DETECTING THE SIGNS OF APOSTASY

The bible tells us that even the very elect will be deceived. So that means that apostasy is not something that is easy to detect. Just like God has a kingdom and angels that carry out duties on His behalf, the devil also has what I will call “satanic agents” to do his bidding. The kingdom of darkness is HIGHLY organized. In so much, that his agents are sent out to carry out assignments. The most important assignments deal with making Pastors and churches fail.

Now you might ask, how does that happen in the church? This happens through sermons, bible studies and small groups. This is when during the sermons or lessons, the Pastor or teacher begins twisting and misinterpreting scripture or just preaching things that are not true.

As we know these “teachings” are being done by human teachers but inspired by demons.

1 Timothy 4:2 says “Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron. There may have been times we have been listening to a message or teaching and thought to ourselves that the teaching was not sound. Scriptures being twisted and misinterpreted is a common way to detect apostasy in the church leadership.

I Timothy 4:1 tells us The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Now, you might say, how does this happen? This happens again from what was said in I Timothy 4:2, these Pastors and preachers are speaking lies with a conscience that has been seared with a hot iron. This means that they knowingly deceive and do not care.

This happens so much in the church because, we look at the pastor or teacher and we hear something that doesn’t sound right or we know it’s not right, but because we know them or have known them a long time, we don’t question it. Or sometimes we’ve seen things “behind closed doors” that contradicted their public Christian avatar.

In fact, many of you have had these people over for barbeques, they may have even married you, baptized you and your family. They may have done a funeral for your family, and you just can’t imagine that Pastor so and so or Evangelist so and so or Bishop so and so could be capable of such things. Besides that, EVERYONE likes or loves them. But before we continue thinking like that, I want you to remember: Luke 6:26: Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for their fathers treated the false prophets in the same way. So, someone being popular could be an indication that they are indeed a false prophet or teacher. The majority is not already right.

Case in point, in 2012 there was a movie released called “The Under Shepherd”. This was a movie about two young ministers Roland and L.C. who were best friends serving in a church together. The two friends had aspirations of being the next up and coming Pastors of the church as they thought the current leadership would consider retiring soon. The current leadership, however, was not ready to retire just yet and so this left the young ministers at a crossroad. Roland decides to leave the church to start his own ministry, but L.C. decides to stay and thus begins a replay of Saul leadership vs. David leadership.

Roland had humble beginnings and struggled more than he ever had in ministry with low attendance at his church, but this did not stop him from fulfilling his calling through the necessary “process”. L.C.’s path, however, takes a different turn as his leadership style was more dictator oriented. A “no questions asked” mentality where there are no checks and balances or accountability for the Pastor to answer to was instilled.

He facilitated explosive, vibrant, crazed frenzied services, delivering emotionally charged messages that had little or no scriptural basis. But the crazy thing was that the church was bringing in more people, more money, and more attention from the media. From the outside it would have appeared that this was the church to be at but behind closed doors, this Pastor began to bully his staff, the board and even abused his wife. He was even committing adultery with different women in the church and mishandling the church money.

Now, there were a few people that were on to his shenanigans that were quickly shut down, but you will see that they did not give up. As time went on the Pastor was exposed and taken from leadership.

I want to stress the importance of not allowing “history” with a person to justify sin. We cannot go by how we used to view a person; we have to look at the facts. If they are bold enough to try to deceive you and lead you and your family astray, then we as Christians on fire for The Lord need to be bold enough to stand up to such demonic forces in The Name of Jesus.

Now, we might ask, why would a Pastor, even in Apostasy, try to hard to lead people astray? What benefit is there in working each week to pretend, entertain and deceive people? Well, here it is…some of these Pastors are satanic agents on assignment. Remember, I mentioned that satan copies everything from God then twists and perverts it. So, how does a Pastor become a satanic agent? One way is through apostasy. I mentioned that satan has his own kingdom that is highly organized…so I want to take a side bar here.

At night, when you are sleeping you may notice that you may be eating in the dream. You may also see yourself swimming in the dream. You may see snakes in your dreams, or you may be having sex in the dream. It may be with people you even know. These “dream encounters” are attacks from the devil in an attempt to initiate you into his service. These types of dreams also defile you and can cause illnesses in the body after each encounter. Yes, Christians can have these attacks as well. Therefore, it is imperative that you pray before you go to sleep and especially after waking up from such a dream to ask God to remove any impurities and to rebuke future attacks in The Name of Jesus.https://anchor.fm/katim-brown/episodes/DREAMS-e1eq825/a-a4rqds3

The more you eat in these dreams, have sex in these dreams, the deeper you get involved into his spiritual service.  Some people refer to this part of his kingdom as the marine kingdom.

You might ask yourself, what is happening to me? How would I even be connected to such a thing. Sometimes, you are connected through DNA. Somewhere down the ancestral line a covenant could have been made with the devil that included the bloodline, which is why you may notice certain illnesses in the family that are recurrent like, a spirit of murder, anger, alcoholism, sexual immoralities, etc.

So, I mentioned all of those things as a backdrop to let you know some Pastors, that turned into Sauls, are deep into these secret societies. A lot of these “secret” organizations that you may know are steeped into the kingdom of darkness. This kingdom has people from all walks of life. Doctors, scientists, teachers, preachers, musicians, construction worker, bakers, hair stylists and fashion designers. industry etc., just to name of few can be found operating in this kingdom. This is a huge operation hidden in plain sight. These satanic agents are on assignment and will do everything in their power to complete their tasks or risk being disciplined.

As a result, some of these false pastors, and teachers are on “satan’s payroll” with their assignments of deception. Because their conscience is seared, they are relentless in completing the job. These satanic agents are also given powers to use in the natural where they can read and manipulate minds and thoughts, move things, seduce people etc. These evil “powers” are used as resources to better carry out their duties. The reason I mentioned how organized and strategic this kingdom is, is because we must know that the devil has a plan and it is a plan of destruction. So, these false pastors’ and teachers’ job descriptions and weekly duties involve deceiving people, leading them astray and making other Pastors fall.

In addition, it is important to watch the company that you keep. When you see “professed” Christians willfully acting in unchristian ways the bible tells us in I Corinthians 15:33-Don’t be fooled by those who say such things, for “bad company corrupts good character.”

Also, you need to watch who you eat with-I Corinthians 5:11 says- But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people.

Also, make sure that pray before you eat anything and ask God to remove any impurities.

So, in closing I just want to encourage you to pray, pray and pray some more. If you have noticed dreams about eating, snakes and other animals attacking you, sex in the dream, you want to pray to ask God to deliver you and you want to renounce any ancestral connections you may have had and any sins that could have opened your spirit to these types of dream attacks. Again, you want to ask God for forgiveness and ask for His deliverance in Jesus’ name.

There are Christian prayer points that you can look up about deliverance from these things. You also want to pray over and anoint your home, yourself, and family members. This includes children. You can use anointing oil that you have prayed over. You want to anoint all windows, mirrors, and doors in the shape of a cross. If you need help on how to make your Christian anointing oil you can check online for how to pray over it. I also gave a sample prayer in my “How to Defeat the Enemy Spiritually”.https://anchor.fm/katim-brown/episodes/How-to-Defeat-the-Enemy-Spiritually-e1f39vl/a-a4rqds3

You want to anoint yourself and children in the morning before you go out and at night before you all sleep. Before you go to sleep, you want to pray that God would help you not to eat food in the dream, not to have sex in the dreams and to protect you in the dream.

Please click the link below to this to this on The Anchor Podcast:

https://anchor.fm/katim-brown/episodes/Detecting-the-Signs-of-Apostasy-e1f6j7v