For many will come in My name,
claiming, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive
many.–Matthew 24:5 from the Berean Bible Version
https://bereanbible.com/bsb-book.pdf
The Ways Christians are Deceived
These are by far not the only ways to be deceived…it’s just the ones I see around me.
- The first way Christians are deceived it because they don’t read the Word themselves. They don’t know or understand the scriptures and so don’t know the nature of God.
John MacArthur’s states in his book Reckless Faith “Federal agents don’t learn to spot counterfeit money by studying the counterfeits. They study genuine bills until they master the look of the real thing. Then when they see the bogus money they recognize it.” This statement was like a light going off because of the truth it holds. When you know something intimately, you won’t be fooled by an imposter or fake. I think about the identical twins I’ve known in my life and how at first I couldn’t tell one from the other, but over time I came to recognize the differences between them and could not be tricked into mistaking one for the other, even when they tried.
We MUST know the Word through personal study where we compare verse with verse… and understand what the Word is saying…. in doing this we come to know the nature of God and who Jesus is and how the Holy Spirit works in our lives. There is no substitution…. we can’t simply attend church every week and listen to good sermons about God… we have to be invested in the word ourselves. INTIMACY WITH GOD IS NOT SOMETHING YOU GET FROM SOMEONE ELSE… like the 5 foolish virgins who needed oil for their lamps when the bride groom came calling to meet them in the night…they asked the 5 wise virgins who had gotten oil for their lamps to share what they had, but they couldn’t share their oil, or they wouldn’t have enough oil.
If you don’t take time to know God yourself and to read his Word…you’ll be a sitting duck for deception. - Believing doctrines that fit your lifestyle, instead of your lifestyle being changed to reflect your doctrine. An example of this are the Word of Faith and Prosperity Movements, Manifesting and Any church that doesn’t call sinners to repentance and instead accepts a sinful lifestyle, like with the churches that support gay marriages. Any doctrine that changes to allow a person to sin and still feel they are ok with God. A person can be attending a sound doctrinal church and still fall into this by twisting scripture to justify their sinful or self-indulgent behavior instead of coming to repentance on a personal level.
2 Timothy 4:3-4 (Berean Bible Version)For the time will come when men will not tolerate sound doctrine, but with itching ears they will gather around themselves teachers to suit their own desires.4 So they will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. - People will be deceived because they don’t know the Word of God and because they are led by their lust into accepting a false belief (false Gospel/false Jesus) that soothes their need for a relationship with God while allowing them to continue in a life of sin.
It basically comes down to not knowing the Word of God….and not being completely committed to Jesus in humility. We need to be humble in our opinions of ourselves…for by grace are we saved.
James 1:14
But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.
Luke 14:26-27 26 If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.27 And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.
(The word hate here means —-(c) of relative preference for one thing over another, by way of expressing either aversion from, or disregard for, the claims of one person or thing relatively to those of another, Mat 6:24; and Luk 16:13, as to the impossibility of serving two masters; Luk 14:26, as to the claims of parents relatively to those of Christ; Jhn 12:25, of disregard for one’s life relatively to the claims of Christ; Eph 5:29, negatively, of one’s flesh, i.e. of one’s own, and therefore a man’s wife as one with him.—- blue letters are links to the concordance and dictionary)
We come to Jesus with a heart that we are willing and ready to make him Lord above all things…. and this includes our sins. We can’t come to Jesus and expect to continue living a sinful lifestyle. Furthermore, we must be willing to allow Jesus to change us, and this starts by acknowledging our sin as SIN. We change our minds about sin and determine to stop following a sinful life and start following Jesus. We may still sin… and it may take a while to get delivered… but we must mortify the sins we commit and seek to serve God and Jesus instead.
Repenting and turning away from sin is part of receiving Jesus as our Savior…. and yet so many either take repentance out of the equation or they change the meaning of scripture so that the sin isn’t sinful with the false interpretation they attribute to it.
So, any time we seek to change the truth into a lie…. we are deceived and will be led away if we don’t repent.
Romans 1:21-32
21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,23 And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,31 Without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:32 Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.
Angie's Bible Study 