Deuteronomy Chapter 13

A word of Warning, continued

VERSE 1-4 “If there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and he gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes to pass, of which he spoke to you, saying (in essence), ‘Let us go after other gods’—which you have not known—‘and let us serve them,’  you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. You shall walk after the LORD your God and fear Him, and keep His commandments and obey His voice; you shall serve Him and hold fast to Him.”

This texts has a duel application in which it not only applied during the Jewish age but likewise applies to the Gospel age as well, but its specially significance is in how it will apply to what is shortly coming here at the end of the age.

This scripture implies that the time will come when Satan’s servants will be granted the ability to prophesize certain things and to perform miraculous works, which will come to pass, thus deceiving many into believing that these are works of the Lord promised, but they are not, they are all parts of Satan’s deceptions in the vain attempt to uphold the old order.

What types of things should we expect?

Miraculous healings, cures from disease and sickness, possibly even fringed resurrections, (remember when the spirits in chains are released they will once again be able to materialize into fleshly bodies thus deceiving many into believing that the resurrection is taking place, but of course those properly informed of God’s plan, the times and the seasons, will not be deceive by these things even though they take place, because they know that now, during this Gospel Age is not the time for these things, that they are reserved for the next age, during the times of the restoration of all things.

During our Lord’s first advent he performed some of these miracles, “These things [miracles] did Jesus, and manifested forth [beforehand] his [coming] glory.” (John 2:11)

“The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them” (Matt 11:5). But these works were performed on a very small scale and only for the purpose of helping to establish the Church; soon these privileges would be gone. They would end, but he knew a time would come when the Christ, Head and Body joined together, would perform far greater miracles and on a far more permanent basis.

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.” (John 14:12)

Here is the KEY, which will distinguish these events as NOT being of the Lord,

“When a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the thing does not happen or come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him.” (Deut 18:22)

You see none of the various signs and lying wonders performed by the servants of the Adversary, will be ascribed to the Lord directly by those performing them, because if they were, the Lord would not permit the work to come to pass. It is merely those who witness these events performed (the deceived) who will be ascribing them to the Lord.

As was stated elsewhere the Adversary has quite a few arrows (lies, deceptions) in his quiver. Recall 2 Thess 2:9 in which it is stated that:

“The presence (of our Lord Jesus Christ) shall be accompanied by an in-working of Satan with all manner of mighty work(s) and sign(s) and wonder(s) of falsehood.”

Note that these mighty works (deceptions) viz. signs and lying wonders are plural.

Thus we must expect that he will employ various methods of deception focused upon God’s professed people. His primary target of course is the Lord’s consecrated people, both the elect (the feet members) and the Great Company, the “remnant” of the seed, those “who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ” (Rev 12:17). The great preponderance of the professing church having already been deceived for the most part it remains only for him to cement their compliance and loyalty to him in the coming hour so that he might utilize them as he did in the past to persecute and destroy the last Lord’s true people.

How shall he accomplish this ends?

As was alluded to above we believe his first method will be to employ his tried and proven method of masquerading as an angel of light. It should not prove all that difficult for him to pull off some of the various deceptions mentioned above as spirit beings are naturally more powerful than are humans and besides at the time it is stated that he will have “all” power that is as much power as the LORD sees best to allow him at the time.

But one of his greatest deceptions will be to masquerade as the Lord himself. This too should not prove all that difficult as the professing church has long since been conditioned (deceived) into believing in a visual manifestation of Christ, a visible return, this despite the very words of our Lord himself who stated: “Yet a little while, and the world shall see me no more” (John 14:19). The testimony of the Scriptures being that because of his great sacrifice, “God hath highly exalted Him”—” far above angels, principalities and powers” (Phil. 2:5-11; Eph. 1:20-23) that he is now the express image of the Father’s person who dwells in inapproachable light, whom no man has seen nor can see and live. (Heb 1:3; 1 Tim 6:16; Exod 33:20-23)

Nevertheless the nominal spiritual house (a.k.a. the church nominal, the professing church) like their predecessors before are ever looking for visible “signs” in which to confirm their faith, and as such having been given over to the lie concerning a visible presence of our Lord from heaven, something which no doubt was fostered in the church long ago (by the Adversary) will be found gazing to the heavens in egger anticipation, and you can just bet the Adversary will provide.

As for the Lords true people we have been warned of such deception before time,  If an angel comes from heaven, as Gal 1:8 warns, the Lord’s people are not to be deceived.

We will expand on this when we examine Verse 26 in our study of Matthew Chapter 24.

This method of deception will probably be the Adversaries opening salvo, but as stated materializing as an angel of light is only one arrow out of Satan’s quiver. We believe he will employ a variety of deceptions in order to deceive, some of which like the previous one he has long since cultivated into the teachings of the professed church.

Continued with next post.