are compromising the word and wanted to be more like the world than to be like Christ
they just put the word “christian” for them to be more acceptable
they are all in effort of bearing the fruits of the weeds
making the harvest for the world advanced more
we pray that many more people will be taken out from these deceitful churches and be able to know the truth
here is a message to that “ordinary” christian
dont go for what is hip today
always go to the bible
check wether theyre following its standards and not man’s
man’s standards is way way way different from that of the bible’s
so always go back to what the scripture says
before i used to ask myself when i see conflict between a pastor and the scriptures
should i listen to the pastor who had studied for years in the seminary?
or should i listen to what i see in the scripture?
nah
im not a trained pastor
i might have a wrong interpretation
id rather hear what the pastor says
since hes been trained and im not
but the bible says that even pastors can be false
“Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.” Mt 7:15
so how can we know who these fakers are?
do we know them by their denomination?
by what school they attended?
by which church they gathered?
no
see on this next verse
“Ye shall know them by their fruits.” Mt 7:16a
and false pastors produces false churches
simply because they feed them with wrong information
- – -
so i hope and pray that some will still be snatched from these false churches
hazel and i, we were also been snatched away by grace, and we hope that we could also show them the truth
and be able to understand and repent and turn to God
for the harvest time is near