(Ver 1.2) Today is Part 1 in a Bible study series focused upon how Satan can even deceive people who say they are Christians.  Jesus speaking to the disciples in Matthew 24:4 warned them “take heed that no man deceive you”. There are preachers today that believe true and real saved Christians cannot be deceived to fall or turn away from Jesus.  It is unfortunate that Jesus did not understand this belief or he would not have warned us that we could be deceived.  This Bible study series will focus upon how we can find examples of deception taking place in the world today within the lives of people that say they are Christians.  So let us get started with the first example.

I really do not enjoy criticizing other Christians and I plan to never name their names.  I realize there are no perfect people in the world including me.  But occasionally someone just stands out above the rest as the most incredibly deceived person that calls themselves a Christian that I’ve ever heard of.  Yesterday while watching the evening news a story came across the network about a pastor who was going to battle Satan by holding a book burning on Halloween.  At first glance this probably does not sound like a bad idea to many Christians, but I was floored when the news anchor started naming the list of materials that he was planning on burning.  At first I thought the preacher was going to share about burning Heavy Metal songs, Punk, Rap lyrics, Cult Materials, Porn or other types of similar literature.  However, the shocker came when they interviewed the preacher and he said he was going to burn Bibles.  Obviously this is what got him on a major news network for public TV consumption.  I really thought this man was joking at first.  But I gathered from hearing this plan of this preacher that it was true and that he was dead serious on carrying it out. 

According to this preacher and I use that term very loosely, only the King James version of the Bible was divinely inspired and came from God and all of the other versions of the Bible were works of Satan.  I really don’t understand how dumb or blinded someone can become and still be called a Christian.  How did this man arrive at such a foolish opinion.  What would cause someone to think any Bible could not be used by God.  That seems to be putting God in a box of severe limitation.

You know what I have discovered about people?  It seems that the people who know the least amount of truth are many times the most vocal and opinionated against God. It sounds to be that this preacher has his head buried so deep that he doesn’t recognize the difference between good and evil.  The Bible actually warns us in Isaiah 5:20 “Woe unto them that call evil good and good, evil”.  To burn any translations of the Bible and call it the works of Satan is an incredibly deceived action.

Satan is not in the business of helping people to read and understand the Bible.  If Satan had his way there would be absolutely no Bibles available to anyone and obviously he has convinced at least one preacher to help him get rid of them.  How many of you realize that there are no perfect translations of the Bible available in print?  Did you know that every translation of the Bible has some slanted perspective and/or opinion of the translator mixed with it?  The King James Bible while it is the one that I use predominately, I have found many problems with the translation.   Obviously by me making that statement of truth, I just got on someone’s heretic and false teacher list.  But we must all know that only the original Hebrew and Greek text contains the  inspired (God Breathed) words from God’s mouth without errors.  We should all just learn Hebrew and Greek and fix this problem shouldn’t we?  I guess not, what we should do is just study to show our self approved a workmen unto God who rightly divides the word of truth (2 Tim 2:15). 

My guess is this man is also one of those preachers who claims “tongues” is of the devil.  It is sad how Christian people have been so easily deceived into believing such untrue things.  I’ve watched movies, I’ve seen fights, I’ve seen people in bars drunk, I’ve witnessed acts of violence and terror and not one time have any of these people in any of these places or acts have I ever seen standing up speaking in tongues with their hands raised in praise.  I have also never seen or heard of anyone in a bar reading the NIV, NASB, NKJV, or other Bible while they were getting drunk.  Isn’t that just a little bit troubling to you?

Every decent Bible translation can be used by the Holy Spirit to reach someone to get them saved.  The Holy Spirit is NOT limited to reaching only people who can speak “King James English” of “thee”, “thou”, “thus”, “saith”, etc.  When someone first becomes a Christian it is good to get a translation of the Bible that is on their level.  Easy to read English words are much more easy to understand than the KJV Bible.  Later as the Christian becomes more mature and spiritually aware, other Bible translations of literal translation can be used by God also to help that individual learn.

So here was an example of one deceived man, a preacher who calls a good book called the Bible as an evil work of Satan and obviously doesn’t know the difference..  Let us not take the same bait of Satan to fall into the same trap of deception.  Let us avoid following this man as our example.  Please join me in praying for this man.  Let us pray that God will bless this man with a spirit of wisdom and revelation in knowing Christ Jesus,  Amen.

A PERSONAL APPLICATION

LORD, I pray that you will help me to not be deceived.  Lead me far away from anyone that is not proclaiming what you said in your Word and are saying today by your Holy Spirit.  Help me to turn from following anyone that is not being led by your Spirit.  Open my spiritual eyes to be able to understand your Word as I read and hear it and to discern between right and wrong, truth and lies, and good and evil.  Thank LORD for your presence in me and your faithfulness to me in Jesus Name, I pray.  Amen.

If you would like to continue reading in this series, please click “Part 2“.