In Matthew 24:24, Christ warned about an end time deception that would be very effective, even against the believers, if that were possible.\u00a0 His and other biblical warnings are seldom mentioned in the circles of heretics.\u00a0 It is like a corporate moratorium has been declared against confronting heresy. \u00a0That has at least two effects on discernment.\u00a0 First, it opens the gates wide so that anything can come in.\u00a0 I say \u201canything,\u201d but I mean it is actually anything but truth.\u00a0 Second, it nearly annihilates any quest for truth.<\/p>\n
Heresy has replaced truth as most desirable by professing Christians.\u00a0 It has become so clever that it is sometimes difficult to tell the difference.\u00a0 The heretics use, and teach their deluded subjects to use, Christian terms.\u00a0 In fact, it is nearly impossible to discern between people with the form of godliness, and the ones with true godliness.\u00a0 The former deny the power of godliness, and the latter embrace it.\u00a0 Further, the former involve the flesh in everything religious.\u00a0 The latter involve the Holy Spirit.<\/p>\n
Godliness in the Greek, is eusebia<\/em>, which means, \u201creverence, respect, and piety toward God.\u201d\u00a0 The mark of most heretics and their subjects is that they do not possess these qualities. \u00a0Consider the way they carelessly handle the word of God, adding words, or leaving words out, to force it to their particular conclusion.\u00a0 They misinterpret clear verses, misquote God\u2019s word, and then defend the misquote as if it were truth. The major error is, taking God\u2019s word out of context.\u00a0 This shows an irreverence and disrespect for God\u2019s word.\u00a0 If they do not reverence and respect His word, how can they reverence and respect God?\u00a0 Further, how can they love Him?<\/p>\n The apostle Paul also prophesied a coming great deception, delusion, and apostasy.\u00a0 Consider very carefully his words.\u00a0 This is essential to understanding what is happening today.<\/p>\n \u201cThe coming of the\u00a0lawless one<\/em>\u00a0is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders,\u00a0and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved.\u201d \u2013 2 Thess. 2:9-10<\/p>\n The NKJV says \u201caccording to\u201d and the KJV says \u201cafter the working of\u201d Satan.\u00a0 The implication is the same.\u00a0 It means that the lawless one, who is the Antichrist, will not manifest until after the working of Satan<\/em> with all power, signs, lying wonders, and unrighteous deception.\u00a0 First, it sounds like the time we are living in right now.\u00a0 Second, it means that the Antichrist will find the religious realm prepared for him.\u00a0 Professing Christians obsessed with signs\u00a0and wonders are primary targets.\u00a0 The ones who flit about chasing every heretic with a new twist, and every false prophet that glibly spills out his prophesies, will already be completely prepared to accept the Antichrist.\u00a0 They will have no clue that it is him!\u00a0\u00a0 That time is now!<\/p>\n Will they not recognize pure evil?\u00a0 No!\u00a0 They do not recognize the working of Satan today, although it is having devastating consequences.\u00a0 They do not recognize books, such as those by Sarah Young, Ann Voskamp, and Rick Warren (to name a few) that are heretical and damaging to Christianity.\u00a0 In fact, by the millions they buy books by Rob Bell, Rick Warren, and other heretics. \u00a0They attend conferences and other events that use major heretics as speakers. \u00a0They join in ecumenism with false religions.\u00a0 They love the false prophets and their lying signs and wonders.<\/p>\n They cannot recognize a false prophet or prophecy, and sit by the thousands under ministers who are incredible heretics.\u00a0 Even when their heretic is caught in homosexual pedophilia, they may give him a standing ovation and crown him as a king (see Bishop Eddie Long).\u00a0 Their heretic commits adultery, consorts with male or female prostitutes, uses drugs, and lives in complete luxury, yet the adulaters never cease to adore him or her.<\/p>\n They worship with demons during worship services being led by unrighteous people, using music written by unrighteous people.\u00a0 They throw off all the restraints on their flesh, and call it a \u201cmove of the Holy Spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n One more factor is, they have no genuine scriptural standard and are taught to abhor one when it is presented.\u00a0 Their standard is to accept and defend the working of Satan.\u00a0 Anyone who opposes it will be rejected and even personally attacked.\u00a0 It is a very common and repeated paradigm.<\/p>\n What can be done?\u00a0 Sadly, we are in the last days.\u00a0 There is nothing in God\u2019s word that says we can get through to them and deliver them.\u00a0 We should try.\u00a0 We do not know the depth someone may be toward accepting the working of Satan.\u00a0 We should also never underestimate the power of the word of God when used by the Holy Spirit.\u00a0 God\u2019s word indicates that many will not be delivered.\u00a0 I have witnessed clear evidence of this fact when reaching out to them.<\/p>\n The factor that will cause them to accept truth is love for truth.\u00a0 They reject it.\u00a0 When that occurs, it is clearly indicated by their disrespect for God and His word.\u00a0 It is also indicated by their reaction when truth is presented against their heresy.\u00a0 They have no scriptural response.\u00a0 Heretics have convinced an entire generation or more to venture outside of God\u2019s word for their \u201cevidence\u201d or premise.\u00a0 By removing the restriction to using extra-biblical knowledge for the establishing of doctrine and practices, they have consigned their followers to a path without a compass.\u00a0 Satan will be very happy to provide directions.<\/p>\n To avoid this fatal snare, one must first be committed to the word of God.\u00a0 One must pray, and not just a few minutes each day.\u00a0 He or she must be willing to endure rejection, verbal harassment, and ostracization by friends and possibly family. One must avoid everything new.\u00a0 Avoid the crowd.\u00a0 The crowd today is the broad-path group.\u00a0 Reject everything that troubles the Holy Spirit.\u00a0 Cultivate the spiritual eyes and ears by studying God\u2019s word.\u00a0 Recognize that you are in an unprecedented battle.\u00a0 Find a group of like-minded believers, no matter how small it is.\u00a0 Finally, don\u2019t become obsessed with anything in the world system.\u00a0 Make your greatest love Christ Jesus and His truth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In Matthew 24:24, Christ warned about an end time deception that would be very effective, even against the believers, if that were possible.\u00a0 His and other biblical warnings are seldom mentioned in the circles of heretics.\u00a0 It is like a corporate moratorium has been declared against confronting heresy. \u00a0That has at least two effects on […]<\/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-947","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-fh","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947"}],"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=947"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":969,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947\/revisions\/969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}