Category Archives: Satan
SERPENT WITCHCRAFT PART 4 – SERPENT POISON FROM A CONQUERING RIDER
(Ver 1.1) This is now “Part 4” in one of the most demonically hated Bible study series ever published. If you have never seen any personal demon attacks, you have probably not done much to share the Gospel and Truth of Jesus Christ to the world. Satan has definitely manifested in so many new unexpected ways in the past few years, that it makes some wonder, is this the tribulation already? But since many believe like us, that the rapture occurs prior to the beginning of the tribulation, we should rather conclude that this is just Satan knowing his time is very short, and bringing a surprise attack against the body of Christ. But we will find that what is happening today was foretold to us in God’s Word.
We have been going through information found in the book of Revelation concerning a spiritual enemy identified by God as the “ancient serpent” in Revelation 12:9. This symbolic trespassing ancient serpent, was originally a spiritual being named Lucifer (Isaiah 14:12). He has apparently now grown into the “great dragon” in these last of the last days. We learn of this significant spiritual growth from Strong’s definition of a “dragon” (G1404), as being a “fabulous serpent”. We then see how God combined this word Greek word “drakon” (G1404) with the Greek word “megas” (G3174), that was translated as “great”. If you understand computer terms, you know a megabyte is 1 million bytes. This is how God is describing the original serpent in the garden of Eden’s growth. This would reveal that Satan has increased in ability to deceive the world significantly. If you have not read this Bible lesson series from the beginning, it is highly recommended that you go and begin with “PART 1”.
One comment that was received about the last lesson, needs to be addressed for everyone. The comment implied that the “mark of the beast” described in Revelation 13, would need to be a more obvious choice before anyone would be willingly participating in receiving it. Unfortunately, we do not find that concept in the Bible. Take for example, the consequences of natural and spiritual death for every human, in Genesis 3? The serpent never mentioned any of this to Eve. Instead, he presented a false diversionary narrative of humans becoming more like God. There are numerous examples exactly like this throughout the Bible.
Please understand, the devil knows the Bible probably better than you do. He has had many more years to read and study it to see his future. This is what scares him so much. If he can read about the mark of the beast in Revelation 13, and see what God foretold, he is going to use that information to try to trick you. If you are only looking for a very obvious “666” tattoo on your right hand or on your forehead, he is not going to use that on purpose. No, Satan is crafting new modern ways of accomplishing the same end results. These technologies are the only way, he will be able to try to control over 7 billion people to cause them not to be able to work, buy, or sell. This is exactly why this Bible study series is showing some new hidden Bible ways of ultimate modern deception.
No, the current plan-demic of evil, is one of the most masterful deceptions, that demonstrates the increased level of the serpent’s ability to deceive everyone on the planet simultaneously. Instead of fooling just two humans to participate in the serpent’s deception in Genesis 3, he must now get over seven billion people to want and desire to participate in his purpose to steal, kill and destroy us (John 10:10). Again, this is much easier when it is done with a false narrative of a created crisis, and the unfillable promises hiding disguised evils in the mandated solutions. The serpent is using the promises of life, safety, security, freedom, health, normalcy, and other words of deception to inspire people to want to participate with a great passion and desire. Too many people want their freedom from fear, when this can only come through believing in the Word of God. Do you know how to say this more clearly?
If you are trusting all of your doctors, physicians, hospitals to do what is right and best for you, you are deceived already. If you are trusting everyone in the government to do what is best for you, you are extremely deceived. If you are trusting even your church ministers, teachers and pastors to tell you everything you should be doing to help make the world a united safe place, you are a very deceived individual. The Word of God is the ONLY SOURCE of TRUTH that can be trusted fully, and completely! If you do not read and study your Bible every day, you are becoming an easy target to receive the serpent’s “mark”.
EVERY WORD OF GOD
IS AVAILABLE TO HELP US NOW
Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
It is essential for every Christian to understand this basic fundamental of the Bible. If you read this opening verse, you find that the Bible is “quick”, and “powerful”. The word “quick” in modern translation is “alive” or “living”. In one translation it says “living” and “active”. In another it says “living” and “working”. In another translation it says “alive” and “full of power”.
This is an awesome claim of divine participation in every human life that desires to partake in the Word of God. This teaches us that these Words that were written thousands of years before, have valid life meanings, and applications to what is happening to each of us now. Many times, people are not looking for how these things can apply to contemporary circumstances, and they miss out on what God wanted to say to help them get through life. This is why God says in Hosea 4:6, my people are destroyed for not knowing my Word. Now notice what this next verse teaches us:
Ecclesiastes 1:9 – The thing that has been–it is what will be again, and that which has been done is that which will be done again; and there is nothing new under the sun. (AMP)
This is another essential reason why this Bible lesson about Revelation is important, even if you don’t see what is written here to be happening now. God establishes a concept of law in this verse. God reveals everything occurring in the dimension of human time, repeats. What happened before, will be what happens again, today or in the future and vice versa. This means what will happen in the prophecy of the future, could be what is happening right now. God is just saying very clearly, events reoccur, like today’s fashions of clothing probably has already happened at some time in some form. Maybe not exactly, but the pattern is so similar that it is identifiable to the trained eye. Wow! We pray this truth is coming alive in your spirit.
What is amazing about the Word of God, is that if we have a situation that we need God’s help with, we can stop and pray, and ask God to show us a verse that will help us. He can then direct you to a place in the Bible that was written “for” someone else, “to” someone else, “about” someone else, and it can be just the message that causes us understanding and hope for NOW! This is what God is doing through these lessons. He is providing us verses, that apply to our current situations, using verses that were intended for a soon coming timed event.
We are about to learn a pattern of a “serpent” rider on a white horse. What we are doing in this Bible series, is examining clues given to us in the book of Revelation. Not one clue is sufficient to understand what is said is a “right now” truth. This is the law of 2 or 3 witnesses that must be used to understand ALL truth (Deuteronomy 17:6, Hebrews 10:28). What we will find after going through all of the clues, should be a pattern of connected signs that at the very least, should help to guide us in the direction, that God wants us to go to learn the fullest form of truth.
Remember what Jesus said in John 8:32, “You shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free”. This is why Satan silences the truth. As long as you are ignorant of what God has done for you, and given to you, you are an easy serpent captive prisoner. But don’t forget the verse before this one in John 8:31. Here Jesus said “If you continue in my Word, then are you my disciples indeed”. Please notice, there is “NO” assurance of being a disciple of Jesus, if you are not IN THE WORD.
REVELATION 6
AN INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW
In this Bible lesson, we will be focused upon a key verse in the sixth chapter of Revelation. God provides us a significant description of many of the events that will occur during the tribulation in the book of Revelation. This chapter 6, begins with a description of the Lamb of God in heaven, opening the first seal of a book, in verse 1. This heavenly action of the Lamb of God, causes a specific satanic serpent response on the earth. It is this exact scheduled response that appears to be prematurely thrown against us today. The serpent appears to be playing his cards before he is foretold to do so. This is actually a smart military move. It is like a surprise attack. Many military victories have occurred when the enemy was not expecting it. It would be like the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor and almost wiping out the entire naval force of the U.S. in WWII. But the serpent, like Japan has underestimated the knowledge, and power of God.
The book of Revelation is dominated with patterns, of sequences of sevens. First the tribulation lasts for 7 years, which is described to be the 70th week of Daniel’s prophecy concerning God’s dealings with the natural nation of Israel (Daniel 9:27). This time begins with the opening of a book sealed with 7 seals. Then comes the 7 trumpets. Then comes the terrible 7 bowl judgments. There is so much more that is mentioned that just cannot be studied here. All of this is not a part of this specific study on the subject of “Serpent Witchcraft”. No one should believe that any of this is happening as it is revealed for a future soon coming time.
But we are about to encounter a list of some of the most amazing “coincidences” possible with what is really happening in our world today. These are what some like to call, “Just so Happens” events. Seeing only one of these happening should not be sufficient evidence, to convince anyone that what is written in the Bible, could be the exact same as what we are experiencing. But combining all of these together, should begin to raise some significant concern, and awe with how God’s Word is so amazingly accurate and applicable for a right “NOW” warning to us all.
In Chapter 6 of Revelation, there are 4 horses listed with riders. These horses are primarily differentiated by the assigned color, and the rider’s qualities and descriptions. The order of mention of horse colors are 1) white, 2) red, 3) black, and 4) Pale (Green). It just so happens, that these 4 colors appear upon almost every Islamic nation flag. It is very interesting to learn how the events of the four horses, precisely correspond to the mention of events, described by Jesus in Matthew 24. Here is a list of references:
| Matthew 24 | Revelation 6 |
| A false Christ (v: 4-5) | White Horse (v: 1-2) |
| Wars (v: 6) | Red Horse – War (v: 3-4) |
| Famine (v: 7a) | Black Horse – Famine (v: 5-6) |
| Death (v: 7b, 8) | Pale Green Horse – (v: 7-8) |
This is an amazing set of parallels from two writers. But it confirms how the white horse rider must represent an antichrist figure.
It is important to understand that a horse was an animal mostly for war. We can learn this from a lot of verses, but we will only mention Revelation 19:11-19. In this passage, Jesus is described coming back to the earth riding a white horse, to make war against the beast we were learning about in the last Bible lesson. This return, is a very sharply contrasted entrance to Jerusalem, to when Jesus rode a donkey in John 12:15.
It is VERY IMPORTANT to know here in Revelation 6:2, this rider of the white horse, is NOT JESUS CHRIST. Most Bible scholars agree the rider we will be focused upon is antichrist. He is the serpent pretending to be Christ to trick people into believing a lie, to worship him. Let us begin by reading our key Bible verse:
Revelation 6:2 – And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.
There are 32 English translation words found in this verse. But there are only 22 Greek words that make up these 32 English words. That does not sound like a lot, but it is amazing how much God can say in just a few words. God’s prophetical word selections are infinitely well thought out to bring His designed plan to pass, and demonstrate His great ability of foreknowledge. We will focus upon the rider first. We also view his intentions and motivations. Then we will look at his descriptive items. Finally, we will focus upon the horse symbol and the color white.
THE RIDER OF THE WHITE HORSE
Revelation 6:2 – And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.
We are being introduced to a rider, described as sitting upon a white horse. As mentioned before this rider’s description appears to be imitating the return of Jesus Christ, as coming to the earth. In fact, the exact same Greek words (G3022 = white, & G2462 = horse), are written only in these two verses in the N.T. (Revelation 6:2, & Revelation 19:11). This appears to say, that this rider has a role of Christ in mind, as conquering LORD and Savior of humanity, and the warring judge of evil.
From this information we can only conclude one of two possible interpretations. Either both verses refer to the same rider, or they reflect the reality that they are two different riders, with one trying to take the appearance of the other. Since we know the rider in Revelation 19:11, can describe only Jesus Christ, this other rider in Revelation 6:2, must be a false-Christ actor or imitator. That would agree with 2 Thessalonians 2:4, where Paul wrote about the antichrist setting himself up to be God.
It is interesting to see from the descriptions of Revelation 6:2 and 19:4, that both horse rider’s intentions are to conquer the entire world. Which one do you believe succeeds? If you are having trouble figuring this out, the serpent is going to be thrown out of our world in Revelation 20:2. This would teach us that any of the serpent’s victories during the tribulation, will only be temporary.
Therefore, we should understand our described conquering rider in Revelation 6:2, “WILL” achieve significant world conquests, but only for less than 7 years. He will be doing this using his subtle tricks of deception. But this will be terminated when the LORD returns. OK, if this rider is the antichrist, we know this is the “serpent” that we were introduced to in the previous lessons.
We can learn the most in the Bible from what is directly written. But we can also learn from what is NOT mentioned in a verse. There is no mention of a name, or even a symbolic description of who this rider might be. This would appear to teach us, that this person or system of power, could be anyone we could meet in the world today. In other words, the rider will not be wearing a red suit, with horns, and a long-pointed tail, like people envision the devil to look.
This missing information can confirm to us, that this rider is not obviously evil to the casual uneducated observer. Therefore, this person could look exactly like a normal human. It could also be a group of eloquently speaking political figures. In Daniel chapter 7, God gives us another prophecy about this system consisting of 10 kings (called horns) and stating another little horn (the antichrist) would rise above them. We can see this repeated in Revelation 13, but we did not discuss it previously.
God could be warning us that no one will be able to tell who this person or system of individual rulers are, by their physical descriptions or photographs. They may all look, and sound very good to many, while being very evil minded inside to all. Notice that our rider, is not called a dragon, a serpent, a beast, or by any other distinguishing physical characteristic. Therefore, this is a God clue to teach us, that humans must NOT blindly trust anyone.
RIDER INTENTION TO CONQUER THE WORLD
Revelation 6:2 – And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on himhad a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.
Now notice what we have learned so far. There is someone taking the appearance to be like Jesus, who is riding a white horse of war. This person has their eyes upon conquering the entire world. But there is absolutely no mention of any weapons in hand to achieve this goal. Or is there? Let us confirm the rider system’s design is to conquer next.
We can confirm this with the Greek word G3528, that was translated as “conquering” and “conquer” in Revelation 6:2. This word literally means to “subdue” someone. It can also be translated as to “prevail” over someone, or “to get the victory” over someone. It occurs in the N.T. in 24 verses and the majority of the time it is translated in the form of the word to “overcome”, past or present tense.
Strategy is a key part of conquering. Therefore, let us look at this briefly in this section. Past world conquests have been attempted by many “want-to-be” rulers. Their conquering strategy has typically been to take the world piece by piece, over a drawn-out duration of significant time. There has been none that have conquered the entire planet, until possibly now. Uh oh!
Think of this modern fact about war. Things have certainly changed since Biblical warfare days, and God knew this. For example, if any obvious attack to conquer the world occurred, there could be some possible nations that would not willingly allow this to occur. With global nuclear proliferation of weapons, someone could possibly push the buttons, to destroy the attacking enemy, and in retaliation with them certainly being destroyed the same. This type of warfare leaves nothing to possess or control. This does not match this verse of Revelation 6:2. Clearly this would make a global nuclear conquest very unlikely.
Even if there was a conventional warfare that took place for global conquest, this could be a very long and drawn-out affair, and this certainly does not correspond with what Revelation 6:2 describes. If you read later in Revelation 6:4 you will find a “red horse” rider that does take peace from the earth. These wars cause significant deaths. What we learn from these facts, is the conquests taking place in verse 2, are not based upon nuclear or conventional warfare violence. We will speak more about this unconventional work of conquest, when we analyze the “bow”.
Let us analyze the Greek word translated as “went forth” that comes before the word “conquering”. It is important to note that this same Greek word G1831, is used in Matthew 2:6, to describe Jesus “coming into” the world, to be born in Bethlehem, to eventually become the Governor of Israel in Revelation 19-20. This was a quotation from Micah 5:2. It seems to indicate another paralleled comparison of plans, between God and the serpent. God brought forth the Christ to come to save and conquer and the serpent is counterfeiting this plan with his own. We need to actually look at all of the Strong’s definition of G1831, because this is very important to understand:
G1831- From G1537 and G2064; to issue (literally or figuratively): – come-(forth, out), depart (out of), escape, get out, go (abroad, away, forth, out, thence), proceed (forth), spread abroad.
This word definition teaches us that this world conquering system, was “sent-forth”, “departed-out”, “escaped”, and “spread-abroad”. This would at the least, imply this was an intentional planned world conquest, of whoever, or whatever it was that was being spread around the world. Uh oh?
Now see this information in the light of what we have learned about the current world pathogen, that suddenly, and unexpectantly “came forth” and was “spread-abroad” on our planet. A popular false prophet narrative, claimed it had just accidently “escaped” to spread from a wet market in the Great Red Dragon nation, to “go abroad”. But other more reliable sources of potential truth, have claimed there was a deliberate release where it was intentionally designed to be spread abroad to every nation of the world, for a potential purpose of globalization conquest.
Whatever happened (and God knows), this pathogen has crisscrossed the entire globe, over and over, going forth rapidly conquering the entire planet, exploiting human “fear”. This appears to be just one more “just so happen” accurate implied descriptions found in Revelation 6:2.
Ok, we are not done with our verse word analysis. Let us look at the word “to”, that precedes the word “conquer”. This is describing the horse, the rider and their intent. The Greek word G2443 that was translated as “to”, is defined as “intent”, “purpose”, or “planned result” for the rider and the horse. This simply confirms to us that this was, is, and will be, an intentional release for an intentional planned purpose and result. Right now, it appears that the serpent is winning, but fear not, because God is not done yet. What we have confirmed so far, is that when the rider of a white horse has gone forth into all of the world, their plan was only to conquer. Let us now move to the subject of the bow.
THE BOW
Revelation 6:2 – And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.
Here, is the problem with the rider of the white horse in Revelation 6:2. We can read clearly; his motivation is to conquer the world. Then we can only find a “bow”, that represents a part of an ancient projectile delivery system. This type of weapon is not likely to be used in modern times. Therefore, it must be symbolic or have a hidden meaning.
Let us briefly discuss how a “bow” works. This device is used for hunting, target practice, or ancient war. This would make it useful for at least three, or four purposes. One purpose would be for obtaining food. The next would be for just pleasure for increasing skill. The final would be for potential defense against an enemy, or for the evil intent of murder.
A bow works by creating, and releasing kinetic energy through the application of human strength, being combined with the designed device’s power and tension. Usually, a bow consists of a strong piece of line that is connected to the ends of a flexible object, like a piece of wood, or modern type of strong plastic material. By bending the bow portion and connecting the line to each end, it creates tension, that can be increased by pulling back upon the line. A projectile device called an arrow has a groove at the end that is inserted into the line, and then the line is pulled back to create the greater tension, until it is released by the holder of the bow. This “release” causes the kinetic flow of the arrow at a high speed away from the “bowman”, going through the “air” to cause the sharp tip of the arrow to enter into the desired target, either, animal, target, human being aimed at.
This is an amazing description of what we have been experiencing with the pathogen. We have had a ruling system, that released a pathogen that is transmitted by predominantly air, thus the demand for masks to stop the transmissions, etc. Now the plan has progressed (flowed forward), to include a dart injection solution of who knows what. This weapon choice of Revelation 6:2, has some vast symbolic implications being associated with it. But notice our white horse rider is not described to have any arrows directly. Therefore, these arrows could be implied.
This would seem to teach us, the rider is not the main one, that is delivering the arrow, dart, spear, or the needle to the people to cause fear from deaths. It looks like he is possibly just the one, that may be giving the peaceful orders for a hidden and mandated greater delivery system. We talked briefly about the factors of modern methods used to control people, in the last lesson. However, notice how similar the patterns of conquest are in Revelation 6:2, with what we have been going through in the world today with the pathogen.
The rider has NO “full” visible weapons for conquest. This teaches us at least two very important things we must know. First, this means this rider, is not conquering the globe with airplanes, submarines, armies, intercontinental ballistic missiles, etc. Second this teaches us, that his conquests methods are not normal and visible. Uh oh!
We can only find a “bow” in his hand, which is totally useless without arrows. What does the omission of sharp pointed projectiles tell us? This description makes this rider either the most stupid world conqueror on the planet, or one of the shrewdest, and most crafty unconventional and unexpected, evil beings we have ever encountered. We should probably vote for the second choice.
The “bow” is one of the most fascinating words found in this verse. What we should understand is that a bow represents only a “delivery” system for whatever will be “shot” from this device. Stop and think about what the Holy Spirit just said. Is it just another coincidence, that people get “shot” (pierced) with a sharp dart or arrow from a bow? If the “bow” is a figurative symbol, and not a literal item, then this could possibly change a lot of our views upon what could be figuratively “shot” into a human to control them. Let us take a look at this Greek word next translated as “bow”.
This Greek word G5115 translated as “bow”, only occurs here in this verse of the New Testament. There are no other verses to compare its application of usage, or its defined meanings. According to Thayer and Strong, this word means a bow. There is no other help that is given to us to understand it to be anything else. I read through nearly 30 different English translations of the Bible, and they were ALL translated as a “bow”. That consistency should almost scare us. It is very rare to see anything with 100% agreement, translated from the Word of God.
Perhaps the disagreement will come in only what the “bow” symbolically represents. Searching the internet for opinions, you can find a lot of people who do not have a clue what it is, and they guess. Therefore, let us only focus upon the transliterated Greek word to see what can be learned from this. The Greek letter sounds that can be transliterated into English represents the word “toxon”. This was God’s word choice for writing this verse and He knows everything about every word. This word choice will next become very amazing.
It just so happens, that from this Greek word, we get our English words “toxin” and “toxic”. Both of these describe and represent “poisonous” materials. According to the Online Etymology this word toxon, can also be associated to be the equivalent with the Latin words toxicus, meaning poisonous, and toxicum, meaning poison. It is also noteworthy, that this online resource speaks of a “toxon” (bow) being associated with the ancient practice of dipping the tips of arrows into poison, before shooting them into an enemy from a bow. Wow!
Here again is the problem with the rider of the white horse in Revelation 6:2. We can read clearly; his driving motivation is to conquer the world. And now we can see the possible implied usage of peaceful hidden “poisonous” substances, to accomplish this. And this is coming from a symbolic device that will produce a “shot” pierce mark to potentially kill people (maybe some slowly or others instantly). Notice, no one is making this up, this is what we can potentially see from this verse. Then remember this verse is alive and potentially trying to help us all see what we might need to know now.
Hopefully, you are seeing something potentially very useful to know about how this seated, “want to be world conqueror”, could be intending to spread his power, to conquer the world. The serpent could very well be using a modern bio-weapon of poison to cause death. This would again appear agreeable with how it was spread and swept the globe as an invisible peaceful conqueror. Has anyone ever seen the devil? So similar is this, with the pathogen named as a crown.
No one here is claiming this is what is happening, but each of us will have to judge the facts given to us by God, and let the peace of God rule our choices, or the lack of peace overrule what we do, and believe.
But, if this rider is a disguised conquering warrior, we must at least admit he is capable of doing anything very evil to achieve his peaceful goal. This logic would include an unseen type of bio-weapon that could bring him, or them power and control of the planet’s large population without causing massive destruction of physical assets. This would also imply a very large motivation of “greed” to own everything. We will see this possibility more confirmed, later in the Bible series, when we move to a different chapter of Revelation, the Lord be willing. Let us now move to the “crown” gift next.
THE CROWN GIFT
Revelation 6:2 – And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.
We can read in Revelation 6:2, where a crown gift is given to a potential one world, false Christ want to be ruler, for a possible coming system of global government. It is essential to notice, this crown was a “gift” given to the rider. It is at least, implied that this gift is given after he was seated and riding to conquer. Therefore, the crown source came from somewhere else. We can learn from reading in Revelation 13:2 that it was the “dragon” that gave the beast its power and authority. This appears to connect these two chapters together.
If you have been alive, and awake upon our planet for the last couple years, you have been introduced to a new word of fear by Satan’s design. Perhaps you have heard the word “corona” almost every day, being spoken constantly by the global false prophets. What does the word “corona” mean? This word has one definition of “being the area located at the top of the human head”. The coronal area extends from the front of the forehead moving around in a level circle to the back of the head. This would normally be where a hat, or a “crown” would sit upon the human head. For example, a “coronation” occurs when a prince is exalted to be king.
It is also very interesting to know that the word “corona”, is Latin and Spanish for a “crown”. Is this just another “amazing coincidence”? Are you keeping track of the number of coincidences we are observing? Did you know the Hebrew language does not have a word for “coincidences”? This would tend to teach us that God does not view things to be a coincidence. But you will have to judge for yourself, if you want to agree with the LORD, or not?
We should be able to see another pattern being repeated with this information, combining it with the previous section, about the bow. It should be becoming obvious we have both placements of the mark of the beast mentioned in this verse. The forehead would be where the crown could be placed, and the hand could be where a bow is held. This precisely matches the locations of the mark of the beast we read about in Revelation 13:16.
Now pay attention to where the governments of the world have focused upon to control their people. We have been forced fed a narrative for the need to wear a mask or face shield on our head, and constantly to wash her hands with sanitizer. Both of these requirements are in no way normal, or healthy. Nor do they stop the spread of what they claim is a severe priority. Now they are currently demanding a forced arrow “shot” participation from a type of bow.
Do you remember and understand the size of the crown pathogen? It is only 120 nm in size. The holes in a mask are over 100 times the size of that size. This would make it like stopping a mosquito with a chain link fence. Please say you do understand that comparison?
As we know a crown is one typical symbol for royalty, power, and authority. It is possible that this is the only thing that this word “crown” is referring to. But we should consider some other additional possible meanings, based upon what we read in Hebrews 4:12. Remember that it was this verse that describes the Word of God, to be a living active document, that is applicable to come alive to help us at every place, and time in our life. Why did the Lord direct us to this verse? This would also help to teach us to ask, how is what is written in Revelation 6:2 applicable, and useful for what is happening to us NOW!
Perhaps we can see the potential for a “toxin” being spread globally for world conquest? This “toxin” could be a combination of a man-made crown micro-weapon, that causes the alleged need for a new man-made serpent fang solution. Since no creator of this substance, clearly has fully tested it upon humans sufficiently, or will name all of the items that they contain, it should be more than a little concerning. We should all pay close attention to the fact that God chose these two words and put them together to describe a world conquest. Do you believe all of this is just a coincidence? How many coincidences does it take to make it real? Let us look at another potential coincidence with the color of the chosen horse.
THE WHITE HORSE
Revelation 6:2 – And I saw, and behold a white horse: and hethat sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.
God could have chosen any colors to describe the 4 horses revealed in Revelation 6. But these were chosen to inform, teach and provide information for anyone that needed to know about what was happening, or was coming soon. Also think about this, perhaps the color of the horse is being selected by the evil rider, and not by God. This would be like God giving us the news warning, thousands of years before this selection would take place.
This should make the color “white” more than very important. We can believe God reported to us, this color to mean something that should be very recognizable and beneficial for us that are living at the time of the end. It could even have a meaning today, that has not ever been seen until recently.
The color white, can definitely be a symbolic message for peace or surrender. Anyone not wishing to fight, waves the white surrender flag to give up. This would appear to say, the rider takes the appearance of being very peaceful, while he is conquering. The color white is also a message of righteousness, purity, and cleanliness. For example, this would describe the clothing of the bride of Christ in Revelation 19:8. This would signify the evil intention of this ruler, is outwardly pure looking, while potentially being inwardly very evil.
But there is another current major world power system, that needs to be introduced, and addressed in this Bible study. Remember a horse represents a powerful system under the control of the government ruler rider. The rider must have the ability to steer the horse in the direction he wishes them to go. They typically do this by making laws and this steers the horse the way they wish it to turn. This describes the relationship with our next global horse industry.
This system has been around for a long time, but it has risen to become one of the most dominant modern influences in the last 100 years, for every human regardless of age. This industry was hopefully established as a good influence to our world to help hurting people, and many Christians worked in it. This industry worked together with governments to help get this beneficial help out. This industry was founded with a basic moral standard, and set of ethics and oaths, that profess they “will do their patient no harm”. They call this the Hippocratic oath. They normally swear this covenant before beginning to work in this field. However, greed has changed some powerful people in the upper management area, and even in the lower professional area of this good intended group, into another willing participating tool for deception. The Bible actually speaks about how this will be used to control people and we will hopefully, see this in the next lesson, the LORD be willing.
Governments have cooperated, and partnered with this industry extensively. This is done because this industry, is one of the largest political campaign contributors, and lobbyists that exists. It is also interesting that it is this industry that buys most of the advertisements to fund the false prophet voice platforms. Money is a clear factor for their intertwined, workings, power, and influence. The communicated narrative for these cooperative workings, has always been, for the perceived, “betterment of public safety, health, and for the prolonging of life expectancy”. Helping people to live longer and healthier lives, sounds really great, until it is turned into something else that is not for the narrative purpose still being claimed. This would appear to be what is happening in our world.
This is how deception works best. Create a history of good works, with respectable intentions of good, to ensure public safety, success, and to raise general public confidence to be high. Then create an intentional fear-based crisis, and then prepare a very similar sounding solution, that is totally new and different, but give it the exact same name of previous successes. Then mandate that the new untested solution must be taken, for all of the good of yourself, and your family, and your friends, and your co-workers, and the world.
Let’s analyze this industry a little deeper. Many of the current highest levels of professional workers in our subject industry, predominately wear professional white lab coats, like God’s first Revelation 6:2 white coated horse. Please understand the similarities. The horse being chosen by the rider, and described by the LORD, is clothed with a coat of white. The human professionals in this industry have been clothed in a coat of white as their own personal choice. Could this be foreknowledge?
This trend of wearing white lab coats only began in the late 1800’s. That is interesting since that is clearly in the category of the last of the last days. The main reasons given for wearing this white coat, 1) is their clean appearance, and 2) how this white coat causes their patients to feel positive about seeing them. In other words, it is for external perception, and not for the fact that they are actually pure and clean. It would seem to give people a greater confidence, and level of security, that these were the good guys that were taking care of them. Uh oh! This is still true for some of this industry, thank God!
Now for an emphasis upon some well-known disturbing information. Take note that the primary symbol for this industry, just so happens to be one or two venomous serpents on a pole. Wow, did God know all of this when He wrote the Bible? Of course, He did! He knew exactly who would wear white lab coats, and use the “serpent” idol as their symbol, after all they copied it from the Bible, and Moses in the book of Numbers.
Notice what God appears to teach us in Revelation 6:2. Here we can find an implied meaning, that it is the horse being ridden, that is increasing the power, and ability of the rider to conquer the world. In other words, if there were no white horse to ride, there would be a much different type of conquest. So there appears to be a direct cooperative partnership between whatever this horse represents (maybe this potential health industry), and the world government leader(s). Pay close attention to every horse being a different color, and every rider producing different results of evil. Also take note, no other rider is ever given a “crown”. Finally, notice that it is only this rider that conquers without the mention of evil things occurring. In other words, this makes it sound like a “peaceful” takeover. Doesn’t this sound like what we have been through recently?
Could it be the white coat animal that hands the “crown” (Latin corona) to the ruler to help with his conquests? Could it be the ruler using the toxin orders that help with this conquest? That is something very significant to begin to think about, and to see if that is really possible. There has been evidence revealed that it was the government (white horse rider) that funded the creation of the crown weapon, and white coated workers in the Great Red Dragon nation that developed, and released it. This implies that it was this cooperation between parts of the government (the rider) and the medical white horse under the influence of the “serpent”, that released it, that caused a global toxic evil to be spreading. It appears to have happened to eliminate an opposing President that was in office, who was not a part of their plan. There appears to be more of the Bible that is potentially happening now, then many currently fully comprehend.
We currently have a leadership of many, working and cooperating with a potential white-coat industry to produce acceptance of a “fang-mark”. The result of taking this, is an unproven, unknown and untested end. It has NOT been fully tested or fully authorized as safe by anyone other than the false prophets. No one but God and the manufacturers, knows all of the ingredients that are literally in these demanded arrow venoms. But if you are wise, you might go and search the patents and you may just find one ingredient just so happens to be a substance called “Luciferase”. Uh oh. What is that? This type of information is available if you search. You just can’t make this stuff up.
It is also more than just a coincidence that the majority of the fang mark solutions are two shots. How many fangs are in a serpent’s mouth? It just so happens that there are two injections in every natural serpent poison bite. Next there are coming booster shots that are being required for injection. We will see this happening in the next lesson, the Lord be willing.
How do so many people that are reporting to work every day to help save lives, want to participate in a fear driven propaganda serpent agenda? It is definitely called deception, but due to threats from employers, many are also being forced to participate or lose their jobs. We all do so very much appreciate the hard work of so many honest and good workers in this industry. There are a growing number of smart white coat industry workers, that have found ways to get out real working solutions for the weapon, without taking the “fang-mark”. These are people that still have a heart of compassion, and they are needed everywhere, if you are one of those people, we all pray for you to stay strong in the LORD.
SUMMARY
We should have learned a lot of potential new information found in our Bibles, about things that could be currently happening in some form of a repetitious, or reoccurring pattern. Notice the photo at the beginning of this summary. A reader showed us this in a comment, and it was added to the lesson for confirmation. This was a photo created for a Genome Sequencing Lecture that is believed to have been held in the UK. This photo was a part of the company’s presentation discussing the pathogen crown sequencing discussion. Do you believe they knew what they had created, or was this just another coincidence? It appears to match a lot of the information that is contained within the Revelation 6:2 verse. Wow!
Many will call God and His Word, nothing but conspiracy theories, fiction and a book of misinformation. But, for those that want to see the truth, these can be eye opening words. We have been seeing a study of what just some of the book of Revelation, says will definitely happen in the end of this age. From what is happening now, it appears we are living very close to the time this could be happening next for real.
We have been introduced to a symbolic “serpent”, a spiritual being that has been around on the earth for at least 6000 years. We have seen a description of 4 types of “serpent” poisons that this evil being can use to deceive or kill people. We have seen the prophesied “mark of the serpent beast” in Revelation 13. We learned this was given with a hidden agenda and message. We learned that without this mark, people would not be able to work, buy, or sell. We have gone through only selected verses of Revelation, chapters 6, 12, & 13, so far.
In Revelation chapter 6, we were introduced to four horses of different colors, with our emphasis being on the first “white” horse. We should have learned this rider had intentions of globalization by world conquest. He appears to be a potential peaceful hero and world savior to be worshipped on the outside, but there is found the potential for a hidden toxin. This could possibly represent two poisons, the first being cleverly crafted words, and the other being a hidden poison control system created by a white coated powerful horse industry.
This should be a lot of information to cause many to begin to be awakened from the darkness that had covered their minds by the works of the serpent. We thank you all for taking the time to read and study the Bible with us. Please, ask the Holy Spirit to speak to you and guide you. Allow His guidance to rule your hearts and minds. At least understand, that it could have been the Holy Spirit to guide you to read this information. We have had so many testimonies from people that claimed this is what happened to them and we give God all of the glory for how He works.
Please, do not allow any of the words of this website, or the world false prophets, to place you into any fear. God is GOD, and there is no better source to trust in. Please discern our heart’s motivation and desire is to just help people to see something that they may not have seen or known before about God’s Word. We are not telling you that this is the only way to view these Bible verses. But we are saying these are all more than enough coincidences that should cause us all to pray for people in our world.
We love you all very much and will continue to pray for each of you. If you have a personal prayer request, you are welcome to leave it in the comments. If you have any questions, or comments, please feel free to share them. Remember God loves us all, and Jesus is Coming Soon. Be Ready!
If you would like to continue reading in the Bible lesson series, please click here on “Part 5“
SERPENT WITCHCRAFT PART 3 – THE SERPENT’S MARK
(Ver 1.0) This is “Part 3” in the Bible study series about the subject of serpent witchcraft, deception, and a planned global conquest occurring in these times of the end of days. If you have not read this series from the beginning, it is highly recommended that you go to “Part 1” first. This series, builds upon the previous lessons as its foundation. There is so much dependent revelation, and each of this must be understood to better recognize any new revealed Bible verses. God usually layers truths upon truths to build a sound Biblical groundwork (Isaiah 28:10).
So far, we have been introduced to the concept of a Bible fear-based Jezebel ruling government system, that demands the silencing of the real prophets of God and truth. She establishes, and works with her unified false prophets who provide a deceptive cover of coordinated narratives. These false messages are designed to spread fake propaganda to us, for a dominated harmonized diversion. These diversions are causing many to be distracted away from the truth of knowing God, and His Word, and what is really happening in our nation, and to them, and the world. This is a very subtle way that an evil serpent operates (Genesis 3:1) to achieve deception. Then in the last lesson, we examined Bible truths surrounding 4 types of serpent poisoning. It now appears at least 3 out of the 4 types of these poisonings, are happening in the world today in massive coordination, working through the rulers, and the false prophets’ tricks.
Have you ever observed such a well-planned and orchestrated level of global corruption and evil, in your lifetime? Recently there occurred a purposeful designed leak of a manmade enhanced deadly micro-biological pathogen weapon. This warfare originated from the evilest of all of the Great Red Dragon nations. This beast is our primary named subject found in Revelation 12:3, and he must not be forgotten to be the original serpent of witchcraft and deception introduced in Genesis 3:1.
What has been happening is a masterful spell of serpent witchcraft for human mind control. Anyone with any spiritual discernment can observe that there is a global “plan-demic” for the control of every human on the earth. This plan originated as a strategy of spreading an exaggerated fear of certain demise. An evil man-created pathogen was released and the exaggerations of terminal conditions caused great cooperation to destroy a lot of the world’s economy, convincing people to believe they were safest being confined in isolation. This caused great emotional stress upon adults and children, causing mental instability and demonic desires for suicides.
Legitimate treatments for the pathogen have been intentionally prevented to be used by the Jezebel advisors. Proven prophylactic pathogen inhibitors were deliberately silenced. Even one nameless solution that was given authorization for internal usage, was given to people and it was known to intentionally kill them. What we are witnessing is a massive genocide, on the level of Nazi Germany in the 1940s. Vast numbers of people were purposely murdered, just to increase the fatality numbers, to cause more fears for human submissiveness.
But now we are seeing a major shift into the next phase of a nefarious global plan. The rest of this Bible series will be focusing upon this new potential strategy of evil. It has to do with taking a mark from a beast, in order to participate in the global economy. It is clearly the next level of human control.
As stated before, this Bible series is intended for spiritually awake, and aware mature Christians. Jesus consistently cried for people to hear, that plainly had ears to hear, and in making this statement openly, He claimed not everyone that was present to listen, was able to comprehend His words. So it is, with any spiritual message from the Holy Spirit. There will be some that are just offended at the message of warnings. If you do not feel like you can receive a deep spiritual Bible prophecy warning from the LORD, please do not continue reading. Also know that everything that is presented here today, is not intended to produce fear, but rather faith and encouragement. And it is given only in, and for His great LOVE towards you! Let us start learning about the mark of the beast system.
SERPENT’S IDENTITY
Revelation 12:9 – And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
This verse defines the “serpent” being in the Bible! He is the reoccurring theme subject of this Bible study. This ancient spiritual being was clearly defined here to be Satan. In the next section, we will be looking at verses in Revelation chapter 13. This verse definition of the serpent, only precedes our main chapter subject, by less than 10 verses. Remember God did not write the Bible in a chapter and verse format originally. These divisions were added by humans to permit simplified referencing. Therefore, these words, and descriptions are all directly connected together.
Pay attention to the names of the spirit entity being defined. This is an essential verse definition for interpreting, and understanding the Bible correctly from Genesis to Revelation. In this verse God connects the names of “the devil” and “Satan” to be the exact same spiritual being. Then God connects these two synonymous names with the identifying symbols of a “great dragon” and an “ancient serpent”. Therefore, the serpent, and the dragon are also the exact same Satan spirit.
The Greek word G3789 is translated as “serpent”, and this word is simply defined as a “snake”. But it has additional implications attached with it. For example, it comes from the Greek word G3700, that means “eyes wide open”, implying sharpness of vision. This could be true for the observer of the serpent, and/or for the serpent as well. But Strong defines this word to figuratively be describing, someone that is sly, and a cunning artful malicious person. So, God is defining a spirit being who is exceedingly evil.
Now for the Greek word G1404 (drakon) that is translated as “dragon”. This word’s definition by Strong, is “a fabulous type of serpent”. This word teaches us that the original ancient serpent, from Genesis 3:1, has now grown into a larger ‘great dragon” in Revelation 12. This shows us this serpent’s increase in size, power, and ability to do greater evil, and deceive people more effectively. This is a very important point to understand. Since the beginning of Genesis, until Revelation 12, the serpent has assumedly increased from his experiences in dealing with God and humans to grow in influence, and ability to trick, and hurt humans who do not know, or understand their authority over him.
We can learn in this “dragon” word definition, from him being a “fabulous serpent”, that Satan possesses some amazing abilities to captivate, charm, attract, hypnotize, mesmerize, or enchant people through either mind control or thought manipulation. This concept, would be like a wizard that is trying to use witchcraft spells against humans. We can confirm this by reading 1 Corinthians 4:4, where we see God warning that people who do not believe His gospel have had their minds blinded from seeing His truth by the serpent. Another key verse is written to Christians in 2 Corinthians 2:5. In this verse God warns His saved people to cast down vain imaginations, and every high thought that tries to overrule the Word of God. This sounds very important. God is teaching how people, and Christians can all be deceived by the “serpent” in their minds.
LESSON TO LEARN: A SERPENT SPIRIT GIVES THE BEAST SYSTEM OF RULERSHIP, THEIR POWER, AND THEIR SEAT OF GREAT AUTHORITY. IT REQUIRES A COOPERATIVE COMBINED EFFORT OF THE UNIFIED GLOBAL LEADERS TO WORK THE SERPENT SYSTEM IN UNITED COORDINATION TO NOT FAIL (GENESIS 11:6).
Satan has tried this plan previously in Genesis 11. In this case God declared that there would be nothing that they would not be able to do, because they were all in one language, and with one purpose to defy God. However, God demonstrated to Satan how much wiser, and powerful He was than the serpent by confusing all of the languages and dividing the humans into separate nations. Satan watched this happen, and is trying today to reverse all of this for his plan against God.
LESSON TO LEARN: THERE IS GOOD NEWS! A SERPENT SPIRIT PLAN TO RULE THE WORLD WILL ULTIMATELY FAIL, BECAUSE GOD IS STILL GREATER, WISER AND MORE POWERFUL.
Finally, please note that it is here in this verse of Revelation 12:9, that we were warned again that it was this spirit being, that will be deceiving the entire world. Therefore, everything we are learning is directly connected together by God’s design to be about a hidden spirit being who:
- is someone that is very sly, tricky, cunning like a serpent,
- able to poison people’s hearts, and minds, with lies, or fear-based words,
- is even capable of injecting created physical poisonous substances into people.
Therefore, it is Satan that is working this plan, to destroy all humans. Next, we will find that it is also this serpent being, that will be giving out a “mark” for every human to take by either free choice, or by force.
INTRODUCTION TO THE SERPENT MARK
Revelation 13:15 – And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.
Revelation 13:16 – And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
Revelation 13:17 – And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
What the majority of the world has been experiencing in 2021, appears to be a very parallel reality to what was prophesied by God in Revelation 13. We can read clearly, that there was a demanded mandate in Revelation 13, where everyone will be forced to take a “mark” from “the serpent” ruler. You may think it just speaks of a “beast”, but we need to learn and remember where the symbolic beast gets its power. For example, in Revelation 13:2 we find this beast receives its power, seat, and great authority from the “dragon”. We have already learned the Revelation 12 dragon is a specific type of the original ancient serpent of Genesis 3:1. Therefore, this beast is operating with our “serpent’s” abilities and literally could be the serpent himself manifested in the flesh. Let us use this introductory information to compare with what is happening in the world now.
If you go and study how a natural serpent operates, it may shock you to how the design of his serpent fang and gland system, is almost identical to a modern-day medical device being used now by the millions. You see unless the natural serpent can get its poison under your skin, they are completely harmless. Remember a serpent’s fang must penetrate the human’s skin to be effective and deadly, and this will always leave an external mark. Uh oh? This is an interesting concept when compared to the two types of Bible poisons, we learned about in the previous lesson. These types of poisons were:
- words, (Proverbs 18:21)
- natural poisonous substances, (Numbers 21:6)
and both of these can cause death according to the Bible.
If the spiritual serpent can get his words in your heart and mind, then he has achieved his deception plan to change, control, and influence you. If the serpent can get you to say what he desires, he can even kill you (Proverbs 18:21). The same is true if a serpent inspired human, wanted to physically kill you. They must get their naturally created poison, into your physical body in order for it to be effective. This would cause them to resemble a naturally created serpent. What we are finding out is, the spiritual or physical poison is ineffective, unless it gets under our skin.
One modern term used for a device like this serpent fang, is “hypodermic”. The general designs of these two realities, are almost identical. The word comes from two joined terms “hypo” meaning under, and “derma” meaning skin. Therefore, we are now contending with a modern device with an identical design of a serpent “fang”, that places substances of potential things that are good for life, or poison for death, under the skin of the human test subject. This will be just one of our combined subjects about the “mark” today.
We have just been introduced to a new “beast” system of government in Revelation 13, that demands “a mark” be given out and forced upon everyone. We are learning that this “beast” system of rule, is based upon the symbolic serpent with fangs concept. Notice that this system of rule, demands to be worshipped, or all those that resist it, will die. Without taking this “fang-mark” that is being mandated, the Bible says “no human will be able to buy or sell”. These are amazing modern parallels. These could be news headlines if the false prophets would tell the truth.
Ok, we are not going through everything in this chapter, or in these verses for the sake of time. This subject of a “mark”, is a significant theme found in the entire Bible, and should be a Bible study series, all by itself. But notice what is said by the Holy God. God declares, and warns us that many people will be killed in verse 15, if they do not worship a “beast”, and take his “mark” in verse 16. Let us start with understanding, what “killed” means.
A SERPENT’S PURPOSE IS TO KILL
The Greek word translated as “killed” is G615. This word is defined by Strong as “slay”, “kill outright”, and “put to death”. It comes from the Greek word G575 which means “off”, or “away”, denoting someone to be permanently “separated” from someone else. Therefore, the term “killed”, is a description of people that are intentionally being murdered for permanent separation from earth’s human society. This means these deaths are NOT ACCIDENTS. It is implied in this setting that this is a mass killing of potentially millions of people. Remember we are not speculating anything, simply by reading what is said to happen in the Bible!
God says, and not us, that these people are intentionally murdered, simply because of their “refusal” to willingly comply, and cooperate, with the ruling world serpent authority’s demands for unquestioned obedience, conformity and uniformity. This threat alone makes the acceptance of the “mark” more than a mandatory request, and it dictates the need for a loss of most, if not all freedoms of personal choice.
LESSON TO LEARN: Murders will be occurring to produce fear for an ultimate forced control of all humans. These rulers will display their evil power to silence any opposing human influence.
Notice that these people are killed, because they are not willingly taking the beast’s mark. We are not told directly here how these people are killed. But later in Revelation 20:4, God informs us of the souls of people that had their heads cut off during these 7 years. These people were stated to be followers of Jesus Christ. Therefore, we can logically conclude, that they do not take the mark of the beast, and die a very bloody death. There are people being killed like this by extreme radical Islamists right now. That is just an important fact of truth to be aware of. This seems to imply that it is people like this that will be ruling the world during this time.
These verses in Revelation 13, show how these prophesied unmarked people are very hated by the antichrist ruler(s) that are demanding the mark. This could further imply that all of the people that have willingly taken the mark, could potentially be convinced to hate these “unmarked” people. We have seen this planned strategic narrative already occurring. Can you imagine how the mark mandators in Revelation 13, could accuse all of these people that are unmarked, to be the new source of an entire global crisis? It is a very masterful evil strategy to label good people as evil people, and evil people as good people. God warns us of this coming strategy in Isaiah 5:20.
LESSON TO LEARN: THROUGH THE TACTICS OF AN EVIL SERPENT GLOBAL GOVERNMENT SYSTEM, RULERS WILL BE LABELING GOD’S PEOPLE AS THE SOURCE OF THEIR EVERY EVIL PROBLEM. ALL OF THE SERPENT MARKED DECEIVED PEOPLE WILL EASILY TURN ON ALL OF THE PEOPLE THAT ARE “UNMARKED”.
Does any of this sound familiar yet? It should. Now let us move to the word “worship” mentioned in Revelation 13.
THE HIDDEN REQUIRED SERPENT WORSHIP
In Revelation 13, we find that “worship” is being demanded from all of the people on the earth, by a beast system of government. Uh oh! Just when we think that the mandate priority is to just take a mark to buy and sell, we find out about the real new “hidden” agenda. This secret new desire is for someone to be worshipped. Could this be true today in our world? It sure does give us that projected idea, if we are paying attention. There is definitely the appearance of a hidden reason for taking today’s mark, and it is not to make anyone safe or healthy.
This Greek word G4352 translated as “worship”, literally means “to kiss, or to be like a dog who licks their master’s hand”. That definition could change the viewed perspective of worship, considerably. Think about a dog’s determined exuberance, when their good and loving master, enters the house! That is how saved humans should react to a loving and saving God, that delivered them from an eternal existence in a lake of fire. But what kind of a person do you need to be, to worship someone, that is deemed as “extreme evil”, and even a mass murderer, in the sight of God?
If we study this word “worship” in the New Testament, we discover that there are two opposing spiritual beings that are in a battle for the human worshipper. Did you know that every human is a worshipper of something or someone? God created us this way, on purpose, to seek for Him.
We can read in John 4:23, where Jesus said “that God is seeking for true worshippers, and they must worship Him in spirit and in truth”. This is the exact same Greek word (G4352) that describes the beast’s desire in Revelation 13. There appears to be an evil serpent spirit rivalry against a good God to obtain human worshippers. Therefore, the serpent’s desire, must involve the attraction of every worshipper to be taken from God. Please remember this concept of redirected worship, because a serpent redirecting someone will soon reappear.
But now contrast the two spirit beings’ personalities. The serpent’s attempts are to force people to worship him, and if they do not, they die. But God’s approach is to die in the human’s place, to show them extreme love. Then this saving love gift provides all humans, the choice to freely love, and worship Him, in response. It is a forced mandated worship versus, the freewill choice of returning love to a loving God. God offers His mark as a gift of salvation, and the serpent only forces his mark. It is a contrasting decision between love and hate, and life and death. It sounds like a really easy choice to make, but it is not because of the pressure that the serpent is placing upon people.
LESSON TO LEARN: ANYTHING BEING FORCED WITH THREATS IS NOT FROM GOD AND MUST BE WATCHED CLOSELY.
The story of the 3 Hebrew boys in Daniel 3, is a perfect parallel to what is happening today, and in Revelation 13. The entire nation, and these 3 Hebrews were commanded by the king to bow down like dogs, to worship a large idol. It will be interesting to see how the size of this statue is said to be 60 cubits tall, and 6 cubits in width. That would be 60x6x6. We will find that this has an interesting similarity to the coming number of the mark in Revelation 13. It is also very noteworthy that in both Daniel 3 and Revelation 13, the refusal to worship, results in death. These are repeated patterns of evil. In Daniel, a fiery furnace was heated up seven times hotter than normal, and everyone not falling on their face to worship the idol statue, will be killed in the fire. But there is good news, God saved them even after they were thrown into the fire. That should encourage people today to not bow down and take the mark.
LESSON TO LEARN: GOD IS ABLE AND WILL SAVE PEOPLE THAT WORSHIP HIM ALONE. EVEN IF GOD ALLOWED THE HEBREW CHILDREN TO DIE IN THE FIRE, THEY WOULD HAVE BEEN SAVED FROM HELL BY NOT WORSHIPPING THE FALSE GOD. EITHER WAY THEY WOULD WIN!
Do you remember when Jesus was tempted in Matthew 4:10 by the devil? Satan wanted to trade Jesus all of his authority over all of the kingdoms of our world, if only Jesus would worship (G4352) him. This is the exact same word found in Revelation 13, so we can easily find a direct connection, to confirm this is Satan’s motivation, who longs to be worshipped. But Jesus quotes the Bible to the devil saying “It is written, thou shall worship the LORD your God only”. Wow! We are discovering, that there is a possible direct connection to who we worship, to whose mark we will receive.
LESSON TO LEARN: WE ARE BEING INTRODUCED TO THE BIBLE REALITY THAT THERE ARE ONLY TWO MARKS TO TRAVEL TOWARDS! WHICH ONE WE CHOOSE WILL DETERMINE WHICH MARK WE OBTAIN.
Every human WILL BE marked by either Jesus, or the serpent depending upon the human choice to whom they will serve (Romans 6:16). There is only a binary choice, and no third option exists. By overcoming the devil, believers have the name of God and His city written upon them by Jesus (Revelation 3:12). But those that receive the serpent’s mark of the number of his name (Revelation 13:17) will be cast alive into the lake of fire (Revelation 19:20). Unfortunately, the making no choice option, is the default selection for worshipping the serpent, since he is still the god of this world (2 Corinthians 4:4).
What we have just learned is that there is a subtle serpent being, that is trying his best, to redirect us away by his crafty distractions. His desire is to keep us in his darkness, and from reaching the light in the door of Jesus, who was hung on the cross. Let us move on to the beast next in this lesson.
THE SERPENT BEAST
Now we have already found that the figurative beast in Revelation 13, is described to be Satan, and also known as the ancient serpent, as defined in Revelation 12. But let us analyze this spirit being and confirm his identity and nature further.
The Greek word G2342, that was translated as a “beast”, is defined by Strong as a dangerous, wild and a venomous beast. This is the exact same Greek word, that was used by God to describe the physical creature that attached itself to the hand of Paul, while he was placing sticks on a fire in Acts 28:4. Do you remember we learned about this physical creature in the last lesson? This beast was described to be a “serpent”.
Do you remember, that everyone that witnessed this viper poison attack on Paul, watched him in amazement when Paul did not drop dead before their eyes? Therefore, we are gaining a pretty good understanding, of what type of creature, that this “beast” symbol represents, and the connection to it being deadly, and poisonous. We are also observing God’s power and ability to protect His people from the deadly effects of these types of poisons.
LESSON TO LEARN: LIKE THE HEBREW CHILDREN SAVED FROM THE FIRE, PAUL WAS SAVED FROM THE DEATH OF THE SERPENT’S FANG MARK AND POISON. GOD NEVER CHANGES, AND CAN, AND WILL DO THE SAME TODAY.
We must notice how this Revelation 13 “beast”, is defined, and why it was selected by God, to be described to be like the poisonous “serpent” that bites Paul. This connection, potentially teaches us a lot. We have already been introduced to the original trickster of death, to be the ancient serpent which now matches the future description of the “beast” in Revelation. The goal of causing intentional death to humanity, is one central connection in both of these stories of Genesis 3, and Revelation 13. It appears from what we are learning, that these two words, beast and serpent could be synonyms.
It is also very important to recall where God said Paul was bitten by the venomous beast in Acts 28. Paul was bitten by the fang of a serpent injecting its poison into his “hand”. Where did God say the mark of the beast would occur? You may recall God said the mark of the beast would be placed upon the person’s right hand or their forehead (Revelation 13:16). Now we can see how Paul’s serpent mark is further directly connected with the Revelation 13 serpent mark, with both cases, to be marked in their hand. Later we will speak of the head location in more depth soon.
God appears to be using a pattern of reoccurring serpents, that are compared to be called venomous beasts. The Revelation 13 serpent is being describe as a coming system of deception, implemented through a natural hypnotic leader that is ultimately being controlled by a real internal spiritual serpent (Satan). This person’s purpose will be to deceive everyone in the world using clever words. His hidden goal is to cause people to voluntarily worship Satan. But for those that do not participate, his goal is to motivate them by extreme threats of starvation, or even death to get them to obey. Those that still do not worship him, are murdered.
A SERPENT MANDATED MARK FOR POPULATION CONTROL?
There appears to be other reasons besides the serpent’s ultimate desire to be worshipped. One major motivation for a forced mark in Revelation 13, seems to be for the ultimate control and ownership of humanity. Our chapter 13, teaches Satan’s plan of people division into two types of people on the earth. Everyone taking the mark is promised to live naturally, and everyone not taking the mark is promised to die naturally. Clearly this implies a type of population control for only a desired specific type of people taking the mark.
Think about this in light of the serpent’s desired global goal to abort every baby in the womb? Is this a serpent desire to lower the population on earth by any means? Is this desire, now being expanded by the serpent today for everyone? What is this serpent so afraid of? Could it be he is trying to stop God from using any and every human in the church, from potentially crushing his head, as it was prophesied to happen in Romans 16:20? This is an interesting concept to consider.
If control of only certain types of people on the earth are desired, there are multiple methods for a ruler to control these people. God’s method is love dominated. But Satan’s methods include threats, force, power, and fear, among others. We need to list a few of the ways someone can potentially control another human who has a right to choose who they will submit to.
HUMAN CONTROL THROUGH IGNORANCE
We can learn that one method of control, is to keep people ignorant of the truth. This is what God warns in Hosea 4:6. Here God says “My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge”. This is the ultimate reason why a Jezebel type of ruler system, desires to silence the true prophets with the words and message of truth. Today they do this by labeling the truth as being racist, misinformation, and conspiracy theory.
LESSON TO LEARN: SATAN WILL USE ULTIMATE CENSORSHIP TO TRY TO ELIMINATE THE MESSAGE OF GOD COMPLETELY.
This massive censorship is happening now globally. Entire nations have completely tried to silence every opposing voice. Ignorance is achieved only by eliminating the truth from being taught to children and adults. This is occurring on the societal media websites daily. We have already spoken of the false prophet narrative that communicates the party propaganda faithfully parroting each other’s talking points. We also should understand that now we have people in the Jezebel ruling system that have armed the legal system, to silence every oppositional voice to the agenda, by labeling them as “homeland terrorists”. This is a small part of the antichrist agenda.
HUMAN CONTROL THROUGH ADDICTION
But, how else can an evil ruling power gain control over their people? One of the most modern prevalent methods is through “addiction”. It can be almost any type of human desire or substance abuse, that can lead to a person’s ultimate control. This is another method of deception.
Consider the concept of “addiction”. Think about the gambling game of poker. Have you ever been to a casino? This is a Satanic house of deception. It combines, external bright lights to attract, internal darkness, alcohol, liquor, sexual content, and the promise to potentially get rich without a lot of work. A person would really hate these games like poker, if they lost every time. If time after time, they just left their money with the others that were happily taking it, most intelligent people would just give up and find something else much better to do. But the devil ensures the new player wins enough to get them addicted, then he takes them for everything they have.
What gets a person addicted to this lifestyle? It could be the money, possible fame or fortune, it could be just the dark atmosphere, the booze, or a combination of all of the above. It can be very hard for people to get out, once they have entered the door.
LESSON TO LEARN: SATAN WILL POTENTIALLY USE UNFULFILLABLE PROMISES TO GET SOMEONE TO BECOME ADDICTED TO PLAY HIS GAME AND THEN HE HAS THEM.
SERPENT CONTROL THROUGH POISONOUS SUBSTANCES
Another very popular modern addiction source is coming from two different poison sources. It is difficult to imagine that a person could become addicted to a serpent’s deadly poison, but this is happening every day. This substance is called “drugs”. One type of drug is labeled as “medication” for possible good health, and the other is promoted as a recreational entertainment for a physical pleasure or euphoria. But either substance has potential negative, and adverse qualities, and many deaths have occurred from abuses. First, we will focus on the potential positive poison.
It should be very obvious that there is a major coordinated plan to get the world’s population to be injected with a type of universal substance “mark” through a manmade fang. This is appearing to have addictive qualities to it. It first began to be handed out as the savior from a real but exaggerated problem, and it was given out as the only ultimate solution. Then this one-time solution has become a potentially never-ending program of one dose after the next to keep people saved. What kind of deceptive addiction is this? It is called a combined physical, mental and emotional type of mind control.
The serpent’s incentivized strategy in today’s game, is to sucker people into a plan of false safety, security, and a temporary return to normalcy. This false narrative is a fake promise of a freedom from fear, and death. Surely you know what this means? Why are there so many diversions, distractions, and claims, that this “mark” is the only solution for returning to a lost “normal”?
How is it that the same people that created the problem, are the same ones that are proposing, creating, and distributing the claimed only solution? That sounds like a conflict of interests at best, and at worst the evilest plan possible. We can only wonder who is getting the richest, with this plot of evil? Perhaps you are unaware that it has been reported by the real prophets, that it was the governing Jezebel ruling system that created the crisis? Perhaps you are unaware of this because the Jezebel supporting “false prophet” system has been only reporting other untruths or meaningless information as a distraction. It is highly recommended that you go read about this concept in 1 Kings 18. This is the story where the prophet of God named Elijah calls out the false prophets, to see whose God will answer.
LESSON TO LEARN: GOD IS NOT DONE WITH AMERICA. GOD STILL HAS PROPHETS THAT ARE CALLING OUT JEZEBEL AND HER FALSE PROPHETS. LET US WAIT AND SEE WHOSE GOD WILL ANSWER AGAIN? OUR FAITH IS IN THE TRUE GOD OF THE BIBLE.
The final addictive drug poison that is used by the serpent, was previously illegal in most world locations, but yet still easily accessible. People are getting very rich off these deadly substances. Also, many people are being murdered by them. But the user of these poisons, are very easily controlled by the serpent rulers. People taking these, do so for pleasure, for relaxation, for relief from physical, emotional, or mental pain. Again, this is the same concept as the potential legal poison drugs. The serpent creates the problems for these people to seek the relief by drinking, swallowing, or injecting substances to get under their skins. These addictions offer no solutions, but rather only ease of control and eventually death the serpent’s ultimate control. Let’s analyze a different type of human control through ownership. This is another way of saying human slavery.
A HUMAN MARKED FOR OWNERSHIP
This Greek word translated as “mark” is G5480 (charagma), and it can be defined as an external stamp that implies a person’s ownership or property. We have only mentioned this topic briefly in the previous sections. But this sounds a lot like something Hitler did to the Jews in Nazi Germany. He began with identifiers like stars of David, but then moved to literal tattoos with numbers. This concept could be like a horse or a cow being branded with the ranch’s symbolic mark. Every animal that displays this mark are known to belong to only that specific owner. This would seem to describe this mark in Revelation 13, precisely. If you study the verses that speak of the mark, you will find that everyone that has taken the mark of the beast, is completely rejected by God, without hope.
This Greek word only appears in 9 N.T. verses, and 8 are found in the book of Revelation. Revelation 13:16-17, Revelation 14:9, Revelation 14:11, Revelation 16:2, Revelation 19:20, and Revelation 20:4. It is recommended that you go, and read all of these verses. But there is one other word usage found in the book of Acts:
Act 17:29 Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device.
Here in Acts 17, we find the word G5480 again, but it is translated as “graven” instead of “mark”. It should be very clear in this verse, that this is describing Christians and our attitudes towards idols made by the hands of man. Here in Acts 17:29, God is saying Christians “are His children”. This will become very important soon. This means we are born into His family. As part of being in the family of God, we can obtain His name. As mentioned before, in Revelation 3:12 we find overcoming Christians to be given God’s name written upon them. This is clearly the one named “Mark” that is of utmost importance to desire.
But in this verse, Christians are told that we should NOT think the Godhead is like engraved images made of gold, silver or stone that are just “cut out pieces of art”. Wow, that is saying a whole lot, in a few words. Notice the emphasis upon the human desired substances of “gold”, “silver” or even possible valuable stones. This information will come up in the main points of the lesson series in the future, to show how “money”, “greed”, “worth”, and “value” drive a lot of the evil that is occurring in the world today (1 Timothy 6:10).
Ok, let us notice how this Greek word G5480 is translated as “graven” in this verse. This word implies a tool is being used by the skilled and trained professional human hands, to place an engraved mark upon the desired object to be worshipped. Uh oh! This is very similar to what is happening in Revelation 13, where the beast is having his mark placed upon all people. But notice in both of these two verses, there are people who are worshipping someone besides God, by their own freewill, or they are being forced! Yet the concept of being engraved with some tool by a skilled, and trained professional human, can still be the same identical work in both examples. What we need to see in the Bible, are the repeated patterns of concepts and applications. This is one of the greatest ways that God hides information in His Word for us to find truth.
It should become clear that this Greek word G5480, implies the external presence of trained, and educated human skill, and their work performed through some crafting instrument, to produce an observable “mark” on the human skin. This would further imply that this “mark” would produce some type of bleeding to potentially occur. It is very difficult to get any type of puncture in the human skin, and for there not be at least minor blood leakage. Therefore, this mark in Revelation 13, might have something to do with the human blood. If it reaches the blood, it could also have, or cause a corresponding internal bodily reaction.
This could be describing someone getting a tattoo. Have you ever seen this artistic type of work done? In the Hitler example above, it was not for a pretty design, but was rather to number and identify the person. But in either case, there is normal blood leakage. But this process of marking a human is done with human created tools, to insert substances under the human skin. If by chance the artist’s tools contained a contamination, there could result a severe infection. Clearly this is just one type of artistry that leaves a permanent external “mark”.
We should have just learned a lot about a potential “mark” in Revelation 13, by studying the concept given by God in Acts 17. Could this be like receiving a puncture from the design of a serpent “fang”? This Greek word G5480, has its origin from the root word “charasso”, which means “to sharpen to a point”. Does that help anyone understand what God could potentially be speaking of in Revelation 13?
This is beginning to sound more and more like a modern man-made narrowed, sharpened metallic serpent fang like tool instrument, for inserting some type of potentially useful or poisonous liquid into the human body. This work could be performed by a trained and skilled professional, and that would match what we have learned so far. If you do not yet know what is being said, we will try to make it clearer. Game wardens use this type of powerful dart device to tranquilize a dangerous animal. This means a more powerful wild animal, is being sedated or drugged, to be under the control of the weaker being. Uh oh? Are you awake yet?
All of this introductory Bible information, matches the description of a serpent’s fang type of mark precisely. Then remember the design of a “fang”, is like a natural injection system, for the purpose of inserting a poison into the snake’s enemy. Ok, please never forget who the original “serpent” was in Genesis 3:1 that deceived Eve. Let us now shift our study to some Old Testament root sources of types of a “mark” defined by God in His Word.
ANCIENT HEBREW – MARK DEFINITIONS
It is a great idea when studying the Bible on a word or a subject, to go back to God’s beginning Hebrew texts, and see what He says about the foundational mention of the subject. In most cases, the first time a subject is mentioned, God establishes a foundational truth needed to understand the entire subject. This is called the “Law of First Mention”. It is used here frequently. But also using this same concept, we can learn so much new about a subject, by analyzing the ancient Hebrew alphabet letters and meanings that make up the word.
Here are just two of the Hebrew words that were translated as “mark”.
- “H226”
- “H4307”
While there are other words translated as “mark”, we will only go over a these two briefly for the sake of time. We are primarily interested in the Biblical concepts that were introduced and used by God, for these words. In this part of the lesson, we will be analyzing the ancient Hebrew words, their spellings, and what each letter means. We will begin with the word H226.
H226 – Mark
If we go back and search the Old Testament, we will learn that the Hebrew word H226 is mentioned for the first time in Genesis 1:14 and Genesis 4:15. In Genesis 1:14 the Hebrew word is translated into the English word “sign”. But in Genesis 4:15, it was translated as a “mark”. This word is very interesting, because this root word is comprised in the ancient Hebrew pictographic alphabet from the joined combination of an “ox” and a “cross”. Contained in this word, is an amazing revelation.
In the ancient Hebrew, the “ox” is the “alef”, the first letter of the alphabet, and it represents a lowly, but strong type of servant. This ox would be attached to a yoke (Matthew 11:29), and a plow (1 Corinthians 9:10), and then the servant ox, would be driven by their master (LORD) to a mark in the distance (physical place of growth in time), to make a straight line for planting the seeds (Isaiah 28:24).
The second Hebrew letter of this word, is the “tav”, and this is a picture of a cross, and this is the last letter in the Hebrew alphabet. This letter amazingly can mean “a mark”, as in “x” marks the spot. So, we have a word with the letters, “alef” and the “tav”, and this translated into Greek, would be the “Alpha” and the “Omega”. Does that sound familiar? It “just so happens” that this is one of the names that identifies Jesus in the first chapter of the book of Revelation. Wow, none of this is an accident.
What we discover from these two clues, is that God has designed a predetermined end “mark” of the “cross”, for every human servant of His, to plow to. Paul uses this analogy of a plowing ox, to describe his work for Christ in 1 Corinthians 9:10. In doing this, Paul quotes from a verse written in Deuteronomy 25:4, about not muzzling a working ox. Using this verse Paul writes the ox in the O.T., symbolically represents God’s people. Paul in Romans 1:1 calls himself a “servant” of Jesus Christ. We can conclude from this information, that Paul was submitting himself to the LORD, to be his personal end of life targeted mark.
Our ultimate example of a “servant” to follow, was Jesus Christ (Zechariah 3:8). His destination was to die on a cross. He was born to die, and then to be raised from the dead. But it was His death on a “cross” that showed us the “mark” to follow after to be raised from the dead with Him. Remember the cross pictogram, is the last letter in the Hebrew alphabet, and God designed it this way to teach us about His end targeted mark plan for all of humanity. Jesus, was given so that we could have a new beginning in eternity with Him forever.
We can begin to see how God’s divine mark of the “Cross”, must become our sought-after desired target to move towards, during some part of our available life line. This desired target must also “remain” our priority goal for the end of our life line. By achieving God’s end-mark for a straight divinely designed life movement, this will always lead us towards the final mark of Jesus, and we will become His for eternity. But during this entire process, there is an unseen enemy that is doing his best to distract us from the path of life, to take us away from God’s mark.
This Hebrew word H226, appears to represent, a life filled with the successful work as His servant, that continued to move us toward the straight, and narrow future end target for a human destination of everlasting life. We can confirm this truth by reading what Jesus said in Matthew 7:14. In this verse Jesus said “Straight is the gate, and narrow is the path that leads us to life, and few are they that find it. Do you see how this corresponds to the goal of a plowman working an ox to a distant post mark target?
Since we are now observing the reality for the existence of two marks (Satan’s mark, & God’s Cross Mark), let us find the very first time this word was used by God to establish the foundation:
Genesis 1:14 – And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
As you can notice the English word “mark” is not included in this verse, but the Hebrew word H226 is found. This time the translators made the word to be “signs”. But this is still very profound if you understand who the lights in Genesis 1:14-16 are symbolic of. In verse 16 God describes creating light on the earth that originates from two “great” divided lights. The greater light refers to the “sun”, and this represents “Jesus Christ, the Sun of Righteousness” (Malachi 4:2). The lesser light in these verses is describing the “moon”, and it (he) represents the ruler of the darkness of this world (Satan aka the serpent), (Ephesians 6:12). We can confirm this with many verses, but please read 1 Thessalonians 5:5 where the LORD said “You (the church) are all children of the light and the day, we are not of the night or of the darkness”. Wow, this is amazing information designating two separated kingdom paths, and two marks of ownership.
Therefore, we can logically conclude that any serpent “mark” forced upon a human is Satan’s attempt to get them off of the straight path from entering into the eternal life cross point found only in Jesus Christ. This can normally only occur, if a human is deceived to follow in a different path direction either veering away from Christ, to the right or to the left of a balanced, and straight center path. Let us now review another Hebrew word that was translated as “mark” in the O.T.
H4307 – ‘Mark”
1 Samuel 20:20 – And I will shoot three arrows on the side thereof, as though I shot at a mark.
H4307 is the next Hebrew word, translated as “mark”, that needs to be understood. This word is first used in 1 Samuel 20:20, as you can read above, it was translated as “mark”. But notice the context, because this will become very important as we continue to learn. Take a note, that in this verse a man named Jonathan told David, he would shoot arrows, from his bow, as if he was shooting at a target. Jonathan and David agree that if the arrow went in one direction from the mark, it meant David was welcome to come back to the king’s palace, but if it went in the other direction, David better run and hide. Why does God speak in such great details about stories that seem of such unimportance? Of course, everything is important in the Bible, because everything found can teach us concepts and patterns that can be repeated.
Again, we have the concept of a “mark” being a “target”. In this example, the man aiming at the target, must keep his eye on it in a careful, and watchful way being very steady handed, to release at the exact time to hit, or in this case to miss the intended mark for a specific purpose. But in these verses, that marked target that is being aimed at, contains a “hidden coded message”. This message would only have been discernable to David that understood the code. Anyone else watching the arrow fly towards the mark, would not have understood the meaning, unless they knew the code. In our first example, there was an ox servant being aimed at a mark, and now an arrow using a “mark” to communicate a hidden code attached to it. Therefore, both examples represent a desired ending mark for an intentional purpose.
AN AIMED MARK CAN CONTAIN A HIDDEN CODE, OR PURPOSE, EITHER FOR GOOD OR FOR EVIL. SATAN’S SERPENT MARK IS NOTHING BUT EVIL. PEOPLE IN REVELATION 13 TAKE THE MARK FOR THE GOOD PURPOSE TO BE ABLE TO BUY AND SELL FOR LIFE, BUT IT HAS A HIDDEN CODED MEANING TO BRING THEM ETERNAL DEATH.
Now let us analyze this new Hebrew word using the ancient Hebrew pictogram definitions. This Hebrew root word is also two letters. The first letter is the “tet”, which is the 9th Hebrew letter, and this letter represents a basket, or a type of container. If you look this up, you will find that the picture of this letter is a circle with an “x” or another “cross” on the inside of it. That must just be a coincidence also? This letter is how we get this to be another “target” and “mark” concept. The second letter of this Hebrew word H4307, is the “resh”, which is the 20th letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and this is a picture of a man’s head.
Placing these two letters together, we get the meaning of the word is to literally “target a man” or figuratively “contain the man”. Wow, that is very eye opening. Think again that the “resh” Hebrew letter, is a picture of a man’s head. This is also one of the location target placements, for the beast’s mark in Revelation 13. This must be just another “just so happens”. But also remember that the human’s head is the location of the brain and mind.
Therefore, we are being led to understand how that someone can become a target for a mark to be contained, through a method of controlling their mind. Before a human will take a mark, they must decide to yield to it in their mind. From the thoughts of the human heart working with their mind, come the motivations of all human beliefs, decisions, choices, etc. This seems very profound, based upon the subject of deception. Deception also occurs in the mind, and this becomes much easier to occur, when the words that are intended to deceive are the only words that are constantly presented to the human.
What do these concepts teach us? It says, that by a serpent placing a mark, upon a human, this is one of the possible ways of “limiting”, “restricting”, “restraining”, or “containing” that human. God is trying to warn us, of the devil’s plan of “mind and body containment” to confine their spirit. Perhaps you have experienced this recently? For example, the demand to stay at home. The demand to not attend public gatherings like church. Clearly these are signs of being marked as a target by someone, and they are doing this through fear.
H1285 – The Covenant ‘Mark”
We need to understand another word that contains the “cross” mark. The English word “covenant” comes from the Hebrew word H1285. This Hebrew word consists of 4 Hebrew letters and the combination of these letter definitions is very profound in the ancient Hebrew. These four Hebrew letters are the “beyt”, “resh”, “yod” and “tav”. These letters create the word “covenant” as in a permanent marriage. But let us list what each of these letters mean:
- Beyt = a tent, as in the family in the house
- Resh = a man’s head
- Yod = a man’s hand
- Tav = a mark
Wow, perhaps you already can see the meaning. God begins the word with a combined family unit under a single dwelling. This family unit would imply the existence of a father, a mother, and their children. Now notice the human head is the next letter. Where was one location of the mark of the beast in Revelation 13? Your right, it was the forehead. Now, notice the next Hebrew letter in H1285, is the “hand”. Where else does Revelation 13 say the mark of the beast will be placed? It just so happens to be the right hand. Now for the last letter in the H1285 word is the tav, which is the symbol of the cross and is defined to be a “mark”.
What we can conclude from this information, is the serpent mark in Revelation 13, appears to be an eternal covenant. Taking this mark on the hand or the forehead indicates you have become a permanent covenant family member with the serpent. This would completely explain why there is no repentance, or salvation available for these people after taking this “mark”.
CONLUSIONS
Phillipians 3:14 – I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
We have just gone through a limited overview lesson on the subject of a “mark”. In it we should have learned two words translated as “mark” in Hebrew. We should have learned a few important concepts from these two examples. We should have learned that a mark can be a potential good life goal, if it is directing us to Jesus. This is exactly what Paul was talking about in Philippians 3:14. Paul had set his life goal on obtaining that mark found only in Christ.
Recall that the Hebrew word translated as covenant, was a four-letter word consisting of a family, a head, a hand, and a mark. This was an amazing parallel to what we found in Revelation 13, describing the placement of the mark of the serpent. This appears to be a revelation that Satan’s mark is a permanent covenant that every human should avoid. Satan’s mark would be in direct opposition to the New Covenant in Jesus which should be our marked destination for salvation. Therefore, we should have learned that an evil mark can be used as a plan for limiting, controlling, or containing someone for a separation from God.
We also should have learned that a “mark” can be designed, and used for a secret coded message. The range of possibilities for this usage are staggering to think of. A code is a system of hiding information, that is not intended for just anyone to know. So, it is with the number “666”. This is a number that contains a hidden coded meaning, and many have been trying to figure this out since the book was written.
Next, we should have learned that a human can be “marked” as a target for the purpose of their death. We can plainly see that the beast in Revelation 13 will physically kill anyone that does not take his mark, but this is a trick because everyone that takes it will die a spiritual eternal death. Therefore, we need to know there are two types of death mentioned in the Bible. We need to learn today, that Jesus taught us in Matthew 10:27, for us to not worry about those that can kill the natural physical body, but rather for us to just fear God who is able to throw your spirit, soul and body into hell after this death. Jesus was warning us of a greater spiritual death.
Do you remember the serpent beast’s primary threat for NOT taking his “fang-mark”? In Revelation 13:17, God says this coming satanic system will cause anyone that rejects the “mark”, to lose the ability (freedoms) to buy or sell. Wow, if anyone does not see that this is already beginning to happen now, they are blind, and deceived. Are these not the threats of losing freedoms? Is this not an example of containment and separation? Currently there are several large private organizations, and governments, calling for everyone in their country, group, or company to take their current present-day fang “mark”, or lose their job and income. Uh oh? That means these people, will not have money to buy anything.
There are other calls for people to have to show a “I have taken the fang mark” ID card, in order to enter their store to participate in buying food, clothes, services, entertainment, etc. Uh oh? There are others that are not allowing any global travel without confirmations of a “fang mark”. Isn’t it interesting these people do not want us to show an ID to vote, but if we do not get a “mark” we can’t go anywhere? It appears to say, it is all of the healthy people that are being targeted, and restricted the most today.
There are examples after examples, of how companies are being used by Satan, to bring great stress and pressure, to cause a fear of losing jobs, and to raise the possibility that people will not be able to pay their bills, without their full compliance of taking a “fang-mark”. This pressure is causing people to have no option, other than to take a type of sharp pointed mark, in order to keep them from a death that we are told is only occurring to less than 1% of the world’s population. Did you know more people use to die of the flu, and no one thought that was something to deal with, so that everyone would be forced to get a flu-mark?
This strategy appears to be an attempt at the spreading of multiple strategic messages of poison, to cause a convergence of two or more fear types. However, all human fears are rooted in death, but there are many ways of the serpent to present the information to cause fear and death to occur. And these methods of evil information seed sowing, are being played together to force everyone into unwavering compliance.
Please note, there is no claim that we are living in the tribulation right now (2021). There is no claim in this series that the permanent death mark of the beast, is being given out at this publication date. There is no claim that the final antichrist devil has come out into the open to make himself known. But this lesson reveals diverse signs occurring everywhere that all of this could all begin to happen very soon. It is becoming evident that what is happening today through the serpent, is a forerunner, or just a dressed-up rehearsal for what will be repeated during the soon coming tribulation.
Is the serpent out of step with the Bible, or is this just a surprise attack when no one was expecting it to happen? If this is a surprise attack, could the serpent be trying to get an advantage over Christians or God? We believe that this coordinated plan-demic, is a premature surprise attack from the serpent. But there is absolutely no way that this will succeed or even gain any advantage over the church, or our God, because “Greater is He that is in us, than he that is in the world” (1 John 4:4). Also remember the promise of God given through Jesus to the church:
Luke 10:19 – Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.
Thank you for reading and studying the Bible with us. We love you all very much and pray God’s blessing upon each of you and your families. Please do not allow anything said in this lesson, to cause you any fear. Please allow the Holy Spirit to give you His insight on what is happening in the world right now, and only be led by His peace in making your decisions. This information is only presenting God clues given to us in the Word of God, that teach us about what is possible to be happening in our world today. It is far better for us to be informed by God’s Word, than to be ignorant of it.
If you would like to continue reading in this series, please go to “Part 4” now.
SERPENT WITCHCRAFT – PART 2 – FOUR TYPES OF SERPENT POISON
(Ver 1.0) Today is a vital prophetic Bible study, on an essential current world topic. This Bible subject concerns one of the most important end-time warnings that God wants to reveal to humans. This plan of evil is revealing Satan’s strategy of coordinated deception, and his plans to try to control every human. This will be a highly explosive controversial subject that will certainly offend Satan, but could also potentially offend a lot of readers and even Christians. Therefore, be warned up front, if you do not consider yourself to be a spiritually awake and mature Christian, judge yourself to determine if you should continue reading. It is recommended that you read this lesson series from the beginning. If you have not read this, click on “Part 1” to go there first.
In this series we are talking about a nefarious prophesied planned tactic of human control from an ancient evil serpent. Today’s short Bible lesson, will only focus on the subject of the types of “serpents” that God reveals in the Bible. There will be four different types of “serpents” that will introduced. Two types of serpents will be totally natural, and the other two types of serpents, will be a potential combination of both spiritual and natural. We will hopefully, go over who or what they are, and introduce how they are effective to hurt, harm, or even kill people in this lesson.
Unless you have been living on a deserted island somewhere, you already are aware of something that is happening in the world that is “far” from good. Death has become the dominate topic of conversation. There appears to be a globally coordinated, and planned agenda to cause a one-world new ordered lifestyle, through fear driven words of deception, distortions, distractions, and biases. People today are intentionally being murdered, when they could have been quickly treated correctly, to live.
Please take note that this lesson will be taught using a lot of Biblical, spiritual terminology, representations and symbolism, to keep this message from being muzzled by Satan’s cooperative human IT workers of evil. I believe most mature Christians will understand it, and receive the spiritual message of warning from the LORD.
Let us go and study some of the key verses about who and what types of serpents, that are applicable for today’s plan of global deception.
#1- BIBLE OVERVIEW OF ENEMY SERPENTS
The first directly named mention of a serpent in the bible, occurs in Genesis 3:1, and this creature is defined to be Satan in Revelation 12:9 and 20:2. He is the main focus of this lesson series. But there are also other types of serpents, that are literal or figurative, that may be working with our main character to accomplish his great destructive evil.
There are at least four forms, or types of “serpents” mentioned in the Bible. These types represent natural, spiritual, and figurative patterns of serpents. There are spiritual serpents, and figurative serpents that are working together in the world today. Both of these categorized types of beings have amazing similarities and parallels. But it is important to know that they all represent sin, and evil. Let us quickly go through an introductory overview of these 4 types of evil.
SERPENT #1
First, there are the natural types of God created serpents, that slither, and slide along the ground. Christians today are not fighting these natural beasts in mass, as the children of Israel did in Numbers 21. However, this natural story of fiery serpents moving through the camp, to kill many people is a shadow of what is happening now in the world. Like Moses did by lifting up a serpent on a pole, to have people look on it to be delivered, is also what is available today. But people today are required to repent and look to Jesus on the cross for their spiritual salvation, and He is the only hope anyone has.
When, and where did these natural reptiles come from? Christians should believe the Bible, because God created the world, and He wrote the Bible, and He answers these questions. In Genesis 1:24, God begins day 6 of creation. At the beginning of day 6, God creates land animals of every kind. This would logically include any natural snake. Many people consider these creatures a physical enemy, which is very logical and wise. But God said He created these beings to help us to understand His greater unseen spiritual realities, in John 3:12.
Natural serpents are mentioned a few times in the Bible. But we will only be focusing upon one occurrence found in the Book of Acts for this lesson series. In Acts 28:4, the apostle Paul is shipwrecked on an island called Melita, where he is placing a pile of sticks on a fire. While feeding the fire, a venomous beast attaches itself to the hand of Paul. Everyone that watched this happen, looked upon Paul in amazement when he shook the beast off, and did not fall down dead. This is an amazing story that reveals more than you know right now. We will be talking more about this event, later in the series. Here are some little facts about poisonous and venomous natural serpents:
- A poisonous serpent or viper has specifically designed venom producing glands.
- Poisonous serpents have hollow long fang sharpened teeth that are used to inject the mouth gland’s poison into their victim.
- There are over 700 types of poisonous serpents in the world today.
- Over 250 serpents have the ability to kill a human with one bite.
- Serpents are globally prevalent. There are only about 6 nations on earth where snakes do not live.
- Many snake venoms contain neurotoxins that attack the nervous system, that is designed to immobilize and, or kill the victim.
- Sea snakes are some of the most venomous in the world.
- Snakes smell with their tongues.
- Venomous snakes usually have elliptical or slotted pupils in their eyes.
- Snakes are considered “cold blooded” animals.
- Most snakes have very keen eyesight and night vision.
Most of us know that natural serpents are real, widespread globally, dangerous, designed to kill or cause harm, and should not be ignored, and treated like they do not exist. Therefore, if we should not ignore natural dangerous serpents, we better not ignore a far more powerful spiritual poisonous serpent named Satan. All of these descriptive qualities of naturally created serpents, have parallels into the other spiritual, and figurative serpent types.
Serpent #2
The next type of serpent mentioned in the Bible, is a spiritual being named Lucifer (Isaiah 14:12). This spiritual being is first referenced by God to be a symbolic serpent in Genesis 3:1, but his identity is not clearly revealed until Revelation 12:9. That fact causes these two books (the first, and the last), and these two chapters (3 and 9), to be very intimately connected. It also teaches us that this figurative serpent represents an unseen hidden enemy.
Revelation 12:9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
This symbolic serpent is our central figure of this Bible study, and he is also one of the secondary central themes of the entire Bible. He is identified in this verse, to have two names, and two figurative descriptive symbols. The two symbols are the “old serpent”, and “great dragon”. With these symbols is prefixed qualification of “old” and “great”. The two identifying names are the “Devil” and “Satan”. “Devil” means “false accuser”, and “Satan” also means “adversary accuser”. Both of these names identify Satan to be a masterful slanderer using words. He uses words of deception craftily, like casting a spell upon a victim.
Today there is a battle of words taking place. It is a key part of what is happening in the strategy of the serpent in our world. There is an evil side that is producing words of fear, division, hatred, and redefinition of evil being called good, and good being called evil (Isaiah 5:20), and the God side is attempting to just tell the truth in love (Ephesians 4:5). Christians are going to become deceived, if they do not learn to pay attention to the words they hear.
A lot of Christians believe we should not spend time studying this spiritual enemy, but obviously they have not been a Christian long enough to know how evil, powerful, and tricky this enemy can be:
2 Corinthians 2:11 – so that no advantage would be taken of us by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his schemes. (NASB)
It should be obvious from reading the Word of God and from our human experiences, that Satan has schemes of evil to work against humans. Paul wrote that we should NOT be ignorant of these strategies, yet too many people are. Any wise military general understands, the more they know about how an enemy can operate against them, the more likely they are to overcome them. Let us just read about one key part of Satan’s ability to control humans:
2 Corinthians 4:4 – In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
Satan has an uncanny ability to produce a shadow of darkness that overwhelms the human mind, causing people the inability to see the truth. God says there are people in the world that do not believe the truth about Jesus to be saved, just because of this ability. But even some Christians can experience this darkness to not see certain Bible truths. We learn from this verse, that this deception is occurring in the unseen human mind, by an unseen spiritual serpent god. Wow!
Therefore, the number one strategic way Satan figuratively poisons people, is by thought filled words of deception. We learn that Eve was deceived by the serpent in Genesis 3:13, by her own admission, she said she was deceived by the serpent. But then we learn in the New Testament that God claims she was only deceived in her thoughts:
2 Corinthians 11:3 But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.
Surely you can see that the modern church is being warned to control our thoughts. We learn from the Word of God, that any thought in our mind, could potentially come from Satan. Therefore, it must be evaluated by comparing it with the word of God in the Bible (2 Corinthians 10:5). This is your only guarantee that this thought is something that needs to be agreed with, spoken, or acted upon.
Then reading in a connecting verse in Revelation 12:9 we discover this same serpent, has deceived the entire world. Therefore, the words of the serpent represent poison, that causes spiritual death. Serpent words in Genesis left the entire world separated from God, spiritually dead. You have just been introduced to two types of poisons, in serpent types 1 and 2. A natural serpent has a natural poison substance in its mouth to kill people physically, and the spiritual serpent has poisonous words of deception in its mouth to spiritually kill people. Let us examine a new type of spirit serpent next.
Serpent #3
Ok, now for the next prevalent type of “serpent” that is mentioned in the Bible. This type of serpent is a figurative representation of another spiritual being. Can you guess what type of being this can be? Yes, it could be angels, devils, demons and other unclean spirits, but those fall into the serpent type 2 category. No serpent type 3, could be any human you hear speaking to you. This is why, we better learn this lesson from the Bible and learn from God’s Word. Paul wrote in Romans 3:4 “…let God be true, and every man a liar…”. Let us review some verses that introduce this type of human serpent:
Psalm 140:1 – Deliver me, O LORD, from the evil man: preserve me from the violent man;
Psalm 140:2 – Which imagine mischiefs in their heart; continually are they gathered together for war.
Psalm 140:3 – They have sharpened their tongues like a serpent; adders’ poison is under their lips. Selah.
These verses describe a natural human being, that has an extremely evil heart. This would indicate this human is connected to be like the unseen spiritual serpent also named Satan. Notice in verse 3, God says this human has a sharp tongue like a serpent, and they have adders’ poison under their lips. These are clever symbolic representations of people who deceive, and hurt other humans, with their words, and actions.
Take a quick look at one other reference to how human words can be a deadly poisonous substance:
James 3:7 – For every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind:
James 3:8 – But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.
We find in verse 7 of James 3, that God speaks of humans being able to tame every kind of naturally created beast, including natural serpents (serpent type 1). But this natural reality, is being compared to an unruly spiritual evil full of deadly poison, called the human tongue. God is now teaching us how Satan is using the words of deceived humans, to deceive other humans. These types of humans can be just introducing us to false religions, Satanism, socialism, Marxism, communism, or atheism. And it could also be coming from anyone, including politicians. An injection of poisonous words, can be coming from any source, including your neighbor, a boss, the television, and the internet.
Currently in the world, there are literally billions of deceived people that have been buying into the untruths of Satan. These deceiving words are being spoken through people (like the false prophets), who have no real concept that they are being used by an evil spirit (Ephesians 2:2). It is amazing how a deceived person, can believe they are the one that is speaking the truth, and believe that those that are actually speaking truth are speaking the untruths (2 Corinthians 4:4). But God said this would happen, and warned us of it in Isaiah 5:20. In this verse God says “Woe to them that call evil, good and good, evil. Please let me give you another set of key verses that are very relevant to our subject of serpent witchcraft.
Act 13:6 – And when they had gone through the isle unto Paphos, they found a certain sorcerer, a false prophet, a Jew, whose name was Barjesus:
Act 13:7 – Which was with the deputy of the country, Sergius Paulus, a prudent man; who called for Barnabas and Saul, and desired to hear the word of God.
Act 13:8 – But Elymas the sorcerer (for so is his name by interpretation) withstood them, seeking to turn away the deputy from the faith.
Found here in the Bible, is an amazing parallel to what is happening in our modern times. Satan always repeats the same strategies and plans, just to new people. Ecclesiastes 1:10 says, “Is there anything we can say, this is new? No, it has been already in old time, before us”. This is a wise principle to know and apply. This makes Bible study exponentially more important in these times that we are living. The more we learn about what Satan was doing in the past, the more we can be prepared to know what could be happening now. In this passage we are about to be introduced to the ancient concept of witchcraft and magic, to see how it was used then, and how it can be repeated now and in the future.
Here in Acts 13, We can read, where Paul and Barnabas were going through the land preaching the Gospel of Jesus, when they came across a government ruler named Sergius Paulus. This man desired to hear the words of light and truth spoken from Paul. But there was opposition from a human, that was a false prophet, magician, and sorcerer named Barjesus. This evil man tried extensively to silence the truth. This man was attempting to sway the ruler away from hearing God’s words of truth to bring light, in order to keep him in Satan’s dominion of darkness (Acts 26:18). This is exactly what is happening today, but on a much larger scale. Here is what Paul said about this evil man:
Act 13:9 – Then Saul, (who also is called Paul,) filled with the Holy Ghost, set his eyes on him,
Act 13:10 – And said, O full of all subtilty and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord?
This is an accurate description of people that are doing the same in our world today. Notice the Greek word G1388 translated as “subtilty”, leads God’s descriptive terms. This word means, “a decoy”, “a trick bait”, or “a wile”. Wile is defined as a strategy to deceive in order to trap and ensnare a person into believing a lie. It is like placing a tasty piece of cheese on a trap, to get the mouse, to take the bait and die.
This is happening every day from the mouths of the modern false prophets, that we learned about in lesson 1. We can learn from this, that whatever a false prophet is claiming is the truth, is actually the opposite of the truth. In fact, whatever a false prophet accuses their enemy of doing, is what they are doing. The accusation is given just to distract the attention away from them.
The next Greek description is G4468, and it was translated as “mischief”. This Greek word is defined by Strong as “recklessness”. Recklessness can be defined as someone who gives little or no thought to the risk of danger. This would apply to any danger to themselves, as well as any danger to others. These types of people care very little about their safety, or about who else gets hurt. This could describe a terrorist suicide bomber. This is clearly a type of person that is deceived, and on their way to hell, and does not care how many others they take with them.
Now we get to the most important description of this type of individual. This man in Acts is called a “child of the devil”. Did you hear that? What is a child? One answer to what is a child, is a “seed” (Genesis 4:25). Who is the devil? We should all know, the answer to who is the devil, is he is the serpent (Revelation 12:9). Paul was calling him, “a seed of the serpent”. Where do we hear about this in the Bible for the first time? Perhaps you know it is Genesis 3:15. In this verse God is speaking directly to the “serpent”, as he says there will be enmity (hatred) between you and the woman, and between her seed and your seed. Wow, this is very important to understand.
Finally, notice the word description. to “pervert” the right way. This Greek word is G1294 and it means to “distort”. This could be exchanged with the synonym, to “twist” the true way to righteousness. God is saying there are people in the world that are intentionally, trying to turn you away from seeing the truth, to send you to hell with their lies and tricks. This is the antichrist spirit that has been working since Paul was preaching (2 John 1:7).
This type of serpent, being described is full of deceit, guile, subtilty, treachery, and great evil intentions. This type of serpent is a type of their serpent father’s pattern (Satan). This type of “serpent” uses words to deceive, and turn people in a direction they should not be in agreement with. Think of this type of person to be like a warlock or wizard magician that is casting a spell upon someone, they want to do harm to. This type of serpent is working with their father to bring magic, and witchcraft to the people of the world.
This type of serpent’s number one ways of deception; is to first distract from, or plainly silence the truth. This was like Barjesus, did to Paul. Then they will bring people hopeful words of hidden subtle poison. And they do this by hiding and disguising the lies with tasty labels that promote human flesh desires for relief from created threats of death, poverty, sickness, and etc. But whatever they are saying or doing, is actually leading people deeper into the problems that they claim they are being saved from.
Next, let us go through the fourth type of serpent, which is another figurative type to conclude this lesson.
SERPENT #4
Ok, there is a fourth type of figurative serpent, that is representative in the Bible. Serpent 4, characterizes any natural deadly type of poisonous substance. Like Satan and his seed sorcerers can use poisonous words to cause spiritual death, they also can use literal poison to intentionally cause physical death to humans. Satan is first interested in your spiritual death, but physical death becomes a greater priority after anyone becomes a Christian. But remember, Satan always wants to deceive you first.
Once a person is deceived, they can be used by Satan easily, to deceive or physically kill other people. Take for example, the late Jim Jones in 1978, who was a deceived cult preacher that killed a lot of his followers by giving them a deadly poison to drink. Here we had two types of poisons (one spiritual, and one natural) working together to kill a lot of people. This makes this type of spiritual and natural death, one of Satan’s greatest planned strategies, and we will be talking more about this in other lessons, because this is a repeated pattern of poisoning people by the evil one, and it is happening again today on a global scale.
Let us review a few examples of this type of physical poison in the Bible. In Exodus 15, God wrote of Moses and the children of Israel in the wilderness being very thirsty. They come upon a place named Marah, that had only bitter water. After Moses cast a tree branch into the water, it became sweet, and good to drink. It is implied, that drinking the bitter water would have been deadly. Fortunately for the children of Israel, Moses was a prophet of God that helped them, and not a Jim Jones that was trying to kill them.
In Mark 16:18, God informs us that if Christians drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them. In another place, in Revelation 8:10, we can read about a satanic star named Wormwood, that falls from heaven to the earth. This event of evil, poisons 1/3 of the drinkable waters in the world. This passage claims “many” people will die from this coming poisoning. This is just another example of the Jim Jones type of event, on a much larger scale. There are also other types of potential venomous substances, and poisoning methods, that can be given to people through massive deceptive tricks. We will address this subject more later in the series.
CONCLUSION
We have been discovering the Biblical subject of “serpents” and how they threaten the freedoms of human life with poisons of witchcraft. We have found that there were at least 4 types of serpents, that were introduced to us today in this lesson.
There was one type of naturally created serpent that depicts a warning pattern for the other types of figurative and symbolic serpents being given by God in His Holy Word. These naturally created serpents (type 1), are very subtle beings. They can appear not to be there and then suddenly strike without warning. Their poison can literally kill a human in a matter of minutes.
But there is also another type of natural serpent that was not mentioned. This type of natural serpent is very large and powerful. This serpent wraps around its victims, and then slowly squeezes until they are unable to breathe, and the victim dies from suffocation. People today have been dying this way in hospitals. Do you believe this is also related to the modern strategy of Satan? We will be talking more about this in the future, the Lord be willing.
The next more prevalent serpent type number 2 was Satan. This was God’s chosen description of Lucifer who deceived Eve with his tricky words in Genesis 3. Because of Adam’s willful rebellion, spiritual and physical death, both entered into the world. This resulted in the first mention of fear (Genesis 3:10). This enemy deception, caused man to become fearful of their creator God, and He was their only hope. This act of the subtle serpent, made the devil believe that he was in control, but it was through this God created concept of “death”, that literally caused Satan’s defeat (Hebrews 2:14).
The third type of serpent was humans that were called a child of the type 2 serpent, named Satan. According to the law of Genesis 1:12, every seed is produced from the source of its own kind. Therefore, these types of people are almost exact patterns of their father the devil. These humans have been deceived by Satan’s words, and are now controlled to be used to deceive other humans from joining God’s Kingdom. Most of these people do not have a clue that they are deceived, and they are being used for evil, or that Satan even exists. But there are a few top leaders that have worship practices to exalt Lucifer to the position that he desires in his evil heart. Too many deceived people today have fallen into a trap of greed for money and power. But their end is not a good one, and hell will be a place of greater torment for these.
The fourth type of serpent is figurative for a natural poison. It has the similar characteristics of the other three types of serpents, in a more deceptive packaged presentation. This type of poison can be demon inspired, and human developed, distributed, and attractively presented as something good, and beneficial for life. It can be even praised, and worshipped by many. To those that are deceived by the false prophet narratives, it can be easily given out for free, and eagerly and willingly desired to be taken. But to others that can see what is happening, it can be forced upon them with threats of losing some essential modern necessity of survival.
We are nearing the time of the end of the world. The previous days of compromised middle ground harmony between those good and evil, has been removed. Fence sitting Christianity has been torn down, and which side of the world you wish to stand in, has been set before us as a plain choice. God is bringing out prophets today, that are standing with Him, and saying:
1 Kings 18:21 – … How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him…
There has been a clear line drawn by God. Your choice to whose side, you are whole heartedly standing with, can, and will determine your eternal destiny in God’s kingdom, or the serpent’s kingdom in hell. But I do not want to end this lesson without giving people hope. Because God loves us so much, He has given us hope, that the serpent will not prevail in this plan against God’s church to overcome us.
According to the Word of God, we (the church) can overcome Satan by the blood of the Lamb (Jesus), and the word of our testimony (Revelation 12:11). We can also read when Jesus gave all Christians believers, His authority over all of the serpent types found in the Bible (Luke 10:19). We have been blessed by the LORD with an indwelling greater Spirit than he that is working in the world (1 John 4:4). But authority given over a serpent is useless, unless it is utilized and applied. Don’t allow the fear produced by a serpent plan, to cause motionlessness.
Thank you for spending the time to read and study the Word of God with us at agapegeek.com. We love you all, and pray God’s best for you. If you need prayer, please just leave us a message. It would be our privilege to pray for you. We also love whenever you pray for us. The serpent is an equal opportunity destroyer. He would love to kill us all, but our God has given us His blood to redeem us from Satan’s authority. Thank you, Jesus!
If you would like to continue reading in this Bible series, please continue with “Part 3” now.
SERPENT WITCHCRAFT PART 1 – WARNING OF THE DECEPTION HAPPENING NOW
(Ver 1.0) This is Part 1 in a series of lessons on the book of Revelation that reveals parallels with world current events. This lesson is a vital prophetic Bible study, on an essential current world topic. This Bible subject concerns one of the most important end-time warnings that God wants to reveal to humans. This plan of evil is revealing Satan’s strategy of coordinated deception, and his plans to try to control every human. Satan is attempting to tell us all lies as often, and from as many sources as possible, to get everyone to believe them. This has been so very successful to deceive too many people. This will be a highly explosive controversial series, that will certainly offend Satan, but could also potentially offend a lot of readers and even Christians. Therefore, be warned up front, if you do not consider yourself to be a spiritually awake and mature Christian, judge yourself to determine if you should continue reading.
If you would like to read the ending summary first, before continuing with the detail, you may go to “Part 6” and then return back to Part 1 to learn more details.
I believe the LORD wanted us to go in a new direction for this lesson series, to help as many people as possible. There are major eternal consequences for being deceived in these last days. Believing the wrong message, could shorten our lives on the earth, or even send us to hell. We will be talking about a nefarious prophesied planned tactic of human control from a serpent. If you have ever read the book of Revelation, you could be like a lot of people and wonder, what does all this mean, and how, and when can it possibly come to pass? The things that were prophesied, have never been possible to take place, in the way that they are stated in the Bible, until NOW. Because of the rapid advancement of technology, we can see so much happening all around us that matches what the prophets of 2000+ years ago wrote about.
God literally told the prophet Daniel, to seal up his book until the time of the end. God said this in Daniel 12:4, where it is written: “Many will run to and fro, and knowledge will increase”. How can words that were written thousands of years ago, and have not changed in the least little bit, suddenly have profound new meanings that no one has ever seen before? This is a very perplexing riddle, unless you understand the writer of the Bible knew the future, and He described things in the terms that only those living in the end-of-time could understand. This is why so much new revelation is coming forth about our times of the end.
For example, without the modern inventions of bullet trains, cars, and jet airplanes, the ability to move around the globe rapidly by people mentioned in Daniel 12:4, was not possible. In the same way, if not for the modern inventions of large-scale computers, servers, networks, laptops, tablets, smart phones, the internet, satellites, and fiber optics, the knowledge of the world increasing, and being passed around rapidly, would be extremely limited. Living in the information age causes us to better understand what was hidden in Daniel 12:4. This is one of the key principles for understanding any end-time prophecy.
Christians should have a great advantage of knowing more about the times, and seasons that we are living in, then the unsaved world. According to 1 Thessalonians 5:4, Christian should not be living in darkness so that the end of days should surprise us. Because we can read and study the Bible prophecies, we can use the foretold information about future events, come alive to us as we watch them occurring.
Currently there is a coordinated satanic plan of evil to overtake the world, that is being perpetrated globally, upon everyone simultaneously! Please take note that this lesson series will be taught using a lot of Biblical, spiritual terminology, representations and symbolism, to keep this message from being muzzled by Satan’s cooperative human IT workers of evil. I believe most mature Christians will understand it, and receive the spiritual message of warning from the LORD.
This website has had people try to shift our work for God by telling us, we should not be concerned with teaching what the Bible says about politics, money, medicine, or anything else that is potentially offensive to some. However, since God speaks about all of these subjects and more in His Word, we will continue to be like Peter and John in Acts 4:19; “Whether it be better to obey God or you, you judge”. As for our website, we will do our best to always obey God.
Let us move into today’s lesson, of the introduction to divine warnings to not be deceived.
#1 – END-TIME DECEPTION WARNING
Christians must become enlightened to the times, that we are living. We also must discern to see the plans of evil, and stand against them, in prayer utilizing the authority given to us by the LORD Jesus (Luke 10:19). Or we will fall into the tricks of our spiritual enemy, to become deceived. We must pray, and seek divine wisdom, revelation, discernment, help and guidance, to counter this severe evil attempt to deceive us. Jesus personally, listed first in His description of end time events, one great warning. In Matthew 24:4, Jesus said the following:
Matthew 24:4 – And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.
Why would Jesus make this His priority end-time warning, for His people? It would appear to say to us, that this will be Satan’s primary goal, and the basis of his strategy, to defeat us. How are people deceived? Most deception comes from subtle words. We can learn from reading in Romans 3 and James 3, how words can be poisonous to bring people harm and deceit.
We can go back and read about the first deceit in Genesis 3. This is where the ancient serpent tricked Eve with his subtle, and crafty poisonous words (1 Timothy 2:14). Genesis 3 was the first recording of human deception taking place. But reading Revelation 12:9, God declares the entire world will be deceived by this “serpent”, who has grown into the “Great Red Dragon”.
Revelation 12:9 – And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
Here we have a very key definition given, to the true identity of the “serpent” of Genesis 3. This serpent is clearly defined to be the devil, also called Satan. This definition also clearly teaches us that the “serpent” was a symbolic name, since the “great dragon” is also a symbolic reference. This spirit being is said to be the source of the deception of all humans. Therefore, we know where the supply of deception seeds come from. But we must also understand that Satan uses two methods working together to deceive people. The first method of deception occurs in the human mind, as we read described in 2 Corinthians:
2 Corinthians 11:3 – But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.
This is an essential God commentary on Genesis 3 about how Satan operated in the Garden of Eden. The Greek word translated as “beguiled” means “to seduce wholly”. In other words, to deceive completely. But it is the location, and method of this deceit that is important to understand. Paul wrote to the church about his concern, that how Satan tricked Eve in her mind, so he was operating in their minds with the exact same methods. Therefore, we understand that thoughts of temptation, and deception come from Satan. Be aware of this. If a thought does not align with the Word of God, cast it out of your mind (2 Corinthians 10:5), with a statement of “It is written” like Jesus did (Matthew 4:10). Now let us look at method 2 of Satanic deception:
Revelation 2:14 – But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumblingblock before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication.
The second primary method of deception used by Satan, is to use easily deceived people, to deceive other people. We can read about this again in Revelation 2:14. This is another example of a “false prophet”, that was used to deceive the nation of Israel by Satan. In this example, Jesus is rebuking the church for falling into this trap of acting like a Balaam, who was a false prophet. This church doctrine was to introduce stumbling blocks, which represent temptations to be led away from serving God. This teaches us clearly, that even pastors in churches can become a “false prophet” to lead people away from God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Uh oh? We will be talking more about the subject of today’s false prophets as we continue. But let us review the concept of how this strategy works first.
How the Gospel was, and still is spread from one saved person sowing Good Seeds to save another unsaved person, is the exact same method of sowing evil seeds being used by Satan to deceive people. Jesus taught us this concept in the Parable of the wheat and tares (Matthew 13:24-30). Satan will deceive one person in their mind, and used this deceived person to spread the same message of lies to another. The growth potential of this tactic is exponential. This is the Satanic strategy happening today in the world. Satan has cleverly learned that by potentially silencing all other seeds of truth, his evils seeds become more believable. But this strategy will never stand up against the knowledge of God’s truth. Knowing God’s Truth will keep Satan from destroying you (Hosea 4:6). Let us get back into the foundational warning verse of this lesson.
In Matthew 24:4, Jesus starts with the word G991, that is translated as “take heed”. But that is not a sufficient meaning. This Greek word literally means, to open our eyes, to focus upon, and to become aware of something. This something being spoken of, is called “deception”. Remember in Genesis 3:7, God wrote the eyes of Adam and Eve were opened after the woman was deceived, and Adam intentionally rebelled. This statement would appear to teach us, Adam and Eve had their eyes shut, implying they never expected deception of an enemy to come into their garden. This would appear to teach us a pattern, that the Church should learn from.
- We must learn from the first human failure, to keep our eyes open.
- We must learn to expect deception to try to come and kill us.
- Then we must learn, that only agreeing with God’s Word of truth will keep us from falling for the poisonous lies from our enemy.
Some synonyms for “deception” are; a ruse, trickery, a con, dishonesty, fraudulence, and a scam. Other words that can be applied are being “two-faced”, “underhanded”, “false”, “fake”, and many others. Satanic deceptions are lies, that are mixed with selected bits of truths, and usually presented to be enticing. Deception is now happening, all around us. This deception is called a type of spiritual poisoning, because deception has crept into every realm of our society, and human influence, including the body of Christ in the church.
In the past, we thought we could trust our preachers. In the past, we thought we could trust our doctors. In the past, we thought we could trust our government leaders. In the past, we thought we could trust our high court judges. In the past, we thought we could trust our school teachers. In the past, we thought we could trust our news media. In the past, we thought we could trust our employers. In the past, we thought we could trust our family, and friends. In the past, we thought we could never lose our freedoms. But the majority of these people and qualities of normalcy, have been overrun (Ephesians 2:2) with a massive coordinated plan, and strategy of Satanic deception (Matthew 24:4), and redefinition of what is right, and good (Isaiah 5:20). But we need to learn to first trust God, learn His Words of Truth, and make them our FIRST priority. Begin everyday by asking God, “Show me what, I need to know to not be deceived today”.
There has been, and potentially will continue a strategy of Satan to bring a mass coordinated brain washing set of talking points to every human. This was intentionally designed and implemented to cause a spirit of fear (2 Timothy 1:7). This spirit of fear, has been ultimately designed, to produce the human desire, to give up our rights of freedom, and to willingly participate in the demonic take-over and control of our world. How many people do you know today, that are living in fear? I have heard this from too many people, it consumes them and it is because of a “fear of death”. Take a look at these verses:
Hebrews 2:14 – Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;
Hebrews 2:15 – And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.
Jesus Christ came into the world to destroy the power of death from Satan. He did this by participating in death and rising from the grave to conquer it. Yes, Satan is still trying to “kill” everyone with his “poison”, but that will only effect those that do not know the truth. Notice what fear does in verse 15. Fear places people into a state of willing lock-downed isolation of obedience, passivity, compliance and servitude. This lowers people made in the image and likeness of God, into a masked, faceless existence, with the removal of all basic human rights to freedom.
This satanic masterful strategy of mass exaggerations and lies, has caused so many people to just do anything that they are told, without any regard to consequences of their choices. This is the practice of human conditioning, assimilation, and acclimatization. Humans are being trained, and programmed, to blindly follow instructions like cloned identical robots, and to just automatically follow the ever-changing voice commands of alleged good sounding leaders. These people create a crisis. that fuels the flames of fear-based deception, to cause people to want to obey.
Did you know that this is what the Bible says, will happen in the future when the antichrist takes control of our world? God wrote about these future events almost 2000 years ago, and we can just now begin to understand how they can happen. We will get into these detailed strategies as we go forward in the Bible study series, if the Lord be willing.
We already read in the opening statements, about Jesus warning His people to not be deceived by any human, and that includes this website. Don’t believe anything we say. We are not God, and we didn’t write the Bible. Please, do your own work, to study and show yourself approvable to God (2 Timothy 2:15). Here is another warning verse, spoken from the lips of Jesus:
Matthew 24:11 – And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.
Jesus repeats His warning from verse 4, in Matthew 24:11 with the same emphasis, but being more specific with human beings that are deceived by “false prophets”. What exactly is a “false prophet”? Since God in the flesh specifically warns about this, we need to understand it.
God defines “false prophets” differently, then you might think. Many people, that have heard of “prophets”, believe they are someone that just speaks about something, that will come to pass in the future. Then if something said was not fulfilled in a time confirming their thoughts, they call them a false prophet. But that is not an accurate description. There are many examples from God in the Bible, where one of His prophets said something that did not come to pass. This was because people prayed, repented, and changed, and God said this made a difference.
God in 2 Peter 2:1, defines a false prophet and a false teacher, to be someone that denies the LORD Jesus. This definition is interesting because we can find instances like this in the Bible. For example, in Revelation 16:13, God prophesies that there will be a coming false prophet that will be empowered by Satan, and he will certainly deny the LORD Jesus. If you go study this topic you will find that this false prophet is taking people away from knowing God, and pointing them to serve the beast. That is how a false prophet works. But there are other examples of false prophets in the Bible.
If we read in 1 Kings 18:19, we learn a little bit about these types of evil false prophets. There was a very evil ruling queen named Jezebel, and she reigned over the people using fear. She made it her goal to kill off God’s real prophets to silence their words from being heard by the people of the nation. That sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Who is being silenced on the internet, news media, etc.? Then she replaced the real truth from God, with her message. She had at least 400 men, that ate at her table, and she called them her “prophets”. This teaches us a lot, about the subject of “false prophets”.
Here is what we learn in the Bible, about these types and patterns of people. These “false prophets” were sponsored, paid for, and bought by an evil government and ruler. Therefore, the poisonous message, that came from their mouth, agreed with the evil agenda of the Satan controlled ruler in the government. People of Israel, thought that they could trust prophets because of their past experiences with God. So, when the false prophets come with deception to bring them into serving the false god Baal, they are easily swayed away from their true God. Jezebel did a good job at silencing the God message, by silencing most of God’s servants. But God still had an Elijah that He was about to use, to turn the nation back to Him. All of these tactics of fear and silencing are being repeated today, just in new and different high-tech ways.
Deu 11:16 Take heed to yourselves, that your heart be not deceived, and ye turn aside, and serve other gods, and worship them;
The nation of Israel was warned by God not to be deceived to be turned, and driven to serve false gods to worship them. This is exactly what the “false prophets” of Jezebel did and they fell for the trap and trick of the enemy. God says to the church in 1 Corinthians 10:11, these mistakes committed by Israel, were written for our benefit to learn not to repeat, the same mistakes. Yet too many Christians have fallen into the trap of listening to today’s false prophets.
Who are today’s false prophets? We can still see today how people wholeheartedly believe what the false prophets in today’s world say to them. This causes people to be easily deceived. Who in today’s world, agrees with a one-sided extreme government position, and does not allow any other position or opinion to be told? Who in the world today are silencing every opposing opinion? Who in the government today claims God is not welcome in their House of Representatives, or their Senate? Who in the world are agreeable to the murders of innocent unborn children in their governor’s mansions and ruler houses? If you do not know the correct answer, you are probably deceived by them already.
These modern-day false prophets that are agreeable in mass with the Satanic agenda, and who are promoting his false narrative for the overthrow of civility, are called reporters, journalists, anchors, correspondents, news-casters, and editors, but I can think of some other words that are not so flattering. This is why I do not watch, or listen to the false prophet agenda, anymore. Please do not misunderstand. Not everyone in this industry is the devil. Many are good and legitimate, fair, truthful, and news minded types of people. But most of these are only found on limited platforms and have been completely removed from major social media.
CONCLUSION
In this lesson, we learned a lot of good information about the ancient serpent’s modern tactics of deception. These strategies of the devil are being implemented, and utilized using massive coordination, across many platforms of industry and governments. This should be one of the major things to pray against. Decree and declare for a spirit of confusion, to manifest in all of the enemies plans to take control of the world. Take authority over the devil’s plan to control the people of the world with his deceptive lies, and forbid it, in the name of Jesus. Bind the spirit of fear, and do not allow this evil spirit to enter your home, or your mind. True Christ followers, have full authority over the devil according to Luke 10:19.
This lesson series will be labeled as “d-i-s-i-n-f-o-r-m-a-t-i-o-n” by many of the false prophets, and their Jezebel rulers, and handlers. It will be labeled as “conspiracy theory” by many others. But please remember, Noah was a conspiracy theory preacher for 100 years, until it started to rain. Therefore, beware, and don’t believe anything that is written or spoken here, or anywhere else, unless you can verify it for yourself, in your own Bible study. Then hold fast to whatever you find to be the truth in His Word. Stand with God and His Word alone. Finally, please STOP LISTENING TO THE FALSE PROPHET agenda! This should be one of your priorities after reading your Bible. But do not cease to pray.
In the next lesson, the Lord be willing, we will be getting to how Satan is attempting to prepare us for more of his deception. There is a growing real hidden agenda of massive evil, that is not being told to us, by the mass of the fake and false prophets of Jezebel. But stand strong and look for the spirit of Elijah to arise again. There is about to come an Elijah moment of fire, and many will be surprised when they are consumed. This series will be going through key verses in the book of Revelation that show us what is happening in the world today to prepare us take the “mark” of the beast, that could be coming sooner than you think.
Thank you for taking the time to read this short lesson. There is an extensive effort being made to shorten the lessons on this website, for those who have time constraints in this crazy time. But please take note that one way that deception succeeds, is when no one has the time to read and study the Word of God. Thank you again for your prayers and encouragement. Hopefully, you will understand our heart of love to teach the Word of God to every nation. God Bless you and your family. We love you very much, and JESUS IS LORD, and is coming soon!
If you would like to continue reading in this Bible study series, please go to “Part 2” now.
Modern Examples of Deception to Avoid Part 5 – The Deception of Criticism in the Church!
(Ver 2.2) This is Part 5 in a Bible study series that is designed to help us to learn from examples of deception being used by Satan in the modern world that we as Christians should endeavor to avoid. Every Bible study in the series is intended to be helpful as an independent lesson. But if you would like to study the entire series of lessons from the beginning, you can go to “Part 1” first. This lesson series should help Christians to learn that there is more than one type of deception being used by Satan to deceive them. But, today’s lesson will focus only on how some Christians have been deceived into believing that they are the only Christians that are truly saved causing them to believe they are the only ones that are knowledgeable and right in all their doctrinal beliefs.
This type of deception tends to cause these people to denounce all other Christians of differing beliefs to be called names such as “false prophets”, “false teachers”, “heretics”, “ministers of heresy”, etc. Does that sound very Christian to you? This type of behavior sounds more like the devil’s modern-day plot called “the cancel culture agenda”. These people go so far with their mob mentality that if anyone does not agree with their beliefs, they are shouted down to silence them. These types of mobs are very intolerant of any words that conflict with their beliefs. They hate people that speak anything contrary and they call out their opponents with demeaning names for public shaming, like being called a “racist”. If this does not shut the opposition up, they move to the extreme of mob violence and eventually to the even highest extreme of murder to silence people that disagree with them. Wow, what a world we are experiencing.
This lesson is a complete rewrite of an older lesson from years ago. It has been completely updated and revised to hopefully be more kind and helpful. Let us get started in our lesson.
INTRODUCTION
1Co 8:1 Now as touching things offered unto idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth.
1Co 8:2 And if any man think that he knoweth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know.
The writer of 2/3 of the New Testament recorded a word of warning inspired by the Holy Spirit for the church. Please agree that Paul would qualify to have more knowledge of the truth than most other Christians both then and now. But Paul who knew so much warns us to not allow our presumed knowledge of the truth to get us into Satan’s trap of pride. The Holy Spirit instructs us clearly to walk in love when dealing with other Christians before we try to teach them what we think we know. I have heard it said this way, that people do not care how much you know until they know how much you care.
Please notice what verse 2 said. God says, if we think we know anything about a subject, we must first realize that we could be significantly ignorant to understand that we do not know the entire truth of the subject. That was my paraphrase of the verse. But we can see that this was what the all-knowing God was trying to teach us limited humans. I believe these two verses describe the initial stages of the downfall of Lucifer. We can learn that it was this type of thinking that Lucifer was imagining in his heart reading in Isaiah 14. Lucifer obviously was self-deceived into believing he knew as much as God. This same pattern of self-deception can be repeated with humans and Christians also today.
This truth teaches us that deception can occur two ways. Christians can be deceived by others (1 Jn 3:7) or we can also deceive ourselves (1 Cor 3:18, James 1:26). A Christian that studies the Bible can fall into the same Lucifer type of self-deception and self-exaltation because of our pride in what we think that we know about God and His Word. You might recall that in 2 Corinthians 12:3, Paul informs us that God allowed a satanic thorn in his flesh to keep him from being self-exalted in pride from all of the revelation of the Word of God that was given to him. If Paul would have filled himself with pride for everything that he knew, he could have fallen to not fulfill what God’s plan was for His life. This is a great description of what happened to Lucifer, when he fell in pride. Remember what Proverbs 16:18 says “Pride goes before destruction…” Let us also recall what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13:11-12:
1Co 13:11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
1Co 13:12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
These verses teach us two truths about Paul’s knowledge of the Word of God. First, spiritual knowledge is a process of growing out of an unlearned childish state who lacks any understanding and speaks a lot of childish ma ma, da da, and goo goo words to finally becoming a mature Christian that puts away all of this kind of baby speaking. Then in verse 12 we can see how Paul who knew more than most of us about the Word of God declares he did not know it all. He admits that we (Paul and us) still only know a small part. Wow, that is the opposite of a prideful attitude of thinking that he had a complete knowledge of the entire truth. Newborn Christians have such a limited capacity of seeing spiritual truth. And when these types of Christians criticize others, their words can be used as weapons to offend other Christians to fall away.
If you are a Christian, you should know that this prideful pattern of self-deception occurred several times in the Bible with humans. For example, this is what the Pharisees did to Jesus Christ my Lord and Savior! Religious Pharisees believed they knew so much about truth that they killed their Author of truth on a cross. This type of deception is what is happening in the church and the world today.
We can see very clearly that there are still a lot of pride filled Pharisees types in the world. Where did they get this command to criticize others? Who has exalted them to be the anointed, appointed, and called instrument of God’s swift justice? Is it God? Where did these people obtain the gift of criticism? This must be a spiritual gift that we missed reading about in 1 Corinthians 12. Did you find this gift in your Bible? In 1 Corinthians 12:4 God does say there are many different Gifts but ONLY 1 GOD that gives them all. So, does it make sense to you, that if God has given some in the church gifts to build up the church, that there would also be other gifts that are designed to divide, destroy and tear it down? That sounds like the works of two different opposing Gods to me.
There are deceived Christian people that believe that God is a God who is intolerant of human ignorance. There are even Christians that seem to believe that God is swift to judge ignorant misguided Christians. Could it be that many of these types of Christians believe they know more about the Bible than they do? Could it be possible that these types of people are not pleased with other Christians who are not as perfect as they believe they are? Could it be this is because of a type of prideful attitude towards others that we learned Lucifer had towards God? Why do Christians judge other Christians just because there are differences in Bible knowledge and beliefs? Could it be our pride or prejudices that cause us to call some Bible teachers false just because we do not agree with them?
I believe that we are deceived if we believe that it is only us that have the mind of Christ and only we hear from God. I believe we are deceived if we believe that the Spirit of God only resides in us. I believe we are deceived if we believe the Spirit of God does not teach anyone else but us and our church leaders. I believe that we are deceived if we believe the Spirit of God does not use anyone else but us and our denomination. I believe that we are deceived if we believe the Spirit of God shows favoritism and has selected only a choice few in our own group to carry forth the truth.
Surely you have noticed people who openly criticize and condemn TV and internet preachers as being false prophets and false teachers? Do they do this to save others from going to hell? Could listening to something that is not true be the main reason for going to hell? If it is, we are all going to hell because no one is teaching 100% of the truth because no one but God knows 100% of the truth! I believe listening to these presumed false preachers and teachers is not a sin or going to send anyone to hell. This is why God wrote us an instruction how to deal with this in Acts 17:11. Here in this verse God said to be a more noble Berean type of Bible student and look up in your own Bible daily to prove if what was taught to you was the truth.
If you hear someone criticizing and condemning Bible teachers for what they teach, please ask them “What is the basis that makes someone false or true teacher?” If they say it is the Word of God, then that is the pathway to knowing the truth. Ask them next for the Bible verses for their beliefs that contradict what was taught. If they give you some, go and read them and study them yourself. See if this is what the Holy Spirit is saying to you about the truth. But, if they say that it is their opinion of what they think the Word of God says, that could be a reason for deception. Who says our opinion is right or complete enough to judge? Are we God?
We can see so many of these types of Pharisee types all around us. Especially on the internet. But there are some on TV that make similar claims. It is amazing how easy it is for Satan to deceive people to judge others that they do not know personally or have ever met in person. I believe these types of criticizing judges are not examples for real Christians to follow or try to emulate. In fact, Jesus warned us that we should do surgery to remove the large beam from our own eye before we do some minor surgery to try to remove the small speck from our brother’s eye (Luke 6:42).
In 1 Corinthians 14:1 God commands us to “Pursue LOVE, yet desire earnestly spiritual gifts, but especially that we may prophesy. In verse 3 Paul defines for us what it means to prophesy. He says to prophesy is for us to speak to the church for 3 reasons:
- Edification
- Exhortation
- Comfort
The Greek word translated as “edification” literally means to build a house. That is the opposite of tearing the church down with words of criticism. The Greek word translated as “exhortation” means to “call someone to be near” as in give them an invitation based upon love to come in. The Greek word translated as “comfort” is a word that implies that we need to “encourage” people. This would include telling someone about what they are doing right, good, and well. This means that Christians should bring an emphasis to what is positive in someone in the body of Christ and not negative. This would teach that we should be looking for what they are doing good and not spending all our time trying to tear them down. In other words we should not be examining their every word spoken or written to look for something to trap them or to use to twist against them. No, we should rather be focused to look for the good words that they say and let the others that we may not agree with right now, maybe either just let them go by or go and study the verses to see if they are a true and better choice for our beliefs. I heard one wise preacher teach this concept by saying “Any old cow is smart enough to eat the good straw while spitting out the bad tasting sticks”. So just because someone is not perfect and does not know everything perfectly as we view it, it is still not wise to reject everything that they teach.
SOME EFFECTS OF THIS DECEPTION
My primary concern about these types of deceived people that attack Christian ministers the most, is the fact that there are so many new Christians that can be easily influenced to stumble and fall away from moving forward to fulfill God’s plan for their lives. I believe that it is essential for new Christians to grow up to be spiritually mature and to learn to hear from God for themselves. But deceived Christians who share criticism of other Christians can change the direction of a new Christian’s life very easily. Ungodly criticism gives the impression to some that we are fighting between each other while we ignore our real enemy Satan. Why would God desire for Christians to fight against Christians? Are there not demonic spiritual enemies to war against (Eph 6:12)?
New Christians can be distracted by incomplete or unsupported words of condemnation given by people that claim to be believers. These people can sound so intelligent and can sound so sure and confident in their minds of their judgments. But confidence and intelligence does not make anything true. God may be attempting to lead a new Christian into learning something fresh that He desires them to learn. But Satan’s deception can keep new or even some mature Christians from searching in their own Bible to know if what is said is true or not (Acts 17:11). The ignorance of new believers to understanding advanced spiritual Bible truths makes them much simpler to deceive than someone who has studied the Bible for over 20+ years and was raised in a good church from a young age. This is exactly why Paul was incredibly careful at times to only bring milk subjects to certain new Christians. Paul knew that the deep meat subjects were potentially very highly offensive (1 Cor 3:12) to new babes in Christ. Notice what Paul warned the church in this verse:
Rom 14:13 Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock or an occasion to fall in his brother’s way.
Could it be this is what is happening when people judge without having sufficient experience and understanding of the Bible? I believe it is exactly what is happening in the modern church. There is nothing new under the sun.
FOUR MAIN REASONS
WHY THERE ARE DIFFERENCES
IN UNDERSTANDING SOME BIBLE TEACHINGS
When any Christian judges a Bible teacher that teaches something different than what they are accustomed to, this can demonstrate a person’s pride in their own knowledge of the Bible. Usually when someone hears some words that do not make sense they become easily offended at the message. This type of becoming offended can then be followed by their rapid poor choice for speaking opinionated judgements to others. When these rapid judgments are heard by others, they can cause them to become offended also. This can then result in the placement of a spiritual stumbling block that we just read about in the last section.
But we need to see and learn that there are several potential reasons for why someone does not agree with what is taught by others. Most rapid poor judgments are based upon a presumed belief that someone that is different is purposefully teaching something to deceive them. But in fact, there are other reasons that need to be considered to help eliminate our poor snap judgments.
Human disagreement of the Bible can come from one of four main areas of potential misunderstanding. The first possibility is that the teacher may be confused on the subject or ignorant of something else in the Bible that you know that needs to be known by them to better understand the subject. That is called ignorance on the part of the teacher and we are ALL ignorant about many things found in the Bible. Ignorance is not a sin, nor does it make anyone a false teacher. In fact, I have learned a lot of things from Bible teachers that I did not agree with 100%. These types of ministers were very sincere in studying and teaching the Bible but did not see certain things in the Bible that I had learned from my own study. I figured out that these teachers were not intentionally deceiving anyone, and their heart was full of good intentions to provide their message to others. But this is one of the primary reasons that disagreements of Bible truth can occur. It is very normal to find this happening in any church and with any teacher. We are all on differing levels of knowing the Bible. I understand that you could know something that I have not yet learned and vice versa you may not know something that I have learned. Also, some of us are on a first-grade level of learning the Bible and others of us are at the advanced doctorate level of learning the Bible and others of us are somewhere in between. Therefore, I have learned to give other Bible teachers a lot of grace and mercy and I pray that you will do the same for me and for other teachers.
The second possibility for a Bible disagreement is that the teacher could have just misspoken or written something in haste that was just an honest mistake or accident. I have seen many teachers and speakers do this that were both Christian and non-Christian teachers. If you have read all the Bible lessons on this website, no doubt you may have seen where I have made several unintentional errors, typing mistakes, misspellings, grammatical errors, etc. These types of unintentional errors are also normal and do not make anyone a false or even a bad teacher. This just proves that we are all still imperfect humans.
Once, I remember a man that pointed out that I attributed something to Luke in a lesson that he was reading that I should not have done. After I read it, I knew that I had done this in haste and that I should not have written it in the way that I did. I thanked him for his comment that pointed this out and I quickly made the correction. Even though this error occurred in typing a lesson too fast, was without intent, and was corrected, he informed me that he would not be reading any more of my Bible lessons. He was obviously looking for an extremely high standard of perfection that would only fit his level of acceptance in study material content and that was sad. Because of him being offended, there is no telling what he might have missed out on that God wanted to show him.
Imperfections in speech or in writing can cause someone to be offended and this keeps a lot of people from receiving and knowing a lot of truth. But as we learned previously, mistakes do not make anyone a false teacher, it only shows they are learning mortal humans. In fact, God purposefully uses the most foolish imperfect people in the world to confound the wise perfectionists (1Cor 1:27).
Now for reason number 3 that causes people to be easily offended at the teachings of some ministers. We must understand a simple basic truth that not everyone listens perfectly to hear what is really being said. We can see an example of this in John 12:28-29. Here Jesus was praying to the Father and the Father answers Him from heaven with an audible voice. Some that were standing around said it was just thunder and others claimed they heard a voice of an angel. We can clearly learn that not everyone heard the same words, the same way.
There are many words that sound like other words. There are literally many ways for some words to be used that do not mean what someone is hearing them to say. Slang words are one simple way for messages to be easily misunderstood. Figures of speech are another way to misunderstand the teacher. Other words just have multiple definitions and that is a great challenge. Unless everyone is on the same level of every word’s meaning and application there are just a lot of potential ways for a message to be misunderstood. Therefore, we all need to stop and think before we get offended at something that we think that someone said.
Finally, for possibility number 4. Some differences in agreement concerning the Bible subject being taught is possibly some bad news for many Christians. From my experience in studying and teaching the Bible over the last almost 30 years, “I have found that the more I learn, the more I discover that I yet do not know”. This fourth possible conflict situation occurs when a teacher teaches something that someone may consider heresy, but it is only a revelation found in the Bible that they have never seen before. I have found that baby Christians that know the least about the Bible are usually the most vocal critics of things they have never seen in the Bible. Therefore, this type of Bible teacher is not even close to being a false teacher. We learn that the root problem occurs because of the ignorance and improper attitude of the listener who was offended.
We find this type of conflict occurs with more than just the Bible. I have observed this where doctors that are general practitioners are wise enough to not go into brain surgery without having been trained in that specialist field. No, the general practitioner is smart enough to refer the patient to a trained specialist and there are almost never any conflicts between these two types of educated professionals.
I have seen the medial conflict normally occurs between the ignorant unschooled patient that has only read one opinionated article on the internet and their doctor who is more knowledgeable. It is the doctor that has spent years of education and practice and has studied the subject constantly that is opposed by the ignorant patient. Most doctors are only trying to help them. However, the doctor is usually never offended at the ignorance of the patient, it is almost always the patient that is offended at the trained and educated doctor. Maybe the patient searched the internet and found an article that said to do something new and crazy to cure their problem. But when they approach the doctor with their proposed answer, the patient becomes easily offended because they believed a potential false internet article that was overruled by the doctor’s advanced training. Do you see how this analogy of the doctor and patient could apply to Bible teachers and students?
Ok, I will admit that there is a possible fifth explanation for differences in Bible teachings and Bible understanding agreement that causes someone to be offended. It is possible that Satan has deceived a minister to accept a lie and they are teaching it like it was a true revelation from the LORD. These types of ministers come in two types. The first is the one that is deceived and does not know it and the second is one that is just intentionally lying to be used as Satan’s tool for the deception of others. I believe type two is a rare occurrence. Most preachers and teachers desire to know and teach the truth in a loving and kind way, but they just do not know the entire truth.
We can find examples of these types of preachers that preach and teach in the subject of the rapture. Some believe there is no-rapture, others believe pre-trib, others mid-trib and others post-trib. There is absolutely no way that all four types of ministers are teaching the truth. At least three of the four must be teaching something that they believe is the truth but is not in actuality the truth. This type of conflict does not make anyone of these ministers a false teacher, it should however teach us to go into our Bible and find out what the LORD is saying to us. Do not follow people, follow the Holy Spirit and the Bible. Pray and ask the Holy Spirit to lead you into the truth in His Word. Then open your Bible and begin your search. Jesus promised us that if we ask and seek, He will answer, and we will find (Luke 11:10).
I knew a minister that fell into deception once. He started a church and it grew into an exceptionally large group of over 5000 people. He was an excellent anointed Bible teacher, and this was why the church increased. However, deception began to creep into the teachings many years later. This was probably from the people that he began to associate with. Within a short time, he was divorced, and the church went from over 5000 members to ZERO and does not exist anymore. What do we learn from this example? It did not take Christian criticism to topple his ministry. The ministry collapsed on its own weight of deception. Please do not misunderstand me. There was Christian criticism. There was worldly news media criticism. There were government investigations into the church. But it was mostly people who knew the Bible that walked away from the church that caused it to go down. Please read what this wise man said about some real God teachers in Acts:
Act 5:38 And now I say unto you, Refrain from these men, and let them alone: for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought:
Act 5:39 But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God.
Can we understand the wisdom being taught to us here? These were the religious men of the day that believed in their heart that they were right, and they knew more than these unlearned men that were preaching Jesus. But who was right? Was it the Pharisees or these called of God preachers? Obviously, it was these called of God preachers named Peter and the other apostles that were with him that were teaching the truth. What did this wise man say to do to them? Notice that he recommended that everyone ignore them and see if it was the work of man or the work of God. If it were the work of God, he said that they would be the ones that were guilty of fighting against God. And if it were the work of only men, it would fail under its own weight and come to nothing. That is an amazing revelation to learn.
NEW REVELATION
What is revelation? The Greek word G602 means “to reveal” or “to disclose”, or “to uncover”. This implies something was previously hidden for it to be made available to be revealed. G602 comes from the Greek word G601 that means “to uncover”. Again, this implies something that was previously covered to not be seen or recognized because of a shield that hid it. Proverbs 25:2 claims “It is the Glory of God to conceal a thing, and the honor of kings to search out a matter”. It appears after studying verses like this that God has purposely hidden things for saved Christian people to search and find.
What we have learned is that God has concealed a lot of information in the Bible in order that He could take the cover off it at the appropriate time. He does this for two main reasons. The first is for us to search His Word to learn, know, understand, and apply it to our lives. The second is to keep the information from His enemies.
The Greek words G601 or G602 occur in 44 verses of the New Testament. I believe God is trying to teach us that there are many secrets that were hidden in the Bible to be found. God calls these “mysteries”. God’s mysteries are the source for God’s revelations. The Greek word G3466 translated as “mystery” means “secrets” as in to shut the mouth and not tell anyone. This is the concept of keeping a silent. But God’s design was not to eternally lock these secrets of His message up permanently by not speaking to us, but rather He designed His Word in a coded fashion to allow Him to uncover them in succession, to be known in His timing. This Greek word occurs in 27 New Testament verses and occurs first in Matthew:
Mat 13:11 He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.
Jesus speaking to the foundation of His church builders tells them the secrets of the kingdom of heaven were given to them to know, but to others it was not been given. Wow, this teaches us even more about the subject of how there exists some people that can see selected truths while others are unable to perceive them simultaneously. What we are learning is the fact that two people can be reading or hearing the exact same words being taught from the Bible and both could be understanding an opposed meaning or interpretation of the exact same words. How can this be? Aren’t the word definitions and meanings the same for both? However, we learn that the entire issue of understanding pivots upon the point of view of the reader or listener. God teaches us this here:
1Co 2:14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
Here we discover the main factor for argumentative Bible conflicts. God describes factor for understanding truth to be dependent upon the human condition of being saved or being unsaved and potentially the issue of the duration of how long someone has been saved. Unsaved people are completely natural minded with five senses dominating their thinking. However, saved people are in varying levels and stages of spiritual growth, development, and maturity. Therefore, a newborn baby Christian that needs to be fed only milk subjects may not be able to swallow (understand) very much of the deep meat (spiritual) type subjects that are hidden in the Bible. God called this process a renewal of the Christian mind to be a process of transformation from thinking naturally to thinking spiritually (Rom 12:2, Eph 4:23).
When a new Bible student begins to read the Bible in complete spiritual ignorance there is a never ending supply of revelation and uncovering available from the hidden spiritual words and meaning that God can make available if they desire to know the truth, learn how to look for them and ask God to reveal them. The Holy Spirit on the inside of a Christian desires to lead every Christian into a deep and intimate personal understanding of the Word of God (Luke 12:2).
This is one reason why many carnal thinking Christians can be easily offended at hearing something that the Holy Spirit has taught others on a higher level of spiritual understanding. The main source of conflict and challenge is that this new Christian has not yet encountered, discovered, or seen the subject in their Bible yet. Are we all together on this concept of why some people are offended at some teachers and why they may call them a false teacher, but they really are not?
There is this major problem with teaching new revelation from the Bible on the internet and on TV. There is no filter on an advanced spiritual teaching to keep a natural thinking Christian from being offended by it. Therefore, many will reject and come against it like they did the message of Peter in Acts 5. Christians do this based upon prejudices and a much too rapid rush to judgment before they can test the message using a deep study in their Bible. I know I have said this several times in this lesson but this is a main take away for reading and studying this lesson.
There is almost always resistance to change or any new addition to traditional Bible teachings by human nature. This resistance is like me trying to show my 2-year-old son how to tie his shoes and he says to me “No, I do it”. Can you see how unlearned Christians can act the same way today? This is an incredibly significant deception taking place in the church.
Please go back and read the Gospels again. Notice how many times Jesus was teaching and giving people a message that was essential for them to know who He really was and the listeners’ reaction was to pick up stones to try to kill Him or to throw Him off a cliff to kill Him. Was Jesus telling the Truth? Of course, He was! He was the author of the entire Bible and it was impossible for Him to lie. Jesus proves that truth is not always seen or accepted, and it can even move people to commit murder.
This was a common pattern that occurred in all of church history. Paul came out and taught things that offended many Jewish believers. These early Jewish believers thought these new Gentile believers had to be physically circumcised. But Paul opposed this by teaching a new revelation saying “He is not a Jew that is one outwardly circumcised in the flesh, but he is a Jew that is one circumcised inwardly in his heart” (Rom 2:28-29). Can you see the two natures in conflict in this example? Paul was thinking on a higher level of spirituality than the natural Jewish believers that were focused on some outward visible flesh priorities. Paul won this argument because it was the truth.
Then there were other church history examples. When Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the church door, because he had found things in the Bible that were not agreeable with the church’s practices of selling indulgences, he sparked a nerve in deceived church leaders. The deceived leaders excommunicated him from their church. But, most of Martin Luther’s sound teachings are still being taught today in protestant denominations. He experienced the same type of religious opposition as Jesus and Paul.
Well I have had the same issues. I have had people leave me comments informing me I am of Satan. They are so kind to tell me that I am teaching heresy. They even claim to be praying to God to shut down my website because of the deception that I am teaching. I have learned to ignore them and pray for them. I know what God says in Numbers about Balaam speaking to King Balak who wanted him to curse natural Israel. Balaam said “I have received a commandment to bless, and He has blessed, and I cannot reverse it” (Num 23:20). People cannot curse what God has blessed. Thank you, Jesus.
CONCLUSION
I am not someone who claims to know everything in the Bible. But like most other Christians, I have learned a few things in my life. One truth that I have learned is that there is no one human on the earth that knows and understands the entire Bible perfectly. I do not know anyone on the earth today that understands even a majority of the truth of the Bible. There have been many people that have written exhaustive commentaries on the Bible with a lot of good information that we can learn from. However, none of these represent the complete truth or understanding of the Bible. Many of these commentaries can even contradict each other in certain subjects and verses. Also, there are usually a vast number of scriptures that have no explanation because the writer did not understand it enough to comment on it.
No one knows 100% of the truth and you should have the same realization. We must begin every day of our life understanding that only God knows everything! This attitude gives us a more complete perspective of our humanity limitations for us to become humbler to accept and learn something new from God every day. With this type of adjustment in attitude we might just discover something new in the Bible that we have never seen before.
I have discovered through guidance by the Holy Spirit and deep study that the Bible is much more complex than many humans think. Humans are incapable of understanding everything that the Bible says without God’s tremendous assistance. Some do not believe this, but it is still true. I recently heard of one gentleman who said, “there is nothing hidden in the Bible”. He was implying everything could just be read and understood automatically in the surface text. I wonder if this ease of understanding that he believes in, is why there are thousands of Christian denominations in our world?
Here is a basic fact of truth that we must agree upon. God’s intelligence is so far beyond our intelligence that there is no comparison to be made between us and Him. Therefore, any human that claims that they are the only teacher of all truth is an instrument of the devil sent to confuse and deceive us. Jesus in speaking to the Pharisees said this:
Mat 23:15 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.
Wow, these are very blunt and direct words, aren’t they? I see Pharisees in our world at work today everywhere. They sit in their arrogant churches, mosques and synagogues and seek converts to become a more diligent police force for the spread of their version of the truth. These are the self-appointed thought police of their religions. Instead of being like Jesus they want to ram their religion down our throats and if we do not submit, they will eventually try to kill the unbelievers who resist them. Their philosophy is either you change to our beliefs or we will silence you. That is a demonic attitude and does not resemble the true nature and character of God in any way.
Unfortunately, there are deceived people who try to control others. But I do not recall where God ever says for anyone to go into all the world and attack every teacher, prophet or religion that disagrees with your belief. That is not LOVE! After Jesus was crucified and raised from the dead, He asked Peter three times “Do you Love Me?” Peter said, “Yes Lord” every time. Then Jesus said, “Go and FEED my SHEEP!”. Notice, that in John 21, Jesus never told Peter to confront the false feedings of false shepherds. No Jesus just implied for Peter to become a type of good shepherd and go “feed” His sheep with good healthy “food” of truth. Jesus confirmed this before He left this world.
I believe we have learned that one problem with most people who attack others is based upon the fact that they just do not know much of the truth to teach. It is very much like modern politics. If someone on the right makes a point of truth that cannot be countered with a higher or greater truth by the left, then that person on the left just begins to hurl accusations of racism to silence the speaker on the right. So, these types of people like to tear down others around them using biased charges to distract from their own ignorance. So, going forward Christians should only concentrate on doing this command of Jesus:
Mar 16:15 And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.
Mar 16:16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.
This is another selection of the last words spoken by Jesus to His followers. Jesus said very clearly to “GO and PREACH”. In other words, He did not command anyone to go and confront, or go and criticize, or go and persecute, or go and hate, or go and force feed, or go and teach against any perceived evil doers to their face. Jesus never mentioned that Christians should go and try to silence the false teachers. Jesus only said for us to go into all the world and spread the good news food of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That means teach the GOOD TRUTH as we know it and understand it. This is the opposite of condemning others. The good message was that of reconciliation and salvation and not attacking those who are different. By Christians attacking others we become the same as the unsaved world. How does acting the same as evil people convince them to change to become Christians? It does not and that is the problem.
By doing the sayings of Jesus, we can all become a better Christian. Jesus said if we do His Word, we will be like a wise man that built his house on the rock and when the storms of life come upon us, we will withstand them and be unshaken and will not fall (Luke 6:38). Therefore, Christians should primarily focus on bringing the “Good News” to people. The Truth of the Good News of Salvation is what is needed to help others change their beliefs. If we are NOT speaking truth in love, then we are no different than a radical mobster hurling a brick. The only difference is that we would be a deceived person attempting to hurl mean words.
PERSONAL APPLICATION
Let us pray a prayer and ask God to help us not fall into Satan’s trap of condemning other people by calling them a false teacher just because they do not say or teach everything that we believe in 100% agreement.
Heavenly Father forgive me for any words that I have spoken against any of your servants. You said in Romans 14:4 that we should not judge your servants, because you are able to make them stand or fall. Lord God help me to be humble enough to admit that I could be wrong in my beliefs and give me the grace to go and study your Word to see if there are things that I need to change in my personal beliefs. Help my beliefs in your Word to conform and grow into the knowledge of your higher level of Spiritual Truth. Oh, God do not let me be deceived. Help me to discern between truths and lies quickly and accurately. Help me to only accept your Truth and to reject any false teachings of deception. But, also help me not to be critical of anyone that is not teaching what is 100% truth as you have shown me. Help me to pray for any Bible teacher that is not 100% accurate in every area and I will pray that the God of my Lord Jesus Christ, the father of glory may give them the Spirit of wisdom and Revelation in the knowledge of Jesus Christ to know your truth (Eph 1:17).
Dearest God help the body of Christ to unite in one accord in these last days as your Son prayed in John 17:20-21. Allow the Spirit of truth, love, peace, and harmony to become the dominate common bond of unity between every believer. Help us all to be faithful laborers within your harvest field to spread the Good News to anyone that you place across our path. Grant unto us the boldness to speak and declare the Gospel at every opportunity. In Jesus name I pray, Amen!
If you would like to continue in the Deception series please go to “Part 6“.
Modern Examples of Deception to Avoid Part 6 – Why I’m Not A Christian Anymore! A Christian’s Response to a Deceived Man!
(Ver 1.1) This is now “Part 6” in a significantly important Bible study series focused on the subject of modern examples of deception found in the body of Christ for Christians to avoid. If you would like to read the series from the beginning you can go to “Part 1” first. But please understand this lesson will stand alone to be useful and applicable for increasing our spiritual maturity. I have never seen such an increase in the levels of deception in my lifetime. Politics has become significantly corrupt being empowered by Satan’s deception. The news media has been corrupt being used as instruments of propaganda for deception. But we need to know how Satan operates to deceive us and that is the intended design of this Bible study series. I was reading internet blogs the other day and I ran across one that particularly stood out to me. This man had become disillusioned with God, the Bible, Christianity and Christians and he published a list of his top 20 reasons why he walked away from being a Christian. As you read you should discover that this man was raised in country that permits Christianity to exist. You should also notice that his parents raised him to be a Christian by taking him to church. But, somewhere in his life he became offended at Christians that do not live up to his standards. He became deceived and this is why we are going to read his reasons for departing from the faith. So this is a Christian’s response to a deceived man for us to learn from so that we hopefully do not fall into the same trap presented by Satan.
This may be a very controversial subject but we must understand that there are warnings found in the Bible that inform us not to be deceived to turn away from following after Jesus. Here is what I have learned. I see works of deception implemented by Satan to deceive people from remaining faithful to continue in the Word of God to search for, find and believe the truth. If a person finds or is raised in the Word of God initially but does not follow through till the end, they are like the stony soil or the thorny ground that never produced fruit for their salvation. I believe this is what today’ Bible study is all about. We are going to examine 20 statements that this man said were his personal reasons why he turned away from being a believing Christian (Heb 3:12). He was raised by parents who started him on the pathway to being saved but he became spiritually deceived and this caused him to turn around to go in the wrong direction. This is a great example for any new Christians to learn from in order to not repeat the same mistake.
INTRODUCTION
The Bible says a fool says there is no God (Ps 14:1). In the world today a person that does not believe in God is called an atheist. But, God gives this type of person a different title description. I am really not sure if this man who walked away from God still believes there is a God or not. If he does and chooses to not seek Him that sounds just as foolish as not believing that there is a God. In Romans, God says this to people that are not seeking Him:
Rom 1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;
Rom 1:19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.
Rom 1:20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
God clearly says that He can literally be seen and known by observing the things that He has created. Therefore, every human will be without excuse on judgment day. That is a very strong warning to us all. If someone began their life in Christ Jesus but then they turned away to not produce any fruit the eternal consequence are amazingly sad. But the consequences are very similar to someone that has never heard the Gospel. We learn from this that no human will be able to stand before our Supreme Judge God and give an excuse for why we were deceived or did not believe.
This man we are about to review is just an example of someone who still has a tremendous amount to learn about God and His Truth. Hopefully he has not closed his mind to God completely. Hopefully he will come to his senses like the Prodigal son, to come back home to hear God’s truth, and to listen to His messengers. Let us all pray that he will run back to the Father’s house and receive God’s blessings.
WHY HE WALKED AWAY & ONE CHRISTIAN RESPONSE
So here is the list of 20 excuses of this deceived man and my response to each one individually. Please read what I wrote and think how you might answer each one. If you have any better responses, please share them in a comment. Thank you in advance. I will also mention for full disclosure this is a condensed list of his objections to being a Christian. I could not put the entire narrative in this lesson or it would have been too long.
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1. God is wrathful, jealous, hateful, and kills nations of people like it is a bodily function. He is certainly not just or “holy” in nature.
Please tell me which god you are talking about? You are not seeing accurately about the real God of the Bible. These are a confused set of assumptive judgments about a God that must have never been known or experienced. These accusations appear to be based upon great ignorance and a lack of understanding of the Bible and definitely contain deception.
We will start with what is true. Yes God is Jealous (Exo 34:14). He is not pleased with people who say they serve Him but, only half heartedly. Too many Christians go to church while simultaneously becoming focused upon other gods (Deu 11:16). What about this is bothersome? If you were married and your wife fooled around with other men would you not be jealous? Jealousy is not a sin. Let us move to hate.
There is no hatred found in God except for His hatred for evil (Prov 6:16). God is a Holy God and He commands us to be Holy also (1 Pet 1:16). God’s Holiness demands justice for sin. If there are any acts of judgments upon humans it is because God’s patience has ended and His judgements are executed for cleaning up the effects of evil on the earth. We can find this in Genesis 6:5-7, for example. Let us move to God’s commands to kill nations next.
There are examples in the Old Testament of God commanding the people of Israel to kill every man, woman and child in the promise land. That sounds really hateful, but this was just another act of justice and an attempt to keep the children of Israel from being deceived to follow after these nations false gods which would result in judgment against Israel (Exo 23:31-33). These godless idol worshipping nations were under Satan’s kingdom of darkness influence. They could not be convinced to change to know the true God so they were judged.
There existed in Bible days many godless nations in the world. Many of these had to be judged for their sins of great evil. Many of these had to be eliminated completely so that they would not corrupt God’s covenant people. This is the way of a Holy God in the Old Testament. This changed in the New Covenant because of God’s grace.
Why would humans ignore the existence of evil and human sin to deny the requirement for divine justice and consequences for these wrong human choices? For humans to judge God as being unjust is clearly a denial of a truthful need for justice. If a nation allows murder to occur without consequences the increase of murderous acts would explode. Every time a human would bet angry at someone, it would result in the loss of someone’s life. That would be unjust and unfair, not punishing the person for committing the crime.
Worse still is someone calling God a murderer for judging righteously. Evil sins have consequences (Gal 6:7). Here are a few key verses to learn and understand:
1 Jn 4: 8 “God is Love and he that does not love does not know Him“
Jn 3:16 “God so loved the world He gave His only begotten Son so that whoever believes in Him would not perish, but have eternal life“.
Job 4:17 “Shall a mortal man be more just than God? Shall a man be more pure than his creator?”
Zep 3:5 “The LORD is righteous within her; He will do no injustice. Every morning He brings His justice to light; He does not fail. But the unjust knows no shame”.
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2. The act of throwing people into infinite torture and punishment for not believing in a Jewish guy from 2,000 years ago was God’s son, or unknowingly worshiping the wrong god, is extremely cruel and sadistic.
Why do you think that people like me spend so much time trying to get people like you to believe in this Jesus? I mean there must be a good reason for this extraordinary effort? I believe this effort of preaching the Gospel of Truth is extremely important and worth every second. There are countless Christians on TV, the internet, in books and in person who try to get unsaved people to see and receive the truth! People must think that we are all stupid for wasting our valuable time warning people about hell. However, Jesus commanded us to go into all the world and preach the good news to every person on the earth (Mk 16:15). Why would He do this? It is because He wanted to warn them about hell and tell them that God is not mad at anyone (Col 1:20). God has forgiven the sin of every human by the personal shedding of His blood once (Heb 9:26). But while this gift of not going to hell is offered to everyone it must be received by every human on God’s terms (Rom 10:9-10). God made it so simple to get saved and avoid hell. All that we have to do is believe in Jesus was the virgin born Son of God who died for our sins on a cross and after 3 days He was raised from the dead and then we must confess Him to be our LORD and we are saved. Why is this wrong? If I told you that I was going to give everyone that came to me a million dollars but you had to do somethings to receive it, does that make me unjust or unfair?
The real question that needs to be asked is not why a loving God would allow anyone to go to hell, but rather why would any human reject the free offer of salvation from a loving God to not die and be eternally separated from Him? Let’s review some verses that confirm it is a human choice where they spend eternity:
Mar 16:15-16 And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned”.
Joh 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Rom 10:13 For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
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3. The statements, “God works in mysterious ways,” or “It will all make sense in heaven,” are little more than irrational cop outs. This God allows horrible atrocities to be committed against innocent men, women and children every day.
This is probably one of the few reasons that I agree with you on. Christians can be as ignorant as non-Christians sometimes. Because Christians do not know how to answer a question using the Bible truth correctly they make up a religious answer like “God Works in Mysterious Ways”. That is totally a cop out and I would say that it is the wrong thing for them to say. It would be far wiser for a Christian to say “I don’t know” than to give anyone an opinionated biased untruthful answer like one of these.
But, that does not answer the real question to why God allows evil to be done to presumably “innocent” people. Ok, let us start with asking some basic questions, 1) what does it mean to be innocent, 2) who is innocent and 3) is there anyone that can be considered completely innocent? To be “innocent” is like someone pleading “Not Guilty” while being charged with murder. But this does not necessarily mean they are innocent and not responsible in some way for the death. They could plead “Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity”. This would change our viewpoint dramatically. Now we understand the person is taking responsibility but claiming they did not understand what they were doing when they did it. That is not being “innocent”.
I personally do not know of anyone born on earth that is truly “innocent”. Romans 9:10 quotes a O.T. verse and says “There is none righteous, no not one”. Then in Romans 5:12 God makes it even more plain by saying “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon ALL men for that all have sinned”. Wow, that simply means there are no sinless people in the world and death can occur to anyone because of sin that our father Adam committed. You see in Hebrew 7:9 God reveals to us that whatever our fathers before us did, is what we are guilty of doing because we were in their body. Wow, that leaves none of us innocent or sinless. But, that still does not answer why God allows bad things to happen to sinners.
I have to answer this question this way. In Genesis 1:26 when God created humans He says “Let them have dominion over all the earth”. This was God giving humans responsibility to rule over, manage and control His creation. Based upon this information God must allow whatever humans allow to happen since He has delegated this task and responsibility. Therefore, if humans allow a Hitler to kill millions of Jews on the earth, God must allow it. God is not committing the atrocities nor does He permit them to occur unless we allow them.
We must begin to realize the consequences for Adam’s sin and rebellion against God’s command. In fact, the Bible informs us that the creator God is not the “god” of this current evil world system (2 Cor 4:4), God says that Satan is. We can further confirm this truth by understanding the temptation of Jesus in Matthew 4:8-9 when Satan takes Jesus up to the top of a high mountain and shows Him all the kingdoms of our world. He then tells Jesus if you will worship me, all of these I will give to you. Since Jesus did not dispute this claim to be a lie, we understand the rulership of kingdoms given to Adam in our current world were taken from him and transferred to Satan’s control. What we are learning is God is not in sovereign control of what humans do. God will let you go out and commit 150 murders tomorrow, if that is what you want to do.
So who is doing all of the evil, humans or God? If humans are doing the killing then humans are doing the evil and not God. If humans become wise enough to make the right choice to accept and believe in Jesus Christ this transfers a human from Satan’s kingdom of darkness and evil to God’s Kingdom of Light. Then God comes to live on the inside of a Christian to help them to not do evil, Praise the Lord! Christians still must continue to be in the Word of God consistently to renew their minds in order to change old human habits of doing wrong. God is helping me and He will help anyone else who desires to change to do the same.
But, if other people love evil more than a desire for knowing God and doing good they have that right of choice. A few terrorists went and killed over 2000 people on 9/11, it was their wrong choices that committed the evil and NOT GOD! God is sovereign! Yes! But, God is NOT a Grand Puppet Master pulling everyone’s strings controlling them by force to do what He wants them to do. Humans were created with a “freewill” and given the right to make up their own minds to do right or wrong. When we blame God, we are shifting the human responsibility given to Adam for stopping the evil off of our choices and that is what Satan wants us to believe.
God wrote us the Law in the O.T. In this are found 10 key commandments. These are laws like “thou shalt not lie”, “thou shalt not commit murder”, “thou shalt not commit adultery”, etc. Yet God cannot force anyone to follow them and obey. It works exactly like this in our world. There are laws for people to not steal, commit murder, etc. and yet people ignore these everyday also. So who is to blame? It is NOT GOD!
Will forcing people to do no evil in the world fix those who are evil in their heart or mind who want to commit these atrocities? What would you suggest that God do with all of these evil people to stop them? Are you saying that God should kill them? I think that was your reason #1 complaint that you thought that God kills people for no good reason. But, I have proved that God has plenty of valid reasons to execute justice.
No the only solution for eliminating evil is to change the human heart and mind of every evil human and get them saved to know the LOVE of GOD! That is exactly what I am trying to do. Therefore, I’m not blaming God for evil people, I’m just telling them how they can change to live a life that is so much better than committing any evil following after Satan’s plan.
1Jn 4:19 We love him, because he first loved us.
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4. Bloody animal and human sacrifices are illogical demands by a divine god as payment for petty wrong human doings. These actions are no different than the rituals of archaic pagan religions. Not to mention the bizarre ritual of symbolically drinking human blood and eating human flesh.
You speak of “petty wrong human doings” in this reason and God allowing horrible “atrocities” in your previous reason. You obviously accuse God of allowing these horrible atrocities and men of doing only petty minor offenses. That is another example of shifting blame where the blame is not truthful. We have already seen that God says there are no righteous people without Jesus and that we have all sinned. Now combine this with James 2:10 that says “whoever keeps the whole law but offends in one point, is guilty of breaking every law”. Wow, that is not exactly good. That means if you don’t commit murder but yet tell one lie you are technically guilty of murder in the first degree. Therefore, there are NO PETTY SINS!
Let us examine your issue with blood, animals and sacrifice. God never performed, commanded or allowed human sacrifices. If anyone was killed it was for a just legal judgment based upon their own evil behavior. The need for the bloody sacrifice of animals in the Old Testament was to teach people the consequences for committing sins. God lays out the requirement for blood to cleanse human sin in Hebrews 9:22. In this verse God says “Almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without the shedding of blood is no remission of sin”. In the O.T. the high priest would take a pure and spotless animal like a lamb and kill it. The innocent blood would make a temporary atonement for human sin. But, this was required every year since people kept sinning continuously. God was trying to teach humans that another final greater payment for sin was required.
This teaches us why Jesus had to die on a cross. His personal choice to come to the earth to be our sacrifice by shedding His innocent blood once and for all, was what was needed. This was God’s greatest payment for human reconciliation and redemption and it alone satisfied His pure and Holy justice requirement to save us from hell. Only the blood of God Himself could pay the price that was necessary. Now, no other blood ever needs to be shed either animal, human or divine. Blood sacrifices have ended and this is now a mute point and a wrong reason not be a Christian. Thank you Jesus!
As far as your references to the saying of Jesus to “eat my flesh and drink my blood”, you are missing the point that was being made. Jesus was speaking figurative and not literally. People do this all the time. We say “it is raining cats and dogs”. That does not mean it is literally happening. This is why people are so easily deceived or offended at the Words of the Bible. They take many words out of context, misapply them, misunderstand them or just misinterpret them and this leads to deception. I will not attempt to explain fully what Jesus was talking about in this reply. But, in order to understand it, we must understand that His flesh was the Word of God. We know this by reading John 1:1-14. Jesus was trying to tell people in order to have eternal spirit life they had to have the Word of God in their spirit.
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5. If God loves us and wants us to know and believe in him, why be so completely invisible? What is the purpose of being so illusive to those who believe and worship him?
This is actually a great question. But, I do not believe that you understand the God that I know. I believe God talks to me and converses in personal conversations with me to lead me, guide me and help me become more like Him. I believe He teaches me new things every day and I talk to Him and say thank you a lot. This is called a relationship. Real Christianity is NOT RELIGION. If someone does not experience this God that I am describing, then God appears silent. God is an extreme Gentleman. He does not force Himself upon anyone. He chooses to not speak normally unless you focus on Him first in silence. Notice how I described my relationship. I believed in Him. I believed He was leading and guiding my footsteps and helping me daily. I also believe that I hear and know His voice and that He speaks to me personally because He loves and cares for me individually. How does that compare to your beliefs?
Psa 102:2 Hide not thy face from me in the day when I am in trouble; incline thine ear unto me: in the day when I call answer me speedily.
The Bible does claim that God hides from humans at time. I believe He does this to help us. I also believe that God chooses to be invisible to those who do not believe in Him. Then I have learned that God normally speaks to those who want to hear from Him and are listening. Hebrews 11:6 says “But without faith it is impossible to please God, for he that comes to God must believe that He exists and that He is a rewarder of those that diligently seek Him”. God just laid out conditions for His fellowship and relationship with a human. We must have faith to believe that He exists even if we never see Him or hear Him. If we could see Him easily there is no requirement for faith to believe in Him. This removes faith completely and replaces it with personal experience and knowledge. We can experience God but we must normally come to Him first by faith alone. We are required to believe that if we diligently seek Him that He will see our faith and reward us with a personal relationship producing experience. Uh Oh. It sounds like our human ignorance of God’s requirements could be limiting us from learning the truth. Could these choices that we are making be the reason why we are not hearing from God?
Then there is another potential problem, in that you may not know how God speaks so you do not recognize when He speaks. You might be expecting God to speak to you like your parents did. Maybe in a loud audible voice calling you by your full name? However, God does not speak normally in audible voices that everyone can hear with their physical ears. Nor does God normally appear visibly and prove His existence to anyone. However, this does not mean that God did not leave us enough evidence of His existence, if we wanted to find them. This also doesn’t mean that God does not speak in our heart with a still small voice that may appear as an inner thought. There could come a thought into our mind that we say “Where did that come from?” We weren’t thinking anything and suddenly we think about something unexpectedly. That is either God or Satan. If we don’t know the Bible we may not be able to know who it was that was speaking to us.
If God proved to everyone that He was real and existed, we would have no further choices by faith to make in life in regards to God. Also, salvation would no longer be voluntary, it would become compulsory. God will never overrule our right to be wrong or rebel. Either we learn to speak and hear God on His terms or we should learn to expect God will appear silent. Here are just a couple of Bible verses to think about on this subject:
Jer 23:23 “Am I a God who is near”, declares the LORD, “And not a God far off?
Psa 14:2 The LORD has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men To see if there are any who understand, Who seek after God.
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6. God never manifests himself or performs miracles as he regularly did for the Israelites in Old Testament stories.
This is another narrow minded perspective based upon a lack of understanding and a vast assumption based upon human ignorance. Who says God does no miracles today? This type of attitude can only logically exist in a person that believes they are equivalent to God, who is everywhere and knows everything that is happening at the same moment. The Bible claims God is omniscient (Heb 4:13). The Bible says God is everywhere at once in the world (Prov 15:3)? Do you have cameras in every corner of the world? Do you know every human being? Have you interviewed every human being to see if God has done anything miraculous, great and spectacular for them? If not this is a very deceived and ignorant reason to abandon a God who is. Since no human can prove or disprove that God has done nothing miraculous today, it is not even close to being a relevant reason not to be a Christian.
But, I will tell you that God has done many, many miraculous things for me. The first and most important is that He saved me from my pathway that I was walking that would result with me going to hell. That is the greatest miracle that I know of. Since being saved He continues to do miraculous things in my life. He filled me with His Holy Spirit and that is more than an amazing miracle of everything that He did in the Old Testament. He has led me by His Spirit to change me from being a former very sinful evil man. He is transforming me into a person that closer matches the example that He set in Jesus every day. That is another great miracle. These are just a few of the great miracles He has done for me personally. I could go on, but hopefully you get the idea. Perhaps you are searching for the spectacular and missing the most amazing supernatural things that God does today. Please find out what He will do for you by seeking Him with your whole heart. He will answer and you will find Him.
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7. Prayers are never answered. Certainly not in the way Jesus described. Prayer has absolutely no affect on the world around us.
Here we go again. This is another example of extreme ignorance. God deals with a similar man in the book of Job. In Job 38:2 God asks Job “Who is this that darkens counsel with words without knowledge”. God goes on to ask Job “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth, tell me if you have understanding”. Wow, this is how almost every human is. We all think we know so much when in truth we know almost nothing about anything.
I assume you are again reasoning based upon your own personal experiences. Could it be possible that you are just praying the wrong way. Could it be possible that you did not understand how Jesus taught us to pray. Jesus teaches us prayer several times and we should learn them all. Also, God says very clearly in the Bible that there are a lot of reasons why prayers are not answered. These can include human sin and iniquity as two of the main reasons why God will not answer a prayer:
Isa 59:2 But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, And your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear.
I can hear your next question. What sin do I do? Unfortunately sin is so much more than we know. Sin does not have to always be just the commission of an evil act like murder. For example in Romans 14:23, God teaches us that whatever we do that is not of faith is a sin. Right now, when people do not walk in faith believing God is worthy of our respect, honor, trust and love, we are in sin. Not acting in faith alone makes almost everyone a sinner at sometime or the other. But that is not the only type of sin we can be guilty of. There are sins of omission also. That occurs when we are able to do something that is right, honest and good but we make the choice to go out of our way not to do it.
What other things stop prayers from being answered? James 4:3 teaches us that people do not receive answered prayers because they are asking for things to satisfy their lustful desires. We can pray for a new mansion to live in or a new luxury car while not being thankful and a good steward of taking care of the one that we have. I heard of a lady once that prayed and asked God to give her someone else’s husband. Hopefully we can understand this was not a Biblical prayer that could be answered. Oh, well that is enough of this subject.
There are many other reasons why God does not answer human prayers but I will leave you with this one. God says in Mark 11:24 “whatsoever things you desire when you pray, believe you received them, and you will have them”. This is one of the most important prayer verses that I know of. God informs us that we must believe and have faith that we have the answer to our prayer request immediately after our prayer has ended. This can be potentially a long time before we see the answer. This means we can stop the answer from arriving by our doubts and unbelief or simply if we choose to stop believing before the answer comes. This is how Jesus taught us to pray. Did you know this before now? Were you doing it this way? We can confirm this prayer, faith and believing principle in relationship with answered prayer delays by reading Daniel 9. Daniel prayed and the answer was sent immediately but did not arrive for 21 days later. So while waiting Daniel continued his praying and fasting until the answer came. The angel that brought Daniel the answer informed him that he was being held up by a spiritual being that resisted the answer from arriving. That is another amazing reason why prayers can not be answered. Christians must realize we are in an unseen spiritual battle with demonic powers. Ok, let us move on.
So when you say prayers are not answered you are not speaking for me. I know God hears and answers my prayers. There have been too many examples. God’s goodness never ceases to amaze me. Thank you Jesus! Here is a verse that we should memorize:
Mar 11:24 Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.
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8. Jesus did not fulfill major Old Testament prophesies or even fulfill his own promises and predictions.
Wow, you obviously have not read and studied the Bible. Jesus fulfilled over 100 very specific named prophecies found in the O.T. by coming to the earth in the flesh. The mathematical odds of probability for this happening to one person is way beyond the odds of accidental or random chance. Just fulfilling 8 of these prophecies would be like some one taking one silver dollar and placing an “X” on it and then mixing it with enough silver dollars to cover the entire state of Texas in many layers 2 feet deep. Then this someone that hid the silver dollar asking you to go and pick just one of them randomly blindfolded to see if it is has the “X”. What are the odds that you could find that one? Well Jesus fulfilling all of these 8 prophecies was like Him finding the one silver dollar by walking directly to it and picking it up while being blindfolded.
There are so many books and references on this subject, if you are interested in learning the truth. People need to try to do some real research and study before making any such false claims. This is another example of God saying “Who is this that darkens counsel with words without knowledge”. Please go into your Bible and read it. Find the prophecies. They occur beginning in Genesis and continue to the last book of the O.T. called Malachi. Prove to me and the many other Christians that we are not right, if you can! Give us the Bible verses that Jesus did not fulfill. I know that you cannot do it!
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9. The authors of much of the Bible are unknown. And of these unknown authors, the men who wrote the gospels likely never even met Jesus considering they were written 40-70 years after his death. A far cry from reliable testimony.
This is just another example of tremendous human ignorance and speaking words without any knowledge in the subject of Bible study. The Bible is so well documented and verified that it is foolish to even compare it with any other book from history. There are more ancient copies of this book to verify its accuracy than any other book, by far. This is exactly one reason why the Bible is the most popular best selling book in human history. The news papers have ignored this book as the best seller to diminish its significance. But, not reporting the truth does not eliminate the truth.
I will also tell you that every author of practically every book of the Bible is well known. The only book that I know of that has no direct mention of the author is the Book of Hebrews. But even this book has distinguishing qualities that point us to Paul as being the writer. Every other N.T. book is well identified to be written by the eye witnesses to the literal events and accounts. There are only two books that have been researched and written about from the accounts of eye witnesses and these were the books of Luke and Acts both written by Luke. Matthew, Mark, John, Peter, James, John and Jude were all personal eye witnesses that knew Jesus personally. Please do some serious study before spreading untruthful gossip that you have heard.
God knows who wrote every book of the Bible. The Old Testament Hebrew words are frequently quoted in the New Testament writings. Many times the O.T. author’s name was confirmed with the quotation. For example, Jesus quoted the O.T. to inform us that Moses wrote the books of Genesis through Deuteronomy in Mark 10:4-9. According to Jesus who was God, He was asked about the law of divorce written by Moses and Jesus responded by quoting another law written by Moses in Genesis 2. Wow, that proves the author beyond any reasonable doubt. What we just learned from reading Mark 10 is that Jesus claims the ultimate author of every Book of the Bible was God! You obviously are looking for any false excuse to try to justify your decision. Here is another Bible verse to learn and memorize. This verse contains the word “inspiration” that means “God breathed”:
2Ti 3:16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
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10. The Bible is repeatedly contradictory with itself, reality, and the laws of morality. Couldn’t God inspire a less poorly written book?
The response of natural young children to any advanced subject is normally the same as people who do not understand the Bible. If we gave a 6 year child a textbook on Advanced Calculus or Quantum Physics and asked them to share their opinion on what it meant, they would probably say it was a stupid, and a silly written book. They would ask where is all the pretty pictures? Where is the real story of the bunny rabbit and the bear? Because someone does not understand what is written, they can easily believe it has a lot of errors and contradictions.
God who is the most intelligent individual we will ever attempt to understand is so far above our level of intelligence that anyone can be deceived to think that we should just be able to read the Bible for the first time and understand it all. But, things in this world don’t perform like this for our children, so why expect God’s word to be automatically understood by any of His spiritual babies? Also notice what 1 Cor 1:27 says about how God chooses specifically foolish things of our world to confound those people who think they are wise.
I was a computer software engineer in the information technology industry for most of my business career. I worked on very large scale complex computer systems These designed software projects were so large that understanding the entire system was a major undertaking. For example they all contained a large data design layer, large sets of business logic, contained with layers of rules and complex divisions of user information and while also containing input, more processing rules and presentation layers. All of these layers had complex sub-components with individually designed objects and modules that had to fit together and work cooperatively based upon guidelines to produce the understood desired and anticipated end result. Why is this important?
From my years of computer experience, I have discovered that the Bible is by far a much more complex set of designed components than any human software design. In the Bible, every single letter, word, sentence, verse, paragraph, section, chapter and book was specifically placed to work together in an integrally designed method of cooperation and collaboration, and design that is not easily replicated without very advanced computer assistance. Since none of these modern computing devices existed at the time the books were written it is impossible for them to have been written without a very major God participation and control.
This has taught me that the Bible was designed and produced by a far greater superior intellect than any human could possibly imagine. The Bible was so well designed that it contains a self correcting set of rules to counter an enemies attempt at destroying or corrupting it. The Bible also contains multiple recorded predictions of things that would happen in the future. These were recorded many hundreds of years before they happened. This proves the book’s origin came from outside of the dimension of time.
If you search the Bible you will find that there are codes and encryptions not easily possible using modern human computers. These hidden codes were designed and placed intelligently under layers of plain Hebrew words that all had real meaning that can be understood. Many times these hidden codes confirm what was written in the plain text that they were hidden in. Wow! I hope you understood this complex claim.
Then there are parables where God uses created items to describe hidden spiritual realities in great detail. This teaches us that whoever designed and created these natural items like “seeds”, “trees” & “fruit” to name only 3 also wrote the Bible. There are also real historical recorded events that are implemented using allegory that teach the same types of hidden spiritual information using literal verifiable human events. Also in the Bible, there is typology, there are patterns, there are symbols, and there are other hidden messages, and concealed information that can be revealed by the author at His will. This is called “encryption”, “concealment” that can be read later by design of the author using “revelation” or the “uncovering” of the hidden divine truth.
This book of 66 book divisions, written by 40 individual writers over the course of around 1600 years is so well planned, designed, organized and implemented, that it anticipates every question that anyone can raise and it resolves them all with an answer somewhere in the book. It contains solutions for every human challenge conceivable. God placed such unlimited information in this book that studying it everyday for 12 hours a day for 100 years, we would not come close to understanding everything that He wanted to teach us from it.
Please approach the Bible with a different attitude along with embracing some humility and you should be able to begin to understand that God’s intelligence is infinitely beyond your capacity to grasp everything that He says right now. God will come down to our two year old child level of understanding Him, if we are sincere and we want to learn. However, God also expects us to grow up and mature spiritually during the process.
1Co 2:14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
God says that a natural human is like a two year old child that will never understand the complex spiritual things of the Spirit of God. Because people do not understand the Bible, only proves how natural minded they are. God wrote a complex book of intelligent complex spiritual information, wisdom and knowledge that is impossible for non-spiritual or spiritual babies to understand. But, God wrote the book in this manner to allow people to have their own free thinking choices and make their own individual decisions.
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11. The Bible is open to interpretation. Everyone interprets it in the way that suits them best or serves their purposes.
You know here is another area that I have to agree with you on. Many unsaved people and Christians’ attempt to understanding the Bible is just wrong. Too many are looking for confirming words and teachers to approve their life style choices and their sins as to being acceptable to God. People often read the Bible with a wrong lensed point of view or motive. We could call it reading the Bible with a pair of rose colored glasses that causes our viewpoint to be shifted or out of focus with God’s way of seeing the intentions and the meanings.
However, much of what people call science is also open to interpretation. Do you discredit and reject all of science, because every scientist does not agree about any or every subject? You can find just as many opinions and theories of how the universe began, and quantum mechanics operates, etc. as you do with any church doctrinal differences. If you gathered 100 people in a room and discussed any subject, how many could you get to agree about anything? So your argument is baseless and without facts and is just erroneous.
We do not throw out the Bible or Christianity just because we cannot get everyone to agree. We are the only one that needs to agree with what God shows us in the Bibles. I am responsible to God to learn what He wants me to know. You are responsible to know and understand what God wants you to know. If you don’t agree with that which I believe He has shown me in the Word of God that is really not going to change my belief.
Please pick up your Bible and ask God to reveal to you what He wants you to know and then start reading slowly and carefully. If a word stands out or raises a question look it up and study it. Find out what it means and how it is used in other verses in the Bible. Find out and learn God’s definition for the word. There is so much to learn. For example this verse answers your concern:
2Pe 1:20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.
Even God agrees with you. God says we should not place our own human interpretation upon any of His Words. God makes the claim that He explains every word somewhere in the Bible. Every word, every phrase is explained somewhere but we are given the responsibility to search and find what He means. My basic rule of interpreting the Bible, is based upon one main rule that we just read in 2 Peter 1:20 “THE BIBLE INTERPRETS ITSELF”. Let’s use the Bible to understand the Bible, OK?
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12. Throughout history, Christians have justified horrific actions by the Bible and its teaching.
Another poor excuse without any real knowledge to confirm the concern. Maybe you are talking about the crusades or something else, I do not know. The errors and mistakes of humans who called themselves Christians, do not discount or invalidate God or the Bible. If you are looking for Christians to be perfect you will be sadly disappointed. If you are looking for Muslims to be perfect, you will be sadly disappointed also. If you are looking for Buddhist to be perfect you will be sadly disappointed. There are no perfect people in the world, we all make mistakes. Please remember that Jesus is the only human to live on earth that is recorded to have never sinned (Heb 4:15).
Just because someone says they are a Christian, that does not make them a real Christian. Jesus tells a story of people who will say “Lord, Lord didn’t we do many things in your name” and Jesus says “Sorry depart from me, I don’t know you” (Mat 7:23). These people thought they knew Jesus and thought they were saved Christians, they thought they were doing the right things, but they were not. So while you compare yourself with others you make yourself to look superior. Just please read the Bible and compare yourself with the perfection of Jesus and His example to live our life and this should cause you to want to change to be like Him and not me or any other human.
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13. The Bible promotes hate and persecution against women, homosexuals and those who worship other gods or no god at all.
You are obviously not going to the right churches! True Christianity is a church that Loves others and does not promote hate! Just because someone stands up with a sign that says “God Hates Homosexuals” is just their worthless opinion. There is really no difference between their worthless opinion, your worthless opinion or mine. If God hated Gays He would not have died for them to help them get saved (Jn 3:16). The wrong words and actions of people who say they are Christians, could lead you to go to another church if that is God’s will.
Pray for these people that are not being led by the Spirit of God. But do not give up on God and the Bible. There are many good churches who do not promote evil, hatred and bigotry. But, I am also saying that these good churches should not tolerate sin either. Sin is still sin. God loves the sinner, but He hates the sin that they do (Prov 6:16). There is a major difference between hating sin and hating people. We can all change and repent of our sin. God can change our heart so that we do not want to sin anymore. Just don’t get offended at someone to walk away from the only hope you have of not going to hell.
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14. According to the Bible, nearly 70% percent of the people in the world will burn in hell because they don’t believe Jesus was the son of God.
I do not know where you get your figures, I guess you pulled it out of the air and made it up. However, if you know that is what the Bible says and still want to go to hell you are deceived. However, you are also probably very close to knowing the truth. Matthew 7 13 is where you are referring to. This verse is Jesus recommending that we go through the straight and narrow gate rather than taking the easy way of the wide gate that will permit many to be deceived to enter into it. Please notice in the Bible who it is that is working to deceive people to take this wide way by embracing Atheism, Islam, Buddhism, Mormonism, Jehovah Witnesses, and the thousands of other choices that lead to human destruction. Satan is called the master deceiver in Revelation 12:9 who we are told will deceive the entire world. Without Jesus on the inside of us to help us not be deceived and reading our Bible to learn the truth, we are certainly on the wide path to hell.
However, if we reject His loving offer for salvation and still go to hell by being deceived by Satan that was still our choice. People make a lot of stupid choices. That is not God’s fault. That is a human’s choice. Please don’t follow the majority to hell. Follow Jesus and run to Him. He will not let you go to hell.
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15. The only reason I was a Christian was because I was indoctrinated into the religion as a child as a result of the culture and region of the world in which I was born.
So what would your chance of salvation be, if you were indoctrinated as a Hindu, Buddhist or Muslim? Would it be better or worse? Do you think that the truth is found somewhere else? Where is your internal and eternal peace found? Rather than being deceived into believing that the truth is somewhere else, why not be thankful that your parents were pointing you in the right direction for you to have the opportunity to see the truth? Say thank you Jesus for allowing you to be born where you were. Say thank you Jesus for giving you the opportunity to be born in a Christian family who took you to church. Be thankful and not deceived.
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16. Christianity has no more rational or factual foundation than any other religion on earth that I openly reject.
Your ignorance of God and the truth of the Bible is overwhelming me. The evidence and facts found in the Bible are amazingly different than any other religion. Plus I already told you that true Christianity is not a religion, but rather a personal relationship with the real creator God. A religion is just man’s attempt to please a God that they do not know. We all must choose this day who we will serve (Jos 24:14).
Not choosing to follow Jesus to make Him our LORD and Savior is a default choice to choose Satan as lord. There are only two spiritual choices one of the LIGHT and DAY with Jesus ruling and the other as DARKNESS and NIGHT with Satan as ruler. It is a binary choice and no choice is a choice. I pray that you will make the right selection.
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17. The Christian church is disjointed and can’t even agree with one another.
So are the Muslims all in agreement? Are the Hindus all in agreement? Are the Atheist all in agreement? Isn’t Islam divided into the Sunni and the Shia? Don’t they fight and kill each other regularly? Your argument for the rejection of Christianity is sad. As I said before, if you get 100 people together, you will probably see that 50% of them will believe one way and the other half another way. It is extremely challenging to get everyone to agree on anything. Have you ever tried to listen to eye witness testimonies at a trial? The questioning prosecutor, usually can’t get two eye witnesses to agree on everything that they think they saw perfectly. This is just human nature and part of the inequality of human knowledge, education, life experiences, points of views, prejudices, etc. that make everyone unique individuals. We all have different gifts and abilities. Some see things logically, some do not. Some see things emotionally and others do not. Does that make all of them wrong? Just because my perspective and viewpoint of a verse is different than another teacher does not mean either of us is 100% right or 100% wrong. I love the quotation of Will Rogers who says “We are all ignorant, just about different things!” Therefore, each of us in our varying states of ignorance on any subject, should become more tolerable for each other. because “Only Gods is All Knowing”!
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18. Christians are not at all ethically or morally different from non-Christians.
You obviously do not know any real Christians or you are not going to the right church. You should try hanging around the right people and quit judging others. We already know that there are no perfect people in the world (Rom 3:23). Even Christians will make a mistake. You are only responsible for your behavior. I am only responsible for my behavior. You can’t change me and I can’t change you. Only God can change anyone to make them more like Christ and that is if only they want to cooperate. So when we see a Christian that is not doing what is right, let us show a little compassion and pray for them (1 Jn 5:16). Let us avoid being a hypocrite that does not see the plank/beam in our own eye while trying to remove the speck in his brother’s eye (Mat 7:3-5).
Rom 14:13 Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock or an occasion to fall in his brother’s way.
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19. Today, powerful church leaders steal, lie and molest young children. The church repeatedly attempts to cover up these atrocities, only to reluctantly apologize as a last resort.
So you are still looking for a perfect Christian to prove to you that God is real. Men and women could always let us down. Therefore if we are looking to humans to help save us we may be looking in the wrong places to find God. I do not defend the mistakes of priests, preachers or church leaders that should know better than to do some of the things that they have done. But, they are not my God and I do not reject God because some have failed. My eyes are not on a human. My eyes are focused upon Jesus and I will pray for anyone that has done anything wrong. I only look to Jesus the author and finisher of my faith (Heb 12:2) and I refuse to let what others do affect me.
Finally, I will say that leaders in the Christian faith are often more heavily attack by devil than are other Christians that are under them. If a devil can help one preacher fail as an example of true Christianity this defeat trickles down to cause many others to be easily deceived. Therefore, we are instructed to pray for our spiritual leaders. This is the opposite of speaking evil about them and spreading rumors.
Heb 13:18 Pray for us: for we trust we have a good conscience, in all things willing to live honestly.
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20. It is absolutely irrational to continue to believe archaic teaching with the amount of knowledge we’ve gained through science and technology. The Bible reads like a book of primitive folklore, not divinely inspired insight into our true reason for existence.
So again you are so wrong. You have made yourself wise in your own eyes and as a result you demonstrate to real Christians how easy it is to be deceived. You have placed too much value in the words of human science and technology and not enough in the Bible that contains the words of Creator that made the science. Let me ask two very simple questions. How often has science changed its message in the last 200 years? My answer to that is constantly. How long has it been since the Bible’s message changed? I’ll answer that question and say “NEVER”. Yet the Bible is still the most widely purchased best selling book in human history. If so many people can see the importance of the words on the page then maybe you should ask God why can’t I see it?
Not long ago scientist believed the universe was an infinite dimension of space that contained a fixed and static number of stars and planets. Some even claimed the Milky Way Galaxy was the only galaxy. Some even believed our sun was the center of the entire universe. Now science has radically shifted to believe the universe as a whole is finite, and had a set beginning point that originated with a big bang. They have discovered this truth because of the expansion of the universe at an amazing rate of speed. Yes, we have learned a lot through science. But did you know that almost everything that science is discovering was already written about by God in the Bible in hidden forms using non-technical descriptions. You see God created everything we are discovering and He said in the Bible I make known the end from the beginning. Since God can know the end before the beginning we understand that God exists outside of the dimension of time and must have been the creator. Genesis 1:1 clearly teaches us that our universe including the dimensions of space and time all had a beginning. Wow, I wonder how Moses would have known about this over 2500 years ago?
We already can see that scientific knowledge changes day by day. Whereas the Bible never changes. Therefore, since God knows the end has already informed us about what is coming very soon, the Words of God written in the Bible are extremely relevant, consistent and applicable for us all today. There is no revised edition of the Bible with corrections, it still has the same words that were true 2000-3000 years ago. There is still more that science does not know, than what science does know. The textbooks cannot keep up with the revisions and changes, they are happening too fast. You are placing all of your faith in a moving target and God says He never changes (Mal 3:6). God’s Word will never change either (Luk 21:33) Jesus is the same today as He was 2000 years ago (Heb 13:8). That is consistency that we can count on.
You place a lot of value on unproveable human theories. Almost every science lecture that I have observed mentions the word “Evolution” as a way of brainwashing humans into believing something that is fictional. After all the years of archeological research, no valid missing links have been or can be found. I wonder why? Then there is false concept that a universe could violently explode and expand while originating complexly designed living creatures. The complex digital information contained within the Human DNA alone proves an external designer and maker. No complex designed order is originated by disordered confusion. The belief that this can occur over billions of years violates the second law of thermodynamics. This law states everything of ordered design is consistently moving downward into a state of disorder.
Nobody can make us see the truth and it is not my responsibility to force anyone to believe anything. We all have to make our own personal choices and God says in Gal 6:7 that He will not be mocked because a man will reap whatever choices that we make. Please make an effort to not be deceived into believing a false reality that someone has invented in their own mind with the help of hidden spirits tricking them into believing. We have not talked a lot about negative spiritual influences that occur in our world. But there are literally millions of unseen beings that influence people into thinking such false realities. I pray that your spiritual eyes would be opened and that you would be able to see God and to know Him and the reality of His truth.
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CONCLUSION
I pray that someone has seen something new to think about. I also pray that others will be able to learn from how one man was deceived to walk away from Christianity because of a lack of understanding of what the Bible really says. This is one of Satan’s greatest advantages over humans. Satan has existed on our earth for at least 6000 years and most of us have been here for less than 100 years. He has been deceiving people far longer than you have learned to resist the deception. The only thing that will give us an advantage over being deceived is by us learning what the Bible says with God’s help. We are told that we have the advantage if we are born again and saved because “God the greater one comes to live on the inside of us to help us overcome him” (1 Jn 4:4). His presence will help us if we learn to cooperate with Him, listen to His voice, to learn what we need to do and obey to not be deceived. I would recommend that we pray and ask God for this help.
PERSONAL APPLICATION
If you would like to continue reading and studying in this Bible series, please continue by going to “Part 7” now.
Names, Titles, Descriptions and Symbols of the Antichrist in the Bible
(ver 1.0) This is Part 5 in a series of lessons revealing the multiple Names, Titles, Descriptions and Symbols of significant Individuals in the Bible. This lesson will focus only on the subject verses of the Antichrist found in the Bible. This is a living document of references to the Antichrist. It will change and be updated as I find additional scriptures or you can submit verses that you have found to be added. A Name is a direct reference to the individual. A Title is a given direct identifying appellation signifying status or function. A Description is something that represents the individual in expressive words. A Type is a real named person, place or thing in history that can be viewed to apply as a pattern of the spiritual individual not directly named. A Symbol is a natural object that describes the characteristics or features of a spiritual being that you cannot see or understand without first understanding the symbol.
We should all know that we are living during the last of the last days of the church age of Grace on the earth. The end of our age and the soon coming of tribulation judgments has been well documented with Biblical prophecy written thousands of years before. The signs of this end and the rise of the Antichrist is clearly observable. At no time prior to now has the rise of Globalism increased to set up a false world ruler. This ruler will be able to deceive much of the world easily. Using modern technology, he will be able to control and limit human behavior by forcing them to receive his mark of allegiance or else they will not be able to buy, sell, or eat. The preparations for his appearance are happening right now. No doubt he is alive somewhere on the earth awaiting the departure of the church, to rise to power after the resulting chaos. He will be an eloquent speaker and will present his false expectations, solutions, and explanations using clever words and phrases. He will be a masterful deceiver, a speaker of non-truth appearing as truth. His entire experience of physical power and rulership will be short lived of only 7 years when he will be defeated and thrown into hell by Jesus Christ. People who are not ready for the rapture better learn quickly what will be taking place during these 7 years or they will not have any further opportunity to be saved and there only option will be to go to hell with him. Let us look at some of the Bible verses used by God to describe this man and learn how we can share this information with our friends and family.
| Name, Title, Symbol, Type for the Antichrist | Description | Scripture Reference |
| Abomination (G946) of Desolation (G2050) | Detestation of Idolatry that Lays Waste | Mat 24:15; |
| Abomination (H8251) that makes desolate (H8074) | Idolatry that Devastates | Dan 11:31; |
| Adversary (H6862) | Opponent, Antithesis of God and Good | Psalm 74:8-10; Isa 59:58-59; Lam 4:12; Amos 3:11 |
| Angel (G32) of the Bottomless Pit (G12) | Angel destined for the center of the earth; | Rev 9:11; |
| AntiChrist (G473 + G5547) | An Opposite Messiah | 1 Jn 2:22; |
| Assyrian (H804) | A potential source for the origin of the Antichrist | Isa 10:5; Isa 14:25: |
| Beast (G2342) | Wild Animal | Rev 11:7, 13; Rev 19:19-20; |
| Belial (H1100) | Wickedness, evil, worthless | Nah 1:11, 1;15 |
| Bloody (H1818) man and Deceitful (H4820) Man | Bloody as loss to cause death | Psalm 5:6 |
| Branch (H2159) of the Terrible (H6184) | A pruned twig of power, oppression and violence | Isa 25:5; |
| Chief (H7218) Prince (5387) | Head Ruler | Eze 38:2; |
| Crooked (H1281) Serpent (H5175) | The fugitive serpent | Job 26:13; Isa 27:1; |
| Cruel One (H394) | Terrible, Violent, Deadly | Jer 30:14; |
| Deceitful (H4820) Man | Deceiver, Falsehoods | Psalm 5:6 |
| Destroyer (H4873) of the Gentiles (H1471( | Destroyer of foreign nations | Jer 4:7; |
| Enemy (H341) | Hater of God | Ps 55:3; Jer 30:14; |
| Evil (H7451) Man (H120) | Bad and evil man | Ps 140:1; |
| Father of lies | Originator of Deception | Jn 8:44; 2; |
| Great (G3172) Star (G792) | Mighty & Strong Star | Rev 8:10; |
| Head Over Many Countries | Leader of the earth | Psalms 110:6 |
| Idol (H457) Shepherd (H7473) | Worthless good for nothing shepherd | Zech 11:17; |
| King (H4428) | World Ruler; | Dan 11:36; |
| King (H4428) of Princes (H8269) | Ruler of the underworld captains/rulers | Hos 8:10; |
| King (H4428) of Babylon (H894) | Ruler of Confusion and Chaos (Babel) | Isa 14:4-20; |
| King (H4428) of fierce (H5794) countenance (H6440) | Strong Face King | Dan 8:23; |
| Lion (H738) | Violent Beast | Jer 4:7; |
| Little (H2192) Horn (H7162) | Small Rising Ruler | Dan 7:8:11; Dan 7:21-26; Dan 8:9-12; Dan 8:23-25; |
| Man (G444) of Sin (G266) | Human of Offence/Sin | 2 Ths 2:3 |
| Man (H582) of the Earth (H776) | Mortal of Earth | Ps 10:18; |
| Merchant (H3667) with Balances of Deceit (H4820) | A Canaanite with unfair deceitful scales | Hos 12:7; |
| Mighty Man (H1368) | Powerful warrior | Ps 52:1; |
| Nail (H3489) | He who thought he was secure | Isa 22:25; |
| Prince (H5057) that shall come (H935) | Future Ruler | Dan 9:26; |
| Prince (H5057) of Tyrus (H6865) | Ruler of the Rock | Eze 28:2-10; |
| Profane (H2491) Wicked (H7563) Prince (H5387) of Israel (H3478) | Pierced King Israel | Eze 21:25-27; |
| Proud (H3093) Man (H1397) | Arrogant Warrior | Hab 2:5; |
| Rod (H7626) of (my) Anger | A Ruler with or of anger | Isa 10:5; |
| Son (G5207) of Perdition (G684) | Son of Ruin, Loss, Waste | 2 Ths 2:3; |
| Son (H1121) of the Morning (H7837) | Lucifer son of early light (morning) | Isa 14:12; |
| Spoiler (H7703) | Large strong person | Isaiah 16:4; |
| Vile Person (H959) | Someone disesteemed | Dan 11:21: |
| Vine (G288) of the Earth (G1093) | False Vine of the Soil (a weed) | Rev 14:18); |
| Violent (H2555) Man (H376) | Incarnate man of violence | Ps 140:1, 11; |
| Wicked (G459) | Lawless Man | 2 Ths 2:8; |
| Wicked One (H7563) | Morally wrong man | Ps 9:17; Ps 10:2; Isa 11:4; Jer 30:23; |
The Satanic Plan to take over America and the World Part 3
(Ver 1.2) This is Part 3 in a Prophetic Bible study series concerning the Satanic Agenda Designed to Attempt to Take Over America and the Entire World. Today’s subject is focused on a new very specific but very significant part of the Satanic plan to silence and remove Christian influence. Christians are still being targeted in greater numbers today, much like we were when the church first began nearly 2000 years ago. We will soon discover that Satan uses the same strategy and plan to silence and remove God’s people as he did with the Old Covenant natural people of Israel. We will explore this ancient and repeated pattern found in the Bible today. Hopefully we will learn from these warnings given to us by God to not fall into these tricks and traps of Satan. That is why this lesson is so essential. It is the Christian’s ignorance of our enemy and the Word of God that gives Satan his greatest advantage to dominate us. This lesson is intended to give you wisdom of Satan’s devices and schemes. Today’s lesson will stand alone, but if you would like to read this series from the beginning, please go to “Part 1”.
Warning, Warning, Warning! This is a potential highly offensive subject to some. If you are not a spiritually mature Christian, it may be wiser if you do not read this lesson. It is never my intention to offend anyone. I desire only to hear from God and teach what I believe He gives to me. I have been studying the book of Daniel recently. I was going through the book of Daniel chapter 6 when the words came to life and I begin to see things that I had never thought of before. I believe this was because of what God wrote in Daniel 12:9 when Daniel was told that the words will be sealed until the time of the end. Therefore, I believe these old words of Daniel should be more relevant to us today at the end of the world than when it was originally written.
If you have not figured it out yet, the subject today is political in nature. Therefore, if you are easily offended by ideas you don’t agree with, please stop and go read something else. Please, do not read what was written, get angry and leave us a very nasty and hateful comment. That is NOT appropriate Christian behavior. If you feel confident that you are mature, please let’s begin.
INTRODUCTION
Recently I have been studying the books of Daniel and Revelation. A couple of days ago while going over chapter 6 of the book of Daniel the words really leaped off the page and I saw things that I had not previously observed. A new perspective based upon the events that have been happening in the United State and other nations (like Israel) came into a new dimension of understanding. When this happens, I have learned to recognize that it is God teaching me something new for my benefit and to share. So, I pray that you will be open to receive it.
So many Christians in the United States have been very passive when observing what has taken place in our nation and our government. The moral decay of the fabric of our nation has been in a slide downward and to the left for the last 60+ years. Darkness has been allowed to creep in gradually until it has gotten overwhelmingly more powerful and corrupt. It began to be noticeable in the 1950’s. Then its influence became more pronounced and openly in your face in the 60’s. Perhaps you are old enough to remember? Do you recall the removal of prayer and Bible from public Schools? Did you know almost every major university began as an institute for the purpose of teaching people the Bible? How did we allow this removal to happen? What were the fruits produced from these evils? We began to see the rise of mass shootings. We began to see the rise of drugs. We began to see the rise of immorality and nudity in public. One of the next major consequences happened with abortion being legalized because men and women wanted sex but not the consequences of the sex. Then we were slowly introduced to the gay lifestyle as being acceptable. On and on I could go about the moral decline of the United States. I believe a large part of the blame of why this occurred should be placed upon Christians not standing up for and with God’s Word.
I don’t agree with everything that the Presidents says or does. But I do agree with a large portion of his accomplishments. He supports religious freedoms. He supports freedom of speech. He supports the right of people to defend themselves. He supports a strong military. He works hard to make America safe and prosperous. He supports the nations of Israel. He is opposed to abortion. Why isn’t everyone in favor of these great blessings, rights and freedoms? I have never witnessed a President in my lifetime that has promised to do something and then actually done it. Most politicians make empty promises to get elected and suddenly grow amnesia to not remember what they told us they would do. Therefore, rather than pick up stones to throw at anyone, I just want to address what God says in His Word about how Satan used people to try to remove His appointed leaders from their high offices. I hope you are ready to learn, please get your Bibles out and open them to the book of Daniel chapter 6.
SATAN’S PLAN AND STRATEGY TO GAIN POWER
When reading chapter 6 of Daniel, I believe that there is a message from the LORD. This message concerns Satan’s plan to take out God’s chosen leaders. After reading and studying this chapter I began to see amazing parallels to what has been happening in the United States with our President. It was as plain as it could be. It is amazing how the devil uses the identical tactics that he used before on previous leaders. We will soon learn that this plan failed then and I believe that it will not succeed now either. But that outcome is conditional. We all like to read stories in the Bible and see how God delivered someone from great potential harm and even death. But we must first judge ourselves to determine if we are doing what they did to be protected. Wow, that was an important truth. This is what I pray for myself, you and our President.
According to Ecclesiastes 1:9 God said, “The thing that has been, is the thing that shall be, that which was done will be done again, for there is nothing new under the sun”. God is teaching us that there are patterns from the past that will be repeated again in the future. In other words, I believe that we can find everything that will happen in the next few years laid out in detail from the words written down by God in the past, believe it or not. I know a lot of people don’t believe this, but it is still the truth. I’ll give you another verse that confirms this foundational truth in Isaiah 46:10 “Declaring the end from the beginning…”. You see God teaches us that the end was already written down in the beginning. God knew the ending before our world was created.
Please read though the entire story of Daniel if you have the time. But if not, please focus upon chapter 6. I will include the verses in this lesson that are important. Who was Daniel? Daniel was a highly favored man of God. Daniel was one of the only men in the entire Bible, besides Jesus where nothing directly negative was written about him. He followed God’s commands to the letter and was a very diligent man of prayer. Daniel was taken captive with others in Jerusalem and carried away to Babylon. Daniel as you will learn from reading his story rose to the second most powerful position in the Kingdom of Babylon only being under the ruler Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar grew in pride and his kingdom was overthrown by the Persians. But Daniel was still given favor from God and again rose to power being 2nd in command to only Darius of the Persian Empire. What were some of the qualities that made Daniel blessed by God?
- Integrity
- Honesty
- Faithfulness
- Uncompromising
- Humble
- Spirit of Excellence
These are just a few of the great characteristics that can be used to describe Daniel. I believe God is looking for more men and women with these characteristics today. Please read the story and we will go over the key points afterwards:
Dan 6:1 It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom an hundred and twenty princes, which should be over the whole kingdom;
Dan 6:2 And over these three presidents; of whom Daniel was first: that the princes might give accounts unto them, and the king should have no damage.
Dan 6:3 Then this Daniel was preferred above the presidents and princes, because an excellent spirit was in him; and the king thought to set him over the whole realm.
Dan 6:4 Then the presidents and princes sought to find occasion against Daniel concerning the kingdom; but they could find none occasion nor fault; forasmuch as he was faithful, neither was there any error or fault found in him.
Dan 6:5 Then said these men, We shall not find any occasion against this Daniel, except we find it against him concerning the law of his God.
Dan 6:6 Then these presidents and princes assembled together to the king, and said thus unto him, King Darius, live for ever.
Dan 6:7 All the presidents of the kingdom, the governors, and the princes, the counsellors, and the captains, have consulted together to establish a royal statute, and to make a firm decree, that whosoever shall ask a petition of any God or man for thirty days, save of thee, O king, he shall be cast into the den of lions.
Dan 6:8 Now, O king, establish the decree, and sign the writing, that it be not changed, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not.
Dan 6:9 Wherefore king Darius signed the writing and the decree.
Dan 6:10 Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house; and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime.
Dan 6:11 Then these men assembled, and found Daniel praying and making supplication before his God.
Dan 6:12 Then they came near, and spake before the king concerning the king’s decree; Hast thou not signed a decree, that every man that shall ask a petition of any God or man within thirty days, save of thee, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions? The king answered and said, The thing is true, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not.
Dan 6:13 Then answered they and said before the king, That Daniel, which is of the children of the captivity of Judah, regardeth not thee, O king, nor the decree that thou hast signed, but maketh his petition three times a day.
Dan 6:14 Then the king, when he heard these words, was sore displeased with himself, and set his heart on Daniel to deliver him: and he laboured till the going down of the sun to deliver him.
Dan 6:15 Then these men assembled unto the king, and said unto the king, Know, O king, that the law of the Medes and Persians is, That no decree nor statute which the king establisheth may be changed.
Dan 6:16 Then the king commanded, and they brought Daniel, and cast him into the den of lions. Now the king spake and said unto Daniel, Thy God whom thou servest continually, he will deliver thee.
Wow, wow, and wow! What an awesome story of Satan’s plots, plans, deceptions and tricks to get a chosen man to stop him from doing what was right in the eyes of God and to eliminate him from his powerful position in the government. I pray that you will begin to see how this is happening again in our U.S. government. We will begin by observing some basic parallels. There were 120 rulers that were placed into power in Daniel 6 verses 1 through 3. But, the one man that was over them all was Daniel. I liken this to the 2018 mid-term election in the U.S. where one political party took power in the U.S. House of Representatives. Daniel, I liken to be a type of the President who was clearly of a different political party. The Darius I liken to be like the people of the U.S. that voted people into their powerful positions. Almost immediately after the election of 2018, the plot began to impeach the President. This opposing political party placed all their hopes in the Mueller Special Counsel Investigation report. It is very clear to me that all of this happening was in parallel to what we read in verse 4 of Daniel where the 120 and the presidents look for an “occasion” to remove Daniel.
Let’s go through some of the key words found in Daniel 6:4. The first word to notice is H5432 that was translated as “presidents”. This word is a Chaldea word that means “emir”. An “emir” is historically defined as a Muslim type of ruler. Wow, if that is not amazing? But I view these types of individuals to be likened to the leader of the house and the chairs of the sub-committees. Two of which are known as the Judicial Committee and the Foreign Relations Committee. Both leaders were heavily involved in leading the other “princes” of Congress to impeach the President.
The next key word in the verse is H1156 that was translated as “sought”. The verse says, “The presidents and the princes sought…”. This word is defined by Strong as “ask, pray, desire, request, petition, seek”. Wow, every word definition is profoundly parallel to what we see occurring in Congress. From the moment many liberal Congress women and men were sworn into office in January 2019 they swore a plan to impeach the President of the U.S. These word definitions imply a scheming and planning in secret as well as an external search for evidence for accusations. One key word definition “pray” was used outwardly on TV by several house representatives as they spoke to the news media. They would literally claim that this is such a solemn and prayerful time for us and the nation. They looked deeply into the camera and pretended to be deeply troubled and disturbed.
The next key word goes along with exactly what the Bible was saying in the last paragraph. This word is H7912 that was translated as “find” in this verse. “They sought to find….”. “Find” is defined by Strong as “a disclosure of previously hidden or forgotten thing”. In the light of what was going in this scenario of Daniel 6, it would be very much like them investigating how to create or produce evidence for the desired verdict of guilty to remove Daniel. This would be completely different than searching for the truth regardless of guilt or innocence. In other words, there was no presumption of innocence or due process. In fact for Daniel there was no ability for him to defend himself. But rather it is the display of an attitude that “we know he is guilty because….” and we hate him and we want Daniel out. Therefore, we must find the information necessary to achieve this goal. The end-result of taking Daniel from his place of authority, justifies whatever is done no matter how evil, unfair or unjust it was to obtain the goal. It is very clear to me that we are seeing people in Darius’ kingdom that were power hungry and very jealous of someone that was not like them and did not fit into their club. They hated Daniel so much that they would do anything to take him out of his position. Wow, does any of this sound familiar?
The next key word found in Verse 4 of Daniel 6 is H5931. This word was translated as “occasion”. They sought to find occasion…”. This word is defined by Strong as “a pretext”. What is a pretext? A “pretext” is defined as a false but good appearing reason that will be presented to people in order to hide the real motives for the evil actions committed against someone. This word selection by the Holy Spirit clearly shows the malicious intent of the scheming that occurred against Daniel. Behind the scenes in secret the real reasons would be discussed. Then everyone involved would agree to the false “talking points” to present to the King/public. The implied actions of the presidents and the princes were clearly coordinated and planned together in the unified attempt to get Daniel out of his high position in the government. This is exactly an example of what is occurring in Politics every day.
We will talk more about this pretext very soon and how it was used in Daniel 6 and in the impeachment of the President. Notice how verse 4 ends. They sought to find occasion against Daniel but found none”. This simply means they were searching and seeking everywhere for anything evil or illegal to accuse Daniel of doing but, couldn’t discover it. If found, they could then use it in a trial to legally remove Daniel. But there were no laws broken by Daniel. Isn’t that an amazing parallel to what occurred in the Special Counsel Mueller Report? I have never seen such evil prosecutions of people remotely associated with the President. They were turning over every rock looking for anything that could be used or turned against the President. But, in the end found nothing to charge him with.
What changed in the plot of the Daniel 120 to win their case? It appears to me that if the 120 in Daniel 6 could not do what they wanted legally to win, they sought a new tactic to do it deceptively. This new way was a hidden political tactic. Politicians often make an evil intent something good sounding on the external. This make it appear to be beneficial and legal on the outside, but it contains fraudulent and corrupt motives on the inside. For example, everyone running for political office and passing laws supporting abortion never speak about the murder and death of a child. They only call it something beneficial and legal sounding, like “women’s reproductive healthcare” or “Pro-Choice”. Wow, what twisted lies of the TRUTH! I warned you that this was probably going to offend someone.
There is an old American saying that declares “there is more than one way to skin the cat”. All this means is that there are other ways to achieve the desired goal especially if you are willing to be immoral. These 120 rulers thought they found a new way and it did work for them based upon their initial viewpoint. Let’s talk more about what this “pretext”, false and immoral way of winning their goal was next.
The new plan of the political party opposed to Daniel is revealed by God in verse 5. The people in Daniel 6:5 said “we are unable to find any occasion against Daniel, but we can find against the law of his God”. What was this saying? They were claiming that they could use the integrity of this man Daniel and his faithfulness in doing what is good and right for his God, in order to find a fault to accuse him with. It was their knowledge of Daniel’s character, Law, history and successes that could be used to be turned against him to their advantage. They used their knowledge of their enemy to achieve their evil desired goal and end-result. This is truly an important point for real committed Christians to learn from. What will happen when you stand with and upon the Word of God? You are going to be called names, persecuted and accused of supposed crimes even if you have done nothing illegal or immoral.
But, these politicians in Daniel were very clever and subtle. They knew there was not any existing law that could be used against Daniel, so they would try to create a new law that could be used. They approach King Darius in verse 6 beginning with the common praise of his deity like qualities. Then they begin their request of the king with a lie. Lies are a very common practice of politicians. They claim to the king that all the ruling leaders have agreed upon this request, but they knew that they had purposefully excluded Daniel. Daniel did not agree with their request before it was made. In fact, this is another common methodology of corrupt politicians. They meet in secret to plan their attack against their political enemy Daniel. We can see how this has been happening during the impeachment trial in the House of Representatives and even before this with the secret meeting of the whistleblower and the House investigating committee staff. These were all clear corrupt coordination meetings. The Intelligence committee also met in complete secrecy with no transparency or due process. The only information the public was given was selected leaks to the media that benefited their cause. Obviously, Daniel had no fair legal recourse or due process either to what was about to happen to him. We better wake up to what Satan is doing in our government.
Verse 7 continues their plan by asking the king to pass a decree that could not be revoked for any cause. They played a game with the king’s ego and pride to build up their own plot. The king fell for the trap. Their request was to make it illegal to pray and petition any other god except for Darius. Wow, this is what is coming to the world very soon. The anti-Christ will be doing the exact same very soon. It will soon be illegal to go to church, to praise the Lord, to hear the Word of God taught or pray. Don’t believe me? You should really study the book of Revelation. Christians that refuse to obey will lose their heads.
King Darius was lied to and tricked into signing the decree. The party of rulers rejoiced on this day of signing and passed out commemorative pens with their leader’s name on it to celebrate. Everything was now set. The political plot to remove Daniel from power was now in full motion. Their plan to accuse Daniel was already in the bank. It was a slam shut case with no way out, so they thought.
In verse 10 we find out Daniel heard the news of the order being signed making it illegal to pray to Jehovah. Yet, Daniel did faithfully just what the leaders of the nation knew that he would do. He went into his house with the window wide open and prayed out loud so that all the world could hear him. Wow, what happened to the president? He made a phone call to a foreign national leader with 25 people listening in. Everyone in the world learned that he was a man that actually did what he said he promised to do. If he promised to “drain the swamp” of corruption that could be used against him just like Daniel’s faithfulness to pray.
There was an insider whistleblower sitting outside the window of Daniel’s house that was in on the plan. The same happened with the President. There were insider members of the plan that were sitting in on the call to the Ukraine President. Isn’t it amazing the secret inner working of evil plans? However, the transcript of the call/prayer was brought before the king/public. The rulers begin in verse 12 asking the king, did you not sign an order that no prayer to any other god would be legal except to you alone, oh, King? The King answer “I did”. Then the charges are brought out in public open court that Daniel the King’s favorite ruler had disobeyed and must therefore be cast down into den of the lions.
Wow, the news of this cut the heart of the king. He was obviously in great pain because he knew that he had been tricked into signing this decree against Daniel. The King spent all day trying to figure out how to not allow Daniel to be cast into the lion’s den. But at the end of the day he had no choice but to put Daniel down in the hole and cover it with a rock. So, the impeachment trial was beginning. But, before the rock was closed the King said something amazing. Darius cried out to Daniel saying, “Thy God whom you serve faithfully will deliver you”. What would happen to Daniel in the impeachment trial of the den of lions?
The king had a very unpleasant and restless night and arose very early the next morning. He went very quickly to the den of lions and cried out to Daniel. He said “Oh Daniel, servant of the living God, is your God whom you serve able to deliver you from the lions? In verses 21 & 22 Daniel answer back and the heart of the king must have rejoiced inside. Daniel says, “Oh King live forever”. “My God sent His angel and shut the mouth of the lions; I am not hurt because I was found innocent”. Wow, wow, wow. I mean this is so profound according to the parallel of what has been happening in the U.S.A. Praise God the President was “acquitted” by the Senate quickly of all the false charges made against him by the majority party in the House of Representatives.
CONCLUSION
In verse 22 we find the King exceedingly happy and Daniel’s poll numbers increased even to greater favor with the King. The King immediately ordered Daniel to be taken out. Here is where we get into prophecy according to the story of Daniel. What happened to the political party that tricked the King into casting God’s chosen and highly favored man into the impeachment trial of the den of lions? In verse 24 we find the King immediately commanding all the men that accused Daniel to be thrown into the same den of lions. Wow, this is God’s Biblical law of “sowing and reaping”. Whatever a man gives out will come back on them. This works for good or for evil. I prophesy that what the political party wanted for the President will come back to fall on them.
If you haven’t noticed Daniel was a type of the President. I know there are a lot of Christians that believe the President does not compare to Daniel’s level of morality and character. However, we are not in a position to judge. I still believe that this is a valid pattern between Daniel and the President. I see all of the good that this President has accomplished in the face of severe opposition and resistance even from his own political party and I am in amazement. I really do not now of a man that could do this under this kind of pressure. Daniel was not a politician that was thrust into a high office and this certainly matches our current President.
The 120 rulers as I said before are a type of the political party that impeached the president for no just cause. The have been working in secret, behind the scenes to coordinate efforts to bring false accusations for a trial. The King in this story I believe is a type of the voting public. In the U.S. we are given the responsibility to vote the right leaders into power. However, U.S. people are too often tricked into believing the flattering lies of politicians to be elected and promoted for their corrupt power-hungry desires. I believe, the majority of the public will see that what was intended for evil will be turned again for their good by electing the right and fair political leaders that will work with God’s chosen president that is faithful to do what he promised them.
There are many other political stories in the Bible that teach us things that are occurring. A very similar trap of trickery is found in the book of Esther. The story of Esther, Mordecai and Haman is full of political implications. Haman plotted to kill the Jews and put Mordecai on the gallows, but his plans failed because God’s plan overruled. It was Haman that ended up on the gallows. Does that sound familiar? The Bible is covered with Politics. Please, learn what God says about it. Get involved with helping to elect people that will fulfill their promises and align with God’s Word. Your continued freedoms and rights depend on it. PLEASE, STOP BEING PASSIVE AND UNINFORMED!
Ok, I know I potentially just made a lot of new enemies. But I choose to study the Bible and write what He gives me regardless of how others are offended or choose to receive it. If you believe that you can just randomly take any story in the Bible and twist it to say what is happening in the world today, I challenge you to do this. But, don’t just make up your own definitions of the words in the Bible. Look up every word in the Strong’s dictionary and make sure you know what it means before you criticize what was written here.
Thank you for taking the time to read and study the Bible with us. I pray for you and I appreciate your prayers for me and my family. Be blessed by God with the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation in the Knowledge of Christ Jesus.
The Satanic Plan to Take Over America and the World – Part 2 – Strategy to Try to Silence the Church
(Ver 1.3) This is Part 2 in a very important Prophetic Bible lesson study series concerning the Satanic Agenda Designed to Attempt to Take Control of America as well as the Entire World. Today’s subject is focused on a very specific but significant part of the Satanic plan for Christians. Christians are being targeted in greater numbers today, much like we were when the church first began nearly 2000 years ago. It used to be widely taught in schools and universities that “those who fail to remember history are condemned to repeat it”. It is interesting that this was a quotation given by Winston Churchill in 1948. Since a great number of children in the world are not taught true history, our nations are living in the potential of great coming repetitions of the same past tragedies. There are too many young people that are unaware of major past events like World War II and the Holocaust. Students are certainly not taught about church history and the severe persecutions that they endured. But, as Christians we can clearly read about these coming recurrences of great trouble in the book of Revelation, Ezekiel, Daniel and others.
Today I will be teaching about Satan’s desire to silence the church. We will discover that Satan uses people of power in government as one of the primary methods to attempt to silence the church. If a Christian becomes uninvolved in the political system of a nation Satan has gained a great advantage at ending our voice. Today’s lesson will be split into 3 main sections with a short introduction and conclusion that can be read in succession or independently if desired. Here are the section titles:
- INTRODUCTION
- THE CHRISTIAN INVOLVMENT WITH POLITICS
- PRAYING FOR OUR GOVERNMENT LEADERS
- SATAN’S REPEATED ATTEMPT TO SILENCE THE CHURCH
- CONCLUSION
If you are ready to begin, let’s get started.
INTRODUCTION
This Bible lesson series is not intended or purposefully designed to offend anyone, but I have been teaching the Bible long enough to know that this is what will occur with some truths no matter how much love is encapsulated within it. I’ve always been taught that it is not polite to discuss religion or politics at the Thanksgiving dinner table with your family. But these days it seems like if you don’t want to start a war and get a spit bath, we better just not bring up either subject to anyone at anytime. Isn’t that funny that this Bible lesson is about both topics.
Even people that call themselves Christians can easily be offended by the Truth of the Word of God that they do not know or understand. When Jesus walked the face of the earth, His spoken words of Truth offended His own neighbors and relatives (Mat 13:57, Mar 6:4), His Jewish leaders (Mat 15:12, John 8:52), His own disciples (John 6:61), and other people (Mat 15:12). This same pattern of offense continued to happen in the early church days of the Apostles Peter, James, John and Paul and has not ended. Let’s read one foundational confirming scripture that was written by the Apostle Paul:
Gal 4:16 Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?
Speaking truth to people can be a perceived highly invasive force of opposition for those that are closed minded, resistant to change and satisfied with what they believe they currently know. We all need to evaluate our willingness and desire to want to hear and learn more truth and this begins with understanding that only God knows the entire truth. That means I don’t know it all as well as you don’t know it all, can we agree? Always remember what Jesus said in John 8:31-32 “if you continue in my Word, then you will be my disciples and then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free”. There are a lot of Christians today that must think that they are already completely free, but this would require them to know all the truth already. Do you know anyone like this?
The light of the Truth spoken in love is clearly hated by those that love darkness (John 3:19). God’s Word teaches us that the entrance of His Word brings people light to show us the way to life (Ps 119:105, John 5:24). However, a bright light of Truth is normally very upsetting to anyone that is in a deep spiritual sleep of moral corruption and deception. These types of Christians are called carnal because they are dominated by their fleshly nature instead of the Spirit (1 Cor 3:1). God commands these types of carnal Christians in Ephesians 5:14 to awaken out of their dark sleep. Please keep this warning in mind when reading this lesson. Besides the LORD, only the individual Christian can judge accurately if they are willing to learn more from God or choose to remain in their spiritual slumber. If this Bible lesson offends anyone, that could be a sign that Satan has already darkened their mind and taken them captive within his kingdom of darkness.
THE CHRISTIAN INVOLVMENT WITH POLITICS
I received a couple of criticizing comments on the first lesson that you can go and read if you like. It appears that there are some Christians that read the teaching of Part 1 in this Bible Series to be off limits when there are any current political applications of God’s truth which need to be addressed for today. I honestly believe that there are a significant number of Christians that are very ignorant of these subjects in the Bible and especially those Bible verses that are about politics. Please understand that in the Bible we will find a lot of God’s truth discussing politics, governments, kings, leaders, etc. Why would these subjects be unacceptable to teach on as it relates to modern politics, governments presidents, and right government leadership, etc.? I believe Christians have bought into a lie of Satan if they believe they should not be taught in churches today about these very important subjects. Nothing should be off-limits if it is recorded in the Word of God.
This ignorance of the Word of God is a Satanic plan that he desires for all Christians to embrace so that they will not participate in exercising their God given authority over the political affairs of mankind. In the USA Satan has developed a masterful deception that he calls the “Separation of Church and State (Government)”. He came up with this politically correct name as a plan for removing the Church’s voice from the Government completely starting back in a Supreme Court Ruling in 1947. Satan does not want any DIVINE influence overruling his planned corruption for the coming one world government solution also popularly called the “New World Order” a term that originated after World War I coming from President Woodrow Wilson as he proposed a league of nations to help keep peace. But I first heard the term begin to be promoted heavily from a Republican President named George Bush on TV a little over 30 years ago. These two Presidents were clearly being led by spirits that were not from God. But this is a plan of Satan to bring together the world under the deceptive promise of peace. If you notice I do my best to tell the truth about anyone regardless of the political party they are associated with. As I said in one reply to a criticizing comment, I am a Christian first and not a part of any political party system. I’ll stand with my God and His Bible over any political party.
Satan desires to remove God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the Bible, real church Christians and the church pulpit from any involvement in political events. This is one of the key strategies of Satan to take control of ALL governments first and then all the people in the world next. Don’t believe me? Please read Revelation chapter 13 to begin before you continue further. Perhaps we will get to cover this chapter in more depth later in this series or in another series.
Back in 1954 a US Senator named Lyndon B. Johnson who just happened to be a Democrat who later became the 36th President introduced an amendment for the US IRS taxation laws severely limiting the free speech of ALL church leaders and church organizations. This amendment stipulated that if you were a non-profit 501C3 designated tax-exempt organization, you were unable to endorse or oppose any political candidate. This amendment passed without any debate or opposition from either political party in the USA proving the presence of Satanic corruption was and still is embedded within both political parties. Of course, this was Satan’s plan and there are a lot of lawmakers listening to the wrong spiritual voices on both sides of the aisle.
For the past nearly 70 years pastors were preaching in fear of losing their tax-free non-profit designation if they taught anything about what God said about politics in a church. If the preacher endorsed one political candidate or party over any other that would be a clear violation of the US LAW. Wow, that is exactly what Satan wants, a SILENT church! This law was a clear violation of the right of “Free Speech” given to us by our Christian founding fathers in the U.S. Constitution. Thomas Jefferson would be rolling over in his grave if he knew how Christians have been removed from the US government. No one has challenged this silence law in court but if they did and the wrong activist judges were put into place, we would lose this right to voice our beliefs concerning right politics completely.
Recently there has been liberal cities that have started attacking church denominations, home groups and pastors. I heard of one church group that was meeting in a neighborhood home as a group and the city leaders passed laws to stop them meeting using zoning regulations. If only governments in the early church would have thought of this the early church would have never have been able to meet. One Church that I attended in Texas many years ago was attacked by the City Council. We were told that we MUST take down the big Red Cross on top of our Church building because it violated their sign ordinance. I agree that this Cross was a sign but not one that was covered by their law.
Maybe you heard one man running for US President recently threatening churches that he would remove their tax-exempt status if they did not remove their bias and hatred against a small unnamed group that promotes the adoption of 90+ gender designations and abominable sexual relations. This would require churches to permit men to use women’s restrooms and vice versa. This would force the acceptance of these types of sinful people into leadership positions to teach our children their message. These are just a few examples of how the extreme groups are trying to remove all church rights to our Bible beliefs in incremental measures.
A few very radical attorney generals have begun to request copies of every sermon that the preachers in their jurisdiction have preached to their people. They are looking for words spoken by the preachers that they can label as “hate speech” against unnamed false minorities or groups that they choose to label as a minority. Because of the vagueness of these laws almost any selected words could be turned out of context to be labeled as hate speech. These threats would close the doors of many churches and silence anyone that opposed people with a different opinion or belief. Wow, this is happening right now. There is no way that this would have occurred 50+ years ago in America. I pray that you can see that opposition is growing significantly worse for people standing up with GOD’S TRUTH.
These are just some of the reasons why the Holy Spirit wants this lesson to be published. It is past time for churches and church leaders to stand up for the Truth of God found in the Bible and make sure they are helping teach their people to vote along God designed TRUTH principles, morals and values. Our God and the Bible have a lot to say about rulers, leaders, governments and politics. Let’s go over just a few for my non-political critics that believe I am biased when I teach this subject:
Mar 10:42 But Jesus called them to him, and saith unto them, Ye know that they which are accounted to rule over (G757) the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and their great ones exercise authority upon them.
I’ll begin with this verse because it is clearly about governments, rulers and politics. The Greek word G757 that was translated as “to rule over” is a political reference to leadership and order. Strong defines this word “to be first” in rank or political order. You see a good government with order is a designed plan of God on the earth because of the need to control and limit the vast numbers of evil people used by Satan. Fifty days after God delivered the people of Israel from the corrupt rulership government of Egypt, He gives them the law to at least attempt to limit the spread of evil within His nation called by His name. Many years later God implements a system of justice using judges and these judges ruled the people for 450 years (Acts 13:20). But people rebelled and demanded a king and God gives them Saul. After Saul God anoints David to be Saul’s chosen replacement. Then came many other kings some fairly good with others ranging all the way to very evil. There is a lot more that I could say about these verses, but I’ll try to cover it in a parallel set of verses found in Matthew:
Mat 20:25 But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them.
Mat 20:26 But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister;
Mat 20:27 And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant:
Let me ask you a serious question to begin. Was Jesus biased when he taught us about the subject of politics? That is what He is doing in these two passages found in Mark and Matthew. Jesus is teaching about two opposing types of governments and leaders using examples and descriptions. I don’t believe Jesus was biased except for His dedication to His Father and His Word. If that causes anyone to think that He is biased, then so be it. I believe I am in good company.
If we read the previous context of Matthew 20, we will discover a mother of two sons coming to Jesus to ask him a special political favor. This type of request is exactly what happens in governments today. This woman believes that Jesus will soon establish a new kingdom and she asks for her sons to be given highly favorable positions of authority. Does any of this sound familiar with what we hear in the news today? The subject is clearly governments, authority and power and who should rule in a higher position over someone else. Even though there was no bribe or threat being made in this request to Jesus, she was taking a natural human low road to try to manipulate and control the outcome and achieve this power for her sons. Wow, if this is not current headline news, I don’t know if you are awake.
What was Jesus’ response to this request for power? Start with verse 25 and learn the contrast between a world Satanic government system and God’s righteous Kingdom system design. Let’s review the world ordered system. Jesus tells them “the princes of the Gentiles (world rulers) exercise dominion over people”. The key word here is “exercise dominion”. This is the “modus operandi” of any world government being ruled by Satan. If you are unfamiliar with the Latin term “modus operandi” it simply means a standard and accepted “method of operation”. Satan is a follower of concepts, patterns and repeats the same things over and over if it is working for him.
Ok, back to “exercise dominion”. This Greek word G2634 means “to lord against” someone and can be further defined as a power that exercises control to subjugate the people by implied “force” removing their rights and freedoms. Every government in the world operates this way normally but some to greater extremes like North Korea, China, Iran, etc. This is the plan of Satan for the USA and your nation also no matter where you live. When the USA passed the Johnson Amendment, it was the implementation of a designed pattern by Satan to silence the voice of God on the earth.
However, subjugation and control by force are NOT how Jesus and the Bible teaches us about the Kingdom of God or how Christians should react to a message concerning His government at all. Jesus outlines the Divine Order of His Government in Matthew 20:26-27. Jesus said if you want to be “great” (the highest, the most powerful, the greatest) in the kingdom of God, become a “minister” and a “servant” to everyone they are over. The Greek word translated as “minister” is G1249 and means “become a lowly attendant that runs errands”. And the Greek word G1401 translated as “servant” in verse 27 informs us the greatest leader will be the one that is the “slave” to those that are under them. Wow, that does not sound like very many of our elected Politian’s, does it yours?
Would you agree, if God’s designed good Government principles were in operation in our governments it would be a far better world? We do have this system to look forward to during the millennium reign of Jesus in Revelation 20. But, for now we are going to have to pray and allow the Holy Spirit to help restrain the evil that is attempting to rise. Please learn from this Bible instruction given by Jesus to know which type of people that we should be voting for in our elections. What are your leaders doing in your city, county, state or nation? Are they focused upon themselves almost entirely, their power, their ability to get rich and life is all about them? If you say yes, then that should be a major issue! If your elected leader is not your servant working for you, to make your life safer and more prosperous please vote differently next time for someone new.
I’ll attempt to make some Bible Truth points about the government of the USA for Christians to consider. Did you know that almost every law passed to give any benefit to an American citizen is designed to cause your dependence upon the government to allow them to control you? Also note that few if any of these benefits are participated in by those that passed the law! Lawmakers have their own retirement, not Social Security. Lawmakers have their own healthcare, not Obama Care, not Medicare, and not Medicaid. If it is not good enough for them why is everyone accepting it? Ask your leaders why something that is promised to be good for you is not acceptable for them? There are a lot of other examples but, you should get the point. Ask yourself, “Who is the servant to who?” Also ask, “Is this benefit making me their dependent slave and a servant of the government? Are these government benefits given to us to obtain our votes so that they can be elected to gain power but with the hidden design for eventually our total dependence and control.
We should ALL be able to see that there are so many elected leaders from both political parties in our nation that do not fulfill their promises made to get them elected. These are untruthful leaders that mislead us with deception on a pathway into coming destruction. I know not everyone in politics is totally corrupt. I understand that for a good honest elected official it can be very difficult to get positive changes put in place because of all the corruption that is already present. I know there is at least one person in Washington that has been a man of his words. Perhaps you know who I’m speaking of?
There were good people who were exceptions of corrupt politics also found in the Bible. In Acts 13:22 God writes about King David as being a man that was after His own heart. It is amazing to consider the significant imperfections of King David and yet God still spoke very good about him. God blesses the good leaders past or present that are trying to serve like Him despite their imperfections. For example, please read Acts 8:27-30 and see how God sent a prophet to a political man of very high authority from a foreign government because he was seeking after God and His truth with his whole heart. This man was an Ethiopian (a powerful foreign Gentile government official) who came to Jerusalem to worship and learn about the True God. God sent a prophet to help him understand His Word and to preach the Gospel to get him saved and baptized. That is a great God picked example of a good government man that desired to learn truth, God will bless this type of leader. Let’s vote for these types.
PRAYING FOR OUR GOVERNMENT LEADERS
1Ti 2:1 I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men;
1Ti 2:2 For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.
1Ti 2:3 For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour;
I believe that every born-again believer should be praying for our government leaders. Also, the church should be praying and asking God who we should vote for before every election. We learn from these verses in 1 Timothy that there are three types of prayer that should be offered up, 1) Supplication (a Petition) (G1162), 2) Worship/Prayer (G4335) and 3) Intercessory Prayers (G1783). There must be a reason why God directs us to pray these three different methods of prayer for these people. I cannot teach the subject of prayer in-depth today. But I will give us a quick review of these prayer types. The first type of prayer mentioned is Supplication. This type of prayer is a legal court type of prayer and it simply means to appeal to the Supreme Judge to present your petition before the Supreme Court of heaven. The next type of prayer was just labeled as “prayer” in the KJV translation and it infers a type of worship to God as being the Supreme Source of the answer we are asking Him for. This type of prayer applies to the Prayer of Faith according to Matthew 21:22 and Mark 11:24 where the same Greek word was mentioned directly or by the derivative root word.
The last type of prayer is called “Intercession”, and this is a very specific request of someone going before the throne of heaven on the behalf of someone else other than the one praying. In this case it could be the intercession for a specific named individual leader in the government. All these types of prayer can and should be applied to the words spoken to God about the government as the Spirit of God leads us.
What if there are wrong godless people that were already elected, what do we pray for them? Obviously, we should still pray for them. But, what specifically should we pray for? Praying and interceding for people in authority whether good or bad should be one of our greatest priorities if we want to preserve our freedoms, rights and a peaceful existence. If we omit this, I believe we are allowing Satan to achieve his will through wrong leaders to attempt to silence us and take control of us.
Another great lesson about how the church should pray for a government official doing evil to them is found in Acts 12. Please, stop and read the entire chapter. I did not place the verses in this lesson because of the length. In this chapter you should have found one evil king named Herod that killed James and put Peter into prison to also be killed because it pleased the people under the king’s rule. This is another great early church example of an evil and wrong godless government and what could easily and potentially happen again soon to us in the modern Church. In fact, it could be happening in your nation right now, since I have had readers in over 250 nations of the world.
If we read Acts 12:1 we will find a few important words to learn. The first is G5495 which was translated as “hands”. This word is a symbolic reference to a man that had great power. Power is an addictive force that causes even once good intentioned people to become extremely evil. Power is a like a drug addiction. Once it has entangled a politician’s life, the need for more and more becomes Satan’s controlling force. There is a popular quotation that claims, “Absolute power, corrupts absolutely”. If you are observant you will see this is true. The next Greek word is G2559 and was translated as “vex”. This word literally means to injure and do evil against someone like the church. This word speaks to the motivation of Satan to bring fear upon them through the exercise of his power.
In Acts 12:2 we find two more key words to view. The first Greek word is G337 and it was translated as “killed”. This again speaks to Satan’s motivation to eliminate the church. This Greek word means to take people away violently by force. It can literally be translated as “murder”. Murder is not a legal action for a government to take, but Satan does not always have to follow the law. The next key Greek word in verse 2 is G3162 and it was translated as “sword”. This is a Greek word that can be used figuratively for a judicial Verdict used against someone. This is exactly what took place against James the brother of John in this chapter. As the local King, Herod rendered a unjust verdict against a good man without a moral legal case or valid charge against him. Herod committed murder with the legal appearance of justice because of his power, authority and position. This is happening in the world today still.
In Acts 12:3 we learn something else that is extremely important. The Greek word G701 was translated as “pleased” and it means the people were happy and agreeable with his verdict of death for John’s brother James. This is also a pattern of power. People in power normally try to do things that make their subjected people happy. But most of these are don so that they don’t cost them anything to give away. Did you hear what I just said? If the murder of a man pleases people and makes them agreeable, your ability to remain in power continues until enough people get fed up with the lies and revolt. Because it pleased his people this further motivated Herod to go and take Peter and put him in prison to kill him next.
Notice in Acts 12:5 that the church was in prayer for Peter. This is the exact same Greek Word G5335 that was used in 1 Timothy 2:1 for one of our 3 prayer types for our government leaders. Therefore, that is exactly what we should be doing right now. But then notice how God answered their prayers. While we are never specifically told what they prayed for or said to God, we can potentially learn from how God answered the prayer to apply how maybe we are praying differently than they did. I pray that we are on the same spiritual page of understanding.
First, God’s answer of their prayers sent an angel to get Peter out of prison in the middle of the night before he could have been killed the next day (Acts 12:6). I believe that this was an example of God’s justice to an unjust imprisonment. I believe that whatever the people in the church prayed it brought about a change in natural justice by His higher courts of spiritual justice. Next, we read about something radical that happened. What happened to the unjust, unfair, evil king that was coming against God’s righteous people to please most of his followers? Did you see it? In verse 21, Herod is sitting on his throne in his fine royal robe giving a speech to the people and the people are claiming that he is a god. The next thing that happens is potentially the work of the same angel of the LORD that freed Peter. Whoever the angel is he strikes the evil king Herod down dead and worms ate his body. I think this must have been a different type of prayer meeting the church was conducting than what we have been praying based upon the divine answers given. Remember this is the church age when this occurs. This occur during the 2000-year time of God’s Divine Grace. Also remember the N.T. says 2 Peter 2:9 that “God is not willing that any should perish but all come to repentance”. Wow king Herod dropping dead appears to contradict a lot of the extreme Grace message, doesn’t it? There are no contradictions in the Word of God. The only contradiction is based upon our lack of understanding of the entire Truth.
No, Grace, Fair Judgment and Justice can co-exist and does every day in heaven. I do not have the time to teach this subject in the amount of detail that it deserves in this lesson. I pray that I will be able to teach this more in the future. I will wind down this topic with this thought, Peter wrote about God’s desire for man to come to repentance to change their evil ways. We also know that God has infinite knowledge of the future knowing the end from the beginning. God knew if the continuation of the life of Herod would only bring unjust persecution and deaths to His bride or if Herod would eventually repent in the future. Therefore, a prayer from the saints in the church for His justice may have resulted in the death of Herod, God knowing that he would never repent. It is possible that these church prayer warriors could have been petitioning God for Justice and for God to avenge them of the injustice being done. What are a lot of Christians asking God for today? Are you praying and asking God to only bless your enemy? Could that be resulting in more severe and unjust consequences for the church? Let me give you a prayer example that Jesus taught us. I believe this is important and should be considered in our modern prayer discussion:
Luk 18:1 And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint;
Luk 18:2 Saying, There was in a city a judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man:
Luk 18:3 And there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying, Avenge (G1556) me of mine adversary (G476).
Luk 18:4 And he would not for a while: but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man;
Luk 18:5 Yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.
Luk 18:6 And the Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge saith.
Luk 18:7 And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them?
Luk 18:8 I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?
We know from verse 1 that this parable is about prayer and appears to be a type of prayer that not too many Christians are praying in the church today. I believe in this parable that God uses a contrast comparison in the parable to 1) a “Christian” praying to the “Just God who is the Supreme Judge” for a judgment against their adversary and this is contrasted with the opposite types of 2) the parable “widow woman” asking an “unjust human judge” for vengeance against her adversary. The only common thread between the two opposing examples is that both plead to a court for justice and get their answer. Do you see it?
I’m going to go to the last verse next to help confirm that this is a prayer for the modern Church. We know that this parable is speaking of the New Covenant people in the church age because Jesus asks, “Nevertheless shall he (Jesus) find faith on the earth when I return”. Both translated words “He” in verse 8 should be capitalized. We know these “He” words, the first refers to “God the Father” who is also referred to as the “righteous judge” and the second “He” refers to the “Son of Man” also known as Jesus (God the Son). The “them” in this verse refers to saved Christian prayer warriors because only saved Christians have the potential to possess the type of faith that Jesus is coming back for and expecting to find on the earth at the termination of the church age. Ephesians 2:8 says by grace are we saved through faith…”. Ephesians 2:8 and Luke 18:8 have the same Greek Word G4102 translated as “faith”. Therefore, we know the type of faith that Jesus is seeking of is only found in the church saved Bible believer.
We know this parable is a contrast comparison of a good judge verses an evil judge because we can read verses 6 and 7. We know that in verse 6 there is a symbolic unjust judge. We know in verse 7 he is compared with the Supreme Just God. That makes the parable a contrasting comparison and not two judges of the same type, morals and character. Notice what Jesus said in verse 8 about how God will answer a prayer from a Christian that is asking for Him to avenge them of their adversary. Then remember, God is just, God is fair, God is all knowing, and God is all powerful and we are informed that He will avenge us speedily. Wow, isn’t God awesome? Let’s back up in the parable to a few other key words that need to be brought into our discussion.
One key word given here in this type of prayer is G1557. This word was translated into English as “avenge”. This word literally means a request for a verdict that gives our adversary “punishment that is inflicted upon them as vengeance for their wrong criminal unlawful acts” done to the one asking for the verdict. This Greek word literally means LORD GIVE ME JUSTICE for the wrong done to me. Wow, that is just a little different than how we normally pray, isn’t it? My main point is that this type of prayer is a valid type of New Covenant prayer for Christians even in the Church age of Grace since Jesus has not yet come to get us and take us out of this world. Therefore, since Jesus has not come to the earth looking for faith, we can pray this prayer example now.
Another key word found in this message from Jesus is the Greek word G476. G476 was translated as the English word “adversary”. This is a very important name and title for Satan in the N.T. This Greek word literally means “our spiritual opponent in a lawsuit”. It is only used 4 times in the N.T. and I believe every reference is to a legal matter in a court setting. It is also noteworthy that 1 Peter 5:8 written to Christians from God clearly defines who our adversary is and calls him the “devil” (Satan). Because we know this now it should dramatically change our method of praying for unjust evil situations on the earth.
Finally, please do not misunderstand what I am trying to say. According to Ephesians 6:12 we are not in a physical battle. We also know from Romans 12:19 that Christians do not attempt to get personal vengeance against anyone because God says this is His responsibility. Therefore, I believe that it means that we are normally not going to pray for God to kill any human. Ephesians 6:12 informs us that our spiritual battle is with Satan and spirits in the unseen realm. These spiritual beings are the source for all human conflicts of evil opposing good. Therefore, when we pray for God to avenge us of our adversaries, I believe the prayer is not directed at the natural people being used for evil even though God has the choice to answer this way if He sovereignly chooses.
My wife and I have recently started praying differently for God’s justice to be leveled against the workers of iniquity in our government. We learn from Psalm 89:14 that Justice and Judgment are the foundation principles of God’s throne. Therefore, we pray that God’s will (Justice and Judgements) that are done in heaven be carried out here on the earth as Jesus taught us to pray in Matthew 6:10. We pray and petition heaven for justice for the people of God that are being persecuted, lied about, unjustly condemned, imprisoned and killed by governments to be given fair justice. Please be radical and join us in this corporate type of request for justice if you believe the Lord is leading you to do the same. Please don’t just pray this because I asked, this is between you and the LORD only.
Ok, I probably offended a lot of people that call themselves a Christian already. But that is OK, people did not call me to teach the Bible, and I do not teach the Bible to satisfy anyone but God to who I will give an account and be judged for what I have said. If you are not happy with what I believe the LORD has given to me to say, please go seek and read whatever your eyes desire to see. God promised that we will each individually find whatever we desire and are specifically asking, seeking and knocking for (Mat 7:7). However, in this promise God does not promise that what we will be seeking to find will be the truth. God only promised if you seek evil you will find evil, if you seek good you find good, if you seek lies you will find lies and if you seek truth you will find truth. I pray that you are understanding.
I would strongly suggest that our prayers to God begin by asking Him to reveal His truth whatever it is to us. Pray and ask God to open our eyes and ears to understand His truth. Then we must expect Him to answer. I’ll leave this section discussion with a reference to this type of prayer being prayed in the book of Revelation by people that were left on the earth after the rapture occurred. These people became radically saved and were severely persecuted by Satan even unto death:
Rev 6:9 And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held:
Rev 6:10 And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?
Is it possible that this type of prayer was what was prayed at the beginning of the church when James was killed unjustly, and Peter was about to be killed unjustly? In fact, remember this is the time when Stephen was also unjustly killed in Acts 7 and many church members were being imprisoned unjustly by Saul of Taurus. Why not plead the blood of Jesus for the injustice being done and cry out for heavenly justice? Can you tell me what is wrong with that type of prayer based upon what we have learned so far? That is enough about a potential new way to pray. Let’s move on to a new subject of our political discussion.
SATAN’S REPEATED ATTEMPTS TO SILENCE THE CHURCH
It was Satan’s plan in the early church to shut the mouths of those that taught the truth about Jesus. If this message of truth got out to ALL the world, Satan could potentially lose his powerful control of mankind. Therefore, he is highly motivated to stop the spread of the message of Jesus to the world. This plan was recorded in the Bible and documented in early church writings. These strategies have not ceased to occur even today. We can observe this in so many nations of the world. Open Christianity has been outlawed in nation after nation. Bibles have been outlawed and not allowed to be taken into many nations. It has almost become a crime to mention the Bible in any public school in America to chilren. Why is this? What threat does a peaceful and loving real Bible believing Christian with their Bible present to Satan? Think about that! What harm is given to anyone by sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Satan is obviously very fearful of this message of love, grace and forgiveness and he is using people with power to try to silence it with laws, threats and violence. There are numerous nations where Christians are literally imprisoned because of their faith. There are also many other nations where they are literally slaughtered. Almost none of this is reported by the current news media. I wonder why? What spirit do you believe these news organizations are being led by?
These physical, mental, emotional and legal attacks used to potentially silence Christian people come from many religious and non-religious people in authority. We can read in the Bible that even those in the government specifically came against Christians and this movement is growing today. Many times, these attempts of evil were based upon false accusations before unjust, unbalanced and unfair kangaroo courts. Perhaps some may not understand what a kangaroo court represents. This is a court setting held by a group of people in power in order to place someone on trial to find them as a fixed “guilty” especially without any appropriate evidence. In other words, the verdict was already predetermined before the trial began. The trial and predetermined outcome was just the faked appearance of justice for the punishment phase also predetermined. Wow, this is happening right now in our Congress. Using these methods of unlawful convictions, the threats of imprisonment and even death are legitimatized by an unjust legal verdict removing the need for evidence or the due process of law. People in the early church were being convicted based upon hearsay and false testimony (Mar 14:56). These tactics have not changed from the early days of the church. We can observe this going on today right in front of our eyes.
It is increasing today that threats of evil come against anyone that will stand-up for the truth and whatever is honest, right, just and good. We can clearly see this in the world today if we do not have our heads figuratively buried in the sand. One group of growing extremism is calling those that do not agree with them very accusatory false names like “liars”, “haters”, “bigots”, “racists”, “Fascists”, “Nazis”, “Russian Agents or Spies” and other misguided untruthful accusatory names designed to destroy their character and reputation. But God warns us about this tactic many times in His Word. Jesus said in Matthew 10:25, “If they have called the Master of the House, Beelzebub, how much more them of His household”.
We will in this part of the study dig deeper into detail on one chapter of the Bible (Acts 4) and then I will give an overview comparison of this to another chapter (Rev 2) example of how Satan repeats the same plans over and over against Christians. Acts 4 contains some of the most relevant tactics of Satan that are still being used in modern times. We will be able to observe how the Holy Spirit recorded events at the beginning of the church that are still repeating today at the end of the church. Almost everything in human history goes in repetitious cycles. Let’s observe one of the first recorded persecutions of the disciples of Jesus after He arose from the dead and ascended into heaven. We will be focused upon chapter 4 of the Book of Acts.
But before we go into a verse by verse detail, it is advisable for us to go back and read chapter 3 first, in order to find the context of chapter 4. When we do this, we learn how Peter and John were seen entering the Jewish temple in Jerusalem through a gate called “Beautiful” where a lame man sat daily. Everyone knew this lame man because he was there begging constantly for years since he was young. The lame man looks upon Peter and John expecting a coin gift and Peter says, “silver and gold we have none today, but what I have I give you in the name of Jesus get up and walk”. That was my paraphrase. The lame man received his strength to walk and went leaping into the temple praising God greatly. Wouldn’t you do the same? It is obvious that this got the attention of a lot of people and Peter begins to preach Jesus to everyone. Many even believed the message. Now we get to chapter 4 and the work of Satan in the mind of the religious leaders and rulers of the people that were also present.
Act 4:1 And as they spake unto the people, the priests, and the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees, came upon them,
Acts 4:1 begins by describing the governing class of ruling elite politicians that entered the temple where the Jesus Bible lesson was being given out by Peter. This group of individuals were ranked in varying degrees of power and divided by varying degrees of bias based upon different beliefs. This sounds very much like the US Congress and Senate to me. For example, we have the High priest that was of the most powerful ranking official class to be present. This we could analogized to be like the Speaker of the House or the Senate Majority leader. Then we have sublevels of authorities of members of the synagogue mentioned below the High Priest named as “captains”. These were high ranking governor like individuals in the temple that could be analogized to be like the powerful committee chairs in the House of Representatives and the Senate. I hope you understand the comparisons being given. I did not write the book of Acts; I’m only reporting the truths that still applies and are parallel truths seen today in one government. Your government if you are from another nation probably has similar power levels of organization. Please, understand that I am NOT saying the US House and Senate is a Jewish Synagogue. I am only comparing the organization levels given by God to what still exists today.
Then notice the fact that there is one type of major political party that was directly named to be present called the “Sadducees”. I labeled this group to be analogous to a political party because that is exactly how it fits in the discussion of the Bible. This group of men followed common leaders, teachings and beliefs that were separate and opposed to another type of political group of leaders, beliefs and teachings called the “Pharisees”. We can read in Acts 23:6 how Paul uses the differences between these two belief groups as a basis for his legal defense. These truths are very parallel to what we have in the United States with our two dominate political parties called the “Democrats” and the “Republicans”.
The differences in Sadducee and Pharisee beliefs could be labeled as their “party platform”. A “party platform” is nothing but a list of beliefs, values and actions that a group publishes for people to garner support from likeminded people currently in or not in their organization. The Sadducees had a set of beliefs that are documented in the Bible and the Pharisees beliefs are also listed in the Bible. If you go on the internet you can read the Democrat Party Platform and the Republican Party Platform, and I highly recommend that you do this before you vote for anyone. These opposed belief statements from the Bible are parallels of truths to modern times. It is outstandingly amazing if you go and read and study this in the Bible. By voting for a political party you are aligning yourself with their moral standards and beliefs. This makes you one of them by association and this is what happened in the Bible with the Sadducees and the Pharisees. Which side people selected to be on was their own personal choice.
Act 4:2 Being grieved (G1278) that they taught the people, and preached through Jesus the resurrection from the dead.
Verse 2 says these elite leaders were in “anguish” with what was happening in their temple. Isn’t that amazing that they were not super excited about the great miracle that God had just performed? This miracle could be seen with their own eyes and by everyone that entered the temple for years! No, this Greek word translated as “anguished” means they were “worried”. What could they be so worried about? This is still the identical motivation of elite leaders today. These men were very apprehensive about potentially losing their position of power, respect and authority. They know that a miracle occurred, but they also knew that they personally had not done anything to make it happen. So now they realized that they were not going to receive the honor or the praise for it being done. Do you remember that Herod in Acts 12 did not give God the glory when people said he was a god? Aren’t these Jewish leaders in Acts 4 doing the same thing? Why weren’t they struck dead? I notice there was no prayers going up to heaven in this chapter, but that is enough of that subject for now.
Therefore, I believe that these Jewish leaders in Acts 4 thought a new leader named Jesus may take away their position of influence and power. Worry is a fear-based emotion of a potential shift of their power to be taken away from them and given to the name of “Jesus” that was being taught and believed upon by people that concerned them the most. Remember all these new believers in Jesus were previously dependent upon the Jewish leaders for their religious provisions. But now they were looking to Jesus. This is exactly what is happening in our world of politics today. There are people on both sides of every political system living in constant fear that they will lose their powerful position if people like or can get more from someone else that is better than what they can provide.
Here is something else that was greatly bothering the mentioned political party of the “Sadducees”. These people did not believe in the resurrection from the dead. Peter was teaching something that contradicted their teachings and this demeaned, degraded, humiliated their beliefs, teachings and positions. Peter said Jesus of Nazareth that they had killed was raised from the dead and by His name was this lame man made whole. Can you see the analogy being applied to today’s politics?
Many Christians today, are teaching what some politicians think is a revolting message that when a woman is pregnant that this is not a blob of lifeless tissues, but rather he or she is a living and developing human child that is a separate and a new life apart from the mother’s life. The mother is just the container vessel and supplier of nourishment for the developing new boy or girl. This truth offends people who believe they can kill this child right up until and now after they are born. The same types of God Bible truth subjects that were offending people back then in the early church are still very offensive to people now.
Act 4:3 And they laid hands on them, and put them in hold (G5084) unto the next day: for it was now eventide.
We are up to verse 3 now. Immediately after hearing what was being taught about Jesus and how this lame man was healed Peter and John were seized by force and put immediately in prison without a trial or any legal due process. Wow, wow and wow again. Could this be happening again today in the USA? Did you hear what one political party said lately? A few of them were asking who could we get to go into the White House and put our President in jail? It doesn’t seem to matter that there was no crime, no trial or no legal due process. They just said go throw him in jail because we don’t agree with what he is saying and doing, and he must be doing something illegal. Can you read the Bible and tell me this is not a parallel of events happening again with the exact same desired outcome being expressed because of a differing belief system? I pray that we all wake up very soon. I believe that our God wrote these things in the Bible for such a times as this. Let’s read verses 4 through 7 next.
Act 4:4 Howbeit many of them which heard the word believed; and the number of the men was about five thousand.
Act 4:5 And it came to pass on the morrow, that their rulers (G758), and elders, and scribes,
Act 4:6 And Annas the high priest, and Caiaphas, and John, and Alexander, and as many as were of the kindred of the high priest, were gathered together at Jerusalem.
Act 4:7 And when they had set them in the midst, they asked, By what power, or by what name, have ye done this?
Verse 4 through verse 7 are the beginnings of the mock trial designed to search for a crime to condemn the good men of GOD! The trial looks so good and honest on the surface. The main problem is that there are nearly 5000 people that believed the teachings of Peter and John and these ruling class elite leaders must be very careful what they do and how they do it. Whatever is done by these rulers must take on an outward appearance of being legitimate, just, legal, fair and right. Otherwise there could be a revolt against them to cause a rapid loss of their power. That sounds so familiar.
Verses 4 and 5 list the judges by name. Do you think I should do that today? I try not to use names to be less offensive, but God does not do this. I think wise and informed Christians know what God is talking about in this lesson. The unnamed key players in today’s modern mock trial are looking for a crime to remove their hated elected leader very similar to Peter and John two of the founding fathers of the Church of Jesus Christ. Is any of this news being accurately reported on in the unnamed news organizations?
Verse 7 informs us the prisoners were brought out of the jail and set before the judges and the questioning begins to find something to accuse them of. Like I said before, this is nothing but an attempt in Acts 4 to investigate in order to search for any possible accusation that could be leaked to the press and spread to the people to justify the death of Peter and John. Peter and John were asked a very direct question of their authority to do this miracle. There is an implication that they were out of line and possibly abusing this authority. The parallels are amazing. Now Peter is permitted to testify and answer the question.
Act 4:8 Then Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost, said unto them, Ye rulers (G758) of the people, and elders of Israel,
Act 4:9 If we this day be examined (G350) of the good deed done to the impotent man, by what means he is made whole;
Act 4:10 Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole.
Act 4:11 This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become the head of the corner.
Act 4:12 Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.
Act 4:13 Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus.
In verse 8 we read that Peter was filled with the Spirit of God and is permitted to answer in his defense. Let’s move to verse 9. Peter reveals that they are being “examined” for doing something “good” to a lame man. This Greek word G350 translated as “examined” means to be “interrogated”, “investigated” and even “judged” for doing something miraculous to a man that gave praise to God for his miracle.
I’m going to readdress the motivation of the leaders. I already believe that they were acting in the fear of losing their power, but what else could they lose? If Jesus could heal, save and forgive people they were no longer needed. Peter very clearly says that he was being asked by what means the lame man was healed and this implies the rulers were very concerned that the common people of that day could view this good act as not coming from them and this made them look unneeded. Again, this is like a loss of their power and an end to control of the people under their rule. If people look to politicians or even religious leaders as their savior, source and supply for their human needs, they are under their control. But if these people looked to Jesus or anyone else as their source and supply for their needs to be met then their power is removed. Do you understand the comparison to what is happening now within the USA politics? Which political party wants to give away everything for free? How does all of this modern free stuff correspond to the Word of God and the promises made to Christians? If Christians only depend upon God, politicians become unnecessary.
Verses 9 through 12 contain the description of Peter preaching the Good News of Jesus Christ to the leaders of Israel. However, this message was not received as Good News because it threatened their powerful position of prestige. If only political leaders then and now would be humble enough to give someone else the glory for them doing something good to or for someone else, what a more heavenly like place, we would live in.
Notice what verse 13 says. Verse 13 begins with “When they saw the boldness of Peter”. This Greek word G3984 is amazing. This Greek word is defined by Strong as “all out spokenness”, which in other words means to not be intimidated by the power of the leaders to speak bluntly, boldly and very frank to them. It implies Peter was speaking with great confidence to very educated leaders while they knew he was not educated to their levels. Wow, again and again. Is this what is happening today? We have a President that is without fear, very bold, very blunt and to the point and is not afraid of any charge being attempted against him by educated men who most went to big law schools. I know he is not Peter, but the parallels here in the Bible are not given to us by a coincidence.
We know from reading this account the religious elite leaders looked down on Peter and John as being inferior outsiders. We can clearly see the superior attitude being displayed by them throwing Peter and John into their prison. Now think about what is happening in Washington D.C. today. We have a lot of highly educated leaders that believe they are above the President in status because he has never been elected to anything before, didn’t study and get a big law degree and is not a part of their secret club. They are clearly very fearful of a man that does not play the system and is not dependent upon powerful controlling interests given to control him. Remember when a man offered Peter money for the ability to lay his hands-on people to give them the Holy Ghost? What did Peter say to the man? Peter simply said, “Your money perish with you…” (Acts 8:20). That does not sound very politically correct or Presidential does it? Does it even sound like a Grace Teacher today? I don’t think so. These words of Peter would have been a highly offensive tweet in today’s standards.
If you are offended by the comparisons being made here, I am not going to apologize for it, because they did not come from me. I believe that it was the Holy Spirit that gave me this lesson that you should be concerned with. Stop, pray and ask the Holy Spirit to show you the truth. He will do it if you listen to Him.
Act 4:14 And beholding the man which was healed standing with them, they could say nothing against it.
Act 4:15 But when they had commanded them to go aside out of the council, they conferred among themselves,
Act 4:16 Saying, What shall we do to these men? for that indeed a notable miracle hath been done by them is manifest to all them that dwell in Jerusalem; and we cannot deny (G720) it.
Act 4:17 But that it spread (G1268) no further among the people, let us straitly threaten (G546) them, that they speak henceforth to no man in this name.
I find verse 14 an amazing fact of Bible truth. When the unsaved world is faced with a real known miracle standing right in front of them with many witnesses to confirm the miracle, there is not much they can say publicly against it. The truth makes people either be silent or they can change the subject to detract from the good done by someone using distracting untruths. This is what is happening in our political world. One political party cannot admit the good that someone has done for the nation, so they detract from that with other subjects that make him look bad.
Let’s move to verse 15 now. Notice when a public statement is not good to be mentioned because of the advantage it gives to the one that did good, they are forced to leave and begin to plot behind their backs in private to come up with Satan’s next steps to take. This is also happening in the House of Representatives in recent months. It is a game that they believe we are stupid enough to believe. Of course, there are a large number that do agree with it.
We are given limited insight into the elite ruler’s private conversations and planning session in verses 16 and 17. They begin by asking the same question that is being asked today about our President “What can we do to these men?” Wow, things have just not changed. Remember I have said this before, but God’s Word teaches us “The thing that has been is that which shall be again; and that which was done is that which shall be done again; there is nothing new under the sun” (Ecc 1:9). Almost all human history repeats itself in patterns again and again. Why is this? Primarily because of a spiritual being that has been here on the earth since the first man was placed in the garden. Satan knows exactly what will work because most humans are unaware of what has already occurred in previous generations.
In verse 17 the leaders come to the final decision in the next phase of Satan’s plan. This was a secret agreement that they will all in unison threaten these good men and command them not to speak any more about this name. This is a very common tactic of Satan led extremism in the USA and probably where you live. If an extremist cannot win the argument with truth, reason and logic, then the only means at their disposal becomes loud orders and violent threats for any non-compliance in the future. If anyone speaks the truth but it does not agree with the popular beliefs of the ruling majority, power is wielded against the speakers to administer threats against them.
This Greek word (G546) that was translated as “straightly threaten” literally means to be “a menace” towards someone. To be a menace simply means to be a person that is likely to harm another by threatening danger and injury to them. Remember who was talking to them! These menaces were the people that had recently condemned Jesus to die on the cross and He was guilty of absolutely nothing. Do you think they should be taken seriously? Peter and John certainly knew who they were speaking to.
Let’s move on now to how the plan of Satan was carried out. We will also be proving that this was the devil that was carrying out his plan through these ruling elite men:
Act 4:18 And they called them, and commanded (G3853) them not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus.
In verse 18 the accused men of God are brought before the kangaroo high court again to hear what was privately decided concerning them. After entering the court room, they are immediately commanded NOT TO SPEAK at all in the name of Jesus. The Greek word translated as “commanded” in verse 18 is a very fascinating confirmation of the devil’s work being involved here against Christian voices. This Greek word is G3853 (parangelos) that is derived from the combination of G3844 (para) and G32 (angelos). The first Greek root word G3844 means to be “near” or “beside” as in someone or something that is standing beside someone else. Now ask this question who is being stood by and what or who is it that is standing near them? The next root Greek key word will reveal this “who is standing near” to the rulers is G32 (angelos). This Greek word is normally translated as “angel” in the N.T. and it means a messenger. We all should know that there are both good and evil “angelos” in the Bible. Wow, this knowledge should turn on some light bulbs in our brains if we know a few related Bible verses. For example, 2 Corinthians 11:14 teaches us, “Satan is transformed into an angel (G32=angelos) of light”. Now we must understand who is doing the speaking here to figure out who this angelos is standing beside! The answer to who this angel is standing by we can find is the leaders and rulers of the Jewish synagogue that are judging in a legal trial against Peter and John. Let me give you another very key and important set of Bible verses that confirms what is happening in Acts 4:
Rev 2:9 I know your affliction and distress and pressing trouble and your poverty–but you are rich! and how you are abused and reviled and slandered by those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.
Rev 2:10 Fear nothing that you are about to suffer. [Dismiss your dread and your fears!] Behold, the devil is indeed about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested and proved and critically appraised, and for ten days you will have affliction. Be loyally faithful unto death [even if you must die for it], and I will give you the crown of life.
Jesus speaking to Christians in the church of Smyrna are being commended for enduring the trials being placed upon them, by who? Notice the six identical components found in Acts 4 to the story being revealed to us in Revelation 2. There are 1) Christians in both, 2) there is persecution/tribulation done against Christians in both, 3) there is prison in both examples, 4) there are Jewish leaders directly stated as judges in Acts 4 and implied to be judges implementing the tribulations in Revelation 2, 5) there is a synagogue where these mock trials are occurring in both and 6) there is a direct reference to Satan being the angelos (G32) of evil in both. Do you think this is a coincidence? Most intelligent Bible scholars will say there is no such thing as “coincidences” in the Bible, there are only “God designed incidents” given for us to discover. Praise the LORD! This information appears to confirm the repetition of the same strategies of evil against good people in both chapters.
Who were these Jewish men in Acts 4 imprisoning and placing on trial? They are speaking directly to Peter and John (two of the Christian foundations of the church). We know the church of Smyrna are just believers in the same church. Therefore, we understand who the good people are because they are on God’s side (Peter, John, church). What was the message of the Jewish men in Acts 4? Was the message a good work and word from God about God? Obviously NOT, since the Jews were demanding “never preach in the name of Jesus anymore to any man”. It is very clear to me that the Jews in Acts 4 were being used by the wrong messenger (angelos) who was bringing them a warning from Satan telling them to shut up about teaching the name of Jesus. Can we agree that Acts 4 is an early attempt of Satan to silence the Church and it is a very similar pattern to what Jesus said about the church in Revelation 2?
Are not these plans, schemes and tactics happening after the death burial, resurrection and ascension of the LORD Jesus? Hasn’t Satan already been defeated? Yet, Christians are still being persecuted and tribulation is still a part of the people’s life in the church! Is it possible for this to reoccur again today? Not only is it possible it is happening. This is amazing, this is exactly what is happening today in our world. We can learn from this story that this is one of the primary tactics of how Satan is working in modern times. Let’s finish our chapter in Acts 4:
Act 4:19 But Peter and John answered and said unto them, Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye.
Act 4:20 For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.
Act 4:21 So when they had further threatened them, they let them go, finding nothing how they might punish them, because of the people: for all men glorified God for that which was done.
Back to Acts 4:19, Peter and John answer back the command to be silent with a very bold declaration. They said, “Whether it be right in the eyes of God to listen to your words more than unto God, you judge”. Wow, what wisdom God gave these men to speak to judges that were supposed to be fair to them and do what is right based upon God’s law. Then they continued with, “For we cannot, but speak the things which we have seen and heard”. In other words, they said “We can’t lie or be silent just because you say to”. I’m not going to compare the wisdom of our President to the wisdom of these two Spirit filled men named, Peter and John. But, the boldness of the president to speak what he sees and hears is amazingly similar against the other political party’s attempt to silence him and remove him from office by force. Our president is far from a perfect man but thank God that He still uses people like that to accomplish His purpose. You can find it over and over and over in the Bible. If God could not use imperfect people, I would NOT be able to teach the Bible, because I have made a lot of mistakes in my life.
I have never seen any president accomplish more positive things in the face of overwhelming resistance, rebellion and injustice in my life. If you don’t agree, that is your choice. I would recommend that you research the accomplishments before you pick up stones to throw at him. No other president has placed more conservative judges in the federal courts than he has. No other modern president has done as much for the nation of Israel as he has. No other president has done as much for saving unborn indefensible children than he has. Also, this president has given an order against the Johnson Amendment to be ignored. Therefore, Christian leaders are free to preach political truths without the fear of losing their non-profit status. That is God, believe it or not. Even if you are a little baby Christian these accomplishments are enough to give God praise for.
By verse 21, Peter and John were finished tweeting their response to Satan (that was just a joke but I’m sure it offended someone). Please lighten up and put down your stones. See some humor in what is being taught here it will help it go down better. Anger only cause hatred, strife and division. But we can see in verse 21 that Satan was not done tweeting back at them and he had more threats of violence that will be carried out if they do not learn to agree, conform, shut up and obey. The Greek word translated as “threatened” is the same word G4324 we looked at earlier and it still means “to menace”. That is a demonic characteristic if I have ever heard one. John 10:10 says, “The thief comes only to kill, steal and destroy…”. That verse is a perfect description of what a menace does to a human.
CONCLUSION
There is so much more to learn from the Bible on this subject of God and politics as it relates to power that is used by Satan to try to silence God’s people. I would recommend that you go through the Gospels accounts of the trial of Jesus to see the strategies of how Satan plotted to constantly try to trap Jesus into saying something that could be used to accuse him. Then discover the plan to capture Jesus in the secret of night and take him before a fake court trial with witnesses that could not agree. Then there are the hearings before the Roman Governor Pilate to be executed. Learn how the crowd put pressure on the Governor to kill Jesus even allowing a bad man named Barabbas to be freed. Please go read this story because it could happen again to someone you know.
There are also many more chapters in Acts that God gave to us about the strategies that Satan is trying to reuse today to silence the Church. I would recommend that you go read each one where there is a mock trial that takes place, any unjust imprisonment of a teacher of the Word of God, look for anytime when someone is stoned or killed and look up the words that are selected by God in Greek dictionaries like Strong’s. There is so much written on this subject of Satan working through political leaders to come against righteous believers that we can’t cover it all in one Bible lesson. But that is all I am going to teach on this subject for now.
I thank you for taking the time to read and study the Bible with me today. I pray for my readers and ask God to bless you with the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation in the knowledge of Christ Jesus. I thank you if you do the same for me and my family. I welcome your comments and prayers. God Bless you and keep you until next time.
If you would like to continue reading in the series please go to “Part 3‘.
The Satanic Plan to Attempt to Take Control of America and the World – Part 1 – Introduction
(Ver 1.0) This Part 1 in a Bible lesson series concerning the Satanic Strategy and Plan Designed to attempt to take over full control of America and the Entire World. Hopefully you have studied the Bible enough to know that Satan is working hard on planet earth to create death and destruction (Jn 10:10). If you have ever read the book of Revelation, there are many references where Satan is displaying rage and fury while attempting to control everyone to be forced into receiving the mark of the beast. It is here on the earth where Satan rules the kingdom of darkness (Mat 12:26, Col 1:13). Satan is called the “god of this present world system” in 2 Corinthians 4:4. In this verse we are clearly informed that he has blinded the minds of every human that does not believe that Jesus is the Son of God sent into the world in the flesh to save them. In Revelation 12:9 this same spiritual enemy is said to have “deceived” the entire world with implied untruthful words spoken into our minds revealed to us in 2 Corinthians 10:5. Here in these two verses (2 Cor 4:4, Rev 12:9) we discover two major strategies for the Satanic agenda to take over the world that we need to become aware of. First, there is his goal in 1 Corinthians 4:4 that states Satan is causing significant human mental and spiritual blindness in the minds and hearts of humans so that they will not be able to receive God’s truth to get saved. For instance, if you don’t believe in Satan, demons, devils, spirits, angels, heaven, hell, God and Jesus then Satan has already caused a significant part of your mind to become veiled concerning spiritual realities of truth.
Then we can apply the light of Revelation 12:9 and 2 Corinthians 10:5 to begin to discover one significant way that Satan causes mental and spiritual blindness to occur. This inability to see and understand truth is accomplished by spreading enticing words of deception, temptation, distraction into our hearts to feed our carnal human natural desires enough to confuse us from seeing and receiving the truth. If Satan can deceive us in our mind with entertaining and distracting thoughts, then he has us on a wide pathway leading to our destruction (Mat 7:13). Therefore, God commands us in 2 Corinthians 10:5 to cast down every imagination and high thing (evil spirit) that attempts to exalt itself against the knowledge of God and bring into captivity every thought (G3540) to the obedience of Christ. There is a spiritual battle taking place in our mind almost every minute of the day for the supremacy of our thought life and beliefs.
INTRODUCTION TO THE REALITY OF A SATAN PLAN
I just gave you several verses in the opening which teach us Satan is operating with a planned agenda of evil. But, let’s begin this part of our subject introduction by reading one of the first direct reference to Satan in the Bible. We need to know that one of the first times Satan is mentioned in Bible book order is found in Genesis 3. However, that does not mean that this is the first time Satan was written about in the Bible. The Book of Job is the oldest known written book of the Bible and Satan was clearly written about in this book. Also note that in Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel we can find references written about Satan way after the Book of Job and the Law of Moses but these writings reveal Satan long before Adam ever existed on the earth. Therefore, understand my intended direction is only to go to the first recorded human relationship and interaction with Satan in Biblical book order. Genesis 3 contains God’s reference to Satan with direct human interaction and influence after creation of our present world system. We will begin our section reading in Genesis 3:1:
Gen 3:1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
I want to focus on only the first part of this verse. The Holy Spirit directs Moses to describe a being named the “serpent”. This is a symbolic title description for Satan. But Satan was hidden in a symbolic reference and we are not informed of the “true identity” of this being until reading about him again in Revelation 12. In Revelation 12:3 the Holy Spirit directed the Apostle John to record what appears to be a new symbolic being which was described to be the “great red dragon”. We could assume that this was a new living being that was described but, God provides us the revelation and symbolic definitions in Revelation 12:9 to teach us this larger symbolic dragon being is really the devil also called Satan. Then immediately in the same verse all this new information is then linked to the beginning to teach us that this dragon also represents the “old serpent” of Genesis 3. This is a God inspired revelation and definition and it teaches us significant truths about our enemy. The serpent, the dragon, the devil and Satan are all the same spiritual being using different titles, symbols, descriptions and names. This is just one way that God hides the truth in plain sight for us to search and find.
What we learn from these two symbolic representations (old serpent, great red dragon) is the existence of a major transformation across a span of time from the beginning of man’s history on the Earth until the near end of man’s existence in the present age. This change occurred over 6000 years and was from one much smaller old serpent symbolic version of Satan in the beginning (Genesis) who has now grown in significant implied size, power and ability becoming a great red dragon symbolic version of Satan by the end of man in Revelation. Wow, that is very important information to learn about your enemy.
Now, notice the Hebrew word H6175 that was translated in the KJV as “subtil” in Genesis 3:1. This word describes the symbolic serpent we found out to be Satan. This Hebrew word H6175 means “to be cunning or crafty”. This Hebrew word is describing an intelligent being that is very intentionally negative and evil towards humans from the very beginning of creation. Let me give you some synonyms from the English that relate to this description of Satan being subtle. Satan can synonymously be referred to as a being that is cunning, crafty, devious, sneaky, sly, tricky, calculating, shifty, wily and even mean.
These are not positive qualities and they describe the antithesis of the character of our God. However, all these negative descriptions characterize a spiritual being of high intelligence with the mental ability to devise a plan for a purposed goal and outcome of evil deception. In fact, if you continue to read Genesis 3 and other parts of the Bible, you will find that Satan accomplished his plan. For example, we learn of Satan’s success by reading in Luke 4:5-6 where Satan offers all of the kingdoms of this world as a temptation for Jesus if He would just worship him. In these verses Satan claimed all these world kingdoms were given to him. How can this be since, it was Adam that was given dominion of the earth in Genesis 1:26. This could only be true if there was a change of ownership that was transferred from Adam to Satan during this early history of man. Remember 2 Corinthians 4:4 still calls Satan the “god of this world” even after the LORD Jesus was raised from the dead and ascended into heaven. That sounds like Satan believes that he is in control of a large portion of this world to me. However, I do not believe Satan rules over Christians, but that is only if we submit to God and resist the devil (James 4:7) so that we don’t cooperate with Satan’s plan.
Eph 6:11 Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
There are significant number of people that teach and believe Satan either does not exist or is not a factor for us as Christians to be concerned about today as a saved believer in the cross, death, burial and resurrection of the LORD Jesus. However, that is not what the Bible reveals to us. Please read the context of this verse in Ephesians 6. God is revealing that Christians are in a spiritual battle with Satan and need to clothe themselves with His spiritual armor to be able to keep standing against his attacks. We learn from this that Satan is still attacking us. I included this verse in our lesson because it is written to the church and God informs us that Satan (the old serpent) who tricked Eve in Genesis is still implementing the same plan to try and trick Christians. The key word that needs to be understood is G3180 that is translated as “wiles” in this verse. “Wile” is defined as a devious or cunning strategy employed in manipulating or persuading someone to do what one wants them to do. This is a synonymous term for someone being “subtle”.
What does this sound like you? It should be obvious that Satan is implementing the same tricks today to deceive us as he did with Eve the first woman and Adam the first man. Now, factor in the knowledge of Revelation 12 where this old small symbolic Satan has become significantly greater in size with an implied increase in power, strength and ability and apply this to what he could be capable of doing today in the world. This knowledge should motivate us to want to learn more about this unseen being in order to not be misled like Eve was in the garden by his sneaky plan. If you do not think you can be tricked by this subtle Satan now because you are a saved Christian, I would strongly suggest that you read Paul’s warning to the saved Church:
2Co 11:3 But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds (G3540) should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.
Wow, reading this should also cause us to want to learn about our enemy and his ability and plan to deceive every Christian if he is able to trick us into believing wrong. Look at the description and wording being given. God says the “serpent beguiled Eve”. Beguiled literally means seduced and deceived and this is exactly what Satan did and you can read it clearly in Genesis 3:13 by Eve’s own admission. We begin to learn how Satan accomplishes this deception by a God revelation given to Paul. Please, go back and read the verse again.
Did you notice where the trickery takes place in this verse in 2 Corinthians 11:3? According to the Holy Spirit Eve was tricked in her mind and Paul feared that those in the church that he was teaching would fall into the exact identical trap. Then notice this word translated as “minds” is a Greek Word that is translated as “devices” in 2 Corinthians 2:11. Let’s back up to the first time this Greek word is used in the New Testament to a verse written on the same subject in the same book to the same people in the church. Read about what this word was originally referring to:
2Co 2:11 Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices (G3540).
Paul wrote extensively about this subject to the church at Corinth and told them that we should not be ignorant (meaning unaware, uninformed or unfamiliar) of Satan’s devices (G3540). This Greek word G3540 is used only 6 times in the entire New Testament with the majority found 5 times in this book. The Greek word G3540 which was translated as “devices” in this verse literally means “a perception”. One definition of the word “perception” is a way of regarding, understanding or interpreting information, and can also be referred to as a mental impression. We can easily learn that this is God speaking of a mental ability.
This Greek word G3540 comes from G3539 a word that means “to exercise the mind”. By implication this Greek word is speaking of the human mind’s ability to understand a subject. In fact, this Greek word was most often translated in the KJV Bible as “minds” in four N.T. verses where it was selected for use by the Holy Spirit. Therefore, we have 4 times it was translated as “minds” and once as “devices” so far. But in the sixth verse where it is found in 2 Corinthians 10:5 the Greek word G3540 was specifically translated as a “thought” of the human mind. I quoted this verse in the opening paragraph of this lesson for this reason. Therefore, the word “devices” in 2 Corinthians 2:11 could very easily say “we are not ignorant of his thoughts or his mind” instead of “his devices”.
It appears to me from gaining this knowledge that Christians must become aware that we are engaged in a constant internal spiritual battle for the control of our mind and more specifically our thoughts. I believe that this thought war is one of Satan’s primary tactics used to deceive and distract a human. When he is successful, we will learn that it is even possible for him to eventually conquer and control them. It is critical to know, understand and discern that not every thought that we think in our mind comes from us. In fact, a thought can originate from several sources. First, there are our own personal thoughts and we can choose to think about anything we want. Then there are thoughts that come from the Spirit of God and these need to be recognized and embraced. But there are also thoughts that can come from other spiritual beings including good angels, bad angels, Satan, devils, demons, etc. How are you going to know the difference? You can’t unless you know the Bible.
Also note that Satan can use a thought and make it sound like it was something that came from us. Therefore, we can learn how Satan can be so tricky, cunning and subtle. Satan is not usually going to come into your mind and say, “This is Satan, go kill yourself”. No, he is smarter than that and will make us think “life is not worth living, I wish I was dead”. Wow, that makes us sound like we are the one that is crazy doesn’t it? Where do you think that human mental and emotional depression comes from? You could be feeling very depressed by Satan’s thoughts standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon and the thought just comes that says, “I should just jump and end it all now”.
Other thoughts from Satan might be “I was just born this way”, “I really love or I can’t live without alcohol, drugs, food, sex, etc., ….”, “I just can’t help myself”, “I am so ugly”, “I am so fat”, “I just can’t live without him or her”, “I can’t do anything right”, etc. Further, notice that 2 Corinthians 2:11 says that Satan can gain a significant advantage over any Christian through this mental distraction and deception process. Let’s review a verse that I mentioned earlier because it has the exact same Greek word that was translated as “devices”.
2Co 4:4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds (G3540) of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
We learn from reading related subject study verses like this one in 2 Corinthians 4:4 that Satan possesses a very strong mental ability to utilize intelligent strategies against a human mind to cause people to see things that are not true to believe they are true and then see things that are true as though they are not true. That is what this verse says. People are taught the glorious Gospel Truth in church, TV, radio, by people in person and then Satan tricks them into not believing in Jesus as Savior and Messiah to be lost and go to hell. This is obviously his plan and strategy for every human. Let me give you some other English synonyms for the English word “devices” that we read about in 2 Corinthians 2:11. An enemy’s devises can be viewed as his ideas, thoughts, plan, plot, scheme, subversion, insurrection, rebellion, formulation, preparation and design used against humans. These words are all intentional activities attempting to cause a human to be tricked into becoming ineffective against Satan and ultimately completely controlled.
I believe firmly that Satan gives humans subtle thoughts to accomplish his evil plans. If people cooperate with these thoughts his plan is accomplished. I also want to teach that these thoughts are used in the minds other people, even Christians to turn against someone else to cause division, anger, strife, hatred and on and on until it reaches murder. Deception can come through Satan’s influence of another human speaking directly to them using their voice to speak to you. You can see this is also a very effective trick of our enemy. If Satan can capture the mind of someone that we look up to, respect, and want to listen to then we are given him an open door into our mind. This is happening today in many public schools, colleges and universities to our children. They are being fed intermixed poisonous lies with random truths as if they are all teaching only truths.
This is very important information to learn the strategy of your enemy and to know who your enemy is really. We all have a lot to learn.
Eph 6:12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
We can see clearly that Christians are not in a physical war with anyone on the earth. However, we should not be ignorant and should know that there are a lot of evil people on the planet doing a lot of mean things to other people and trying to deceive us. We learn from Ephesians 6:12 we are in warfare against, principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness and spiritual wickedness in heavenly places. This list is one reference to the existence of the spiritual rank of authority within Satan’s kingdom of darkness. It is for this reason, I said that thoughts to influence us personally to do evil or other people to do evil against us can come from all these different spiritual sources.
What I am attempting to teach is Satan is not stupid and in fact his mental ability is far beyond our natural human reasoning without renewing our minds (Rom 12:2) with God’s superior knowledge, understanding and wisdom to help us. Remember how old you are? Now, remember how old Satan is implied to be? He was just called “the old serpent” in Revelation 12. We also can calculate that Adam lived nearly 6000 years ago. Therefore, Satan has been deceiving humans for nearly 6000 years and you have just begun to learn how he operates. Who do you think is smarter? Unless we are in very close relationship with the Spirit of God and His Word, Satan is easily winning the battle in our mind.
Also remember that we further learn from 2 Corinthians 2:11 that Satan’s intellectual abilities can gain an “advantage” over a Christian because of their implied ignorance or lack of understanding of God’s Word. The term “advantage” simply means Satan has the winning edge in the battle. For example, in the sport of tennis if your opponent obtains “advantage” over you and then can win the next point they are legally awarded the game. This is a very interesting application to our mental war with the devil. We do not want to give Satan the advantage to set us up for defeat by agreeing with his mind and his thoughts. We want the advantage over him by eliminating our ignorance of his strategy. We only get this by gaining the knowledge of God’s Word and being led by His Spirit constantly. The moment we get back into the flesh we are most susceptible to defeat.
Being ignorant of our enemy is a very dangerous state of existence according to the Bible. In Hosea 4:6 God informs us “My people (including Christians) are destroyed for a lack of knowledge, because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you…”. If we do not make the effort to learn about our evil spiritual enemy, how his abilities can be used to deceive us or destroy us, how spiritual thoughts work to influence our choices, what Jesus has given to us, who we are in Christ and etc. then we are candidates to be easily conquered . Any wise military commander recognizes that the more they know and understands about their enemy they can use this to gain an advantage. Christians need to know the enemy’s tactics, their strengths, their weaknesses, their strategies and plans to operate against God’s children.
Believe it or not Christians are in a constant spiritual warfare with an unseen spiritual enemy (2 Cor 10:4, Eph 6:13-18). We know that Jesus has won the ultimate victory (Col 2:15), yet Satan is still exercising great influence over the planet and appears to be implementing an ultimate plan to try to take over the planet Earth and heaven completely. If Christians are not aware of Satan’s schemes, systems, organization, devices and plans there is little going to slow Satan from appearing to be very successful.
HOW SATAN IS IMPLEMENTING HIS PLAN TODAY
I have observed in the last 50+ years the moral decay of the USA and the world. All we need to do is to observe trends in the media, TV, movies, books and now the internet. What was once hidden secret sins, are now openly promoted and protected as a prideful normal and acceptable behavior. Evil has grown significantly more influential in numbers and ability within Satan’s kingdom of darkness. We have seen the rise of lawlessness and rebellious behavior in so many people, the increase of disloyalty, the surge of self-indulgencies with acceptance of legal drug abuse, alcoholism, gambling, lotteries and other habitual forms of Satanic control. These sins are filling up the cups of iniquity to an overflowing measure in our streets.
We have observed many Christians in the last 50+ years widely and passively allowing this evil plan to happen by not praying, speaking out or participating in voting or running for political offices of authority! One wise person said, “The only thing necessary for evil to prevail, is for the good people to do nothing”. Wow, this has been happening all over the world.
Here in the United States, the un-elected 9 members of the US. Supreme Court have been allowed to make laws that the US Constitution does not give them the right to enact. Only the US Congress and the elected officials in the states, the counties and the cities working for the people that voted for them, have the legal authority and the right to make any law. Therefore, if a law is enacted that is in opposition to the truth of God’s Word, we should be rapidly changing our lawmaker selection. These activist judges have changed the course of the United States and placed us on a pathway to destruction by forcing the acceptance of the Satanic agenda. Here are just a few examples:
- The allowance and acceptance to increase federal government power and control from unelected permanently hired bureaucrats.
- the forced elimination of God, prayer and the Bible from being taught to our children in public schools,
- the forced acceptance of murdering our children in the womb
- the forced acceptance of Godless marriages in every state removing the Biblical definition of a God defined true marriage between a man and a woman.
These are just 4 major examples of Satan’s plan that has already been implemented through US court rulings. There are more that have not been fully implemented yet that I did not mention. How can the votes of 5 unelected judges with no accountability to anyone, overrule God, the Bible, the will of the “majority” of the people and force them to accept the immoral ways of a minority of the people?
Through the years of recent history, we have observed the rapid moral decay of our elected government officials. Many of these people lie to our faces believing that we are stupid enough to accept their promises as truth. However, there are a lot of people today that do believe the lies. Notice, what is different about my Bible lesson from the other ways people are working today. I am not naming names of people and I am not accusing anyone specifically to be responsible for this other than Satan.
If you are unaware of the freedoms that we were originally given to us in the USA, then you are probably unaware of how these freedoms are slowly being removed as a basic human right. I am a very firm believer that Satan must take these rights away in order to gain the control of people. Here are some of the main rights that will vanish quickly if Christians do not pray and elect right people in the government.
- Freedom to speak (preach, teach) the Gospel in private or public including radio, TV, internet, books, CD’s, etc.
- Freedom to speak any conservative or Bible Truth in public or on the internet without consequences of being blocked or removed from the platform
- Freedom to speak anything that is not in agreement with the coming Satanic One World Government Agenda
- Freedom to stand for God’s definition of a normal marriage being between only one male in union with one female for life.
- Freedom to embrace the scientific truth of fact that human gender is determined from the contribution of the father’s sperm X or Y chromosome being joined with the X chromosome of the female egg contribution. An all XX is a female and an XY is a male. God and science teaches us that the human that was birthed does not determine this gender choice.
- Freedom to share about the Bible and Jesus to someone not a Christian
- Freedom to assemble peacefully in a Church or public setting
- Freedom to defend oneself from evil and the enemies in the world
- Presumed Innocence of all alleged charges and accusations
- Right to a fair trial for any alleged accusation before being found guilty
- Right to unbiased legal assistance
- Equal Justice under the Law for every alleged criminal act and not selected agendas items against those that are not in agreement with their beliefs
All these freedoms and others must be ended for the Satanic agenda to control every person on the earth. Then there are other agenda items that must be fully initiated in order to complete the control of every human:
- Planned Elimination of Absolute and Scientific Empirical Truth for the establishment of unfounded, untruthful and unprovable lies and theories, i.e. Evolution, etc.
- Planned Elimination of national sovereignty and national borders to accommodate a supposed greater one new world order of central global control strategy and solution
- Planned Elimination of all defensible firearms completely except in the government for power and control
- Planned Elimination of printed money and all coins to promote a supposed safer non-monetary electronic system of buying and selling
- Planned Elimination of all open and independent food sources, other than governmentally controlled sources
- Planned Elimination of private farms, businesses, manufacturing, etc., with the government owning and controlling every food producing area
- Panned Elimination of all power sources not approved and owned by the government
- Planned Elimination of all private and public non-approved transportation not owned and controlled by the government
Think about what it is that you freely enjoy today that allows you to be independent from the government and observe how this freedom is being eroded away from you through some proposed agenda and alleged issue. We have people today telling us we can’t eat beef because this is potentially causing greenhouse gases destroying our world. We have this same charge being used to say we all must give up our motorcycles, cars, trucks, buses and airplanes because they emit too many harmful gases and we are all going to die if we don’t.
There are also other Satanic Strategies that are on the agenda to be implemented and are happening right now in part in the USA and the entire world.
- Planned Control of approved, accepted language terms and words by forcing new corrected word definitions within every conversation. For example, it is no longer called “abortion” because it has been relabeled as “women’s healthcare” choices. This makes what was evil sound more tolerant and acceptable. We are also told we can’t call anyone a he, she, him or her only them or they so there is no longer any offensive gender reference attached to our descriptions.
- The planned Insulting, defaming and slandering of the good character of anyone that is not in agreement with the Satanic agenda is happening all over in the world
- Making it a crime to oppose the devious stated good purpose and plan of the wise government which will become punishable by jail, prison or even death is on the rise
- Most Satanic Governmental control strategies are based upon making the entire human population totally dependent upon them for their source of finances, their ability to spend their finances, their healthcare, their food supply and the ability to buy food and our dependence upon our protection from the evil people of the world to name a few.
There are literally many other Satanic Agenda items that can be observed happening now in our world and many of these are prophesied to happen in the Bible. That is what this Bible study series s going to attempt to address. If you did not read an item that you see happening in the present world and feel that it is very important to note, please leave us a comment and share it with others. Let’s look over just one example of Bible verses spoken by the LORD Jesus that concern this subject of what will be happening right before He returns, and we should be able to observe some of the specific things that I just listed. We will be reading in Luke 21 today for our introduction to the topic:
Mat 24:3 And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?
Mat 24:4 And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.
Mat 24:5 For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.
Mat 24:6 And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.
Mat 24:7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
Mat 24:8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.
Mat 24:9 Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake.
Mat 24:10 And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.
Mat 24:11 And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.
Mat 24:12 And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.
Mat 24:13 But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.
Mat 24:14 And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.
These things that I underlined are just a few of the prophesied evils that Satan will initiate. Always remember these things are designed to replace faith with fear which can lead a good Christian to be deceived. Jesus starts the description of events with a warning for His followers not to be deceived. Jesus informs us that many false Christs and prophets will arise with deceiving messages. If a Christian does not know their Bible very well, they can easily be tricked. I pray that you will always verify anything that anyone teaches you by your own personal Bible study to verify that what is said is what God said and that includes anything you read from me.
I have observed a few of these false Christs and false prophets. They do exist. I can name two extreme religious leaders right off the top of my head. There was Jim Jones in Jamestown Guyana in 1978 who caused around 900 of his followers to drink poison and die and then there was David Koresh who claimed to be the last prophet living in Waco Texas in 1993 that caused many of his followers to die in fire while being assaulted by the government. If you are going to go to your death by following any physical man on the earth, you have been deceived. If you are going to be killed by following our LORD Jesus Christ, that is a totally different situation. Make sure you know who you are following and who is killing you. It should not be someone on the earth claiming to be your Christian leader, teacher, prophet or Messiah. If it is, that is Satan deceiving you.
Jesus in verse 6 says there will be wars and rumors of wars. In the last 100 years we have observed many wars. Most have ended and others appear to go on indefinitely. The current war on terror that the USA has been involved with is a type of never-ending war against evil. No matter how many evil terrorists we kill, the devil in those dead terrorists just go into new people and keep the evil going. We should understand what God said to us in Ephesian 6:12 “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood but with principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness of this world, and wickedness in high places”.
Jesus in verses 9 and 10 informs us of a rise to hatred and we can certainly observe this all over the globe. I have never seen it at this level in my lifetime and it appears to be increasing. I have seen groups better to be called “gangs” on the news, beat isolated people that were not attacking the gang but rather just standing to document and observe the acts. I have seen 8 or 10 people beating just one unarmed human being for no good reason. This is hatred being exalted to control and silence others that are observing.
CONCLUSION
Ok, I’m not going to go through every verse of Jesus’ statements in Matthew today in this lesson. I just wanted to give you a taste of what the Bible says about the times that we are living in. I pray that this interests you. I also pray that it does not cause you to fear what is happening. I also pray that it does not offend you like Jesus said it would when the severe persecution grows stronger as it is happening right now. In the next lesson in this series, if the Lord is willing, I plan to get into specific Satanic agenda items that can be observed from Bible occurrences, prophecies and by simply watching the news. The first subject planned is Satan’s Desire to Silence the Church believers. I can see this rising slowly ever since the 1950’s. I believe that Satan knows that he must silence the church or his plan will not succeed. If he can keep us from sharing our testimony with others, preaching the Gospel and praying for the situations going on in the government and the world today, he has won.
God Bless you and thank you for reading these Bible Study lessons. If you would share them with your friends on Social Media that would be a blessing to me and to them. Thank you for being a blessing. I love you and Jesus loves us all and He is coming very soon, believe it or not.
If you would like to continue Reading in this series click on “Part 2” now.
More Things That Satan DOES NOT Want You To Know About! Part 2 The Kingdom of Darkness! Learn God’s Word Applying the 5 W’s of Bible Study.
(ver 1.1) This is now Part 2 in the series of Bible study lessons concerning our unseen spiritual enemy Satan. These lessons contain some of the most significant things that Satan does not want us to learn or know about him. If you did not read “Part 1” I would recommend that you start with that lesson before you continue with this one. However, if you do not have the time to do that, the truths found here in this lesson should still stand alone and be helpful to your Christian walk in this life. Today’s lesson contains basic Bible truths that every Christian needs to know. If you are a very mature Christian you might already know many of the things that will be taught in this lesson. Please just allow the Holy Spirit to speak to your heart as you read with an open mind. I will warn you up front that this lesson will be long. But you can read it one section at a time and this will help break it down for you. Thank you before we begin for your dedication to study the Bible.
INTRODUCTION
I recently read a comment that someone made and I could not disagree more with what they said. They said that we should not be concerned about learning anything regarding Satan since he was defeated by the Lord Jesus Christ. However, they ignored the fact that Satan still exists, is still present here in this world and that he is stated by God to still be our adversary that we must exercise our authority over in order to keep Satan from running or controlling our lives. Consider this warning from God when asking this basic question if should we learn about Satan:
2Co 2:11 Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices.
To be intentionally ignorant of Satan means someone does not know that Satan is their opponent or does not consider him as a formidable adversary. But, God clearly tells us in this verse that Satan has implied power which he can utilize to gain an advantage over us if we allow him to. Paul then wrote to the church in this verse that we “should not be ignorant”, unlearned or uninformed about Satan’s devices. This statement of God written by Paul contradicts directly with my reader’s comment. I firmly believe that the more we know about our enemy the least likely we are to permit him to take this advantage over of us. These truths go a long with what God said to us in Hosea 4:6 which is one of my favorite Bible verses. God says in Hosea 4:6 that His people are destroyed because of their ignorance a word meaning “no knowledge of” or “insufficient knowledge of”. I hope that you can see these are very good reasons to learn everything that you can learn about this enemy.
In the first lesson we quickly went through 6 important things that God has shown us in the Bible about the spiritual adversary named Satan. Satan has tried to stop these things from being preached and taught to the body of Christ. Perhaps you have noticed this reality if you have observed the lack of meaningful spiritual lessons that should have been taught in all churches. It is obvious to me that Paul taught about this adversary based upon what we just read in 2 Corinthians 2:11. What we must begin to realize is that we have a spiritual foe that is trying to kill, steal and destroy us (John 10:10).
These days there are too many Christians that want to look only at natural flesh and blood as the source of all of their problems in this world but this is not what the Bible teaches us that we are fighting against. If you read in Ephesians 6:12 you should be able to plainly see a spiritual opponent truth being stated. Not knowing that Christians are in a spiritual battle with an unseen spiritual force causes many of them to be easily distracted by the natural world and then to be easily defeated by the spiritual world. Not understanding how their spiritual enemy operates causes another portion of Christians to be easily attacked and overwhelmed. Then not knowing how to fight against this spiritual adversary will cause others to be effortlessly beaten. What we do not know is Satan’s greatest advantage over us. The goal of this lesson series is to inform Christians about their enemy and give them as much good Biblical information to help overcome Satan’s many assaults.
In this Bible lesson today I will be teaching something new that was not covered in detail in the first lesson about Satan. This new truth will be a complementary important fact that Satan is trying to stop you from learning about. I have taught on today’s subject in other lesson series but this one will be a little different with some new verses to consider.
If you recall in the first lesson I taught that one method of deception that Satan uses is distraction to keep people away from seeing God’s truth. Satan does not want the truth of the Word of God to be planted firmly and unmovably in our hearts. When the Word of God is confidently implanted in our hearts with solid deep roots it will produce spiritual fruit that causes Satan’s hold on our lives to be greatly diminished. The more truth you know from God’s Word the less likely you are to ever be deceived or overcome by Satan’s schemes. This knowledge of the truth is exactly what God wants you to achieve and it will become a great threat to the kingdom of darkness. The kingdom of darkness happens to be my key subject today. Satan will do everything in his power to keep you from knowing about this subject. One of the primary reasons for Satan wanting us not to know this is because no one will ever try to escape from a prison if they do not first know that they are in one.
As a final note for the introduction I will mention that in this Bible lesson I will be using at least 9 or 10 different basic Bible study laws to help us understand what God teaches us. Here is a quick list overview of these essential Bible Study techniques and rules. We will be using:
- the Law of Self-Interpretation
- the Law of Spiritual Definitions
- the Law of First Mention
- the Law of Contextual Application
- the Law of Antithesis Truth
- the Law of Synonymous Association or Relation
- the Law of Mathematical Equality (If A=B & B=C, then A=C)
- the Law of truth building upon truth
- the Law of Truth never contradicting Truth
- the Law of 2 or 3 Witnesses
I have covered these Laws of Understanding the Bible in more depth in other Bible lessons but I will emphasize them again today for anyone that is new to my website that has not yet read every Bible lesson. Today I will be going over a lesson using a specific style of Bible study that I call the 5 W’s study method. This method will focus on answering the questions of “Who”, “What”, “When”, “Where” and “Why”. In this study we will focus on the following questions:
- Who is the main subject about?
- Who does the main subject affect?
- What is the main subject about?
- What does the main subject mean to a Christian?
- What does the main subject mean to a non-Christian?
- When did the main subject come into existence?
- When does the main subject end or cease to exist, if ever?
- Where does the main subject take place or exist?
- Why is the main subject even in the Bible?
- Why is the main subject important to learn, understand and know?
We will be studying the Bible to answer these questions concerning the main subject of the “kingdom of darkness” today. We will also be touching on the related antithesis subject of the kingdom of light. I hope you will take the time to continue and read the entire lesson. Let’s get started.
NUMBER 7
7. Satan DOES NOT want you to know that he still rules a kingdom and you might be in it.
This is the seventh truth that Satan would rather you not learn. Since Jesus defeated Satan as we all should now know, does Satan still have a rule of authority over anything or anyone in the “here and now” present world? The answer to that question is a resounding yes. There are at the very minimum 4 different spiritual kingdoms mentioned to us in the Bible and you may not be able to name them all right now. Understanding spiritual kingdoms is a difficult seldom taught Bible subject but yet a rewarding subject to study nonetheless. There are a number of confusing factors that challenge us when we study about spiritual kingdoms. One spiritual kingdom in the Bible can be called by several different names, symbols or titles but these are still the same kingdom. Another spiritual kingdom can be a similar name or type or even have a similar appearance but God can be speaking of a completely different kingdom within a different time or even a different realm with an entirely different spiritual ruler of that kingdom. The Bible is much more complex than many Christians understand. However, today I am only writing about one specific spiritual kingdom in this lesson and this kingdom is called the “kingdom of darkness”. The kingdom of darkness is Satan’s independent empire. Satan is the sovereign ruler of this dark empire. This kingdom is not a part of any other kingdom. It is also not a sub-kingdom of God’s spiritual empire. This kingdom of darkness is vast and has many subordinate individuals that are within it right now.
Understanding the Kingdom of Darkness – WHO!
I’ll explain this section title later in the Bible lesson. Also I will say at the beginning of this section that I believe after the death of Jesus and His resurrection that Satan’s kingdom was greatly diminished from where it was at one time but we will still learn in this lesson that Satan has significant rule and power. For example in Revelation we learn that Satan potentially rules over 1/3 of an innumerable number of angels that appear to follow him (Rev 12:4, Heb 12:22). Then in other scriptures that I am going to get into in this section we learn that Satan rules over many millions and even billions of unsaved people in this world. Let’s begin this study by looking at a N.T. verse that informs Christians that they were once within this same vast kingdom of darkness to help us establish its manifestation, presence and existence:
Col 1:13 Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son:
There are two separate and very distinctly different spiritual kingdoms being referred to concurrently in this verse. One kingdom is directly mentioned and the other kingdom is indirectly described by God. First the indirect kingdom is being associated with the “power of darkness”. This is of course Satan’s kingdom of darkness. But, God then informs us that we have been translated from out of this darkness into the directly named “Kingdom of His dear Son”, Jesus Christ. The Son’s Kingdom was the establishment of a new spiritual kingdom that never existed before that I alluded to earlier. You may not understand that last statement right now but please don’t throw it away because you don’t understand because it is an advanced Bible truth that I do not have the time to teach fully today in this lesson. This “Kingdom of His dear Son” is also known by other names called the “Kingdom of God”, “the Kingdom of Light”, “ the Kingdom of the Day”, “the Kingdom of David” as well as by several other descriptions. This verse clearly teaches us that we (the Christians) have been “taken out of” and “removed from” the kingdom of darkness that belongs to Satan who is the implied unstated power of this realm. Christians now reside within a new spiritual Kingdom founded, established and confirmed by the Lord Jesus Christ. I think I will give you another verse to help settle this:
Act 26:18 To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.
These words in Acts 26:18 were written in red ink in my Bible and this means Jesus is speaking again. Notice that there are two antithesis spiritual kingdoms being mentioned directly in this verse. These kingdoms are called “Darkness” versus “Light”. There are also two opposing rules of authority established in this verse being called the “power of Satan” versus the power of God. Satan is directly associated to be the power of darkness that was indirectly mentioned in the previous verse and God is only called the Power of Light. Both of these two previous verses directly mentioned the very important hidden kingdom subject keyword “power”. God will often talk about a subject using a related keyword and you need to become aware how to connect it to the current subject that you are studying.
This Greek word is G1849 that was translated as “power” holds the meaning of “delegated influence, authority, jurisdiction, power and strength”. Notice the implications from this definition. It means this individual that holds this “power” has the ability to make independent rules of law over those that are under them. This literally means that one power does not exist together with the other power or there would be no delegated power that was given to them. Nor can this power being mentioned be ruled or controlled by the other power. Think about this in terms of the United States and another country like Russia. The Russian government cannot pass a law to imprison the citizens of the United States and this is true for the United States not being able to imprison the people of Russia. Both are independent sovereign rules of law.
In fact the mere names of the kingdoms light and darkness denote a clear separation of powers. Wherever light exists darkness is not found and wherever darkness exists light is never found to be present. These are just basic natural laws that were created by God to teach us how these spiritual realities work. In the natural we can walk into a very dark room and be overwhelmed with the darkness until we turn the light on and then suddenly there is no more darkness. It is just amazing how that works, isn’t it. Now consider another N.T. verse that is relevant to teach on this subject:
1Jn 1:5 This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
God is clearly declared to be light in 1 John 1:5 and in this verse it further says that “IN HIM” there is no darkness found in this Light. This reality of God being called light without any darkness denotes an implied antithesis truth that within the darkness of Satan there is no Light of God found. However this becomes greatly complicated when we consider the “omnipresence” of God. I do not believe that there exists a place where God cannot be found present. Psalms 139:7 teaches us this truth using the voice of a man asking, where can I go that you are not found?
However this verse in 1 John still teaches us that there must be a huge separation of one from the other using an implied dividing partition. Light and darkness cannot coexist in the same room without a partition to block the light. I personally believe that God is teaching us that He is not evil. We will begin to learn more of this as we continue to study that evil exists in Satan and goodness and mercy comes from God. We need to know this and never forget it when reading and studying the rest of the Bible or else we will become confused how to understand what is being stated by God.
I am not going to teach anything else found in this verse of Acts 26:18, because that would take too long. You can take the time to meditate and think on this verse to see what else God reveals to you about it if you wish. Please just begin to embrace and believe in the basic concepts of the powers of light versus darkness being separated, detached, divided, disconnected and disjointed from each other. Both kingdoms will not stand or coexist together. Clearly the Kingdom of Light is superior to the kingdom of darkness. Darkness can never prevail over light or drive out the light. But God still declares the kingdom of darkness to exist with power and this teaches us that God is not present there. These verses also teach us that Christians were once found to be a part of the darkness and have now been removed from it. But yet this truth implies those that are not Christians right now are still residents within the power of darkness. I know there will be some Christians that do not believe me. But normally this is because they have never studied to find these truths in the Bible. I’m not able to give you every verse that exists on this subject but I will mention a few more that apply. I have taught on this subject in other Bible lessons. Let’s read the words of the Lord Jesus again to continue with learning about this spiritual kingdom of darkness truth:
Mat 12:26 And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself; how shall then his kingdom stand?
Jesus makes an amazing statement here that should not be discarded, thrown away or ignored because you don’t believe it. Jesus Christ is God in the flesh and the creator of everything seen and unseen that was created (John 1:1-3, 14) and He declares that Satan is not fighting or even working against himself. Jesus also teaches us very clearly that Satan has his own independent kingdom apart from the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven mentioned repeatedly in the Gospels. There is a very basic truth established and confirmed with this message that there exists another spiritual kingdom that is separate from God’s domain. This would have been a great opportunity for the Lord Jesus to tell us how this kingdom of darkness was sovereignly ruled by God but He does not even imply this to be true. In fact Jesus in describing this kingdom referred to Satan using the third-person pronoun “his” which means that this kingdom is possessed, owned and controlled by him. This clearly denotes separate ownership of this kingdom being mentioned which must be different from the Kingdom of God that I just mentioned. In other words Jesus did not say “my” kingdom He said “his” kingdom and we need to see this. Jesus is not Satan and Satan is not Jesus. Therefore whatever Jesus rules over was not what Satan ruled over. Let’s go into another New Testament verse revealing who rules this kingdom of darkness:
Eph 6:11 Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
Eph 6:12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
God starts in verse 11 by revealing that we are in a spiritual war and have need of His spiritual armor. This spiritual opponent is called the devil. This is just another title for our enemy Satan. If we look up the meaning to this Greek word G1228 translated as “devil” we will find that it means a person who is a traducer. Do you know what that is? This is literally someone who tells lies about another person. This is very revealing information about what type of battle we are in. The battle is raging in a spiritual court and we are the defendants that are being accused by the devil. It is a clear battle between what is truth versus the words of lies being thrown at us. We need to know this because it will become very important due to our fleshly sin nature.
Please observe our primary subject related “keyword” in this verse translated as “rulers”. Remember the primary subject is concerning the “kingdom of darkness” and this kingdom certainly must have a “ruler” in control of it. This Greek word is G2888 and it literally means a “world ruler”. Any natural kingdom of the world has a leader that reigns over it. This is normally like a royal family that inherits the throne from their parent after they die. Much like King David’s son inherited the kingdom when David died. These natural concepts will apply to the subject of spiritual kingdoms also. But that is a different Bible lesson. What we should be learning is that the ruler of the spiritual darkness is Satan.
Please allow me to give you a couple of further confirming witnesses to the reality that unsaved people and fallen angels are revealed subjects of this dark empire of Satan. We will look at some additional words of Jesus to see who He claimed to be and why He came into the world and this is vital spiritual information and truth to know:
Joh 12:46 I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness.
What is Jesus claiming to be here? Jesus asserts to be the “Light”. This statement literally means Jesus has called Himself “God” using the symbolic title “Light”. Do you remember that we read previously in 1 John 1:5 that God is stated to be “Light” and in Him is no darkness at all? This verse in 1 John was a spiritual definition for the Greek word translated as “light” and we need this information in order to understand what Jesus just said in John 12:46. Since Jesus was not speaking literally He must have been speaking figuratively. Therefore in order to understand figurative light we need a God given definition for the word. This is the correct way of “Rightly dividing the Word of Truth” and “Letting the Bible Interpret itself”. Both of these verses use the exact same Greek word G5457. Therefore they are linked by God’s direct word selection design to teach us about the subject of spiritual light. Light is the antithesis for darkness and this further confirms that God does not dwell in darkness here in John 12:46. Perhaps you do not understand the divinely created laws of mathematics. I have made mention of this law in other Bible lessons, but I will review it briefly for the new readers on my website. In 1 John 1:5 God = Light. Then in John 12:46 Jesus = Light. Therefore by the laws of mathematics “Jesus = God”. This is just a very basic Bible study principles and I hope you learn how this works today.
Now notice what Jesus claimed for one of the reasons why He has appeared in the flesh here in this world. Jesus claims to be the spiritual light to show us the way out of the darkness that we were stated to be in. Most unsaved people still do not realize that they are in this darkness because they do not see it. I will emphasize once more that Jesus is not claiming to be a natural light. He is claiming to be a spiritual light and that will become greatly significant as we continue on in this study.
What we have been learning only concerns the subsidiary subject of “who”. The “who” subject study is nothing but a sub-category study within my primary subject of the “kingdom of darkness” study. We have discovered the existence of two spiritual kingdoms in this section. One was called “Light” and the other was called “darkness”. We have discovered that Satan rules the kingdom of darkness and God in Jesus Christ rules the Kingdom of Light. We have discovered the implied existence of a separation of powers and a partition of division between these two kingdoms. We have also further understood the existence of subordinates within both kingdoms. As Christians we were told that we were once in the kingdom of darkness but have been removed from it by the Grace of God and taken into the kingdom of light by Christ Jesus. This literally means that those who have NOT been saved remain in the darkness and there are several other verses in the N.T. that we can find to confirm this. Let’s move on to the sub-category study of “what” now.
Understanding the Kingdom of Darkness – WHAT!
What is the Kingdom of Darkness? What does God reveal to us about this kingdom realm? Is it spiritual or is physical or is it both? We should have established in the first section the beginning basic truths of “who” is in the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of light. We found the ruler of this kingdom of darkness to be Satan. Satan was directly linked to the possession, ownership and control of this kingdom of darkness. I should have told you that no created being like Satan is capable of establishing their own kingdom of authority without it being given to them by God. We can learn this simple truth from a statement that Jesus made to Pilate in the book of John:
Joh 19:11 Jesus answered, Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above: therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin.
The Greek word G1849 translated as “power” in this verse means a literal “right of authority”. Jesus speaking to one ruler named Pilate was telling him there is no power/authority except it came from God. Jesus was declaring the sovereignty of God as well as the important fact that He is omnipotent and without God willingly giving us anything we would be completely unable to take or possess anything like power from Him. No human ruler on the earth is able to have any authority unless it was given to them from God. This is certainly true of Satan as well as for us. Satan’s kingdom of darkness and authority had to have been given to him from God. God has a reason and a purpose for whatever He does even if we do not yet understand it.
Then we further learned that the citizens in this kingdom of darkness were the unsaved people of the world. In addition to the unsaved people of the world there are also the fallen angels that reside in this realm. I could have given you Jude 1:6 to read concerning the angels that have fallen which are now held in the realm of darkness but I did not give you this verse in the previous section. There are just so many Bible verses to be found but we must search for them. Now we need to learn what this kingdom of darkness represents. What exactly is it? Why is it called “darkness”? Is this darkness symbolic of something else? What could this symbolic darkness represent?
If the kingdom of darkness consists of both fallen angels and unsaved people this kingdom has the potential to be both physical/natural and spiritual. This is because unsaved people live within a natural domain and fallen angels exist within a spiritual domain. It does become a bit distorted when we learn that unsaved people are really just spirits that reside in a natural body. When the unsaved person dies it is just like the saved person when they die. The spirit of the dead body departs the earth at the time of natural death. The saved person goes up to heaven and the unsaved person descends to be in hell. So far I have concluded that the kingdom of darkness can only be spiritual but we still need more evidence to draw a conclusion.
Hopefully you already understand about what was taught earlier that darkness represents the absence of light. Since God was called Light, the kingdom of darkness represents a realm of domain apart from God. In other words the name darkness implies that there is no God (Light) within the kingdom of darkness. However that is a difficult concept to embrace because it conflicts with the known divine quality called the “omnipresence” attribute of God stating that He is everywhere at every time. We will hopefully come to a conclusion as we continue how these two truths can co-exist where both can be true simultaneously. Let’s begin our study of what darkness is using the information found in the book of John to help establish what occurs in the domain that Satan rules and how this differs from a realm where God is in full control like in heaven currently.
Joh 10:10 The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
I indicated the fact in the previous section that whatever God (Light) is the darkness is definitely not. That type of subject study for what God represents would take many, many days to complete so I will not attempt to write an entire book about what God represents including His revealed personality, His revealed character, His reveal moral values and even His revealed names. I will keep this type of complete subject study for another series of lessons in the future. However we must understand a few of the simple and basic principles about God in order to comprehend what the kingdom of darkness represents and how it is different from the Kingdom of Light.
Jesus said here in John 10:10 that the thief (Satan) came to primarily do three things and these were to kill, steal and to destroy but then Jesus reveals His antithesis purpose for coming to the earth saying “I have come that you may have life and that life more abundantly”. This single verse confirms the contrasting reality between the kingdoms of darkness verses light. Jesus clearly reveals to us that the kingdom of darkness brings to us death and the kingdom of light brings to us life. Then Jesus said the kingdom of darkness takes away from us and the kingdom of Light does the opposite. Finally Jesus said the kingdom of darkness “destroys” and the opposite of that would be to create something good and worthwhile that has a positive purpose. I think that is very plain and self-evident which kingdom realm that we should desire to be in and remain a part of, don’t you? Just ask yourself would you rather die or live life fully and abundantly? This is not a difficult question. Let’s take these truths found in John 10:10 further into a new confirming dimension of study, reading in Ephesians:
Eph 2:1 And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;
Eph 2:2 Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:
Eph 2:3 Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
Eph 2:4 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,
Eph 2:5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)
These verses are teaching us the clear separation points between two opposing kingdoms. These principles contain the rules of basic opposition between hate versus love, evil versus good, condemnation versus mercy and death versus life again. Life and death are simply a repeat of John 10:10 but the subjects of steal and destroy are also found in the term doing evil. These are strong and distinct negatives versus positives. Such straightforward truths are presented to us by God in the Bible and these should be known and believed by every Christian. We need to know these simple truths in order to conclusively apply this knowledge to what we read in the many other verses found in the Bible and in our life situations. God will not contradict these uttered truths in any other part of the Bible. If we think there is a contradiction then it is simply our misunderstanding or our misinterpretation that needs to change. God’s Word will not ever change.
In this section we have just barely started to touch on this sub-category study of the “what” found within the “kingdom of darkness” study. I could have taught for many pages on this subject but I am trying to move through the more complete study of the basics for how to study the kingdom of darkness subject. We should by now at least understand what the kingdom of darkness represents. Darkness represents symbolically whatever is evil in the world. We should also know that the kingdom of darkness represents whatever is contained within the realm of the dead and death. We should further comprehend that the kingdom of darkness represents whatever is of condemnation. We should have just learned that the kingdom of darkness represents whatever the concept of “hate” represents. These were all opposites of what God’s kingdom of light represents and offers to everyone. Knowing these basics should help motivate us to tell others about this and help them to come out of this satanically controlled kingdom of darkness. You should not want your worst natural enemy in this kingdom. I hope you will agree and tell them how to get saved. Let’s move quickly into the sub-category of “when” next and learn when the kingdom of Satan came into existence.
Understanding the Kingdom of Darkness – WHEN!
In order to understand the kingdom of darkness more clearly we now should investigate when this kingdom originated and when Satan obtained the official rule of this kingdom. These are two different dates within time past as we should be able to learn as the lesson continues. Ask God, did the kingdom of darkness always exist or did the kingdom of darkness have a beginning? We should remember from studying previous sections that Jesus declared in the Gospels that Satan possessed this kingdom at the time of His appearing on the earth. Jesus was born of the virgin approximately 4000 years after Adam’s creation and this has occurred approximately 2000 years from the present date for a total of nearly 6000 years. These numbers will become more significant in learning about the kingdom of darkness when I tell you about what God reveals in certain verses on this subject. I will warn you up front that in this section there are potentially controversial hidden Bible realities presented. These can be complex and intended for more mature Christians. I did not expect for this lesson to become advanced but this part of the topic will cause a transition from milk to meat to occur. This sub-topic study will be much more unconventional in nature than any of the previous sections. It will require more thought and study and potentially a deeper understanding of other Bible basic truths that will not be taught here. Therefore, if you are reading this lesson being a new Christian, you might want to skip this section for now. Thank you for judging yourself in your ability to eat more meat than milk.
Many times in the Bible, God does not present all of the information in plain viewed terms for everyone to automatically see and understand and this part of the study will certainly be an example of one of these. The time of the origin of the kingdom of darkness is not directly stated and can only be found by searching and studying the hidden clues that are concealed by God using natural symbolism and metaphorical terminology. We must find these hidden clues with the Holy Spirit’s help and then allow Him to teach us what they exactly mean for our subject study. I will probably get several negative comments about how my Bible study methods do not fit within all of the rigid set of man’s created exegesis standards, methods and steps. However, I cannot help how or where God shows me what He wants to say and if you wish to ignore what He is saying then I have no problem with that. Just please don’t leave me any negative comments if you do not see it or agree with it. My salvation and your salvation does not hinge upon when the kingdom of darkness came into existence. Therefore this is not a subject that is needed for our initial or continued salvation.
Let’s begin our study of “when” the kingdom of darkness came into existence with some strange verses that you may not directly associate with this spiritual kingdom of darkness subject study:
Isa 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.
This is a very controversial and easily misunderstood verse of the Old Testament. Many Christian people believe that it tends to say on the surface that God created both darkness and evil for an implied purpose. In other words people use the extreme sovereignty of God teaching to believe that God designed darkness and evil to fulfill a divine purpose to intentionally accomplish something wicked in our world. However, this type of belief would violate and contradict other revealed truths that God is good and in Him is no darkness (evil). So how can evil come from a God that is only good? “Create” in this verse is the Hebrew word H1254 and it certainly means “to create” something. But, were these words “I create darkness and evil” what God intended for us to emphasize from this verse? Even I will admit that it does say that God created darkness and evil in half of the phrases in this verse but that is not the entire phrase statement and taking a small part or even half of a statement out of context will normally produce an erroneous interpretation and understanding. Here is another rule for sound Bible interpretation, “Study the context and apply the surrounding word meanings to understand the meanings of the words being focused upon”. I hope you understand this rule. This is exactly what we are about to do.
The term “create” is H1254 and it is used by God to describe His verb action that was placed upon the noun “darkness”. This term is used by God repeatedly in this way in the O.T. including in the first verse of Genesis 1 where God says “In the beginning God created (H1254) the heavens and the earth”. Therefore I do not deny that “darkness” appears to be a created substance from God. However we must realize that there is more than one way to create something. Wow, I’m not sure if you understood that last statement yet. It was a very deep statement. A process of creating is so diverse and can be accomplished in so many ways that it boggles the mind to comprehend them and place them together as acts of creation. For example, to create can be any of the following:
- To Make
- To Generate
- To Produce
- To Manufacture
- To Assemble
- To Form
- To Fabricate
- To Craft
- To Build
- To Construct
Most of these terms represent someone taking one or more existing substances to produce a newly designed substance or article. For instance a cotton shirt is created first by a farmer picking the cotton from the field. The cotton is then cleaned, processed and dyed and becomes thread. The threads are loomed together to make fabrics. The fabrics are then shaped, cut and assembled to create the shirt. These are all creative steps of a more complete process and this is something you need to consider when reading anything about creation or creating in the Bible. Determine what was created and then back up to see what was used to create it. There is also another challenge to consider about creation of objects.
You see darkness is not technically a created substance. We cannot package and sell a substance of darkness to anyone like it was gold, silver, oil or whatever. If we could sell darkness, the person buying it could open our package and see that there was nothing present because any light would cause the darkness to vanish. I also want to say that there is a satanic line of thought going on that claims darkness is the greater substance and light only exists because the darkness is not present and that is stupid. As we continue please remember that darkness is nothing but the absence or the removal of Light and this is so critical to understand.
Let’s go back to the beginning phrase and study this initial statement for the contextual application to the secondary verse statements. Reread the entire verses statement all together. Did you notice the antithesis of two opposing realities in this verse? Both light and darkness are being mentioned as they have been in many other verses that we have been studying. Now ask God “Why didn’t you say “I create the Light” here in this verse anywhere? Did you notice that God used a different Hebrew word (H3335) for the verb action that He applied to the noun light? Why is that? You are going to have to get into the details if you ever want to understand the Word of God. If you are not asking God deep questions when you read His Word you will never find any deep answers. Do you understand this? Now let’s allow God to show us the deep answers.
We have previously seen that God declares Himself to be Light in 1 John. Remember God equals Light by the stated law of spiritual definitions and the laws of mathematical equivalency. In other words whatever qualities exist for God these must also exist for Light and this is basic applied logic and math. Was God created? If God was not created then Light was not created either. Because God always existed, Light always existed. God did not ever change from darkness to light at any time and does not change from light to darkness at any time. This comes from the Bible truth found in Malachi 3:6 where God declares to us His never changing consistent nature.
God did not use the term “create” for Light in Isaiah because Light always was in God. The Hebrew term (H3335) translated as “formed” is a new word that means to form or shape an existing substance and that is totally different than creating any brand new substance. Forming a substance would be like molding clay as a potter. In other words God is saying the clay (light) existed but that He applied the pressure to the existing substance (light) to direct it into a new form for a very specific shaped purpose. Did you hear what God just said? Did you understand it? What happens to light when it is focused? Think of a dark theater with a man singing on the stage. A light appears at the back of the theater but this light does not usually light the entire room. Why because it is highly focused. This is called a spotlight or spotlighting and it is used to direct focused illumination upon the person that needs your attention and in this way it will cause our vision to only see him and this is basically what God is saying in this verse in Isaiah. Now are you beginning to understand who this focused attention represents? Who is the majority of the book of Isaiah about? Is it not Jesus Christ? God just said that by Him directing or focusing the light the darkness was created so that we could see Jesus Christ. Wow, I think that was pretty awesome if you understood it.
Think in terms of created natural light concepts because these contain hidden spiritual light concepts. The sun produces our main source of natural light. The earth turns and one side of the planet has the light visible and the other side has only the presence of darkness visible. This is exactly the process of focused light occurring. It is also the process of an object blocking the light from shining to create a dark place and this must also be considered. What I want you to learn here from this verse in Isaiah is that Light always existed and darkness is nothing but the absence of light because the light was either blocked by an object or was focused (formed) by God to direct us to a new focus. I do not have the time to go into this verse in any more depth today so let’s move on in this study to a new set of controversial verses:
Psa 136:8 The sun to rule by day: for his mercy endureth for ever:
Psa 136:9 The moon and stars to rule by night: for his mercy endureth for ever.
These are either some of the strangest verses in the Bible or they mean something that we do not yet comprehend. Why would God mention two antithesis realms of natural reality using kingdom terms in direct succession? There are also two opposing kingdom rulers mentioned here in these verses. Did you notice that? If you will observe there are at least 5 important keywords in these verses that are critical to link to our spiritual kingdom study. When studying a Bible subject we need to look for hidden verses that are about our subject but do not mention the subject directly and these verses are hidden examples of this principle. I call this the law of synonymous association or relation. God will often hide information for us to find anywhere in the Bible using natural symbolic phrases that are directly related to a subject like darkness but never mention the word darkness anywhere in the verse. He will hide the connection to darkness by selecting a word like “night” instead which is dominated by darkness. These types of verses are little concealed clues that present information that we may not relate without His guidance and direction. If you will observe closely in this verse God is speaking of two opposing realities again. One is called “day” and the other is called “night”. Of course day is where sunlight prevails and night is where there is no sunlight and darkness prevails. Did you notice how this information conforms to what I taught earlier? Day is not night and night is not day. They do occur simultaneously together but rather night becomes day as we have been learning about from verses in the New Testament.
Do you remember this concept of Christians being brought out of the spiritual darkness into the spiritual light? This is the exact same natural concept of night becoming day when the sun rises. I hope you have read all of my other Bible lessons on this subject. According to the N.T. salvation is the rising of the Sun of Jesus Christ in our hearts as revealed by God in 2 Peter 1:19. In this verse God describes the spiritual Day Star (Sun) to be rising in the spiritual hearts of all those that believe in Jesus Christ. This was taken from the concept of the natural sun dawning or breaking forth and becoming brighter and brighter at the beginning of every day. This daily natural concept occurs in the Spiritual realm and it has not been widely taught or understood by Christians. However this was hidden within creation and revealed by God for us to learn from. What we have just learned is that light and darkness can be synonymous terms for day and night.
Now notice in these verses that there is a Hebrew word, Strong’s number H4475 which was translated as “rule” in the English language. This Hebrew word is very important. It is a word that means “to rule”, “to govern”, “to have power over” and “to have dominion over”. These are clearly “kingdom” terms where a kingdom potentate like the king oversees his subjects. Why is this relevant? Do you already see the connection to the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of light that we have been learning about in the New Testament? God simply uses the approach of applying new synonyms for calling what is light and darkness by different names or titles in order to hide this information in these verses for us to find.
This Hebrew word H4475 was first used by God in the book of Genesis. This is called using the law of first mention where God takes us to a subject introduction to teach us overall important subject principles. The first mention of “rule” occurs in the very first chapter of Genesis during God’s description of day 4 of creation. If you have read my other Bible lessons on Genesis and creation you already know and understand that each day of creation represents a “day” period of natural human history. God created our world in 6 days and then rests on the seventh day. Each of these creation days represent a 1000 year “day” period of time and I came to this conclusion by using what God revealed to Peter in 2 Peter 3:8. In this verse Peter quotes an O.T. verse from Psalms 90:4 and this verse informed us that to God a spiritual day can represent a 1000 year period of time. This is again called God’s spiritual definition of a day and it helps us to understand how certain verses within creation can be interpreted to be understood from both a spiritual and a natural perspective concurrently. Please do not misapply what I just said. I believe that almost every verse has a natural literal interpretation and that God uses this natural information to give us a view into something else within the spiritual realm. However, this is a very advanced spiritual topic. So I will move on. Let’s review some spiritual explanations of day and night using the New Testament briefly:
1Th 5:4 But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.
1Th 5:5 Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.
1Th 5:6 Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.
1Th 5:7 For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night.
1Th 5:8 But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation.
1Th 5:9 For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,
We could go over a lot of detailed information in these verses but I will give you the quick overview only. God is teaching Christians that they abide in the day and are walking in the HIS light. God just connected day to be equivalent with light and this light is the Word of God and His voice that leads us. Then God teaches us that those that are not saved are sleeping in the night and living in darkness. God just connected night to be equivalent with darkness and this is why I could find those verses about night and day in the Old Testament and they related to my subject study. All of these are very clear descriptions of two opposing kingdom realms. Christians should be living and acting differently than those that are not saved because of the presence of Light (God). God further declares that those in the light will obtain mercy and those in the darkness will obtain wrath and this is so important to know. It saddens my heart tremendously to think of people who do not want to know the truth.
We should be beginning to see how these subjects of “day” and “night” apply to our study of the kingdom of darkness. Let’s go back and read the first chapter of Genesis from the beginning to end. As I said day 4 is when God sets the Greater light (sun) to rule the day and the lesser light (moon and stars) to rule the night. Again these are opposing spiritual kingdom symbolic representations with opposing symbolic rulers. What God is telling us is that after 4000 years of human history He will separate and establish a rule of the spiritual light/day which is different from the rule of the spiritual darkness/night and this occurred when Jesus came to the earth to save us. Please take note that I did not say that the kingdom of darkness came into existence on day 4 during this 4000 year time after Adam when Jesus came to die for our sins. I only said that Satan was given the rule of this kingdom of darkness and night which God called different from the rule of Jesus over the kingdom of Light and Day.
Now if we go back and refer to light and darkness in Genesis chapter 1 to find the initial references to our subjects, we can apply God’s law of first mention again to discover these two entities were to be separated by God on day 1 of creation. In this verse God says He called the light day and He called the darkness night further connecting the two together forever. Therefore whatever night is darkness is by the law of mathematical equivalency. However you will still find in Genesis that prior to the beginning of day 1 that darkness already existed in verse 2. God appears to give us this fact when declaring that darkness covered the earth at the beginning and I believe that this was a hidden way to say that the earth was already dominated by the kingdom of darkness when the earth had been destroyed completely. Remember what John 10:10 said? Jesus said that Satan (the ruler of darkness) only came to kill, steal and destroy and this is clearly the status of the earth before Day 1 of creation begins. It is safe to conclude that Satan had destroyed the earth.
However, we should then begin to see how from Days 1 through day 6 that God continues to give life one day at a time and this further matched what Jesus taught us in John 10:10 where He said I came to give life and give you that life more abundantly. We can clearly see after 6 days of creation that now life dominated the earth without the introduction of any death into this new world. Let me say this again a little differently. The world began in darkness and then notice on Day 1 of creation God says “Light Be” and then light was. God was symbolically giving us more clues that He was coming to the earth to create a new kingdom of light separate from darkness in order to give us life. Go back and review day 1 closely. In verse 4 of Genesis 1 you should see where light is separated from darkness and in verse 5 God calls the darkness night and the light He calls the day. These are all symbolic representations of two opposing spiritual kingdoms moving through transitions during the 6000 years of human history.
I know this will not be received by all Christians. But that is OK, your salvation and my salvation does not depend upon when Satan’s kingdom came into existence so please do not call me a false teacher that leads people to hell simply because you don’t agree with me. Perhaps if you knew what I knew you would see why I believe this way. I also think if you continue to study the Bible deeply that you will find that there are other Bible verses that give us more clues of clarity to this being a reality. I am just not going to try to explain this in any detail in this lesson. The details of these truths are found in other lessons on this website. Find them and read about what God has hidden.
What I have done in this section is to review in a very quick format the timing of when the kingdom of darkness was established. The moon in this verse in Psalms 136:9 and Genesis 1:16 is a symbolic representation for Satan. Night is a symbolic representation for the kingdom of darkness and this is ruled by Satan according to Ephesians 6:12. The sun in Psalms 136:8 and Genesis 1:16 is a symbolic representation for the Lord Jesus Christ who is called the Sun of Righteousness (Malachi 4:2). The kingdom of Light is found within our spirits according to 2 Peter 1:19. God is establishing a separate Kingdom of Day through Jesus Christ apart from Satan’s kingdom of night. If this was not important I would not be teaching this repeatedly in several lessons. We need to understand when God does things, why God does things, who it affects and even how God accomplished them. I will recall that I call this the “Who, What, When, Where and Why method of Bible study. So far I have answered the first three questions of who, what and when by studying what God has revealed and given to us to know in His Word. I will now move on to the subject of “where” is the kingdom of darkness?
Understanding the Kingdom of Darkness – WHERE!
Where is the kingdom of darkness at this very moment? Has it always been there? Is it in one location or in multiple locations? Will the location ever change? Is it within a physical location or within a spiritual location or even both? These are the basic questions we will focus upon using the Bible in this section. We have already learned from the Bible that the kingdom of darkness exists and that Satan a created spiritual being is in control of this realm but, how do we define its present location? If someone asked you to describe where the kingdom of darkness is right now, what would you tell them? I have already given a brief introduction to this subject of where earlier. In that introduction to the subject we talked about that the kingdom of darkness could be spiritual, natural or even both at the same time. Hopefully we will learn more about how to resolve these questions as we continue in this section.
This will probably be the last of the “W” questions that I will answer in this 5 W Bible study because I am running very long. In order to find where the kingdom of darkness exists today we will need to search the Bible for scriptures about darkness and see if any of these hold direct clues for us to learn from about this location. However, there is also another technique for searching the Bible to find where the kingdom of darkness is located and this is by us searching where the Kingdom of Light is located and knowing wherever light is located the darkness is not there by God’s created laws of antithesis truth. Perhaps you have never heard of this law either but it is a very basic rule of understanding created by God. For many subjects that we study in the Bible we can easily find the opposing subject which can be of greater, equal or even lesser magnitude to learn what our subject is not. The opposite of good is evil, the opposite of alive is dead, the opposite of being present is being absent and on and on we could go. There is always more than one way to learn about any given subject so we must be open to however God wants to teach us. We will begin this section with the words in red spoken from Jesus Christ.
Luk 17:21 Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.
I know this verse does not mention light or darkness but it does mention “kingdom” and “God” and since we have determined in this lesson that Jesus is God and He rules the kingdom of Light then this verse fits with what we need to know and apply to the location of the kingdom of darkness. Jesus is talking to the Pharisees answering a direct question about when the kingdom of God is coming to the earth and Jesus answers this question with a mysterious response. Jesus does not say when but rather He says where and this answer probably just confused the hearers. The natural Jews were looking for a physical natural kingdom of God led by a great physical messiah to establish this kingdom here on the earth. But Jesus shakes the foundation of Judaism by saying stop looking on the outside in the natural because the kingdom of God will be on the inside in the spiritual. Wow, that is a very tough concept to understand for natural minds. How is it even possible for a kingdom to be internal and not seen by the physical eye? You can clearly read in the context in verse 20 that Jesus says it will not be found in any visible place. Jesus was teaching them and us about spiritual kingdoms and this is a key to understanding the kingdom of darkness also. We must begin to realize that the kingdom of darkness is not a natural kingdom nor can it be seen either.
This is where correct Bible study becomes a little trickier. We need the wisdom of the Holy Spirit to correctly be led how and when to apply the laws of interpretation. Also learning when and how laws apply to interpretation will become clearer as you continue to learn more Bible subjects. Truth will always build upon truth and will fit together rightly without conflict. Truth will never contradict truth and these rules always apply to whatever you study. If the kingdom of light is spiritual and not natural as Jesus implied does that mean that the kingdom of darkness is natural by the law of antithesis? After all natural is the opposite of spiritual in many viewpoints. We could easily make that wrong assumption but still we would need confirming witnesses to determine what we believe no matter what laws we apply. One law of interpretation that is always in effect is the law of 2 or 3 witnesses that God says we must follow to establish any truth. Therefore if the kingdom of darkness is a natural location we should be able to find at least 2 scriptures to point us to that conclusion.
I’m going to take a brief bunny trail side trip journey on another unrelated subject for a moment just for the benefit of my serious students and readers. I received an ignorant comment from someone that I will not identify and he said most of my Bible lessons violate my own rules of interpretation. He failed to ask any questions assuming his own ability to perceive what I knew and in his pride and arrogance made himself unwise. I do not always give 2 or 3 witnesses in every Bible study on every subject that I mention. If I did this I would probably have to double the size of every Bible lesson and would publish far fewer lessons and less frequently. I must balance all of the words that I could say with your time and ability to study them. Just because I don’t show 2 or 3 witnesses to every statement made does not mean there are NO OTHERS that are available. Before you criticize someone it would be extremely wise to find out what they know and what you don’t know by asking basic questions instead of assuming you know everything that God has taught me. Let’s go back to the kingdom of darkness study.
We should have learned from this that one primary location of the kingdom of light is inside the human spirit. But is the kingdom of darkness the same? Let’s look at a new verse that we have not covered to see what God said to us on this subject of location.
1Pe 2:9 But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:
If Christians have now been called out of the darkness into the Light of Day Kingdom then this could change the antithesis truth focus to a brand new perspective. If you are a Christian let me ask you this question, were you previously in a physical dark kingdom or a spiritual dark kingdom? I believe it is obvious that I was in a spiritual dark kingdom. I hope that you believe that you are now in a spiritual light kingdom because the kingdoms of this world are those that Jesus said for us to not look at. However the concept of light and darkness sounds like the cycle of day and night when the sun rises every morning.
What I am attempting to do is to cause you to think in a brand new way from a different spiritual perspective. A natural kingdom in the natural world can be in darkness for approximately 12 hours and then it would transition into the natural light of the sun for another 12 yours. This day and night concept teaches us a central or single point of change reality. In other words the physical location did not change because it was only the entrance of the light on the location that changed to bring it into the day to leave the night. Wow, I don’t know if you got that or not but this is exactly what we need to know.
This new information about one physical location being changed should cause us to begin to think differently about spiritual kingdoms. The Kingdom of light should be viewed to be the same location as the kingdom of darkness but now with the entrance of light. This means we need to know what light represents in the Bible and that becomes an entire study in itself. If you have read the other Bible lessons that are on my website you should have already learned that God’s light is us knowing his word. We can learn this simple truth by reading Psalms 119:130 for example.
Therefore, the kingdom of light and darkness must be a spiritual condition within the same internal unseen part of the human spirit where God’s word is now present where it did not exist in the darkness before. What I am saying is that the kingdom of darkness are those people that do not have the light of God’s word and the kingdom of light are those that have the light of God’s Word. Did you understand what I just said? What God is saying is that if Christians have now been transformed into the kingdom of light then it was the same internal region that had previously been darkened until the light arose. Therefore it is only the non-Christians or the unsaved people of the world that are those that are in the kingdom of darkness right now because they have not let God’s light inside their hearts. Here is a new verse to help us further understand this reality:
Eph 5:8 For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light: (KJV)
Eph 5:8 for you were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord; walk as children of Light (NASB)
I included two different translation versions to help us understand it more clearly. The KJV translation seems confusing and contradictory that we can flip between light and dark at almost any time. But the NASB states it differently to say that we have changed once from darkness to light and the light is now present so we must choose to believe it and walk like the light is present by faith since we do not see any literal light. Practically everything that we have received from God in the N.T. is faith based and you should already know that. I am going to provide a new verse that regresses to the subject study of what the kingdom of darkness is to help us learn where the kingdom of darkness is located. Read this next verse very carefully:
2Co 4:6 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Notice that God links the Genesis 1 symbolic topics of speaking light into the darkness in this verse and this information directed us to learn about the subjects of day and night during the creation event. God just gave us a huge clue that the Genesis account meant more than just the natural appearance of our world. Now notice the spiritual application of this creation event where the Light is commanded to shine in the New Testament. The light is shining in our hearts (spirits). Wow, Wow, Wow!!! This is called symbolic typology where God uses naturally created things in the seen world to teach us about unseen spiritual things in the N.T. Again this is all a “where” reality but now notice the inclusion of the “what” reality being connected directly to the subject of “where”. Spiritual Light is defined by God to be the “knowledge of Jesus Christ”. Knowledge is a very deep subject that I do not have the time to fully cover in this study. However this knowledge can only be the knowledge of the Word of God. So we have a second witness to what I just said before. I get really excited about the Word of God and how it comes together.
I have really only introduced this subject of where the spiritual kingdom of darkness is located but I just can’t teach the entire subject in a sub-section of a bigger lesson topic. Let’s further confirm the internal location of darkness with a new verse that has not been mentioned so far. We will turn our Bibles to Ephesians chapter 4 and start reading with verse 17:
Eph 4:17 This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind,
Eph 4:18 Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart:
What is natural blindness? Natural blindness is the inability to see natural light. What is spiritual blindness? Spiritual blindness is the inability to see spiritual light. What was spiritual light according to the definition we just observed in 2 Cor 4:6? Spiritual light is God’s Word and this means spiritual blindness is not being able to see God’s Word. These are just more spiritual basics that every Christian must become aware and learn. What we have seen is a spiritual way to think about two kingdoms that were in the same location but do not exist at the same time in that location. This location is the human spirit and we are all either in one kingdom or the other based upon if we have received the Word of God or not to bring us light.
Now let’s end this section with a new and different perspective on where the kingdom of darkness is located. We should have just learned that the kingdom of darkness resides in the spiritual realm from the several verses that we have encountered on this subject. However, have you ever considered that even spirits have limits to their realm of travel? There are many Christians that believe spirits can go wherever they like but that is not what the Bible teaches. We will be going through a few of these verses to demonstrate the limits that God has imposed upon spirits.
Rev 5:13 And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.
Have you ever read this verse and observed what was stated? In this verse there are several domains or realms of existence mentioned. Within these realms there are specific “creatures” that exist in each realm. The three main realms given to us by God in this verse is first heaven, second on the earth and third under the earth. It is implied that the creatures of these realms do not normally travel from one place to the other places. It is interesting to note that the land and sea of the earth are mentioned and these are also two realms that do not normally cross over into each other. People can go underwater for a limited time with proper breathing equipment but normally fish and other sea life cannot live upon the dry land and I think this is an interesting natural concept that relates to the spiritual realms mentioned.
Let’ talk about the realms of heaven and earth to begin. We should know from reading several Bible verses that angels do come from heaven to enter into the earth realm and then can return back to the heavenly realm. We can see this for example in Daniel 10:13 where God sends Gabriel and Michael from heaven with a message to answer a prayer that Daniel prayed. We can also read in Job chapter 1 where Satan and his angels can even go back to heaven from the earth. Maybe you will remember that this reality was expressed by God in Genesis 28:
Gen 28:12 And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.
Hopefully you can see that God tells us the angels are capable of traveling or moving between heaven and earth with what appears to be a staircase like access portal of transportation. The Hebrew word used for ladder can mean something like a “stair case”. This verse implies that there is a way for God to remove the ladder and close this method of transportation between the two realms, but I do not have a direct verse for that right now so that is just my opinion. Now let’s briefly talk about the realms of earth and under the earth mentioned in Revelation 5:13.
Luk 16:22 And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried;
Luk 16:23 And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.
Here is an example of the realms of earth and under the earth and their participation to how the two interact with each other. Two men on the earth die in this story and Jesus said Lazarus went to Abraham’s bosom and the rich man goes down to hell after their death. This is direct information from Jesus about how the people of the earth traveled after death to below the earth’s surface before the resurrection of Jesus. Both went below the earth but to two different locations. However after the resurrection of Jesus the Christian people no longer go down to Abraham’s bosom but rather go up to be with the Lord in heaven as described by the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:8. But there is more information found here in this story concerning the rich man and Lazarus that should be considered. For example the rich man if you read down in the chapter asks Abraham to send someone back to the earth to warn his brothers not to come to this place of torment. This literally means that the rich man was unable to return to the earth to do this even desiring to return and that is very important to know. It appears from this that people in hell are limited to that location indefinitely. But, we can also learn clearly that people in the realm of Abraham’s bosom can return to the earth if God permits based upon reading the account of the Mount of Transfiguration where Elijah and Moses show up on the earth to talk with Jesus in the flesh (Mark 9:2). The disciples witness this event and want to build a tabernacle to honor the occurrence but Jesus ignores them.
If you have not yet figured out what I am doing I am going through the recorded interactions between three different realms of stated reality in the Bible. We can find where heaven participants can come to the earth. We can find where earthly participants can go up to heaven. We can find where under the earth participant from Abraham’s bosom can come up from there to the earth and we can find where earthly participants can die and go down to under the earth. We have pretty much covered the general terms of interactions between these realms. However, we still need to notice something else found in Luke 16 to help confirm what I taught on spiritual limitations and boundaries being found present. Read this verse very carefully notice what God says through Abraham:
Luk 16:26 And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.
Wow, this verse claims that spirit beings can be limited to one place never able to go to the other place. Abraham very clearly states there is a great gulf fixed between us. What this verse claims is that God can put up an implied partition that prevents even spiritual beings from traveling from that place that is being referred to or even to that place. Do you understand the implications of that statement? It is implying that those in hell will not be getting out. It also implies that those that are saved will not be able to visit hell to see their relatives, friends, spouse or even children in hell. What this further implies is that even with a glorified body, people will not be able to go wherever they think they want to go. Now let’s move into a new realm of thought concerning these three different dimensions of existence. Read this next verse very carefully and determine what is missing and not included:
Mat 28:18 And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.
One of the three stated realities is missing from this statement that Jesus spoke of. Why was the realm of under the earth omitted from the rule of Jesus’ authority? Why didn’t God give Jesus authority over the underworld? I guess I should have explained that the Greek word translated as “power” means authority. This word translated as “power” denotes delegated control over both on the earth’s surface and in heaven. What this statement implies is that the location for the kingdom of darkness is not in either of these two realms of existence called in heaven or on the earth. The kingdom of darkness cannot be anywhere that the kingdom of light exists and the kingdom of light is definitely all of the realms of Jesus’ authority. What we are learning is the final location of the kingdom of darkness. God is teaching us by indirect reference that wherever Jesus does not rule, Satan will rule. We have already seen that Satan controls the hearts of unsaved people. Now we are seeing that these unsaved people will reside in hell and this is where they will be ruled for an eternity. Let’s look at another Bible verse about this truth found in 2 Peter.
2Pe 2:4 For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;
Hell is described to be a place that exists under the earth. I have another series on the reality of hell so I will not repeat all of those verses in this study. This verse contains more confirmation and further information of the inability to come out of the realm of hell. The angels that sinned are those that have fallen with Satan and these are further reduced to mean that those that had sex with the daughters of men in Genesis 5. These were the angels that have been bound in a realm of darkness using a symbolic representation of chains keeping them from leaving that realm. We have just observed God’s ability to limit even angels from moving place to place. These were angels that previously walked in heaven but now have left their place there to be cast into hell.
I have just introduced you to the subject of where is the kingdom of darkness. It is presently in the hearts of men and women that have not heard the Gospel or did not believe the Gospel because of the blindness of their hearts. These people have the chance of leaving that kingdom of darkness to enter into the kingdom of light if they receive the knowledge of Jesus by faith before they die and then as we have observed there is no second chance given to them.
CONCLUSION
We have been going through the 5 W’s (Who, What, When, Where and Why) of the kingdom of darkness. We did not cover the subject of why the kingdom of darkness exists. That is a very complex deep and controversial subject and would probably take more than what I wrote here to describe it. This could be your homework if you want to extend the effort and if you are brave I would like to hear about what you find in the Bible. Please do the homework and share your answer with everyone to “why the kingdom of darkness” exists.
I thank you so very much for being a faithful reader and serious Bible student. If you have enjoyed learning from these lessons please tell your friends about the website so more can come and see what God is doing. Until the next lesson may God continue to bless you and keep you strong spiritually, mentally and physically as you grow in His marvelous grace! God Bless.
Understanding Deception in the Bible! Can a True Christian be Deceived? Part 6
(ver 1.2) This is now Part 6 in a series of very advanced Bible lessons about the subject of deception. I have uncovered a lot of new information in this series and today’s lesson is some more information on the subject using the Bible to help answer and clarify a comment that I got recently. In today’s lesson I will focus on a very important question that was raised when someone told me that a Christian cannot be deceived because God will not permit them to be lost. That is a very common doctrine of theology in many churches, but is that what the Bible actually says? If you have not read this series from the beginning, I would suggest that you go and start reading from “Part 1” first. I will warn you up front that this will be a long lesson. I have a lot of things to cover today. But, if you read it all I believe you will learn much more than just the primary subject about deception. In one of my last Bible lessons I taught about Understanding Bible Prophets, what they are, why they exist and what they can and cannot do. In that lesson I paraphrased a verse that Jesus gave as a warning to us (the church). I thought it was a valid paraphrasing, but my commenter thought otherwise and told me why they thought this was wrong about what I said. I basically said a Christian could be deceived, so Jesus was warning us to be careful. I basically took the scripture personally and felt like this was God speaking to me. But, my commenter had a different point of view using a very different perspective of the Bible and tried to teach me how they understood the Bible. I want to say first that I believe my commenter was a Christian and that we are both climbing the same mountain to reach the peak of knowledge and understanding. However, our views of the scriptures were clearly from very different perspectives, like me being on the north side of the mountain and them being on the south side of the mountain. What I was looking at was not what they were looking at so this will at times cause many of the theological differences to occur within the Body of Christ. The only legitimate way to resolve these types of conflicts is for each party to change positions in order to try to gain the view from the other side of the mountain and then combine the two realities into the view from the top of the mountain. Maybe you do not understand mountain climbing. At the early altitude you are many times within the tree line and you have to rise beyond the trees to finally be able to see out. Then as you ascend your view becomes increasingly different until you reach the top and can see in 360 degrees of every side. In between the bottom and the top there are varying stages of revelation, the higher you go is based upon how much you know and have seen. I’m sorry I like mountains so I may have used this analogy before in another blog. When I was younger I liked camping in Colorado on the top of the mountains. The views were so awesome and the lessons of life are clearly learned from the things that God has created. I believe the world was created by design and that nothing occurs by chance or accident. We therefore, have to become smart enough to learn the lesson that God is trying to present to us with creation while simultaneously giving His written Word first priority in everything. Here were all of my commenter’s words that were shared with me.
In the initial paragraph of this week’s publication you state that, “Jesus also warned us that even the very elect could be deceived by their trickery, Matt 24:24.” KJ
Actual quotation from Matthew’s text: “For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.”
Readers need to know that this verse indicates, “IF POSSIBLE!” In other words, God does not allow this to happen to those who are truly saved nor does he even make it possible. However, he is using this language to cause the reader to understand the intensity of deceit that will be in the world during the last days.
Those who abide in Christ and have the Holy Spirit will not be taken captive by the world. The “perseverance of the saints,” is made possible through the indwelling Holy Spirit… “Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.” Phil 1:6 KJ
We’ll I read their comment and I know why they said what they did, but the root of the problem is that there is more than one truth in the Bible and it appears to me that my commenter might have been closed to try to see the other scriptures found in the Bible from my view point. This is why we have so many Christian denominations in the world today. One church likes the view from their side of the mountain that they are climbing on and another church stays on the other side of the mountain loving their limited view of the same verse and we have isolationism occurring from our limited perspective view of the Bible. I have said this repeatedly and I will continue to teach it until we all get it, “there is more than one truth in the Bible and we as believers must see them all in order to view the complete actual truth”. No church should exalt one truth and claim that is ALL of the truth that is necessary for you to know. When people do this that is a very serious misrepresentation of God and the Bible and it oversimplifies them both. It is also a common ploy used for deception by Satan. The devil will tell someone one thing so that they ignore the other more important things and he then has them defeated and they do not even understand that they are in this condition. This was Satan’s approach with Eve when she was deceived in the garden. God said “Do not eat or you will surely die”. But, Satan never mentions that part of the subject. Satan says “You shall be as gods, knowing good and evil”. That was a new truth that replaced what God said in Eve’s mind. God never told Adam and Eve about what the consequences of death meant and Satan avoided the subject by telling them something else that sounded good on the surface. This was a tricky way to deceive someone, if you ask me. It is also the first time Satan deceived anyone in the Bible so it would be a very good future lesson to explore in this series.
You see I do not deny my commenters scripture references, I just have a problem with the fact that they have ignored the other parts of the Bible in order to interpret them in the way that they have. If we do not use the entire Bible to interpret the Bible we are doing nothing but promote the selective isolated doctrines of men and that is foolish. I tried to explain to my commenter that the law of gravity is a physical law of truth that states it is impossible for a man to fly. So the law of gravity was a valid truth that ruled men for thousands of years. Man believed this truth and lived by this law until finally they discovered another greater truth. When mankind learned of the law of aerodynamics and how that it supersedes the law of gravity this new truth allowed man to fly like a bird. So both laws are great truths, but one truth causes the other truth to become minor or insignificant when viewed and applied correctly. This is how the Bible is written. The Bible contains many truths, with some of them being dependent horizontal truths while other truths are independent vertical or hierarchical truths. Ok, I probably went over the head of many readers with that last statement, but this is an advanced Bible study so I will say things occasionally to get you thinking about old concepts in new more complex ways. Please just try to understand that one truth can supersede another truth. Let me give you a Bible example for what I am trying to say; the Bible says “The law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus has freed us from the law of sin and death” (Rom 8:2). This is exactly what I was attempting to say with the example of gravity and aerodynamics. The law of Life in Christ is a much higher law of truth that has nullified the law of sin and death just as the law of aerodynamics has nullified the laws of gravity. I hope you understand these truth concepts, they are very important to know. Let me start by giving you the actual verse that I paraphrased again and show you what Jesus says:
Mat 24:24 For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.
Ok here is the exact words written in the KJV ible and we need to actually see what it says. My first point is to notice the words “it were” are in italics and that reveals to us that these words were not written in the original Greek language and they have been added by the translators so we should technically ignore them. So the original verse says “If possible, they (the false Christs and false prophets) shall deceive the very elect”. I immediately wondered who my commenter thought the “very elect” were if they are not Christ’s church. Then I began to wonder what do the words “If possible” mean? According the Strong’s the Greek word translated as “If” is a particle of conditionality. In other words if this is true this occurs, if this is not true then something else occurs. This is a classic programming paradigm called If Then Else Logic and if you are not a programmer you probably do not have a clue what I just said. Nevertheless, the word “If” is always a conditional statement where something else either given or implied is a determining factor for whether what is stated can or cannot occur. Going back to my programming paradigm, when a compiler comes to an If statement a test is made in order to determine the next instruction to execute. When a test occurs, the next instruction that is executed is based upon resulting True or False condition of the test. Do you understand this? You do not have to be a computer programmer to understand this is how you behave every day. If you are hungry you get something to eat and if you are not hungry you don’t. The term “If” certainly does not mean it is NOT POSSIBLE for this to occur. You cannot get that from the definition of the word at any time. The term “possible” is a Greek word (G1415) that means “powerful” or “capable”. We know from the Bible that with God all things are possible. So we must determine what the word “If” coming before the word “possible” can mean. God uses three other Greek words in the New Testament for “impossible” and these are G101, G102 and G418. If God knows the difference between what is possible and what is not possible, I believe that He knows which word to use in what verse. I would suggest that you go and search the New Testament for G1415 (possible) and G102 (impossible). If you look up the definitions of these two words they are actually very revealing. Impossible is a word of “weakness” and possible is a word for “strength”. Which one is God? All things are possible with God meaning all things are strong with God. However, the Bible says “It is impossible for God to lie”. So God displays “weakness” when it comes to speaking lies. These are fascinating concepts that many Christians have not considered. Weakness is a positive when it comes to sin. But, strength in virtue and truth must be admirable. Because the word “If” occurs before the word “possible” God is saying this is possible but it has specific conditions which must be present to cause it to happen. This is a very simple way of saying you can be deceived under the right conditions. According to my commenter, they said it is not possible for a Christian to be deceived, because God would not allow or permit this to occur. I assume from their logic that they believe God controls the outcome of everything based upon the very popular Sovereign God theological doctrine found within many churches and they must feel that man has no further contribution to make to determine their eternal destiny. Go back and read my commenter’s words again.
Readers need to know that this verse indicates, “IF POSSIBLE!” In other words, God does not allow this to happen to those who are truly saved nor does he even make it possible. However, he is using this language to cause the reader to understand the intensity of deceit that will be in the world during the last days.
Hopefully you can see what they are trying to say? My commenter said “IF POSSIBLE” could be substituted for GOD does not allow this to occur”. Wow, is that what it really said? I am really not sure how anyone can arrive at that conclusion or interpretation of the verse, but obviously that is what they said. That is not what Strong’s said the words meant. Since Strong was a Greek and Hebrew expert I rely on his expertise more than my own or the opinions of people who leave me comments. In other words I’m not going to try to say what the verse says without some collaborating and supporting evidence from someone who is or was smarter than I am. If God tells me in another verse in the Bible that it is not possible for a man to be deceived, then that would be the best. If Strong, Thayer or Nave does not say that either then I just cannot override their expertise with my opinion of what I think it means. So whenever someone says “In other words” you better be careful that what is being stated is an actual equivalent phrasing for what was actually stated. The only way that I know of to how you can legitimately do that, is for you to look up all of the words in a dictionary or a thesaurus and then to see what they mean and if they are really valid synonyms. This is just basic Bible study guidelines and rules to follow. I’ll ask you again “What do the words If Possible mean”? Does it mean it is not possible? I do not think so. God tells us in other places in the Bible “It is impossible for Him to lie” (Heb 6:18). God obviously knows when something is possible and when something is not possible to occur and He knows when to use what word for either case. My commenter seemed to think that God wrote it this way to emphasize a point. But, I still think that this is trying to interpret the Bible in isolation without using the other verses found on the subject to help us to understand what is actually being communicated. For example, if you search the Bible you will find that these exact same Greek words translated as “If Possible” are used in other verses in the N.T. If you go and look at one of them they ought to show us if God uses the words in the same way in order to determine if God is being consistent with His words.
Rom 12:18 If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.
As you can hopefully see if you try to say “If possible” means that it is not possible, you must use that logic in this verse also in order to be consistent. So if you try to apply that logic to this verse in Romans, you would make it say “God does not permit you to live peaceably on the earth with all men. I do not think that this is what this verse is saying, do you? Do you understand this logic? Can you find anywhere in the Bible that it says “God does not permit” when used with the words “If Possible”. If it were not possible for a Christian to be deceived then why would God not tell us that anywhere? I think that would be a very good thing to know if that was actually true. Another point that I want to address is the implied statements being made by my commenter. My commenter implies that they are the “true Christians” and therefore they cannot ever be deceived. Since my commenter did not tell me otherwise I have to assume this is what they meant by examining what they have said. If this is what they believe, I feel very strongly that this is an extremely dangerous theology to base your faith. This would be a great theology if they were right, but if they are wrong then what guarantee do they have that they are not deceived already. Since Bible doctrine and theology is a moving target based upon your current knowledge, there is technically no one that can guarantee what they are preaching today is what they will preach tomorrow exactly. I do not know if you understand that statement or not? Truth is a complex subject and many people want to base their eternal destiny upon their limited knowledge of the Bible and God just might show you a new Bible verse tomorrow that completely changes your theology. Since neither you nor I are God we must be open to learning more at all times and this reality alone should cause us to change our theology as we all attempt to get to the summit of the Bible knowledge mountain. What we all need to do is to research the Bible to figure out the actual truth the best way that we can using all of the information that we can obtain on the subject. Study to show ourselves to be approved a workman that will not be put to shame because we rightly divide the Word of Truth (2 Tim 2:15). So that is what I will try to do again today. You see, I am smart enough to know that I do not know everything. I also think that God is still revealing new things every day. So these two beliefs lead me to be open to change.
Bible study is a rules based system of learning. In other words if you do not know the rules you cannot follow them and therefore there is no way that you will figure out what the truth is. I will not try to give you all of the rules for Bible interpretation today; I have tried to do this in many other Bible lessons so go and read them to learn the correct way to interpret the Bible. I will give you a secret that I use to study the Bible constantly and this may help you if you apply it. When you study a subject search the Bible for the words that you are interested in and find all of the Bible verses that contain those words and then go read what they say. If God uses the same Greek or Hebrew word in every verse then you can be assured you are learning about the exact same subject. Therefore what God says in each verse applies to what is said in every other verse with that same word. This is just a very basic Bible study methodology. You see I know for sure my commenter did not do this or they would have seen what I am going to show you today about the subject of deception. Another Bible study basic is for you to look up the words that you are reading in a Greek or Hebrew dictionary to see what they mean in the original languages. Many times English words have changed and the meanings are no longer the same. For example, in the King James Bible many times the Greek word “agape” is translated as “charity” and this is a total inaccuracy using modern day concepts of the English word for charity. Agape is the Greek word that describes “the God Kind of Love” and that is an important difference between the English word and the Greek word. In fact in the Bible there is more than one Greek word translated as love, how are you going to know the difference if you do not go and search for it? Let me give you the Greek Word definition for “deceive” as it is translated in Matthew 24:24. I think I have given you this definition before in previous lessons, but this is so important that I feel it needs to be restated:
G4105
From G4106; to (properly cause to) roam (from safety, truth, or virtue): – go astray, deceive, err, seduce, wander, be out of the way.
You should see by the definition of this Greek word translated as deceive alone that it causes major problems for my commenter’s theology. To roam or to go astray is a clear description of someone who once was on the path of safety, virtue and truth and they have now wandered from it to become lost. Uh oh? It is very clear to me that the Greek word definition shows someone who once knew the truth, but wandered away from it. Are you a Christian today? If you are then it is because someone presented you the truth and you decided to believe it. Can you knowing the truth now choose to walk away from it? According to the definition of this word it is more than possible. The definition of this word “deceive” says people were in the town of Truth and they wandered off and got lost and now cannot find their way back. What are we going to do with that information? Can you see and understand how to apply this? Do you remember when Jesus said “I am the Good Shepherd? Do you know that we are His sheep? Do you know that His sheep can wander off and decide not to follow the shepherd? According to my commenter’s theology this is not possible, because every one of God’s sheep must have a tight choker collar around their necks with a leash that is tied around the shepherd’s staff, so they cannot stray and get lost. The only way to keep a sheep from straying is to tie them and no shepherd that is good will do this to their animals. Please go search the web and see how shepherds lead their sheep. If you want to learn more on this subject you can read my lesson on “Understanding Sheep in the Bible”. Jesus told a story of a sheep getting lost and Him having to go out and find it (Mat 18:12). Jesus is using a story with natural symbolism to convey a spiritual truth about God and us His people. If you look up the words in this verse you will see “go astray” is the same word translated as “deceive” in Mat 24:24. Uh oh? Therefore, we are talking about the exact same subject, yes in both verses? In this story Jesus says He will leave the 99 to try to find the 1 who was deceived to stray. Who is guarding the 99 while He is out looking for the one that was deceived? Can a wolf come and kill one of the 99 sheep while Jesus is looking for the one? Could the wolf already have killed the one sheep that left the safety of the shepherd? Why did God allow one sheep to leave and become deceived? Oh, yea God is sovereign, omnipotent, omniscient and is omnipresent. If that was all of the truth then why did God use such human examples to describe Himself when He possessed such gret deity qualities? If God is permitted to use all of His supernatural powers then it would be impossible for any of His sheep to get lost in the first place. Since He clearly tells us that a sheep left the flock and must be searched for this tells us God is not in control of what that sheep did. That sheep was deceived to leave the safety of the flock and the shepherd and that is not good for them. I believe that God chooses not to use His supernatural powers by His own choice. If you can find me scriptures to contradict this belief, I will be happy to change. But, I believe that this is the only viable explanation of how a human example of a shepherd losing a sheep could apply to God. If God does not give His sheep the freewill choice to leave, that would make God a controlling manipulator. If you are a married person, is that the kind of spouse that you desire to be married to? I do not think so! Otherwise I have no explanation of why Jesus used this example to describe Himself and us His sheep. Just notice the story of the sheep and see that Jesus says there are 100 sheep and one is deceived and has been lost because they wandered off by their own choice or will. This is what Jesus is teaching to us; His sheep have the right to leave and they can be deceived. Do you understand this?
Let’s back up in the chapter of Matthew and read some other words that Jesus spoke before this statement in Mat 24:24 in order to examine the context of the statement. If you go back to the first part of the chapter you will see Jesus describing things that will occur in the last days. Since we are living in the last days I believe that means whatever Jesus is about to say applies to us. The disciples then come to Jesus privately in Matthew 24:3 and ask Him, when will these things occur? Who is Jesus speaking to in this chapter? My commenter thinks that Jesus is only speaking to the readers, whoever they are. I do not know about you, but I am reader? I wonder if my commenter is also a reader. I guess they think they are not? Since I know of hardly any unsaved people who read the Bible, I’m not really sure who they are thinking Jesus is speaking to. God says in Matthew 24:3 that He was speaking to the disciples and they were the founding fathers of the church. But, my commenter has determined Jesus was speaking to someone else. However, here is the beginning of Jesus’ answer to the “disciples” question:
Mat 24:4 And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.
Wow, this is obviously a hard saying if Jesus the Son of God is speaking in private to only His own disciples. Jesus clearly says “Beware” and “do not let anyone deceive you”. Does Jesus ever say “It is impossible for them to be deceived”? Is Jesus speaking to the founding fathers of the church? Obviously Jesus does not even come close to saying they cannot be deceived. If Jesus warns His personal disciples, His inner circle of 12 students not to be deceived, it is very obvious to me that they could easily become deceived at any time going forward from that warning. What is a warning? A warning is like when you tell your children do not touch the stove because it is hot. When you said that did you mean it was not possible for them to touch it? Obviously that was not why you warned them not to touch it. This is really not that hard and it only takes a little common sense to see that Jesus would never warn His disciples of something that was not possible to occur.
This revelation alone disqualifies the “Predestination” theology. This knowledge alone invalidates the “Once Saved Always Saved” theology. Here Jesus is speaking to many of the future writers of the New Testament and He says you better be careful or you will be deceived. I will tell you this directly, if it was possible for the disciples to be deceived, then any regular Christian today is in dire straits if they think they cannot ever be deceived. These are very strong words and very important words for you to understand. I also want to point out that this Greek word translated as “deceive” is the exact same word found in Matthew 24:24 so Jesus is definitely giving you relevant information that you need to know about the subject of deception in the last days.
Let’s explore the same information found in Matthew, but this time read it in Mark. Many times one writer will phrase the text in one way differently than the other or they will give you the same information with different words. Plus I like to find two or three witnesses in the Bible to everything that I teach in order to help establish the truth. So let’s turn to Mark 13 and read what Jesus says there:
Mar 13:5 And Jesus answering them began to say, Take heed lest any man deceive you:
Mar13:6 For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.
If you continue to read down in this chapter you will again see that Jesus is speaking of the last days. Since I believe strongly that we are living in the last days, I believe that if you do not take this warning personally as a True Christian that you can be deceived very easily. Every word of God is written to you personally and this verse does not say “If Possible”. It says “Take heed” and that is something that you are required to do, not God! Too many Christians want to put the responsibility all on God. God will not permit me to be tested. God will not permit me to be tempted. God will not permit me to be deceived and that is just not what the Bible says anywhere. Jesus would not have given us a warning if it were not possible for us (the church) to be deceived. If you ignore these Bible verses and think they do not apply to you, I’ll say it again you are in trouble. Think with me for a second and determine who was present to hear these words of Jesus. Weren’t Judas and the other 11 disciples always present when Jesus spoke? What did Judas do? You probably know that Judas betrayed Jesus and turned Him over to be killed for silver. Was Judas deceived? Absolutely, Judas was deceived. He heard the exact same words of truth that Peter heard and every other disciple heard and he still decided not to believe in them and do his own thing. You can clearly read in the Bible that Satan entered into Judas and this caused him to betray Jesus. It is very clear to me that Satan was present to cause any disciple to fall into deception that would permit him to do so. Only Judas because of his greed for money was motivated to ignore his eternal outcome for a monetary short term gain which he soon regretted. However, if one disciple of the twelve can be deceived every disciple can be deceived. If any disciple can be deceived then you can be deceived.
Think with me for another moment about what Jesus said in Matthew 24:24 knowing the context of the verse are about the end time events. Jesus said beware of the “false Christ”. This is a direct reference to the coming anti-Christ which is probably in the world today somewhere. We know there have been foolish men who have claimed to be the Christ and they have caused many to die and be lost. But, if the anti-Christ is a false Christ and Jesus is speaking a warning to the church, what is going to happen when he shows up doing great signs and wonders that only a supernatural being can do. I believe that many Christian will buy into his false message based upon his overwhelming knowledge of how to deceive people. This is why Jesus said in Matthew 24:24 that it is possible for even the elect to be deceived, they should be careful not to allow this to happen.
My commenter said that a “True Christian” cannot be deceived and by this they imply there are false Christians in the world. They further imply they are one of the “True Christians” that are incapable of being deceived. This is of course a very convenient theology to believe in with great personal benefits. It is no wonder that so many Christians have bought into this philosophy. Now whenever, anyone comes up as having been deceived, they can simply say they were never a “True Christian” in the first place. Of course this is not true using the definition of the word “deceive” that we found. Jesus warned us of the coming “False Christs” and the “False Prophets” who will deceive many. By definition a false prophet is a man who says he is a prophet but who is not. It is the same with a false Christ. Finally, a false Christian is one that says they are a Christian and they are not. I do believe that all of these exist in the world today right now. Both the true and the false must coexist in the world simultaneously by simple logic and reasoning.. However, I am not addressing false Christianity because they are already deceived. You do not ever warn someone about something they have already fallen into, right? You can only try to help them out of their pit of deception if they are interested in getting your help. If not, they will remain in the their deception and be content. So by simple logic found in Matthew 24:24 we can determine that Jesus cannot be speaking to anyone, but a Christian who is walking in the Light of Truth. This would be someone who knows the truth, but chooses to walked away from it to do the wrong things.
Let me talk to you about some modern day preachers that have been deceived. I know of several and I could name their names and you would know who I am talking about, but I will not do that. You will probably know who I’m talking about anyway because they were in the news. Anyway one preacher had a national TV ministry and a major Bible school and obviously was doing great things for God when one day he was discovered with a prostitute. This was not good news for his church or his wife and family. Was he just a false Christian or was he a Christian who was deceived? Remember the definition of the word “deceive” from Strong? I recall that “deceive” seems to be defined as someone who was safe in the truth, but who has now wandered off from it. Was this famous preacher a false Christian or just one that knew the truth and decided to do the wrong things anyway? Do you see how complicated this subject really is? I believe that you cannot say this preacher was not a Christian to begin with or that he was a false Christian based upon the fruits that he had exhibited. Jesus said you will know them by their fruits. But, even a preacher, saved and filled with Spirit of God can be deceived to do the wrong things. Plus the fact that this preacher asked for forgiveness and the Bible says that when you do this God will forgive you (1 Jo 1:9). Let me say that deception comes in varying degrees. I believe that any Christian can be deceived to sin, but not be lost completely if they turn and see their mistake and repent. If my commenter thinks they are a perfect Christian that never sins, they are definitely deceived. If they think that it is impossible for them to sin, again there is deception that has already occurred and they better wake up soon. Let me say again that any Christian is capable of sinning and knowing this fact alone we should realize that Satan is out to try to trick us into going back to what our flesh use to want to do all the time; whether it was drugs, sex, cigarettes, alcohol, food or whatever.
Another preacher that will remain nameless had a 5000 member church in the Bible belt of America. His TV ministry was seen nationwide. I went to his church and I saw all of this first hand, so this is not hearsay or speculation. I saw the church and the ministries grow, I saw the salvation of many people while I was in the church. People would get saved in almost every service. I felt the power of God present and things were happening supernaturally so God was present. I sat under the anointing of God and felt the power of God present so I know he was a Christian. I could hear the sermons and read the Bible verses that were being taught and they were sound doctrine. However, over time I saw a change occurring in the senior pastor and the church. He eventually left his wife and married another woman and began to preach some really strange things. There were many personal and church related problems and issues and this senior pastor soon left his new wife and married another woman. The church went from over 5000 members to it is non-existent today. That church went from awesome to nothing in a very short time all because of one man being deceived by Satan. There was clearly a level of deception that had taken place to take this senior pastor from a great man of God to his downfall. All of these examples are warnings for Christians today. I could give you many more examples, but that is just pointless. Just understand that if it can happen to a major church pastor, it can happen to you. If it can happen to a disciple of Jesus it can happen to you.
Let’s go through some Bible verses in the New Testament and see if God says if a Christian can become deceived or not? You are going to have to read your Bible and study it, but they are not complicated if you can open your spiritual eyes and see what God is saying. I will only focus on scriptures written to the church. The Church is the target readers of the Epistles. All of these letters were written to True Christians for instruction and for correction and that is what I hope they do for you today.
1Co 15:33 Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners.
1Co 6:9 Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,
Gal 6:7 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
These are three direct witnesses that convey the message that Christians can be deceived. You do not write to anyone in the Church and tell them not to fall into deception if it is impossible for them to do this. That would be stupid for God to do. Do you understand that? Are these the Words of God written to you and I? I believe they are. I’m sure there are some people who can explain away what the Bible says, but I choose to take the words of the Bible to be truth. I want you to see that three times God writes to the church and tells them it is their responsibility not to fall into deception. If God could stop it from happening, He would not warn you that it could happen. If you look up the Greek word translated as “deceived”, you will see that it is the same one used by God in Matthew 24:24. Therefore, these verses apply to the subject given and it clearly tells us based upon context that a Christian can be deceived. Let’s go though some more scriptures that say this also using some different phrasing.
Eph 5:6 Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.
2Th 2:3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;
1Jn 3:7 Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous.
Here are three more direct witnesses from the scripture that clearly say “Let no man deceive you”. Notice that none of them said “God will let no man deceive you”. These words are clearly written to the church and the Apostle John even calls us the “children” of God. It is self-evident that even real Christians can be deceived by an active or inactive participation of their own freewill. If you let someone deceive you, you can make the right choices to keep from being deceived. This is a clear assignment of self-responsibility. If God says “Let no man” there is an alternative outcome to being deceived and it comes back to a conditional statement of dependency upon what you do or permit to be done. Therefore, it is an act of your will or the omission of action by your will that causes you to be deceived. Wow, that is an important statement to learn. Let me give you a funny example. When my wife was young her mom would make her a sandwich and she would need a drink or something and have to get up from the table to get it and when she came back someone had taken a bite out of her sandwich. Well this was a cruel joke by her dad, but she got the point very fast. She never left her food again on the table if she got up to get something. It is like the old saying fool me once shame on you, but fool me twice shame on me. I guess what we need to do as Christians is to learn what we need to do to keep the devil from taking a bite of our sandwich and then keep him from doing it ever again.
Deception is a very important subject and that is why I teach on it so much. It is critical for you to know as much as possible on this subject so that you understand how deception can come so that you will be able to avoid it. Deception will come to you in many forms, in many ways and for many purposes. But, one of the ways is through men who wear sheep’s clothing, but are the hidden wolves underneath (Mat 7:15). God would not warn Christians Not to be deceived, if it were not possible. This is just basic reasoning and logic using simple Bible study techniques to help discover the truth. What we as Christians must realize is that we are in a spiritual warfare for the eventual outcome of our eternal spirits. Satan is highly motivated to deceive even “God’s elect ones”. Satan has the knowledge, power and experience to do it and he does not need God’s permission in order to try to do it and this is what you need to know today.
I’ll end this lesson today with another set of witnesses found in the Bible, but these are a little bit different in what they say and how they say it. But you will still notice that they are definitely written to the Church and spoken by Jesus to us. These verses have some very profound words within them and they definitely apply to the subject of deception, even if the word does not appear in these verses. You see there are more rules to Bible interpretation than what I can tell you about in this one lesson. You will just have to read what Jesus is saying and then figure out how it applies to God, to you, the church, Satan and the subject of deception.
Rev 2:7 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.
Rev 2:11 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death.
Rev 2:26 And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations:
Rev 3:5 He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.
Rev 3:12 Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name.
Rev 3:21 To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.:
Why does Jesus speak these 6 times about “those that overcome”? Do you understand that these are all promises or rewards from God of something for something? In other words every one of these promises are conditional. It is totally depends upon the fact that if you qualify for the promises then and only then will you be rewarded with the promises. Do you understand that all of these are the words written to the Church? Are not these people the True Christians who have been given these messages? Maybe you think that you are not in the same church as these people that Jesus is speaking to, and if that is the case you are in trouble. I believe Jesus is making a very serious point by repeating this phraseology this many times. Jesus is clearly saying that you have a Major Responsibility to become an overcomer. What does it mean to be an overcomer? Wow, I guess that is something not too many Christians understand unless they were in the military or played a competitive sport or had cancer and finally got a clean bill of health from their doctor. You see an overcomer is only someone who is victorious. Clearly an overcomer is a winner of a battle or conflict. These statements have vast implications written on them. It means you can be a failure by default. It means that you can be a quitter by choice. It means you can be defeated by your enemy. It means you can stray from the narrow path and follow the crowd down the wide path to destruction. These verses tell me that a Christian can be deceived and not be victorious. It is your choice, your will, your decisions and your actions that will either cause you to win or to be defeated. If you follow God and the truth of His word this will never happen, but if someone comes to you with a great false message and you follow that, you have left the truth and been deceived and God will let you go. It means you are in trouble if you believe that God is not going to allow you to be deceived. I do not see anywhere in these verses in Revelation where God guarantees you victory if you quit or don’t fight or don’t want to win, what do you think God is going to do about that? Do you believe that God is going to override your desire to do your own thing to force you to His things? If you think this you are clearly mistaken. God is not going to make you do the right things. God will not force feed you so that you grow in the truth. All God can do is send someone like me to try to steer you back into the right path and if you refuse to listen I’m sorry but there is nothing else He will do for you.
God expects you to do something and you need to learn what that is. One of the first major prophecies in the Bible is one found in Genesis 3:15 where God says “The seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent”. I know I paraphrased again. But, that was the verse in a nutshell. We all know the serpent is Satan, but few understand who the Seed of the Woman is referring to. If you want to learn who this is you can read my other Bible lessons to find out for sure. But, I will tell that this woman is the church and she is the one that God expects to be victorious. To be under someone’s foot is a symbolic sign that they are defeated by that person whose foot is on them. You can see this many places in the Bible and one place is in Joshua where God told the nation of Israel everywhere the sole of your feet tread I have given to you. Well Israel is a natural typology of the church in this example. Just as Joshua fought to take the promise land, we are forced to fight a spiritual battle to possess God’s promises. What did we read in Revelations 6 times? We read conditional promises? Was the Promised Land conditional for Israel in the O.T.? What if they had not fought the giants, they would have died in the wilderness like everyone else and missed out on the promise. Hopefully you can understand my point.
You see in Romans 16:20, God writes to the church and says “The God of Peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly”. According to this verse in Romans, we are the Seed of the Woman that was prophesied about in Genesis 3:15. It is the feet of the church that God is going to use to bruise the head of Satan. If this is true, then we as a church have a role of responsibility to participate in its fulfillment. I know there are many Christians who believe God controls everything that happens in the world. These Christians have been deceived already into believing they have no role to play, no responsibility for anything and no accountability if it is not done. It is what I preach to be a “No fault” Christian religion. No matter what happens, it was not my fault. I never planted the seeds that caused that to happen! I never stopped it from happening, but that was not my job! I wonder how these types of Christians get up in the morning and do anything all day long. If everything is completely up to God, it would seem to me that we should not try to do anything all day. It would be best, if we all become vegetables and stayed in bed until God bruises Satan’s head and then comes and takes us all away. You see while Christians believe this C.R.A.P. (Christian Reasoning Applied Poorly) they fail to know that God is waiting on them to become strong enough to fulfill what He has planned. Is God waiting for the church? Is that possible? When God describes to us that He has long patience as He does in James 5:7 that is a clear revelation that God is not controlling everything that happens and He is waiting patiently for something to occur in order for the end to happen. If you do not understand what that is, you better learn it quickly because the end is coming soon ready or not. I plan on me being one of the ones that is ready for the end so if you care to join me let’s work together to fulfill the prophecy of Genesis 3:15. It is only when the church is victorious over Satan that Jesus can look at us as being the overcomers as He clearly stated 6 times that He was looking for in the book of Revelation.
If you have read this entire lesson and still want to believe you can never be deceived, I’m not sure if I can say anything else to prove to your otherwise. Deception is a very large and complex subject found in the Bible. Because you do not understand it, you easily misapply the verses to say that it is impossible for you to be deceived. However, God is never going to force you to see the truth. God will let you go to your grave believing in you erroneous theology. But, you will have to tear those pages out of the Bible of all of the Bible verses that I have given to you today in order to still go to church and believe wrong about deception. There were at least 14 Bible verse witnesses to the fact that church members can be deceived. Since the Bible says in the mouth of two or three witnesses let every word be established, I have given you overwhelming evidence to the truth. If you deny it your blood is not on my hands. If you have 3 Bible verses that say a Christian can NEVER be deceived, I would love to hear about them. I have gone on long enough today, so please come back next time and I’ll try to speak about a different subject that may be more popular with everyone and less controversial. Just understand my motivation for doing what I do. If I did not care, I would not try to help you. If I did not love you I would not bring you an alternative viewpoint. Do not think that I am here to criticize you; I am only here to try to help. I know I’m not perfect and I know can say things that offend people, but I do not do it to deceive you or cause you harm. If you could see my heart I think you would understand why I address the subject of deception with such a passion. God Bless!
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If you want to know how to get saved and know that you are with confidence you can go to: How do I get saved?
A Deceived Christian Example To Avoid! Part 2 – Beware the Chicken Little False Prophets Who Proclaim the End of the World is Today!
(Ver 2.1) This is “Part 2” in a Bible study series concerning modern negative Christian examples to avoid and not to follow or become. If you would like to read the series from the beginning you may like to go to “Part 1” first. But this lesson will be a blessing alone. I was on vacation in the mountains when I wrote this Bible lesson. I had not planned on posting anything that week. But, then a national news report came on about a religious zealot in California, that I will not name and he has predicted the end of the world to occur May 21, 2011 at 6 PM Eastern Standard Time in the USA. When a man calls himself a Christian and then ignores the Bible to teach something so ridiculous that it makes the corrupt national news media, it causes a negative perception to be reflected upon every Christian. I have found that if the national news media is reporting a story, the it is either false or it is coordinated to make conservatives and Christians to look bad. And one false prophet can be used by Satan to cause every real prophet of God to look foolish and not to be taken seriously. What if God had sent a prophet to Israel and Israel had already heard 12 other men who called themselves prophets say something that is opposite or different than the real message from God? Doesn’t this make it easier to reject the real message? Sure it does! I did notice in the life of Elijah that he called down fire that consumed the other prophets and thus God got His message out in spite of the false prophets who attempted to corrupt the truth. I believe if you read Revelation 11 about how God will send two witnesses the first 42 months to the earth to get His message out, the same power that Elijah displayed will get the attention of many of the people of the earth. Yet they will be killed and their bodies lay in the street for 3 1/2 days and people will be so happy that they will send gifts to each other in celebration. Wow, I believe this is going to happen sooner than we think.
Well this man in California has supposedly studied the Bible for many years. He is not a young man and he has many followers who have quit their jobs to travel to tell everyone about the prediction. They have spent over a million dollars on billboards to warn the people of the earth. The late night comedians in the U.S. have made light of this prediction in countless jokes. Atheists are planned rapture parties May 23, 2011 at 6 PM to defy the message. People had even printed T-shirts to say how they survived the rapture. Christians are being mocked and ridiculed and are made to look like fools because of the actions of a deceived Christian man who is clearly ignorant of the Bible.
When God gives someone revelation of His word, it is never going to contradict any other previous revelation of the Word of God to cause confusion. Real new truth will always build upon previous truths that we already know. Therefore, we as Christians are forced to know the scripture for ourselves. This man who predicted the end of the world on May 21, 2011 made a very similar prediction back in 1994. Since this prediction did not occur it is very easy to see that he is a false prophet. God never sent a Christian with the truth today prophecies of yesterday have failed. A prophet of God should always speak the truth and what they say better occur. Of course there are exceptions in the Bible where the man of God’s words did not come to pass. For example God sent Jonah to Nineveh and told them they would be destroyed. But they repented and God did not destroy them. That is just one example. But this modern prophecy does not appear to match what occurred in this incident.
If anyone is following a man who has given a date when Jesus was coming to get us and it did not occur then maybe we should find a new Christian to learn from. Also if we are following a man who contradicts another prophet of God or the written word of God it would be easy to fall into Satan’s deception. This man claimed his calculations were off in 1994, but he is absolutely convinced that he has not made a mistake about May 21, 2011. I wonder what thought about his prediction on Sunday, May 21 2011 since nothing happened. I wonder what his followers thought on Sunday May 21, 2011 when they were all ready to go and nothing happened? I know for sure what the world thought of his ignorant godless prophecy; they all laughed at him as they are doing at all Christians right now. How can real Christians follow a man who is deceived? It is amazingly easy if we do not know the Bible. I knew this man’s prediction was not true the moment I heard it. Any could, because his prediction contradicted the words of the greatest prophet named Jesus Christ. He said this and I believe Him more than a deceived modern Christian who contradicts Him.
Mat 24:36 But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.
Jesus implies that He does not even know the day or the hour that He is returning to the earth. If Jesus does not know and the angels do not know, and this includes Satan, Michael and Gabriel, how then can this man know more than Jesus and the angels? He would have to be Father God to be able to predict the end with accuracy. I do not care what revelation that anyone has found in their Bible. If you ignore the prophet Jesus to predict the end of the world you are deceived. Sorry I can be very blunt and direct sometimes. But, somebody needs to awaken Christians to see the real truth.
If somebody does not speak the truth, then everyone will follow deceived people tricked by Satan who can say anything. If we are following a man or a woman who has set a date for the end of the world, you are as deceived as the deceiver. It is the classic blind being led by the blind. So to the deceived people of the world who predicted May 21, 2011 to be the end, I do not criticize you personally (after all I did not name any names in this message), I do however reject the false message of prediction. If the world ends May 21, 2011 then I would have looked like a fool for countering your message. However, since I base my prediction on the Words of Jesus I felt very confident that the world will never end on any day that a man has predicted. I believe my God and His Written Holy Prophetic Word more than the words of just any human. Please everyone that is a Christian let us all do the same.
This was just one modern day deception tactic of our enemy Satan. But, we can all learn from it. This is a very important trap of deception that will occur again. If you hear of anyone setting an exact day for the coming of the LORD, know now that this could be a major reason why it cannot be that day. Let us all avoid being a Christian that sets a date. Also let us all be a type of Christian that studies our Bible and does not follow after a human that sets a date.
I will pray anyone that does either of these. I hope that you will also pray for anyone that you hear of doing either of these. Let us all pray that God will open their eyes of their understanding so that they are not deceived by to follow false prophets or to become one. But to those who want to reject the Bible, the prophet Jesus and the truth to follow their fantasy, here is my heart is extremely saddened because of the deception that has blinded your mind. I pray everyone will learn their lesson and not make other Christians with real messages look like we are all as ignorant. Let us all make sure we are following the Word of God that we know and we see in our own Bible what anyone else is saying and not follow blindly after the words of any teacher. That includes me! I hope this message helped someone today. Thank you for reading, commenting and sharing these Bible lessons with your family and friends. God Bless you all!
A PERSONAL APPLICATION
LORD, I pray that you will help me 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 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 and discern between right and wrong, truth and lies, and good and evil. Thank LORD for your faithfulness to me in Jesus Name, I pray. Amen.
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If you would like to continue reading in this series of lesson please go to “Part 3” now.
Understanding Deception in the Bible! Satan Sacrifices His Pawn Osama Bin Laden in the Chess Game of Life! Part 5
(Ver 1.2) This is now Part 5 in a series of very advanced Bible lessons on the Bible concepts of deception. Today’s lesson will be a little bit different than the normal, but yet it will challenge you to think about some things that you may have never thought of before about deception. I have taught you a lot of new and very different things found in the Bible about deception and I pray that you have taken the time to read everything about this subject that I have posted. If not, please go back and start reading this series with the first lesson “Part 1” so that you do not miss anything important that I have said. In the news a few days ago late at night a special report broke into the regular programming with a news bulletin that informed us “Osama Bin Laden was killed”. I listened to these reports for nearly an hour and then the President of the United States came on and gave us the official announcement that it was true. I do not know about you, but when I see things this significant happen in the world I look at them from a spiritual perspective and try to figure out why this occurred right now at this exact point in time. You see I personally do not believe that anything in the world occurs by chance or accident. Nor do I believe that God causes things to occur to fulfill His will or purpose. Based upon my knowledge of the Bible, I believe there are multiple factors involved in everything that transpires on the earth and most of them are either human or demonic initiated rather than those events which are the occasional work of divine intervention. God will intervene when people pray and ask Him to intervene. However, we know from the prayer that Jesus taught His disciples that God’s will is not done on the earth unless we pray and ask for His will to be done (Luke 11:2). This prayer also asks for the kingdom of God to come, so we know the kingdom of God was not already present when Jesus taught the disciples this prayer. If you disagree with those statements, you should learn how to read and see what God says in the Bible before you demonstrate your ignorance and write me a comment about how I’m wrong. The Bible goes on and tells us in 2 Corinthians 4:4 that Satan is the god of this world which implies that God is not the God of this world system. Please understand that God rules in His Kingdom, but we are not living in His Kingdom right now. Maybe you do not understand what I am saying. If you are a Christian, you have the Kingdom of God inside of you, but this is not what you are walking around in physically in the world. God is a Spirit and His kingdom is an internal spiritual Kingdom. If God rules in your heart, then you can show people in the world the Kingdom of God in demonstration, but they cannot see it otherwise. There is also the factor that God says that whatever a man sows, that is what he will reap (Gal 6:7). So when things occur in this world suddenly you need to look at what seeds were sown to cause the things that we are observing to spring up. I know for a fact that Ben Laden sowed seeds of death and I know he reaped death back this week. These are just a few of the factors that cause things to happen in this world. Do you understand these factors?
I personally believe that Adam was created to be the god of this world in the beginning. Then Adam sinned and allowed Satan to come in and now Satan is the god of this world system (2 Cor 4:4). People are the cause of all of the manifested evil in the world as we can clearly see from the life of Osama Bin Laden. But we are also told something else that is very important for us to know and to understand in the Bible. God tells us in the Bible that people are not our problem. Wow, that is not what I saw on TV this week. We had a nation of people rejoicing at the death of a person who was nothing but just a man. I also saw the President’s approval rating that was dropping, suddenly rise through the roof because the U.S. killed a man. There were people in the streets of N.Y. and Washington D.C. that were clearly overjoyed that an evil man was killed. Take a look at this Bible verse and you please tell me what it says:
Eph 6:12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
What does this verse say? Doesn’t God tell us that people are not our problem? If we are in a spiritual battle as this verse implies, we need to understand who the enemy is. Osama Bin Laden is not the enemy since clearly he was flesh and blood. It is the spirit that controlled Osama Bin Laden that is our problem. Guess what is going to happen now? Since we just killed the U.S. number one natural enemy, Satan is going to promote another man to become the new number one. Terrorism has not ceased just because someone died. Satan is the terrorist maker and he is still alive and well on the planet. God clearly tells us there is nothing new under the sun, the thing that has been is the thing that shall be again (Ecc 1:9). Therefore, please do not be lulled into a false sense of security simply because one natural enemy was killed. You can look down through history and see that there have been many evil men who have killed people in the world. Every time an Adolf Hitler is killed a new man is raised up to become another of the same types of evil initiators. Do you understand this? Why does this happen? It is because the same spirit will cause another man to be deceived into doing what the preceding one failed to finish.
The Holy Spirit woke me up early the morning after Ben Laden’s death in order to explain what is happening in the world and since God is smarter than me, I listened to what He was saying. I am going to tell you what He said to me and you can choose to believe it or reject it, I personally do not care which one you choose. God explained to me that our life and the world that we live in are like a spiritual Chess Game. If you have never played the game of chess, you will probably not have a clue what I am about to tell you, but I’ll try to explain it so that you can gain the overall concepts. Chess is a warfare game between two opposing sides, which is played on a board of 64 squares. Sound familiar? The Bible is divided into two opposing sides, God and Satan. Each side in the chess game has 16 different game pieces. One side is usually 16 black pieces and the other side is usually 16 white pieces. But, this is not a racial game, just two colors that are opposites. It really is a traditional good vs. evil type of game. One side is you and the other side is the evil enemy trying to kill you. You are faced with the challenge of defending your pieces while simultaneously attacking your enemy to take his pieces. Does any of this sound familiar like in the war on terror that the U.S. has been fighting for the last 10 years? In the game of chess each game piece has a rank and an order of value associated with them. A pawn is the least valuable piece and the King is the most valuable. You can lose every piece that you have except the King and survive. However, power is another factor and the queen is the most powerful piece on the board and the pawn is the least powerful. There is one unique factor of the game that a pawn can become a queen if it is moved to the extreme farthest square that it can move to. The game of chess is a thinking game of strategy based upon a battle of wits. Therefore, chess is a mental game usually for very intelligent people. Which I do not claim to be one, since I never achieved to the level of a Grand Master in this game. The more you understand about chess warfare the better chess opponent you can become. Chess game players are usually rated based upon their win and loss record. The higher you rating, the better a player you are viewed to be. That was a very quick synopsis of an extremely complex game, but I am not here to teach you about chess today. I am only here to tell you about just one strategy found in a chess master’s execution library that God says happened this week on the news. Many times a Chess Master will use a deception technique called “sacrifice” that will allow his opponent to take one of his pieces, but usually this act of sacrifice is a hidden ploy to gain a future advantage. In other words one side sacrifices one piece now to gain a greater advantage in the future part of the game that has not yet occurred. Did you understand this concept? It is a very advanced technique of deception and it requires extreme intelligence, forethought and planning. In other words the Chess Master may have looked foolish for giving up a key piece right now, but as you watch the game develop you will see the strategy take place and the advantage will change.
You see this is exactly what Satan did this week with his pawn “Bin Laden”. Satan gave up one key piece of his current game plan to gain a greater advantage in the future. Keep in mind Satan has more than one game piece in play at any given time. Satan is using a strategy play here with the sacrifice of Ben Laden. You can tell this by the fact that if suddenly after 10 years of not being able to find Ben Laden we are now able to miraculously find him there was something that transpired to cause it to happen. People like to think that it was the U.S. intelligence ability and that proves our superiority, but this is not the case. Yes the killing of Osama was based upon intelligence work, but who let the information out to them? I personally believe it was Satan and that this was not an accident. If you can see the power of this play you will not fall into the deception that is being presented like many have already done. If you do not understand chess very well then you may not be able to understand what I just said.
What does the world seek after more than anything? Those in the world are seeking after peace. However, Satan will never fully give anyone full peace, only the deception of peace will be presented. People in Washington D.C., in New York and other parts of the U.S. have been jumping on a false security of new found peace and victory and this is what Satan is after. The majority of the U.S. population is suddenly more united and feeling good about the world’s situation. It is funny that nothing technically changed from a week ago, except that one man was killed but the attitude of accomplishment has promoted a single man back into political prominence and dominance. Because there is a coming presidential election next year, Satan desires even Christians to feel like we have the correct man in this U.S. office. You see after the elimination of America’s number one enemy this week, our president Obama went from a non-re-electable man to become a favorite front runner with a very high popular opinion. My personal opinion of the president has not changed, but I am not deceived like many others. I did not vote for the man in last election and I would not vote for him in the next either. You see Jesus said you will know them by their fruits and whenever a man promotes abortions and homosexuality they are not a Christian or a Christ follower. That is just the way it is, even if you do not like it. Jesus said “Why call me Lord and do not the things that I say”. Our president claims to be a Christian, yet his actions prove him as being far from it.
Be not deceived from the things that are external that mean little to nothing in the world. Open the spiritual eyes of your understanding to see the high cost spiritual chess game of life that is being played out behind the scenes. First, start by recognizing who the real enemy is in the world. Satan is the only enemy that you should be focused on. Then the Bible tells us to submit ourselves unto God and to resist the devil and he will flee from us. Then begin to see and understand the world events more clearly in the light of God’s Word which also implies that you know God’s Word. If you do not know and understand Bible prophecy, like the book of Revelation, you are an easy candidate for deception. As long as there is a Satan in the world, we will have evil taking place around us and it will get worse as we go and not better. Take a look at this next Bible verse and pay attention to the warning given:
Rev 12:12 Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.
Once you begin to realize that Satan knows that his time is very short, you will soon see that his rage and anger will increase and he will move into desperation mode trying to kill everyone that he can take with him. But in order to do this he is going to have to raise to power the people in the world that he needs to support his plan. Satan does not want a Christian to be President of the most powerful nation of the world. Satan will use any form of deception that is necessary to accomplish his plan. There is a man of sin coming to the earth and he could be here already. This man is called the antichrist in the Bible and he will oppose God, Jesus, the Bible and Christians and will do everything in his power to disrupt the plan of God from happening. Satan will cause the antichrist to rise to power using these deceptive strategies that I have just taught you about in this series. Deception will cause a false sense of accomplishment and a feeling of new found safety to come on people and this will cause them to look to a man on the earth to solve their problems. I saw this attitude when people elected Obama the first time. They saw him as a savior and exalted him based upon no accomplishments, just words. Now people are doing it again, they have rallied around a president because they think he accomplished something when in reality he has done nothing to solve the root cause of the problem. Satan would not have allowed Obama to find Ben Laden if there was not something else on the agenda. There would have been no accomplishment for anyone to see if there was no dead evil man for the world to witness this week.
Ok, do not get me wrong. I am not saying Obama is the antichrist, I do not know that and I would be crazy to try to speculate who the antichrist is right now. I personally do not believe people will know who the antichrist is until it is too late. But I do believe that we can look for certain clues based upon the Word of God. The antichrist will come in like a man of peace looking like the world’s savior and this should be your first clue of warning. So far this sounds a lot like Obama who was given the Noble Peace prize while never establishing any peace. It just may be an amazing coincidence I don’t really know, unless God says something we will not know. There are other factors, that also point against Obama and one of them is the prophecy in Daniel that seems to say the antichrist will be a homosexual. Obviously if Obama is a homosexual he has us all fooled with a wife and two daughters. So take into account every prophecy and not just some of them. If you have not read my series on the “Antichrist” I would recommend that you do that. I am not technically finished with that series, but since I lost my computer hard drive a week ago I will have to start over on it.
So should the U.S. be in a war on terror? I personally believe that the U.S. had no choice but to enter this fight. So I am not saying that we should have turned the other cheek and not done anything against Ben Laden the terrorists who attacked us. I am not saying Christians should be passive. Nor am I saying we should not defend ourselves. Since there are evil men in the world and the only thing that gets their attention is physical force and power, I believe both of these, need to be demonstrated. That is until Jesus shows up in the clouds and then things will certainly change and that will get their attention all right. No I believe in guns! I believe in using them when necessary! But, I am also saddened to think a man is in hell right now and he has no opportunity to get out. Eternity is a concept and proposition that we cannot really comprehend. Being eternally punished just because you were tricked into believing a lie is a concept that many Christians do not want to believe that a loving God could do. Yet the Bible clearly tells us that the path to destruction is very wide and there are many who go there. This is exactly why I teach like I do. I am plain and direct and I tell it like it is regardless of what it costs me, so that somebody may be able to see it and learn the truth.
When you begin to understand that deception is Satan’s only weapon against you, then you begin to understand you need to learn this subject extensively. If people go to hell because they have been deceived you better make sure you know the truth and that you are not being deceived into this same eternal state that Ben Laden has found himself in. Today’s lesson is a complex small part of the subject of deception but yet it is so powerful that I felt you needed to read about it and to understand it clearly. A sacrifice of one evil man for the promotion of another evil man is how the antichrist will come into power. I believe this with all of my heart. How else would the entire world fall into the rapid deception of following a man, unless they could see him to be the answer to their deepest problems? If a man’s popularity can rise dramatically simply because he killed an evil man, to me that is a sign of a clear act of hidden deception. Since Satan is still the god of this world, we must realize then who is causing these types of things to occur and then figure out why. If you want to believe they are caused by God, you can do that and be wrong. If you want to believe they are just a coincidence, then you can do that and still be wrong again. Please understand and learn to see things with your spiritual eyes and then perceive them with the spirit inside you. Be sensitive to hear the voice of God and He will direct you to know the truth.
I began to learn the game of chess as a kid in 7th grade and I never mastered it. However, I obviously learned enough for God to teach me something from it. When I learned this game, a man named Bobby Fisher was the world champion chess master. I remember reading about his games that he played in the pater and trying to learn the moves that he made and the try to understand why. These concepts apply to Bible study and God if you understand them. The more you know the more God can use to speak to you about. It is a simple concept that God knows everything and we are just kids in His eyes. Learn everything you can from God’s word but then use what you know to understand God, Satan and the world around you. Thanks for taking the time to read my unusual Bible study and for listening to the words of God that He spoke in my heart this week. Until next time, may God bless you and keep you until next time.
If you could like to continue reading in this series about Deception you can go to “Part 6“.
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If you want to know how to get saved and know that you are with confidence you can go to: How do I get saved?
Understanding Satan’s Abilities! Can Satan Read Your Mind?
(Ver 1.4) This will be an extremely complex Bible study today of a highly spiritual nature about the spiritual abilities of your enemy Satan. We will explore many difficult and different scriptures found in the Bible that help us to see the truth. In studying your enemy you should learn both his strengths and his weaknesses so that you can be better prepared when he comes to tempt, test or attack you. Satan is definitely this enemy that I am talking about if you are a Christian. God tells us that we do not wrestle against flesh and blood (people) but the principalities, powers and the rulers of the darkness of this world and the spiritual wicked in high places (Eph 6:12). The Bible clearly tells us that we are in a spiritual warfare with a spiritual enemy that we cannot see. Since we do not perceive Satan with our physical senses we must read the Bible and see what God tells us about this unseen spirit and how he operates. Today I am going to focus in on one aspect that many Christians have wondered about. I was asked this question recently by one of my readers so I thought it would be a good topic to share with all of my readers. Here was their question:
Can Satan Read Your Mind?
Let’s start by addressing the question “What is your mind”? Most people associate your mind with your physical brain, an internal organ in your head. But this is not technically true. While the physical brain has some vital functions within the natural realm, we must ask “what happens to our mind when our body dies?” Does it cease to exist? Absolutely not, the mind is just a part of your internal soul realm. Your soul is comprised of three elements; your intellect, your will and your emotions. Your intellect is comprised of your ability to think and reason along with your ability to recall the memories that you have learned or experienced. Let’s look at a story that Jesus taught us to learn about the mind after death:
Luk 16:20 And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores,
Luk 16:21 And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.
Luk 16:22 And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried;
Luk 16:23 And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.
Luk 16:24 And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.
Luk 16:25 But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.
Luk 16:26 And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.
Luk 16:27 Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father’s house:
Luk 16:28 For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment.
Luk 16:29 Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.
Luk 16:30 And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent.
Luk 16:31 And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.
Reading the story that Jesus teaches us of Lazarus and the rich man in Luke 16:20-31, we can see the actual account of two men who lived on the earth and then died with their bodies being buried. After they have died physically they are still alive spiritually and are able to speak verbally, think and reason mentally in this story without their bodies. Therefore, we know they had conscious awareness and the same mental capabilities that they possessed when they were here on the earth in their bodies. We are told that the rich man was now in hell and he asks Abraham to send someone back to the earth so that his 5 brothers would not come to this place of torment where he currently was. In this conversation Abraham tells the rich man to use is mind to “remember”. This clearly tells us that you will take your past memories of this world into the next eternal realm. The rich man was able to recall that he had a father’s house and even five natural brothers. The rich man was further able to mentally reason and come to the conclusion that he did not want his brothers to die and come to this place. This demonstrated a measured capacity for compassion. This is a very powerful real life specific lesson about the afterlife experience of three specific men. It further teaches us that the human spirit and the human mind will be complete together during this afterlife. The rich man’s ability to think, reason, feel and remember was not tied to whether or not he had any brain cells. Get it?
The human mind is a very complex and powerful feature of God’s creation. We use it to think and create many things in our world. How do we do this? We take mental concepts and process them and then make determinations and decisions based upon these ideas or thoughts. It is this advanced reasoning mental ability that humans have that makes us completely different than the animals on our planet.
There are really only three basic states of thought origination, we can make up our own mind thoughts to one point of view, we can change our mind to the opposite perspective or we can attempt to be double minded and accept both realities simultaneously. Jesus actually warns us about doing this when He said “I would that you were either hot or cold, since you are lukewarm I will spew you out of my mouth (Rev 3:16). God is speaking of a man who is not committed to either way of direction. God is declaring that the choice is clearly a binary one to make. Either choose good or choose evil but do not try to fall back and forth into both. God actually teaches us in the book of James that this is called a “double minded” man:
Jas 1:8 A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.
God is warning us about being a man who is indecisive, uncommitted, trying to appease everyone and God says this man is unstable in all of his ways. The term translated as “double minded” in James 1:8, is the Greek word that can mean a man who has two spirits controlling him. Therefore, we see a definite connection from our mind to our spirit and that is very important to understand. We know that when Lazarus and the rich man died their souls which included their minds, memory, reasoning facilities and even emotions did not die with their physical bodies. These were still fully intact with their spirits. Therefore our ability to think is tied directly to our spirit and not our body. A thought is a process that occurs and is associated with the human mind, but what is the source of a thought? Where does a thought take place and how does it work?
Gen 6:5 And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
Here is the first occurrence of the thought process of man being stated or described in the Bible directly by name. We of course realize that the thought process of Adam and Eve were involved in their decision making back in Genesis 3, but God never mentions it directly. Here in Genesis 6, God looks down on the men on the earth and sees that they only think evil things in their hearts (spirits). We can again see the connection of thoughts to the spirit of a man and not his physical brain. So a thought must come to rest in your spirit. I’m not sure if it originates there, but it is definitely connected as a resting place.
Here in this verse in Genesis 6, God implies that the thoughts of man’s heart could be one of three states, good, evil or both as I previously stated. We can understand this based upon the words “only” and “continually” used with evil. The antithesis of these two states would be a man that thinks “only good” and “never evil”. We could further stipulate someone who is in the middle as being “occasionally evil or intermittently good”. I personally believe based upon this information that there are three sources of thoughts in the human mind and that these are as follows:
- A Thought can originate from a man’s spirit (Self)
- A Thought can originate from a good God’s Spirit (Good)
- A Thought can originate from another spiritual being, either a holy angel (Good) or Satan, devil, unholy angel, demon, or unclean spirit (Evil)
A thought represents the potential seed from an unseen realm of influence that can be birthed and expressed in the external actions or words of a human. Having an evil thought does not make you an evil man, unless you act upon it and live it out. I believe that a person can be influenced to do good or evil according to what they entertain and allow to remain in their minds. This is what we just read in Genesis 6 when men only thought evil and acted evil. God’s
There is a verse of scripture that occurs in the N.T. that says “Those who are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God” (Rom 8:14). This verse is a scripture that demonstrates the potential for spiritual influence on humans. It teaches us how a spirit can encourage people to do the right things. To be led is the human action of choice to following a guide who shows us the way to go. However, to be led means we have the opportunity to go the other way and not follow their directions. It further implies that there are other spirits that can also lead us to do the wrong things in life. This means that all spirits good or bad can give you direction and that each spirit speaking to us know exactly what they said to you. This does not mean they read your mind, it only means they provided the guiding thought. They spoke something to your mind and your spirit and what you do with it is totally up to you. You can be led by it or you can be a person who ignores it or even one that rebels to do the opposite. It really boils down to your ability to discern the origin of the voice (thought) being spoken internally. The good news is that you can know the difference between God and a demon and this is because God says this to you:
Joh 10:4 And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice.
Joh 10:5 And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers.
Joh 10:14 I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine.
We can clearly see Jesus speaking to us and we are called His sheep. He says we will be able to recognize His voice because we belong to Him. We should know that this is a faith proposition being presented to us, but there is also an internal spiritual knowing that will be present. It is very difficult to explain this to people, if you have never experienced it. Some have called it an intuition, but we could call it a hunch or awareness or an instinct. You do not know how you know, you just know. This has happened to me repeatedly, I have a thought and just based upon the content of the thought I know it came from God. It is very hard to explain in natural terms because it is a spiritual experience.
2Co 10:5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
This is a fairly popular verse of scripture that you should already be aware of. But, since we are speaking about the realm of the mind and the origination of thoughts let’s examine what God is saying. We can see that God is speaking to us to do something. God tells us to “Cast Down” imaginations. Then God says to “Take Captive” every thought that does not align with the Knowledge of God. These are two aggressive actions that we are required to take based upon what? If you read the context of this verse you can see that God is again describing a spiritual warfare that is taking place. This means you must interpret this verse within the context of spiritual warfare and this is how you fight against your spiritual enemy Satan. Where do these thoughts and imaginations come from that you are to “make captive” and “cast down”? They must come from Satan, otherwise if they were from God we would not need to do anything but follow His leading. We can assume by indirect reference that the source of these things in our mind that are NOT supposed to be there are from Satan and it is our responsibility to police them out. It is also obvious to me that if Satan puts these thoughts in our mind then he certainly knows what we are thinking at that instance. But, he is waiting to see what we do with the thought to see if it worked or not.
Mat 6:31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
Here is a vital spiritual principle to understand. Jesus said that you can take a thought or reject the thought by reverse implied reference. This is also a demonstrated choice or act of our freewill. God never says that He will control our thought in the Bible. A thought is like if someone offered you some money, you could take it or you could walk away from it by your own choice. More than likely you will take it because it is desirable. However, if I handed you a poisonous snake and you took it from me, then you may be called a fool.
This is the nature of the spiritual battle found within our mind. Jesus is teaching us not to take every thought that we have and to speak them verbally, or act on them, or accept them, etc. To take a thought means you accept it into your heart and then you begin to speak out what you were thinking. This is how Satan knows his mind seed trick has succeeded. As soon as you think something that is contrary to the Word of God you should immediately think what does the Bible say about that? When Satan tempted Jesus, Jesus would automatically say “It is written” and inform Satan what was written to counter what Satan had just said to Him in his mind. This is what we need to do also. However, this assumes that we have studied and read the Bible in order to know what to say in response. Satan is not going to wait for us to go and get our Bible and look up a scripture. Satan is going to find you alone in the wilderness without anyone there to help and then bring thoughts into your mind. It is at these times of isolation that we better have something to say from our heart. Here in the context of this verse in Matthew 6, Jesus is speaking of how people can let worry consume them into saying and doing things that they should not. Worry is another negative mental process that is thinking on the wrong things and allowing them to control us. Jesus is giving us some important information to know about the mental and spiritual realm of reality. I hope you can see it.
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GIVING US A THOUGHT AND MINDREADING
I personally do not believe that Satan can hear your thoughts or read your mind. However, Satan can certainly give you these thoughts as we have seen to try to influence you through your mind. I do not believe that Satan is omnipotent, omnipresent or omniscient based upon my study of the Bible. Satan as the being Lucifer was a created spiritual being who was created to be the high ranking ruler of the angelic order or class of beings. I believe that Lucifer was a being second in rank only to God who was and is still Supreme. God created Lucifer to be the “anointed cherub” and you can read about this in Ezekiel 28. For him to have the title “anointed cherub” implies some supernatural abilities were given to him by God.
For example, in Acts 10:38 says “How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and power who went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil”. Jesus was also anointed by God according to this verse in Acts and by His title of “Christ” which means “anointed one”. You can clearly see that an anointing represents a supernatural power over the natural. Jesus it says did good with His anointing and healed people because He possessed this anointing. It further implies that Satan using his anointed power caused all these sick people to be in this condition by his implied anointed power. Therefore, we can logically conclude that God’s anointing to heal in Jesus was and is greater than Satan’s anointing to make ill.
So far in my Bible study searches I have not seen any direct verse that says a spirit like Satan can know what you are thinking. However, God is the exception; according to many Bible verses He does know our thoughts (1 Cor 3:20, Ps 94:11, Ps 139:23). There are many verses that inform us God knows what we are thinking all of the time and that God revealed these to Jesus sometimes when He walked the face of the earth (Mat 9:4, Mat 12:25, Luke 5:22, Luke 6:8, Luke 11:17). I do not believe that Jesus knew everyone’s thoughts all of the time based upon scripture. If you recall the woman with the issue of blood snuck up on Jesus and touched Him and got healed and Jesus knew it happened because He felt power leave Him, but He still did not know who it was that touched Him (Mark 5:30). Get it? Let’s now change our focus on other spiritual beings.
Let’s look at some examples of Jesus running into people who were possessed by evil spirits and see what these stories say to us. The first one I want to read about is found in Mark the first chapter. Jesus is in the synagogue on the Sabbath teaching when He encounters a man with an unclean spirit who says:
Mar 1:24 Saying, Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God.
As you can read this unclean spirit recognizes Jesus for who He really was and speaks directly to Him. It is very interesting to me that evil spirits knew who Jesus was, but the natural Jews did not. Did you notice what this spirit being asks Jesus? This spirit asks Jesus “Did you come to destroy us”. Any spirit who could read minds would already know this fact and would not have to ask this stupid basic question. Do you understand what I just said? It is very obvious to me that evil spirits cannot read the minds of God, men or even other angels if they have to ask them questions to why they are here what they are doing. You can clearly see this example repeated in Luke 4:
Luk 4:34 Saying, Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art; the Holy One of God.
What we observe is a second witness to the fact that evil spirits are not all knowing or mind readers. Jesus was God in the form of a man who walked the face of the planet as any other human man would. God the omnipotent supreme power of the universe lowered Himself and becomes an intimate part of His own creation. Evil Spirits would consistently say we know who you are; you are the Holy One of God. Then they would ask Him are you come to destroy us? They did not know why Jesus had come in the flesh and for what purpose He had manifested as a human being. This act of God obviously took them by great surprise and they were afraid and very confused to know what to do with Him.
1Co 2:8 Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
Here in 1 Corinthians, God further confirms what I just said. This verse clearly says that if Satan would have known why Jesus was here, he would not have had Him crucified. Satan does not understand acts of love; God who is Love, so loved the World that He gave Himself for us (John 3:16). There are many God concepts that Satan does not understand. We know that God’s ways are not our ways according to Isaiah 55:8, but we can also clearly see and understand that God’s ways are not Satan’s ways either or Satan would have understood the plan of God and countered it with more effectiveness.
Jud 1:9 Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee.
There are other instances in the Bible that are related to this topic of Satanic mind reading. For example here in Jude we see Michael another high ranking angelic being having a confrontation with Satan (Lucifer) about the body of Moses. If Satan could read the mind of this angelic being that was sent to him, there would be no need for a fight. The existence of an implied verbal confrontation confirms that there was no mind reading abilities in either created spiritual being either good or bad.
So while the Bible does not have a direct verse that says Satan cannot read your mind, you have to find out what the Bible does say on the subject and put the pieces of the puzzle together to understand what he can and can’t do. We can clearly see that Jesus walked the face of the earth for over 33 years and that at no time could Satan read His mind and find out why He was here. If you believe that Jesus was a man like yourself, then you have to conclude that Satan cannot read your mind either. 
So the subject is a very complex one that is probably difficult for many to grasp. I believe sincerely that Satan cannot read your mind directly, but in this same lesson I teach you that he can give you thoughts to think on and that he knows what he said to you. These thoughts are his seeds that can take root in your spirit and grow into weeds3if you let them. You spirit was created and designed by God to be His garden and God has put you in charge of weeding it out by casting down vain imaginations and evil thoughts. These are the ways that Satan can take control of your external life behavior and he does this by planting internal seeds into your spiritual component. If you want to learn about how things work in the spiritual realm this is one of the most important subjects for us to know. It also tells us that Satan can cause people’s minds to be blinded so that we do not hear or accept the truth of God (2 Cor 4:4). The spiritual battle is primarily a war of the thoughts in your mind. Satan wants to control your thoughts and by controlling your thoughts he is able to control your actions through his negative influence. However when we meditate on God’s Word we are able to replace Satan’s thoughts with God’s. I hope that you learned something new today that will help you in your walk with God, until next time may God continue to enlighten the eyes of your spirit that you may know Him.
Understanding the Coming Anti-Christ! And the Homosexual Agenda! Part 4
(Ver 1.2) This is Part 4 in a series of lessons on understanding the coming antichrist. If you have not read this series from the beginning, I would recommend that you go and start with “Part 1”.
Gal 4:16 Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?
Today I may lose some readers, but I am going to speak the truth and I do not care what your response is to what I have to say today. According to what Paul wrote in Galatians 4:16 he experienced what I may experience today also. Paul wrote some tough words for the church at Galatia and many of the hearers were clearly offended and could not handle the truth. I will warn you that today I will be very blunt at times and at times very direct in what I teach. The country of America has been in a rapidly progressive moral decline for the past 50 years and recent events have only come to confirm this. There is an evil spiritual agenda to erode and eventually erase the moral fiber of the established Biblical history and foundation of our country. While the United States is by far not a perfect country, the establishment of a Christian nation caused God to bless us tremendously for over the past 250 years and to cause us to grow to be the leading power of the world. Around 390 years ago, the people of Europe were tired of the religious oppression and control that was being forced upon them and so they came to America to worship God freely without persecution. The United States and its founders were highly motivated by God and the Bible and they built and designed our government using established Bible principles. While the founding fathers of the U.S. incorporated and defined the freedom of religion to be the moral background to worship the One True Living God of the Bible, they left in obvious loop holes that allow other choices to be made. Obviously this is another Bible principle being written into our constitution that is backed up by God’s Word. You see, God does not promote a Forced Salvation theology, despite what a lot of my ignorant commenters like to tell me. Man was created with freewill to choose and this was a choice to either believe in Jesus or not to believe in Jesus as their Savior and Lord. So while our country goes through these changes from the Godless leadership of our President and Congress, it saddens me tremendously while not surprising me in the least little bit. I of course am speaking of the recent government decision to allow homosexuals in our military openly. There has been an openly aggressive agenda from the spiritual realm to redefine morality and what is acceptable to God. I call this the homosexual agenda and I will discuss this agenda in conjunction to its relationship of the subject of the coming antichrist. Here are the progressive steps of the homosexual agenda that have transpired up until this point in time of the homosexual agenda:
- Pervert the human sexual orientation, identity and behavior and cause personal confusion.
- Redefine morality and sin to be an open minded concept free from the Bible’s input.
- Encourage sexual identity development using the coming our process.
- Highlight established social acceptance emphasizing diversity using the stars found in the media and television.
- Show the gay lifestyle in the movies and TV as being a viable reality.
- Nominate gay TV shows, movies and actors for awards to promote them as being great role models for our children.
- Introduce children to the gay life style early so that they can better determine their true identity.
- Shame any church or preacher that teaches against homosexuality as being a sin by calling them intolerant, biased, bigoted and hateful.
- Never show the consequences, hurt and true pain caused by the homosexual life style nor the suicides it causes.
- Overly emphasize any negative acts committed against a gay man or woman as being a hate crime of great evil against a good person and a clear violation of their civil rights to gain sympathy for the cause.
- Promote human sexuality as being a pre-ordained design pattern and not a human life choice.
- Elevate the homosexual life styles to be a legal civil right of a minority group of consensual adults.
- Hide or downplay the abusive perverted homosexual behavior of child molesters unless they are committed by a religious figure or leader.
- Never mention any serial killers as being homosexual even though they killed many young boys.
- Shift human choices off of the individual and alleviate any personal responsibility for sin.
- Redefine marriage to be between any two adults regardless of sex and ignore the Bible.
These are just a few of the observable patterns that I have personally witnessed in my life time on the earth from the homosexual agenda. They are clearly represented in the news media, on TV talk shows, in movies, magazines and now on the internet and the determined purpose is to change the thinking minds of those who are being raised in the ignorance of the truth. It is a clear technique in brain washing the people to accept the coming antichrist. They are all cleverly designed ploys of deception to cause people to buy into a lie.
I had a commenter ask me why I used a blanked out picture of the face of the President in my recent article on the “Antichrist”? Was I saying that Obama was the antichrist? No, I was not saying that at all. Obama does not fit the information given to us in the Bible about the antichrist. I do not know who the antichrist is right now. However, I have learned by studying the Bible how the antichrist will operate and what he will do to gain his power and control, to change the world and redefine the freedoms of our founding fathers. No you see when a man rises rapidly to power that has no basis to be in power, and has done so in a fashion causing so many people to buy into his smooth way of talking, it says to me BEWARE A DECEIVER! No I do not believe that Obama is the antichrist, but I do believe that he is a forerunner to the coming agenda of the antichrist and also a pattern of this man. I believe the similarities are unmistakably recognizable. I believe that this is the exact way the antichrist will come to power and that is why I used the picture and for no other reason. What I see is a man who says one thing and then does something that is the opposite. Here is a man that promotes himself as a Christian in speeches, but acts more like a godless non-believer in his decision processes. You see Jesus said you will know them by their fruit and not by their words. Anybody can say I am a Christian, but only a few will actually back up those words with appropriate corresponding actions to prove it. According to Jesus you can tell who is a Christian and who is not a Christian simply by observing the external actions of a man. Here is a man that promotes and drives abortions and the rights of women to choose, human genetic and stem cell research, homosexuality and I could go on and on. All I know is that he does not act like a Christian so you decide what he is. So, while I believe that Christians are not supposed to preach against sinners, I do believe that we should teach how not to be deceived by the words of someone who does not bear the fruit of righteousness. There is absolutely no way that our President got voted into office without the clear support of a great number of deceived Christians who voted for him. I can tell you plainly that I was not one of these. So today’s lesson is about the coming deception of the antichrist and how the slow creeping infestation of the homosexual agenda being forced upon the world fits directly into his perverted plan.
We will begin our study of the antichrist using a couple of verses found in the Book of Daniel. The book of Daniel has a lot of prophecies concerning this coming individual and these will be important to see and understand. We will read beginning in Chapter 11 and verse 36:
Dan 11:36 And the king shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished: for that that is determined shall be done.
Daniel was God’s prophet and he speaks the words of God given to him. Daniel is speaking of the coming antichrist king and tells us more about his personality and character. We again see clear references to his ability to speak things against the “God of gods”. That is a very interesting title and an important revelation to be understood, but I won’t get it into it in this blog. The antichrist continues to magnify himself to be God and clearly is attempting to deceive the simple minded people of the earth. It is interesting to note that this verse says that Satan is doing his will and not the will of God. Too many ignorant Christian believe that God is in ultimate control of everything that happens in the world, but that is just not what the Bible says. Here is a prime example of how another’s will is done and not God’s will. The Hebrew word in this verse translated as “indignation” is a very strong word. It means to “froth” or “foam” at the mouth. In my last blog on this subject I taught you that this man will have power coming from his mouth and this verse is just further connection to his mouth and his words being a determining factor. God says that this “indignation” of his mouth will continue until someone puts an end to it and shuts him up and I believe that someone is God and His Word. The final word in this verse that I want to point out is the Hebrew word translated as “determined” and this word means “to wound”. If you do not know it God prophesied in Genesis 3:15 that the woman and her seed would bruise his head and I believe that God is giving us a direct prophetic reference to this event in this verse. The man of sin will continue to speak great boastful words against God until God bruises the head of the serpent under the feet of the church (Romans 16:20) and causes him to be wounded. However, this will not be the end of the antichrist because he will later appear to miraculously recover from this head wound as we will see in Revelation.
Dan 11:37 Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers, nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all.
Here is the verse that I wanted to focus in on today in regard to the homosexual agenda being forced upon the world. It is very clear to me that God is telling us in this verse that the antichrist is a male who is not interested in women. What do you call a man like this, besides crazy? You call him a homosexual. This tells me that the antichrist will fully embrace the homosexual agenda and that he is actually the one that is behind it all in the first place. If you think about this you will see why he is doing it. The anti-Christ is opposed to everything that God does. If God created them male and female then the anti-Christ is for the opposite which would be male and male or female and female. Whatever Christ did or is doing, the anti-Christ will do the complete opposite. The Bible clearly informs us that Christ the Lamb of God will clearly marry a bride in Revelation 21:9. So it is very easy to assume that if Christ has a wife, the anti-Christ will have a same sex partner that will pervert what God has created. Of course the anti-Christ is technically a spiritual being in a physical body and he will use this knowledge to try to get out of the sentence of being tormented in hell for an eternity. But, this will not be successful. We can see however, that when the antichrist comes on the scene he will definitely promote and embrace the homosexual lifestyle as a normal way of life and this is what is happening in the U.S. right now.
Let’s shift gears and talk about the easiest way to deceive people. How do you get a dog to eat strychnine poison? You always wrap the poison in a tasty steak before you give it to them. This is what the homosexual community has been doing in America for the last 50 years. The homosexual community saw how the civil rights movement worked to become so effective and they jumped on the same band wagon. They chose to compare their sinful lifestyle to the color of someone’s skin and call them the same things. Obviously no man chose the color of their skin in this world. We were all born here without given a choice to being a male or a female. We were all born in the world without selecting our nation of origin. We did not even get to choose our parents or our relatives; so obviously all of these factors transfer to morality, sin and other elements in life, or not! They have introduced a fabrication of the truth to say “we were born homosexual” and they deny any choices ever being made on their own part. The problem with this logic is how do you differentiate between a homosexual and a child molester type of pedophile? Why can’t the pedophile use the same argument and just say this is the way I was born? What about the murderer who just loves to kill people for fun? Can’t they be smart enough to jump on the civil rights band wagon and say this is just how I was born? I’ll bet you that homosexuals love the “Predestination Theology” so that they can attribute that this was the way that God created them to be and they cannot change so we should just all accept them exactly like they are.
In all fairness to homosexuals and other sinners in the world, most of them do what they do out of ignorance. When Saul persecuted the church and threw them into jail and caused the death of some of them, Paul later wrote that what he had done was done out of ignorance (1 Tim 1:13). In other words Paul didn’t know any better but he still sinned against God anyway. While he thought he was doing the right thing before God, he was actually a direct enemy to God. So sinners also do not understand that there are spiritual forces controlling and influencing what they do. They do not understand demon possession and how that a spirit can cause you to do something like sin. They do not understand that everything we do has consequences in this world good or bad. Since they are oblivious to spiritual things, they do not even know who or what they really are. Many say they are females trapped in a male body. Others say they are a male trapped in a female body. Heaven forbid that they are a spirit trapped in a human body? Since they do not know they are a spiritual being and not just a body they simply are controlled to follow what feels good to them and what satisfies their thoughts of perverted fantasies that are being placed in their simple minds by evil spirits. No, they choose to embrace a message that evil spirits do not exist and only what matters is what they want to do in this present world, so therefore you should be more open and tolerant to how God has created them to be. I’m sorry but I just cannot do that. While I love you, I do not love your sin and I will not receive it to be an acceptable lifestyle. If I did that today, what would I do on judgment day? There is coming a time of judgment from God when you could look at me and say, why didn’t you tell me the truth and I will be at the least able to say I tried to, why didn’t you listen and look for the truth while you could? In this way your blood will not be on my hands. If I remained silent your blood could be on my hands in the future. What do you think I should do? Am I being intolerant for speaking the truth? Or am I just shooting a warning shot across your bow to get your attention before it’s too late?
The homosexual agenda wants the world to say “I understand and it’s OK!” They think that by getting the majority of the world to agree that their lifestyle is acceptable that this will somehow affect the way God feels about them. Unfortunately for all sinners in the world God does not run a democratic system of spiritual government where the majority rules. God is the only one that makes the majority decisions and He is the only one whose opinion matters. My opinion is worthless, your opinion is worthless and your lover’s opinion is also worthless. In fact the Supreme Court’s opinion is worthless and so is the opinion of the lawmakers of our country. Just because they passed a law this weekend that further promotes a sinful lifestyle to be a normal and an acceptable civil right freedom, does not and will not ever make it right or change what God thinks about it. You can do whatever you like and ignore the Bible if that is what makes you feel justified in your life style choices. You can rip the pages out of the Bible where it says that when a man lies with another man like a woman it is an abomination to God and they both should be put to death (Lev 18:22, Lev 20:13). You can rip out the page that says when a woman dresses like a man or a man dresses like a woman that it is also an abomination to God (Deu 22:5). You can rip out the pages of Genesis 13 where God sends two angels to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah for living their ungodly homosexual lifestyles. You can pretend that these two cities never existed, even when the Bible says that these cities were destroyed as an example for those who would come after who do the same (2 Peter 2:6). This verse is a clear warning to those that desire to call their lifestyles normal. These are verses that declare clearly the homosexual lifestyle to be a perversion and not the way that God created people to be. If they only knew the truth, Jesus said the truth would set them free from their bondage.
The next key step in the homosexual agenda is the universal redefinition of marriage. It is already started in many states and when the Vice President was asked about Gay marriage, he spoke on TV this morning about the country becoming an evolving community of openness. This is exactly the homosexual agenda in action, however I call it the evolving level of deception, but I’m sure they do not see it this way. Take away God’s Word and introduce a new world order for the definition of marriage and morality. By allowing men to marry men and women to marry women it further enforces their normalcy in the minds of those that practice it. The antichrist will love this work that is being accomplished for him and I’m sure he is watching anxiously for the completion of the deception. I hope that you join with me in praying for those that are deceived so that they will come to know the truth before it is too late. God Bless!
Understanding the Coming Anti-Christ! The Man with Power in His Mouth! Part 3
(Ver 1.0) This is now Part 3 of a series of lessons on the Coming Antichrist. If you have not read this series from the beginning I would highly recommend that you start your reading with “Part 1”. Everyone who studies the Bible wants to know about the coming antichrist. Very few Christians have never heard of this soon rising world leader, but few actually know much about him. While the Bible does not directly tell us who the antichrist is or where he comes from, I believe the Bible gives us enough clues to help identify him, what he will represent and what he will attempt to accomplish in the world. I’ll start today by saying the term “antichrist” is technically only found in the books of first and second John. However, this does not mean that other books speak about the same coming individual using different names and titles. This is a widely popular method utilized by God to conceal the truth in the Bible; call the same thing by many different names, titles, descriptions and symbols. The term “antichrist” is certainly a valid name found in the Bible so that it cannot be easily explained away by those who do not believe in this man. The word antichrist can be easily defined as a man with an opposite anointing to Jesus. Whatever Jesus did, the antichrist will do the opposite. Since Jesus was the truth, then the antichrist will be the liar. Since Jesus went around doing good healing people (Acts 10:38), the antichrist will be here to do evil, hurt and kill people. Take a look at what Jesus did on the earth and then inverse those qualities and actions and this is what the antichrist will be. So while the name or title antichrist does not appear but in two books directly found in the Bible, there are other names to look for. For example, Jesus gave us a clue of one called a “false Christ”.
Mat 24:24 For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.
A false Christ is easily defined as anyone that is a deceiver who claims to be a Christ. We have seen many men in the modern era who have exalted themselves to this level and the end result has widely been the death of many of their followers by self-inflicted or forced suicides. You can see this in the lives of those who followed David Koresh in Waco and those who followed Jim Jones in Guyana. It is clear that people will be easily deceived by the right charismatic personality if they do not know or understand the Bible. To hear the words of one of these men in the early stages of their deception you would have thought they were good men; however the later end was not so good. This is a standard methodology of deception, to wrap your poison in tasty morsels of steak that are highly desirable. Any way Jesus gives us a name called a “false Christ” who will come to deceive you in the later times. Jesus who was the master of signs and wonders informs us that these false Messiahs will also be able to imitate what Jesus did on the earth. Jesus raised the dead and I would not be shocked to find that Satan can do the same thing when comes into the world. Perhaps later we will look at scriptures in Revelation that indicates that the antichrist will miraculously recover from a major head wound. It would almost sound to me that he is raised from the dead back to life from this wound that was inflicted upon him. It sounds like it could be that miraculous. What you should realize is that just because someone does something supernatural, does not make them a follower of Christ. Jesus pretty clearly says that we should not be followers of signs and wonders, only followers of Christ and the Word of God.
So today we will continue our walk through the Bible looking for more of the clues to the coming antichrist. You may recall in the first two lessons we talked about him being the “man of sin” and the “son of destruction” found in 2 Thessalonians 2:3 and I taught you that I believe this helps to confirm that this will be Satan’s attempt to repeat what God did in the earth through Jesus Christ. Satan rarely has an original thought, so whatever he does is normally a perversion of something that has already been done in the past by God who has initiated creativity into the world. I call the antichrist, Satan incarnate. This is exactly what God did in the man Jesus when He became flesh and walked among us healing people and doing things that were good to all of humanity. However, the antichrist will not be here to do you any good and we will see this in several scriptures that I will give you today. I personally believe that Satan is very desperate knowing that his time is growing very short and that he is running out of options to try to save himself from the coming appointed time when he will be cast into hell. In the second lesson we begin to look at the book of Daniel and how this man is again mentioned in a very negative regard being called a different type of king that will come. I want to continue today’s lesson by giving you some more scriptures in Daniel that talks about this different king that will arise. We will begin by looking at Daniel 8:23 first:
Dan 8:23 And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up.
A king of fierce countenance and understanding dark sentences shall come forth. Let’s start by looking at the words “fierce countenance”. The Hebrew word translated as “fierce” means to be strong, mighty, fierce, greedy and powerful. These are traits and characteristics of an evil being like Satan. The Hebrew word translated as “countenance” means the “face” and that is an interesting statement of where his power is located. You can find over 300 times in the Old Testament that this Hebrew word is directly translated as the word “face”. In this verse in Daniel the translators seemed to want to translate it as how the face looked and not the direct mention of the meaning of the word. However, on the face of every human, is an opening called the mouth and this is the external expression device for the internal spirit inside of the body. In fact if you study your Bible you will see that this is the only way that the internal human spirit can be expressed externally is by your words that come out of your mouth. So Satan when he is here as a physical man, he will demonstrate fierce power coming from his face or mouth. You should understand why this is being stated by studying the Bible about the power of spoken words. I wrote a lesson on “Understanding God’s Spiritual Power and the Power of Spirits” and it might help you to go and read that if you do not understand what I just said about your mouth having spiritual power.
Understanding “dark sentences” is a complex part of the verse to technically explain. Let’s start by understanding what “dark sentences” are. According to the Hebrew word’s definition from Strong’s, this word means a riddle, a puzzle, a hard question, a trick, a conundrum, sententious maxim, a dark sentence, a proverb. If you do not realize it or not, this is exactly how the Bible was written and describes God’s writing methodology found in the Bible. God hid a wealth of complex spiritual knowledge in some words that are very difficult to understand for even Christians and for unsaved people entirely impossible to comprehend. Satan has learned the hard way that he should not have crucified the Lord Jesus Christ on a cross, even though this event was prophesied for hundreds of years before it happened. Because he did not understand the consequences of killing God on a cross, God tricked Satan into doing it anyway. Satan has now learned that he better not do something so stupid again, but of course now it’s too late and his fate is sealed. However, I guarantee you that Satan is studying the Bible and looking for ways out more than most Christians are studying the Bible to find out the truth. To understand something means that you comprehend the meaning of what is being stated. There are many Christians who read the Bible occasionally, but few who understand what they just read. Satan, I believe is bent on understanding the Bible and it says this in this verse in Daniel that he will come forth with great understanding. This understanding would explain how it is possible for Satan to manifest in a flesh form. This understanding would also demonstrate how it will be easy to deceive the simple minded people of the world who do not understand the Bible. We have only gone through one new verse and I wrote two paragraphs of some very important information about the antichrist. I hope you are grasping these things that I just said. Let’s look at the next verse found directly after:
Dan 8:24 And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power: and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practise, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people.
Here we again see a reference to him as being a powerful type of individual. Let’s stop there and reemphasize where the power of a spiritual being resides in a physical world. You can obviously look at this verse in two different perspectives if you choose to. First there is physical power and strength we know from the Bible that spirits can give physical being greater natural strength to do amazing feats that are not normally achievable. You can see this demonstrated in the life of Sampson in the Old Testament and you can also see it in the opposite evil way when Jesus cast out evil spirits from a man in the country of Gadarenes in Mark 5:1. In this story it says that people could not even bind this demon possessed man with chains, because he was able to break them. Both of these examples are obviously supernatural examples of spiritual power being displayed on the earth. Is this the power that the antichrist will exhibit? While I do not discount that it is possible, I believe the spiritual power coming from the antichrist’s mouth will cause much greater devastation and harm. Did you notice what this verse said? It said that his power shall be mighty but not by his own power. That is a perplexing statement, isn’t it? It sounds like a riddle to me? How can a man be strong but not use his own strength? To me it only makes sense if you change from a physical perspective and see it from a spiritual perspective. The physical man’s ability will not come from his physical body is what I believe this is trying to tell us. I believe that this antichrist’s power will come from his spirit and his mouth. Again I’ll make references to Satan doing what Jesus does and Jesus is described as the man with the sword coming out of His mouth in Revelation 1:16, 2:12, 2:16 and 19:15-21. You can clearly see that Jesus’ power is said to be in His mouth as a symbolic double edged sword in these verses. So again if Satan has learned and understands the Bible and where his power is, then he will also imitate whatever Jesus will come and do also. Let’s look at another verse in Revelation about this coming antichrist:
Rev 13:5 And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.
Hopefully you know that the tribulation period is scheduled to be a period of 7 years on the earth. This period is described as being a week of years. If you multiply 7 years by 12 (months) you get 84 months of total time. We can clearly see that for 42 of these months or half of the entire duration of the tribulation, a man will come forth with great demonstrations of power in his mouth. Here in this verse you can see that there is an indirect mention of the antichrist. If you read the context of the chapter you know that this chapter corresponds to some verses that we can find in Daniel about the beast with ten horns. What we see in this chapter is the same basic information being restated from a different perspective. So chapter 13 of Revelation is definitely related to the vision found in the book of Daniel of the beasts and the antichrist. The main reason I wanted to give you this verse is to demonstrate a couple of important things that I said about the earlier verses in Daniel. Here we have several key words being reiterated. We have “power” and we have the direct mention of a “mouth” that speaks. Wow, that is too amazing to be a coincidence. This again shows us or at the least implies that this man is an incarnate Satan who has power to speak words to cause harm and deception. The occurrence of mouth and power in the same verse is not there by chance. I also believe that because 42 months is mentioned here that the antichrist will use the first three and half years of the tribulation to rise to power with his promises of peace. Then when he comes into his full power I believe that he will use his new position of authority to try to destroy that peace.
The subject of the antichrist and the tribulation is a vastly complex subject and I do not profess to know it all right now. I’m learning stuff new every day that I study this subject. This is the way it works. You learn what you can and you continue to build upon it until you get it all done, if that is even possible. I have found that God’s knowledge of His Word is pretty inexhaustible. Just when you think you understand everything about a single verse, God can show you something new and sometimes this new information changes everything that you thought before, but most of the time it only adds to what you know. I think for today I’ll end this lesson and continue again on it in the future. Here are some of the names of the antichrist that we have seen so far:
- Man of Sin (2 Thes 2:3)
- Son of Perdition (2 Thes 2:3)
- A King (Daniel 8:23)
- Antichrist (1 Jo 2:18)
- False Christ (Mat 24:24)
- Destroyer (Daniel 8:24)
- Deceiver (Mat 24:24, 2 Jo 1:7)
- Supernatural Miracle Worker (Mat 24:24, 2 Th 2:9)
- Blasphemer (Rev 13:5)
- Murderer (Dan 8:24)
I know some of my titles are not directly found in these verses, but are derived from a logical association of what is stated in those verses. I tried to take the verbs and adjectives given to us in these verses and change them into nouns to describe this individual, so do not criticize; just learn what they say and then use your brain like I try to do. Hopefully we will continue in this study in my next lesson, but sometimes the Lord leads me to write about other things also to try to remain in a balanced state of teaching the Bible. If you have information about the antichrist that I do not have or have not covered I would welcome your comments and Bible information. So until next time God Bless you.
If you would like to continue reading in this series of lessons on the antichrist you may now go to “Part 4“.
Examples of Deception to Avoid Part 7 – Let’s all Go Protest Some Sinners!
(Ver 2.1) This is “Part 7” in a Bible study series about examples of modern cases of deception found in the church for Christians to avoid at all costs. If you would like to read the series from the beginning you may go to “Part 1” first. However, this lesson is intended to be a beneficial blessing for learning and applying in our lives by itself. I identify with Paul the Apostle of Jesus Christ frequently. I hear myself saying what Paul taught very often. Thankfully I have never been thrown into prison or beaten for what I teach, although I’m sure there are people who read some of these things and would like to do that to me based upon their comments that they leave me. I hadn’t written in this series for awhile. But last night on the news more people who call themselves Christians were given headline making notoriety for their clear acts of planned non-Christian attitudes and behavior. As a result Christians were made to look like haters of humans and I’m sure this is exactly what Satan was hoping for. By the foolish acts of a few people who label themselves followers of Christ every true Christian gets a discredited reputation simply by association of the name. I have learned that not everyone who calls themselves Christians, are Christians. Anybody can call themselves a car, but that does not make us a car. Jesus said you will know them (Christians) by their fruit (Mat 7:20) and clearly these people in today’s lesson are fruitless.
So let’s discuss what these fruitless deceived people are planning to do tomorrow. They are planning to go to the funeral of a famous and renowned individual to picket and protest. In doing this they feel like they are making a statement that will further their message, whatever that is I do not know. They claim that this individual who died blasphemed God and that is why they are making this public statement. So tell me this, if this person did or did not blaspheme God what good will your picket signs make to the body of the person lying in the casket? I can’t see where it will make any difference to them now no matter what you do or say.
Of course there are those who are attending the funeral, I guess that is why you are picketing since they are the only ones that will be close enough to read your signs. What message are you sending to these people? Believe it or not, you are sending an Old Message that has been around for a long time that was done away with by Jesus Christ on the cross.
What I have observed is the fact that there are many people in the world who are living in an Old Testament Law reality and ignoring the New Testament Grace reality. This is nothing new and this spirit has been around since before Jesus came into the world. In the Old Testament, if someone was found guilty of breaking the law, many times they were taken out and stoned to death.
Lev 20:2 Again, thou shalt say to the children of Israel, Whosoever he be of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn in Israel, that giveth any of his seed unto Molech; he shall surely be put to death: the people of the land shall stone him with stones.
This is the attitude of all these people who are picketing in the name of God tomorrow, they would love to stone all of the guilty parties. Yet when Jesus was confronted by the lawyers of His day with a woman who was caught in the act of adultery, what was His attitude and reaction? Did Jesus rush to judgment to pick up the first stone? Did Jesus pick up a sign to protest the sin? Did Jesus even ever speak a negative word against this sinner woman? You should go and read this story before you ever try to pick up a picket sign against someone else’s sins. Jesus told the accusers that “He who is without sin cast the first stone”. Jesus basically ignored the words of the religious lawyers and began to stoop down to write in the sand. I personally believe that Jesus wrote the names, dates and the sins on the ground of those who were standing around ready to cast stones. I believe that some of these men who were standing there were also guilty of having sex with this woman. So when Jesus wrote their names on the ground with the dates and times of their sinful acts, the Bible says they walked away one by one.
John 8 was a New Testament Jesus and God being clearly demonstrated to us. This was God’s reaction to a sinner while He was here on the earth in the flesh. This is a Godly example of how to treat those who are caught in sin. Whenever all of the accusers had left the scene without Jesus speaking any words to them, Jesus looked at the woman and said “Woman where are your accusers?” Then Jesus said “neither do I accuse you, go and sin no more”. This was an act of forgiveness, mercy, love and compassion on the behalf of God. These New Testament acts of God are ignored by those who desire to still stone the guilty. So by anyone holding up condemning words on a sign, are they not casting the first stone? Who died and made us greater than Jesus? In this story of the woman caught in adultery, the only sinless man in the crowd was Jesus and He was the only one that could have legitimately thrown the first stone, but He did not. Wow, that is a very important lesson to learn today.
When one protester woman was interviewed by the news, she was asked “Did God tell you to picket this funeral?” Her answer was not surprising; she said “Every fiber of her being said she was doing the right thing”. Wow, what an ignorant reply to a direct question. She obviously did not feel comfortable with telling a lie and saying God had told her to do it, so she gave an indirect unrelated answer to the question. If this woman was a spiritual lady, the fiber of her being would be different than if she was a carnal natural woman. People can do things based upon many different factors and feelings and emotions are just two reasons why people do things that they do in the world. What we need to realize is that our feelings and our emotions can both be enemies against God and doing the right things to and for people.
There are people who like to drink alcohol and get drunk and they are clearly led by their desires and feelings to do this. Then there are people who take drugs and are controlled by these substances based upon a feeling in their bodies. I will bet that every fiber of their being tells them they need more drugs, but is this the right thing for them to do? Many times doing the right things goes against how we feel. In John 3:16 it says “God so loved the WORLD that he picketed and protested until they changed into doing the right things”. Uh oh, it doesn’t say that does it? The Bible actually says that “God so loved the world that He gave”. Did God feel like giving Himself on a cross? I will guess from all of the pain that was experienced while hanging for hours on the cross this was not a feeling that would be good. The Bible says Jesus sweated drops of blood because of the impending pressure that he was under about going to die on a cross for our sins (Luk 22:44). Jesus prayed and asked His Father three times, “Father if it be possible, may this cup pass from me, nevertheless not my will but your will be done” (Mat 26:39). Doing the right thing should never be based upon a human feeling.
I want to wrap this lesson up with another revelation from God’s word that will cause us to think today. Did you know that most of the New Testament was written by a blasphemer of God by his own admission? How could God possibly make a minister out of a blasphemer? I’ll bet you can’t answer that question today. Do you know who I am talking about? I am talking about Paul, the Apostle of Jesus Christ sent unto the Gentiles. Here are the words of Paul:
1Ti 1:12 And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry;
1Ti 1:13 Who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief.
Paul previously Saul, says that what he did in his past by killing and imprisoning Christians was done in ignorance. He even claims that he was a blasphemer. Saul was a self-righteous religious zealot that felt like he was doing God’s work by committing evil acts against people that had done nothing to him. Wasn’t Saul judging these people? Didn’t Saul take it way beyond protesting to the next level of injurious persecution? Wasn’t all of these wrongs done because of what these Christians were doing and saying? Wow, isn’t this what religious protestors do today? Doesn’t this apply to how people are judging others like they never had committed any sin themselves?
Do you think that you would have picketed Paul to write 2/3 of the New Testament? Would you ask recently converted Saul to come to your town to preach? I would bet that you would not. This was the kind of opposition that Saul got trying to change to become a Christian. I mean he was a blasphemer! He killed Christians. He put them into jails. Yet some Christians want to celebrate and thank God that He killed this lady at the funeral that they are picketing. People are truly deceived that act with such outward hatred towards people that God loved so much to die for them. Here is what Paul the blasphemer told Timothy to do and it was not to go and protest against sinners:
1Ti 4:12 Let no one look down on your youthfulness, but rather in speech, conduct, love, faith and purity, show yourself an example of those who believe.
As you can see God said that we should be doing something with our speech and conduct must be associated with what God’s definitions of Love, Faith and Purity. This is the example we as Christians should be portraying to others that are unsaved in the world. If you do not understand this, you should look up the definitions of these New Testament words and learn about them fast.
Because some people desire to make a difference in the world they are often motivated to do overzealous acts out of ignorance like Saul did. Rarely does it do any good, but nevertheless they must feel better because they think they did something religious for God. What we all need to do is to learn the differences presented in the New Testament from those given to us in the Old Testament. Because people only focus on the Old Testament verses they embrace a God of judgment with abundant laws and punishments like Saul did. However, the Old Testament is the New Testament hidden and the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed. So whenever a person focuses only on the Old Testament they are only seeing hidden truths about the real God that are revealed clearly in the New Testament. This is one of the greatest mistakes that modern churches can make. Learn the lesson of Jesus with the woman caught in the act of adultery and see what was His reaction and actions towards her. Then ask yourself would Jesus pick up a picket sign with mean judgmental words written upon it and take it to a funeral to protest against sinners? I cannot find that in the Bible, at least not in the New Testament.
So we have to make a choice to do the right thing based upon the New Covenant today and ignore every fiber of our being that screams to us to do something that Jesus would not do. Since Paul was able to change I will pray that we all will also change to know the real will of God to reach the lost. May God enlighten us to see the difference! To those real Christians out there who can see the truth, I would suggest that you also pray for those attending the funeral of this woman that died of breast cancer and then pray for the eyes of the protesters to be opened so that they will come to know the real God who is LOVE!
A PERSONAL APPLICATION
LORD, I pray that you will help me not be deceived. Lead me far away from anyone that is not proclaiming or acting according to what you said in your Word. Help me to turn from being influenced or pressured by anyone that is not being led by your Spirit and acting in real Love. Open my spiritual eyes to be able to understand your Word and discern between right and wrong, truth and lies, and good and evil. Live large in my heart and help me to be a loving light of kindness to the world so that they will desire to be like you in me. Thank LORD for your faithfulness to me in Jesus Name to help me produce your desired fruit, I pray. Amen.
Understanding the Coming Anti-Christ! The Different King! Part 2
(Ver 1.1) This is Part 2 of a series of lessons on Understanding the coming Anti-Christ revealed to us in the Bible. If you read the first lesson, you no doubt heard a few new things that were difficult to accept because they were mostly new concepts for many. I have read some other teacher’s material and I am not alone in what I taught you in lesson 1. In this first lesson I showed you several verses found in 2 Thessalonians that heavily indicates that the coming antichrist will be Satan incarnate. If you have never thought about that before, then you probably drew back from those statements. Does Satan have the power and ability to do what God does? Does Satan have the knowledge to do what God does? Can Satan learn from watching God and repeat or at the minimum mimic and mock God’s works and words with his own similar signs and wonders? These of course are difficult questions to answer. If Satan is capable of doing what God does, this would mean Satan when he was created was made to be like God in every aspect and feature. We can only assume that Satan was made on a lower level or scale than God, but nonetheless still made to resemble the Most High God. If you have not read from the beginning I would strongly suggest that you go and start you reading in this series with “Part 1”.
We learned in the first lesson that the coming antichrist is called the “man of sin” or the “man of lawlessness”. We also saw that he is directly called the “son of perdition” or the “son of destruction”. All of these names are terms that can be directly associated with Satan. So today I will explore this subject of the antichrist from a different angle, giving you some new Bible verses about this coming man of sin. I want to look at some verses found in the book of Daniel. The book of Daniel is a heavily symbolic book of information that contains both historical and future prophetic information. The book of Daniel also ends with God telling the prophet to seal up the words that were written until the time of the end so that they can be revealed. Since we are now living in the time of the end, I believe God has started revealing the meanings of this book to His people on the earth. I mean what do we need to know this information in heaven for? There will be no Satan, no enemy, no spiritual battles in heaven. So this information will be virtually worthless when we all get there. So we must be smart enough to allow God to show us what these verses mean now.
Dan 7:19 Then I would know the truth of the fourth beast, which was diverse from all the others, exceeding dreadful, whose teeth were of iron, and his nails of brass; which devoured, brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with his feet;
The book of Daniel paints a very bleak picture concerning a coming world kingdom. Many in the world have been calling for this kingdom for decades not realizing what they are doing. The term “A New World Order” has been a popular phrase that will help introduce this new satanic kingdom to the masses. I’m not going to teach the entire book of Daniel today, there is just too much information to even try to do that. I am only focused in on the coming one beast of the antichrist found in this book. I will tell you briefly that Daniel in chapter 7 gives us a vision of four world kingdoms. Three have already been raised up and have fallen in the past, but one is still left to come. Here in this verse of Daniel 7:19, it says that this fourth coming kingdom will be different than the others that came before it. So if you want to know how this kingdom is different you are going to have to do an in-depth study of the other three to see how they were. I will not elaborate on all of the differences in that level of detail in this lesson. I will however, address two factors that makes the coming kingdom different than any other previous kingdoms and these are my main points today. You see while Daniel describes this beast and these kingdoms he gives us some valuable clues to what to look for. In every previous world kingdom there has always been a limited scope of the definition of the inhabited world. In other words, the main part of the world back in Daniel’s day was only parts of Europe, Asia and northern Africa. No previous world ruler actually ruled the entire world, it was just geographically impossible for an army with so few soldiers to accomplish a true world kingdom. So every world kingdom of that day never ruled North or South Americas or Australia and a few other places in the world. So one of the key features of the coming new World Empire of the antichrist that will come is that it will have to rule as much of the inhabited world as possible and this is a very large area. I believe that this will be one key difference of the coming empire from the past kingdoms, but not the only difference.
Dan 7:20 And of the ten horns that were in his head, and of the other which came up, and before whom three fell; even of that horn that had eyes, and a mouth that spake very great things, whose look was more stout than his fellows.
It is of course difficult for people to see what the Bible says if they have never studied it. Verses like these and those found in the book of Revelation are extremely challenging to understand. You can simply tell this by the number of idiot interpretations we can find on the internet for the exact same Bible information. I can remember 40 years ago hearing preachers teach of the coming 10 nation alliance and they saw this as being 10 European nations that were going to form the European Union to create a new world super power. Now that the EU has way more than 10 members, I do not know how they explain what they taught 40 years ago. These were just crazy private interpretations of the Word of God that caused confusion and they are still being taught today in many church circles. I learned from these preachers and teachers that you do not name names that are not found in the Bible. Whenever you do this you get it wrong ten times out of ten attempts consistently. What we can see is that the 10 horns represent 10 new Kings and you can read this in Revelation 17:12. These kingdoms did not exist in the time of the writings of the book of Revelation and it implies that they will be new Kings and Kingdoms of only a very short duration in time. Therefore to speculate who they are is pure conjecture and mindless rumors, so I will not participate in spreading these lies. There is also always a reference to an eleventh coming King that will arise and I believe this man to be the actual antichrist. Here in Daniel 7:20 it says this horn will have eyes and a mouth that speaks great things and will be stronger than the other ten kings.
Dan 7:21 I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them;
As you can see the antichrist king will be opposed to God, Christ, the Bible and Christians everywhere. He will be strong enough to pursue and persecute them heavily this verse says. The antichrist knows that his time is very short left on the earth so he is doing whatever he thinks he can to either extend his time on the earth or to delay the coming end as long as he can. Let’s skip down to verse 23:
Dan 7:23 Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.
We can again see that this coming fourth world Kingdom will attempt to control and destroy the whole earth. We can clearly see that the term “whole earth” is used to emphasize one of the ways how this kingdom will be different than those that came before it. It also clearly states that this beast will be bent upon the spread of destruction and mayhem. We can definitely see the hand of Satan personally at work in this kingdom. These are just more scriptures that tell me that the coming antichrist will be Satan incarnate and this is what also makes this kingdom so different than all previous world kingdoms. While Satan might have influenced and backed the previous world rulers of the past, he was never here to rule physically himself until this coming kingdom. So I strongly believe that you can see how this coming kingdom will be so radically different than all of those that came before.
Dan 7:24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise: and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.
Here we have another verse that informs us that the 10 horns are symbolically representative of 10 kings on the earth. I believe that these ten are all naturally deceived men, the descendants of Adam who are here already but maybe not yet in power. However, this verse then clearly tells us of another king who will arise that will be much different than the ten others. This king will take three world rulers out or down in rapid succession. I still believe that this new eleventh king is Satan incarnate who will remove 3 kings from power on the earth. This will leave a total of 7 kings left with the eighth being the antichrist. If the eleventh king is Satan incarnate it would help to explain why he is so different than all of the others mentioned and why he does what he is said to do.
Dan 7:25 And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.
Here is more difficult information, but yet it is also confirming information for what we read in 2 Thessalonians in lesson 1 on the coming antichrist. You can pretty clearly see that this man will be the one who speaks vehemently against everything that is Holy or that is God. This verse also gives us Satan’s reasons and motivations for everything that he is attempting to do. This verse says that Satan is motivated by two primary factors, first he is seeking to change the times set by God and second he wants to eliminate the law of God. These are two very critical pieces of information to what is inspiring Satan’s great and fierce anger toward both God and mankind on the earth. Satan hates everything and everyone, but Satan especially hates the Jews. Why does Satan hate the Jews so much? What do the Jews possess today that makes him hate them so much? Why does Satan want to kill all of the Jews on the planet earth? If you do not understand it is because of the Law of Moses, then you do not clearly understand what God has done and has accomplished with Jesus Christ coming to the planet in the flesh. God had to do something to put Satan under the law in order to convict him of his sins. You cannot convict anyone that is not under the law of the physical or spiritual nation where they are. You do understand this, don’t you? One country in our world can make it illegal for you to wear blue clothes, but unless you go to that country wearing blue clothes, you cannot be convicted of that crime even if you are wearing blue clothes right now. This is called legal jurisdiction or authority. Satan came to the earth which had been given to Adam and he became the god of this world, the Bible says. Adam had legal jurisdiction for what happened in the world. But, there were no laws so Satan was a free spiritual being able to do whatever he wanted practically until God showed up. So God gave Israel the law for several reasons, but one of them was to get Satan under this law.
The only way to eliminate the law of God is to eliminate those who are bound to it. The natural nation of Israel is still bound by God’s O.T. laws. So Satan is still highly motivated to kill them all so that he can hope to take himself out from under this law of God. This is why Satan tried to kill every Jew with Adolf Hitler and this is why every Muslim nation in the world hates the natural nation of Israel and wants to drive them all into the sea today. As soon as a nation like Iran gets nuclear weapons, Israel is in deep trouble, because I believe that they will not hesitate to use them against Israel. Let’s back up in the book of Daniel and look at another vision being related to us about the coming antichrist’s kingdom.
Dan 2:32 This image’s head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass,
Dan 2:33 His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay.
Dan 2:34 Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces.
It is extremely interesting to study this picture puzzle being presented to us in the Bible. God gives a dream vision to the king of Babylon and Daniel writes it down for us to read. This is a vision of the same beasts that we looked at in Daniel 7 briefly but from a new and different perspective. This image is of one human body type of a male, but made up of five different parts and materials. You can read that the first part is said to be made of gold and this represents the makeup of the head. I believe that this is a representative type of Satan’s original greatness. If you recall in the Bible, Christ is also called the Head of the Body in Ephesian 5, but this body is the church and the body in Daniel 2 is a composite of the beasts. I believe that this is not a coincidence comparison between Jesus and the King of Babylon or Satan. This to me confirms that the coming antichrist will be another attempt of Satan to exalt himself to the same level of Christ. The Bible tells us that the head is representative of the Babylonian King Nebucadnezzar. I personally believe that this king is a symbolic type of a coming Satan figure. There are actually 5 kingdoms described to us in this dream and they are listed below in this table:
| Kingdom | Description |
| Gold (Head) | Babylonian Empire(Daniel 2:37-38) |
| Silver (Arms & Shoulders) | Medo-Persian Empire |
| Bronze (Torso) | Greek Empire |
| Iron (Legs) | Roman Empire |
| Iron and clay (Feet) | Antichrist’s Empire |
We can observe two things very quickly from this list of world kingdoms. First, is the fact that they go from oldest head kingdom to most modern the futuristic feet kingdom. I believe that metal is a symbolic representation of a spiritual power or force in this vision. Metal has value and strength associated with it. It is also interesting to note that the list of metals given goes from most valuable to least valuable in terms of monetary value and significance. Meaning the last kingdom will be the least valuable from all of the others that came before it. It actually reveals to us that Satan’s spiritual power has diminished from God’s perspective. Metals of course are a highly used symbolic agent in the Bible and can represent many things. Metals are tried by fire and are what remains from a smelting process which causes purification the Bible tells us. These of course could apply to Satan’s world also. Gold is of course outrageously priced in our current world economy and it is the most valuable metal given to us in the list. The value of silver is of course the next most valuable metal in the list of five items given to us. Bronze would be the next most valuable and then followed by iron which builds a lot of our cars and buildings that we use today. The final kingdom which is described by the feet is said to be a new mixture that has never existed before and again this points us to the fact that this one will be Satan incarnate. While these other kingdoms were backed by Satan, Satan was not here physically to rule in them. What is clay? Where does clay come from? Was Adam’s body formed from the dust of the earth? Clay, dirt, dust are all synonymous terms for what our bodies are made of. So we can clearly see that the coming feet Kingdom will be a combination of the previous spiritual metal works that backed the Roman Empire, but this time it will be mixed with human flesh. I believe that this is a clear prophetic picture of the incarnate Satan from a picture diagram and the hidden puzzle given to us in a vision and dream from God.
Isa 64:8 But now, O LORD, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.
A potter is the symbolic name for the creator of symbolic clay vessels. This verse is pretty clear when it calls us the people of the earth these clay vessels that have been created by the potter, God. It is very clear to me what God is saying to us now by seeing verses like this one in the Bible. God is calling the last kingdom of the iron and clay feet a combined unification of the evil spiritual with the evil natural flesh. This is exactly what God did in the reverse when He came to the earth in the form of Jesus Christ. We can very clearly see the symbolic representations being given to us in these Old Testament prophecies found in Daniel concerning the last earthly kingdom. The coming of this kingdom is not that far off from being established in the earth, so if you think it is not near you have already been deceived. I have heard from several deceived commenters on the internet about things that I have written about and they claim many things like, all of the kingdoms in Daniel two and seven have already occurred and they have fallen already. When Jesus was here he toppled the last kingdom so there are no others to come. So many people have been deceived into believing so many crazy things that it is virtually impossible to help everyone. I hope and pray that you have not fallen into any of these deceptions. Satan’s coming world kingdom is very close at hand and he wants to cause you to have doubts that it is even possible for him to manifest in the flesh to present himself as a man that looks like one us. This attitude of deception is exactly what caused the natural nation of Israel to miss the coming of their real Messiah, so do not let it be your downfall in believing that Satan is your coming Messiah when he shows up in person.
Satan when he shows up (is revealed) in the world will look like one of us, talk like one of us and even act like one of us to gain power and the control of the masses of nations. You may wonder how it will be possible that one man can do so much, but you only have to look at our world and you will see how fragile a place we live in today. The world’s economies are on the verge of bankruptcy and collapse. The U.S. borrows money from communist countries to survive. So when a man comes along who offers solutions on the surface to every world crisis, it will be very appealing to those who need answers fast. Perhaps we will discuss the mark of the beast and how Satan will use this tool to gain control of the population of the world in the next lesson on the coming antichrist. Also, in my next lesson on this man of sin I will give you verses that show us that he will possess supernatural powers to deceive and do lying miracles. So God Bless you until next time!
If you would like to continue reading this series of lessons on Understanding the Coming Antichrist, please go to “Part 3“.
Understanding the Coming Anti-Christ! The Man of Sin! Part 1
(Ver 1.1) This is Part 1 of a series of lessons on Understanding the Coming Anti-Christ revealed to us in the Bible. This will probably be a very different lesson than most things that you have heard about this coming individual, but I will give you Bible verses for everything that I say so that you can go and look them up and study them all for yourself. I will warn you that I will say some things that you may have never heard before, but that does not make them wrong, it just makes them something new to learn. Some of the things that I will write about today, I believe that God spoke into my spirit and revealed them to me. I then spent the time looking into the Bible to see if they were actually true. I have always found that whatever the Spirit of God says to me, the Bible will agree with, for these two are one and they always are in agreement. So, if you have an open mind and a heart that wants to learn from the Bible, then I would say continue reading, otherwise you will not offend me if you go read somebody else’s blog today. Today’s Bible lesson about the anti-Christ is not a theological doctrine or even a dominant Christian teaching that your salvation hinges upon. Therefore, if you do not agree with everything that I say today, it’s literally OK, it really is not that important. I do not believe that anything I say today will affect your salvation even in a minor way so it is not that critical to believe in. However, this knowledge found in the Bible must have been important for someone to know otherwise God would not have recorded it for us to find. Here is one of my foundational verses:
1Jn 2:18 Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.
According to God we are living in age of the “last time”. This is a time period designated by God of predetermined duration with a designed set ending. In other words God keeps a calendar of set events and has appointed the appropriate time for some things to occur. This would be like if I set up a birthday party for a friend and invited some people to show up at a specific place, day and time. This is what God has done on the earth for the coming of Christ. The only difference is that the Bible says only God know the exact day and hour of this event. God has established a set party in heaven and invited everyone to come by sending out a Book of invitations without giving us the set time. God simply says be ready for it, for it is coming. So we must all be ready to go when this time arrives. However, there will be many who reject this magnanimous offer and will be very sorry that they did. In this verse in 1 John God describes a coming individual called the “antichrist”. This word is comprised of two Greek words, one being “Christ” or the “anointed” and the other meaning the “opposite”. In other words God is saying that this coming individual will be the opposite of the Real or True Christ who was Jesus. This antichrist will be a person who is diametrically opposed to everythting the Real Christ represents! So in reading and studying the Bible you need to discover all you can about the Real Christ and then you will be able to better understand the negative qualities of this coming false-Christ. Every postive qualitie of Jesus Christ has a direct antithesis of revealed antichrist truth. Hopefully if you are already a Christian you already know the real Christ intimately so I will not spend much time talking about the real man Christ Jesus in this lesson but I will give you some valuable clues to the coming fake. It is also noteworthy that even in John’s day back when he wrote this letter to the church, he informed us that there were already some antichrists in the world. However, these false Christ’s were certainly different than the coming antichrist being spoken of in this verse. Being like the coming antichrist is by far different than being the named antichrist. I hope you understand that. We will see why I say that as we continue on through the Bible.
Almost every major religion in the world today is looking for a coming “messiah” or “savior”. You can find this in Judaism, Islam and even Buddhism. Therefore, when the antichrist comes there are already countless numbers of people in the world who will buy into the deception being presented with eager hearts! Satan has set this up on purpose to deceive people when this False Christ suddenly appears on the earth. What I will do is start by giving you some basics about what the Bible says about this coming individual:
1Jn 2:22 Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son.
We can clearly see that this antichrist will come to deny that God has sent His son into the world. He will deny that God is a Father. He will deny that God had a Son! He will deny that there is a way of salvation. This clearly means that he will deny the Bible, Jesus and every Christian claim for Him being the way to salvation. Why is it so important for the antichrist not to admit what God has already done through His son Jesus? For one thing it seals your fate in not being saved and then he thinks that it helps him not to be thrown into hell for what he has done. Satan is in denial of the works of Christ in the earth because what He accomplished was so detrimental to his long term kingdom plans establishing himself to be god.
1Jn 4:3 And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.
Again we see another verse that says the coming antichrist will deny Jesus came in the flesh. Jesus Christ was God incarnate meaning the God who took upon Himself the human nature of created flesh so that He could die and pay the price for our sins with His shed blood. Do you realize why Satan is denying God came in the flesh as a man? He is in effect saying this was a stupid and foolish act of God and it was not even possible for God to do something so crazy. He is placing doubts in the minds of people so that they will not believe in the truth. By discrediting one thing found in the Bible Satan in effect is attempting to discredit every other truth in the Bible. Pretty soon you will see some more reasons why I believe Satan will do this. In this verse it is important to note that spirit beings are behind this teaching and that it does not come from men on the earth. However, these spirit beings deceive men into teaching these things and these were the antichrists that were present back when the Bible was written.
2Jn 1:7 For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.
We again have a third witness that says the antichrist will deny that Christ has come in the flesh. Therefore, this must be a pretty important revelation to understand. It is also very important to note that any antichrist is also called a deceiver. Deception is a complex lesson that I have written on before. Not all deception is a sin, but most of it is if it is intended for evil to cause harm or hurt to someone else. It is fairly clear that this is Satan’s motivation, he wants to cause as much havoc and destruction as possible. It appears to me that Satan has decided that if he is going down, he is going to take as many as he can with him. Satan does this by using deception and lies that are intentionally designed to trick and cause you to fall.
The coming antichrist:
- Is a Liar with Evil Intent and Motives
- Will Deny Christ Has Come in the Flesh
- Will Deceive many to believe his Lies
- Is always a spirit being behind the message
Wow, so far no great controversial information, which is just amazing for me isn’t it? I guess it is about to change and here are the new things that I warned you about that we need to learn. I can remember a while back I was thinking on the Word of God and the Spirit of God spoke to me and told me that Satan would come to the earth in the same way that God came to the earth. So I thought about this and started to ask some more questions and began to search my Bible for the answers. You see what is Satan’s greatest weakness in the earth today? If you did not realize it, Satan is a spirit being and it is illegal for a spirit being to be here in a natural world to tempt you. The Bible says there has no temptation overtaken you except which is common (natural) to man (1 Cor 10:13). What this verse means is it is illegal for Satan to tempt or test you supernaturally. Therefore, Satan is forced to uses people in the world to overcome this limitation. Have you ever thought of this before, why doesn’t Satan just kill you if he wants you dead so bad? Did you know he can’t kill you, unless he talks you into killing yourself? Satan can enter into the body of a man on the earth and cause them to say and do great evil to others, but Satan’s hands are tied because he cannot do it himself. We can clearly see this in anyone who has committed mass murder of the human race, like an Adolf Hitler. You can clearly see that a man has potential to do great harm to many others. You can also see this in the Gospels when Satan entered into Judas and caused him to betray Christ to the leaders of the Jews (Luke 22:3). So from Adam until now Satan has always entered into people and used these people to hurt and deceive other people. So how does Satan overcome this severe limitation? How did God overcome this limitation? God became flesh and walked among us (John 1:14). Is it possible for Satan to do the same? Before you answer that question you better read the rest of this lesson and see what else I teach you today.
Let’s examine a familiar parable that Jesus taught us. I have talked about this before, but God woke me up last night and related this lesson to the antichrist. I’m talking about the parable of the wheat and the tares, do you remember this parable and it’s interpretations from studying about seeds? God had a garden and planted good seeds of wheat. While God was away from the garden, Jesus said an enemy came and sowed tares in the same field. God said let them grow together until harvest time and I will send the angels to reap my crop of wheat and then to burn the tares of the enemy. In this parable the wheat represents righteous saved people, the tares represents wicked lost people. This is not a highly complex parable to understand; but let’s think about something new today from what we have been discussing. Using this parable as a reference, God Himself became a grain of wheat when He took on the flesh of a man. This is the amazing fact that the coming antichrist will vehemently deny. God becoming a man, why is it so important for Satan to deny this ever happened? You really need to see how important that question is. Here again is the very difficult question that I o presented you with a few sentences ago and that is “If it is possible for God to be born into the world as a natural symbolic grain of wheat, can Satan do the same as a symbolic tare?” Wow, you should really think about that before you answer. I had one reader say that Satan has no creative power or any supernatural ability and they obviously ignored a lot of what the Bible says about Satan in order to make that statement. How did God get Mary pregnant? The Bible says God spoke words to her and said you will conceive after the Spirit comes upon you. Is Satan a spirit? Does Satan also speak words? Wow, your religious minds are probably spinning right about now and that is probably not very good. Nevertheless I am convinced from the Bible and what the Spirit of God said to me that it teaches us that the coming antichrist will be Satan incarnate the opposite or antithesis of God incarnate. Satan the antichrist will be the personification of hate and evil while God in Jesus was the personification of love and good. What I will do is show you some Bible verses now that while they do not spell it out completely there is enough information to derive some logical conclusions to support what God told me. Here is the first verse that I want to examine carefully:
2Th 2:3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;
There are many ignorant people in the world that can’t read or can’t see what this verse says, I guess? If you look at the context God is clearly talking about the coming of Jesus and the gathering together of the church in verse 1. Then in verse 2 you can see God’s comforting words to us (the church) not to be troubled or worried about the coming “Day of Christ” that it is soon approaching or eminently at hand. Of course when this was written it was much further away than it is today. Nevertheless, in verse 3 God says that this “Day of Christ” will not come except 2 things happen first. The first thing is said to be a “falling away” and I will not comment on that event in this blog. The next thing that will occur is the revealing of the “man of sin”. To me it is very clear that this is the coming antichrist. However, the Greek word translated as “man” in this verse means “man faced” or a literal “human being”. This is the definition for me and this is also you today in the world. However, this verse says that this is someone who will be revealed. The word “revealed” here means “to take off the covers”. In other words this word means to make seen something that was hidden. What was hidden that will be seen in the coming time of tribulation? This is so critical that you think about this carefully before you answer that question. God is clearly informing us that this time will be uniquely different than the times before. Let me help you by asking you another question, has anyone ever seen Satan in the physical realm? Could this be what is revealed that was previously hidden? I believe that it could very well be that.
To reveal something clearly means to uncover that which was kept secret and hidden so that it can now be literally and plainly seen. That is what we are talking about here, right? Doesn’t this describe what God did when He came into the earth in the form of the man Jesus who was born of the natural woman named Mary? Jesus, who was the eternal hidden God, became the visible incarnate God so that we could witness Him in person and so that He could give His life for us. God took off the hidden spiritual covers from Himself and revealed to us the Savior Messiah in the flesh. This is why I believe that these verses are saying that Satan who was the hidden spiritual enemy of God will also be uncovered so that people on the earth can see him visibly for the first time. However, this man will not be here to save you; this man will be here to kill you. This verse says very clearly that the “man of sin” will be revealed to us. What is sin and where did it come from? Did God create sin? That is of course a deep theological question that I cannot get into today. But, according to the Bible, sin originated from Satan if you do not know that you should go and read it in your Bible (Ezekiel 28:15). So according to the Bible, Satan was the originator of the first sin in the Bible and is the one that I believe will be called the “man of sin” in the near future. This is a human title for clearly a spiritual being, which I will refer to as Satan incarnate. The next set of key words to examine in this verse is the man is called “the son of perdition”. The word “son” is simple enough because it simply means one (a child) born from a father and a mother’s conception. Jesus clearly called Himself both the Son of God and the Son of Man. So Jesus clearly exemplified the demonstrated and established definition of the union of a spirit being and a natural being. Therefore, God establishes this fact as being a viable reality and not a fantasy proposition of your imagination. However, this verse is not speaking of the Son of God, here; the term “perdition” means “destruction”. Who is responsible for destruction in the world? If you associate John 10:10 with this verse and see what Jesus said about Satan you can see who this description fits. In John 10:10 Jesus said “The thief (Satan) comes not but to kill, steal and to destroy”. So Satan is responsible for the destruction on the earth. So we now can see that the revealed man of sin can be related to being the son of the spiritual being Satan, the destroyer. The Bible is complicate like that; you have to dig to find the hidden truths that are in it. Sometimes it is obvious and other times like today it is more difficult to see, especially at first.
From this one verse we can conclude several new things about the antichrist and these are:
- The antichrist is a physical man
- The antichrist is a natural son from a woman
- The antichrist comes from Satan
- The antichrist is Satan incarnate
- Every man always has a spirit within him and he will be Satan
Continuing to read in this chapter of the 2 Thessalonians we learn some more information and some further confirmation of what I have just said:
2Th 2:4 Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.
Here God starts to tell us what this antichrist will begin to do in the earth. He is said to be directly opposed to the real God, the Bible, the church and everything that they represent. He will exalt himself as being greater than all of these. You see if you use your brain and think you will know that this is only possible if Satan is here in the flesh. Otherwise he cannot fulfill this specific prophecy. The next statement says ‘he as God sits in the temple of God”. I have heard many preachers try to teach that Israel will rebuild the temple in Jerusalem and reestablish the sacrifice before Christ’s return. I could not disagree with them more than to say; can’t you see what the Bible says? Where is the temple of God today? Because many men think naturally they focus on the wrong things and they look at what God did in the past is what they expect or want God to do over in the future. However, God is not this way and rarely repeats Himself. What we can see from the O.T. is the fact that what God did in the natural realm was a pattern for what He was going to do in the spirit realm. The Bible says very clearly that God does dwell in the buildings made by the hands of men (Acts 17:24). So even if Israel did build a new temple in the city of Jerusalem, God would not be there to dwell in it. Do you get it? So the question needs to be changed from where is temple of God to who is the temple of God. The Bible says “Now we are the temple of God” (1 Cor 3:16). Uh oh? This definition changes everything, doesn’t it? The human body is now the spiritual temple of God today. That is ME! That is YOU! If you are a Christian then you are now the temple of God. This is the temple made without the hands of men. So this verse in 2 Thessalonians 2:4 fits with the revelation that Satan is an incarnate man of sin. If the antichrist is Satan incarnate, then this man will have a body which was originally designed by God to be the temple of God, but this man will have the spirit of Satan in him and will proclaim himself to be God in this human temple. Wow, I hope that you understand what I just said. What we see is Satan’s attempts to duplicate what God has done so that he can be like the Most High God. This verse makes no sense if this is not speaking of an incarnate Satan. Satan cannot manifest himself spiritually in the earth and proclaim himself to be God unless he becomes a man like God became a man. Only as a physical man can Satan look like one of us and set himself up to deceive so many people in the world. When people see the antichrist on TV walking, speaking and acting like the one with all of the answers to the world’s problems, many will fall for his deception because the world will be in chaos and they will all be looking for the quick and easy answers to their problems.
2Th 2:6 And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time.
God said that this man will be revealed at the right time. I believe the right time is very close at hand, since God told me to write this Bible lesson to tell the world he is coming soon. To be revealed or uncovered requires that he be physically born and grow to be a man just like Jesus did for 30 years before He did anything spectacular. So no doubt the antichrist is already in the earth somewhere right now waiting for the opportunity to seize control. That of course was my opinion, but I believe it is certainly self-evident that the time is very short.
2Th 2:9 Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders,
This whole chapter does not say anything good for the people who are left in the world during this time of deception of this antichrist. God gives a strong warning in these verses for people to learn now before it is too late. As you can see in this verse, it is not a great translation; the translators added two words at the beginning and these really only cause confusion. If you take the words out, it says “who comes after the work of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders”. In other words, this is further confirmation that this man is Satan incarnate. This man will have smooth words that will deceive the minds of the simple. This man will have the ability to do signs and lying wonders. Kind of sounds like Jesus doesn’t it, except these will be the opposite of what Jesus did. When Jesus walked the face of the earth, He did many positive signs and wonders by healing the sick and raising the dead (Acts 10:38). This is not what Satan will be doing. Satan’s signs and wonders are intentionally designed to deceive people and cause them to buy into his ways of deception. He will come doing many miraculous, spectacular and amazing feats that only a powerful spiritual being can accomplish. It is also interesting to note that Jesus only did miracles after He was 30 years old. I believe that this is a pattern of what Satan will mimic also. Satan has to appear as a man with some level of authority and experience. No one will follow after a teenager to be easily deceived. If Jesus would have started ministering at the age of 12, very few would have followed him, if any. But as man of 30, He got the attention of enough to start a church that would grow.
Christ vs. antichrist, this was the lesson for today. God vs. Satan, one good and one is evil. One became a grain of wheat and the other a tare. While Satan has been effective at deceiving people in the world using humans, when Satan shows up in the flesh, he will be no match for the simple minded people left on the earth. They will buy into the lies in droves not knowing what they are doing nor knowing who they are doing it with. You should go back and read the entire chapter of 2 Thessalonians and see if you can see what God is saying about this coming “man of sin” also called the “son of destruction”. Maybe you can help someone with this information and save them from this future deception. I believe it is worth a try. So I hope you enjoyed this Bible study on the antichrist and have learned something. Remember that the antichrist is a man like you and me who will wield great power to deceive many. He will be opposed to everything that Christ stood for. He will deny that Christ ever came in the flesh so that he can deny that he is Satan in the flesh. After all if he is just a miracle working man, it will be much easier to deceive the people. Perhaps in my next lesson on this subject I will give you some more perspectives on this individual from other parts of the Bible. God Bless you in your attempts to learn the truth!
If you would like to continue reading in this series please go to “Part 2” now.
Understanding the Concepts of Deception in the Bible! Righteous vs. Evil Deception! Part 4
(Ver 1.2) Today is Part 4 of a series of very advanced lessons on Understanding Deception in the Bible. We have covered a lot of important information about this subject, so please do not start reading here in the middle of the series, go back and start reading with “Part 1” so that you can better understand what has already been covered in more detail than what I can do today. The church world has widely been taught that Satan is the initiator, instigator, mastermind, leader or distributer of deception in our world and that this deception is always evil. I of course concur with these facts whole heartedly. However, in the last lesson in this series I introduced you to the concept of “Righteous Deception” and I will carry this lesson further today so that you can better understand these new concepts revealed to us in the Bible. What I have discovered by Studying the Bible is that there are several types of deception mentioned in the Bible and some are positive and some are negative. By the Bible definition we can understand that evil deception is when someone comes to you with hurtful or harmful intentions and lies to you to get you to do something that you should not have done. However, I also showed you in the last lesson that the Bible speaks of “Self-Deception” as being a condition where a man or woman has deceived themselves into doing something that they should not have done. You should have gone and looked up the verses that I gave you so that you can better understand this situation so that it does not happen to you. So I gave you several brand new concepts about deception that you should at least be a little bit familiar with by now. According to God’s definitions, a deception in order for it to be a sin must be directed at a person to cause hurt or harm or an expected evil outcome. We clearly saw in Genesis 38 that Tamar used deception for a positive outcome and for the good of God, Judah and the nation of Israel. Tamar was exalted by God for what she did so that she was included in the genealogy of Jesus Christ in Matthew 1. Without Tamar’s intentional deception of Judah there would have been no King David, no Solomon and no Jesus. I know these statements rock your religious boats to no end. I totally warned you in these lessons that I was going to upset you evil deception apple cart so that you would have to see this subject in a new more complex and different way going forward and I hope that you are doing just that.
I’m going to start today’s lesson by giving you another natural example of the use of deception for a good or more positive outcome. Say you are working late at night at a restaurant and about to close up and go home. You hide the majority of your daily money and receipts in the hidden vault in your office and you put the rest of the money in your petty cash drawer. Say you have $5000 in the vault and $500 in the petty cash drawer. Then suddenly an armed robber comes into your business to steal from you. He demands your money or your life so you hand him your petty cash drawer and tell him to go. He asks for more money and you say I gave you money now go. You are clearly attempting to be deceptive while not telling a lie and you convince him to finally leave. You call the cops and they show up and so on. So was what this man did a sin of deception in the eyes of God and the Bible? You see I do not think so, because it matters who are trying to deceive and why. You are not trying to harm this thief you are just trying to keep him from taking everything that you have. This is the way Satan is in the world also. Satan is an evil thief that has come to “kill”, “steal” and “destroy” your life’s work (John 10:10). So how do you handle an evil spiritual thief like Satan if you are God? I believe that sometimes you have to deceive (trick) these evil people into doing the right things. I know there are religious people who are just having fits right now because I implied that God can legally use deception. To deceive someone without sinning requires great wisdom to do and God is the ultimate authority of all wisdom. Why am I giving you this example? I want to show you what the Bible says that God did and then you can better understand this concept of “Righteous Deception” a little better. Read this next Bible verse very, very carefully using your eyes and your brain:
1Co 2:8 Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
In this verse it declares a concept that right “knowledge” is the key to doing what is best for you. What we learn is that if we would have known that the highway was closed, we would not have gone that way, for example. The Bible says in Hosea 4:6 that my people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge. So again knowledge is the key to not being destroyed in the world. Here in this verse, we have an instance of implied active righteous deception being taught to us. The princes of this world are references to Satan and his demonic angels. They are the rulers of this world that God is speaking of. If you look up the Greek word translated as “Prince” it means “ruler”. This verse then tells you that if they had known what was going to happen to them by killing God on a cross, they would not have done it. Do you understand this very complex concept being given? Satan hung Jesus on the cross because he didn’t know what was going to happen and he thought if he killed Jesus this would just get Him off of his planet. It appears to be a clear case of the lack of information from God and wrong assumptions on the part of Satan. This sounds exactly like what Abraham did in Genesis 12, doesn’t it? Abraham withheld information and the king made wrong assumptions and thus the wrong choice. It is very clear that God withheld important information from Satan and as a result Satan did the right things that God needed done. This is really an amazing example of God’s ability to control information in order to get a powerful spiritual being like Satan to do the right thing for God but the wrong thing for himself. You see it was God’s death on the cross that ended His covenant relationship with Satan and the angels forever. Satan is now only in covenant with the humans on the earth, the sons and daughters of Adam. I cover this in other blogs so I cannot repeat everything here. So just understand that the death of God on the cross caused something to happen to Satan that he greatly regrets today. Do you understand how God used deception because He had an evil enemy and how God is justified in using this deception because he was deceiving a deceiver. You can clearly see that this type of deception is a potentially powerful tool when used properly and not for evil. What I am trying to do is to get you to think outside the box and to see that not every deception in the Bible is an evil or a sin. This of course represents a two-edged sword in what I am trying to teach, because there will obviously be some who try to use what I say to justify their evil intentions and only God knows your heart better than you, so you will never get away with using this wrongfully.
So let’s go back to Genesis and look at another example of “Righteous Deception” used for the good of God’s chosen people. In the story of Isaac in Genesis 25-27, Isaac and Rebekah have two twin sons. They however are not identical twins because they look and act completely different. Esau comes out first and becomes the first born in the family who is slated to inherit everything that his father Isaac owns. However, the implication from the birth is that Esau did something underhanded to come out first and Jacob stuck his hand out and caught his brother by the heel. These are clearly symbolic types being given to us of what was going to transpire in the future. So Jacob the “heel catcher” was born second and he is in the natural line to serve his older brother. I’m sure that you are familiar with this story because it is widely taught, but it has probably never been taught in the context of it being a “Righteous Act of Deception”. Jacob’s mother Rebekah comes to him with a plan and here are some of the concerns that Jacob brings up in this chapter of Genesis:
Gen 27:12 My father peradventure will feel me, and I shall seem to him as a deceiver; and I shall bring a curse upon me, and not a blessing.
The mother’s plan was for Jacob to get his father’s blessing by the use of deception. You can clearly see that Jacob is concerned with being labeled a deceiver by his father, so we are definitely talking about a clear case of the act of deception in this story of Genesis. In this story you see that Jacob’s mother comes up with this plan of deception for her husband and two sons. I don’t know why this is the second story concerning the righteous act of deception by a woman. Rebekah tells her son Jacob to go and kill some animals that she can fix his father favorite meal. Then she tells Jacob to go and get some skins to cover his arms, hands and neck with. Why did Rebekah instigate this deception and for what purpose was it done? You might have to go back to chapter 25 to see part of the answer to this question. When the children were still in the womb of Rebekah, she noticed that they were already fighting inside of her. She went to God to find out why and God spoke to her some inside information (literal pun) that was very relevant to this lesson of deception.
Gen 25:23 And the LORD said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger.
God says these are two nations of people and only one will be called by my name. Not good news for one of them, is it? Here we have a story that is very difficult to grasp and accept. Esau is clearly a child of Isaac and the firstborn from him, the rightful heir of all of his father’s wealth. But, God said that the elder firstborn would serve the younger second born. You should understand the concept of “Analogies” from the Bible if you have read my other Bible lessons. This is a concept that a natural real story gives us spiritual information about two spiritual brothers that I just cannot get into today. Just understand that there is more information hidden in this story than is on the surface and then go and dig for it. I will help you and tell you that the younger son is a type of Jesus so now go and figure out who is Jesus’ older brother.
Rom 9:13 As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.
So God knew the sons of Rebekah before they were born and God also knew what they would do in this world before they were born. So God let Rebekah in on a secret and this was why she could do what she did and be justified in the eyes of God. So why was Jacob justified in doing what he did in deceiving his father for the blessing?
Gen 25:31 And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright.
In Genesis 25 Esau comes home very hungry and not thinking and asks his brother for food. His brother says “sell me your birthright”. The birthright is the right of the firstborn to own everything of his father. So Esau reasons in his mind that unless he eats his birthright will not do him any good and says this:
Gen 25:32 And Esau said, Behold, I am at the point to die: and what profit shall this birthright do to me?
So then Jacob tells his brother to swear that the birthright will be his.
Gen 25:33 And Jacob said, Swear to me this day; and he sware unto him: and he sold his birthright unto Jacob.
So you can clearly see that Esau sold his birthright to his brother for a bowl of soup and some bread. Esau also gave his word to his brother and in the eyes of God your word is your legal commitment to do what you have said. If you did not mean it you should not have said it, the Bible says. It could be that Esau was playing Jacob for a fool because he clearly still expects to go and inherit the blessing from his father later in this book of Genesis.
Gen 25:34 Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentiles; and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way: thus Esau despised his birthright.
You can see that God says the man Esau “despised” his own birthright. This Hebrew words means to NOT Esteem or to disdain, scorn. It is the act of a vile person the definition says. This is certainly not a positive confirmation for what Esau has done in the eyes of God. It also gives legal justification for what Rebekah and Jacob did to deceive Isaac for the blessing that now rightfully belonged to Jacob. There is a lot of things to learn from this story, and one thing is that even though Jacob was justified in what he did, the Bible says that God is not mocked whatsoever a man sows that will he also reap. So Jacob planted the seeds of deception and these came up when he was working for Laban for his wife Rachel. Laban deceived Jacob 10 times it says in the Bible changing the terms and conditions of his employment. Jacob thought he was working for 7 years for Rachel and ended up working 14 years for her. So while you can be justified in doing deception, it usually always comes back to bite you later in life. God however, did not abandon his man Jacob and continued to bless him even though Laban was attempting to steal from him and to use him.
So it is interesting to note that Esau was legally the heir of his father Isaac, but God caused this blessing to go to his younger brother Jacob who became the father of the nation of Israel. So we learn that not everyone that came from Abraham can be called Israel, only Jacob’s descendants. This is an example of righteous division or separation. The sons of Esau were not the chosen ones. What we have seen is a clear use of deception initiated by God. God told Rebekah about the sons in her womb before they were born. I do not know if you like everything that the Bible says or not. Many of these types of stories are very difficult for many to accept. I sure if you wanted to you could come up with alternative meanings and interpretations to everything that I just have taught on this subject of deception. But, I hope that you can see who God was dealing with and why deception was used to cause a positive designed result. I think that I will end this lesson here today. God Bless!
If you would like to continue reading in this series about deception, please go to “Part 5“.
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If you want to know how to get saved and know that you are with confidence you can go to: How do I get saved?
Understanding the Concepts of Deception in the Bible! Righteous vs. Evil Deception! Part 3
(Ver 1.4) Today is Part 3 of a series of lessons on Understanding Deception in the Bible. I do not know if you can tell why I write this blog or not? My number one goal is to help you to understand the Bible better today than you did yesterday. If I can help just one person accomplish this, I believe that is worth the countless hours that I have invested in writing these advanced Bible lessons. If you know God better than you did after you read my lessons then I have succeeded at accomplishing my goal. Today’s lesson is about the complex subject of deception, but this lesson is much more advanced than the first two in the series. The first two lessons were general overviews of your enemy Satan and the techniques that he attempts to use to deceive people in the earth today. The first two lessons dealt with only one side of the subject of deception that I refer to as “Evil Deception”. Today I will introduce you to the other side of deceptin to show you that it can be used for positive outcomes and that will shock many Christians who have never been taught this side of the subject. If you have not read this series of lesson from the beginning I would suggest that you go back and start with “Part 1”. Also today’s lesson is intended for spiritually mature Christians since I will probably go into many things that you have never heard before from anyone and I do not want to cause anyone any confusion so please judge your level of spiritual maturity and make the determination if you want to hear something that is potentially new and controversial. If you do not want to learn anything new, then just go read someone else’s blog for today.
In the previous lesson on deception I talked about Satan being called a deceiver (Rev 12:9, 20:10) of the nations and how God looks upon these actions very unfavorably. One technique that Satan uses for deception is to take a truth and pervert it with an attached or alternative meaning. Another technique of deception that Satan uses is to associate a Bible truth with a false religion, causing Christians to reject it as the truth. Another technique of deception is to take a Bible symbol of truth and to possess it as a satanic symbol so that Christians again reject this truth completely. There are so many complex methods of trickery involved in deception and you should become intimately knowledgeable of every method that you can so that you are not the one deceived in the future. However, today I am going to flip the evil deception apple cart and introduce you to a brand new concept that you probably have never heard anyone speak on before in your life, especially in church. Obviously everyone teaches that deception and lies are an evil sin. But, today I am going to attempt to show you the positive side of deception found in the Bible. Right there your religious mind is probably giving you fits saying “I didn’t know deception had any positive side or use”. What I will show you in today’s lesson is that there are different kinds of deception found in the Bible and how that the Bible says not every deception is considered evil or a sin by God. I guess most people struggle with this subject because they do not realize that there are multiple types of deception found in the Bible and therefore they do not understand how that any level of deception could be permitted at times to achieve a positive outcome. Many religious people look purely at the existence of only one type of deception that they associate with someone telling someone a lie. They then lump all deception into this same basket category as being an evil sinful lie. I had a reader who read one of my Bible lessons on Abraham and left me a comment saying that Abraham sinned. In this story of Abraham, he went around telling everyone his wife was his sister so that no one would kill him to get her. If you read this Bible lesson called “Genesis 12: Was Abraham a Liar?” you should have learned that Abraham never lied, his wife Sarah was his half-sister (Gen 20:12). They both had the same father but different mothers, so they were clearly brother and sister to each other by definition, yet Abraham married his sister and she became the wife who gave birth to the promised child Isaac. So Abraham was clearly guilty of remaining silent on the important fact that Sarah was also his wife and not just his sister and this is all that you can accuse him of based upon what the Bible says. Let me start by asking you this question, is silence a sin? Can you find anywhere in the Bible where it says if I’m silent even on a key point of information that I have committed a sin? I searched my Bible and I could not find one verse that said silence was a sin.
Of course it gets more complex than this because your silence is also tied to your motivation of why you are being silent and that fact alone make this subject infinitely more complex. We’ll talk more about your motivation shortly but, I searched and searched the Bible for a verse that said silence was a sin and I could not find it anywhere. So my reader claimed that Abraham committed a sin of an invented name called a “lie of omission”. According to his definition, a “lie of omission” would be to remain silent in any area that left out any important information that could have been said in order to purposely deceive someone. However, after I confronted my commenter, he had to agree that this term “lie of omission” and its definition was not found in the Bible anywhere and therefore what he had said was a sin came from his own human reasoning. The human intellect is an amazing God given blessing, however it is rarely God inspired thoughts unless you have thoroughly renewed your carnal mind with God’s spiritual knowledge, understanding and wisdom. Therefore, you cannot count on anything that comes from your carnal mind as being the truth. After all of this, my commenter refused to say that Abraham didn’t sin in what he did and he held to the concept that Abraham was therefore still a deceitful liar because he withheld information from the king. Wow, this is a very dangerous approach to take in your Bible interpretation. In Matthew 7:26 Jesus called this action of ignoring God’s word a foolish man who has built his house on sand. To base your beliefs on your own human reasoning instead of the Bible will cause you to be wrong 100 times out of 100 tries. What we must do is to build our house on the Rock of the Word of God and base our beliefs on what God says and only what God says, in order to be assured and have confidence in what we know and teach to others. You know I do not have to be right about everything that I say and teach. I am perfectly willing to change if you can show me the chapters and the verses that say something different than what I teach. I would rather change and be right than to stay with believing an error. However, if you are just telling me your opinion that I’m wrong because that is not what you think is true then you have a major problem, not me. Here is a web definition for the word “deceive” that I found:
Deception, beguilement, deceit, bluff, mystification, and subterfuge are acts to propagate beliefs that are not true, or not the whole truth (as in half-truths or omission). Deception can involve dissimulation, propaganda, sleight of hand. It can employ distraction, camouflage or concealment.
Here are some synonyms for Deception from the Thesaurus:
Trick, Trickery, Sham, Fraud, Con, Cheating, Pretext, Duplicity, Deceit
Wow this is a pretty amazing definition that is all encompassing, isn’t it? However, I noticed two things directly missing from this definition of deception;w with one being the motivation of the individual doing the deception and the other being the purpose for the deception or you could say the expected outcome for the deception. It further does not say or even imply that there are potentially times when deception is good and the results of the deception can cause a positive outcome to occur either. According to this lone definition that I found on the internet you can clearly see that Abraham was absolutely guilty of committing a level of deception for either evil or for whatever purpose. However, I believe that to remain silent is still a key area that is totally different than to deceive someone by telling them a lie. I can find many verses in the Bible that say “Thou Shalt not lie” (Lev 19:11, Zep. 3:13). But, to be silent I have still not found any verses yet that says this is a sin. In this story found in Genesis 12 and 20 of Abraham telling the kings that his wife was his sister, I could not find any verses where God rebuked, chastised or punished Abraham for what he did or in this case didn’t do. Can you find this anywhere? You can clearly see that these kings were either plagued (Gen 12:17) or had a dream from God that told him that he was a dead man (Gen 20:3). So God’s attention was focused on what the kings did and not what Abraham did or still in this case did not do. Do you understand this? So I want to introduce you to the first new factor about deception today that will upset your deception apple cart. This concept is called “Self Deception” where a person has deceived themselves into doing the wrong thing based upon their own personal thoughts, motivations or their natural physical or emotional desires. You can clearly see that the kings in these stories of Genesis 12 and 20 were only interested in themselves and what they wanted. Nobody asked Sarah what she wanted, did they? Of course back then it was a male dominated world and when a male king wanted a woman, there were no options for the woman given to her. When Abraham tells the kings she is my sister, the kings ASSUMES that she is available to be taken like a stray dog that doesn’t belong to anyone. They make a very wrong assumption based upon not knowing all the facts that they could have found out if they had just asked some more direct questions in order to find the truth. You can read scriptures about being “Self Deceived” in Jer. 37:9, Oba. 1:3, 1 Cor. 3:18, Gal 6:3, James 1:26 and 1 John 1:8. There are many factors that cause self-deception and these can involve pride, arrogance and wrong thinking where you think too highly of yourself and see yourself to be wise in this world. You should go and look up these verses to learn how people can deceive themselves and you should be able to see how these verses can easily apply to the kings in Abraham’s story.
There are three basic factors to deception that are critical to understand that are not normally taught. First, there are different types or methods of deception. You can clearly see this by someone telling a lie, but you can also see this by someone just failing to tell the truth. They are dramatically different types of deception in the eyes of God. Second, there are different reasons or motivations for using deception and the intended outcome for the deception. In other words is the person doing the deception doing it for someone’s harm, hurt or destruction or for a purpose of overall good? Then the third factor to consider is who the intended target for the deception is. Is the one being deceived a good person or an evil person? Can the one being deceived do me any harm if they are not deceived? All three of these factors matter in order for any deception to be called a sin in they eyes of God. You see there is an implied problem with deception that you have not fully thought of or comprehended fully. If you take the literal internet definition of deception and apply it as it was written that the omission of information or truth is called “deception” then God is quilty of deceiving us all. Is your God a deceiver? If you only take this definition, He is because He knows things that we clearly do not know and many of them.
Some have tried to conclude that all deception is sin like my commenter and this is just not what the Bible teaches. That statement is really going to shock many of my readers. However, what people have done is taken a complex subject and oversimplified it and caused all deception to be thought of in a negative light. But yet as we continue through this lesson we will see that this is not true. Let me give you an example of some deception that occurred in my life that might shock you. My own mother was a known and practicing deceiver; my mother deceived me when I was just a child in grade school. She tricked me into eating squash when I was a kid by mashing it up and stirring it into my cream corn. They were both yellow vegetables and when they were mixed together I could not tell that the squash was present. You see I liked cream corn but I did not like the squash and I refused to eat it. However, by her trickery and deception of her mixing the squash with my cream corn and then by purposefully not telling me about her methods, I ate it without knowing I was eating it. Clearly she withheld key information and truth from me and clearly it was an intentional act of a hidden deception. By the definition of deceive that we looked at, she is clearly guilty as Abraham was, but, was this deception a sin? Did my mother sin by hiding squash in my cream corn and not telling me about it? According to my commenter he would have said that she did. However, was this not just an example of the practical use of deception to achieve a positive outcome for me? I think that you can see it was the only way that I was going to eat squash so it worked. What was my mother’s reasoning and motivation for deceiving me? Was it to do evil and harm to me or was it to do something good and positive for me so that I benefited? In her mind it was to do good so that I would eat my vegetables and grow up strong and healthy. So hopefully you can see that not every type of deception is a sin from this one simple example. I do not believe that my mother was committing a sin by hiding squash in my cream corn, do you? So let’s change the scenario and say someone hid poison in your food. This of course changes everything dramatically. Now we have a different motivation for a different purpose and the expected outcome of the deception is completely different. Clearly anyone who would do this is well within the realm of committing a horrific sin by using a very similar deception method that my mother was guilty of. I hope that you can begin to see the impact that motivation and purpose play into the role of deception. Do you see the potential dilemma being presented to us from my two examples of food deception? It matters who is deceiving, why they are deceiving, who is deceived and what is the intended purpose of the deception in order to make a determination if it is a sin or not. Just because my mother hid squash in my cream corn and did not tell me that she did it, does not constitute an evil act of the sin of deception. Are you grasping these very important concepts? You see if you only used the web definition of the word “deceive” you can clearly see my mother was guilty of “deception”, therefore she should go to jail or hell. But, her reasons for doing it were justified to achieve a positive outcome for me. This is called “Righteous Deception” and I will show it to you in the Bible so that you can better understand how it works. I pray that you are beginning to see the complexity of the subject of deception and the potential use of deception to achieve a positive outcome for someone.
So let’s go back to the story of Abraham and see who did what, where and why? Abraham was traveling into the nation of Egypt where a foreign government was ruled by a people who didn’t know God. In fact in the Bible Egypt was a type of the world and Pharaoh a type of Satan. According to Abraham’s reasoning, he told his wife to tell everyone that she was his sister so that these godless people would not kill him to get to her. So the motivation of Abraham was not to do any evil to anyone, but to preserve his own life in an uncertain set of circumstances surrounding evil people. It was Egypt who was doing the evil and not Abraham by taking a woman just because she was pretty and good looking. You could compare this to rape today and this is clearly a crime. No one asked Sarah what she wanted; they simply decided what to do based upon what the king wanted. Was that the right thing to do? Obviously God did not think so and that is why He put plagues on the nation for what they had done. So Abraham was dealing with an uncertain evil nation of people who could potentially do great harm to him for what they wanted. So do you see any differences now in this type of deception initiated by Abraham? Abraham never had any intention of harm for any evil purpose to anyone in being deceptive. So by not telling them all of truth; did Abraham lie? I still do not think so! Did Abraham sin? I still do not think so. Abraham’s heart was clear before God. I hope that you can see this.
What I am attempting to show you is that not every deception is a sin in the Bible and you will see some more examples of this in these next verses also found in Genesis. This is a story in chapter 38 is one that is very informative of many things, but I’m only going to talk about the concept of “Righteous Deception” given to us in this story. In Genesis 38:6 you see that Judah the son of Jacob had a firstborn son named Er and Judah got him a wife named Tamar. However, verse 7 said that Er was wicked in the eyes of the Lord so God killed him. Not good for Er! So Judah had three sons the firstborn Er is now dead so Judah gives Tamar to Onan his next oldest son and tells him to have children for his dead brother Er. Onan is also wicked in the eyes of the Lord because he refuses his father’s request and God kills him also. Wow, Tamar is either really bad luck for the children of Judah or something else is going on here. We can read in this chapter that Judah tells Tamar to go to her father’s house and wait for his third son to get old enough and she will be his wife next. So Tamar waits and waits and Judah never mentions it again and finally Judah’s wife also dies. So Tamar does what? What is Tamar supposed to do? In Genesis 38:13 it says that someone told Tamar that her father-in-law Judah was going to a certain city to shear his sheep. So Tamar comes up with a plan of deception:
Gen 38:14 And she put her widow’s garments off from her, and covered her with a vail, and wrapped herself, and sat in an open place, which is by the way to Timnath; for she saw that Shelah was grown, and she was not given unto him to wife.
Here we have a part of the story that is easily missed. You see Tamar could see that Judah’s third son was grown up and she knew that Judah had not fulfilled his word to her. By not doing what he said; Judah has become a liar and that is not good is it? Therefore, Tamar takes off her widow clothes and disguises herself with a veil. In doing this Tamar has taken on the outward appearance of a prostitute and she places herself in the path of Judah on purpose.
Gen 38:15 When Judah saw her, he thought her to be an harlot; because she had covered her face.
So Judah sees the woman Tamar and thinks to himself that she is a harlot available for hire. It is very important to note that Tamar does not ever say she is a Harlot; it is only Judah who has assumed the wrong things based upon a perceived impression of outward looks. Judah could have asked to see her face or spoken with her in many ways to find out the real truth, but he has been self-deceived with natural human male desire. Isn’t that interesting? What we see is Judah has deceived himself into thinking the wrong way based upon human desire and lust and outward appearances. It sounds a lot like what the kings did when looking at Sarah in the first story of Abraham.
Gen 38:16 And he turned unto her by the way, and said, Go to, I pray thee, let me come in unto thee; (for he knew not that she was his daughter in law.) And she said, What wilt thou give me, that thou mayest come in unto me?
So technically speaking while Tamar never says she is a prostitute you have to look at what she says very carefully. It would appear that she is asking for money for her sexual favor, but examine her heart and think again. She is really just asking for what she was already promised by Judah. Nowhere in this story is her deception an evil intentional act for harm to Judah or an attempt to get back at him for his lie.
Gen 38:17 And he said, I will send thee a kid from the flock. And she said, Wilt thou give me a pledge, till thou send it?
Judah tells Tamar he will send her a kid from the flock, but Tamar know who she is dealing with and says she needs some security to insure that he will do what he says. So she says this:
Gen 38:18 And he said, What pledge shall I give thee? And she said, Thy signet, and thy bracelets, and thy staff that is in thine hand. And he gave it her, and came in unto her, and she conceived by him.
So we can see that Judah is still negotiating the price and the collateral like any normal business transaction. Tamar asks for his signet, his bracelet and his staff for collateral. Do you understand the principle and symbolic meaning of these items? A signet was like giving your credit card to someone today. With it they could command you to pay everything that they charge with it. The first time bracelets are mentioned in the Bible it was when the servant gave Rebekah two bracelets for her to become Isaac’s wife, so this is a clear parallel to this story in Genesis 38. The staff was of course a symbol of power and the main instrument of a shepherd to herd his sheep. So Tamar was not asking for trivial things, these were signs and symbols of this man’s identity. In the Bible you can find where it says that having sex with a prostitute causes you to become one flesh with her. So the sexual act is considered to be a marriage covenant between Judah and Tamar. Therefore, Tamar was gathering items that could easily be used to identify him later as the one who had sex with her. Anyway Judah must have missed sex a lot so he agreed and gave her these three items and then he made Tamar pregnant with his children and then he went back home.
Gen 38:19 And she arose, and went away, and laid by her vail from her, and put on the garments of her widowhood.
Tamar departs back to her father’s house and changes her clothes back to the widow garments and then waits. Meanwhile, Judah sends people to find the prostitute with the sheep that he promised so that he could get back his possessions and they cannot find her. Nobody has ever seen this woman, so she was clearly not a prostitute for financial gain or income. So if money was not Tamar’s motivation what was the motivation of Tamar and who did she deceive? It is very clear that it was deception in the “nth” degree. But, I did not see anywhere that said that Tamar ever lied with her lips to achieve this deception, nor do I see where she did it to cause hurt or harm to anyone else. The purpose of this deception was not for evil but for the good outcome of the continuation of the family name of Judah. So in effect this deception of Tamar was only done for the good of Judah and not to do him any evil. This is a very important story in the Bible and you just do not realize its importance right now. So Judah finally hears about Tamar when she begins to show her pregnancy. It’s funny how words in the rumor mill can travel so quickly to everyone. Everyone knew that Tamar was a widow so when she shows up pregnant it is a perceived problem for Judah and the community. So Judah calls for Tamar so that they can put her to death for being a whore, but when Tamar shows up at his house she has his signet ring, staff and bracelets that show who the father is and Judah cannot not deny it because of these facts she presented to him. Judah then makes this statement:
Gen 38:26 And Judah acknowledged them, and said, She hath been more righteous than I; because that I gave her not to Shelah my son. And he knew her again no more.
You can clearly see that Judah was calling her deception a “righteous justified act”. Because, of this woman’s trickery the family line of Jesus has been preserved and Jesus can still come into the world as God had designed. You can clearly see this honor by reading the genealogy of Jesus given to us in the book of Matthew chapter 1. There are only 6 women mentioned by name in this list of father names and Tamar is one of them. She earned a mention of prominence by a simple act of righteous deception. Tamar has arisen to the level of rock star status in the Bible because she used deception for the good of someone other than herself. This is a very important part of deception that is rarely taught and seldom mentioned. Here is another mention of her name in the Book of Ruth:
Rth 4:12 And let thy house be like the house of Pharez, whom Tamar bare unto Judah, of the seed which the LORD shall give thee of this young woman.
Tamar is again mentioned in the book of Ruth as being a righteous woman who did great things for the good of mankind and the house of Israel. You cannot deny that this was deception, but God elevates her to a level of importance for doing this deception that few have understood until today. At no time did God accuse this woman of committing any sin for what she did, do you see this?
I actually have many more Bible verses to go into this subject of deception, but I have gone too long for today. So I will wrap this lesson up with that story of Tamar and hope that you can now see and understand that not every deception found in the Bible is a negative sin in the eyes of God. In my next lesson in this series I will give you some more examples found in the Bible of “Righteous Deception” and these will help to establish the truth in the mouths of two or three witnesses. I hope and pray that you have learned something from today’s lesson that you can take away in growing in your relationship with your God. God Bless!
If you would like to continue reading in this series on deception, you can go to “Part 4“.
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If you want to know how to get saved and know that you are with confidence you can go to: How do I get saved?
Names, Titles, Descriptions and Symbols of Satan in the Bible
(ver 2.0) This is Part 2 in a series of reference documents about the multiple Names, Titles, Descriptions and Symbols of named Spiritual Individuals in the Bible. This document will focus only on the subject verses of the enemy Satan found in the Bible. It is not designed to teach anything other than give you a place to search from to find references to Satan in the Bible. This is a living document of references and it will change and be updated as I am led to additional scriptures. A Name is a direct reference to the individual. A Title is a given direct identifying appellation signifying status or function. A Description is something that represents the individual in expressive words. A Type is a real named person, place or thing that can be viewed to apply to a pattern of the spiritual individual not directly named. A Symbol is a natural object that describes the characteristics or features of a spiritual being that you cannot see or understand without first understanding the symbol. I will now give you the list of my references to Satan in the Bible and if you have others that I have not found yet, please share them with me in a comment.
|
Name, Title, Symbol, Type for Satan |
Description |
Scripture Reference |
| 666 | The Number of the Beast | Rev 13:18 |
| Abaddon | Destroying Angel | Rev 9:11 |
| Accuser of the Brethren | Legal Opponent in Court of Law | Rev 12:10 |
| Adversary | The Opponent to the Church in a Lawsuit | 1 Peter 5:8 |
| Angel of Light | Impersonator, Actor, Stage Performer; Masquerader | 2 Cor 11:14 |
| Angel of the Bottomless Pit | Ruler of the Darkness | Rev 9:11 |
| Anointed cherub that coverth | The Winged Angelic Defender | Ezekiel 28:14 |
| Antichrist | Opponent of the Messiah | 1 John 4:3 |
| Appolyon | Greek Name of Hebrew Abaddon; Destroyer | Rev 9:11 |
| Baal | False God of the O.T. Type of Satan | Rom 11:4; |
| Balaam | False Teacher | Jude 1:11 |
| Bear | Kingdom of Satan Symbol | Rev 13:2 |
| Beast | Dangerous Animal; Venomous | Rev 14:9-10; Rev 16:10 |
| Beelzebub | Lord of the Flies; A god of Babylon | Mat 12:24, 27; Mark 3:22; Luke 11:15, 18-19 |
| Belial | Worthless One | 2 Cor 6:15 |
| Bird, Hateful | Loveless | Rev 18:2 |
| Bird, Unclean | Foul, | Rev 18:2 |
| Blasphemer | Name of the One Who Vilifies God | Rev 13:1 |
| Cain | Murderer from the Beginning | Jude 1:11 |
| Chief of Demons | Prince of demonic gods | Luke 11:15 |
| Cherub | Winged Anointed of God | Ezekiel 28:14 |
| Cockatrice | The Viper | Isa 14:29, 59:5; |
| Deceiver | The One Who Deceives | Rev 12:9 |
| Devil | False Accuser; Slanderer | Mat 4:1-11, 9:33, 11:18, 12:22, 13:29, 15:22, 17:18, 25:41; Mk 5:15-18, 7:26-30; Luke 4:2-13, 4:33-35, 7:33, 8:12, 8:29, 9:42, 11:14; John 6:70, 7:20, 8:44-52, 10:20-21, 13:2; Acts 10:38 13:10; Eph 4:27, 6:11; 1 Ti 3:6-7; 2 Ti 2:26; Heb 2:14; James 4:7; 1Pet 5:8; 1 John 3:8-10; Jud 1:9; Rev 2:10, 12:9, 12:12, 20:2, 20:10; |
| Dragon | Fabulous Serpent | Rev 12:7 |
| Dragon, Great | Powerful Fabulous Serpent | Rev 12:9 |
| Edom | Type of Satan, twin brother of Jacob | Eze 32:29; Joel 3:19; Mal 1:4; |
| Enemy | Adversary | Mat 13:39 |
| Esau | Lord Hates | Mal 1:2-3; Rom 9:13 |
| Evil One | Malicious; Wicked One | John 17:15 |
| False Light | The Opposite TRUTH of True Light Jesus | 1 John 2:8 |
| Father | Male Parent | John 8:44; Acts 13:10 |
| Father of Lies | Fabricator of truth | John 8:44 |
| Fiery Flying Serpent | Satan | Isa 14:20, 30:6; |
| Fiery Serpent | Satan | Num 21:8; Deu 8:15 |
| Frog | Unclean Spirit | Rev 16:13 |
| Fox | Cunning Spirit | Luke 13:32 |
| Goat, He (devils) | Devils (Hebrew Word for He Goat) | Lev 17:7; 2 Chron 11:15 |
| God of this World | Ruler of the Night | 2 Cor 4:4 |
| Gog | Symbolic Name for the Anti-Christ | Rev 20:8; |
| Great Red Dragon | Serpent of Increased Power | Rev 12:3 |
| Herod | A Type of Satan the Murdering King | Luke 13:31 |
| Judas | Judah The Betrayer of Messiah | John 6:70-71; John 13:2 |
| King of Babylon | Ruler of Jerusalem | Isaiah 14:4 |
| King of the Bottomless Pit | Ruler of the Darkness | Rev 9:11 |
| King of Tyrus | Ruler of the Rock | Eze 28:12 |
| Laban | A type of a Deceitful Man | Gen 31:7 |
| Leopard | Kingdom of Satan Symbol | Rev 13:2 |
| Lesser Light | Moon who Rules the Night of Darkness | Gen 1:16 |
| Leviathan | Serpent Monster of Babylon | Isaiah 27:1 |
| Liar | Falsifier; Deceiver | John 8:44 |
| Lion | Kingdom of Satan Symbol | Rev 13:2 |
| Little Horn | Rising King | Daniel 8:9-11 |
| Lucifer | Bright and Morning Star | Isaiah 14:12-14 |
| Man of Sin | Man faced Trespasser | 2 Thes 2:3-4 |
| Moon | Ruler of the Night | Psalm 136:9; Rev 12:1 |
| Murderer | Man Killer | John 8:44 |
| Oppressor | He Who Makes Sick | Acts 10:38 |
| Perdition | The Destroyer | 2 Thes 2:3; |
| Pharaoh | He who rules Egypt a type of the World | Eze 31:2-18; |
| Power of Darkness | Superhuman Ruler of the Night | Col 1:13-14 |
| Prince of the Devils | Ruler of Evil Spirits | Mat 9:34, 12:24; Mark 3:22 |
| Prince of the Kingdom of Persia | Ruler of the nation of Babylon | Daniel 10:13 |
| Prince of the Power of the Air | Ruler of the Authority of Spoken Words | Eph 2:1-2 |
| Prince of this World | Ruler of the Evil Darkness | John 12:31-32; John 14:30; John 16:11; 1 Cor 2:6-8; |
| Roaring Lion | Powerful Sounding King of the Beasts | 1 Peter 5:8 |
| Ruler of the Darkness | Moon who Rules the Night | Ephesians 6:12 |
| Satan | The Accuser, the Opponent; Adversary | 1 Chron 21:1; Job 1:6-12; Job 2:1-7; Ps 109:6; Zec 1:3:1-2; Mat 4:10, 12:26, 16:23; Mark 1:13, 3:23-26, 4:15, 8:33; Luke 4:8, 10:18, 11:18, 13:16, 22:3, 22:31; Jo 13:27; Act 5:3, 26:18; Rom 16:20; 1 Cor 5:5, 7:5; 2 Cor 2:11, 11:14; 1 Thes 2:18; 2 Thes 2:9; 1Tim 1:20, 5:15; Rev 2:9, 2:13, 2:24, 3:9; 12:9, 20:2, 20:7; |
| Seducing Spirit | Imposter; Deceiver | 1 Tim 4:1 |
| Seraphim | Fiery Serpent | Isa 6:2 |
| Serpent | Symbolic Name for Satan | Gen 3:1; Rev 12:15 |
| Serpent, Old | Symbolic Name for Satan; First Ruler of the earth | Rev 12:9; Rev 20:2 |
| Son of Perdition | Destruction’s Child | 2 Thes 2:3 |
| Son of the Morning | Satan a son of God’s First or Early Light | Isaiah 14:12-14 |
| Spirit, Foul | Perverted Spiritual Being | Rev 18:2 |
| Spirit, the | Satan a spiritual being | Ephesians 2:2 |
| Spirit, Unclean | Leprous Spiritual Being | Luke 9:42; Rev 16:13 |
| Star | Angel Cast Down to Earth | Rev 8:11; 9:1 |
| Star, Great | Angel Cast Down to Earth | Rev 8:10 |
| Star, Wandering | He Who Departs the Path | Jude 1:13 |
| Tempter | He Who Proves and Tests | Mat 4:3 |
| Thief | Robber; Burglar | Mat 24:43; Luke 12:39; John 10:10 |
| Viper | The serpent Satan | Isa 59:5; |
| Waster, the | He Who Destroys | Isaiah 54:16 |
| Wicked | Law Breaker; Evil Degenerate | 2 Thes 2:8; Eph 6:16 |
| Wormwood | Type of Bitterness | Rev 8:11 |
If you would like to references other documents in this series you may go to one of these:
Understanding the Concepts of Deception Used by Satan!
(ver 1.9) This is Part 2 of a series of Bible lessons on the subject of deception. If you have not read “Part 1” I would suggest that you go there to begin your study. Let’s read one of the series foundational Bible verses to get us started:
Rev 12:9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
Today will be a different type of Bible lesson for me. As you can see from our Key Bible verse above, Satan is called the deceiver that is trying to deceive the whole world. That means, Christians and non-Christians alike. Satan is an equal opportunity deceiver and he shows no favoritism. He is interested in causing us to be deceived from believing and knowing the Truth of God by any means that he can. So I’m going to introduce you to some new things to think about that God has taught me personally. You will hopefully see that these few things that I present you to think about could be a very effective tool of our enemy Satan. I do hope that you understand that God’s enemies are Christian enemies also. If Satan is an enemy of God, then he is our enemy here and now on the earth. Satan’s greatest weapon on the earth has always been the subtly of deception. But, Jesus told us that if we continued in His word we would be His disciples and that we would know the truth and that the truth would set us free (John 8:31-32). That sounds like our freedom is dependent upon us continuing in the word, recognizing the truth, knowing the truth and then using this knowledge of God’s truth to set us free. If Satan can keep you from knowing the truth you will be forever bound by his deception. That is why he is trying diligently to do everything in his power to distract you and to keep you from knowing more about the Bible. In fact deception is one of his only weapons that he has to defeat you. If he can get you to think and believe wrong, he has accomplished his plan of deception and you are now a party working in conjunction with him to deceive others in the world. There are false prophets, false teachers and false apostles in the world everywhere we look. The numbers of these false distributors of lies are so many today that it is becoming increasingly difficult for Christians to recognize all of the ways that Satan uses to deceive people. I will discuss just a couple of the ways that God has taught me over the years that Satan uses and I pray that you can see them also.
I am going to start with one method of deception which I feel is critical for all Christians to understand. This method of deception is to take a small but critical piece of the truth in the Bible and then to possess it or claim it is something that it is not. False teachers take bits of information out of context and then teach it in a false religion with new imbedded lies attached to it. For example, we can find the “Golden Rule” of the Bible found in almost every religion of the world in some alternative form. Because all of these other religions have attached themselves to this verse in the Bible, they have in essence diluted the true meaning as having come from God and they change it to fit what they prefer it to say. Most Christians just automatically discredit the teachings of Satanism and Cultic organizations. But, where did these false religious organizations get their information and why is it so important for them to claim it all as their own original ideas? Think about this a long time, where did all knowledge come from? Was it not our Almighty God who holds all knowledge? I think I should stop here and tell you that what I am saying I am saying to only mature Christians who have been in Christ for many years. I do not want you to think that it is OK to explore Satanism, or to go and study other religions looking for the truth. That would be very foolish to go to a source of predominately lies and try to determine which words are true and which ones are false. That is exactly what Satan wants you to do. What I am saying is study the Bible and ONLY the Bible and find the truth and then do not reject it because Satan has tried to pervert it. Do the sayings of Jesus from John 8:31-32. Continue in the Word was the first step of the command. That means you do not search history books, you do not search text books, you do not search other religions and you only stay with the BIBLE for your total and complete source of the truth!
I am not convinced that Satan has ever had a completely original idea in anything that he does or says on the earth. It would appear to me that Satan takes what God does and perverts into something useful for his purpose of deception. You must realize that Satan is a highly intelligent being that can run spiritual circles around what you know right now. Satan has been in the presence of God and seen what He does first hand, have you ever stood before the throne of God? I doubt seriously if you have. Satan has been deceiving man for the last 6000 years, how old are you? Does your experiences match Satan’s experiences? I say Satan has had a lot more practice at deceiving people than you have had at resisting him. What Satan likes to do is take little key principles from the Word of God and to pervert them so that many Christians will automatically reject them because they are taught as a part of a cult lesson. Do you understand how powerful this is? By taking a truth and by discrediting it, he can now cause many people to more easily reject that truth and be deceived into believing a lie. This is a common political tactic used in our political system. A candidate for office simply discredits his opponent with some perverted mixture of truth with lies. By discrediting them they make themselves to be a more positive answer for the people. I usually do not like to name names but I will give you an example of this type of behavior of Satan. I was told by a reader that a small part of what I teach is a concept that is embraced by the Mormons and used to promote evolution. Since the Mormon religion is a false cultic teaching, does that make everything that they teach a lie? If I do not teach evolution using this same concept does that make what I say a lie? No, what I say is not a lie, but it has been discredited by a cult taking it and perverting into their lies. Does what they teach discredit everything that I say using the Bible? Again, I am not telling you to go read the Book of Mormon and try to figure out what is true and what is false. That is clearly a ploy of the enemy. The book of Mormon is promoted as ANOTHER Testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ given to a false prophet and written down so that you will not read the REAL Testimony of Jesus Christ. Jesus actually warned us not to read things that people ADD to the bible. Jesus clearly told us not to take away any words or to add any words to those that have been written in the Bible (Rev 22:19). The enemy has produced this book of Mormon simply as a tool to get you to not read the TRUE Word of God and His Holy Book of Truth. As long as Satan can distract you with the false you are never going to recognize the Truth. But, if the Mormons try to teach something that is a part of the truth just to discredit the truth; that does not mean the truth is not present in the Bible.
So let me give you another example of something that I may teach that is perverted by a satanic symbol. A common satanic symbol is a five pointed star with a symbol of a male goat with horns on it. Why did Satan choose this symbol to pervert it? What is the significance of this symbol and the meaning of this symbol? Why did Satan pick a goat to pervert it? Now anything in the Bible that God uses for the symbol of the goat is tainted with this perverted image. Because the goat and the 5 pointed star symbols are used for a direct reference to Satan, anything that the Bible now attempts to use them for are more easily rejected by Christians. If someone suddenly came to you with a new revelation of what God said a “star” represents; you will more than likely retract from it. Now, if anyone comes to you with a revelation of what a goat is a symbol of in the Bible, you will automatically throw it aside. This is typical human nature to throw away even the good because someone used it for evil. It is an automatic death sentence for any symbolic object that Satan has used to describe himself. This death occurs by the simple association of any truth by associating with the lies or symbols for Satan. All Satan has to do is to get someone in the world to take a Bible symbol and to pervert it into a symbol for Satan and every Christian will automatically run very fast away from it.
The Bible informs us that Satan presents himself as an angel of light (2 Cor 11:14). Why would Satan then try to present himself with strong demonic images of himself being a very evil being with a pitch fork, horns and a pointed tail? It is because when he shows up looking like a glorious spectacular supernatural being or even as a normal looking person, he will be able to trick you into believing his lies. After all you are looking for an evil ugly being and not a handsome good looking fellow. It is the classic bait and switch approach to advertising; you present one image and then you switch out another new image that is completely different and try to get people to be a sucker for something they didn’t expect to get. This is a very prominent ploy used in deception. Make people think this is true and then present them with a set of lies that are believable. Satan used people like David Koresh and Jim Jones to deceive people. They looked normal, they sounded normal and presented some very subtle words of deception. As a result many people died because these men decided it was time to die. Understanding how your enemy Satan operates may save your life someday.
I’ll end this blog with one more example of deception. If you did not know it, the Ram is a Bible symbol for God the Father. However Satan uses this symbol for himself. Satan is attempting to exalt his throne to the equivalency of that of God’s throne. Satan is trying to deceive people into believing that he is god. When the anti-Christ comes in Revelation he will be setting himself up to be this most high god. So where is God a Ram in the Bible? We can find this several places in the Bible but we will start with Genesis 22:
Gen 22:13 And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.
When Isaac asked his father Abraham “Where is the animal for the sacrifice?” Abraham replied “God will provide Himself as the lamb”. Jesus is repeatedly called the Lamb of God in the N.T. This is a symbolic name for Jesus Christ our sacrifice Lamb. Who is the father of a Lamb? A Ram is the father of a Lamb! As you can see in this verse in Genesis 22, instead of Abraham sacrificing Isaac God provided a Ram. This Ram was a symbol of Himself being the sacrifice. Abraham sacrifices the Ram a symbol of God coming to the earth in the flesh to pay the price for the sins of all mankind with His blood. So God’s symbol is that of a Ram and Satan now produces this symbol to represent himself. What is Satan trying to do? He is trying to discredit the truth of the Bible. He is taking a real symbol found in the Bible and trying to present you a false symbol. This is a classic ploy of deception. Take the real and pervert it.
So this blog was different, I know! It was an attempt to challenge you to think. Use your brain for something more than a place holder of useless information. Take the real and reject the fakes, the false, and the lies of the enemy. God Bless you to know the difference!
If you would like to continue reading about deception you can continue to “Part 3“.
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If you want to know how to get saved and know that you are with confidence you can go to: How do I get saved?
Deception the Greatest Weapon of Satan!
(Ver 1.3) This is Part 1 of a series of lessons on the subject of deception found in the Bible. Today I want to discuss how Satan causes people not to see the truth of God’s Word. It is a common practice in military training for Generals and commanders to study their enemies. By understanding an enemies strengths and weaknesses you are better able to defend against them or better yet to defeat them. The more you know about your enemies the better off you are. So does the church have any enemies? You must be an ostrich Christian with your spiritual head stuck in the ground if you do not see that we do. There is a spiritual force of evil in the world that is bent on taking the church down. They have specific tactics and tools that they use to try to defeat the church. We know that the Bible says that we “wrestle not against flesh and blood” so we know that people are not the source of our opposition, even though Satan does use people to try to get to us. We know that those forces of evil that we fight against are the “principalities and powers, the rulers of the darkness of this world” (Eph 6:12). So just because flesh and blood comes against the church with accusations and verbal or physical attacks, these people are controlled by a spiritual force that we cannot perceive with our physical senses.
2Ti 2:26 And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.
We can understand that Satan, our enemy uses “snares” to come against us. A snare is a trap, a trick or strategy that causes us to become captive or a prisoner. If every trap was obvious, we would never be caught. So these traps must be hidden or covered so that we do not see them clearly. I believe that Satan’s primary weapon is the deception of thoughts that are placed in our minds. What is deception and how it is used against us, will be my subject for today. Let’s start by defining the word “deceived” from the Bible:
G4105
From G4106; to (properly cause to) roam (from safety, truth, or virtue): – go astray, deceive, err, seduce, wander, be out of the way.
That is a very interesting definition for the word “deceived” found in the N.T. This word means to “cause to wander or roam from safety, truth or virtue”. If you have ever been hiking in the woods, you know that usually there are designated trails and established pathways. However, if you become adventuresome, and attempt to deviate and make your own way, this is normally where your failure and deception begins. Many times a path will have a fork in it and if it is not clearly marked you better have a good map. Sometimes walking down a path you encounter what looks like a good way to go and it suddenly turns into a dead end. When I was younger, my wife and I started climbing a mountain in Colorado. It took a good part of the day to get to the top. We did this on a whim and were not planning on being gone as long as we were. We took no food or water and on the way back down the mountain decided to try to take a short cut. If this short cut would have worked, we would have been back to camp in time for dinner. However, we ran into a cliff and a steep terrain that there was just no way to continue. So we ended up going back up the way we came and finally back the way we climbed up. This little analogy has vast spiritual implication on it. Jesus told us that he is the “Path”, “The Way” and He revealed there is no other way to God (John 14:6). So where did all of these other religions in the world come from? Who gave us these religions and why are they here? You do know there are well over 20 major religions in the world and within these 20 or more religions there are further divisions or sects and all of these just cannot be the truth. The variation in what they believe and teach is so radically different that there is no way they are even related. This is what I believe about these religions, and why they exist. I believe they are an attempt of the enemy to provide information overload. By providing you so many options and so many possible ways of thinking you are easily overwhelmed to know which one is right. How do you know which one to choose? So God comes to the earth and gives you the truth and tells you that Jesus is the way, but all of the other religions of the world say no, that is not right, we have the only truth. Wow, what a trick! What a major distraction! What a way to get people to not see the real way! Who is responsible for all these lies? The Bible tells us very clearly, that there is one individual, a spirit being that is responsible for this dissemination of invalid and false information and it is Satan:
Rev 12:9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
So we can clearly see that the “great dragon” who is called Satan is responsible for the deception that is being perpetrated upon the human race. People are being led down paths away from the truth and in directions that are directly opposite from the truth, into a realm of darkness and they do not even know it. These deceptions are being instigated at every level and every location on the globe. Satan is interested in deceiving everyone, because why? Is Satan just a really bad guy who does evil just because he can, or is there a greater motivation and purpose to his behavior? You should really think about that question and determine Satan’s motivation, since that is not my primary subject I will not try to elaborate on it for now. However, I will talk about a related subject and mention this:
2Jn 1:7 For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.
We have already seen that Satan is the chief initiator of all deception. However, as I said before, Satan uses people to get his messages out. Satan is a spiritual being that controls and manipulates natural people. So we have people, even in churches today that stand up and teach things that are lies. Here is one of the ways to determine if they are telling the truth or not. It would seem that Satan is highly opposed to letting people believe that God came into the world in the flesh, in the form of a man named Jesus of Nazareth. Why is Satan so opposed to this message? Did God’s presence on the earth cause something to happen to Satan that Satan wants to try to undo? Let me ask you this, if I said that the Holocaust never happened in Germany like some idiots try to say in the world, does that mean it is not true? No it doesn’t change the fact that it occurred just because you don’t believe it occurred, does it? But, what happens is it changes your perception of reality and therefore it changes your results and you lose any benefit of believing the truth, because you have bought into the lie. This is the net result of telling people God did not come to the earth in the man Jesus Christ. By telling people that Jesus was just a normal human male, you take away His ability to save you and forgive your sins. As a result you are lost with no hope of salvation and that is really bad news for you.
So this next part will not be particularly popular with some Christians, but yet I believe it needs to be said. Deception involves someone speaking false words. False words is a nicer way of saying lies. A liar is a deceiver. A deceiver is a liar. They go hand in hand. Where one is, the other is also present. They are the Siamese twins of Satan.
Joh 8:44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
Jesus speaking to the Jews reveals some very strong words of truth, and says they are of their father, the devil. Since that is not my subject I will not go there today. Then Jesus tells us that Satan is the father of all lies. That is just another way of saying that Satan is the initiator of lies. However, it is interesting to note that not everything that Satan says is necessarily a lie. Jesus said “When Satan lies” not “When Satan speaks”. There is a major difference. It also makes deception much harder to recognize. When Satan speaks 10 truths mixed with one or two lies, how do you know which is which? If you notice back in Genesis 3, when Satan spoke to Eve he said some things that were true, but then he also mixed in a lie. This is how Satan operates, mixing truths with lies so that you become deceived into believing the lie. Here is a definition of one of the Greek words translated as “lie”:
G5574
Middle voice of an apparently primary verb; to utter an untruth or attempt to deceive by falsehood: – falsely, lie.
To utter an untruth. In other words to speak a lie. What is truth? Truth is based upon the Word of God, because the Bible says that it is impossible for God to lie (Heb 6:18). So God only speaks the truth. What God says we can take as the truth. The Bible contains the truth of God, but not everything in the Bible is truth. That statement shocks some Christians also, but you have to understand when you watch the 6:00 evening news, is everything that they say or report true? What if they interview a known criminal and he says I’m innocent, I did not kill that woman. Should you believe it just because it was on the news? So it is with the Bible, not every recorded word or statement of men and women in the Bible is the truth. It is true that they said what they said, but it did come out of the mouth of God so why are we suppose to believe it all? Job said some stuff that God reprimanded him for and asked him, were you there when I made the heavens and formed the stars? If you read Job 38:2 God says “Who is this that darkens counsel with words without knowledge”. That doesn’t sound very good for Job’s words, does it? We have the recorded words of Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar Ananias, Pilot, just to name a few men who were not saved, nor were they prophets of God. So truth come from verses that say “Thus saith the Lord”. Truth comes from the Words in Red in the N.T. Also truth comes from the mouth of God’s prophets.
So a lie is an untruth. A statement not based upon facts or clear evidence. A lie is a statement of “fiction”. That is why I avoid reading books labeled “fiction”. They are the words of someone’s imagination, either based upon some facts or no facts. We are surrounded by Fictional movies, books and other examples of entertainment that challenge our Christian faith. There is so much of this in the world today that it is amazing we can think at all. Satan is the author and originator of “fiction”, “untruth”, “lies” and “deception”. That is why I debate the fact that some authors call themselves “Christian Fiction Writers”. To me that is just another oxymoronic term for a true lie. I told you this was not going to be popular, but we need to consider what we feed on. Just as we should watch we eat physically, we should also watch what we put into our spirits. Here is a scripture that confirms this:
2Ti 4:4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.
This verse is speaking about Christians who knew the truth at one time, but have now followed fables. The Greek word translated as “fables” means “myths”, “tales” and “fiction”. Do you see the danger of “fiction”? Satan can use it to lead you off of the path of eternal salvation back into a path of darkness. That just can’t be good, right?
1Ti 1:4 Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith:
We are again warned of the introduction of “fiction” into our lives that results in us questioning our faith. This verse tells us that truth “edifies” or “builds up our faith” and we can clearly see that “fiction” does the opposite.
2Pe 1:16 For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.
Cunningly devised “fiction” will lead some into paths they do not want to go. To say something is “cunning” and “devised” means that it is purposely designed to lie to you and bring you down. In other words fiction is more than just entertainment, it has a purpose and a design intended to do harm to you and to deceive you. You can certainly see why this is not popular, but yet it is in the Bible, so what do we do with it?
So is deception becoming less prevalent or is deception in the world growing? Are there less options or are the number of possible lies being exponentially increased in our daily lives? I believe that with the advent of the internet and the information explosion era that we are living within, we are faced with an increasingly difficult levels of deceptions. Sometimes the false information is blatant and obvious, but other times it is subtle and very tricky to see. There is such a diverse set of false information on the internet and TV, that it is very difficult for most people to figure out what is real. This is what the Bible says about deception:
2Ti 3:13 But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.
The amount of deception in the world is increasingly growing at a rate that is difficult to comprehend. The number of ways to be deceived, the number of ways that lies are presented are exploding on TV, movies, the internet and the other media sources, that there is no way to keep track of it all anymore. If a Christian wanted to discredit all of them they would not be able to. What Christians need to understand is that we are not called to teach against lies, we are just called to present the truth. Those who believe will be saved and those who do not believe, will not be saved (Mark 16:16).
Eph 4:14 That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;
Just as natural children are more easily tricked than adults, spiritual children are more easily deceived than mature Christians. We are admonished to grow up spiritually and to become mature in Christ. Otherwise we will be tossed around easily with the trickery of Satan. You do know that Satan has been around a lot longer than you have, don’t you? You do understand that he has more experience with what to do, than you do. So if you are depending upon your ability to deflect the lies that he will present you, you are already deceived. In this verse in Ephesians God tells us not to accept every teaching that is thrown at us. I found the word “sleight” of men to be very interesting when I looked up the definition. It means “dice”, or “a gambling cube”. The implication is given that these men are gambling with your lives and theirs. They are rolling their cubes and playing a game that is not easily won. The next term in the verse is that of “cunning craftiness”. This term means to be “subtle”. If you recall this is the way Satan came to Eve in Genesis 3. Satan used specific thoughts to deceive the woman and that is Satan’s only weapon against you. All Satan has to do is trick you a little bit, distract you from the truth by just a minor difference and you are now off the true path.
Rom 16:18 For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple.
This verse is so amazingly true to our world that we live in, that I am shocked at the reality of our current government. We seem to have a President who speaks “fair” words that have deceived the hearts of the simple minded people of our nation. He says one thing and does an entirely different thing. Simple refers again to those who are not mature, those who are not grown up. To those who are still childlike. It is amazing how many people qualify for this labeled description. It is a very sad statement to the condition of our nation.
Flattering Words, Cleverly Designed Fables, Subtle Words of Deception, these are the tricks of the enemy, Satan. He overwhelms you with information that is contrary to the truth that you have difficulty recognizing the truth. The tricks of the enemy are the same as when Eve was deceived, the words and the number of words is the only difference depending upon your situation and circumstances. Learn to recognize deception and choose not to be deceived.
If you would like to continue reading in this lesson series on this subject of deception, you can go to “Part 2“.
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If you want to know how to get saved and know that you are with confidence you can go to: How do I get saved?
How Satan Uses People to Set Traps for You!
(ver 1.3) A trap is the hidden trick of an enemy to take you captive or prisoner. To trap wild animals, some have used a spring like device that usually has a concealed danger with an enticing lure or some type of tempting bait. Many times people would dig a big hole in the ground and cover it with branches and leaves so that others do not recognize the pit fall dangers as they travel in that area. People have walked down this path being unfamiliar with the danger and many have fallen into it and were caught. Whether you realize it or not, you are walking down a figurative trail in life and Satan has placed many concealed traps in your path in order to take you captive. We must learn to recognize these potential traps. In order to do this I believe that we need to become familiar with the examples found in the Bible of what Satan has used on other people. Only by learning and studying the devices and methods of our spiritual enemy, can we even begin to become familiar with the certain impending traps that will be presented to us. Only when we learn to recognize the traps can we learn how to avoid them.
Job 18:10 The snare is laid for him in the ground, and a trap for him in the way.
While natural traps are hidden dangers to your physical well being, spiritual traps are hidden pitfalls that are intended for your spiritual harm. Since Satan is not physically present in this world (at least until the anti-christ is revealed) and it is illegal for him to be in physical manifestation to harm you, he has adapted and changed up his attack and trap methods. Satan uses physical people in the world to set traps for other people. Satan works very hard to deceive everyone, but many times he concentrates on a select few which are easier to be deceived. These types of easy targets are usually the most ignorant of the truth found in God’s word. Satan then traps them into believing his lies and then uses them to deceive the others through their enticing baited words of partial truths. Let’s go through an example of this in the Bible:
Exo 23:33 They shall not dwell in thy land, lest they make thee sin against me: for if thou serve their gods, it will surely be a snare unto thee.
Here we have a great example of the deceived people on the earth deceiving God’s people. Many people have been deceived into believing that God has provided many religions and many paths that lead us to Him. However, God did not EVER say this, this was only man’s reasoning based upon them buying into Satan’s deception. Just because many religions exist in the world today does not mean that God started them, God endorses them, God accepts them or God subscribes to them. That is just a common planned trap of the enemy. Flood the world with the false to counter the True from God. In this verse in Exodus God warns the Nation of Israel that these foreign gods found within the other nations they encountered would become a “snare” to them. In other words this snare was another technique of their enemy to take them captive. By serving their false gods, God’s people would be deceived from knowing the truth and even depart from it. By serving the false, they would be led captive away from their true living God. So evidently every religion is not the right way to God! Clearly God was warning His people that these people did not know Him or His ways but were put there to be traps for them. God was clearly revealing the methods of entrapment and this information can still be applicable to us today in the church. Let’s take a look at another verse in Exodus:
Exo 34:12 Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither thou goest, lest it be for a snare in the midst of thee:
By associating with the wrong people and joining themselves together as one nation, God informs Israel that if they were not careful to avoid this, they would again become trapped into a situation that they do not want to be in. This is again speaking of a spiritual snare, a trap that the enemy has presented them using natural people. These people since they are not God’s covenant people would present themselves as friendly and introduce them to new ideas, concepts and things that God declares would become a trap to deceive them. This is a spiritual principle and a method that Satan still uses today with Christians. Become friends with the wrong people, hang around the wrong people long enough, and what they do and what they say will eventually become what you do and what you say. The bad influences in life will always drag you down to their level and you will not be able to pull them up to your level so beware of this trap.
Let me talk about another aspect of what this verse is saying. A covenant is a marriage in the eyes of God. You can learn this by reading Malachi 2:14. God reveals to us it matters who we marry. When a Christian marries a non-Christian they usually regret it. Many times a Christian lady will marry a man thinking he will change and go to church with her and this is usually a vast disappointment when this does not occur. The man may even promise and say the right things right up until the wedding day, but after the wedding the bride has joined herself to an unbeliever and become deceived. This is a common deception revealed to us in the Bible and if you learn now before you get married, you will avoid this trap.
Psa 38:12 They also that seek after my life lay snares for me: and they that seek my hurt speak mischievous things, and imagine deceits all the day long.
The traps of the enemy are many times laced with enough truth and good that it appears to be something desirable. If you wanted to kill an animal you would not throw it just poison and hope that they ate it. No you wrap the poison in a steak, or something that is very desirable to the animal. This is a common practice of the enemy. They usually do not start with the blatant obvious lies, they always start with the truth and mix in a few lies here and there. By doing this they have disguised the lies and made them harder to recognize and easier to accept. This verse in Psalms tells us that Satan uses people to hurt people. This could be a physical pain or an emotional pain as this verse is talking about. By using words from one person to hurt and offend another, this is a common trap that people fall into, even in church. It could be an intentional hurt or an unintentional hurt, but the result is often times the same. Satan is working day and night to get to you and he will use anyone that he can to do this. It might be your pastor or your best friend, but do not fall into the trap. Recognize what it is and pray for them, do not confront them personally or you may be repeating the offense in a reverse attack. Do not let Satan use you to get back at someone that did you wrong.
Psa 119:110 The wicked have laid a snare for me: yet I erred not from thy precepts.
Here is a prevalent method of the enemy. To try to distract you from the truth of God’s word. All the enemy has to do is to get you interested in something else. Cause something else to become a higher priority than God’s Word. By distracting you, you become interested in the wrong things. It could be movies, it could be books, it could even be doing good things like feeding the poor. Whatever, it takes to distract you from what is suppose to be most important to you, that is what Satan will use to set a trap for you. The Psalmist says that he stayed focus on God’s Word and did not take the bait that was presented to him. Recognize where your priorities are right now. Evaluate yourself and examine what you think is important. Prioritize your life and make God and His Word number one and strive to keep Him at the top of your priority list.
A Modern Example of Deception to Avoid – Part 5 Does God Need Your Militia?
(Ver 1.2) This is now “Part 5” in a series of commonsense Christian Bible lessons teaching us examples of modern deception that we should avoid at all cost. If you have not read this series from the beginning, you may desire to go and begin with “Part 1” first. But please understand that this lesson is not dependent upon any previous lesson for it to be understood and applied. Today’s lesson is about deception taking place that creates a worldly attitude that Christians are extremist crazy people that need to be imprisoned or killed. This is exactly the direction that Satan is trying to steer the unsaved world into believing about Christians. It is very much like what Satan did in the nation of Germany in the 1930’s when Jewish people were characterized as evil so that they could be exterminated. That is what is happening again today for Jewish people and for Christians.
MODERN DAY MILITIA
I was watching the news a while back when a concerning news story came across the television. Here was another example of extreme deception that we should avoid in the Body of Christ. I have said this before, but it is good to repeat it. If the news media puts a story on their valuable network time about Christians it is there for a purpose to drive Satan’s planned narrative. Therefore, take these stories and use wisdom to understand they are not there to make Christians look good.
In one state in the US, there appeared a group of people who call themselves Christians, who have armed themselves for a coming battle with the anti-Christ or so the news said. I don’t believe everything that the news always says, but if this is true these people are deceived into believing that their guns and military training is going to make a difference at the battle of Armageddon. How childish and ignorant this appears! The news story seemed to indicate that these people believed that we were living at the end of the age (which is the truth). They also believed that Jesus would be coming back to the earth very soon (which is more truth). They believed that the anti-Christ could be here already and that the end time battle for Jerusalem and the earth was soon to occur (this is also base upon Bible truth). So while they have all this truth mostly correct, they ignore the rest of the Bible and have bought into selective theology to justify their actions. In other words they have been deceived into believing a lie. They must not understand who Jesus is and how powerful that He is.
These Christians are thinking naturally and carnally and according to my Bible that is enmity against God. These people hopefully are saved Christians but they are lacking in a lot of spiritual knowledge, understanding and wisdom to know the POWER OF GOD. Not every person on the earth that calls them self a Christian is a Christian. I can call myself a car and go sit in my garage, but that does not make me a car.
Let us examine this carnal belief using the Bible. Let us start with Moses and the children of Israel leaving Egypt. What does God do? He parts the Red Sea and drowns all of the army of Pharaoh. Did God need anyone of the Israelites to do this? Were the Israelites armed with weapons of war that God required to fight this Egyptian enemy? Did you know that Egypt is a type of the world that we live in right now? That Pharaoh was a type of the anti-Christ and Satan. Did you know that the Bible says that what has been is the thing that shall be again (Ecc 1:9)? Will God need anyone to defeat the armies of the world led by the anti-Christ? I don’t think so! If God did need someone to defeat the anti-Christ , why choose a human? Why not some angels? God has millions or billions of angels that can kill everybody on the planet in a matter of seconds. God sent out one angel in 2 Kings 19:35 and he alone killed 185,000 human soldiers of Assyria. The current population of the earth is approximately 7 billion people. That would only take 38 angels to wipe them all out using the 2 Kings math. Let us read another Bible story about angels and there being no need for human weapons and fighting in a battle on the earth:
2Ki 6:16 And he answered, Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.
In this story in 2 Kings, the prophet of God is confronted by his servant who asked “what are we going to do?” You see the enemies of God’s people had surrounded the hill side where they were and there were a whole bunch of them. In the natural they were vastly outnumbered, but Elisha did not panic, and even said “Fear Not”. He then exclaimed this, “There are more with us than there are with them”. At this point in time the servant could count, One + One = Two, against thousands and say what are you talking about? Then Elisha prays!
2Ki 6:17 And Elisha prayed, and said, LORD, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the LORD opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.
Did you notice Elisha did not pray for God to help, or to send help or ask God to do anything, but rather the prayer was to open the eyes of his young servant? This is what these militia people need. They need a word from God’s prophet from His written Word and to pray for God to open their eyes. God did answer this prayer! When God opened the eyes of the young man, he saw the hills covered with the army of God in chariots of fire. Now the servant could see that there were more with them than there were that were against them. Did God need anybody else? Did God tell Elisha to get his sword and fight? You see people who do not understand the Bible think that God is incapable of repeating anything that He has demonstrated before. You have to understand that any spiritual army of God is no match for any natural army of the earth. You do understand that, don’t you? Angels are bigger and stronger than us and we do not want to mess with one of them, much less thousands of them.
These confused, deceived Christians need a revelation from God to understand the power of God. God does not need any gun to defeat the anti-Christ or his armies. If you think He does need you then you are deceived. If we would just read the rest of our Bible and believe that God is God, we will be far better off. Let us stop giving spiritually mature Christians a bad reputation just because some carnal thinking baby Christians have not seen the truth yet. But, the world lumps Christians all together in the same crazy boat. Whenever, some deceived person bombs an abortion clinic, thinking they are doing God’s work they make every Christian come across looking like the same type of foolishness. I know this is actually a plan of Satan to do this. discount and discredit true Christianity, by deceiving a few people to look like crazy evil people.
So how does God defeat Satan and the anti-Christ and those that are arrayed against Him? Like I said if you would only need to read your Bible to find out that Jesus uses only one weapon to defeat every enemy. And this weapon is not your gun or your muscle. So what is this weapon that Jesus uses?
Rev 19:15 And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.
What part of this verse in Revelation sounds like God needs our gun or our whatever! The ONLY weapon that Jesus uses to defeat all of the nations of people arrayed against Him is His mouth. The Word of God is spoken and opponents fall down dead. Out of the mouth of the “Almighty God” will proceed a sharp sword and that is the only weapon that Jesus will need to defeat anybody that comes against Him. If we still do not understand that, I feel very sad for you, you have been deceived.
A PERSONAL APPLICATION
To believe that the Creator of heaven and earth requires human assistance to help defeat Satan, I believe is deception. I believe that this belief would be like little kids playing army. To a real soldier the kids would be amusing. Sometimes I believe God sometimes, sits in heaven and laughs at our childish behavior. So to the militia members and Christians that think that God needs your guns to defeat His enemy, here is our prayer for you!
Dear LORD, please forgive us for being so ignorant. Please give to us your Spirit of revelation in the knowledge of Christ Jesus. Help us to better understand His Power, His Position and His Plan for every human. LORD open the eyes of our spirit that we might perceive the truth as you have given it and intended it. Give us a hunger to read your Word and the vision of how you see your Words and their meanings. We are looking forward to your soon return to catch us up and away from the coming judgments upon the earth dwellers. Thank you, and we are looking forward to returning back to the earth with You riding on a White Horse to rule and reign for 1000 years. In Jesus name we pray, Amen.
God bless you and please pray for us. Your prayers are priceless and we value them immensely. Have a blessed time preparing for His soon coming, but if He has not return before our next lesson is available, live in peace and be led by His Spirit.
Deceptions in the Modern World designed to Deceive and Control Us Part 4 – Is the Government Your God?
(Ver 1.1) This is now “Part 4” in the Bible study series concerning the subject of modern strategies of the devil to deceive Christians. If you have not read this series from the beginning you might like to start with “Part 1” first. But please understand that this lesson is not dependent upon any previous lesson to be understood and applied in your life. I think millions of Americans are being raised and indoctrinated to look at the government as their personal source for whatever they need. If someone needs food, the government invented food stamps. If someone needs housing, they invented Welfare and Section 8 housing. If someone lost their job and needs money the government invented unemployment income. Now the government has been looking to solve everyone’s health care issues by giving a people free Medicare that is again going to be paid for by other rich people. There are a never ending list of deceptive promises designed to trick us into being controlled by the government. All I ask is “Who is Your God”? Do you look for God to help you or is that the responsibility of your government? Do you pray to God or the President or Congress? Is a human your god? I do not think so!
Ignorant Christians obviously vote our congress and president into government office. And I wonder who is their god to them? My point of this lesson is to get us to see that God is still God and that He is capable of solving whatever problem that we are facing right now. This of course doesn’t help anyone that does not believe there is a God. But my Bible says “That a fool says there is no God”, and it is very difficult to help a fool. But for Christians my Bible also says “Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith” (Heb 12:2) Christians should be looking to Jesus as their source for whatever we need. Whatever Jesus did while he walked the face of the earth, He still does today. The Bible says “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever” (Heb 13:8). Jesus has not changed in His love, His actions or His deeds. Whatever He did before, He can do again! Always remember what Jesus did in the Gospels. He healed blind eyes, He healed lame men, He healed lepers, He raised the dead, He fed 5000 once and 3000 another time. Is there anything too hard for our God?
So is the government our source and supply? Are new government programs the answer for our problems? Should we expand the government so that they can solve all of our problems? This might be news to you, but our current government cannot sustain the current level of growth and monetary deficits. Our government will not survive at this rate very much longer. Our government is already bankrupt, financially and morally. If our government was a financial institution they would have needed a bail out a long time ago. We are living in an extremely fragile time and the least little thing can send everything spiraling out of control. The world financial markets are perpetuating an illusion of stability. The governments of the world are uncontrollably spending money they do not have to prop-up the illusion of stability. The world will soon realize that the stage is set for the anti-Christ to appear.
People have been raised and conditioned to look to the government to solve all of their problems. So when the anti-Christ appears on the scene offering solutions for every problem that he has created for you to see, people will automatically jump in that pool with all of their clothes on and soon drown in the waters of confusion and deception.
Php 4:19 But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
Looking to the government for our answers is exactly what Satan wants us to do. By Satan offering to solve all of our problems we will be deceived into a false sense of security. Everything will appear to be great for a short time. Satan will try to teach us that we can get by without God! He will then attempt to teach that we can ignore the Bible. It is a deceiving plan to teach that people won’t need a God as long as the government feeds them! God doesn’t need to send us manna from heaven as long as we have food stamps.
SO, WHO IS YOUR GOD? Is your God too small to fix your problem?
What we need to do as a nation is to bring back God as our source and supply. We then need to help people who do not know God to see the truth. Then we need to teach these people who are in need to learn how to fish for themselves. As long as the government continues to give out free fish to everyone, no one will be motivated to do the right thing and learn to help others.
Please join me in praying for God to help us to not be deceived by our governement:
LORD, I come to you as our Jehovah Jireh. The God of more than enough supply and provision. As you supplied Abraham with a ram for sacrifice instead of Isaac, you are more than able to supply what is needed to fulfill your plan and your purpose for my life. Help me O’LORD to not place my faith in the provisions of a temporary human government on the earth. Help me to not be deceived by the deception of temporary promises from anyone on earth not speaking Your Words and Your Will, especially people who are being used by Satan. Grant me wisdom to know who to vote for in our elections. Help me to vote for people that do your will and hear your voice. I look to you the creator of the heavens and the earth and declare you be LORD over my mind, my thoughts, my will, my emotions and my Spirit. Thank you for leading me into the paths of truth and life and far from the ways of deception and death. In Jesus name I pray, Amen.
Thank you for reading and studying the Bible about the ways Satan is trying to deceive us in the Church today. These are things we must learn and avoid to follow after. Please leave a comment or press “Like” if you agree with this message. God Bless you until next time.
If you would like to continue to learn in this series on “Deception” please go to “Part 5“.
A Modern Example of Deception to Avoid in the Church – Part 3
(Ver 1.2) This is now “Part 3” in a Bible study series about Christians that follow other Christians blindly without confirming what is being taught in the church is really the truth that the Bible teaches. These are examples that no real Christian should follow. In fact these are examples for Christians to greatly avoid becoming. If you have not read from the beginning of this series you may like to go read from “Part 1” first. But know this Bible study is not dependent upon a previous lesson to be understood and applied. Our subject in this lesson series concerns traps and tricks of deception that Satan uses to get Christians to not know or believe the truth. These are examples that need to be understood so that we don’t fall for them.
We can all learn from positive or negative examples. The Bible is full of both types of people. God wrote the Bible this way to teach us that we are all humans that make mistakes. But He also does this so that we can learn not to repeat their mistakes. Perhaps you recall the classic quotation of Edmond Burke “Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it”. This is a wise saying because it is much wiser to learn from someone else’s mistake rather than to repeat it and reap the same consequences.
INTRODUCTION
Hopefully you should know that I do not enjoy criticizing others and it is my goal to never name any names in what is written. I have learned that there are no perfect people in the world and everyone including me, has made mistakes. But today I want to give an example of a Christian that was living an example that all should avoid. I want to address a stereotypical group of Christian people that are good examples of people doing very unbiblical things. It seems within this Christian group a large portion of these people believe things and even do things blindly without any scriptural basis for their beliefs. In other words they automatically believed in doing something that they were taught in their church without finding out if it is really true. For too many it actually goes much further than that. If they do accidently find out the truth about something in their Bible that disagrees with what they have been taught, they choose to ignore it and refuse to believe it. In other words they put more faith in their deceived church teacher than they do their God and their Bible. That just seems very dangerous to me. How do you know that your church teacher is not another Jim Jones or a David Koresh leading you into a path of deception, destruction and death? Some people want to trust and place all of their faith in a human teacher because of their admiration for their outward looks. We having people in the U.S. voting for people to be president because they like the way they look. Who cares what they stand for or if they are telling us the truth, he is just so good looking. Wow what a deception that is taking place. This is not what the Bible teaches us to do. Read this verse and see what made these people more noble Christians:
Act 17:11 These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.
Here we have a story written by Luke where it describes Paul who wrote 2/3 of the New Testament preached to two groups of people. The first group called “Bereans” were described to be more noble that the second group called “those in Thessalonica”. I guess Paul named names and maybe I should also. But the Bereans do not follow Paul’s teachings blindly. The wise listeners to God’s teachers proved everything that was being taught by searching for them self in their own scriptures in order to prove if they were true or not. That is what I ask you to do also. Don’t believe anything that comes from me blindly. Get your own Bible, your own computer, phone or tablet and search to prove if it is really what God is saying to you. The Bereans were positive examples to follow after but let us move to a modern negative example to avoid.
A MODERN CHURCH EXAMPLE TO AVOID
As soon as I start describing this negative example church to avoid you will probably know who I am talking about. So even though I am telling you who it is, it will probably be very obvious and I really don’t know how to avoid this. In speaking with someone the other day they told me about a conversation that they had with their Christian friend. The conversation was about a Bible subject that everyone should know of. If you have been a Christian for long or you were raised in this church, you know exactly what we are about to learn. Hopefully you have already abandoned this teaching and moved far from the deception that is still being taught.
Blindness is defined as a person’s inability to see the light and this is true for physical or spiritual blindness. Sometimes the light is too bright and it forces some people to close your eyes. Many times our eyes have to adjust to different levels of light intensity before we can see things clearly. But sometimes people see the bright light of what the Bible says and then they just choose to close their eyes to it. They reject God’s bright truth for what they have chosen to believe called man’s traditional teachings. Jesus warned us in Matthew 15:6 that our “traditions can nullify the commandments of God”. To me that does not sound good.
People embrace traditions because of their trust in their teachers and their church. This is just wrong deceived behavior. An