We are flooded on social media today with an ever-increasing volume of errors being peddled as bible doctrine. One cannot but wonder how the Lord God Almighty reacts to the cacophony of errors, if they are true errors! From the bizarre comedies of pastors that fit scriptures to their false lifestyles to an ignorant and scripturally untaught followership whose faith is founded more on emotions than the word to false pastors/teachers who spew out errors as doctrines hiding under “God told me,” even when such have no biblical foundation.

The warnings of the Lord recorded in Matthew 24:4 and Luke 21:8 have taken ominous dimensions than the modern-day believer hitherto understood neither took with the gravity required. The apostles of old would turn in their graves at the scale of fulfilment of their warnings:

Paul, speaking to his son in the faith, Timothy wrote on the behaviour of Christians today

People will be self-centred lovers of themselves and obsessed with money. They will boast of great things as they strut around in their arrogant pride and mock all that is right. They will ignore their own families. They will be ungrateful and ungodly. They will become addicted to hateful and malicious slander. Slaves to their desires, they will be ferocious, belligerent haters of what is good and right. With brutal treachery, they will act without restraint, bigoted and wrapped in clouds of their conceit. They will find their delight in the pleasures of this world more than the pleasures of the loving God. They may pretend to have a respect for God, but in reality, they want nothing to do with God’s power. Stay away from people like these! For they are the ones who worm their way into the hearts of vulnerable women, spending the night with those who are captured by their lusts and steeped in sin. They are always learning but never discover the revelation-knowledge of truth. History has given us an example of this with the Egyptian sorcerers Jannes and Jambres, who stood against Moses in their arrogance. So, it will be in the last days with those who reject the faith with their corrupt minds and arrogant hearts, standing against the truth of God. But they will not advance, for everyone will see their madness, just as they did with Jannes and Jambres! But you, Timothy, have closely followed my example and the truth that I’ve imparted to you. You have modeled your life after the love and endurance I’ve demonstrated in my ministry by not giving up. The faith I have, you now have. What I have hungered for in life has now become your longing as well. The patience I have with others, you now demonstrate. And the same persecutions and difficulties I have endured, you have also endured. Yes, you know all about what I had to suffer while in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. You’re aware of all the persecution I endured there; yet the Lord delivered me from every single one of them! For all who choose to live godly as worshipers of Jesus, the Anointed One, will also experience persecution. But the evil men and sorcerers will progress from bad to worse, deceived and deceiving, as they lead people further from the truth. Yet you must continue to advance in strength with the truth wrapped around your heart, being assured by God that he’s the One who has truly taught you all these things. 2 Timothy 3:2-14 (TPT)

John the Beloved wrote:

1. Dear children, the end of this age is near! You have heard that Antichrist is arising, and in fact, many enemies of Christ have already appeared, and this is how we know that we are living in the closing hour of this age. For even though they were once a part of us, they withdrew from us because they were never really of our number. For if they had truly belonged to us they would have continued with us.  By leaving our community of believers they made it obvious that they never really belonged to us. 1 John 2:18,19 (TPT)
2. Little children, you can be certain that you belong to God and have conquered them, for the One who is living in you is far greater than the one who is in the world. They belong to this world and they articulate the spirit of this world, and the world listens to them. But we belong to God, and whoever truly knows God listens to us. Those who refuse to listen to us do not belong to God. That is how we can know the difference between the spirit of truth and the spirit of deceit. 1 John 4:4-6 (TPT)

And so did Jude write:

There have been some who have sneaked in among you unnoticed. They are depraved people whose judgment was prophesied in Scripture a long time ago. They have perverted the message of God’s grace into a license to commit immorality and turn against our only absolute Master, our Lord Jesus Christ. Jude 1:4 (TPT)

Just as Paul told the elders of the Ephesian Church in Miletus,

I know that after I leave, (i) imposters who have no loyalty to the flock will come among you like savage wolves. (ii) Even some from among your very own ranks will rise up, twisting the truth to seduce people into following them instead of Jesus. Acts 20:29,30 (TPT)

They will come from both outside and from within the assembly! Selah.

Pastor Afolabi Oladele