'THE BLESSING' SONG, BORN IN THE WORD OF FAITH AND RAISED IN ECUMENISM - ADORED ANTHEM OF APOSTASY!

"Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; 

for I will not hear the melody of thy viols.

But let judgment run down as waters,

and righteousness as a mighty stream."

(Amos 5:23-24)

THE UK TODAY

The UK today. A nation so far removed from the fear of God and the upholding of His ways that it kills its unborn children en masse, delights in uniting homosexuals in a mockery of God-ordained marriage and regards perversion as progress. A nation so determinedly self-drenched in sin as to make depravity a cherished right and ideal, that perhaps even Sodom would have shuddered and Gomorrah groaned to gaze upon it. A nation akin to Jerusalem in Jeremiah's day, when through His faithful prophet the Lord God declared: "As a fountain casteth out her waters, so she casteth out her wickedness: violence and spoil is heard in her; before me continually is grief and wounds." (Jer. 6:7). Friends, look around with unblinkered eyes and, if there's but half an ounce of honesty within you, you'd have to agree that this is a nation that surely only Satan and his hench-demons could smile upon with happy satisfaction at its shockingly degenerate state.

Yes, the UK today. A nation where the Church has been Hell-bent - and I use the term advisedly - on NOT being salt and light to it. When all is said and done, how can she be, when the salt has everywhere lost its savour, and the "light" that is supposedly in her is on all fronts actually darkness? "Take heed therefore that the light which is in thee be not darkness!" warns Luke 11:35, but this urgent plea that echoes down the ages has fallen on deliberately deaf ears. God has been so, so patient, but that patience is fast evaporating like morning mist, and on the heels of unrepentant iniquity and wilful unfaithfulness comes His inevitable righteous judgment.

Once, the banners uncompromisingly proclaimed, 'The wages of sin is death!' / 'After death the judgment!' / 'Prepare to meet thy God!' - but no more. The Church is not interested in preaching pure doctrine and preparing people for what is to come, only in partying in the here and now. She has been laughing, as Toronto demonically taught her to, when she should have been weeping with breast-beating sorrow. In her headlong departure from Truth and her dereliction of duty, the Church cannot stand apart from the world to witness against it and to warn it, because she has become an integral part of it. Have no doubt my friends that she will face the dire consequences of her brazen betrayal of the Bridegroom! Judgment begins at the house of God...

"How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, 

so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, 

I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow." 

(Revelation 18:7)

'THE BLESSING'

Is not the serpent the subtlest of all beasts? Has he not cunningly deceived from the beginning, this silver-tongued salesman of spiritual strychnine who is the father of falsehood? How have we so forgotten this? We sow the wind of such forgetfulness, and we much reap the whirlwind of mindlessness, ending up blessing that which cannot be blessed.

Which brings me to 'The Blessing,' a song that has gone viral on the internet with many millions of views, and "likes" and glowing comments by the thousand, serving only to show how so, so many want only to have their itching ears satisfyingly tickled by what they WANT to hear, not painfully pinched by what they NEED to hear. It's such a heartbreaking case of "Tell us lies, pretty lies, and we'll jump for joy; tell us the Truth, tell us like it really is, and we'll put our hands very firmly over our ears!" 

THE SONG IS ALL ABOUT PRONOUNCING GOD'S BLESSING UPON A NATION THAT HAS REMOVED ITSELF FAR FROM IT, FROM THE AVOWED ATHEISTS TO THE TRUTH-TRAMPLING PEW-POLISHERS, WITH EVERY SHADE OF GOD-REJECTING REBELLION IN BETWEEN. BLESSING IS CONDITIONAL UPON BEING IN A RIGHT PLACE WITH THE CREATOR, WHICH ASSUREDLY NEITHER SOCIETY AT LARGE NOR THE PROFESSING CHURCH IS IN!

'The UK Blessing - Churches Sing The Blessing Over The UK' which can be found at https://youtu.be/PUtll3mNj5U, premiered on YouTube on 3 May, and as I write this it has had over two and a half million hits and has been showered with adulation. This sadly speaks volumes for the extent of the Falling Away here in the UK, that such a plethora of professing believers are totally unable to see the wood for the multitude of trees. They take delight in their abject denial of raw reality rather than admit to it, soberly stand on the Word of God and tell the people in no uncertain terms that they are not blessed but hopelessly lost, and things are not going to get better in any real, lasting sense, but only get progressively worse and worse as the end of the age bears down upon us like a runaway train.

The song has been eagerly imported into Britain from the USA, as of course have so many things which have spelt such bad news for the upholding of unadulterated Truth in these Islands. The original video recording, live from Elevation Ballantyne can be found at https://youtu.be/Zp6aygmvzM4 (over twelve and a half million views and still counting), and confirms that the song was written by Steven Furtick, Chris Brown, Kari Jobe and her husband Cody Carnes, and includes the Elevation Worship band in the credits. The significance of this information cannot be understated. Elevation Worship is the musical face of Furtick's Elevation Church, which very much echoes the Bethel Church/Bethel Music/Jesus Culture setup of one of the foremost heretics in the world today, Bill Johnson, and also that of Brian Houston's Australia-based Hillsong church-and-music "prosperity gospel" empire.

I recommend readers to view Justin Peters' warning concerning Bethel Music, Hillsong and Elevation Music here: https://youtu.be/Y0uFSYHVSRk

Let's look a little at said Steven Furtick, the founder and pastor of the Elevation megachurch in Charlotte, North Carolina. This is a man who not only considers Joel Osteen to be a great man of God, but hails T.D. Jakes as being the greatest preacher of our time, and names him his own favourite preacher in the world. Are you starting to get the picture here? No? Well, how about his buddying up to that other great Word of Faith, fleece-wearing wolf Rod Parsley, speaking at his Dominion Camp in both 2017 and 2018? Or perhaps his very close link to Hillsong, repeatedly guesting at their conferences worldwide? Or maybe his partnering with the Bethel circus's ringmasters Bill Johnson and Kris Vallotton for their 'Heaven Come' conferences in L.A in 2018 and 2019? If that doesn't clinch it, nothing will! Friends, I'm going to say it as it is: Steven Furtick is about as sound as a plastic pound.

What about the other co-writers of this song? Well, Furtick's long-time musical collaborator Chris Brown is lead songwriter for Elevation Worship; the band tours with the likes of Bethel Music and Hillsong Music, which speaks - or more accurately shouts - of its very comfortable correlation with the apostate Johnson and Houston camps. OK, what about Kari Jobe and Cody Carnes? Well, they are husband-and-wife worship leaders currently based at The Belonging Co, a church in Nashville which they migrated to after first rising to prominence at Robert Morris's Gateway Church in Dallas. Morris is another of those "Tithe, tithe, tithe and more besides," dollar-signs-in-the-eyes millionaire preachers, and unsurprisingly a darling of one of the prosperity gospel's main TV mouthpieces, Daystar. In 2018, online magazine 'The Christian Beat' asked Jobe to name some of her biggest musical influences; of her top three, two were Bethel Music (with whom she has recorded) and Hillsong. COVID-19 permitting, of course, Jobe and Carnes are scheduled to tour this summer with, surprise, surprise, Hillsong Worship. Kari Jobe is also shown to be on the same page as Bethel by her support of last December's (abortive, need I say!) days-long attempt by this sham "church" (and the specially flown in she-wolf Heidi Baker) to raise a little girl from the dead. 'Nuff said?

BETHEL, HILLSONG AND ELEVATION ARE, TO USE AN APPROPRIATELY MUSICAL ANALOGY, THREE COMPLEMENTARY NOTES THAT COMBINE TO FORM A MOST POWERFUL CHORD. WE WOULD DO WELL TO RECALL THAT THE ENEMY OF OUR SOULS WAS CREATED AS A MUSICAL BEING (see Ezek. 28:13), AND KNOWS EXACTLY HOW TO USE MUSIC TO VERY GREAT EFFECT TO STEER US OFF THE NARROW WAY AND ONTO THE BROAD.

NOTE, AND NOTE WELL, 'THE BLESSING' WAS AS SURELY BORN IN THE DOCTRINE-DEBASING, DOLLAR-CHASING WORD OF FAITH CAMP AS IT IS NOW BEING RAISED - AS THE UK VIDEO VERSION SO CLEARLY SHOWS - IN THE ANTICHRIST HOUSEHOLD OF ECUMENISM. IF THIS IS UNDERSTOOD, IT BECOMES THAT MUCH CLEARER HOW IT HAS BEEN MASSIVELY TAKEN UP AS AN ADORED GLOBAL ANTHEM OF APOSTASY.

Throughout this hopelessly misguided song, which countless people are wildly applauding, we hear the mantra, 'He is FOR you, He is FOR you, He is FOR you...' Really? He is FOR a nation as evil as this? He is FOR a Church gone so astray as to call the actual occultism it practices the work of the Holy Spirit, and where fear of the One they call Lord is so conspicuous by its very absence? What does His Word say about those who steadfastly depart from His ways in their unholy fearlessness and unfaithfulness, but the exact opposite? He is not FOR them, but AGAINST them:

"And I will come near to you to JUDGMENT; 

and I will be a swift witness AGAINST the sorcerers, 

and AGAINST the adulterers, and AGAINST false swearers, 

and AGAINST those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, 

and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, 

AND FEAR NOT ME, saith the LORD of hosts." 

(Malachi 3:5; my capitalization for emphasis)

TO ALL THE CHURCHES, GROUPINGS AND INDIVIDUALS WHO HAVE SO WRETCHEDLY PARTICIPATED IN 'THE BLESSING,' PROUDLY PARTNERING IN THIS DESPERATELY SKEWED ECUMENICAL EXTRAVAGANZA, AND ALSO TO ALL THOSE WHO ARE SO LACKING IN SPIRITUAL ACUMEN AS TO HAVE BACKED IT TO THE HILT, I SAY THIS TO YOU:

JUST WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU GUYS!!!??? HOW ARE YOU SO FAR REMOVED FROM UNDERSTANDING THAT THIS IS NOT A TIME FOR PRONOUNCING BLESSING OVER A NATION SOLD OUT TO SIN AND STANDING IN OPPOSITION TO GOD, BUT A TIME FOR WARNING LOUDLY AND CLEARLY OF HIS JUDGMENT OVER IT, A TIME FOR SACKCLOTH AND ASHES, NOT SACCHARINE SONGS AND CANDYFLOSS?

WHEN THE ALARM BELLS ARE RINGING SO LOUDLY AS TO THREATEN TO BRING BLOOD FROM YOUR EARDRUMS, YOU STILL REFUSE TO WAKE UP! RISE NOW TO REALITY, AND WHILE IN THE GRACE OF GOD THERE IS YET A WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY TO DO SO, URGENTLY GET SOME OIL FOR YOUR EMPTY LAODICEAN LAMPS!

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Some key sources of information used in compiling this account:
http://apprising.org/2009/09/14/steven-furtick-calls-joel-osteen-great-man-of-god-2/
http://apprising.org/2012/01/23/steven-furtick-t-d-jakes-is-my-favorite-preacher-in-the-world/
https://www.thechristianbeat.org/index.php/interviews/4586-tcb-exclusive-kari-jobe-talks-about-miracles-seen-on-tour
https://www.karijobe.com/music
https://youtu.be/GMxuw8eAxmg

THE FALLING AWAY: APOSTASY, NOT RAPTURE OF THE CHURCH!

"Let no man deceive you by any means:

for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first,

and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition."

(2 Thessalonians 2:3)

INTRODUCTION

Yesterday, I watched two video presentations which, in quite different and yet interlinked ways, caused me great consternation, as both will be seen by very many people who I fear will be gravely misled by strong assertions made therein, assertions which I accordingly find myself having the unpleasant but unfortunately necessary duty to address and refute.


VIDEO 1 - THE DOWNPLAYING OF THE COVID-19 CRISIS

I'll deal first with Grace To You's video entitled 'Thinking Biblically about the COVID-19 Pandemic: an Interview with John MacArthur' uploaded on 24 April. (200K+ views at time of writing). In this talk, he completely dismisses any consideration that the current global Coronavirus crisis has eschatological significance, or that there is any aspect of God's judgment to what is happening. He flatly declares that "this doesn't connect with anything in the Bible," even throwing out any idea that it might be at least a harbinger of what is to come upon the Earth.

To dismiss the pandemic as being really no big deal at all in the great scheme of things, in either a worldly or a spiritual context, but just an influenza essentially like any other, I consider to be extreme folly on the part of any Christian leader, and particularly one who through the internet has the ear of thousands if not millions who will hear this determined downplaying, and be encouraged to similarly completely gloss over this unprecedented crisis as having zero spiritual significance. They will not see "that now it is high time to awake out of sleep" (Romans 13:11), and like John MacArthur sadly fail to recognize the fact that in church doors being everywhere closed, which is something that has NEVER happened before, judgment has indeed begun - as the Word tells us that it must (1 Peter 4:17) - at the house of God. 

Furthermore, in continued contented slumber, such folks will not take careful and prayerful note of the "new normal" - which everyone is even now being conditioned to accept - which is so clearly and irreversibly arising out of the whole COVID-19 situation. They will not perceive that it is a truly massive milestone on the road to establishing a NEW World Order; the OLD world order, as we knew it such an incredibly short time ago, is to all intents and purposes now dead in the water. Let us clearly understand that said New World Order, when it arrives in all its eventual tyrannical fullness, will be the kingdom of Antichrist. Jesus told us to watch, but John MacArthur is essentially saying there's no need for such vigilance in these present circumstances. Common sense, however, never mind spiritual wisdom and discernment, tells us that there's a most pressing need for exercising MUCH vigilance in all of this!


VIDEO 2 - THE 'FALLING AWAY' RADICALLY RE-DEFINED

Which brings me to the second video of concern, uploaded by J.D. Farag, entitled 'Bible Prophecy Update - May 3rd, 2020' which has already had over 80K views. Now, I've long warmed to this man's personality and have often listened to his 'Prophecy Updates' and found them to be helpful and informative, so it very greatly saddens me to have to warn people about this latest offering of his, the focus of which is a most alarmingly erroneous teaching on the Scripture which heads this article, namely 2 Thessalonians 2:3.

His teaching (and he is regrettably far from being the first to hold to it) is that the falling away spoken of in this verse is the rapture of the Church. We needs must go to the original Greek, where falling away appears as the single word apostasia, from which we get our English word apostasy:

Strong's concordance No. 646 - apostasia: defection from truth, apostasy, falling away, forsake.

The meaning is clear. The falling away is the falling away from Truth, the apostasy of those who would claim to be God's people but have in reality forsaken the True Way, and defected to a different way which is NOT truth. Apostasia appears in just one other place in the Greek NT text, viz Acts 21:21: "And they are informed of thee (i.e. Paul), that thou teachest all the Jews which are among the Gentiles to forsake (apostasia) Moses, saying that they ought not to circumcise their children, neither to walk after the customs." Obviously, apostasia in this instance also is referencing an apostasy, here denoting a departure from the Jewish faith while 2 Thessalonians 2:3 references a departure from the Christian faith. J.D. Farag, amongst others, teaches that apostasia means just departure, not departure from Faith, and extends this misunderstanding to pronounce that this alleged departure is the rapture, thus compounding and worsening the basic error of defining the falling away mistakenly. It is simply not rightly dividing the Word of God.

If Paul had meant to say departure, he would surely have used the Greek word for departure that he did in 2 Timothy 4:6, analusis (Strong's No. 359) to inform of his imminent departure from this world, going home to Heaven following his martyrdom: "For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure (analusis) is at hand." Most tellingly, just as he declined to use analusis here, neither did he use harpazo (Strong's No. 726) which he carefully selected to describe the rapture event in 1 Thessalonians 4:17 (and also his being personally caught up to Heaven in 2 Corinthians 12:2 & 12:4).

Friends, this is not just an issue of incidental semantics, but a matter of the greatest importance. Firstly, because erroneous exegesis is always a no-go, secondly because the fundamentally flawed exegesis in this case is a false argument for the Pre-Tribulation rapture position (whereas there are quite legitimate reasons for believing in this timing), and thirdly because it takes our eyes off the Great Apostasy and its huge eschatological significance as occurring just prior to the emergence of Antichrist. Let us well remember that in the Olivet Discourse, Jesus's Number One priority was to warn of deception. It is, of course, deception that has caused the apostasia, the prophesied falling away from the Faith that was once and for all time delivered unto the saints that we are witnessing all around us today. It is in this wilful desertion of Truth that the professing Church has so wretchedly failed to be salt and light to a stricken Hell-bound world, thus inevitably causing Godly judgment to be executed upon it.


CONCLUSION 

As I stated in the opening to this article, these way off-beam teachings of John MacArthur and J.D. Farag though quite different in focus are nevertheless interlinked. How so? In that each of these teachings sidesteps the critically relevant apostasy of the contemporary Church and its resultant righteous judgment, and at the very time that it should be highlighted as needing to be an absolutely essential part of our spiritual awareness. Friends, at such a critical juncture in history, when the hands of God's timepiece are inexorably moving ever that much closer to midnight, let us not have our eyes taken off the ball!

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Other related reading:

Coronavirus and closed churches:
https://watchman4wales.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-and-closed-churches-let-us.html

The Rapture:
https://watchman4wales.blogspot.com/2015/10/pre-trib-or-mid-trib-or-post-trib-or.html

Judgment on the Church:
https://watchman4wales.blogspot.com/2016/07/judgment-must-begin-at-house-of-god.html