Eternity Daily Bible Study
(A ministry of Eternity Christian Fellowship)
Walking In The Spirit -
Studies in this series can also be found online at www.globalchristians.org/walkspirit/
Topic: The Deception Of The Spiritual Senses
Date: 28th September 2009
You have probably heard of various New Age practices such as 'channeling' or seeing auras around people - or of occult practices such as divination, soothsaying and such. These are abuses of the spiritual senses. Christians are NOT called to develop a 'Third Eye” or to participate in seances or to engage in astral travel. I have spoken to Christians who had once engaged in these practices prior to conversion and they testified that for years afterward their lives were filled with fear, dread and unusual manifestations.
The final and last verse, after all the curses in Deuteronomy (for worshiping idols, engaging in witchcraft etc) is:
Deuteronomy 29:29 MKJV The secret things belong to Jehovah our God, but the revealed things belong to us and to our sons forever, so that we may do all the words of this Law.
We are to walk in God's open revelation and not in the hidden, secret and occult things. There is enough that is known. There is plenty enough to obey. As Mark Twain once said:
It ain't those parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.
There are two main ways that the spiritual senses can be deceived:
i) Not functioning at all: spiritual blindness, deafness, having a seared conscience
ii) Tuning into Satanic sources e.g. listening to 'doctrines of demons'
The following verses shows how these are related:
1 Timothy 4:1-5 MKJV But the Spirit expressly says that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and teachings of demons, (2) speaking lies in hypocrisy, being seared in their own conscience, (3) forbidding to marry, saying to abstain from foods which God has created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. (4) For every creation of God is good, and nothing to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving. (5) For it is sanctified through the Word of God and prayer.
A seducing spirit convinces someone to believe a demonic lie which they adopt as their own teaching. They then speak this out hypocritically, eventually searing their own conscience, so that they can neither believe or know the truth, and so they depart from the faith.
What are some of the demonic lies that people are seduced to believe? In these verses it is the lie of asceticism, forbidding marriage, and certain foods and holding Creation in disdain. This ancient idea sees the material and sexual as evil and the 'spiritual' as good. It is life-denying rather than life-affirming. As someone has said 'Evil is just live spelled backward'. It is evil because it stops people appreciating each other in marriage and stops people appreciating God's Creation and even such basic activities as eating food.
Spiritual deception often has a beguiling, seductive, 'overly sweet' atmosphere to it. It compels the person capturing their will and eventually bullies them into submission. The person is eventually tyrannized by legalism and by spiritual obsessions and compulsions.
Asceticism is the lie the Devil tells to those who want to 'be spiritual' and is one of his main snares for Christians. But the Devil tells lies in both directions. He also tells lies to the pagan world. These lies concern lack of restraint, lawlessness, immorality and idolatry:
Romans 1:22-25 MKJV Professing to be wise, they became fools (23) and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man, and birds, and four-footed animals, and creeping things. (24) Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves. (25) For they changed the truth of God into a lie, and they worshiped and served the created thing more than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
(In Scripture 'the lie' is idol worship). Of course the ultimate demonic liar is the Devil:
John 8:44 MKJV You are of the Devil as father, and the lusts of your father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and did not abide in the truth because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own, for he is a liar and the father of it.
In the End Times the lawless one will unleash a torrent of lies and false signs and wonders so as even to deceive the Elect - if possible (Matthew 24:24, Mark 13:22).
2 Thessalonians 2:8-12 MKJV (8) And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the breath of His mouth and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming, (9) whose coming is according to the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, (10) and with all deceit of unrighteousness in those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, so that they might be saved. (11) And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie, (12) so that all those who do not believe the truth, but delight in unrighteousness, might be condemned.
These false signs and wonders will assault both the physical senses and the spiritual senses. Only those who firmly hold to the love of the Truth will be saved. Those who are apathetic will believe the lie and those who delight in unrighteousness will be condemned. We must be on our guard.
Colossians also warns us against possible deception via dreams and visions:
Colossians 2:18 ESV Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind,
To sum up:
a) We can be lied to via our spiritual senses (just as we can be lied to via our physical senses)
b) These lies come from the Devil and his seducing demons who try to lead us astray
c) One of the main ways that the Devil lies to Christians is through super-spirituality and asceticism, through false visions and legalism and the worship of angels.
d) The main way the Devil lies to the world is through lawlessness, immorality and idolatry
e) The ultimate lie is the worship of idols
f) These lies cause the person to become a hypocrite and to harden their conscience
f) These lies will increase in the End Times, and will be accompanied by false miracles.
h) We must love the Truth if we are to be saved from this flood of deception.
Blessings,
John Edmiston (johned@aibi.ph)
Pastor – Eternity Christian Fellowship
Chairman/ CEO Cybermissions
http://www.eternitychristian.com
http://www.cybermissions.org
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