We believe we are in the End Time of the Last Days; therefore, a part of Christ’s workings is that of preparing His saints to be ready for His secret coming to the air (I Thessalonians 4:13–18). The “former rain” of the Holy Spirit came in the sowing of the seed of the Gospel during the Book of Acts; likewise, a “latter rain” has come (James 5) to prepare the harvest of fruit for the Master. This outpouring of the latter rain seems to have commenced in the mid-1800s; one of its by-products was the opening of the books of Daniel and Revelation to greater understanding. As the last part of the Book of Acts was in the aftermath of the former rain, we now are in the aftermath of that latter rain. While the expanding Charismatic movement is an imitated heresy of the truth of the latter rain, the remnant today finds itself with little remaining from the latter rain. The harvest of Christ’s Second Coming, we believe, is soon.
The Fundamentalist movement is an End-time movement by God for a last corporate stand by the remnant against the apostasy. To understand the End Time we must acknowledge that there are three ends dealt with in Scripture: the End of the Church age; the End of the Tribulation Period; and the End of the earth (or time as we know it). We are in the first of these end times. One of the fundamentals of the Christian Faith in which, perhaps, Fundamentalists differ in its distinctives is that of the Second Coming. There are those who do not believe in a rapture, or a secret coming of Christ back for the true Church, that is, the true remnant at the end of the Church Age. Others take the position of a rapture concept during the middle of the Tribulation (or what they term the middle of Daniel’s “last week”). Still others believe in a rapture (or some aspect of the term) at the end of the Tribulation Period. Then there are those while believing in no rapture who do proclaim that Christ will come at the end of the Millennium. This latter view espouses the belief that the Church will take over the world and usher in the Kingdom; then Christ will finally come to receive the kingdom prepared for Him by the Church.
Although the Jews finally were delivered from idolatry, their national sin has deepened further than simple idolatry; now they are in an apostasy against the Lord through their rejection of the coming of Messiah. Our position is that Christ will come to catch away the End-time remnant at the consummation of the apostasy in the visible Church. “He came unto his own and his own received him not” (John 1:11). Just as “His own,” the Jews rejected Him at His first coming; the Church “His own” rejects Him now, at the anticipation of His second coming—a Christless Israel at His first coming and now a Christless Church at His second coming. The rapture is only for the remnant. Because of this very reason, the rapture is not mentioned in the Old Testament; the promise in the Old Testament is the open or public coming of Christ (Revelation 19), which is the hope for the Jewish nation, not for the Church.
There are two concepts of the Gentiles that must be observed. The first is the “times of the Gentiles,” a time which commenced at the Babylonian Captivity and will conclude at the end of the Tribulation Period. A second concept concerning the Gentiles is found in Romans 11:25:
For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in.
In this second concept the Apostle Paul references a spiritual aspect rather than a political one. It is important to remember that the Church is a Gentile truth, not a Jewish truth. Although the Church at the Day of Pentecost was basically a Jewish Church, as the Book of Acts unfolds, the Church becomes a Gentile concept. It has been so throughout Church history. The Rapture will close this “fullness of the Gentiles” (concerning the olive tree), and God will begin to move among the Jewish world for salvation during the Tribulation Period. Even so, the “times of the Gentiles” will continue through the reign of Antichrist.
These same distinctions can be seen concerning the Scriptures. The Old Testament was given to and through the Jews; the New Testament was given to the Church, predominately written to Gentile Christian churches. The Rapture will bring an end to the Church, and God then will begin once again to work primarily among the Jews. This is why the term church will not be used during the Tribulation Period; the Church was a Gentile concept of the Body of Christ.
Characteristics of the End-time Remnant
There are a number of characteristics that mark the “Christian” times of the End Time in which the remnant will find themselves.
First, they will find themselves in a global apostasy, where Christianity has covered the world; such universal coverage is what breeds a distinctively Christian apostasy.
Second, they live in a time when true Christianity is publicly dead! The new and false concepts of Jesus have so permeated the world through Neo-Christianity that we could never have a biblical world-wide revival. When we speak of God today, it is in the presence of a neo-concept of God corrupted through Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Charismatism, Neo-Evangelicalism, etc. Each of these beliefs worship a different God than that of the Bible.
Third, the remnant finds itself facing in the public arena a “Jesus” that is a Mel Gibson Jesus, a Roman Catholic Jesus, a Charismatic Jesus. This is not the same Jesus of Scripture! Because the world only knows of a false Jesus, it is going to be very difficult for the remnant to preach and witness the true Jesus Gospel through all of this Neo-Christian mud today! Their Jesus is one of rock music, of ecumenicity, of Romanism affinity, of accommodation with the world and the flesh. This is not the real Jesus; it is another Jesus.
Fourth, the remnant is facing a Western society where prayer is directed to the wrong god. Even the prayers of a Joel Osteen and Billy Graham are not to the biblical God but to the god which their false gospel has fabricated. Our society includes the god of the Jews and the god of the Muslims as the same God as biblical Christianity. It assumes that all “spiritual” experiences are from the same god.
Fifth, the remnant finds itself in the most confusing hour in history about the Bible. The Satanic snake has crept into the garden of God’s people to once again question the Word of God. Which Bible is the real Bible? What is the true text?
Sixth, the End-time remnant finds itself in the throes of a worldly church with worldly standards, music, and even lifestyle.
Seventh, the remnant finds itself being hated by the world and by the visible Church itself. It is hated for its principles, its standards, its biblical principles of holiness of life and heart, and for its biblical separation.
Yes, this is the hour, the crisis hour, in which the remnant will be the only ones to see the biblical Jesus, believing in Him alone and abiding in Him—only the remnant! This is the greatest hour of confusion and deception of any generation in Church history. Only a few will see Him and know Him, and be ready to meet Him. There has never been a time when so much has been written on the Bible; but most of it, even the truth of it presented through the Neo-Christianity, is a delusion. A delusion is not the absence of truth but the subtle addition of error! This is the End Time when there is no open vision of the Word of God (I Samuel 3:1, 2), or when the Word of the Lord is even being heard (Amos 8:11, 12). We are going to be witnessing enigmas taking place with people and events on earth that will stagger us. There will be no answer for them, other than we are in the culmination of the mystery of iniquity, the world apostasy.
The theological systems will not work now, for people are capitulating to the world and to the enemies of God. We will not know what to do with these unworkables, like a Billy Graham declaring that individuals can come to God without going through Jesus Christ or that the Buddhists and Hindus will be in the Body of Christ. How far will men of greatness go before they die in the delusion? Only very few, like Samson, returned to God near the end of their lives. For those who do not return, will we use our theological systems to create some redeemed status, or will we accept the Bible’s view?
We must be very careful in using the term eternal security; there is no such phrase in the Bible. We as Christians must go to secondary statements to find this truth. One “popular” scripture quoted for this teaching is John 10:26–28:
But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me; and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of my father’s hand.
We must ever be careful when reading the Bible that we do not misread the Bible. Christ is very clear in this passage that “my sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” Each of these words is in the present tense: they hear and continue to hear; they know and continue to know; and they follow and continue to follow Christ. The “eternal security of the believer” is for the “one who is believing.” The command in the New Testament to believe in or on Christ is always in the present tense. “And I give unto them eternal life.” It is very specific! It is to the present-tense believer!
It is possible for a man to begin his ministry believing in the true Jesus only to eventually embrace another Jesus of the contemporary gospel before he dies? Many have done so! This is the enigma of the End Time! To say that someone like Billy Graham is saved simply because he “believed” many years ago is like saying that Judas is saved. What we claim for the one, we must claim for the other: both betrayed the Lord!
Matthew 24:24 states, “For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders insomuch that if it were possible they shall deceive the very elect.” The fine-tuning of deception will reach a great perfection. Only the elect will not be deceived.
Dear friend, we are in the time of the shakings of God (Hebrews 12), and only that which is found in God will remain. Amidst these shakings there will be His appointed silences—fewer and fewer open miracles of His workings. God’s remnant will be living more and more on the blessed miracle of Providence alone. We are going to see more and more families being separated over truth (Matthew 10:34–37). Increasingly, governments will turn against the true child of God; the Lord Himself tells us that we will be hated by “all” nations for His name’s sake (Matthew 24:9). This must include America! Home schools and Christian schools will be closed. We must face the reality that this is already true in many countries. How will America fall? Will it be overthrown by Muslims, civil war and unrest, or quiet assimilation into a larger unit of government?
The Church concept is gone as churches discard the term and change their names. It must happen! The concept of the Emerging Church must arise in order for public Christianity to be assimilated into the rest of the religions of this postmodern, existential era. The old landmarks must be eradicated. We often observe that within four generations of a ministry, a founder, as the Bible based leader, could have a second generation leadership of neutrality to arise, followed by a third generation leadership of compromise, who finally gives way to a fourth generation leadership of apostasy. One also may see all four mutations take place in one man, in one ministry or school, in one generation. Where once it took four generations to bring about the collapse, it can now become apparent within one generation.
Conclusion
Every public movement must give way to the radical pressures of change in the End Time. It is a mood, a spirit, an aggressive power that sweeps through the powers that be and through the religions of the world for the final coming together of one World Religion and one World Government. By the time of Christ’s first coming, according to Acts 4:25–26, the prophecy was fulfilled: “Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed” (Psalm 2:1, 2). When we come to the next verse this prophecy deepens: “Saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us” (2:3). The winds of dark powers now hold strong sway over Western Civilization; bold laws are being enacted in order to overthrow God, His saints, and their influence toward righteousness in the foundation of some governments. The world wants them no more; with swiftness of force the bands of righteousness are being broken asunder and the cords of moral restraint are being cast away.
Fundamentalism is the last bastion on the planet as a movement that was a restraining force against both political and religious corruption within Christianity. There have been other movements to come, but they all in recent years have been the product of the Neo-Christianity, a gospel of another kind. There may be a call back to the family and morals, and the “good old USA”; but they are calling us to a contemporary Jesus that includes the hodgepodge of Roman Catholics, Charismatics, and now even the Mormons, who are being called upon to join in the “religious” fight to get America back. Theirs is not the Gospel of Scripture. We are being called to a Jesus that is different from that of the Bible.
People believe in Jesus, but they don’t want the Bible and its call to personal and ecclesiastical separation. We must remember that men like Mitt Romney and Glenn Beck are Mormons who have their own agenda. The prophecy of Mormonism is that America will get so bad that it will finally call upon the Mormon Church to bring the deliverance of the country. How many in Fundamentalism are leaning towards such men for hope? How many in Fundamentalism are turning to the Neo-Evangelical movements to bring about a “revival” to save America? We have so lost our way as a movement; we have become so weak spiritually, that we have become as other men.
There is no power left in the movement of Fundamentalism, and its people know it. Therefore, they are turning to neo-movements to bring about through a corrupted Gospel what they want. Sadly, it will all come to naught! We are well into the Post America powers, which are grooming us for a sizeable takeover by Antichrist powers. And Fundamentalism has fallen; only a few pieces of its wreckage are floating here and there. As a reckoning spiritual force of the past it is gone, just as America is gone.
Where will the floating debris of Fundamentalism end up? What will become of its schools and churches? Will they be assimilated into the bigger and more aggressive Emerging Church of the future, which is no church at all? Will our musicians go to what they believe is better and greener pastures for success? Will our schools become through their constant mutation of vision and standards a blind “has-been” Samson grinding the corn of the Philistine-Neo crowd—his power gone and his identity stripped to the rubble of memory? No longer conquering but being conquered; no longer the voice for God but the puppet and amusement of the contemporary? Oh, how are the mighty fallen!
In our next article we must come to honesty of what has happened in Fundamentalism and where we are headed concerning God’s resolve with us as a movement. May the Lord have mercy on the remnant amidst their refusal to change where changes are destroying the biblical legacy. May we be ready to confront the inevitable that is looming up before us in the final chapter of the history of Fundamentalism.