As I read and research volumes of spiritual information that comes to me regarding the “new wave” of spirituality which is manifesting in the world in such venues as “The Secret” and through such people as the High Priestess of the New Age, Oprah Winfrey, and is infecting the church through Purpose Driven, Emerging and the Post-Modern Church, I am overwhelmed by how quickly we are losing ground and how numb and naïve and fightless most believers are.

This morning I read and laid aside a long article filled with such torrents of information, and thought, “Well, then, how do we fight this? It appears the war is being won with nary a shot being fired from our side.” Western Evangelical Christianity is bleeding to death, and the patient appears to just want more painkillers.

If I've learned anything the last few years, it is that most believers would rather not know all of this. I have lost both friends and supporters and gained opponents and mockers simply for saying, “Shouldn't we examine some of these new teachings before we support it or believe it?” Doing so has been a lot like telling your child there is no Santa. They will hate you for telling them before they accept that it is true. So much of the contemplative, emerging church dogma is filled with airy-fairy wishful thinking spirituality in which we heal the world and all you need is love, that when you point out that the whole of prophetic scripture opposes all of this dominionist “world future”, you can almost see tears because you made a fairy die, and you can almost hear a call to all come together and hold hands and repeat, “I DO believe in fairies!” in order to silence the doubters and keep the “we are the world” fantasy alive. I don't mean to be overly sarcastic. I am just incredibly stunned and grieved that we no longer understand the nature of evil, the wickedness of the heart of unredeemed man, and the hopelessness of anything outside of the regenerative, powerful Gospel of Jesus Christ, a Gospel that does not say, “Heal the world”, but instead urges us to pull people out of the fire because this present world order is “passing away” and WILL “melt away with a fervent heat.” Where is that message?

But none of it comes from the heart of a Grinch. It comes from a child of God who loves Jesus and loves His Word more than life. It comes from a heart, that upon recently learning that a well-meaning believer had led a group of kids through a “guided visualization meditation” to “Journey to Jesus”, broke down and wept. “Jesus”, I cried, “My life was nothing but occult lies when I came to You. It cost You - and me - EVERYTHING to get me free of those lies! WHY are believers believing and teaching and blindly accepting the SAME LIES that nearly destroyed me?”

So as I approach the latter half of my life, in what appears to be the latter part of man's history, I long to be one in whom Jesus WILL find faith when He comes. Not “I hope so” good thoughts or contemplative prayer out-of-body experiences, but real faith, RAW faith that plainly accepts every word of Jesus and lives like it, prays like it, preaches like it and acts on it.

God has always spoken of a remnant of His people. It is hard for us to accept that “broad is the way” that leads to destruction, and “narrow is the way” that leads to eternal life, and FEW are there that will find it. It is even more difficult to accept that there is also a “remnant” in the church. Most church folks are “A.M.” Christians who like static and drifting stations and hopping from one channel to the next (every wind of doctrine); but there are also “F.M.” believers who want to hear the truth clear and full of sound and soundness - steady, unchanging truth. There aren't a lot of F.M. Christians . Easier for most to “go along to get along” and not be bothered with the need to “contend for the faith” and to “perfect holiness in the fear of God.”

It appears that the new spirituality is a huge package of sensual and experiential goodies that requires neither testing nor backbone to partake. Just…experience…it. (Are you “experienced”?) The face and words of Jesus are being redefined as we go along. It fits perfect in the New Age Era that becoming like the Borg from Star Trek: “Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated. Your distinctiveness will be added to the Collective.”

If we know we are in the last times, then the warnings about the great falling away, mass spiritual deception and lying signs and wonders let us know where we are on the clock. In one sense, the time is coming when we can only “let the righteous be righteous still” and “let the filthy be filthy still”. In other words, time is coming for a remnant to stand and let the Lemming believers run off the cliff if they insist on doing so. Oh, I know, that sounds arrogant; but what can you do when you realize that warnings and tears and Bible truth aren't even heard, when the Collective puts their fingers in their ears and says, “Nyah, Nyah, we can't HEEEARYOUUU!” Just let them go, I guess.

I believe, in fact, that this will be the real church's most glorious hour. For those who hold true to His Word, the waves of false teachings and occult spirituality and spineless, useless “Christianity” are in fact clarifying the truth and stripping away the dross, deception and darkness from true believers. It is removing the panicky sense of “The sky is falling! I must warn the King!” which has beset much of the last-days prophetic movement , and replacing it with, “I don't have to prove Jesus to anyone. I am not called to "debate" or "dialogue.” Either Jesus is Lord or He is not. If people are determined to love the lie, let them. (They loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.) Just keep me in the truth, no matter the lies. And help me reach those who are in need of a real savior with real redeeming truth.”

More now than ever, I see the line being drawn between those who want a religious experience, and those who want Jesus: those who want Romper Room, and those who want the Upper Room: those who seek knowledge and learning (Gnostic) and those who seek Truth that is embodied in the Word of God and in Jesus Himself: Those who crave powerful “events” and those who surrender to the Power of the Holy Spirit.

In the end, it will be, “Who is on the Lord's side?” It will not be about an ideology or theology - but a Person, Jesus Christ the Righteous Lord. And in the end, the difference between those those who have given themselves over to lies and a “false Jesus” and those who have surrendered to the LORD Jesus and will be clear and devastating. The first will live in a world of false occult illusions disguised as “Christianity”, and the other will walk in the true power of God. The first will have faith in trendy ideas and fantasies about a coming “extreme-earth-makeover” for God; the second will have faith only in a PERSON, Jesus Christ, knowing that they are just pilgrims on a search and rescue mission on a planet that is about to see its final days.

Both can pray. Both have ideas. Both even will have followings. (Although Elijah's wasn't but a handful.) But what mattered? “The God who answers by fire, HE is God.” In the end, it's not who has the best ideas but who has the goods. Moses' staff will eat up Pharaoh's magicians' snakes. They may LOOK the same - but who will be endorsed and backed up by the power of the Living God? That is what counts.

But it won't be about raw power. I have always known that this last generation would be so filled with the love of God that it would overpower and overwhelm any darkness it touched. You see, this is the most fragmented and shattered generation in history. And sin unrestrained has caused, created and compounded it from generation to generation until we have a Frankenstein generation composed only of emotional and spiritual fragments. That's why the “emerging church” is like a spiritual cannibal that is taking pieces of other religions to hobble together a deformed version of “Christianity.”

Into that darkness will come those who are filled with Jesus' love and with a healing fire in their hands and they will bring truth to shatter the lies, enraging the demons and demonized but bringing the Finger of God to those who cry out for Jesus, at once breaking their chains and healing them whole.

It will not be a word war in these closing hours, and it may be near time that those who see the truth will have to simply get out of the way of this cloud of deception that is upon the western church. Those who debate doctrinal nuances and dialogue with demons in the name of “understanding our common ground” may be left to dry up in the demonic dust of the coming storm of confusion.

But out of that dust storm will come an army of shining sons and daughters who will blaze through the night with the preaching of Peter, the wisdom and warrior skills of Deborah, the intercessory guts of Esther, the power of Paul, the compassion of John, the boldness of Elijah, the anointing of Moses and the heart of David.