“For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works,” 2 Corinthians 11:13-15.
As I said in Part 1 and also in the introduction to Part 2 of this article, I set out to expound the verses above and apply them to an impious email from one purporting to be a female ‘minister of the gospel’.
It will be seen in that first article that the silly woman who attacked me, mocked young girls for wearing berets as they sang in church. She seemed totally unaware that a head covering is commanded in Scripture for a lady engaged in public worship in the house of God, 1 Corinthians 11:4-6.
She but confirms that she is one of the ‘Bible-rejectors’ who abound today and who can blithely call themselves ‘servants of God’!
I then moved on to note how that from the dawn of this Christian age, the devil has been actively corrupting the truth of God by his evil agents who creep into unsuspecting churches (Jude 3-4) and who transform themselves into what is professed to be “ministers of righteousness.”
We now take up the final part of the study.
THE APPROACH OF THE FINAL THREE AND A HALF YEARS OF THIS AGE HAS BEEN SIGNALLED BY A NUMBER OF OCCURRENCES IN RECENT TIMES.
1. The world-wide rejection of the Word of God within professing Christendom. There has always been heresy and false doctrine to be found within the ranks of the professing people of God. Judas Iscariot was, as it were, the forerunner of those who, pretending to be true disciples, were in fact intent on destroying the work of Christ.
Heresies
Such has caused great divisions and disruptions but as Paul says: “For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you,” 1 Corinthians 11:19. The activities of the ‘heretics’ serve to stir up the true believers, like sailors on a ship boarded by pirates, and every effort is made to resist such and remove them from the ranks of the people of God.
Thus, some of the greatest definitions and explanations of the fundamentals of the faith have come out of those controversies that the invasions by false prophets have generated. There is no better example than the wonderful Catechism and Confession of Faith that emerged in the wake of the great Protestant Reformation. They still serve as ‘anchors of the soul’ to true believers.
Since the Second World War we have seen a flood tide of departures from the truth of the Bible. It has advanced so far that ‘faith’ of Sodom and Gomorrah has become the standard of religious thought in most of the mainstream denominations.
Here in Northern Ireland, once considered the home of the most conservative of true Protestantism, Ecumenism with its objective of reunion with Roman Catholicism and the embracing of every false and immoral perversion of man, has ordained openly professing sodomites to office.
The total rejection of the Bible, which the embracing of sodomy and its associated perversions which ever increase in diversity and number and are embraced by governments and public bodies such as churches and schools, as unexceptional manifestations, while in truth they are disclosures of devilish depravities!
2. The spirit of murder that is ever more common. I found this graph on the Internet:
At one stage, around 2004, the number of murders in England and Wales had increased five-fold from 1960 and it is presently some three times what it was sixty years ago.
Stabbing
Murder by stabbing is very common amongst the young and the motive is usually one of the most trivial kind! Life carries no value and can be taken on the basis of the slightest perception of an insult!
Furthermore, ‘infanticide’ has increased horrifyingly. Little ones are done to death in the most fiendish manner. Many recent court cases have revealed that children have been treated most cruelly by those supposedly caring for them. The little ones have been done to death in a manner in which no human being would put to death an animal!
Domestic violence
Domestic abuse, the sufferings imposed on women and indeed, men, and children within the home is endemic, according to reports from our courts. One judge was recently quoted in our local newspaper as saying: ‘One of the factors that can allow domestic abuse to continue unnoticed for lengthy periods is the ability of the offender to have a public and private face so that an offender’s good character in relation to conduct outside the offences should generally be of no relevance where there is a proven pattern of behaviour in the domestic context.’
The ‘darkness’ within private homes is more widespread than is imagined.
Verse
As I have read of such cases I have thought of that verse in 2 Timothy 3, where details are given us of the ‘perilous times’ that were prophesied for the last days. “For men shall be . . . . without natural affection,” verse 2-3. The Greek word, here translated ‘without natural affection’, appears in one other place. It is found in Paul’s recital of the wickedness of mankind in ages past. Romans 1:31. There it appears as ‘without understanding’.
Man’s descent as recorded by Paul in Romans, has this statement: “And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient,” verse 28.
That is what is happening nation-wide once again!
3. ‘Self love’ is another feature of society in the last days. Surely we see that all around us. Selfishness, the promotion of the vain philosophy, even to children, of holding a high opinion of one’s self, even if you are the dumbest being in the street! Such a philosophy gives vent to such statements as. ‘I am, I can, I will, I do.’ Or another, ‘There’s no limit to what you can do.’
All this delusion and fantasy. The Bible would have men see themselves for what they are. It is not a very flattering image!
“What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin; As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: their feet are swift to shed blood: destruction and misery are in their ways: and the way of peace have they not known: there is no fear of God before their eyes. Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God,” Romans 3:9-19.
A sinner
That is the true condition of man and only on a few short occasions, by the grace of God and the applying of the gospel mercies to men, has this situation in any way improved.
The casting away of the gospel today is, not surprisingly, marked by a reverting to a state of affairs as outlined in the verses above.
While vain-glorious man holds the notion of himself that he does and rejects the condemnation of himself by the holy Law of God, then his feet will continue to “run to evil, and make haste to shed blood,” Proverbs 1:16.
Isaiah spoke of his evil generation but his words apply equally to this present generation. “Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths,” Isaiah 59:7.
4. A further testimony to the nearness of Christ’s return is the increase of ‘antisemitism’ or hostility toward the Jewish people.
UK police forces have endorsed this definition of ‘Antisemitism’.
“Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed towards Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”
Always hated
The Jew has always been hated. The reason for that is two-fold.
(1). There is the natural hostility of the world to anyone or anything that is linked to Jehovah! What was true of them in Old Testament times, became true of the Christian in New Testament times.
The Saviour told His disciples: “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you. These things I command you, that ye love one another. If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you,” John 15:16-19.
John the apostle repeated this truth. “For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous. Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you,” 1 John 3:11-13.
(2). Since Calvary and the rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ as their Messiah by the Jewish people generally, one aspect of the judgment of God that abides on the Jewish people since then, has been a heightened spirit of animosity toward them.
Moses
Back in Deuteronomy 28, Moses warned the Jewish people of the consequences of rejecting God and His Word. “But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee,” verse 15.
Moses went on to write: “And it shall come to pass, that as the LORD rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you; so the LORD will rejoice over you to destroy you, and to bring you to nought; and ye shall be plucked from off the land whither thou goest to possess it. And the LORD shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other; and there thou shalt serve other gods, which neither thou nor thy fathers have known, even wood and stone. And among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest: but the LORD shall give thee there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind: And thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life: In the morning thou shalt say, Would God it were even! and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were morning! for the fear of thine heart wherewith thou shalt fear, and for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see. And the LORD shall bring thee into Egypt again with ships, by the way whereof I spake unto thee, Thou shalt see it no more again: and there ye shall be sold unto your enemies for bondmen and bondwomen, and no man shall buy you,” Deuteronomy 28:63-68.
AD 70
That is how it has been with the Jew, particularly since AD 70 and the overthrow of Jerusalem and the selling into slavery the survivors of the Roman Army’s siege of that city.
A recent headline in a news site shows this.
‘Antisemitism in UK ‘off the rails’ as Jeremy Corbyn accused of triggering ‘explosion’ of hate’
This hatred of the Jew will continue, indeed will increase, until the return of Christ. It is then that glorious changes, spiritual, national and material will ensue for that people, presently so despised.
The true Christian, it must be said, does not so despise the Jew. Rather we heed the call of God and pray for the ‘peace of Jerusalem’, believing the promise attached to that exhortation.
“Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee,” Psalms 122:6.
Coming changes for the Jew
Consider just a few verses which set forth the reversal of the present Jewish relationship with Jehovah.
“For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land. Then (after they have been gathered back to Israel, something that happened back in 1948) will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them. And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God,” Ezekiel 36:24-28.
“For, behold, in those days, and in that time, when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land. . . But Judah shall dwell for ever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation,” Joel 3:1-2, 20.
“And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn,” Zechariah 12:10.
After being gathered back to Israel but before their conversion to faith in Christ, they will pass through what is termed, ‘the great tribulation’, God’s means of finally humbling them and bringing them to repentance for that dreadful sin, some 2000 years ago when their forefathers cried out, as recorded in Matthew 27:25: “Then answered all the people, and said, His blood be on us, and on our children.”
“And it shall come to pass, that in all the land, saith the LORD, two parts therein shall be cut off and die; but the third shall be left therein. And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The LORD is my God,” Zechariah 13:8-9.
These things will clearly betoken the imminent return of our Saviour in glory and great power.
5. The natural creation testifies to the nearness of the end of this age. We are well aware of the many dire predictions issued by ‘scientists’ and ‘environmentalists’, telling us that as a result of man’s polluting of the earth in countless ways, from the throwing away of rubbish out of car windows, to dumping toxic waste of every form into the air, onto the land, into the rivers and ultimately into the oceans, man has left the earth like a vacated gypsy campsite!
Depravity
All this is the result of man’s deprived nature! It doesn’t matter how many waste disposal facilities exist, generally, man will ignore such and simply cast his waste over his shoulder.
This is a practice that industrialists, politicians, financiers and Uncle Tom Cobley and all engage in!
But as well as suffering the shameful behaviour of mankind, the earth has been under the curse of God as a result of Adam’s transgression.
“And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return,” Genesis 3:17-19.
From the moment of his sinning, Adam began to die physically. He had already died spiritually and lost his communion with God. Paul taught the Christians in Ephesus this truth.
“And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others,” Ephesians 2:1-3.
As the Shorter Catechism puts it in answer to Question 17 —‘Into what estate did the fall bring mankind?’
The Catechism teaches us that: ‘The fall brought mankind into an estate of sin and misery.’
Romans 5:12 is a proof text for this statement. “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.”
The earth is dying also
The curse God pronounced upon the earth as a result of Adam’s sin has brought death upon the creation also.
“For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body,” Romans 8:19-23.
It is a common feature of the body of true believers that they are ‘waiting’ for the return of Christ and the wonderous events of that day.
“For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord,” 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17.
That day of blessing will also have a partial lifting of the curse of God upon the earth.
Thus the prophet Isaiah, who foresaw such a day, tell us: “And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots: and the spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD; and shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the LORD: and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears: but with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked. And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins. The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice’ den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea. And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea,” Isaiah 11:1-11.
Present order
The present order that prevails amongst the ‘wild creatures’ will be changed and there will be a returning to days similar to the days before the fall. “And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof,” Genesis 2:19.
The relationship between wild beast and man will be restored as Isaiah tells us in the verse above.
Yes, the groans of creation, join in chorus with the other indicators and tell us that “the coming of the Lord draweth nigh,” James 5:8.
The final and full recovery of creation will take place after the judgment of sinful, Christ-rejecting mankind. “And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. . . . And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him: and they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads. And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever. And he said unto me, These sayings are faithful and true: and the Lord God of the holy prophets sent his angel to shew unto his servants the things which must shortly be done. Behold, I come quickly: blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book,” Revelation 20:11-21:1; 22:1-7.
The salvation of God’s elect to be present with the Lord for all eternity, rejoicing evermore and the complete restoration of God’s creation — such will be the outworking of God’s great purpose and that to the utter frustration of every attempt by the devil and his minions and dupes to hinder it.
Blessed be the Lord forever more!
Rev Ivan Foster (Rtd)
Monday 31st March 2025