<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I believe that one of the most frustrating experiences is communicating with spiritually deceived people.\u00a0 <\/span>A person that is under a spiritual deception does not know that they are thus afflicted.\u00a0 <\/span>So they behave as if they are not deceived.\u00a0 <\/span>Therefore, they believe everyone that disagrees with them is under a deception.\u00a0 <\/span>You can inform them that they are under a deception, and they will reply, \u201cNo, you\u2019re the one that is deceived.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Tell them that they are not being reasonable, and they will accuse you of being unreasonable.\u00a0 <\/span>Explain the truth to them, and they will counter that you are the one who believes a lie, and that they are actually the ones possessing truth.\u00a0 <\/span>Back and forth it goes until a predictable impasse is reached.<\/p>\n In their world everything is okay.\u00a0 <\/span>They view everyone outside of their world as the weird and misled ones.\u00a0 <\/span>They believe that all evidence exposing their deception is somehow rigged.\u00a0 <\/span>Everyone that attempts to expose their deception is either ignorant or is somehow being used by Satan. \u00a0<\/span>There is no reasoning with them because they believe the lie is truth and truth is a lie.\u00a0 <\/span>In fact, they believe exactly the same things about the non-deceived people that are believed about themselves.<\/p>\n So then, how do we reach them?\u00a0 <\/span>It is usually an impossible task.\u00a0 <\/span>You cannot reach a deceived person unless they are humble enough to consider that they might be deceived.\u00a0 <\/span>Deceived individuals demand that non-deceived people agree to those same conditions for discourse.\u00a0 <\/span>Okay, then what determines who is deceived who is not?\u00a0 <\/span>There is only one standard and that is the Word of God. \u00a0<\/span>Many of them claim their beliefs are based on the word of God.\u00a0 <\/span>However, a close inspection of their belief system reveals that it is like a gigantic house perched on top of a very skinny pole. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The truth is that no false doctrines are based on context of the Scriptures.\u00a0 <\/span>All deceived individuals will twist scriptures, take them out of context, apply extra-biblical information, and add either their own opinion or someone else\u2019s.\u00a0 <\/span>They refuse to agree that one sentence or a few words collected from various verses do not a context make.\u00a0 <\/span>They all claim, borrow, and opine, until the skinny pole is set.\u00a0 <\/span>Then they begin to build their great house of doctrine.\u00a0 <\/span>When the work is finished, they seldom point to the skinny pole as their proof of validity, but to the elaborate house built on top of it. \u00a0<\/span>In fact, they sell books, videos, and speak at conferences about their elaborate house.\u00a0 <\/span>They have little to say about the skinny pole until they are challenged.\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Of course, deceived individuals declare exactly the scenario applies to non-deceived people.\u00a0 <\/span>But when they are chased into a corner of flawed logic, they will lash out with ad hominem. \u00a0<\/span>Thus, all discourse ends in a cloud of contention and they go on their way satisfied that they have once again defended their belief system.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n I have tried to reason with deceived people that insist the Word of God says what it does not say.\u00a0 <\/span>I want to say, \u201cNot so fast.\u00a0 <\/span>Let\u2019s put some real estate under that thought before you take the leap to that next mountaintop.\u201d \u00a0<\/span>The fact is that one can stuff non-essential doctrine with a clip of scripture and some expository filling.\u00a0 <\/span>However, a solid context of scripture is necessary for every doctrine of worth. \u00a0<\/span>That is because every step of logic must be upon the solid foundation of the text in context. \u00a0<\/span>Solid footing does not exist on the clouds between two mountains of an attempted logical path.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n Having said all of that, I rest my case on a bit of simple common sense.\u00a0 <\/span>If it is sound doctrine, then it was discovered years ago by better Christians than we are in this age of so-called post-modernity.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>We are not more intelligent or more connected with God than they were.\u00a0 <\/span>What makes us think that God has reserved some great truth for this anemic, pasty, and knock-kneed generation of professing Christians that must be pampered, pandered to, and bottle-fed with sweet pabulum, before they will even attend a church meeting? \u00a0<\/span>I\u2019m with Solomon here; there is nothing new under the sun.\u00a0 <\/span>But if we desire a beautiful house of strange doctrine, Satan is more than willing to supply the skinny pole.<\/p>\n My advice, for all its worth, is to reject everything new until we have finished receiving and obeying all that God has revealed over the last 2000 years.\u00a0 <\/span>Otherwise, one is consigned to sway in the wind on a skinny pole while lashing out at the weird doctrine of deceived people \u201cbelow\u201d him or her.\u00a0 <\/span>You know\u2026doctrines such as Jesus Christ is the only Way, Truth, and Life, the Bible, Prayer, and the Holy Spirit are sufficient, and true Christians ought to bear fruit accordingly.\u00a0 <\/span>Those and other biblical time-honored doctrines are the beliefs of those bizarre folks who dare to build on solid rock.\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I believe that one of the most frustrating experiences is communicating with spiritually deceived people.\u00a0 A person that is under a spiritual deception does not know that they are thus afflicted.\u00a0 So they behave as if they are not deceived.\u00a0 Therefore, they believe everyone that disagrees with them is under a deception.\u00a0 You can inform […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","post-preview"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paIm2N-2O","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=174"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":177,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174\/revisions\/177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}