The End Time Church: From the Cathedrals to the Catacombs

By Dan L. White

Copyright 2021 by Dan L. White, all rights reserved.

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB) which is in the public domain.

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Chapter 99

The First Step in Overcoming

The first step in overcoming the self is to repent of the self.

Christ sent His disciples out to preach that people should repent.

Mark 6 (WEB)
12) They went out and preached that people should repent.

After Pentecost, Peter preached that people should repent and be converted.

Acts 3:19 (KJV)
Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out…

Converted became a religious word, but the Greek word translated converted, “epistrepho, ” simply means to turn.

As in Matthew 9:22 .

Matt 9:20-22 (WEB)
20) Behold, a woman who had an issue of blood for twelve years came behind him, and touched the fringe of his garment;
21) for she said within herself, “If I just touch his garment, I will be made well.”
22) But Yeshua turning around [epistrepho] and seeing her, said, “Daughter, cheer up! Your faith has made you well.” And the woman was made well from that hour.

The English Standard Version renders Acts 3:19 as —

Acts 3 (ESV2011)
19) Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out…

So to repent means to turn – to turn away from disobedience to God’s Commandments. Most of all, to repent is to turn away from the disobedient self.

When can you stop turning away from yourself?

You can’t. Repentance is required before baptism, but repentance is not limited to that time. To avoid returning to your foolish ways, repentance must be continual.Overcoming the self demands continuous repentance of the self. When you grow to be so Christian that you stop repenting, then you stop being Christian.

Repeatedly the New Testament speaks of repenting, the first step in overcoming.

Matt 4 (WEB)
16) the people who sat in darkness saw a great light, to those who sat in the region and shadow of death, to them light has dawned.”
17) From that time, Yeshua began to preach, and to say, “Repent! For the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”

Modern Christianity, however, does not emphasize overcoming, but instead emphasizes –

Just coming on over.

Attendance, not repentance.

First of all, most churches don’t even acknowledge what sin is – the transgression of the law. They look at repentance as just being sorrowful for having done wrong. Repentance, though, is not just sorrow for doing wrong, but a turning away from the self that does wrong.

2Cor 7 (WEB)
8) For though I made you sorry with my letter, I do not regret it, though I did regret it. For I see that my letter made you sorry, though just for a while.
9) I now rejoice, not that you were made sorry, but that you were made sorry to repentance. For you were made sorry in a godly way, that you might suffer loss by us in nothing.
10) For godly sorrow works repentance to salvation, which brings no regret. But the sorrow of the world works death.

The Corinthians were made sorry to repentance, and godly sorrow works repentance. Sorrow itself is not repentance, but can lead to repentance and overcoming.

But churches do not teach overcoming, just coming on over. In fact, just the act of attending church is viewed as righteous, regardless of what the church teaches. It’s like God puts a gold star by people’s names each time they attend church. Then they go home feeling good about themselves, just because they went to church, but then keep on doing the same things they’ve always done. The pro-abortion Catholic politicians are prime examples of this. They oppose most of what their church teaches, but religiously attend church and take communion.

And their church lets them do that! Because they just keep coming on over.

Most churches make people feel good about themselves, not to repent of themselves. After all, they’re attending church!

But do those Catholic pro-abortion politicians ever get around to repenting?

Churches say they first have to get sinners to come to church, then they will tell them to repent.

When unrepentant sinners come to a church, what usually happens if the church does teach repentance?

They leave.

Repent means to change what you’re doing, thinking, and being! So if a church dares to tell the new sinners that they have to change –

Most won’t attend any more.

People do not like to be told they need to repent.

Acts 26 (WEB) Paul said to King Agrippa –
20) but declared first to them of Damascus, at Jerusalem, and throughout all the country of Judea, and also to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, doing works worthy of repentance.
21) For this reason the Jews seized me in the temple, and tried to kill me.

Paul preached that people should repent and turn, doing works that showed they had turned.

Those Jews did not like to be told to repent. They felt their religion put them above repenting – they attended synagogue every week! – so they tried to kill the guy who told them to repent. They proved they didn’t like to be reproved!

Actually, people like to be told how good they are. I have seen this repeatedly at Feast services, as a ploy to get people to keep coming to those services. To reprove the people is to move the people –

Out the door.

Amos 5 (ESV2011)
10) They hate him who reproves in the gate, and they abhor him who speaks the truth.

Churches of all kinds value attendance above all. They think that if they have more people attending, then they must be pleasing God. Especially if they build a new building! If churches offend people by telling them to repent, and those unrepentant people stop attending church, then how can the church serve those people?

This puts churches are in a pew-pickle.

The church needs people to fill its pews just to be a church. But if the church exhorts, reproves and rebukes, as Paul told Timothy to do, then the churches’ pews will be empty and it may no longer even be a church!

So then, what keeps people from repenting and overcoming?

1. Churches do.

Gather a bunch of people together who are not serious about their calling, not repentant, and as long as nobody upsets the apple cart – nobody exhorts, reproves and rebukes! – then they all think they’re doing great. No need to repent when part of such a wonderful church.

Even churches that know the Ten Commandments are to be obeyed as God’s “royal law” stop preaching repentance and instead teach complacence – which the dictionary defines as “contented self-satisfaction.” Over and over the people will be told how blessed they are to be in that church.

The Pharisees thought that because Abraham was their father, they didn’t need to personally repent. They were the “true church.” People in “God’s true church” don’t really need to repent, do they? So churches almost always keep people from personally repenting.

What else keeps people from repenting?

2. Involvement in the world

Being too involved with the world makes you think like the world. How does the world think?

2Pet 3 (WEB)
3) knowing this first, that in the last days mockers will come, walking after their own lusts,
4) and saying, “Where is the promise of his coming? For, from the day that the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.”

The world’s attitude is that God is irrelevant – “all things continue on as they were from the beginning.” Get comfortable in the world, because things are going to go on just as they have been. No need to repent. Just relax.

But when Paul told Timothy to rebuke, he told him to be urgent.

2Tim 4 (WEB)
2) preach the word; be urgent in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with all patience and teaching.

We cannot be the salt of the earth and the salt of Sodom. The salt of Sodom was Lot’s wife. She gave up her life because she didn’t want to give up the world.

1John 2 (WEB)
15) Don’t love the world, neither the things that are in the world. If anyone loves the world, the Father’s love isn’t in him.
16) For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, isn’t the Father’s, but is the world’s.

At the very end time, people of the world love the beast. What is the beast? It’s the worldwide economic system developing today.

Rev 18 (WEB)
15) The merchants of these things, who were made rich by her, will stand far away for the fear of her torment, weeping and mourning;
16) saying, ‘Woe, woe, the great city, she who was dressed in fine linen, purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls!
17) For in an hour such great riches are made desolate.’ Every shipmaster, and everyone who sails anywhere, and mariners, and as many as gain their living by sea, stood far away,
18) and cried out as they looked at the smoke of her burning, saying, ‘What is lik