Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split, and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the graves after His resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many. (Matthew 27:51-53)<\/p>\n
The night after the crucifixion of Christ must have been unsettling for the ones who were responsible for the death of God\u2019s Son.\u00a0 And how could they have slept with all the supernatural events occurring in the night?\u00a0 They must have considered that it was possible that they had crucified the Son of God.\u00a0 But after Christ rose from the dead, they tried to suppress that information as well.\u00a0 They continued to persecute Christians in an attempt to defeat the work of God in spite of the fact that miracles continued.\u00a0 This indicates that they were deceived beyond deliverance.\u00a0 They could not be delivered from the deception no matter how great the evidence that they were wrong.<\/p>\n
Christ prophesied that another equally intense and deadly period of deception will arrive with the last days.\u00a0 The ones who fall into its snare will undoubtedly not be recovered.\u00a0 If that were not true, He would not have warned us so strongly about it and with implications of eternal consequences.\u00a0 It will be the final deception.\u00a0 Individuals will pass from this deception into delusion and then apostasy, a complete abandonment of faith in Christ.\u00a0 All of the ingredients for a malignant, worldwide, apostasy are present in the world today.<\/p>\n
I believe that the period of great deception has arrived.\u00a0 Professing Christians that refuse to avail themselves of information are in denial about the great deception, apostasy and the possibility that we are in the last days.\u00a0 Their willful ignorance is part of the reason deception has worked so well, grown and spread so rapidly.\u00a0 However, if one is not aware of the enemy, he will certainly do him or her harm.\u00a0 To be without essential knowledge is to be susceptible.\u00a0 Not being aware of deception is an invitation to Satan to come forth as a devouring lion.<\/p>\n
There are two solid facts about deception.\u00a0 The first is that no one knows when he or she is deceived.\u00a0 Second, no one can be delivered from deception that does not believe he or she is deceived.\u00a0 Therefore, one must be convinced that he or she is deceived before deliverance can occur.\u00a0 However, there are two types of deceived people.\u00a0 One type will continue to believe in their doctrine in spite of evidence normally sufficient to defeat or expose it.\u00a0 That is the definition of delusion.\u00a0 The other type is non-delusional and may be convinced that they are in error.\u00a0 The only factor that determines whether a non-delusional individual becomes delusional is love for truth.\u00a0 Loving ones belief system may appear as love for truth, but that is not necessarily true.\u00a0 One must love truth, and his or her belief system is the result, not necessarily the object, of that love.\u00a0 Individual\u2019s that do not love truth can be convinced of anything but truth.<\/p>\n
To illustrate how powerful and widespread the deception has become, consider the following statistics.\u00a0 There are approximately 41,000 Christian dominations and organizations worldwide.\u00a0 A statistic from the late 1980\u2019s indicated that over 270 (about 5 per week) denominations were being added yearly.\u00a0 They are divided over at least one point of doctrine.\u00a0 Imagine 41,000 denominations and their constituents (2.1 billion people) believing beyond reasonable doubt that they are right, while equally believing that everyone else is wrong.\u00a0 At the onset, each of the groups of professing Christians declared that no existing denomination had correct doctrine, so they were led by God to form another one.\u00a0 These statistics indicate that a very large number of people including professing Christians are deceived to some extent.\u00a0 They cannot all be right and in God\u2019s perfect will or else being wrong does not matter.\u00a0 Additionally, there are several billion people involved in non-Christian religions that also believe that they are right.\u00a0 In fact, of the over 7 billion people that populate the earth that are in their right mind and are old enough to reason about spiritual matters, nearly everyone has settled on a belief system and are certain that they are right.<\/p>\n
How did Christianity arrive at this point?\u00a0 No doubt deception was a factor.\u00a0 To understand it more clearly consider that most of the division occurred over peripheral doctrine.\u00a0 Of course, it is common for most denominations to be right on the essentials, and wrong on peripheral doctrine.\u00a0 However, while all essential doctrine is explicit in the Scriptures, nearly all peripheral doctrine is inferred.\u00a0 When peripheral doctrine becomes essential doctrine or is added to essential doctrine, another denomination is born.\u00a0 Peripheral doctrine is difficult to determine and debate because there are no clear scriptures for its basis.\u00a0 Therefore, it is defended because of emotional attachment, or because it has become essential to denominational affiliation.\u00a0 After peripheral doctrine passes down to the third generation, it may be equated with essential doctrine.<\/p>\n
Another danger of elevating peripheral doctrine to essential status is that it opens a door for heresy to be added to ones belief system.\u00a0 Having no clear scriptural basis, peripheral doctrine can be infiltrated by or merged with heresy including paganism.\u00a0 Without explicit scriptures to ward off heresy, peripheral doctrine can easily become \u201cwild card\u201d doctrine, mutating into doctrine that produces dangerous practices such as contemplative prayer.\u00a0 Only individuals that have discernment, or that understand the continuum of God\u2019s divine order, are capable of recognizing such an infection of heresy.\u00a0 The soteriology of some professing Christians does not permit any eternal consequences of being doctrinally wrong.\u00a0 Thus, the banter about heresy and deception for them is more of a game than a battle of life or death.<\/p>\n
The bottom line is that we dwell in a vast evil domain where powerful satanic forces prey at will on the masses of secular individuals, adherents of false religions, and professing Christians that are not grounded in truth, making no distinction.\u00a0 As the deception thickens and delusion spreads, it will become increasingly more difficult to detect it with our senses.\u00a0 We will have to rely more heavily on the leading of the Holy Spirit.\u00a0 It will be like walking through \u201cthe valley of the shadow of death\u201d with our eyes closed.\u00a0 God is more than able to lead us through.\u00a0 However, we have to be diligent in preparing ourselves for this period.\u00a0 There must be truth in us in order for the Holy Spirit to be able to guide us.\u00a0 If one falls into the final deception, he or she may not be delivered from the deception no matter how great the evidence that it is wrong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split, and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the graves after His resurrection, they went into the holy […]<\/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-321","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-5b","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321"}],"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=321"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":322,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321\/revisions\/322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}