This is
pamphlet 5000
Did
it ever occur to you that you may be deceived?
Apart
from God, you can not know when you are deceived!
Are
the things you have been taught in your church
since
you were a little child true?
"If
you are deceived, would you know it?"
The
answer is NO!
No one who is deceived knows or believes he is deceived,
Here
is the definition of the word deceive;
"to
cause to accept as true or valid what is false or invalid".
Have
you ever known anyone to say,
"Hi
friend, Guess what? I'm deceived."
If
they did you would ask,
"How
do you know?"
And
he would reply,
"Because
what I believe to be true is actually false."
You
would say,
"If
you know it's false then you can't believe it is true, can you?
So
you are not deceived."
What
I'm trying to say is,
you
cannot know that you are deceived.
Things
you have been taught, and/or think you know, may indeed be false,
but
you don't know they're false.
Depending
on where or how you learned those things,
you
don't want to think they could be false.
But, you can (and should) assume that you are or might be deceived.
Jesus Christ warned us when talking about the end times, the times we now live in:
Matthew 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?[4] And Jesus answered and said unto them,
Take heed that no man deceive you. [5] For many shall come in my name,
saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.
His
name is Jesus Christ and they come representing Him,
as
His ministers, saying,
"Yep,
Jesus is the Christ,
the
Messiah",
and
people
then believe the rest of what they say as if their authority comes from
God.
How
bad are we deceived?
In
Rev. 12:7-9 we are told right from the Word of God,
that
when Satan shows up as the false messiah
the
whole world will believe he is Jesus.
That
means they must already be mentally and spiritually prepared to accept
him.
Yes,
they are already deceived.
If
you is still trying to figure out what the "Mark of the Beast" is,
you
already have it and don't know it!
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.Note: The phrase "the whole world"
is a generalization and means "the majority of the whole",
which leaves room for some exception.
It is written that God's very elect,
a minority of people indeed,
will not be deceived even for a moment.
I would say the chance that you are not deceived in this final generation is pretty slim.
Will
you stake your eternal salvation on what someone has told you?
Whether
he be a Minister, a Deacon or a Sunday School Teacher.
No
matter how well meaning they are and believe it themselves.
You think not!
Then "take heed" as Jesus warned!
Be
careful, consider this,
many
times, even when people are taught to understand what deception is,
they
don't think it applies to them
and
they still believe that what they believe is true,
without
question!
For
instance, people know they are going to die.
They
intellectually know that is true,
but
they don't think or sense that it applies to them,
at
least not for today.
The same holds true when tomorrow becomes today!
Another
thing to consider about deception is
that
if a person has believed a falsehood for a long time,
in
many cases, most of their life,
when
they hear something that contradicts that belief,
though
it may be the "gospel truth",
they
dismiss it as being odd or cultist or whacko,
even
when the evidence showing it to be deception is unquestionable.
Of
course there are many who will aid them in their rejection of truth as
being controversial.
It
takes a man or woman of courage to seek the truth
and
even greater courage to accept that truth,
especially
if it is not the majority or even a popular view.
Who
wants to be alone and take a stand
like
Noah or Elijah or David or Daniel or Jesus Christ?
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