Although I will be talking a lot about ice cream, this revelation is really not about ice cream. Before you drop this message and move unto other things, can I ask you a question? Let’s say you are new to the United States of America. You are from a tribal area, third world country. You meet some “friends” here that decide to pull a trick on you – maybe it’s April Fool’s Day. So, they ask if you would like to try the delicious, wonderful food called ice cream. You have never tasted ice cream before, but you have heard wonderful things about it. So, you emphatically say “Yes!” Your “friends” take you to a restaurant where they have already set up their plan – the ice cream at this place has been sorely tampered with. They have added liver pate, garlic chunks, old lima beans to every flavor and although lots of sugar has been added, they left out a key ingredient – cream, milk. When you all order ice cream, it comes out looking wonderful; from the outside, it looks like a beautiful ice cream sundae, with hot fudge on top, sprinkles, even a cherry on top. You excitedly, grab your spoon and with anticipation and a big smile take your first bite. Your nearly choke on what you taste. You feel sick and need to throw it out of your mouth but in order not to offend your “friends,” you swallow it. Here’s the question, Would you ever want to taste “ice cream” again? No, you would, most likely, resolve in you heart and mind, to never eat ice cream again!
What happened? Something that was supposed to be good was very, very bad. It turned you away from ever tasting the real thing for you never wanted to go through that experience again.
Let me switch gears here real quick and tell you of an experience I had just recently, that thankfully, because I had already tasted the real thing in 2017 at the Awaken the Dawn Movement in DC, I was not fooled by the fake. This is what I wrote in my journal the day after participating in a Feast of Tabernacles celebration in DC on Oct. 13 of this year. I would like to share it with you – Oct. 14, I wrote:
“Elijah, Kelly and I went to DC for the Feast of Tabernacles celebration. Unexpectedly it was a place where something was deeply wrong. I could not understand why my spirit felt sad and almost “at war” with some of those leading this celebration. I tried to lift up the Word of God and asked permission to speak when they were inviting people to go up, and the woman leading it said, that time is over. It wasn’t, but she did not want me to speak. I decided to leave and take Elijah and Kelly to the monuments – Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial. It was a long, long walk but oh so worth it. I prayed in different places as we walked. Finally, we went back to the Feast of Tabernacles celebration and found they were eating. We went to get a plate of food. Chicken was frozen; Kelly found a staple in her chicken. There was also a rudeness about the place. The music was monotonous. I don’t know. I was just irritated, stirred up, unhappy there. On the way home, I asked the Lord, what was going on. I hear in my spirit, apostasy, the spirit of apostasy. I did not understand, so later, when I got home, I looked it up on the internet. Basically, it is a spirit of pretension, pretending, trying to be or pretending to be something you are not – deceiving.
That answer fit perfectly. How better to drive people away from celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles then to hold the celebration devoid of joy, devoid of the Holy Spirit. Makes me so sad, yet something else the Lord Yeshua is working in me – a fire, burning for Truth, and for lies to be exposed no matter how cleverly disguised. Only God knows the hearts of man (people). I pray and know He will give His people who truly love Him and follow Him, discernment during this wicked time we live in.
“The great day of the Lord is near, it is near, and hastens greatly, even the voice of the day of the Lord. The mighty men shall cry there bitterly.” Zephaniah 1:14
I still, almost a week later, have a sadness in my heart about this. This place is not the only place I have seen or tried to fight against it. The spirit of apostasy is more dangerous than outright satanism or rebellion, for the spirit of apostasy masquerades as an angel of light. It is in our churches, it is in our leadership, it is in our government and the only way we can identify it is to know what truly is good so we can spot evil, no matter how cleverly disguised, and expose it for what it is.
The Word of God says in Isaiah 5:20, “Woe unto them that call evil, good, and good, evil; who put darkness for light and light for darkness, that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!”
In Isaiah 7:14-15 it says, “Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign; Behold a Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel. Butter and honey shall He eat, that He may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good.”
Wow! God says to know the real thing so well that we will not be deceived by the fake, the evil, the pretenders, the spirit of apostasy.
The exact definition of spirit of apostasy I found atgotquestions.orgsays there are two main types of apostasy 1)a falling away from key and true doctrines of the Bible (the true Word of God) to heretical teachings that claim to be the “real” Christian doctrine and 2) a complete renunciation of the Christian faith.
In other words, apostasy is pretending, deceiving, leading people away from Truth. How do we defend against this? Sadly, many depend on the preachers and leaders in the church and never fully read the Bible for themselves. Also, reading without the help of the Holy Spirit will only lead to confusion. Oh, how we need to check our hearts, cry out to the living God, repent, and ask Him for the indwelling, living, active Holy Spirit which is the evidence of our Salvation and the sealing of our hope for eternal Life with Jesus (Ephesians 1:13-14).
We need to pray for hearts that passionately desire to know the Word of God (the Law, the History, the Prophetic books, the Gospel, the letters, Revelation) so in knowing the real thing, we will never be deceived by the false. The pastors and teachers are to be respected and loved, but also held to account. Do they have the appearance of knowing but missing a key ingredient, the Holy Spirit? We should know the Word of God so well as God’s people that if something is not being taught right, we by the Holy Spirit, should be able to detect it, know and be able to correct it with the Word of God. Pastors and leaders have their place but we are all called to Build the Kingdom of God. We are responsible to know the whole Word of God, not just what we hear on Sundays.
Although not taught in many churches today, the Feast of Tabernacles is very Biblical. Look to Leviticus 23 (the 7th feast), I Kings 8 where King Solomon dedicates the first temple built to God during the Feast of Tabernacles and they even celebrate it for two weeks! The Feast of Tabernacles is found in Isaiah 25:6 and spoken of in Hosea 12:9; and in John 7:37-39, the Word says, “In the last day, that great day of the feast (this is Tabernacles), Jesus stood and cried saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink. He that believes on Me, as the scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of Living Water.” But this He spoke of the Spirit, which they that believe on Him should receive…
In Zechariah 14:16, all nations will be required to come to Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles with the Lord Jesus at His second coming! “And it shall come to pass that every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.” If they do not, they will not receive rain; no rain, leads to dryness, famine….
The feasts of God all point to Jesus and were given so we could understand the times we are living in (Luke 12:56)(Luke 21:20) . The Feast of Tabernacles points to the final harvest before Jesus returns and to His 1000 year reign on the earth (Revelation 20:4). Apostasy – the spirit of pretension, pretending to be something that is not. So if satan were to use a weapon to turn many away from Jesus – what would this impostor use? Of course, the spirit of apostasy. The best way to turn a person looking for Jesus, away from Jesus, is to have them meet critical, self-righteous, people claiming to be Christians. How do you turn the Jewish people from knowing their Jewish Lord and Savior, Jesus, Yeshua? Tell them Hitler was a Christian!
Apostasy! He was the farthest thing from a Christian. In these days, the only defense we have from being deceived ourselves and falling away is by pleading and crying out to a Holy God for the indwelling of His Holy Spirit and repenting of our complacency, laziness, and backbiting and gossip about our brothers and sisters in Jesus. And by knowing the Word of God (Jesus) intimately. Otherwise, the Lord will say unto those who look like His children, but are not, like He said to the five of the ten virgins with their lamps, “Depart from Me, for I never knew you.” (Matthew 25: 1-12). What a sad day that would be.
“Taste and see that the Lord is good!” Know the real thing so you won’t be tricked or discouraged by the false. Anybody want to go out for some ice cream?
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