Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
The #1 Biggest Lie of the New Age is the Anti-christ and One World Religion.
We’ve finally reached the top of the countdown of New Age Lies. What a journey it’s been. In today’s program we’re going to unmask the biggest deception that Satan has crafted for New Agers around the globe. We’ll discover that this lie is not only spiritual, it’s also geo-political and was predicted by Bible prophecy over 2000 years ago.
All Paths Lead to Heaven
The New Age is a large umbrella of beliefs that spans many geographies, cultures, religions and forms of worship including: Buddhism, Hinduism, the shamanism of indigenous populations, Chinese metaphysics, and occult practices such as astrology, divination and necromancy which has been relabeled channeling. New Agers believe that all of these beliefs are simultaneously true for whoever believes in them and not true for those who don’t. For them, all spiritual paths lead to heaven and we get to choose which path we take to get there. Let’s analyze this umbrella concept more closely.
The New Age seeks to harmonize all spiritual belief systems. It seeks to embrace all religions except biblical Christianity, which it considers too narrow and strict to qualify for inclusion. The New Age doesn’t accept the concept of sin. They reject that man has a sinful nature and they reject any absolute moral standard that defines good and evil. As we learned in a previous program they believe that every man should do “what is right in his own eyes”.
For New Agers, the ultimate goal of spiritual growth is a form of enlightenment called “higher consciousness” (sometimes also referred to as “Christ consciousness”). They believe that heaven is a state of being that is attained through knowledge and wisdom, primarily acquired from Eastern and occult sources. Some would even say that heaven is simply a state of vibration that can be achieved here and now through right thinking. Every New Ager wants to achieve this higher consciousness so that they can reach the state of self-realization in which they fully create their own reality. The collective goal of the New Age is to usher in the Age of Aquarius or the Age of Enlightenment that will bring the planet to a state of utopia, in other words that will manifest heaven on earth.
It all sounds very enticing and appealing, doesn’t it? You don’t have to give up anything, you get to do what you want and there’s a wonderful reward at the end for everyone. Who wouldn’t want that, if it were all true? The truth of the matter is: all gods are not created equal, all wisdom books don’t contain truth, and all paths don’t lead to heaven. Let’s understand why not.
All gods are not equal
The New Age features a whole variety of gods and goddesses. Some of their divinities or demi-gods are humans who attained a high-enough state of enlightenment through successive incarnations that they’re considered ascended masters of a spiritual hierarchy or masters of ancient wisdom. Buddha and Krishna would be considered part of that group together with Lord Maitreya and other New Age spiritual guides. Certain blasphemous teachings would put Jesus Christ Himself in that category as well. Regardless of the origin, most traditions teach that the “One God” is some sort of an impersonal, benign, abstract energy that human beings ultimately seek to connect with.
Why are there so many lies and false teachings about God? I’ll tell you why. Satan is a smart adversary of God and does nothing by accident. There is a strategic reason behind all these deceptions.
As always, we go to the Bible, God’s inspired Word as the only source of spiritual truth we can rely on. The Bible says in John 17:3: “And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” Unless we know God, we will not have eternal life. The Bible is telling us that we need to have information and understanding about God—His character, His ways, His laws, His plan for us—and to be in right relationship with Him. The more intimate our relationship with Him, the more we can know Him.
By obscuring who God really is and by portraying Him as a “what” rather than a “who”, Satan wants to prevent you from knowing the only true God and His Son Jesus Christ whom He has sent and thereby to prevent you from obtaining eternal life.
Satan is the great deceiver. He’s behind every single lie of the New Age and every other counterfeit belief system. Satan wants you to be lost. I know that for most New Agers the concept of a devil is hard to grasp, but the sad truth is that not only is he real, he’s also out there roaring like a lion, seeking whom to devour. If you do a little bit of research on your own you’ll find that most New Age lies originated with Alice Bailey, Helena Blavatsky and Alastair Crowley, all of which were Satan worshippers.
Let’s now unmask all the lies and deceptions that are preventing you from really knowing the One True God of Heaven and Earth and His Son Jesus Christ whom He has sent.
God is not an energy
God is not some abstract, impersonal energy sometimes referred to as “cosmic energy” or “the universe”. God is a person, actually three persons in one (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) referred to as the Godhead. God is a powerful and loving divine being. He’s infinite meaning that He is from everlasting to everlasting, He has no beginning and no end. He’s omnipotent meaning that He has all power and authority and dominion. He’s omniscient meaning that He knows everything, nothing can be concealed from Him. He knows all of your secret acts and reads your heart like an open book. He’s omnipresent because although He dwells in heaven, through His Spirit He can be everywhere at once.
God has feelings and emotions. If we have feelings and emotions it’s because God created us in His image and likeness. He’s kind and loving, patient and long-suffering. In the Book of Exodus Chapters 33 and 34 we read that one day Moses asked to see the Lord’s glory. The Lord gave Moses rendez-vous for the next morning, telling him that he’d be allowed to see the Lord’s back but not his face, because any man who saw the face of God would die. The next morning Moses stood on the top of Mount Sinai in the cleft of a rock. At the appointed time the Lord passed by Moses proclaiming: “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty” (Exodus 34:6-7). Psalm 103:1-5 tells us more about God’s goodness:
“Bless the Lord, O my soul;
And all that is within me, bless His holy name!
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
And forget not all His benefits:
Who forgives all your iniquities,
Who heals all your diseases,
Who redeems your life from destruction,
Who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies,
Who satisfies your mouth with good things,
So that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s”.
The Lord also tells us that He’s a jealous God. Listen to what the Lord said in Exodus 20:4-6 when He declared the Ten Commandments to the children of Israel: “You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments”. The Lord wants us to have a direct, intimate relationship with Him, without any idols who would be substitutes for Him and would steal our focus and attention away from Him. God has said emphatically He will not share His glory with another (Isaiah 42:8, 48:11).
Other important attributes of God’s character that we need to understand are His perfect holiness, righteousness and justice. God is so holy that nothing unholy can stand in His presence. After the fall Adam and Eve were banished from Eden because in their sinful condition they couldn’t remain in the presence of God or defile His dwelling. God spoke to Moses saying: “Speak to all the congregation of the children of Israel and say to them, you shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy” (Leviticus 19:2). This wasn’t just an instruction for the Jews. It’s repeated in the New Testament in 1 Peter 1:15-16: “But as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, You shall be holy, for I am holy.”
God is righteous and just. His law is an expression of His character. Because He’s a loving God, His justice is always mingled with mercy. Let’s read this beautiful passage in Psalm 103:6-14:
“The Lord executes righteousness
And justice for all who are oppressed.
He made known His ways to Moses,
His acts to the children of Israel.
The Lord is merciful and gracious,
Slow to anger, and abounding in mercy.
He will not always strive with us,
Nor will He keep His anger forever.
He has not dealt with us according to our sins,
Nor punished us according to our iniquities.
For as the heavens are high above the earth,
So great is His mercy toward those who fear Him;
As far as the east is from the west,
So far has He removed our transgressions from us.
As a father pities his children,
So the Lord pities those who fear Him.
For He knows our frame;
He remembers that we are dust.”
God is just and in the final judgment each person will receive their reward according to their works. Jesus said: “And behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give to every one according to his work” (Revelation 22:12).
The point in all of this is that God is a divine being, a person, with a personality, feelings and emotions. He’s divine, meaning that His thoughts are higher than our thoughts and His ways are higher than our ways (Isaiah 55:8-9). His love for us is beyond human comprehension, and He wants to have a deep, intimate and loving relationship with each and every one of us. As long as we’re walking with Him we have nothing to fear. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me” (Psalm 23:4).
God is not yin and yang
Chinese metaphysics and other Eastern traditions would have us believe that God is an energy that manifests itself as the coexistence of light and darkness, good and evil, that God contains within Himself two opposite and conflicting poles. This is simply not true. God says in His Word: “For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what accord has Christ with Belial?” (2 Corinthians 6:14-15). In other words, God has only one polarity: love, goodness, holiness, righteousness, justice, light, truth. Their dark opposites are not a part of His nature. Indeed, the yin and yang polarities is a very cunning deception crafted by Satan who seeks to justify evil by presenting it as an inevitable component of the universe and of our personalities. But God’s Word says otherwise. The only reason there’s evil in the world is because of Satan, a fallen angel who rebelled against God because he coveted God’s throne and the worship He receives from all heavenly beings.
Many pagan traditions invoke goddesses and goddess energy, and claim that God is a she. God is not male and female. There is no female deity. All supposed female deities are demonic, meaning that this is one way in which demons secure worship for themselves. The whole “sacred feminine” movement is in fact a movement of rebellion against God’s judgment given in the Garden of Eden for Eve’s disobedience. This is a very big topic and we’ll have to leave its demonstration for a future program.
God is not the universe
God is the Creator, and not to be confused with His creation. He’s no the universe, He’s not the light as some New Age teachings present it. No, He is a God of light and not darkness, this is true, but He’s the Creator of the light, He’s not the light. Never confuse God with His creation. He and His creation are separate. He breathes life into humans and everything that exists was put into motion by Him. But He’s not inside His creation as the pagan traditions teach.
God is not everywhere and in everything
To say that God is everywhere and in everything means that there’s nothing that isn’t God. This is a false belief of pantheism shared by many pagan religions. God isn’t everywhere and in everything. God is separate and distinct, He’s holy and stands above all things. Satan has spread this lie because this belief takes God off the throne of glory; it’s a dishonor to His purity and majesty. God dwells in heaven, a place that’s undefiled, uncontaminated and has never seen corruption. There He is surrounded and ministered to by hierarchy of heavenly beings who unconditionally obey His commands because they love Him of their own free will. Jesus said: “For I have not spoken on My own authority; but the Father who sent Me gave Me a command, what I should say and what I should speak. And I know that His command is everlasting life” (John 12:49-50).
God’s Spirit roams the earth from the beginning of time. Let’s read the first three verses of the Book of Genesis Chapter 1: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Then God said, Let there be light; and there was light.” The Spirit of God continues to hover over the world today, it’s His Spirit that dwells among and within those who accept Him as Lord and Savior.
We know that towards the end of time God will progressively withdraw His Spirit from the earth. All hell will break loose, and then the end shall come. But while God’s Spirit hovers over the earth there is still protection.
But the Bible is very clear that God has a dwelling place, and that’s the third heaven, the highest heaven. That third heaven is separated from the firmament by a sea of glass to separate it from the pollution of sin (Genesis 1:6-8). Listen to what King Salomon said in 1 Kings 8, when he was dedicating the temple He built for the Lord: “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You. How much less this temple which I have built!” (1 Kings 8:27). Many prophets were shown visions of God’s throne room in heaven: Isaiah, Ezekiel, John the Revelator… This is what the prophet Isaiah saw: “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robefilled the temple. Above it stood seraphim; each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one cried to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; The whole earth is full of His glory!” (Isaiah 6:1-3)
The third heaven is the seat of God’s government. From there He reigns over the entire universe. God has legions of angels who minister to Him and worship Him night and day. He also has a Heavenly Council that helps Him administrate the universe: the 24 Elders mentioned in several chapters of the Book of Revelation. They’re also mentioned in the Book of Job as the “Sons of God”. There’s a beautiful description of God’s throne room in Revelation 4, I’ll just read a short passage for you but I encourage you to read Revelation Chapters 4 and 5:
“After these things I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven. And the first voice which I heard was like a trumpet speaking with me, saying, “Come up here, and I will show you things which must take place after this.” Immediately I was in the Spirit; and behold, a throne set in heaven, and One sat on the throne. And He who sat there was like a jasper and a sardius stone in appearance; and there was a rainbow around the throne, in appearance like an emerald. Around the throne were twenty-four thrones, and on the thrones I saw twenty-four elders sitting, clothed in white robes; and they had crowns of gold on their heads. And from the throne proceeded lightnings, thunderings, and voices. Seven lamps of fire were burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God.”
Jesus is not an ascended master
One of the key deceptions of the New Age are the attacks against the deity and lordship of Jesus Christ. By seeking to make Him into a spiritual teacher akin to Confucius, Buddha, Mohammed, and Krishna, New Agers deny His divinity and assimilate Him with the other so-called ascended masters. Any doctrine that denies the deity and lordship of Jesus Christ is a doctrine of devils. Jesus Christ is the Son of God, our savior and redeemer, and I’m going to prove to you from the Bible why we need a savior and why right thinking or good works isn’t enough to get us into heaven.
Jesus never concealed that He was God. He said: “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life” (John 8:12). “He who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9).
Jesus is the Word of God made flesh: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. (John 1:1-5)
“He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:10-14).
There are two important questions we need to answer. The first one is, if Jesus is God, why did He leave His comfortable place in heaven to come down to this wretched planet afflicted by sin, evil, poverty, disease, warfare and death? There are four reasons Jesus came to this earth:
- He came to recover the dominion over this planet that Adam lost to Satan. By His death on the cross of Calvary Jesus gained the legal right to reclaim this territory for God’s Kingdom. “Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out” (John 12:31).
- He came to destroy the works of darkness. “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8)
- He came to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10). He came as the Messiah who would take away the sin of the world (John 1:29).
- Jesus came to show us the character of God (John 14:9). “But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them” (2 Corinthians 4:3-4).
Who needs a Savior and why?
The second question we need to answer is, why was a Messiah needed to save the lost? Who are the lost and why do they need saving? These are incredibly important theological questions, and as long as New Agers refuse Bible truth on this topic they will continue to walk in spiritual darkness.
Let’s provide some legal context to answer these questions. God is a just God and His government has laws, which are explained in the Bible, both in the Old and the New Testaments. Let’s review three foundational concepts we’ve already explained in previous programs.
- “Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law” (1 John 3:4 KJV).
- “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).
- “And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission (of sin)” (Hebrews 9:22)
The Hebrew Laws of Redemption
Let’s round off our understanding of the legal aspects of the question of sin and redemption by turning our attention now to the first of two important laws described in the Old Testament in the Book of Leviticus: the Hebrew Law of Redemption of Property and the Law of Redemption of Slaves.
The Law of Redemption of Property says that if one of the children of Israel sells his possession or inheritance a redeeming relative – a brother or next of kin – may pay the price to redeem the land:
“If one of your brethren becomes poor, and has sold some of his possession, and if his redeeming relative comes to redeem it, then he may redeem what his brother sold” (Leviticus 25:25).
The Law of Redemption of Slaves says that if one of the children of Israel has sold himself as a slave, one of his brothers or next of kin may redeem him: “Now if a sojourner or stranger close to you becomes rich, and one of your brethren who dwells by him becomes poor, and sells himself to the stranger or sojourner close to you, or to a member of the stranger’s family, after he is sold he may be redeemed again. One of his brothers may redeem him; or his uncle or his uncle’s son may redeem him; or anyone who is near of kin to him in his family may redeem him; or if he is able he may redeem himself” (Leviticus 25:47-49). In the case of being sold into slavery as a result of sin, man is not able to redeem himself because he would have to die to redeem himself thereby defeating the very purpose of redemption.
Jesus accepted to become our next of kin, He accepted to be incarnated into the human family to lay down His life as the price to pay for our redemption. Only God Himself could forgive this debt, therefore He Himself had to die and no mere mortal could die to redeem the sins of another man. This is why Jesus had to be born into flesh and blood while still retaining His divinity, so that He was simultaneously the brother of man and the Son of God, a member of both the human and the divine families. Throughout His life on earth Jesus maintained this dual affiliation or kinship with heaven and earth.
With this understanding of the Hebrew Laws of Redemption we have all of the legal foundations underpinning God’s plan of redemption for mankind. We mentioned earlier that Jesus came to this earth to redeem the territory – i.e. planet earth – and its inhabitants from the dominion of Satan. When Adam chose to obey Satan he surrendered not only his own life to Satan but through his sin the lives of the entire human race became subject to Satan. Therefore all mankind is lost and needs salvation. Adam also surrendered his dominion over the planet that the Lord had given him.
Scripture says in Romans 6:16: “Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?” A slave cannot own property, therefore Adam having sold out to Satan lost his stewardship over the planet, and therefore the land defaulted to Satan. This is why Jesus acknowledged Satan as “the ruler of this world” (John 14:30) and “the prince of this world” (John 12:31).
The Plan of Redemption
As soon as Adam and Eve had fallen God’s plan of redemption came into effect. The plan of redemption included the sacrificial death of Jesus and had been designed and agreed by the Godhead before the foundation of the world: “He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world” (1 Peter 1:20). “All who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8). There’s additional evidence in Genesis 3 after the fall of Adam and Eve:
“So the Lord God said to the serpent: …..
And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her Seed;
He shall bruise your head,
And you shall bruise His heel.” (Genesis 3:14-15)
This is one of the most important scriptures in the entire Bible. From Genesis to Revelation we can trace the unfolding of this prophecy and the warfare it foretells. This is God’s response to Satan’s rebellion against Him that initiated in heaven. God is telling Satan by what death Jesus shall cause him to die. When you crush a serpent’s head, that’s it, in fact it’s the only effective way to kill a serpent.
The second critical scripture to understand is Genesis 3:21:
“Also for Adam and his wife the Lord God made tunics of skin, and clothed them”. These tunics of skin required the first animal sacrifice ever offered on this earth. The first deaths witnessed in what was no longer paradise were the deaths of those two lambs whose skins God used to cover Adam and Eve’s nakedness after they lost their robes of light. This animal sacrifice instituted the sacrificial system that was to remain in effect for 4000 years until the death of the Messiah, Jesus Christ. The skins of these lambs prefigured the death of Jesus on the cross and how He would clothe us with His robe of righteousness. His perfect sacrifice replaced all other sacrifices, because the Bible says: “For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins” (Hebrews 10:4).
For this reason the death of Messiah was indispensable and would cover the sins of all mankind past, present and future. The entire Hebrew sacrificial system is what the Bible calls a “type and shadow” of the real thing, in other words it foretold the future sacrifice of Jesus, the lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world. This is why the Bible says that the name of Jesus is the only name that saves: “Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). This means that no guru, no master (ascended or otherwise), no teacher, no guide and no spirit can get you into heaven. Only Jesus can.
But let’s not lose sight of the most important thing of all. God gave up His Son to die a painful, shameful and humiliating death, and the Son agreed to lay down His life on our behalf, because of their wonderful, infinite love for us. His love for us is beyond human understanding. No human mind can fathom the unfailing love of God who despite our unfaithfulness to Him is faithful to us and keeps His covenant with us.
“In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:9-10).
There is only one source of spiritual truth
The only reliable, God-given source of spiritual truth is the Bible. The Bible alone bears record of God’s plan of redemption for humanity. It’s the only source of absolute truth. Absolute truth means that it’s true for all people in all places all the time. The Bible is the inspired Word of God: recorded by men but given by God.
There is not one so-called “wisdom book” that contains truth that saves. The so-called wisdom books from Eastern traditions all have their origins in the occult teachings of Egypt and Babylon. They’re all demonic. There are some modern renditions of those false teachings, all equally counterfeit. Listen to this warning about false prophets and false teachers:
“Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world” (1 John 4:1-3).
The Word of God has power to heal, to deliver, to protect, to revive and to save. God says that His Word never returns void. His Word always accomplishes that for which it is sent forth. “For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12). The Bible is the only book that saves to eternal life and delivers from eternal destruction. “He sent His Word and healed them, and delivered them of their destructions” (Psalm 107:20). And I am a witness to that.
There is only one path to Heaven
One of the most famous prayers of the Jewish faith, the Shema Yisrael, says: “Hear ye O Israel, the Lord your God is One” (Deuteronomy 6:4). There are not many gods, there is only one true, living God, the God of Israel.
- “I, even I, am the Lord, and besides Me there is no savior” (Isaiah 43:11).
- “I am the Lord, and there is no other; there is no God besides Me” (Isaiah 45:5).
- “Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts: ‘I am the First and I am the Last; besides Me there is no God” (Isaiah 44:6).
There are not many Christs, there is only one Christ, the Christ of the Bible. The Christ of the New Age mediums and channels, the Christ of Alice Bailey and other New Age teachers, the gnostic Christ, are all false Christs.
There are not many paths to heaven; there is only one. Jesus said: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6).
Today there is a worldwide ecumenical movement underway, led and sponsored by the Roman Papacy, which would have us believe that the future of this planet lies in the coming together of all faiths to secure peace on earth. This all-encompassing One World Religion embraces all gods, all faiths, all beliefs and all practices under the sun and it brings them under the governance of Rome. It’s the spiritual fabric of the New World Order. Like every other one of Satan’s deceptions, it’s very seductive. But in this time of the end in which we live, we won’t make it into heaven if we rely on our own reasoning and understanding. The Bible says: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths” (Proverbs 3:5-6).
Spiritual deception is so rampant that we can’t rely on what appears like an attractive solution or seems to make sense. Those who abide by this religious movement over the Word of God will end up receiving the mark of the beast and the last seven plagues of the wrath of God. Our only hope of eternal salvation is to live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God no matter how counterintuitive it may seem. The Bible says: “For when they say, “Peace and safety!” then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape” (1 Thessalonians 5:3).
When Jesus disciples asked Him what would be the signs of His second coming, the first thing He answered was: “Take heed that no one deceives you” (Matthew 24:4). He also was very clear that He didn’t come to establish a false peace, but instead He came to create division. Throughout Bible history God’s people always stood apart from the rest, a minority amidst the majority. This trend will continue in our generation:
“Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to ‘set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law’; and ‘a man’s enemies will be those of his own household.’ He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it (Matthew 10:34-39).
These are harsh sayings, and for these and other harsh sayings many disciples were dissuaded from following Jesus in His day. But now is the time to gird our loins and prepare for what lies ahead. “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake. And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another. Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. But he who endures to the end shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come” (Matthew 24:9-14).
“Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Matthew 7:13-14).
