Published May 7, 2025 – Download PDF:  05.07.25.Those Most Hostile to the Holy Spirit in Our Day

In John 12:9-11, we see that a great multitude was coming to see Jesus and Lazarus, whom He had raised from the dead.  But there was another crowd; a religious crowd; a crowd who hated Jesus.  Their members included the chief priests who were conspiring not only to kill Lazarus, but Jesus as well (Lk 12:10).  They were the religious leaders of the day.  They had power and control over the people that they were supposed to be ministering to, but they loved their position more than they cared for the privilege they had been given from the Lord to shepherd His people.

Jesus had refused to submit to their hypocrisy, the authority and position that they had already abdicated by not following Scriptures or Holy Spirit.  So it is in our day.  Many “pastors” refuse to submit to the Scriptures or the Spirit of Jesus; choosing rebellion, they walk in lawlessness.  They no longer abide in the Vine, Jesus, by the Spirit of Christ.  They do not know His voice, and if they do, they refuse to follow.  Therefore, they have chosen to cut themselves off from Christ, forgetting that they can do nothing without Him (Jn 15:5).

But what are they doing?  They are actively building up the kingdom of darkness, having already been deceived by Satan.  Every day they continue to follow the path of disobedience and wickedness, following the impulses of the flesh and the directives of Hell.  They are the blind leading the blind into darkness, away from the True Shepherd, Jesus Christ.  They are productively working to be dried up branches that will be thrown away and cast into the fires of Hell (Jn 15:16).  Unless they repent, they will be stripped of their position and authority because they have operated every day in lawlessness and rebellious acts against the Lord and against His Christ.  Because of their acts, and those of other ministers of the Gospel that likewise spurn the Holy Spirit, the Lord declares that great judgment will fall upon them if they do not repent.

Having refused to follow the One who is the Life, loving their lives, position, authority, money and the praise of men, they will lose everything because the Lord Himself will strip everything from them (Lk 16:14-15).  Make no mistake, their eternal souls are at risk, having become “dry branches” ripe for burning.  If you are a follower of one of these so-called ministers, run the other way!  Do not enable them with your money!  Be free of their sin!  Better to study the Bible with like-minded souls or by yourself at home, than to risk your own soul being polluted and swept away from the coming judgment that is coming to the Church of Jesus Christ and His unfaithful stewards.

It is because they opened themselves up to darkness and have given Satan not only a place, but a dominant place within the Church (Eph 4:27 YLT), that America has been polluted from border to border and from sea to shining sea (Pr 25:26; Isa 24:5; Jer 23:11, 15).  Many Church leaders, to say nothing of the Church as a whole, have given themselves a pass on being obedient to the One who purchased them by His blood.  Similar to a farmer giving a fox the responsibility of guarding a chicken coop, wicked ministers who Paul warned against, calling them “dogs” (Phil 3:2), have scattered and destroyed the flock.  David cried out, prophesying about Christ’s crucifixion praying, “For dogs have surrounded me; A band of evildoers has encompassed me; They pierced my hands and my feet.” (Ps 22:16 NASB95)

Who stood scoffing while Jesus was dying on the cross?  Instigating the persecution and conspiring to murder Jesus, it was the religious leaders of the day!  They were the dogs David prophesied about.  They were the ones who allowed the hatred that Hell has for the Son of God to pour out of their hearts.  Having already shut the doors of the church in which they rule against the Holy Spirit, many of today’s pastors and ministers will do anything they can to kill the move of the Spirit that will come to the earth.  To them the Holy Spirit proclaims, “Change or perish!”  These ministers of Hell must repent, forsaking the world and the wisdom of men.

They stand in defiance against the Christ and the New Covenant of the Spirit foretold through the prophet Jeremiah:

Jeremiah 31:31–34 (NASB95)

³¹ “Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, ³² not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord. ³³ “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the Lord, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. ³⁴ “They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the Lord, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”

In like manner, these “ministerial” dogs, these wolves in sheep’s clothing, dare to stand in defiance against the prophecies of the outpouring and work of the Holy Spirit spoken of in Joel 2:28-32 and Isa 28:11.  They have turned away from the words of John the Baptist who proclaimed, “As for me, I baptize you with water; but One is coming who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to untie the thong of His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” (Lk 3:16).  If that isn’t bad enough, they have forsaken the prophecies of Jesus related to the coming of the Spirit and His ongoing work in the Church found in Mk 16:1; Jn 7:37-38 & chapters 14-17 and Acts 1:5, 7-8, which only began to be fulfilled in Acts 2 – we are still in the last days!  These false ministers, who are fig trees without fruit, will learn that the Lord watches over His word to perform it (Jer 1:12).  He will deal with them as unfaithful stewards, wicked slaves (Mt 25:24-30; Lk 19:14-27) and as wicked vine-growers whom He will bring to a wretched end (Mt 21:33-41; Mk 12:1-11).

Many pastors and ministers are those who hate the Holy Spirit moving in power, just as Stephen was hated for proclaiming the truth – “You men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears are always resisting the Holy Spirit; you are doing just as your fathers did.” (Acts 7:51 NASB95).  For example, I was recently in a conversation with a woman that had attended a well-known mega-church in our area.  As the Spirit began to move in me, the Lord revealed that He had a message for her.  I asked her if she would be ok with my stepping out in tongues and interpreting, asking if she had ever heard anyone speak in tongues.  She said she had, but only once, where during the service at this mega-church the pastor’s mother was on the platform and was moved to step out in tongues but was suddenly stopped by her son!  This type of behavior from a pastor is exactly what grieving the Holy Spirit looks like.

However, when I stepped out in tongues and interpreted, the Holy Spirit brought a timely, reassuring message describing exactly what this woman had just began to experience just 30 days prior.  As I shared what the Spirit was revealing to me, her eyes were filled with tears, and she knew that that He had touched her heart in a profound way.  I had no idea what she had experienced, but the Holy Spirit did.

For those who follow spiritual dogs and wolves, they place themselves at significant risk of being destroyed by the judgment the Lord that will pour out against the Church, “for none are as guilty as My Church!”  Why would the Lord say such a thing?  It is because the Church has placed itself against the divine will of the Lord, and nothing will stand in His will; not even those who claim to “follow” Him.  Yet, they have spurned His word, they have preached lies, they have served dirty water and moldy bread to His sheep, deceiving them by presenting a half-truth of “not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.”  (Heb 10:25a)  However, this carefully crafted, yet Satanic lie, is dismantled by the fact that the Lord has no obligation to visit the company of the rebellious other than for the purpose of bringing destruction.

These are the days when the Lord is saying to those who love and follow the Holy Spirit to come out of “churches” that are no more than false facades, temples of idols, filled with the spirit of Babylon and everything that stands against the rule of the Lord:

Isaiah 52:11 (NASB95)

¹¹ Depart, depart, go out from there, Touch nothing unclean; Go out of the midst of her, purify yourselves, You who carry the vessels of the Lord.

Jeremiah 51:6 (NASB95)

⁶ Flee from the midst of Babylon, And each of you save his life! Do not be destroyed in her punishment, For this is the Lord’s time of vengeance; He is going to render recompense to her.

Ezekiel 20:36–39 (NASB95)

³⁶ “As I entered into judgment with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so I will enter into judgment with you,” declares the Lord God. ³⁷ “I will make you pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant; ³⁸ and I will purge from you the rebels and those who transgress against Me; I will bring them out of the land where they sojourn, but they will not enter the land of Israel. Thus you will know that I am the Lord. ³⁹ “As for you, O house of Israel,” thus says the Lord God, “Go, serve everyone his idols; but later you will surely listen to Me, and My holy name you will profane no longer with your gifts and with your idols.

2 Corinthians 6:14–18 (NASB95, emphasis mine)

¹⁴ Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? ¹⁵ Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? ¹⁶ Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said, “I will dwell in them and walk among them; And I will be their God, and they shall be My people. ¹⁷ “Therefore, come out from their midst and be separate,” says the Lord. “And do not touch what is unclean; And I will welcome you. ¹⁸ “And I will be a father to you, And you shall be sons and daughters to Me,” Says the Lord Almighty.

Revelation 18:4–5 (NASB95)

⁴ I heard another voice from heaven, saying, “Come out of her, my people, so that you will not participate in her sins and receive of her plagues; ⁵ for her sins have piled up as high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.

For the Lord has revealed that with great wrath He will bring judgment to His Church and to the entirety of the United States of America.  As of this writing He has brought a reprieve, but He surely will bring His wrath and His judgment against this country.  As He has said to me, “Woe to those who stand against Me in the day of My wrath!” so He will do.

The time has come to forsake all and follow Jesus.  If family and friends will not follow or agree with your decision, the choice is simple:  Follow Jesus and receive honor from Him for being a faithful servant of the Most Hight God.  Jesus stated, “Do you suppose that I came to grant peace on the earth?  I tell you, no, but rather division; for form now on five members in one household will be divided, three against two, and two against three; They will be divided, father against son; mother against daughter, and daughter against mother; mother-in-law against daughter-in-law, and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.” (Lk 12:53)  The cost to follow Jesus is high; we must lose our life to save it.

The time has come to choose.  The Spirit of Jesus is still proclaiming the words of Joshua saying, “…choose for yourselves today whom you will serve.” (Joshua 24:15a, NASB95)

Judgment is at hand.  The time to decide to yield and obey to the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, is now; He is the Lord!  We dare not grieve Him.

Mark C. Biteler