The Deception

First things first:  We can never forget who our enemy is.  He’s the master of lies.  He can deceive the smartest and wisest of us with tricks he’s used and refined time and time again.  He’s been working hard to deceive the human race for six thousand years or so. Anyone who thinks they can outsmart him or outguess him had better think again. He wants everyone who believes there is a God to believe that they will be saved, when they’re not saved. He wants to be worshiped as a god, himself. If we believe in Allah and are comfortable that we’ll go to heaven when we die, he’s done with his work and can focus more attention on someone who’s searching for the one true God.  Of course, our enemy would prefer that we don’t believe in God at all.  He’s called Satan, Lucifer, the devil, the dragon, the father of lies, etc.  He uses people to help him deceive others by convincing people that a lie is truth so those people will teach that lie to others.  Here’s a great lie that has stumped many a Muslim. Muslims will admit that Jesus Christ was a true prophet, but deny that He was the Messiah (although some Western Muslims will say He was anointed), they will deny that He was God manifested in the flesh as of the Son of God (John 1:14), and they will deny that He died on the cross and rose again.  Does that make sense?  Absolutely not; but most Muslims have never even thought of this because they believe the lie so deeply that they don’t question their faith.  That belief cannot be truth because Jesus Christ Himself said He was the Messiah, and said He was the Son of God!

John 4:26 Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he.

John 9:35 Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when he had found him, he said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God? 36 He answered and said, Who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him? 37 And Jesus said unto him, Thou hast both seen him, and it is he that talketh with thee.

Mark 14:61 Again the high priest asked him, and said unto him, Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? 62 And Jesus said, I am

That would make Him a false prophet according to the Muslim beliefs!  How twisted is that?  But it’s a lie believed by one and a half billion people.  We absolutely must believe that Jesus Christ is God manifest in the flesh, was crucified for our sins and rose again.  This is the gospel!

Second:  If something is spelled out in the bible in one place, but there’s a passage elsewhere that seems like it might say something different but isn’t very clear, believe the thing that is spelled out!  So many people try to lead others down a false path of “interpretation” by showing them things that aren’t specifically pointing out an exact truth and giving them their “definition” of that mysterious passage.  This is the mystery of God.  He did it on purpose to give those who don’t love the truth the excuses they seek.  Don’t listen to those people, or read those commentaries and explanations of the bible without examining the rest of the bible.  The bible is full of hard to understand phrases and passages, and it’s mostly due to the cultural differences of the time and people.  The bible almost always specifically points out the truth, usually in more than one place, and the bible cannot lie!  The bible cannot contradict itself, and anyone who tries to convince you that it can is telling you that God is a liar!  Don’t listen to them!  Read the bible for yourself!  And never forget; there is great danger in taking scripture verses out of context and misinterpreting them!

There are many, many warnings of false teaching.

For example:

Col 2:8 Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.

2 Cor 11:3 But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.

In the end time, the time we’re living in right now, Jesus says that there will be many false prophets (men who don’t teach the truth but pretend to come in the name of Jesus) and they will deceive many.

Matt 24:11 And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.

Please don’t allow someone you trust to bend your mind.  Seek God’s truth with your whole heart and He will lead you to it!  If you already have ideas or things that you’ve believed for years, try to have an open mind and forget those things for a while and really search for the truth!  I’m not saying you can’t go back to that thinking, because for all I know you could be right, but try to make a way for new truths to come into your mind without immediately discarding them.  If it’s truth, God will reveal it to you through His word.

Most people won’t get it though.

For the Scriptures to mesh and comply completely, totally, and exactly with each other requires a very narrow, restrictive and precise interpretation that produces an exact truth that "only a few" understand and comply with.

Matt 7:13 Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: 14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

The sinful self-will of man desires a wide, broad, vague, ambiguous and confusing interpretation that does not focus on the sin in his life.

2 Tim 4:3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; 4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.

Have you ever heard someone talk about the mystery of God?  God couched things in mystery and wrote the bible in such a way that you won’t understand it unless you love the truth and seek Him with all your heart!  Some will say it’s a matter of interpretation, but there is only one truth, and no “interpretation” can change that.  Don’t allow the people that have been fooled to fool you with their fables and lies!

And God gives them the excuses they want, so they feel comfortable with the lie!

2 Thessalonians 2:10 And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. 11 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:

You must love the truth and seek God with all your heart or God will send a strong delusion so that you will believe the lies!

Matt 13:10 And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables? 11 He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. 12 For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath. 13 Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. 14 And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive: 15 For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.

Some people refuse to believe the truth because then they would have to change their life, and God gives them all the excuses they want with the mystery He wove into in the bible!  The mystery of God separates the truth seekers from the excuse seekers.

2 Cor 4:3 But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: 4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

The bible teaches that we will be persecuted.

2 Tim 3:12 Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.

Nobody likes to be made fun of or be the minority, but:

If you’re in the mainstream of “religion”; if you believe what most people believe, I would seriously start reading the bible for yourself and asking God to show you his truth!

I have to tell you a little story here, and I’ll try to keep it short…

I was raised in a Baptist church when I was young and my family moved to a more liberal Protestant belief in my early teens.  My little brother died when I was 11 and I started turning away from God at that point in my life, blaming Him and hating Him for what I thought He did.  I thought God caused my little brother to die, and I also blamed myself for not being there to save him.  Today, I know that this wasn’t the truth.  It wasn’t God who killed him and it certainly wasn’t up to me to be there to save him.  But I didn’t understand that as a boy.  Today, I understand that things changed because of sin, and that the evil in people’s hearts and the deceit of Satan is enough to create the horrible and awful things that happen in the world today.  I spent about 30 years turning away from God.  I did many things I'm not proud of during that time.  I don't want anyone to think badly of me, but I'll be honest with you and tell you that I did drugs, alcohol, crime, etc...  I followed the world and the ways of man down the wrong path.  I should be dead many times over, but God kept me alive all that time and brought me to where I am today, and I cannot praise His name or thank Him enough!  If I had died back then, I do not believe I would have gone to be with Jesus.  That's a very sobering thought.  When I finally returned and began seeking God, I found myself in a church very similar to the liberal protestant churches I went to as a child.  I believed I was in the right place and could trust the men who led the church to teach the truth.  I went to bible studies and regular services and began seeking the truth, wanting to know God and understand His Word.  After a while, I began noticing a lot of discrepancy between the things that were said and what I was reading in the bible.  I knew nothing different, but I kept feeling a nagging tug and felt something wasn’t quite right.  So, I started reading the bible myself and searching for understanding.  After a while, I began asking my pastor about the things that I’d found in the bible and I simply could not believe the lame excuses he gave me for the reasons he taught the way he did!  Don’t get me wrong here, I’m not slamming anyone or saying that your pastor or minister is wrong or that you’re not being taught the truth, I’m simply relating my story as it happened to me.  I was totally amazed at how he manipulated scripture to make what he wanted to be true, seem like truth; but the truth was easy to see when I read what he quoted and read the entire book or chapter to see what it really meant.  I especially gained a much greater understanding of God’s Word the first time I read the New Testament in its entirety.  My point is, that I thought I was truly saved and thought I knew the truth because I didn’t know any better, but when I started really searching for Gods truth, he led me right to it!  The whole point of this book is to hopefully inspire others, like yourself, to do the same!

What we need to do is read the bible ourselves and read it so much that we know it well enough to know when a pastor is not teaching the truth.  We definitely want to find a church where the truth is being taught, but what’s most important is that we understand Gods truth in our own heart and mind.  If you find yourself in a church that is not teaching truth; walk away and find one that is.