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Cults - Sign of Christ’ s Coming

Rev. Robert C. Harbach

"And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many . . . . And there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders, insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect" (Matt. 24:11, 24). Our Lord Jesus Himself prophesied of the cult explosion now occurring in the proliferation both of world-religions and the major and minor cults. In this article we are interested in what the Bible has to say of this dark side of apostasy; and since the Bible, in general, may be divided thus - prophecy (the Old Testament), fact (the Gospels), and interpretation of fact (the Epistles), we present the above theme from the point of view of the following divisions: I. The Coming Prophesied, II. The Apostasy Current, and III. The Cults Flourishing.

I. The Coming Prophesied.

We refer, of course, to Christ’ s coming. As many people do, we some- times call it "the second coming," which, however, Scripture never does. Scripture usually calls it simply "the coming." The disciples had asked, "Tell us . . . what shall be the sign of Thy coming, and of the end of the world?" (24:3). The range of the immediate context takes in (1) the destruction of Jerusalem, (2) the coming again of Christ, and (3) the end (cp. I Cor. 15:24a). Thev question was, "What shall be the sign of Thy coming?" Jesus had gotten around to answering this question in 24:30, the sign being the sign of the second advent and of the consummation of the age. There we read, "And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven . . . and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory!" "Then shall appear . . . ," that is, according to the preceding verse, "immediately after the tribulation of those days," the period mentioned in verses 414, and which extends through verses 29-31. So that according to verse 29, the last event before the Advent is "the tribulation of those days," and not a millennium. "Then shall appear he sign of the Son of man in heaven." This we take to be a subjective genitive, so that the meaning is, the sign which He Himself is. He is revealed actually in His parousia. "The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven" (I Thess. 4:16). The objective genitive would mean the sign which points to Him as coming, something like a glowing UFO floating in space for a while, after which the Son of man Himself shall appear. But the first part of the verse, "then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven," is explained by the second part, "they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven . . . ." So that what this sign is is the Son of man actually seen, appearing, in heaven and coming to earth with power and great glory. Then this and the next verse (w. 30-31), "and He shall send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet" to "gather together His elect," are fulfilled in verses 40-41, "then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, the other left. . ." and this must be under- stood in the light of I Thess. 4: 14-17. Those "taken" (vs. 40-41) are the elect (cp. v. 31; see also Jn. 14:3). Those left are left destitute of Gods help. This will include the false prophets, the false messiahs of the cults and their followers who would sway us with their claim, "Lo, here is Christ! or, There!" (v. 23), a claim, which for example, is loudly and incessantly made by the New Age Movement. Therefore, be not deceived, but be also ever ready (durative present tense); "for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of man cometh’ (v. 44).

II. The Apostasy Current.

The apostasy (or falling away from the true church and the true gospel) is prophesied in the prediction of the coming upon the scene of counterfeit prophets, pseudo-messiahs, cult leaders, and cult movements. Paul prophesied of this apostasy in I Timothy 4:l when he warned, "Now the Spirit speaketh expressly (the source of the-prophecy is then divine and divinely inspired), that in the latter times (notice: no date is given), some shall (it’ s future to Paul) depart (apostatize) from the faith (the whole system of Christian truth - creeds and confessions), giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils" (demons). The latest useful books today exposing the cults show their direct connection to and permeation with the occult. Of this very thing Paul had prophesied. He further prophesied, in II Timothy 3: lff, "that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be" self-lovers, money-lovers . . . no lovers of good (v. 3), pleasure-lovers, not God-lovers (v. 4). Paul, in his gift of prophecy, saw these things off into the not distant future. Peter also prophesied of this coming apostasy in II Peter 2:1-3, "there were false prophets among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily (secretly) shall bring in damnable heresies . . . and many shall follow their pernicious ways . . . and through covetousness shall with feigned words make mer- chandise of you." The cult leaders are in it for money; their dupes make them rich and they live like kings! But then this apostasy, prophesied by Jesus, Paul, and Peter, soon actually occurred in Jude’ s day. For he said, there are certain men crept in unawares, who, although they were ordained to this evil work resulting in their condemnation, are actually "turning the grace of God into lasciviousness," and are actually now "denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ" (Jude 4). "These defile the flesh, despise . . . speak evil" (present tenses, v. 8, 10). "These are spots in your feasts . . . feeding themselves without fear . . . foaming out their own shame . . . . These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaketh great swelling words" (v. 12, 13, 16). The present tenses here show that already in Jude’ s day the apostasy prophesied had come. Since then there was and continues to be an ongoing apostasy, both in the churches and in the world of the ungodly (II Pet. 2:5). "But, Beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, how that they told you there should be (there shall be) mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts" (Jude 17, 18). It.was Peter who prophetically recorded the actual words that these apostates would speak (See II Pet. 3). Jude reminds us that the apostles had identified these apostates as mockers. That’ s exactly what those of the major and minor cults today are, mockers! That means that the leaders and followers of the "Children of God’ cult, of "Christian Science," of Mormonism and of Armstrongism, are mockers.

They mock the one only true God. They mock sex, sin, sickness, and death. They mock the true saints, from Adam on. They mock the Bible, the true Gospel, and the entire, historic, orthodox, Re- . . formed Faith. They mock with their UFO scenarios, their E.T. fantasies, with their drug addiction, with their ritual sex and ritual murder. Their reincarnation tales are mockery of the biblical account of life, death, and the eternal state. Their ESP, dreams of other fantastical worlds and of life on other planets are mockery of divine revelation and of biblical eschatology. Their resort- ing to hypnotism is a toying with man’ s God-given mind and conscience and a mocking intrusion into the privacy of a man’ s soul.

It is Jude, then, who makes it plain that the apostasy is current. Paul tells us that the coming of the Lord, the day of Christ, "shall not come, except there be a falling away (lit., the apostasy) first" (II Thess. 1:lO; 2:3). Well, the apostasy has come, we are in it, and it is all a loud warning, as plain as can be, that it (the end of the world, Matt. 24:3, 33, in the Kingdom of Glory, Lk. 21:31) is near! The false cults, in many ways, advertise their presence in the world. But their very apostate existence is God’ s advertisement to all that the coming of the Son of man is near.

III. The Cults Flourishing.

True, some weird cults, like the Shakers, are dying out. But at the same time, other new cults are arising. One of the fastest expanding cult bodies is the "New Age Movement" (the ancient "New Thought" decked out in Century Twenty-One format). This is said to embrace worldwide, international networks in- volving tens of thousands of different organizations, with representation in the United Nations, in prominent business, scientific, legal, and medical circles and in congressional and cabinet levels of the United States government. This cult, and scores of others, has a Hindu background and connection. The cult disease is spreading. In it, we must not overlook, as some contemporaneous books on the subject do, esoteric Illuminism, Satanism, and the latest manifestations of Satanism in "Rock Music" and "M-TV." The latter two, full of the vilest, most horrible abominations, are part of the cult invasion. Does it not overflow into our homes? And are our young parents and young people entirely free of it?

All the cults are part of the wiles and allurements of the Great Whore, or Antichrist’ s world-kingdom from the point of view of its devilish seductiveness. The end of this kingdom of the cults is pronounced in Revelation 18:1-8, which, please read. Gods answer to all these evils in the world is the promise of the Return of the Lord at the last trumpet on the last day, "When the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power, when He shall come to be glorified in His saints, and to be admired in all them that believe" (II Thess. 1:7-10).

Whether contemporaneous false prophets be of Astrology, Bahaism, Christian Science, Divine Light Mission, Eckankar, Freemasonry, Gurdjieff/ Subud/Renaissance, Hinduism, Islam, Jehovah’ s Witnesses, Krishnamurti Foundation, Lifespring,

Mind Sciences, Nichiren Shoshu/Soka Gokkai, Order of the Star of the East, Penitentes, Rosicru- cianism, Spiritism, TM, Unification Church, Vedanta Society, Worldwide Church of God, Yoga or Zen, it makes no difference, the damnatory sentence of the one only true God denounced against them all is, "If the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I, the Lord have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out My hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of My people, Israel" (Ezek. 14:9).