Bible Doctrine

Daniil Kharitonov (Daniil is the Russian equivalent of our “Daniel”) is a young Russian classical concert pianist. He is in his mid- twenties and has “the gift.”  But that “gift” had to be applied and exercised.  No classical pianist memorizes and beautifully plays a symphonic work, consisting of tens of thousands of notes, without practicing many long hours a day, every day, for many months and even years.

All who are truly in Christ Jesus, who have truly been converted and given the Holy Spirit, must do the same.  That “gift” has to be applied and exercised in our lives as well.  We must GROW in grace, knowledge and the walk of righteousness by faith.  We must learn to resist the pulls of the flesh, the temptation to think, say, or do anything the Word of God condemns.  We must apply ourselves to godliness and cease making excuses for our failures. 

The apostle Paul says we must “awake to righteousness,” that is we must realize what righteousness truly is – the absence of sin in our lives.  All too many believers are conditioned by a erroneous teaching to permit daily sin in their lives – even told that they are prideful and deceived if they think for a moment that they can depart from sin!!!  Paul said, “I can do ALL THINGS through Christ who strengthens me!”  Don’t sell Jesus Christ short.  He died not only to pay the penalty for our sins but also to FREE US from our sins.  But it is “according to our faith!”  Satan knows if he can convince a believer that they must sin daily then they WILL sin daily.

 Jesus cautioned us to have no thoughts of anxiety concerning tomorrow.  Tomorrow is not promised us.  Sufficient for today are the cares we will face.  I am not to be troubled as to whether Jesus can keep me from sin tomorrow, or all through the rest of the week, or this month, or throughout the remainder of this year.  I am to be concerned only with the waking hours of TODAY.  Is God powerful enough to keep me free from sin for the next few hours – until I fall asleep at the close of the day?  THAT’S all I need concern myself with.  Don’t sell God the Father, Jesus Christ and the powerful Holy Spirit short!  Together they are totally sufficient to keep us from sin for a few hours.  Tomorrow believe the same thing, and the day after that, and the day after that, and soon you will come to find at the close of the day you have no sin to confess.  Please believe this for it is so. 
Christ’s Faithful Servant (Galatians 1:10-12),

Donald Wiley

Many, perhaps most, Americans are like the proverbial ostrich that sticks its’ head in the sand.  “Don’t tell me bad news.  Don’t show me bad things.  Don’t disturb my peace of mind.”  They go down the road whistling a merry little tune willfully unaware that the road is getting rockier and beginning to crumble beneath their feet.  This was the exact mindset of ancient Israel as pictured and portrayed in the major prophets of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel.  In the early and mid-thirties Jews in Germany, Poland, and Austria did not want to believe the clown-like, ignorant Nazis were any real threat.  They had no concept as to how Satan’s power escalates exponentially once he is given free course in minds that are susceptible to his deceptions and evil influence.  This is exactly what is happening with the Islamic extremists now in the Middle East.  Our generation has thought itself so fortunate to have escaped what the previous generation endured – world war and the Great Depression.  We may well discover that our generation will face greater horrors than ANY previous generation.  I have no doubt whatsoever that nuclear disaster is “in the cards”, so to speak, for this nation as well as several others.  Will it be in this decade or the next, or even many decades hence?  America proclaiming its depravity and flaunting it before the world is like the fool who torments a caged tiger without realizing the cage door is not secured.  At some point the tiger is going to leap from the cage filled with ferocity and a lust for blood.

Christ’s Aged Servant (Galatians 1:10=12),

Donald Wiley

If one will just allow the Word of God to speak as to how God views the accumulation of wealth and riches without pitting scripture against scripture, using one scripture text to knock down and make void another scripture text, then one will quickly see why Jesus Christ referred to wealth as an “abomination!”  The prosperity preacher will cite examples such as Abraham and Job as proof God wishes to bless His earthly sons and daughters with great wealth and riches.  Both of these men were righteous, godly men and both were extremely wealthy.  End of story, right?  Not quite.  Jesus Christ told His disciples: “Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.  SELL WHAT YOU HAVE and give alms (charitable assistance to those in need); provide yourselves money bags which do not grow old, a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches nor moth destroys.  FOR WHERE YOUR TREASURE IS, THERE YOUR HEART WILL BE ALSOl” (Luke 12:32-34).  And, in speaking to the money hungry Pharisees in Luke 16, Jesus refers to the accumulation of wealth as “an abomination in the sight of God!” (See Luke 16:15). 

Both Abraham and Job were mature, lifelong worshipers of God.  They were righteous and faithful, men whom God could entrust with great wealth.  Few believers, especially young believers, have the spiritual maturity and dedicated walk of righteousness to handle great wealth aright.  It is all too easy for any degree of wealth to pull them off course and to captivate their mind and interests.  Jesus knew that, having seen the same displayed with the rich ruler who approached Him asking what he must do to inherit eternal life.  Jesus told him to keep God’s commandments, to which the ruler replied, “‘All these things I have kept from my youth.’ So when Jesus heard these things, He said to him, ‘You still lack one thing.  Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and come, follow me.’  But when he heard this, he became very sorrowful, for he was very rich.” (See Luke 18:18-23). 

Over and over again Jesus urged the abandonment of wealth, not the accumulation of riches.  Yet over and over again you will hear these prosperity gospel televangelists urging their followers to give generously to their ministries in order to assure their accumulation of riches, wealth and prosperity.  How many times have I heard such charlatans say such things as, “God spoke to me shortly before the telecast and told me He would multiply the seed of any donor a hundredfold who gives to this ministry today!”  Time and again I have heard such blasphemous pronouncements.  I was personally present in one such meeting where the charlatan preacher told those assembled that God had spoken to him that day and informed him there would be twelve persons present in the meeting that night who would give a thousand dollars each to his ministry and that God would make each of the twelve millionaires within twelve months!!  He then had his assistants pass out twelve envelopes to twelve people who held up their hands, indicating they would so give, or at least make a thousand dollar pledge.  I have no doubt several of those who held up their hands first were the preacher’s stooges sprinkled throughout the auditorium to nudge some reluctant dupe to take the plunge.  P.T. Barnum said, “There is a sucker born every minute.”  Had he attended one of these deceiver’s meetings he would probably have said, “There’s a thousand suckers born each second!”

Every time Jesus spoke about riches He put it in a bad light, calling wealth “an abomination,” or referring to “the deceitfulness of riches,” or urging those who possessed the same to “sell and give to the poor!”  Why don’t the wealthy televangelists ever point this out to their listeners???  Why don’t they tell their followers how Jesus graphically portrayed riches as a hindrance to maintaining a right relationship with God and finally entering His kingdom???  Scripture urges “Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have (See Hebrews 13:5).  The deceiver urges an opposite course, “Go for the gold.  Expect to be rich.  Seek wealth.  Ask for more.  Knock on the vault door until it opens and you can dive in headfirst.”  I don’t know if Satan even has the ability to laugh, but if he does he must cackle his fool head off if observing some of his ministers doing their thing in their attempt to destroy the body of Christ. 

I trust what I have written has caused someone to rethink themselves if pursuing wealth thinking that is God’s will for His people.  Test the spirits.  Prove all things.  Don’t be gullible.

Christ’s Aged Servant (Galatians 1:10-12),

Donald Wiley

Apr 4, 2025 12:00 pm By Jules Gomes

Global survey finds shocking hemorrhage of adults who were raised Christians leaving the Church

Most people around the world raised as Christians are abandoning their religion, but nearly all adults who were raised Muslim remain within Islam, according to a Pew Research Survey of 36 countries published on March 26.

Most conversions to Islam are occurring in America – and sadly, most of the new converts (13%) say they were raised as Christians. The United States has the highest or entrance rate into Islam of any of the countries studied, with one-fifth of Muslim Americans saying they were raised in other faiths or none.

Latino Catholics, in particular, are converting to Islam in significant numbers, corresponding surveys over the last two decades have found.

About 9% of converts to Islam are Latino, a 2020 survey confirmed — up from 5% in 2017. Many are of either Mexican or Puerto Rican descent, but conversion to Islam is also a phenomenon across Latin America, the report stated.

Conversion to Islam: Sociological or Theological?

The new phenomenon of single-parent homes in Latino Catholic families could be a factor drawing Latinas to Islam; in 2023, almost a third of Hispanic families were led by a single mother, according to U.S. Census data. By contrast, American Muslims are less likely to be divorced. 

However, most Islamic converts (about 50% of them women who have chosen to wear head coverings, as The Tablet reported last year) cited theological rather than sociological reasons for their conversion. About 95% of respondents in the Latino Muslim Survey said monotheism led to their conversion, and 94% claimed it was a desire for a direct connection to the Creator.

A major factor in the conversion rate is the proselytizing (dawah) efforts Islamic evangelistic organizations like IslamInSpanish Centro Islámico in Houston, Texas, make, actively reaching out to Latino Catholics. In November 2021, Latino Muslims celebrated the grand opening of what they claim is the only Spanish-language mosque in the U.S.

“IslamInSpanish is a pioneer,” remarked Dr. Craig Considine, a practicing Catholic and senior lecturer in Islamic Studies at Rice University, noting how Islam’s directives on daily prayer and bans on alcohol, gambling and pork are a draw for disillusioned Catholics. “It’s food for the soul, food for the brain.”

Catholics Fail to Evangelize Muslims

Considine also stressed that Islam is drawing converts by building community: “It’s multi-ethnic. It’s multinational. It’s multi-racial,” he said. “It’s the quintessential American story of community building. The Irish and Italians did it. And now they’re doing it not through Christianity but through Islam.”

Robert Spencer, who has written 29 books on Islam and the Middle East, told The Stream the Catholic Church is failing evangelize Muslims, though Muslims are proselyting Catholics:

“Many Hispanic Catholics are turning to Islam, and the Catholic Church is doing absolutely nothing to counter this growing trend,” he said. “This is because the Vatican II documents have given rise to a great deal of confusion over whether Muslims should be evangelized at all, or are part of the ‘plan of salvation.’ Pope Francis has added to this confusion by conducting numerous outreach meetings with Muslim leaders and concluding the highly misleading Document on Human Fraternity.

“And so while Muslim groups make concerted efforts to convert Catholics, the Church hierarchy persists in fondly assuming that Muslims are their partners in faith.”

The American Muslim Association of North America, based in North Miami, says heavily Hispanic South Florida in particular is home to a rising number of Latino Muslims.

“What most Latinos who have embraced Islam find most amazing is their cultural affinity to the Muslim culture,” said Wilfredo Ruiz, a Puerto Rican-born Muslim who converted a decade ago and is a lawyer for the South Florida chapter of the Council of American-Islamic Relations. “It’s like rediscovering your past. That area of our past has been hidden from us.

“Our language is nurtured by more than 4,000 words that come from Arabic. Every word in Spanish that starts with ‘al,’ for example, like alcalde, alcantarilla, almohada” comes from Arabic.

Prosperous Nations Hit by Christian Recession

According to the Pew report, the only other country experiencing a high “accession” rate to Islam is Kenya, with 11% of Kenyan Muslims saying they were raised in another religion or with no religion.

On a global level, the survey revealed that Spain, a traditionally Catholic country, suffered the largest net losses for Catholics from “religious switching” (in proportion to the size of its population) of any country surveyed.

About 36% of Spanish adults have left Christianity, while just 3% of Spanish adults have entered Christianity.

The survey also revealed that the Church has sustained net losses of 20 percentage points or more of the total adult populations in Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Australia, Chile, the United States, and Italy due to “switching.”

Most who have left the Church no longer identify with any religion, saying they are now atheist, agnostic or have no religion in particular. This trend is especially strong in many high-income countries.

The highest retention rates for Christianity are in the Philippines, Hungary, and Nigeria, where nearly all adults who were raised Christian are still Christian today, the pollsters found.

Despite the fact that Singapore is a high-income country, a larger share of adults joined rather than left Christianity. While 12% of Singaporean adults say they were raised Christian, 18% currently identify as Christians — a net gain of 6% of all Singaporean adults.

In Asia, the lowest retention rate among Christians was found in South Korea. About half of Koreans raised Christian still identify as Christian (51%), while the other half (49%) are no longer Christian.

Dr. Jules Gomes, (BA, BD, MTh, PhD), has a doctorate in biblical studies from the University of Cambridge. Currently a Vatican-accredited journalist based in Rome, he is the author of five books and several academic articles. Gomes lectured at Catholic and Protestant seminaries and universities and was canon theologian and artistic director at Liverpool Cathedral. This article has been cross-posted with the author’s permission from The Stream.

Never forget Satan is a genius.  He is a mastermind, having great and awesome intellect, though devoid of any hint of wisdom.  Easter is another one of the masterstrokes of Satan’s genius.  By it he, not God, nullified God’s eternal holy Sabbath replacing it with his own long cherished Sunday, the day of the ancient sun god.

Why do folks celebrate Easter?  They claim Easter Sunday morning is when Jesus arose from the dead.  WRONG!  As I have clearly pointed out in previous articles, Jesus arose from the dead at sundown the previous evening.  That is why when “Mary Magdalene went to the tomb early, WHILE IT WAS STILL DARK, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb, then she ran and came to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved (John), and said to them, ‘They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid Him.'” (See John 20:1-2). It is laudable, of course, that believers celebrate the resurrection of our Lord, but many unwittingly perpetuate an error yearly by their Easter sunrise services.  They celebrate the change of God’s holy eternal Sabbath to Sunday thereby.  And that never happened and never will happen.  Even in the world to come, “it shall come to pass that from one Sabbath to another, ALL FLESH shall come to worship before Me, says the Lord” (See Isaiah 66:23).  Yes, even all the Gentiles, all the Sunday-keeping Protestants, ALL FLESH shall then keep holy God’s eternal Sabbath.  I have already started.  I suggest you do the same.

Jesus said by the utterances we make, by the words we speak, we are either justified or condemned.  If what we say is true, then we are justified in what we have said.  If what we say proves false, we are condemned.  Modern Christianity unwittingly teaches that Jesus Christ should be condemned for something He said to the scribes and Pharisees!  For immediately after stating one is either justified or condemned by what he says, Jesus told these men He was giving that generation only ONE SIGN that He truly was the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.  He said, “For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so (likewise, in the same manner) will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth (the tomb)” (See Matthew 12:36-40).

Deceived believers say Jesus was crucified on Good Friday, being placed in the tomb as the sun was setting, and that He came out of the tomb at sunrise Easter Sunday morning.  Count with me how many days are there between Good Friday sunset and Easter Sunday sunrise.  ONE DAY – the daylight part of Saturday, right?  And how many nights are there between sunset Good Friday and sunrise Easter Sunday?  Two nights, right?  Yet Jesus said the ONLY SIGN He was going to give the Jewish nation that He truly was their long awaited Messiah was that His dead body would lie in the tomb for three days and three nights!  If not, he would be condemned by His words and could be rejected as a false Messiah

That’s the primary reason why the Jews reject Jesus as being their Messiah.  They say, “Even you Christians teach He failed to fulfill the ONLY SIGN He gave us that He was our Messiah.”

The Sabbath that hastened on, preventing the women from anointing the body of Jesus before it was placed in the tomb was NOT the weekly Sabbath, but an annual Sabbath called a High Day Sabbath, the first day of Unleavened Bread that happened to fall on Thursday crucifixion week.  See John 19:31 with Leviticus 23.  The average Christian has little or no understanding of Israel’s seven annual  Sabbaths.  There were TWO Sabbaths crucifixion week, the High Day Sabbath, which was the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which fell on a Thursday crucifixion week, and then the weekly Sabbath!  According to Mark 16:1, the women didn’t buy the burial spices to anoint the Lord’s body until the sabbath was past, yet in Luke 23, verses 54 through 56, we are told the women “prepared spices and ointments and rested the sabbath day, according to the commandment.”  These passages show there were two sabbaths crucifixion week, else there is a blatant contradiction in scripture.

Jesus said He was “Lord of the Sabbath,” hence, the Sabbath is the Lord’s Day – NOT Sunday.  NO scripture calls Sunday the Lord’s Day.  (See Matthew 12:8; Mark 2:27-28 and Luke 6:5).  NO SCRIPTURE sanctifies Sunday, calling it a holy day.  And no scripture nullifies or de-sanctifies God’s holy, eternal Sabbath.  (The holy days and sabbaths to which the apostle Paul refers in Colossians 2, verses 16 and 17 were the annual sabbaths – NOT God’s eternal weekly sabbath!)  The seventh day was sanctified and made holy by Jesus creation week.  It was still holy and sanctified when Jesus was born in a manger and took on human form.  It was still holy time when Jesus hung on the cross.  It was still holy time when He was resurrected.  It was still holy time the day after that, a year after that, a century later, and the day I was born on November 30, 1942, and it will still be holy time when Jesus returns.

Few find their way through the narrow gateway into the castle of truth.  I am one of the most blessed and fortunate humans who has ever been privileged to set foot on God’s good earth.  You cannot possibly know how thankful and appreciative I am.  I will deny myself sleep day after day until I draw my last breath in order to continue getting out the truth of God to those who walk in error – my brethren, innocently duped by a mastermind genius. 

Christ’s Aged Servant (Galatians 1:10-12),

Donald Wiley

In surfing the internet, via YouTube, this afternoon I came across a couple of odd videos. One was where a guy visited hell for 23 minutes. The other was another guy who visited heaven for 9 minutes! I didn’t waste 32 minutes viewing the videos in their entirety. Actually the title of the videos revealed to me that two more charlatans were trying to foist off their blatant lies on an unsuspecting audience. Evidently these guys were wearing their watches when they made their brief trips to heaven and hell and glanced at the time that they first entered those realms and looked at their watches once again when returning to good old mother earth. I wouldn’t even want to venture a guess at the number of persons viewing those videos who believe what they are hearing.

The one guy who went to hell for 23 minutes was a preacher. Surprise, surprise, surprise! When I found out he was a preacher I was sorely tempted to believe that he did go to hell. No wonder someday Jesus Christ is going to say to MANY preachers, “I never knew you!” (See Matthew 7:21-23). Preachers must think Jesus joked a lot. (Maybe that’s why so many of them seem to think they must elicit a good belly laugh from their congregations at least three or four times when sermonizing to them). Read the letters of Paul, Peter, James or John – all nothing more or less than sermons reduced to writing. There’s not one joking remark in any of them.

Of course when I use the term “preachers,” I am not being all inclusive. There are many pastors, ministers, preachers, evangelists, missionaries who are supremely godly and have a marvelous understanding of the scriptures. But they are in the minority. That’s for sure.

I have no doubt that had I spent several more minutes surfing through the internet I would have come across several other frauds who would have related how they had either been to heaven or hell or that Jesus had come to them and spent an hour or so visiting with them even helping them feed the chickens before flitting off back to glory. P.T. Barnum must have had the spirit of prophecy infusing his mind when he said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” Rest in peace, P.T. You were right.

Christ’s Faithful Servant (Galatians 1:10-12),

Donald Wiley

Donald Wiley, Sun, Feb 2, 2014 at 3:39 PM

• I just came back from visiting a neighbor lady.  (She is in her eighties).  Her son committed suicide a few days ago.  I had heard he was in his early sixties.  She said he was 66.  I heard he had hung himself.  She said he overdosed on medication -intentionally.  (He left a suicide note).  She had me read the note.  It was quite short.  He apologized to family and friends for taking his life.  Said he was scared.  Hoped he wouldn’t leave a mess.  But he said he just couldn’t go on any longer.  He was a Vietnam vet.  How glad I am that I am fully submitted to the Lord, and that I had prayed diligently over the past 48 hours before visiting her.  My Lord gave me the exact words to speak to her and comfort her.  She hugged me with tears flowing and thanked me so much for coming and for speaking the words that comforted her heart.  I also left her a small mini-article I had written but hours before.  The Holy Spirit guided my mind and hand in every word I wrote.  Of that I am sure.  When I first entered her apartment the grief was plain upon her face.  When I left she was smiling through her tears.  The Lord will use us, each and every one, if we are fully submitted to Him whereby the Holy Spirit can “speak to our hearts,” instilling in us, guiding us to take the right course of action, to speak the proper words, to do the right thing.  He has been decades preparing me for such use by Him.  And, boy, what a journey it has been.  God bless one and all is my prayer…..
• Christ’s Aged Servant (Galatians 1:10-12),
• Donald Wiley

It seems to me that the average preacher doesn’t think God has any common sense.  Oh, they will allow that He has superior intelligence, even supreme intelligence, that He knows everything and can even tell us our thoughts before we think them.  But, in the matter of just good old common sense, God seems to be lacking, or so it would seem that this is the belief of many a preacher.  How so?  Well, take the Sabbath day for instance.  If one knows his Old Testament at all he knows quite well that God was supremely jealous of His holy eternal Sabbath.  Why if a man even dared gather firewood on the Sabbath God said, “Kill him!”  (See Numbers 15:32-36).

Nor did God change His views regarding the sacredness of the Sabbath with the passing of time, for many centuries later through His prophet Isaiah, God said, “Blessed is the man that does this, and the son of man that lays hold on it, that keeps the Sabbath from polluting it, and keeps his hand from doing any evil (on the Sabbath).”  See Isaiah 56:2.  Again, through Isaiah the prophet, God said, “If you turn away your foot from (trampling on) the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure (whatever you please) on my holy day, AND CALL THE SABBATH A DELIGHT (not a burden, not a yoke of bondage), the holy of the Lord, honorable, and shall honor Him, not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words, then shall you delight yourself in the Lord, and I will cause you to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of the Lord (one who cannot lie) has spoken it” (See Isaiah 58:13-14).  God says, “Keep the Sabbath holy and I will bless you beyond measure!”

And then, a century later, through His prophet Jeremiah, God warned Judah, “If you will not hearken unto me to hallow the Sabbath day, and not to bear a burden…on the Sabbath day, then will I kindle a fire in the gates (of Jerusalem), and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched” (See Jeremiah 17:27).  And, due to their continued desecration of God’s holy Sabbath day, God carried out His threat.  Babylon invaded Judah and destroyed Jerusalem and God’s temple, carrying the Jews into captivity in Babylon for seventy years.  But, while in Babylon, they repented and began honoring God’s Sabbath once again.  (Read Ezra and Nehemiah for this part of Israel’s history).

And finally when Jesus Christ arrived on the scene approximately six hundred years later, He found that the Jews were finally honoring God’s Sabbath and were now so jealous over keeping the Sabbath undefiled they even frowned on Jesus healing on the Sabbath.  Now stop and THINK, folks.  Having finally, after many centuries and the most horrible punishments of the destruction of Jerusalem and Judah’s being carried away as slaves out of the holy land, yes, having finally brought the Jewish nation to honor His sacred Sabbath, am I to believe WITH NO PRIOR WARNING God suddenly overnight abolished the Sabbath and replaced it with Sunday, a day that for centuries pagan’s had set aside to honor the sun god??  If you say that is so, you are saying Jesus Christ had no common sense as common sense alone would say that would be the most nonsensical thing He could possibly do as well as being grossly unfair in that finally after achieving what He desired from His chosen people – that being the honoring of His holy Sabbath – He then abolishes it overnight!!!  Add to that Jesus Christ telling His followers, “Pray you that your flight (from Rome’s invading armies) be not in the winter, NEITHER ON THE SABBATH DAY” (See Matthew 24:20).  History records that this happened in 70 A.D., nearly forty years after Jesus ascension back to heaven and the founding of the church.  Yet, looking down the corridor of time to 70 A.D., Jesus saw the Sabbath day as still sacred and told His disciples to pray that they would not have to desecrate that day by flight from the Roman armies on a Sabbath!

So, I say again, most preachers portray God as lacking in common sense as common sense alone would say don’t change the Sabbath to Sunday overnight without warning, not in Jerusalem, the holy city, not after finally achieving an honoring of His sacred Sabbath after centuries of horrible judgments.  Yet the Sunday keeping pastors say, “That’s exactly what He did!”  Go figure. Of course the Sunday observer has passages of scripture he truly believes support him in his deceptions, but he, or she, grossly misunderstands what is actually being said in such passages as Acts 20, Romans 14, I Corinthians 16 and Colossians 2. Do YOU see what Paul was saying???

Christ’s Aged Servant (Galatians 1:10-12),

Donald Wiley

The apostle Paul was confronted with that question raised by the Thessalonian believers.  That is why he wrote 2 Thessalonians.  In his first letter to the Thessalonian believers Paul had stated, “For yourselves know perfectly (or, as we might say, “perfectly well”) that the day of the Lord (the day of Christ’s return) so comes as a thief in the night” (I Thessalonians 5:2).  Four verses later Paul urges “let us watch and be sober…” (verse 6).

The apostle Peter warned that Paul wrote some things hard to understand by those who were not well grounded in the scriptures.  (See 2 Peter 3:14-16).  The Thessalonian believers misunderstood what Paul was saying, thinking he was telling them that Jesus’ return was imminent and that they needed to keep watch for Him as He might appear at any moment without any warning whatsoever much as a burglar, or thief, gives no warning before he climbs through your window.

Paul then writes the Thessalonians again, saying clearly, “Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto Him, that you be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.  Let no man deceive you by any means (claiming that God’s Spirit had revealed something to them) for that day SHALL NOT COME except 1) there come a falling away first, and 2) that man of sin be revealed (the great false prophet spoken of by John in the Book of Revelation and Daniel in his prophetic book)), the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God, or that is worshiped, so that he as God sits in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.  Remember you not that when I was yet with you I told you these things. (Paul is amazed they had misinterpreted what he had told them in his first letter to them).  And now you know what withholds (Christ’s return) that he might be revealed in his time” (See 2 Thessalonians 2:1-6).

Notice how clearly Paul now speaks.  He categorically states that two unmistakable events MUST occur BEFORE Jesus Christ can return: 1) There must be a great falling away first – Christians abandoning Christianity for some other pursuit or religion, to-wit, Islam, and 2) The man of sin must be revealed, one who exalts himself above even God and sits in the temple of God (much like the pope maintains an office in Vatican City) proclaiming himself to BE God!

Now ask yourself, “Has there been a great falling away of Christians, former believers in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior now giving up that belief and going to another religion or philosophy?”  Then ask yourself this question: “Is there some man occupying God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God appearing in the flesh in that temple?”

Friends, there isn’t a temple.  God’s temple was destroyed in 70 A.D.  Until that temple is rebuilt and this man of sin occupies it, claiming to be God, Jesus Christ will not and cannot return.  It’s that simple.  Satan has blinded multitudes of pastors and preachers from seeing this basic, clear truth in scripture.  It took forty-six years to construct the temple that was destroyed in 70 A.D.  (See John 2:20).  How long will it take to construct this prophesied temple that MUST be built before Christ can return?

Re-read 2 Thessalonians 2, verses 1 through 6.  Follow Paul’s counsel.  Don’t let any man deceive you into thinking Jesus Christ could “break through the blue” tonight or tomorrow or next year.  It cannot happen.  Don’t believe me.  Believe God’s holy, inspired Word of eternal truth!

Are you beginning to get a feel for Satan’s deceptive power?  He’s good at what he does.  He has no equal.  Who are you going to believe Pastor So-and-So, or some book of fiction, like “Left Behind” or “The Late Great Planet Earth”, or the apostle Paul and God’s word.  I am going to go with Paul and God’s Word.  I suggest you do the same.

Christ’s Faithful Servant (Galatians 1:10-12),

Donald Wiley