The Bible is filled with many prophecies that describe the Last Days of the present earth. I have published several books and essays that describe these predictions. Chief among the texts that point us to the soon return of Jesus, are the words that He said Himself.

“Now as Jesus sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?” And Jesus answered and said to them: “Take heed that no one deceives you.” ~Matthew 24:3-4 (NKJV) 3

“Then the Lord said… “Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?” ~Luke 18:6-8

Paul wrote in confirmation of Jesus’ prediction that many who are deceived in the Last Days will fall away from Him:

“Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him… Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away (apostasia) comes first…” ~Thessalonians 2:1-3

When the time of Jesus’ departure from earth was near, He began to tell His disciples about what would happen in the Last Days. The two signs that Jesus used to primarily reveal His imminent return were a mass spiritual deception and a falling away of people who once claimed to be His followers.

Never before in the history of the world have both a great spiritual deception, and the falling away of millions of former believers, taken place at the same time.

If you read the posts of atheists on social media you will learn that many of these persons claim to have once been a Christian. These people wear their former belief and new atheism as a badge of honor to try and justify their unfaithfulness. The reasons that former believers use to try and justify their unbelief is a greater education in the true facts of the Bible.

People who claim to be former Christians, now atheists, often assert that they discovered that the Bible is not the Word of God—is filled with errors, and cannot be trusted. The source of their new-found knowledge? The publications of atheist scholars.

The books and essays of atheists are the primary sources for people who want to justify their unbelief. These sources claim to speak from authority, as many of the leading atheist scholars today who publish books and essays, have achieved an academic PhD. This is also a new phenomenon that has only recently happened in the last 50 years; atheists seeking advanced degrees for the sole purpose of achieving a perceived authority to impeach the Bible.

• Impeaching Yale Professor Joel Baden And His Views On The Documentary Hypothesis
• The Elaborate Hoax Of Atheist Scholars To Discredit The Bible
• A Debate With Josh Bowen, PhD, Regarding The Source Of The Pentateuch
• Impeaching Bart Ehrman

People who have not really studied the entire Bible, and attended churches where the Bible was not taught verse by verse, only occasionally study the Bible for themselves. These people are prime targets for atheist deception.

A second category of persons who fall away from Jesus and embrace atheism, comes from a source that Jesus described: Pretend believers. In the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares, Jesus described false or pretend believers, the “zizanion,” in the Koine-Greek; persons who look and sound like real Christians, but are pretenders.

Jesus said that satan plants pretend believers in Jesus’ church to cause havoc, and lead many away from Christ

“Here is another story Jesus told: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a farmer who planted good seed in his field. But that night as the workers slept, his enemy came and planted weeds among the wheat, then slipped away. When the crop began to grow and produce grain, the weeds also grew. “The farmer’s workers went to him and said, ‘Sir, the field where you planted that good seed is full of weeds! Where did they come from?’

“‘An enemy has done this!’ the farmer exclaimed.

“‘Should we pull out the weeds?’ they asked.

‘No,’ he replied, ‘you’ll uproot the wheat if you do. Let both grow together until the harvest. Then I will tell the harvesters to sort out the weeds, tie them into bundles, and burn them, and to put the wheat in the barn.’” ~Matthew 13:24-30

The phenomenon of the pretend believer is seen today by the existence of The Progressive Christian Movement. These people exist as a shadow of former Christianity, by the creation of a new way of seeing the scriptures of the Bible. The sections of the Bible where the love and grace of God are described, progressive Christians accept. The texts which condemn sexual sin, adultery, fornication, same-sex relationships, and other sins, progressive Christians, reject.

The assertion that Jesus never said anything about same-sex relationships, claimed by the leaders of the Progressive Christian Movement, has made this form of Christianity very attractive to a new generation of people. A new edited version of the Bible, called, “The Queen James Bible,” is used to approve same-sex relationships as acceptable by God. In this new version of the Bible, the offensive verses which condemn same-sex relationships are removed; inserted are a new interpretation of sin and acceptance by God for anyone, regardless of sin or lifestyle.

The following is the opening description for the “Queen James Bible:”

“A Gay Bible”

The Queen James Bible is based on The King James Bible, edited to prevent homophobic misinterpretation.

Homosexuality in The Bible

Homosexuality was first mentioned in the Bible in 1946, in the Revised Standard Version. There is no mention of or reference to homosexuality in any Bible prior to this – only interpretations have been made. Anti-LGBT Bible interpretations commonly cite only eight verses in the Bible that they interpret to mean homosexuality is a sin; Eight verses in a book of thousands!”

The errors in the above statement regarding the use of the term: “homosexuality.”

1. The reason that the word “homosexual” did not exist in the Bible until 1946, is that the word homosexual did not exist before that time. The term was created to describe sex between two males. Homo: man; sexual: the act of intercourse.
2. Before the Bible began to describe sex between two men as homosexuality, this practice was consistently described in other terms, and condemned by the entire Bible since Moses first wrote the book of Leviticus.[1]
3. It was God who instructed Moses to write that two men lying together in a sexual union, was “an abomination” to God (Leviticus 18:22).
4. The New Testament, written in Koine-Greek, calls sex between two men, ἀρσενοκοίτης arsenokoítēs, a male, and koítē (2845), a bed. A man who lies in bed with another male, a homosexual (1 Cor. 6:9; 1 Tim. 1:10 [cf. Lev. 18:22; Rom. 1:27[2]
5. Homosexuality is consistently condemned as sin throughout the Bible, beginning in the Old Testament, and continuing through the New Testament.
6. Jesus destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19:24, impeaching the idea that He approved of homosexual, or same-sex behavior. “Then the LORD (Yahweh) rained down fire and burning sulfur from the sky on Sodom and Gomorrah. He utterly destroyed them, along with the other cities and villages of the plain, wiping out all the people.”
7. Peter and Jude confirm that the practice of two men having sex together, is shameful, and wicked: 2 Peter 2:6-7 “God condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and turned them into heaps of ashes. He made them an example of what will happen to ungodly people. But God also rescued Lot out of Sodom because he was a righteous man who was sick of the shameful immorality of the wicked people around him.” Jude 1:5-7, describes same-sex sin as sexual perversion, and immorality: “I want to remind you, though you already know these things, that Jesus first rescued the nation of Israel from Egypt, but later he destroyed those who did not remain faithful. And …don’t forget Sodom and Gomorrah and their neighboring towns, which were filled with immorality and every kind of sexual perversion. Those cities were destroyed by fire and serve as a warning of the eternal fire of God’s judgment.” There is no mistake in the text of Jude, this writer attributes the leading of the Hebrews out of Egypt, and the total destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, to a direct act of Jesus, in a preincarnate state, in the Old Testament.
8. Acts chapter 15:11-21, reaffirms same-sex relationships as sin, along with fornication and adultery. The Old Testament laws regarding proper sexual conduct was continued for Christians in the New Testament.

• It Was Jesus Who Destroyed Sodom And Gomorrah
• What Jesus Said About Same-Sex Relationships

It is the assertion of those who purvey this new translation of the Bible, that Jesus never said anything negative about gay people. The problem is that these persons, being untrained in the scriptures, don’t seem to know who Jesus really is. The Old Testament Yahweh, is the New Testament Lord. We find Jesus in the Old Testament rendering judgement against the same-sex sins of men at Sodom and Gomorrah, destroying these cities with fire that Jesus brings down upon all these men. They all perish in this judgment, and this text is left to us as evidence for how Jesus, as Yahweh, feels about same-sex relationships.

What was the sin of Sodom?

There are assertions made by the same-sex community that the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was not homosexuality. If you conduct a search on the internet for, “What was the sin of Sodom?, you will notice that the first entry is from Wikipedia. At this site you will see the following:

In Ezekiel 16:48–50, God compares Jerusalem to Sodom, saying “Sodom never did what you and your daughters have done.” He explains that the sin of Sodom was that “She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. And they were haughty and committed abomination before Me.“

Advocates for same-sex relationships, and in this case, sex between two men, state that the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah were nothing more than lacking in their duty to help the poor and needy, being arrogant, and eating too much.

Conveniently, these same advocates leave out the rest of the verse from Ezekiel 16:48-50, “They were haughty and committed abomination before Me…” The Hebrew word used here for “abomination,” is תּוֹעֵבָה tô‘êḇâ, the same Hebrew words used in Leviticus 18:22, “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination.” The meaning is clear: The homosexual men of Sodom were practicing an abomination before God, having sex with each other, and they were also “arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. And they were haughty.”

See the full text of the essay: “What Was The Sin of Sodom?”

It would seem that a modern acceptance of same-sex relationships is not related to the apostasy that Jesus and Paul describe for the Last Days. When we examine who it is that are claiming to be former Christians, a large number of these persons had found a great conflict between their desire to continue in a same-sex relationship, and what the Bible and Christian churches teach regarding these relationships.

Many people become atheists and reject Christ, simply because they choose their same-sex sin over the eternal life that Jesus offers the world. “John 3:19: “And this is the condemnation, that Jesus has come into the world, but people love their sins more than Jesus, because their actions are evil.”

The assertion that Christians are no longer under the Laws of Moses, but the Grace of God

The question of whether the Christian church was required to keep all the laws of Moses after they believed upon Jesus, was address in the Book of Acts, chapter 15. A determination was made by all the Apostles that under the New Covenant of Salvation that was made possible by Jesus’ death and resurrection, the Laws of Moses were no longer applicable to those who believe in Jesus, with the exception of four:

1. Do not eat meat sacrificed to idols.
2. Do not commit sexual sin
3. Do not eat meat where the blood has not been bled out.
4. Do not drink blood.

Acts 15:11-21 We believe that we are all saved the same way, by the undeserved grace of the Lord Jesus… And so my judgment is that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. Instead, we should write and tell them to 1. abstain from eating food offered to idols, 2. from sexual immorality, 3. from eating the meat of strangled animals, and 4. from consuming blood. For these laws of Moses have been preached in Jewish synagogues in every city on every Sabbath for many generations.

The strange Old Testament laws of mixing fabrics, stoning people to death for sins, daughters sold into slavery, and laws regulating menstruation, genital emission, and many others, were only applicable for the Children of Israel, before Messiah arrived. The purpose of these strict laws were to establish the Holiness of God in the minds of the people. Anyone who wanted to approach the God of the Hebrews, must also be holy and separate from the practices of the pagan nations that surrounded them.

The purpose of God’s laws for the Children of Israel was intended as an example to the world that those who will know and worship the God of the Bible must be separate from the traditions and practices of this world. This is the basis of the word “Holy.”

Some of the Pharisees accused Jesus of seeking to do away with the Laws of Moses, but Jesus said just the opposite:

Matthew 5:17-20 Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.  For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus said that all of the laws of Moses were still in effect, but they are fulfilled by His death and resurrection. Every person who seeks to be redeemed from their sins by the death and resurrection of Jesus, He fulfilled these laws for us. By Jesus’ perfect life in keeping all these Old Testament laws perfectly, we also fulfill all of these laws perfectly. As Jesus’ death takes our sins away, His righteousness imparts perfection to us. Jesus came and lived a perfect life and kept all the Laws of Moses for us, because we are not capable of this perfection ourselves. Everyone who places all their trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins, and receives the salvation He offers the world, is seen by God as also perfectly keeping all the laws of God.

Jesus clarified this issue by saying that not even the “jot or tittle,” the smallest marks on the Hebrew words, will be done away with. Jesus said that anyone who breaks or teaches others to not obey these laws will be held accountable by God. Jesus said that our righteousness must exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, if we will enter heaven. It is by placing our salvation in the hands of Jesus that we fulfill even the Jot and Tittle of the Law and are fully qualified for heaven.

See the full text of the essay that details whether Christians are required to keep the Old Testament Law: “Old Testament Law: A Lesson In God’s Nature Not Understood Today”

Christians are still under the Old Testament laws that forbid sexual immorality.

The primary reason for sexual purity is that every person who sincerely repents of their sins, and turns to follow Jesus, has the Holy Spirit who comes to live inside them. The body of the Christian is seen by God as a home for Him to live in and through. It is inconsistent for our bodies to be used for sexual sin, while God will live in this body with us.

The Result of abandoning God: A Degraded Life

When a person denies Jesus, ceases to believe the Bible is the Word of God, and turns to a self-life that is driven by the desires of the flesh, and the demands of this world, they devolve into a degraded life.

Romans 1:21-27 “Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused. Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools. 

 So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other’s bodies..That is why God abandoned them to their shameful desires. Even the women turned against the natural way to have sex and instead indulged in sex with each other. And the men, instead of having normal sexual relations with women, burned with lust for each other. Men did shameful things with other men, and as a result of this sin, they suffered within themselves the penalty they deserved.”

The prophecies that Jesus spoke concerning the condition of people and their hearts, in the Last Days, could not be closer in parallel, to what we are actually seeing today.

1. An abandonment of the Bible in its original, straightforward, meaning.
2. Assertions that the Bible is not the Word of God, but a fabrication of men.
3. A substitution for the biblical definition of sin, by substituting individual feelings and desires over what God has said.
4. Placement of atheist scholars as authorities, who deny the truth of the Bible, giving approval of sin and any chosen lifestyle.
5. A denial of Jesus as He is described by the narratives of the New Testament
6. An abandonment of Jesus as the only way for salvation.
7. Militant opposition to all Christians and the Bible.

According to Paul’s exegesis of the texts found in the entire Bible, the Last Days will present the world with a group of people who depart faith in Christ and the Bible. This departure will leave these individuals with a debased mind, and subject to great error. Both in their personal behavior as humans, and in their callous disregard for the clear teaching of the Bible. These persons who work to discredit the Bible and defame the name of Jesus, condemn themselves to a fate that is beyond their ability to comprehend.

“Just think how much worse the punishment will be for those who have trampled on the Son of God, and have treated the blood of the covenant, which made us holy, as if it were common and unholy, and have insulted and disdained the Holy Spirit who brings God’s mercy to us. For we know the one who said, “I will take revenge. I will pay them back.” He also said, “The LORD will judge his own people.” It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” ~Hebrews 10:29-31

This departure from Christ, and acceptance of deception regarding the truths of the Bible, originates from satan who drastically increases his assault on the truth of God’s Word, just prior to the return of Jesus. Paul made it clear that people who have departed from Jesus, and become militant in their assault of the Bible, have been “taken captive as slaves of satan to do his will.”

These individuals have no idea that they are the pawns of the devil and their minds have been blinded by the deception he has spread over the earth in these Last Days.

2 Timothy 2:24-26 “…so that they may know the truth, and that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will.”

Ephesians 4:18-19 “Their minds are full of darkness; they wander far from the life God gives because they have closed their minds and hardened their hearts against him. They have no sense of shame. They live for lustful pleasure and eagerly practice every kind of impurity.”

2 Corinthians 4:4 “Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News.”

How did we arrive at this place in history?

For decades we have wondered how the world could devolve into a place where a mass departure of believers could take place. We never imagined that this would occur by way of the same-sex movement that would facilitate this departure. It was because the Bible is so clear regarding sexual behavior, and the desire of people in these Last Days to do as they please, that the intersection of deviant sexual behavior and a denial Bible truth, have met.

Never before has the world denied the Bible as the reliable Word of God, as it does today. The assault against these texts is unmistakable. I didn’t imagine four decades ago that I would take on the mantle of Biblical Apologist, as I have today.[3] It was because I noticed this increasing assault on the reliability and truth of the New Testament, ten years ago, that I began writing and teaching about the truth of the New Testament narratives concerning Jesus.

It is certain that the present condition of the world in its increasing denial of the Bible, and Jesus as the only Savior from all sins—with a desire by people to live as they please, will bring the soon return of Jesus to earth. It was these same conditions during the time of Noah, with people in rebellion against God—filled with immorality and deviant sexual behavior, that brought the judgment of the Great Flood.

Peter described these conditions as being present once again, just prior to the return of Jesus to earth. All those who love Jesus and are watching for His return, will be removed from earth so that the final judgment of this present world can be finished. The seven year Tribulation is just around the corner, and the time of God’s judgment described by the book of Revelation, is right before us.

2 Peter 3:3-13 “Most importantly, I want to remind you that in the last days scoffers will come, mocking the truth and following their own desires. hey will say, “What happened to the promise that Jesus is coming again? From before the times of our ancestors, everything has remained the same since the world was first created.

They deliberately forget that God made the heavens long ago by the word of his command, and he brought the earth out from the water and surrounded it with water. Then he used the water to destroy the ancient world with a mighty flood. And by the same word, the present heavens and earth have been stored up for fire. They are being kept for the day of judgment, when ungodly people will be destroyed.

But you must not forget this one thing, dear friends: A day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day. The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent. But the day of the Lord will come as unexpectedly as a thief. Then the heavens will pass away with a terrible noise, and the very elements themselves will disappear in fire, and the earth and everything on it will be found to deserve judgment.

Since everything around us is going to be destroyed like this, what holy and godly lives you should live, looking forward to the day of God and hurrying it along. On that day, he will set the heavens on fire, and the elements will melt away in the flames. But we are looking forward to the new heavens and new earth he has promised, a world filled with God’s righteousness.”

Today is the day to turn from all sins and place your trust in Jesus as your Savior. It will not be much longer before the final events of this present world take place, and it will be too late to escape the coming judgment that Jesus described in the final seven years of this present world.

NOTES:

[1] 1 Cor. 6:9, “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, 10 nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.” (NASB, ESV, NIV, )
1 Tim. 1:10, “realizing the fact that law is not made for a righteous man, but for those who are lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers 10 and immoral men and homosexuals and kidnappers and liars and perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound teaching, 11 according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, with which I have been entrusted.”

[2] 1. ἀρσενοκοίτης arsenokoítēs; gen. arsenokoítou, masc. noun, from ársēn (730), a male, and koítē (2845), a bed. A man who lies in bed with another male, a homosexual (1 Cor. 6:9; 1 Tim. 1:10 [cf. Lev. 18:22; Rom. 1:27]). Zodhiates, S. (2000). The complete word study dictionary : New Testament (electronic ed.). Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers.

2. 88.280 ἀρσενοκοίτης, ου m: a male partner in homosexual intercourse–‘homosexual.’ οὐκ οἴδατε ὅτι . . . οὔτε μοιχοὶ οὔτε μαλακοὶ οὔτε ἀρσενοκοῖται . . . βασιλείαν θεοῦ κληρονομήσουσιν ‘don’t you know that no adulterers or homosexuals will receive the kingdom of God’ 1 Cor 6:9–10.

3. It is possible that ἀρσενοκοίτης in certain contexts refers to the active male partner in homosexual intercourse in contrast with μαλακόςb, the passive male partner (88.281). Louw, J. P., & Nida, E. A. (1996). Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament : Based on semantic domains (electronic ed. of the 2nd edition.). New York: United Bible Societies.

4. ἀρσενοκοίτης (arsenokoitēs), ου (ou), ὁ (ho): n.masc.; ≡ Str 733–LN 88.280 male homosexual, one who takes the active male role in homosexual intercourse (1Co 6:9), specifically interpreted as male homosexual paedophilia (nab footnote); possibly a more generic term in first Timothy; sodomites (rsv, nrsv, nkjv), perverts (niv, neb, reb), practicing homosexuals (nab), homosexual (njb), (1Ti 1:10+), note: translations possibly use certain specific terms to infer or allow certain theologies. Swanson, J. (1997). Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains : Greek (New Testament) (electronic ed.). Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc.

5. ἀρσενοκοίτης, ου, ὁ an adult male who practices sexual intercourse with another adult male or a boy homosexual, sodomite, pederast Friberg, T., Friberg, B., & Miller, N. F. (2000). Vol. 4: Analytical lexicon of the Greek New Testament. Baker’s Greek New Testament library. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books.

[3] “Apologist,” from the Greek, “apologia,” one who presents evidence to defend the truth of the Bible. Contrary to popular belief that an apologist is apologizing for the Bible, the opposite is true. Apologetics is the systematic presentation of valid and provable evidence to support and prove the texts of the Bible are true.

Categories: Abhorrent teaching about Jesus, Agnostics and Skeptics, Apologetics, Bart Ehrman, Christian Progressives, Christians Endorsing Gay Marriage, Disregard for the Bible, Do not imitate evil, Errors of the Christian Church, Forgetting the Rapture, Jesus Church, Joel Baden, Josh Bowen, Reasons For Unbelief, Robert Clifton Robinson, The Condition of the Heart, The gay lifestyle, The Nashville Statement, The Queen James Bible, True Repentance

Tags: Accuracy of the Bible, Apostasy, Atheists, Leviticus and Homosexuality, LGBT and the Bible, Old Testament Laws For Sex, Religious Deception, Same-Sex Relationships and the Bible