SPIRITUAL DECEPTION

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SPIRITUAL DECEPTION August, 2004

By Mae Shurow

What I have to say is not conventional, in fact, it is pretty radical. But I believe is an urgent message from our Lord, and I humbly ask that you receive it prayerfully. I only wish to see Him glorified and exalted, and His truth proclaimed; to see people truly saved and my brothers and sisters following hard after the Lord.

Our Lord has been revealing that the “wars and rumors of wars” that will signify His coming are not physical wars but great SPIRITUAL WARS—and the battle is between Truth and Deception! When asked what would be the sign of His coming, Jesus said, “Take heed that no man deceive you…many shall come in my name…and shall deceive many…and ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars…Many false prophets shall arise, and deceive many” (Matt 24:4-6,11).

The Bible is full of the language of warfare—God’s people being robbed, spoiled, killed, and taken into captivity. These are physical examples of what happens to us spiritually when we are deceived and taken captive by Satan. He robs us of our intimacy with God, takes us captive to do His will, and steals our eternal life. Satan’s weapon has always been deception—this is how he makes war with the saints!

· Rev. 12:17 And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.

· Rev 13: 5 And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.

· Rev. 13:13-14 And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, 14And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth …

· Rev. 20:2-3 And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, 3And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.

· Rev. 20:7-8 And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, 8And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. He gathers them to battle for his side by deceiving them!

But Jesus’ makes war with Truth as His weapon.

· Rev. 19:11 And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war.

· Rev. 19:19 And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army.

So, we see that the great battle is between deception and truth. But what we seldom realize is that this deception is not out there in the world—IT IS IN THE CHURCHES!—otherwise it would not deceive us. The deceptive factor in Satan's work has always been for what he does to appear as close to God's Work as is angelically possible (see 2 Corin. 11:13-14).

In Matthew 7:15, Jesus warned, “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.” We have heard that so often that it has become cliché, but think about that, folks! These ravening wolves look like sheep…they look like one of us! Read Matthew 24:5, “…for many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ…” When we read that we usually think of people who claim to be Christ Himself. But if we read it closer, we see that these people not only come in the name of Christ, but that they also come proclaiming that Jesus IS Christ! But they are false prophets, and they are so proficient at it that many will be deceived!

So, deception looks good, sounds good, and feels good! And, on top of that, these false prophets are many times well meaning and well intentioned, but they themselves are deceived!

· 2 Tim. 3:13 But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.

Jesus said in Luke 21:20, “And when ye shall see Jerusalem [that’s the holy place—the church! for the church is spiritual Israel] compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh.” So when these great armies of deception are all around us we can know that the churches will be left desolate or deserted, meaning the Spirit of the Lord will depart.

How does this apply to what is going on in our world today? I will just tell you my experience. About 3 years ago, the Lord had me to stop reading any Christian books except the Bible. He had me stop listening to Christian radio or TV. Then He began to show me from His Word where I had been deceived. IT BLEW MY MIND! He showed me the great lies we have all believed because we have followed the teachings and traditions of men [which are tools of deception]. He began to show me the abominations [abomination means horror. The abomination of desolation standing in the holy place in Matt 24:15 means conditions become so full of horror in the church that the Spirit of God leaves.]

The abominations the Lord has shown me in the churches are:

· Teaching of Eternal Security

· Easy Believism, leading to making false converts. Some common things you are apt to hear is “Just ask Jesus to come into your heart, and He will come in,” or, “All you have to do is pray the sinner’s prayer, and you will be saved.” The trouble with that is it is not in the Bible! The result is that only 10% of “converts” last, because they never understood what they must do to be saved.

· Dispensationalism

· New Age teaching

· Pagan customs

· Psychology in the church. I personally was greatly deceived by this one. The Lord opened my eyes through two years of psychology classes—it was miserable, but believe me, now I know it when I see it! I wept many times as I realized what I learned in secular psychology classes was the exact same things being used in Bible studies and churches! And by men I had greatly respected before: Charles Stanley, James Dobson…to name a very few. The basic premise of psychology is diametrically opposed to the Bible. Psychology says that men are basically good, and with the right conditions can improve. The Bible says we are sinners, and we will never get better. Instead, we must have a Savior!

· A gospel of Health and Wealth

· Other unbiblical teachings too numerous to name.

During the past year, I have been to a lot of different denominations and a lot of different churches, and something is horribly wrong! These churches are full of these great deceptions the Lord has shown me and there is a famine of hearing the words of the Lord! Services and sermons are empty and have no life.

Jeremiah 2:13 says, “For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.” How can we say we have not been polluted (vs.23)?

Jeremiah 7:8-10 says we “trust in lying words that cannot profit…and walk after other gods, and we come and stand before Him in this house, which is called by His name, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations.” Jeremiah 5:31 says, “The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so…” Because of these deceptions, the Lord is withdrawing His Presence from the churches, and His people don’t even notice that He is gone—leaders work up emotion and tell us that’s the Presence of the Holy Spirit. And we believe it. Don’t get me wrong, there IS emotion when the Holy Spirit is present, but just because we become emotional does not automatically mean the Spirit is present.

I beg you to ask Him to show you where you have been deceived. Throw out any other wells of water that you are drinking from and go back to the fountain of living waters. Throw out empty sermons brought by men who speak words that the Lord has not given them—words without Spirit or Life! Unless the Lord births it in someone, they can’t teach it! Read Ezekiel 13: 1-7. What was, is again today.

So I beg you to throw out:

· Traditions of men

· Commentaries

· Modern Christian books

· Study Bibles

· Christian TV or radio

· Sunday School curriculum and quarterlies [Did you know those things are written up in a five-year plan? Where’s the leadership of the Holy Spirit in that?]

· VBS materials Isaiah 55:2 says, “Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labor for that which satisfieth not?…” Ninety-two% of children who grow up in Sunday schools with all the puppets and high-powered entertainment leave 'church' when they leave their parents' home. Instead of filling our children with programs and stories about God we need to teach them how to love God, hear His voice and follow Him, and demonstrate how to live that way. God must be real in our lives for our children to come to know that He is real for themselves.

· Methods, programs and strategies. Purpose Driven Life is the latest. It’s been a best seller for over a year. If it worked, we would have revival by now, wouldn’t you think? It is unbiblical to the core—we don’t have five purposes, we have one purpose: to glorify God. And we do this by being conformed to the image of His Son. All else flows from that…And I won’t even go into the canned sermons by Rick Warren that they recommend all the participants use!

· Anything by man! Even those “read-through-the-Bible” plans distract from reading where God would have you read—!

All these things are form without substance, empty religion. Biblical terminology for this is “in vain,” and means, “emptiness, state or condition not occupied, vanity, nothingness, i.e. not having any advantage, benefit, or result, delusions, fantasies, i.e. that which is unreal. It is used repeatedly to describe the vanity of human plans and efforts in the face of God’s will.” It means God is not in it—and we’re trying to build God’s House with man-made tools.

Brothers and sisters, all these things—and many more I have not mentioned!—are a horror to the Father of All Glory. We don’t really think God can do it, so we follow false prophets, rely on other means, trust in self, man, programs, all the things we go to because we can’t, won’t, or don’t hear the guidance of His voice. We don’t believe He is really REAL! I weep, I mourn, because of these horrors in the churches.

But, I beg you, don’t take my word for any of this. Go to the pure undefiled Word of God and ask Him to reveal His Truth in this day of great deception. We are truly at war, and our weapon is the TRUTH found only in the “SWORD OF THE SPIRIT, WHICH IS THE WORD OF GOD.”

When we read Ephesians 6:10-18 with all this in view, we see it in a different light. It is not merely about the personal struggles we face daily, although those are real. There is a battle of cosmic proportions being fought in the heavenlies. We think it’s horrible that people are being killed in the Middle East, but the devil has been a liar and a murderer (John 8:44) from the beginning. He comes to steal, and to kill, and to destroy (John 10:10). And people are falling victim to his deception inside of our churches, and they are destroyed for all eternity. The Bible says we are to be warriors who need to be ever vigilant, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching (keeping our spiritual eyes wide open, watching for deception!) with all perseverance, that we may stand and not succumb to deception in the evil day. Jesus, too, when speaking of the end, warned us to watch and pray always…

“Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may
be accounted worthy to escape all these things
that shall come to pass, and to stand before
the Son of man.” Luke 21:36

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*All emphasis mine.