Willing to Be Deceived.

When we let God's word speak for itself we pray for comprehension, for understanding and hope by the grace of God that we are willing to learn.

False teachers, false prophets- these will be teaching the multitudes, these will be deceiving the many who are doomed, walking the broad way to destruction. The deceivers will snatch up the willing to be deceived. The willing to be deceived are those who choose things pleasing to their ears, to their senses, and their sense of self-righteousness, rather than God's righteousness.

There is a fine line between loving all, and condoning the evil of all.

I can love all, I can be loving to all without accepting the evil they choose to embrace under the guise of self-acceptance.

Somewhere along the more recent time line- loving someone has been synonymous with accepting their life choices.  Meaning, if you don't accept their life choices as being good things, then you can't love them.

Jesus loved without accepting life choices.  Jesus told us to love our enemies. Jesus told us to love those we've been conditioned through tradition to despise. Jesus told us to be willing to lay down our lives to save someone whose way of life we abhor.  Jesus led by example.  Jesus came speaking truth and told everyone that only few would find their way to the kingdom of heaven, only few would be saved compared to the great masses of people. Jesus did not tell everyone He came in contact with that they all would belong to Him, and not a single person will be lost. Jesus lamented the truth of the great losses that would be had. He wanted to save everyone, but not everyone wanted saving - not in truth, they wanted to be saved in their lies. The same holds true today. People want to be saved in their lies. They wrap themselves up in a comfy blanket crocheted out of the finest lies and deception, so fine they've managed to convince themselves the lies and deceptions are truths.

Jesus blatantly revealed His truth, and many no longer followed Him.  Remember He fed five thousand followers, and then mere days later He turned to His apostles and asked if they were going to leave Him too. Those five thousand listened to the truth, but their hearts were focused on self-deception. How glorious to have five thousand people listening you, think about it…five thousand!  Maybe in this day and age when people count themselves important when they get millions of followers, five thousand seems like a drop in the bucket. However, for most people having five hundred is a lot, and five thousand gives them the wow factor. In a day without instant communication, without tweeting, instagramming, facebooking, messaging, etc five thousand people was a massive crowd. A legion of Roman soldiers number five thousand, and that was a lot of soldiers.  The religious leaders of the day were scared as they saw the great number of people hanging on the words of Jesus. Five thousand, and most of them turned and left when the truth became too hard to listen to. They ate of the miracle loaves and fishes, they ingested God produced bread, and yet it wasn't enough for them to make the leap to believing the truth.

Today is no different. 

We are surrounded by false teachers, by false prophets and we  lap up their lies- lies they have even deceived themselves to believe as truth.

Jesus has the truth- the hard truth.

I will love my neighbor by the grace and will of God. I will do my best to provide for the needs of my neighbor- the basic, life sustaining needs. What I will not do is tell my neighbor I accept their lies, their deception. If my neighbor believes I despise them because I won't accept their evil, prayerfully my love for them in spite of my beliefs I hold true to, will not cause them to hate me.

We are called to be missionaries among the heathen. To live our lives for our God, all the while helping those who choose not to live their lives for God- praying our loving ways will reveal to their hearts a need for God. 

Serving the sinners (of whom we are as well) is not accepting their sin (or our own sin), it is recognizing that Jesus' love is available for all, His truth is for all, and repentance is necessary, forgiveness a must, faith paramount.

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False Prophets and Teachers

2Pe 2:1  But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. 

2Pe 2:2  And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. 

2Pe 2:3  And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not. 

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; 

2Pe 2:5  And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly; 

2Pe 2:6  And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly; 

2Pe 2:7  And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked: 

2Pe 2:8  (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;) 

2Pe 2:9  The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished: 

2Pe 2:10  But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government. Presumptuous are they, selfwilled, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities. 

2Pe 2:11  Whereas angels, which are greater in power and might, bring not railing accusation against them before the Lord. 

2Pe 2:12  But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption; 

2Pe 2:13  And shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as they that count it pleasure to riot in the day time. Spots they are and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you; 

2Pe 2:14  Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children: 

2Pe 2:15  Which have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness; 

2Pe 2:16  But was rebuked for his iniquity: the dumb ass speaking with man's voice forbad the madness of the prophet. 

2Pe 2:17  These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever. 

2Pe 2:18  For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error. 

2Pe 2:19  While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage. 

2Pe 2:20  For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning. 

2Pe 2:21  For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them. 

2Pe 2:22  But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.