The Pandemic of End-Times Dysfunction (E.D.)

The Gary DeMar Show ^ | Nov 12, 2009 | Joel McDurmon

[topcat54]

Joel McDurmon, hosting today's show for Gary DeMar, exposes End-times Dysfunction (E.D.) for what it is. Joel shares with doomsdayers how they can get relief from their paranoia and troubled souls.

[The Theophilus]

As for the other questions. You haven’t told me who Satan is deceiving after he is released from the pit. Why would I answer your questions? You’re all brave now but couldn’t stand the heat earlier.

I don't believe that I have every shied away from inquiry. Please pardon me if it appears that I have.

I'll admit that there is diversity of opinion among the non-chiliasts as to what exactly it means for Satan being unbound. Quite frankly, to be consistent with what we believe, it must also be observed that Satan has been effectively bound since Paul wrote that the whole world had been evangelized. What this means is, no one today really knows what it is like to live in a world with an unbound Satan. This is where we speculate, and it can be fun as long as we remember its speculation, not dogma.

Personally, I have a wild imagination, and thus I entertain the idea that the competitors of Elijah actually could summon fire from the heavens and that the Egyptian magicians actually could turn the Nile into blood. Even you must admit that the Last Days, such as you define them, will be characterized by fearful sights and great signs from heaven (Lk 21:11)

To answer your question directly, it is only proper to let the Word speak for Himself:

Mark 13:22-23 "For false christs and false prophets will rise and show signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. But take heed; see, I have told you all things beforehand."

I think it should be clear here that charlatans of all sorts will come out and try to divide up the church and render her powerless. I'm not speaking for the others you battle with here, but I do believe that they see the Futurists here as a mission field who are falling or have already fallen under the spell of such false prophets that wants your money while telling you Jesus will return on Rosh Hashana this year.

Our literal interpretation of this passage leaves little doubt that this is a regular M.O. of Satan and that the Church is also a target. I'm not totally sure what the Post-Mills believe in this matter, and I'm not aboard the things that define Post-Mill, yet as an Amil, I think every generation has its false Christs and false Prophets, and I am inclined to believe that when the Dragon is loosed, we will see a profound increase in the signs and great heavenly wonders. (this "we" can mean this generation or hundreds of years from now)

So if you care to speculate, game on; but honestly I don't know, we just happen to have some clues.

[CynicalBear]

>>To "bind the strongman" so that one can "plunder his household" is for the Holy Spirit to "chain" and "bind" the Deceiver so that the Gospel could be understood and believed in the household that the Devil rules.<<

So when we are told in Revelation that “an angel came down from heaven to bind Satan for a thousand years it wasn’t really an angel that bound him but it was the apostles who had the ability to bind him? When it says that Satan would not be able to “deceive the nations” it really meant households? So he’s really not bound and sealed by the angle but by the apostles.

So, so far we have, it wasn’t really an angel that bound Satan bit it was the apostles, or is the Holy Spirit, it wasn’t really that he couldn’t deceive nations but instead it was households, and it really wasn’t 1000 years but some other to be determined time period. Got it.

Revelation 20:1 And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. 2 And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, 3 And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.

>>Essentially, when our LORD told the disciples that they would "bind on earth"<<

Matthew 18:15-20 "If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them."

Now here we have Jesus talking about how to deal with a brother who sins “against you”. He explains how to deal with that person and ultimately tells them that if the person will not listen to them that they have the power to declare him to “be as a Gentile”, in other words cast him from the fold of believers. Thus he was telling them they had the keys to heaven for that guy and they could lock him out. But you say he was really giving them the power to bind Satan. Hmmm. If that was the case why didn’t He tell them to just bind Satan from influencing that guy who sinned against them? For that matter, if they could bind Satan when they wanted why didn’t they bind Satan from influencing all the people so they would all be saved?

[CynicalBear]

>>What this means is, no one today really knows what it is like to live in a world with an unbound Satan.<<

Yes we do. He is not bound now. It’s the Holy Spirit that protects us from him at this point. It’s the Holy Spirit that was sent by Jesus when He ascended to heaven. Satan is only restrained by the extent that we remain under the bidding or influence of the Holy Spirit. Look at this Nation. The more they deny the Spirit of God the more influence Satan has.

>>Personally, I have a wild imagination, and thus I entertain the idea that the competitors of Elijah actually could summon fire from the heavens and that the Egyptian magicians actually could turn the Nile into blood. Even you must admit that the Last Days, such as you define them, will be characterized by fearful sights and great signs from heaven (Lk 21:11)<<

I agree with you and what’s more I believe a time like that is coming again. The closer we get to Jesus return, whether you believe in the rapture or not, the more desperate Satan is going to get and the more power he is going to exhibit through his false prophets.

[Lee N. Field]

What this means is, no one today really knows what it is like to live in a world with an unbound Satan.

And, it should be pointed out, we fallen humans are quite capable of generating evil, all on our own. There seems to be a curious idea out, that with Satan bound ("so as not to deceive the nations"), everything will be unicorns and rainbows.

Personally, I have a wild imagination, and thus I entertain the idea that the competitors of Elijah actually could summon fire from the heavens and that the Egyptian magicians actually could turn the Nile into blood. Even you must admit that the Last Days, such as you define them, will be characterized by fearful sights and great signs from heaven (Lk 21:11)

The last book through my hands was a re-read of Athanaseus' On the Incarnation. (An African, BTW. As such, not much given to "Jew-hating, Aryan superioty adventures." Ditto Aurelius Augustine. "Just sayin'.") One of his apologetic points, responding to Gentiles, was that in every nation where Christ went, the old gods, the old magic, the old oracles, all ceased.

I think it should be clear here that charlatans of all sorts will come out and try to divide up the church and render her powerless.

Yup. "who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. " Paul's common usage of "temple" points to this being something that happens in the church.

Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false,

[cinciella]

It looks like even your Westminster Confession lists them as 2 separate things. Good works can and should flow out of a sanctified (consecrated) heart, but sanctification does not equal good works.

[Cronos]

in favor of the adversary’s attack on the rapture of the saints.

paraphrase: "it is Satanic to go against a best-seller."

[Cronos]

Ah, ok — but why do they even read Revelation then if they are not among those “Left Behind”? Shouldn’t they just leave secret markings in the Nevada desert saying “read Revelation if you see lots of folks disappear”?

[Cronos]

“Your ranting becomes less valuable to intelligent debate every time I see you post. Accusing people of not using scripture to substantiate their views is weak and your spiteful vitriol is only worthy of contempt.” — interesting comment...

[RJR_fan]

As for now, even though to us it appears the Gospel is losing its influence in the West, Asia and Africa are exploding with converts, so it seems to me, Satan is still bound as the Gospel is clearly being received.

If you are a dispensationalist, nothing God does is ever good enough

Dispensationalists can't hope to see the nations submit to the King of kings in this age because:

• The gospel isn't "good enough" to persuade them.
• The power of God isn't "good enough" to get the job done. Somehow, the "all power in heaven and on earth" that Jesus has just isn't up to the task.
• The wisdom of God isn't "good enough" to outperform and outlast the notions of the heathen.
• The purposes of God aren't "good enough" to bring the vast majority of humanity under the umbrella of His grace. Even though Jesus speaks of a few tares in a wheat field at the end of history, we know better. What Jesus REALLY meant to say was that history would end with a few lonely stalks of wheat in a tare field.
• God's Word isn't "good enough" to interpret itself. Instead, to be truly wise, we need to interpret it in terms of the latest lamestream media headlines.
• The non-American parts of the world aren't "good enough" to offset current trends in the USA.
  • 100 million Chinese now pledge allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ -- but, since they aren't white Americans, we can ignore their testimony.
  • South Korea is now the world's second-largest mission-sending nation-- but, since they aren't white Americans, we can ignore their testimony.
  • A century ago, fewer than 10% of black Africans identified themselves as Christians. Today, more than half do -- but, since they aren't white Americans, we can ignore their testimony.
• The gospel isn't "good enough" to raise our own children in. It's perfectly acceptable for most of them to be raised by the priests of Caesar in the faith of secular humanism.
• The reformation underway in the USA isn't "good enough" to reverse the adverse trends we see.
• The optimistic Calebs and Joshuas among us today aren't "good enough" to take seriously. After all, since We All Know that the giants in the land are invincible, people who proclaim the adequacy of God must be either deluded, or evil!

The fortune-tellers and doomsayers were caught with their britches down when the fall of the Soviet Union made their proud prognostications useful for scratchy, second-rate toilet paper. A worm can learn from experience, but the addiction to fortune-telling makes its devotees unteachable. As Leon Festinger demonstrated through his research, an apocalyptic cult gains strength through the failures of its predictions. Satan whispers in their ear, "of course, we know we're right. We'll just have to believe twice as hard and twice as loud the next time we make a confident prediction of The End." To make cognitive dissonance bearable, the dupes of fortune-tellers need to make themselves more stupid (and, as this forum demonstrates, angrier) than they really are.

[Quix]

Thanks for being so thoroughly terminally WRONG

AGAIN!

[Quix]

INDEED:

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Revelation 12:12
Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.
Revelation 12:11-13 KJV

Revelation 12:12 (Amplified Bible)
12Therefore be glad (exult), O heavens and you that dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in fierce anger (fury), because he knows that he has [only] a short time [left]!(A)

Cross references:

A.Revelation 12:12 : Isa 44:23; 49:13

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Revelation 12:12 (The Message)

7-12War broke out in Heaven. Michael and his Angels fought the Dragon. The Dragon and his Angels fought back, but were no match for Michael. They were cleared out of Heaven, not a sign of them left. The great Dragon—ancient Serpent, the one called Devil and Satan, the one who led the whole earth astray—thrown out, and all his Angels thrown out with him, thrown down to earth. Then I heard a strong voice out of Heaven saying,

Salvation and power are established!
Kingdom of our God, authority of his Messiah!
The Accuser of our brothers and sisters thrown out,
who accused them day and night before God.
They defeated him through the blood of the Lamb
and the bold word of their witness.
They weren’t in love with themselves;
they were willing to die for Christ.
So rejoice, O Heavens, and all who live there,
but doom to earth and sea,
For the Devil’s come down on you with both feet;
he’s had a great fall;
He’s wild and raging with anger;
he hasn’t much time and he knows it.

---

Revelation 12:12 (New Living Translation)

12 Therefore, rejoice, O heavens!
And you who live in the heavens, rejoice!
But terror will come on the earth and the sea,
for the devil has come down to you in great anger,
knowing that he has little time.”

[RJR_fan]

My pleasure, my insomniac friend! Have a blessed day!

[RJR_fan]

Salvation and power are established! Kingdom of our God, authority of his Messiah! The Accuser of our brothers and sisters thrown out, who accused them day and night before God. They defeated him through the blood of the Lamb and the bold word of their witness. They weren’t in love with themselves; they were willing to die for Christ. So rejoice, O Heavens, and all who live there, but doom to earth and sea, For the Devil’s come down on you with both feet; he’s had a great fall; He’s wild and raging with anger; he hasn’t much time and he knows it.

I love to recite that hymn of victory to myself (in Greek) when lying awake at night. It does a man good to memorize chunks of scripture, occasionally in the original language.

[mitch5501]

placemarker

[The Theophilus]

And, it should be pointed out, we fallen humans are quite capable of generating evil, all on our own. There seems to be a curious idea out, that with Satan bound ("so as not to deceive the nations"), everything will be unicorns and rainbows.

Recently Joel Osteen did one of his motivational presentations where he encouraged people to be like Ahab - the most wicked and ill spoken of king of Israel, so I have no doubts to the creativity and innovation within the modern American Religion so spin anything, and Dispensationalism provides a conduit you can drive a truck through of opportunity to screw with the Word.

Many preachers in the American Religion have redescribed sin as "missing the mark" or "making a mistake". Calling sin a "mistake", something subject to misfortune or accident then removes guilt which diminishes the need for repentance and shoves off the inherent wickedness of man to some other entity. Enter the unbound Satan.

Suddenly, the American Religion can claim that children have no sin, or no knowledge of sin and thus are not guilty of sin and until they reach this invention called the Age of Accountabilty, they don't need a Savior. So how does one explain the wickedness of a little child, who by God's Grace is too small and weak to kill you for not feeding him on his schedule or daring to deny him of his bupper? Either claim by fiat that it is not sin, or point the blame at an unbound Satan.

The late Flip Wilson made popular a statement "The Devil Made Me Do It" which is a much greater accusation of culpability than mere temptation. It became more than just a comedy schtick, it became part of our culture and ended up being one of the passages of "Scripture" found in 2nd Opinions right after "God helps those who help themselves" and "Cleanliness is next to Godliness".

Then we have the top ten verses of Scripture which people quote, tattoo, silk screen or embroider - most of them are I know the plans I have for you, and all things work out for those who love God variety, one where the person quoting them seems to not acknowledge sin. God Chastens whom He loves isn't too popular among this crowd since it seems that they live a normal, "sinless" yet "mistake" prone life and bad things just seem to happen so say the magic words, perform the quid pro works and the Cosmic Butler Genie Jesus is expected to kiss the boo-boo and make all things better. This is the doctrine of an unbound Satan. If Satan can deceive people into not accepting and taking responsibility for their own sin, then they don't feel a need for forgiveness.

The late Adrian Rogers, outspoken enemy of the Reformation, recharacterized "No one seeks after God as a diminished or absent desire to pray to God, and then he proposed a remedy to "force yourself" to pray.

Following Roger's thinking, If the Devil is responsible for all of the wickedness in the world, then it would seem that the Devil is the one needing forgiveness - I only make mistakes, and why waste God's time on forgiving me for making a mistake. Then I only need to pray to God when I need things above and beyond what I can get for myself. Ergo, diminished prayer. If man took responsibility for his own sins and falling to resistible temptation then we would be on our knees a lot, not because we need to "force ourselves" to, but because of we are compelled to by our own desire to keep the commands of God.

A bound Satan then makes us responsible for our own sins, and the Dispensational model with an unbound Satan, as a side benefit, absolves us from evil and wickedness.

[Quix]

A bound Satan then makes us responsible for our own sins, and the Dispensational model with an unbound Satan, as a side benefit, absolves us from evil and wickedness.

---

Nonsense.

Though the paragraph above that one had some good points.

[The Theophilus]

So when we are told in Revelation that “an angel came down from heaven to bind Satan for a thousand years it wasn’t really an angel that bound him but it was the apostles who had the ability to bind him? When it says that Satan would not be able to “deceive the nations” it really meant households? So he’s really not bound and sealed by the angle but by the apostles.

The Greek says "messengers", the translators say "angels". You even have Daniel who prayed and prayed and was approached by the arch-angel who commended Daniel on his fervent prayer, the angle was busy contending with the demon over Babylon. Ergo, "whatever you bind on earth, you bind in heaven." Does God need binding in heaven, or those on earth appeal to heaven to bind Satan?

[Cronos]

Recently Joel Osteen did one of his motivational presentations where he encouraged people to be like Ahab

You're kidding, right?

[Cronos]

Recently Joel Osteen did one of his motivational presentations where he encouraged people to be like Ahab

You're kidding, right? I haven't read any of Joel Osteen's works or anything, but I thought he was supposed to be one of the well-respected men.