But the [Holy] Spirit explicitly and unmistakably declares that in later times some will turn away from the faith, paying attention instead to deceitful and seductive spirits and doctrines of demons, [misled] by the hypocrisy of liars whose consciences are seared as with a branding iron [leaving them incapable of ethical functioning] (1 Tim 4:1-2, AMP)
Satan deceives people by offering a clever imitation of the real thing. The false teachers gave stringent rules (such as forbidding people to marry or to eat certain foods). This made them appear self-disciplined and righteous. Their strict disciplines for the body, however, could not remove sin (see Col 2:20-23). We must not be unduly impressed by a teacher’s style or credentials; we must look to their teaching about Jesus Christ. Their conclusions about Christ show the source of their message. (Life Application Notes re 1 Tim 4:1-2)
Another Christian writer warns us:
Many a star that we have admired for its brilliance will then go out in darkness. Those who have assumed the ornaments of the sanctuary, but are not clothed with Christ’s righteousness, will then appear in the shame of their own nakedness. (PK 188).
Through the two great errors, the immortality of the soul and Sunday sacredness, Satan will bring the people under his deceptions. While the former lays the foundation of Spiritualism, the latter creates a world-wide bond of sympathy with Rome. The Protestants of the United States will be foremost in stretching their hands across the gulf to grasp the hand of Spiritualism; they will reach over the abyss to clasp hands with the Roman power; and under the influence of this threefold union, this country will follow in the steps of Rome in trampling on the rights of conscience. (GC 588).
Jesus wants everyone to know whats coming. It would be irresponsible for Christians who know to not tell others. We warn each other all the time about the weather, or about various wars or social quandary. This is no different. The warning is being sounded in love. With a deep and compassionate care for everyone reading it.
When Jesus was talking about the time of the end, just before He comes again, He answered a question of concern by the disciples about “what are the signs of your coming?” (Mat 24:3) The very first thing that Jesus mentioned in His reply was to let no one deceive you.” (Mat 24:4)
Take heed that no man deceive you. For many will come in My name, saying, I am Christ, and will deceive many. (Mat 24:4-5)
Paul obviously knew about this warning from our Lord when he amplified the warning to say something very startling:
I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. (Acts 20:29-30)
[People] will arise speaking perverse things. Already they have been working and speaking things which God has never revealed, bringing sacred truth upon a level with common things. Issues have been and will continue to be made of [people’s] conceited fallacies. None of which are true. The devisings of human minds will invent tests that are no tests at all, that when the true test shall be made prominent, (Rev 3:10) it shall be considered on a par with the man-made tests that have been of no value. We may expect that everything will be brought in and mingled with sound doctrine, but by clear, spiritual discernment, by the heavenly anointing, by The Holy Spirit we must distinguish the sacred from the common which is being brought in to confuse faith and sound judgment and demerit the great, grand, testing truth for this time.
Throughout the Bible, it has been a major problem that the Churches of the land become befuddled about plain doctrine from the Bible, and fail to make any difference between the holy and the unholy:
Her priests have broken My Law and have defiled My holy things. They have put no difference between the holy and the common, and have not taught between the unclean and the clean, and have hidden their eyes from My sabbaths, and I am defiled among them. (Ezekiel 22:26)
Paul had a tough time trying to warn the people of the day, as we see here by his comments after he warned about “the rise of false Christians in Church:
So be on your guard! Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears. “Now I commit you to God and to the word of his grace, which can build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.(Acts 20:31-32)
Never, never was there a time when the truth will suffer more from being misrepresented, belittled, demerited through the perverse disputings of men than in these last days. Men have brought themselves in with their heterogeneous mass of heresies which they represent as oracles for the people. The people are charmed with some strange, new thing, and are not wise in experience to discern the character of ideas that men may frame up as something. But to call it something of great consequence and tie it to the oracles of God does not make it truth. Oh, how this rebukes the low standard of piety in the churches. Men who want to present something original will conjure up things new and strange, and without consideration will step forward on these unstable theories that have been woven together as a precious theory. And present it as a life and death question. {6BC 1064.6}
One of the key pillars of Spiritualism is deception. The very thing that Jesus has warned us about. The very first warning Jesus gave about the time of the end was about the rampant deception that Christians and the Churches would be directly confronted with:
For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. Behold, I have told you before. Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not. (Mat 24:24-26)
My friends, we will soon see some very astounding things in “the news.” Will we see “Mary?” Will we see “Jesus” healing people? John The Revelator gives an even dimmer outlook on final events before Jesus comes:
And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. (Rev 16:13-14)
During the “time of the end” (Dan 8:17) we will all experience massive deceptions, on a scale never known before in all of Earth’s history. (Dan 12:1) As we have just read in Scripture, there WILL BE “THE SPIRITS OF DEVILS WORKING MIRACLES .” (Rev 16:13-14)
Now, this is not hard to understand, in principle, but how many of you today actually believe this? And if you do believe that we will see this kind of thing, HOW will you determine what is from demons, and what is the truth as it is in Jesus? Will you believe it because its on the internet? Or, perhaps you will believe it more if it on ‘the news?” Or maybe a preacher of a church is telling you to believe something that is simply not true? Or even more convincing, will you believe it just because you see it or detect it with your five senses? I mean, if the spirits of demons are going to do real miracles in front of us, they will have to be really convincing to dupe so many people. (many will be deceived” Mat 24:11)
What is the one thing that is already being used to trick people into embracing the strongest deception that we will see just before our Lord returns? When I think about this question; I realize, with a chill down my spine, that we are already being primed for the great deception spoken of in Bible prophecy. We can note here how that the reason there is no such thing as a counterfeit three dollar bill, is because there is no such thing as a real three dollar bill. Deceptions of Biblical proportions are always based on some point of essential truth that the forces of evil wish to distract us from. And right on that point is what Jesus warns us about in Mat 24:24.
Jesus said that the final deception would be so powerful, so overwhelming, that it would run the danger of possible deceiving the very elect. “For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.” (Mat 24:24) The reason that demonic deception is often so completely convincing is because there is always some truth to it. Deception needs truth in order to be exposed. Something true. These “miracles of demons” will always use something true to try to convince us of something that is not true. The “father of lies” has been practicing his masterful art of deception for many years. Since Eden. (John 8:44, Gen 3:4)
The Bible is very clear about where all lies come from:
Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.(John 8:44)
It would be very worthwhile now at this point to take a look in our Bibles at the very first lie ever promulgated by the devil:
“And the serpent said unto the woman, “YE SHALL NOT SURELY DIE:” (Gen 3:4)
Why is Gen 3:4 the first lie? Because God said the complete opposite just one verse previous:
But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, LEST YE DIE. (Gen 3:3)
Other Bible versions make this truth even clearer:
But there is one tree we must not eat from. God told us, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden. You must not even touch that tree, or you will die.'” (Gen 3:4, ERV)
Scripture shows us the first lie. God says if we do certain things, collectively known as “sin” then we will “die.” It cannot get any clearer than this. Other prophets also realized this truth. The devil is the first being that has told us the opposite. “We will not die.” So whom do we believe? God or the devil?
The danger of depending only on what we perceive with our five senses is very real here in the book of Genesis:
“The woman could see that the tree was beautiful and the fruit looked so good to eat…” (Gen 3:6) The devil had Eve hook, line, and sinker here. Eve could see the serpent as “touching the forbidden fruit” The serpent plucked the fruit of the forbidden tree and placed it in the hands of the half-reluctant Eve. Then he reminded her of her own words, that God had forbidden them to touch it, lest they die. She would receive no more harm from eating the fruit, he declared, than from touching it. Perceiving no evil results from what she had done, Eve grew bolder. When she “saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat.” It was grateful to the taste, and as she ate, she seemed to feel a vivifying power, and imagined herself entering upon a higher state of existence. Without a fear she plucked and ate.
And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food — Her imagination and feelings were completely won; and the fall of Eve was soon followed by that of Adam. The history of every temptation, and of every sin, is the same; the outward object of attraction, the inward commotion of mind, the increase and triumph of passionate desire; ending in the degradation, slavery, and ruin of the soul (James 1:15; 1 John 2:16).
Long has Satan been preparing for his final effort to deceive the world. The foundation of his work was laid by the assurance given to Eve in Eden, “Ye shall not surely die: in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:4,5).
Little by little he has prepared the way for his masterpiece of deception in the development of Spiritualism. He has not yet reached the full accomplishment of his designs; but it will be reached in the last remnant of time, and the world will be swept into the ranks of this delusion. They are fast being lulled into a fatal security, to be awakened only by the outpouring of the wrath of God. {SR 398.2}
The spiritualism of today has simply taken this first lie from Eden and their intention is to make it the last lie. Paul said the following:
“…I fear that you will be tricked, just as Eve was tricked by that lying snake. I am afraid that you might stop thinking about Christ in an honest and sincere way. We told you about Jesus,and you received the Holy Spirit and accepted our message. But you let some people tell you about another Jesus. Now you are ready to receive another spirit and accept a different message. (2 Cor 11:3-4,CEV)
It seems that when it comes to the question about what happens when we die, that all kinds of ideas will come out of the wood work. Obviously, none of us are immortal, as is God, (1 Tim 1:17) and none of us have died before, we can only go by what is written and intended by scripture on this vital subject. 1 Cor 15:52 says none of us are immortal until the second coming of Jesus; and this makes perfect sense when we understand how the Bible describes death and the resurrection. IF as many are bound to say, we just go straight to heaven when we “die” then we really didn’t die, and we are immortal now. If we go to heaven right away when we die, then why would we need the cross?
Who is a liar but anyone who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He who denies the Father and the Son is antichrist.(1 John 2:22)
The Bible describes it this way, the same way as He explained it in Eden:
“The wages of sin is death.” (Rom 6:23). But God, who alone is immortal, will grant eternal life to His redeemed. Until that day death is an unconscious state for all people. ” The dead know not anything.” (Eccl 9:4-5) When Christ, who is our life, appears, the resurrected righteous and the living righteous will be glorified and caught up to meet their Lord TOGETHER and IN THE CLOUDS.” The second resurrection, the resurrection of the unrighteous, will take place a thousand years later. (Rev 20:5-6)
A wise preacher who has mentored me in the past once encouraged me with the thought that “the gospel is wonderfully simple, and simply wonderful. And that is certainly true when it comes to this topic. Over the years I have wondered how so many theories could come in like a wave on the ocean and just wash away all the simplicity that is in Christ, only to substitute it with “the doctrine of demons,” that will “seduce by a false appearance.” (1 Tim 4:1-2)
There is hope for those who are still alive—it does not matter who they are. But this saying is true: A living dog is better than a dead lion. The living know that they will die, but the dead don’t know anything. They have no more reward. People will soon forget them. After people are dead, their love, hate, and jealousy are all gone. And they will never again share in what happens on earth. (Eccl 9:4-6, ERV)
Eccl 9:4-6 tells us clearly what happens when we die, and further, it emphasizes how that as long as we are alive, there is always hope for us in Christ. And so we can conclude that the Bible doctrine of the state of the dead is for the living. It gives us the warning and the assurance that even if we were a real dog, as long as we are breathing on this side of the ground; there is hope for us in Christ. “For a living dog is better than a dead lion.”
YE SHALL NOT SURELY DIE?
Do we have some kind of unconscious soul that survives the physical death of our body? Lee Strobel, in his popular book, “The Case For Heaven,” asserts that yes we do. I have often wondered how anyone can believe such a thing. The Bible simply does not support this New Age idea which is just a repeat of the world’s first lie, (Gen 3:4) which was also used in the world’s first seance. (1 Sam 28:7-15).
The serpent duped Adam & Eve into thinking that “ye shall NOT surely die.” And this lie is being repeated almost everywhere today.
Christians need to remember it was the devil who said this, NOT Jesus or the Bible. (Gen 3:4-5). The Bible clearly reflects the fact that we shall surely die. The Bible says it happens to everyone “once” (Heb 9:27) and that death is “the last enemy to be destroyed,” (1 Cor 15:26) so why would Bible believing Christians say that only part of us goes to heaven and never dies, and the other part of us is mortal and “dies?” Strobel should know better than to use things we have coined as “Near Death Experiences” as a part of the alleged Bible “evidence” for his opinion that we go straight to heaven when we die.
Are there other texts that would agree with Ecclesiastes 9:4-6 ? Lest someone suspects “cherry-picking” I offer the following: Job 14:21, Isa 63:16, Job 7:8-10, Eccl 1:11, Eccl 2:16, Eccl 8:10, Isa 26:14.
The Bible tells us that “the wages of sin is death.” (Rom 6:23) If we go to Heaven as soon as we die then this cannot be true! But God, who alone is immortal, will grant eternal life to His redeemed. The Bible says nothing about part of us being mortal and the other part immortal. No one is immortal in whole or in part until the second coming of Jesus. (see 1 Cor 15:50-54) Until that day death is an unconscious state for all people because they wait for the resurrection when those who have died in Christ will be resurrected TOGETHER with those who remain and are alive at His second coming. (see 1 Thes 4:13-18). Verses 15-18 emphasize strongly that When Christ, who is our life, appears, the resurrected righteous and the living righteous will be glorifed and caught up TOGETHER (at the same time) to meet their Lord IN THE AIR. Now, if we were to believe that when people die they go straight to heaven, then we have a real problem with the Bible’s account of the resurrection. Essentially, there is no need for a resurrection if we go straight to heaven when we die.
The Sadducees said there was no resurrection. (Mat 22:23, Mark 12;18, Luke 20:27) Jesus said “Jesus said to her, I am the Resurrection and the Life! He who believes in Me, though he die, yet he shall live.” (John 11:25) The Bible explains the reason we cannot believe that people go straight to Heaven when they die, because then there is no need for a resurrection either:
But if Christ is proclaimed, that He was raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, neither has Christ been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation is worthless, and your faith is also worthless. And we are also found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified of God that He raised Christ; whom He did not raise if the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ is not raised. And if Christ is not raised, your faith is foolish; you are yet in your sins. Then also those that fell asleep in Christ were lost. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. (1 Cor 15:12-19)
The second resurrection, the resurrection of the unrighteous, will take place a thousand years later. (Job 19:25-27; Psalms 146:3-4 ; Eccl 9:5-6; Eccl 9:10; Dan 12:2; Dan 12:13; Isa 25:8; John 5:28-29; John 11:11-14; Rom 6:23; Rom 16:1-27; 1 Cor 15:51-54; Col 3:4; 1 Thes 4:13-17; 1 Tim 6:15; Rev 20:1-10.)
There are several stories in the Bible that many Christians have been taught “prove” that we go to heaven as soon as we die. Lets take a look at one of the more popular ones.
WORLD’S FIRST SEANCE WITH THE WITCH OF ENDOR
The Philistine army moved into Shunem, set up its camp, and made ready to attack Israel. His mood far from optimistic, King Saul positioned Israel’s army on nearby Mount Gilboa. In the past, the assurance of God’s presence had enabled Saul to lead Israel against its foes fearlessly. But he had turned from serving the Lord, and when the apostate king had tried to contact God about the outcome of the impending battle, God had refused to communicate with him. The ominous fear of the unknown morrow weighed heavily upon Saul. If only Samuel were here. But Samuel was dead and could no longer counsel him. Or could he?
Locating a medium who had escaped his earlier witch hunts, the tall king stooped to inquiring through her about the outcome of the next day’s battle. He requested:
“Bring up Samuel for me.”
During the seance the medium “‘saw a spirit ascending out of the earth.’” (1 Sam 28:13) This spirit, that the witch thought was a god, informed the apostate king that not only would Israel lose the war,but that he and his sons would be killed in that battle the very next day. (see 1 Samuel 28). The prediction came true. But was it really Samuel’s spirit that made the prediction? How could a medium, condemned by God, or an apostate king have power over the spirit of Samuel-God’s prophet? And where did Samuel come from-why did his spirit arise “out of the earth” if its true that we go to heaven as soon as we die?
What had death brought to Samuel? If it wasn’t Samuel’s spirit that spoke to Saul, who or what was it? If we believe that one goes straight to heaven as soon as we die, then we are left with no way to prove from scripture of what sort the spirit is that we are engaging with. I have had Christians who have read Strobel’s book, for example, and they just told me
“Oh I would know if it was an evil spirit!”
But exactly HOW would they know? Intuition? Really?
Let us see some more of what the Bible teaches on the subject of death, communication with the dead, and the resurrection
HARMONY THROUGHOUT THE SCRIPTURES
Many honest Christians who have not studied the complete teaching of the Bible on death have been unaware that death is a sleep until the resurrection. They have assumed that various passages support the idea that the spirit or soul has a conscious existence after death. Careful study reveals that the consistent teaching of the Bible is that death causes the cessation of consciousness. In Eden we read from the book of Genesis how that mankind does not “have a soul,” but rather, we are a soul.
The Bible says that God breathed into the first pair and ONLY THEN did they “become a living soul.” (Gen 2:7)
See Rest Of Message in SPIRITUALISM AND THE CHURCH PART TWO