Following the demise of the Body of Christ over the last several years has a wearing effect. The things that are going on in the “Church” is beyond words and has on occasions left me with my face in my hands between outrage and hysteria.  Is it possible for “believers” to fall any further. When the Lord said that He would “send strong delusion that they would believe the lie,” I never would have thought that it would materialize into the madness of what we call “Church” today. The organized church has become an inebriated stumbling sideshow with crazed leaders having the ability to shepherd millions of ignorant sheep over a steep precipice.

It is beyond me how anyone with half a brain could sit and listen to men like Perry Noble, Mark Driscoll, Rick Warren, or a hundred others in their blood line and not pickup on their falsehood. The only answer is “Strong Delusion.”

We read in Scripture of the strong drink that the nation will be made to drink of, and the drunken state that will be the result. “A second angel followed and said, ‘Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great, which made all the nations drink the maddening wine of her adulteries.’” What we began to experience in the circus church was a spectacle, and still is, but it has moved on to an intoxicated fisticuff.

I have followed loosely Ken Silva at Apprising Ministries and Christian Research Net, and Lighthouse Trails documenting of Perry Noble at New Spring Church in Anderson S.C., but have never commented, till now. After reading about the account of the leadership at New Spring, going way over the line, in their attack of James Duncan for his critique of Perry Noble, and Perry’s strong arm response of intimidation, a word of warning is overdue from this site.

In an interview with Chris Rosebrough of Fighting for the Faith Radio, James Duncan, a Professor at Anderson University advises all believers to start a discernment blog to warn of the imminent danger that is at hand; this is good advise. The interview, “Perry Noble’s Employees Assassinate the Character of a Critic,” needs to be listened to. Perry is a growing influence in the Seeker Sensitive, Mega Church movement and is charting the course for many market driven Churches. This man brings violence one step closer to the elimination of all Bible believing Christians, and he gets support for his deeds.

Also, on James Duncan’s own blog, Pajama Pages, James documents, in detail, how  these so called followers of Christ, tried to destroy him for openly criticizing Perry Noble.

Perry Noble, like Mark Driscoll, preachs a very worldly and flesh oriented message, and by so doing gather to themselves large followings of those who gravitate to the base nature of man, rather than to the Cross, where the flesh and the world are put away. Perry openly feeds his congregation the filth of the world, then tries to intimidate, by his crude rashness, anyone who would dare disagree with him.

This is the trend of Church Growth today, the blind leading the blind into accepting a false, flesh gratifying, Im O.K., You’re O.K. as long as you don’t take the Bible too serious, kind of Gospel.

Perry Noble, Mark Driscoll, and Rick Warren are the worst of the worst, but there are many others who exist on the fringes of their teachings and who have not ventured out of the closets yet, but they will come. They exist up and down Main Street, in your town and across the Nation, and have listened to these men and rehearsed their methods in their own Churches, and envy their success, and secretly desire their fame for themselves. They live and play on the edge of a dangerous cliff and promote the teaching of these men as if it were their own, and encourage their flock to graze ever closer to the edge, all the while saying it is good and healthy for their soul; Peace, Peace, but there is no Peace sayeth the Lord.

These men never blush for their wickedness, but encourage others to celebrate this new kind of freedom. The freedom they celebrate is freedom from the narrow way; it is freedom from the Cross, which is freedom from Christ.

Hag 2:12-14

“If one carries holy meat in the fold of his garment, and with the edge he touches bread or stew, wine or oil, or any food, will it become holy?”‘” Then the priests answered and said, “No.” And Haggai said, “If one who is unclean because of a dead body touches any of these, will it be unclean?” So the priests answered and said, “It shall be unclean.” Then Haggai answered and said, “‘So is this people, and so is this nation before Me,’ says the Lord , ‘and so is every work of their hands; and what they offer there is unclean.”

These verses speak loudly to a nation caught in its sin, and it speaks loudly to these American Churches. Where did the mentality come from that says, that if we put a Christian in the midst of the world we can make it holy; that by a Christian presence we can spread holiness? Where did the mentality come from that says that a Christian can maintain their purity when simultaneously mingling with impurity? Who said that we could keep an open relationship with the world and come away unscathed? It is a lie, it cannot be done.

Haggai here declares the same; it cannot be done. The pure person cannot by being with impurity and mixing with them impart his purity to them. But, to the contrary, if a holy person touches an unclean thing the holy person becomes unclean. To say it plainly: corruption and sin are more easily transferred to the righteous than righteousness transferred to the unrighteous. So the rule seems to be plain enough. Don’t think that an evil person living in the midst of goodness will commend that goodness to the evil person. The Spirit has declared that it is not so, but this is exactly what we see, routinely, in the institutional Church. We advertise, we promote, we poll neighborhoods, we beg and we plead that the world would please come and be a part of us, and they have, and we have become corrupted and unclean, deluded, because we now see as the world sees, and we see that the world’s ways and means have great promise for the Church. We have become an unclean thing and we don’t know how to repent, so the Lord will come to us in our darkest hour, and we will see our nakedness and be ashamed.

Repentance and shame is not in the vocabulary of these men, they exalt there shame and draw ovations from their flatterers.

As we watch the world tumble and turn, and the organized church slip into apostasy, words start taking on new value, meaning, and understanding, both for the worldly Christian and for those enlightened souls who recognize the fulfillment of end time prophecy. We have witnessed, in our generation, the grand sermons of talented preachers, with their endless chatter, flowing like a fermented mash, to inebriated crowds, bellying up to the bar for a round of worldly religion, and seen them stumble home, and still manage to confess, in the face of their sin, their creedal and national allegiance, then fall for the umpteenth time while convinced, by their pastor, that they can live in the world and not be of it. They are not only in the world, they are awash in it; it covers them; they have become to the “world,” just, the “religious world,” no different than those outside, just more cocksure that’s all.

The words of Scripture are very clear today.

2 Cor 6:14-7:1

“Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.”

Steve Blackwell