Lesson 5. Part 3 – DECEPTIONS IN THESE END-TIMES
To watch this weeks YouTube video click here;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0maalIDROuI
Last week we discussed WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENT AREAS OF WEAKNESSES IN YOUR LIFE WHICH CAN MAKE YOU OPEN TO DECEPTIONS?
To recap:
- YOUR HEART – motives of your heart.
- LACK OF LOVE FOR THE TRUTH & DISOBEDIENCE –
- Love for the Truth.
- Obedience to the Truth.
We continue on here…
3) A Love for Balanced Truth
When God brings new truth, two problems can arise – overemphasis/extremism/fanaticism or neglect/refusal/criticism of the truth. God’s idea is for the church to take that truth and bring it down into the mainstream and add it, IN BALANCE, to the other things that God has been bringing previously. The extreme areas of that truth then accounted in the mainstream, are self-adjusted by other truth, and you flow in a balanced walk with the Lord! Paul said I didn’t neglect to teach you THE WHOLE COUNSEL OF GOD. He taught them everything he knew. He says, “I’ve not held anything back from you – Acts 20:27 – I’ve taught you the whole counsel of God where there is truthfulness, fullness, balance.
We need to know of having a love for the balanced, complete, full truths of God to avoid deceptions in these last days when false prophets and teachers will abound. You’ve got to establish a church on the whole counsel of God, because if a church is established on an emphasis, when pressure comes in these other areas, they’re not prepared to handle it; they do not have understanding, disintegration comes in!
THERE HAS TO COME A COMMITMENT TO TRUTH, even as the Scriptures say that in the last days, knowledge/revelation will abound (Daniel 12:4), IN ORDER TO GO ON IN THE PURPOSES OF GOD. Hosea 4:6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you from being priest to Me. When we talk about commitment, we mean about building an altar in a sense before God and saying, “God, if I know something to be the truth whether it cost me my reputation, my friends or whatever, I will buy the truth.” But once you know the truth, and you compromise it, you don’t get further revelation in God. You don’t really go on with God.
Problem of Extremism
The prophetic messages of the prior generation has been opposed by two diabolical spirits attempting to hinder this generation from embracing that truth. One was criticism and the other extremism. These two spirits are functioning like book ends coming from two diametrically opposing directions yet with the same determination to squelch the prophetic release of God’s Kingdom and hinder the harvest. The first was a dark wave of extremism that will sweep behind the Kingdom truths that are revealed with the expectation of pressing them beyond biblical parameters and proper balance.
Extremism is simply defined as “wildly excessive, twisted or irrational application of a truth” that borders on a work of the flesh rather than by the Holy Spirit. There is an over-emphasis, imbalance, disregarding other equally truths of God, excesses like the ‘laughter in the Spirit,’ the wild use and abuse of the gifts of the Holy Spirit which led to prayer groups unknowingly doing ‘witchcraft, controlling praying’ against the church leaders, pastors, church members. The diabolical intent of this spirit is to drive things beyond biblical balance and sway people away from the core truth because of the fanatical element that the more grounded Christians desire to distance themselves from.
Man (teachers, prophets, etc.) is used by God to bring truth, but he always take it to an extreme. He leans heavily one way, and they can be extreme in their truth. They teach one thing, and you know they’ll call a convention or seminar and teach one thing. Now the Body of Christ picks it up and says, “This is it!” Usually they are extreme in that thing, because it’s a thing that God has given them – they don’t always have that in perspective with other things. But we must embrace the admonition of 1 Thessalonians 5:19-21 saying: Do not quench the Spirit; do not despise prophetic utterances. But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good.
Now you must hear the truth without becoming out of balance like them; the truth is good. You have to look at it in a kind of balanced way. Take the truth, leave the personality, and don’t criticise the vessel!
Refusal, Neglect, Criticism
Other people don’t make any emphasis on truths being brought in by God, especially in these crucial End-times. They neglect or refuse God’s truth; it’s not really important at all to them, preferring to camp around the old truths that have believed in, not knowing that God’s truth is progressive; preferring to stick with the ‘old truths’ they have been believing in when God is wanting to bring more revelations and a more accurate and correct revelation of His truths.
The Spirit of Criticism
Criticism is defined as “the act or instance of making an unfavourable or severe judgment, comment, analysis or interpretation of one’s theory, doctrine or life.” From what was seen in a vision by a prophet, this season will produce even more harsh critical religious opposition to Kingdom truth with the hope of deterring the emerging End-times Army of God. Like fanaticism, history is littered with countless examples of unwavering criticism against spiritual outpourings and movements. This was clearly seen in the Azusa Street Revival, the Voice of Healing Revival in the ministries of A. A. Allen, William Branham and others. Even the Charismatic Renewal has seen its share of harsh criticism.
- People are led into deception when they criticise, hurt the body of Christ, and this is very, very important. In 1 Corinthians 3:9, “For we are labourers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building.” He’s talking about the human being. He’s also talking about the Body of Christ. Paul said if any man destroy the body, hurt the body, God will destroy him – any man. They hurt the body, God will destroy him!
- Don’t play games with God’s people or stand in the way of what God is doing; We don’t play games with God’s people, and we don’t stand in the way of what God is doing and what God wants to do! IF WE GET IN THE WAY OF WHAT GOD WANTS TO DO, WE WILL GET FLATTENED. That’s it!
Don’t sow discord in the body. You sow discord to your own ruination, for sowing discord really hurts the body! Proverbs 26:27 reads like this says, “Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein: and he that rolleth a stone…” You try to roll a stone on someone, it’s going to come back and roll over you! Isn’t God just? He that digs a pit for someone else, they get distracted, turn right and fall into it. God will see to it. It’s a principle.
Proverbs 6:16-19,“…A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.” He that soweth discord among the brethren, see, we have to be very, very careful. We sow discord to our own ruination.
3) Be careful how you speak against God’s servants
Be careful how you speak against God’s servants. In Acts 23:1-5, this is a principle in the Word of God. Paul was having problem with a High Priest here. He’s a bad minister too. He was persecuting Paul, was seeking to put him to death. But he was the high priest, and Paul didn’t realize that. When it was pointed out that he was the high priest, Paul immediately repented of it. He didn’t say “He’s not fit to be a high priest!” He repented of it, because there’s a principle involved here, and it’s very, very important. Vs. 5 Then Paul said, I did not know, brothers, that he was the high priest; for it is written, “You shall not speak evil of the ruler of your people.”
Remember when David was having problems with Saul – Saul was trying to kill him? Now God had come through the prophet Samuel to David, and anointed him to be king over Israel; the anointing was upon him. The anointing had come off Saul, there was an evil spirit on him. The anointing had come upon David. God had anointed him and said, You are now the king over Israel. Samuel the prophet had spoken the word. But David was loyal to Saul right to the end. Even when Saul was trying to take his life and David caught up with him in a cave, when Saul was asleep he could have killed him, but he didn’t. He didn’t speak evil of him. He didn’t turn against him until God removed him.
1 Chronicles 16:22 it says BE CAREFUL, DO MY PROPHETS NO HARM. Psalm 105:15 repeats it again, “Do my prophets no harm.” Don’t speak against the anointing, don’t do anything against it. And when things are going wrong, hold your peace! Let God deal with it.
C. DECEPTION AND RELATIONSHIPS
1. Misunderstandings like wrong concepts about one another usually are a form of deception, opening the door to a problem of deception.
You’ve got to watch that and guard your heart with misunderstandings. Satan tries to cause us to form a wrong opinion about another person, and in doing so traps us into deception! And when this occurs, our judgment and our discernment regarding those people are wrong. You’ve been deceived! That opens the door in your life to further deception.
If misunderstandings are not quickly put right, you are vulnerable, very, very vulnerable to all kinds of spirits to come in – GUARD YOUR HEART. If misunderstandings occur, go to the person and put it right! Usually you know, misunderstandings are just bad communication in its initial stages, but it develops into a deception after a while if it’s not dealt with.
2. Sowing of evil reports is sowing seeds of deception. Sowing seeds of deception – you have to guard against it, whether as a whisperer, a gossip, a slanderer, a busybody. Sowing seeds of deception, distortion – usually can be: a distortion of facts, incomplete facts that tell half the story, false information, wrong motivation – causing the hearer to come to a wrong conclusion.
When that happens, you’ve been deceived. Now all of us, there’s no doubt about it, all of us at times have come to the wrong conclusions about people, right? And when you do that, you’re deceived! Because it’s wrong, it’s a deception, and you’re thinking about them – what you’re thinking about them – is not right, and we’ve come into that realm of causing us to have a wrong conclusion about someone – to be deceived.
3. Guard your heart with all of your might against deceptions, against Satan’s devices; don’t let a person sow seeds into your heart.
You’ve got to guard your heart. Proverbs 27:12 says, “A prudent man foresees the evil and hides himself.” A prudent man sees what’s coming and closes his heart to that being sown, those seeds of deception, being sown into your heart.
In Proverbs 18:8, “The words of a talebearer are as wounds, and they go down into the innermost parts of the belly.”
The words of a talebearer are like wounds; they go down into the innermost part of the belly. What we’re saying is that when someone starts doing that, that someone else, something is sown, not just into your mind, but it goes down into your spirit! And the Bible says that’s like a wound! Now when that happens to you, you’ve been wounded! Something has dropped, that seed has dropped further than just your mind; it’s gone down through your emotions and into your spirit!
When it’s in your spirit, it’s very difficult to get it out! It is going to affect how you think, your concepts, your discernment. It’s going to affect everything in your life! It just drops into your spirit. It’s very, very hard to get that out, once that happens. And that’s why you have to guard it from getting that far, alright? Don’t let it enter in. You’ve got to stop it, if you can, from getting to that point. But you’re off guard, you take it in and it drops into your spirit and affects your relationship with that person. You cannot be the same with that person. It’s just a slight suspicion or you wonder. Then you set up a barrier, which is a spiritual thing.
We have to guard very carefully against people who will sow deception into your life about other people. One, you don’t need to know. We’ve all got problems of our own without other people.
And the Bible tells us very, very clearly about love that covers, love thinks no evil of anyone. Always thinks the best, always thinks the highest. That’s a spiritual law that safeguards your heart against these spirits. We’ve got to guard our heart, one, against people who sow deception. Now, only you can do that! And you’ve got to be tough! Don’t be afraid to stand up to people. Don’t be afraid to deal with it
————————————————————————————————————-
Parts of this teaching have been supplied by ‘Intercessors For The Philippines’ and has been adapted for Australia to train Prophetic Intercessors For Australia. No part of this article may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without written permission. www.refinerylife.org
