Morning Fellowship with God's Word -Beware of Deceivers I.

Sharing with you this Morning devotional "Open Heavens written by Pastor E.A. Adeboye. Today Friday 19, February 2016.
Topic: Beware of Deceivers I.

"All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness" – 2 Timothy 3:16

Please Read: 2 Timothy 3:1-8

A deceiver is someone who practices deceit as means of seducing, misleading, or giving false impressions to people. A deceiver would try to impose a false idea that causes bewilderment, helplessness, or confusion in people’s mind. Every act of deception is a direct attack against the truth for the purpose of distorting the original creative order and position of things by the Almighty God. Deception is therefore the devil’s invention which has been carefully designed to create doubts and questions about the credibility of God in the hearts of men. This is the reason why deceit is condemned by God as an attempt to deny His sovereignty and the revelation of Himself. After the devil’s successful attack on Adam and Eve in Genesis 3:1-7, God repeatedly warned humanity about the subtlety of Satan and his false prophets. Matthew 24:11 says

“And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.”

The whole of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation is full of similar warnings about the deliberate plot of devil to send his evil agents of deception in form of false prophets and heretic teachers into the world, in order to deceive and mislead many. These deadly agents of deception have perfected the means of attacking unsuspecting individuals from two seemingly harmless fronts. One of their tactics is to preach the gospel of the alternative. They claim to be serving the same God through another saviour, and therefore present their religion as a better alternative to Christianity that only has the appearance of the Christian religion on the surface, but is full of heresy, ungodliness, and immorality in actual practice. To this end 1 Timothy 4:1-2 says

“1 Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; 2 Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron;”

In the above passage, the Word of God is making it very clear to us that the activities of these agents of darkness will become very concentrated and effective in the latter days, such that it will cause some believers to depart from the faith. This will happen because those affected would commit the error of giving heed to seducing spirits. They would be seduced through the preaching of other gospels, the gospel of relativism, modernism and post-modernism, and through attractive motivational messages. To counter the evil, we must turn to 2 Timothy 3:16. God has given us all scripture by His inspiration, to be profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness. Dangerous heretic teachings are in the air, but anyone that abides in the Word of God, can never be deceived. Be warned.

Prayer Point: Father, please don’t let me ever give heed to seducing spirits in Jesus’ name.