Hi all,
Our conference in Tulsa was so wonderful. When most hear the word conference they think, sit and listen to speakers all day long and then go to your hotel room. Our conferences are not that. They are part teaching, part worship, part panel discussion and Q&A, part small group prayer, part fellowship around meals and free time, all done with the presence of the Lord felt and binding it together. Amazing grace. Amazing time together.
KWOWI (Kids Without Walls International) is now up and running: Go to www.kwowi.org and click ‘sponsor children’ to see their pictures and biographies. My two recent interviews on the Deep Believer channel on YouTube have been viewed over 346,000 times as of this writing already, climbing by about 4,000 views a day. The result has been an overwhelming increase in our emails asking for information, advice, help connecting with or starting a house church – we are making ‘growing pain’ adjustments as we respond. Thanks for prayers for wisdom. And if you are receiving our newsletter and Weekly Thoughts for the first time, welcome and thank you for your patience. In June the Lord visited me as I wrote in the July newsletter*, and He spoke of a more intense time November through March and growing through next year where more and more people will be motivated to do church in the home. *(go to cwowi.org, across the top click ‘Weekly Thoughts’, click ‘Newsletter’ for archived ones.) I wondered at the time by what He meant when He said ‘a different kind of motivation is coming’ – the last time He talked of that was in late 2019 when He spoke of what became to known as the pandemic, when He said the time is coming and now is, when faith will become precious to us – and that certainly was the case.
But now it is a different motivation than Covid – We see huge inflation, energy prices going through the roof, wages not keeping pace resulting in people making lifestyle changes. We also see all things called Christian attacked – sometimes literally against the buildings called church. But in the media in the US, politicians are openly speaking against Christians. On 9/1 the White House Press Secretary said, “If you don’t agree with the majority, that is an extreme way of thinking.” Culture in the US is shifting away from the traditional to calling the traditional, ‘extreme’.
Understanding the times and seasons – spiritual insight
It is an easy path to trace. In the US as with most governments founded on Judea-Christian principles, the understanding of what is right and wrong comes from the Judeo-Christian foundation. Government has been largely benevolent and a defender of what is traditionally right for generations.
A change happened in the US some years ago. A focus on those wronged. A victim culture took over. As a result, the government shifted focus from defending the traditional values to defending the victims and emphasizing the rights of victims. Soon it became a focus on any group seeking a voice to air their grievances. Stay tuned for my Weekly Thoughts the first 2 weeks of November for a closer look at what is happening spiritually in the world. But briefly:
When a government shifts from protecting virtue and traditional values to protecting victims, those holding to the traditional become the focus of (angry) attack. The focus changes to the multitude of voices all wanting to be heard, all claiming their rights have been violated by those holding to traditional values. They want everyone to accept them in their victimhood for who they are, resulting in government forcing non-traditional values with an agenda on everyone.
The progression is ‘in your face’ boldness who must shut out voices for the traditional, because those voices are contrary to what they feel. They only want to hear those who agree with them. Being a victim is an emotional choice. A rational choice is to refuse being a victim, refusing to think the world owes you a living or compensation.
Emotional decision making by fear and anger takes over for they have left the absolutes of truth and right or wrong in favor of what they feel is right or wrong. They’ve lost the ability to reason, and can only think through their emotions and what they feel – if they feel it, it must be true. They gather information from others who agree with them to justify that they are right. Common sense and logic are laid aside and it their place, emotional reasoning – I feel therefore I am.
Now, thinking through emotion, they have lost the ability to put historical figures and events in their context. Anyone who holds to a different opinion is rejected. Old heroes are rejected, statues torn down, because they are judged through modern eyes and how they feel about their own past of being victimized. Conservative speakers on college campuses are rejected for they only want to hear people who agree with their feelings and reasoning by emotion. There is no need to think, to use logic, for they feel what they believe is true and their mind is made up.
When that type of thinking starts to mature, if you don’t agree with the liberal majority, you are labeled as extreme, unpatriotic, a threat to the new majority. You must be silenced in the courts, in culture, in media – and if you look at this pattern historically, the only way for that thinking to go is towards violence.
That is a very brief summary, stay tuned as I said for November’s first two Weekly Thoughts.
What is more important to us: This is a spirit and many Christians have become influenced by it
In I Timothy 4: 1-2 Paul says in the King James Version (then we’ll look at the Greek): “For the Spirit speaks expressly, that in the latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils, speaking lies in hypocrisy, their conscience seared with a hot iron.”
The Greek is more precise, especially in describing the process Paul writes about: “…some will fall away from (sound) faith by paying attention to imposter spirits teaching them.”
Imposter spirits. In II Corinthians 11: 3 Paul bared his soul, stating he was afraid for them, lest Satan by the same subtle way he deceived Eve he would do to them: That ‘your minds would be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ’, and that they would begin listening to spirits bringing them another Jesus, another spirit, another gospel.
The word translated as ‘subtlety’ in the King James Version, is ‘panourgia’, which means ‘seeming to be more sophisticated, higher knowledge’. The word ‘corrupted’ means to ‘shrivel or wither away’. So Paul is saying his fear was that they would leave the true and simple faith in Christ to listen to teaching that promises it is inside information, higher knowledge not everyone knows, resulting in a shriveling away from the True like a grape becoming a raisin.
In other words, these seducing spirits work in a process offering higher knowledge than others they claim, in a process of seduction where the person can only see that ‘truth’ – for those who have believed a lie, to them that lie becomes truth. A sexually or doctrinally seduced a person isn’t thinking logically. They are caught up in the feelings they experience, and their thinking lines up with their feelings – just like a person seduced sexually.
The result Paul says, is they become dull to the Spirit of God for He is Truth, because they have given themselves over to paying attention to the teachings of demons. (v2) They’ve lost common sense and their ability to reason independently for themselves. They refuse common sense because they believe what they believe and reject anything that challenges that.
Their faith becomes complicated and tied to the source of their ‘higher knowledge’ and often don’t realize how much of an island they have become – except for those who are similarly entrapped and seduced. With Eve, Satan offered higher knowledge, they would be like God. Didn’t they want the inside information? Doesn’t it look good to the eyes, appeals to the intellect? Makes sense to them?
You know a spirit is involved in the error when faith becomes complicated, when they focus on that one topic or feel they must become an evangelist to let others know that point of view. They find themselves in a horrible position of loving Jesus as He is perceived within that knowledge, rather than just loving Jesus for the sake of loving Jesus.
You know a spirit is involved when a person starts rejecting anyone or anything that doesn’t agree with them. When they separate into tribes – it is the same spirit at work in the world that I outlined above.
Extract yourself
A person who has been seduced by wrong spirits, who has given in to a complicated faith and wants to return to the simple faith of the fruit of the Spirit and Christian character of walking in love and making allowances one for another, has to repent. They have to see it, realize they’ve been deceived, and have the guts to go make it right with all the people they unfriended, cut off, spoke bad about. They have to repent of their opinions of others.
They have to build a bridge towards those they previous built a wall against. And then they have to change their behaviors. Whatever web site they were addicted to, they don’t ever go there again. Same with any videos or books. They seek those balanced. Seek friends in the flesh not electronic only. Healthy friends. Balanced friends. Work on those healthy relationships. Invest in time with them. Surround yourself with who you want to be, not who you were.
Paul made the observation in II Timothy 2: 25-26 that a person in strife or deception is to be approached gently that maybe:
“God will give them repentance as they acknowledge the truth, that they might come to their senses so they can free themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.”
The phrase ‘come to their senses’ is exactly in the Greek – like the Prodigal Son who came to his senses when he realized the pigs were better fed than he, and suddenly he missed home. Same thing. I wonder do they not miss ‘home’? The people who love them? The simple faith in Christ? (Not ignorant, but aware of the times and seasons)
I’m always amazed at Christians who choose strife and division, making a conscious decision to go that way, willingly submitting themselves to the devil to be his play thing. They think they are right, and willingly submit to the most evil being in the universe to be toyed with ‘at his will’. What a horrible condition for a Christian! “Who are taken captive by him at his will.” Horrible place for a Christian. What emotional misery. What loneliness.
Times are coming when Christians are going to have to be willing to forgive, willing to leave the distractions of all the voices out there to listen to One voice. Thinking themselves wiser than others, they knowingly started listening to other voices and followed them. Welcome back to ‘my sheep hear my voice and another they will not follow. Simple faith. Not ignorant faith, just focused on Who and What is important to the eternal life within us.
Times are coming to the west and now is in many parts of the world, where the luxury of debating trivial things will fall by the way side in favor of focusing on Who we have in our midst. Time for the Christian to grow up. Time to get serious about seeking those on the same spiritual page, the balanced ones, the ones who know the times and seasons in a simple faith that focuses on Christ in us and loving our neighbor as ourselves.
When the Lord told me in a visitation, actually a couple of them now, that house church will become the main way for the saints to gather, and those gatherings would be the place He would be found in fellowship, answered prayer, and miracles – He was serious. This isn’t a game.
I’ve outlined the spirit that is in the world, and hopefully some reading this may recognize friends or former friends who have become seduced by this spirit, in hopes that person may repent and be restored. Our eyes are wide open, we know the times and seasons, the coming of the Lord for us won’t take us by surprise. Come quickly Lord Jesus!
When you get caught up in doing the do’s, you won’t have time to do the don’t’s. Nor the desire to be seduced by the spirit in the world which seeks to divide.
A serious newsletter this month, but food for thought with the tools to diagnose things…hope it’s been helpful. Thank you for your prayers and financial support. I pray for each of you who include us in your giving, even if I am not able to write individual thank you emails or notes. You are very much appreciated.
Blessings,
John Fenn
