15-A Strong Delusion-BH Clendennen The Pathway To An Overcoming Life Series
Our lesson is a strong delusion, or given over to the flesh. In our last lesson we saw how they didnt want to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to the flesh. We saw how they then changed the truth of God into a lie because that Word of God as it is will not allow them to live and this church of the 21st century to live like they're living. It will not glorify and flaunt that flesh and try to force on God that which He rejected. So God gave them over to that homosexual spirit when they perverted the Word of God.
2Th 2:11 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:
2Th 2:12 That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
The true church which is Christ's has one mission on this planet and that's to express Christ. We're not here to keep religion alive but to let God's Son be revealed to a generation. To express Christ who is the truth, the true church must become the truth she is to express. Therefore, from her birth to to the rapture there must be this continuing change into the image of Christ. 2 Cor 3:18 shows us how that happens. As we behold Christ in the spirit, then we're changed into that same image, from glory to glory. Only as we keep Him in our vision by the Spirit of God. To behold is not only to see Him but to see the path to what He is. Let me remind you of the journey of Jesus Christ to that immortal triumph. Remember the garden where He sweat as blood. Remember Pilate's hall where they put on Him the purple robe and smote Him. Remember His experience with His closest disciples as they all forsook Him and fled. Remember how they nailed Him to a cross. Those six awful hours, remember the darkness, the turning of the Father's face, and remember the surrender of His Spirit in death. That was the path that Jesus took to immortal triumph and everlasting glory. And as He is in this world, so are we.
Any willful intrusion of the flesh will not only stop that movement toward His image but will reverse the order and produce in that church the very opposite of what God intended. That's pretty much where we are today. The results of which is too horrible to contemplate. The dark ages were the results of that church born at Pentecost, turning from the leadership of the Holy Ghost to the scheming of the carnal mind. Now, the strong delusion spoken of in our Scripture was the end result of losing the love for truth, verse 10. Christians are being brainwashed in this hour. One evidence of this is that an increasing number of them are becoming ashamed to be found unequivocally on the side of truth. They say they believe but their beliefs are being so diluted as to be impossible to clear definition. Truth is a Person. Jesus said I am the truth, the way and the life. No man can come the Father but by Me. (Joh 14:6) That's the Words of Christ, God Himself. Jesus not only declared Himself to be the truth but to be the only way to that truth. 1 Peter 2:21 opens to us the only pathway to the will and purpose of God. Christ left us an example that we should follow His steps.
Now, the steps we are to follow are clearly defined in the Word of God. To overcome the tragedy of the fall, which rendered Adam and his race unfit for the purpose of God, there had to be brought in a new race of which Jesus was the firstborn. That's the first step, you understand on the way back to the image of God and purpose of God, born of the Spirit. Now for Jesus Christ to become the firstborn of God's new race which we are, He had to be born of the Spirit of God. And the angel said unto Mary, the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee, therefore also that holy thing that shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. Luke 1:35.
This new race was to become the vessel through which God would manifest Himself to the universe, so it was imperative that the firstborn which was Christ, as an example to the whole, be filled with the Holy Ghost. We're saying the pathway to that place that overcoming and being all God intended is outlined very clearly in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. For God to become the firstborn of a new race, He had to be born of the Spirit. We saw that when the angel talked to Mary. For that firstborn, as an example to the whole must be filled with the Spirit.
Mat 3:16 And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him:
From that moment, Jesus was under the absolute control of the Holy Spirit. That's the second footprint of Christ, showing us the way. Now, third, He was led of that Spirit.
Mat 4:1 Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.
It was the Holy Spirit that led Him to Calvary.
Heb 9:14 How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
These are the footsteps that Christ, our example, left you and I to follow. Any other pathway leads to the idolatrous worship of the creature. Every time, all the time. We see it from history, we see it in our own time. You look at the Pentecostal church, she has become a creature oriented society. Since the Word of God emphatically declares Christ is our example, it follows His message and mission must be that of the church of the living God. God asks no man, nowhere, at any time to draw Him a blueprint. There is no place for the natural man. There is an embargo on flesh and blood. Flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom of God. No flesh shall glory in My sight, that is the eternal verdict of the Word of God. Some who hear this will say it's old fashioned, no, it's no more old fashioned than is the Gospel of Christ. It's not a thing of time, it's a thing of eternity. I know this may sound strange to this flesh oriented thing that calls itself the church today. But it's not strange in the New Testament. This is a phrase which relates to and embraces all man is apart from regeneration and the new creation. It is more fully outlined and explained in 1 Cor 2 and 3. It's a man in the old creation, sometimes referred to as natural or carnal.
Where ever the words natural and carnal are used, or their meaning enlarged upon, there's always this embargo which says cannot. Paul said the natural man cannot. He might just as well have said flesh and blood cannot. The fact and force of this embargo is seen more fully in the case of the Corinthian. They or a large number of them were living on that side of their nature that was not regenerated. On that side, their judgment, behavior and disposition were those of the world and its ways. Hence, there you see spiritual immaturity, arrested growth and sins in the church that are not named among the Gentiles. We're finding every day the news is breaking some of the biggest names in religion are coming out saying they are homosexual or alcoholics or something. All of this is because where ever that flesh is allowed, it will always bring its work. At the end of all this, the Corinthians were worshiping the creature more than the Creator. Listen to them, I'm of Paul, I'm of Apollos, I'm of Cephas. Paul's answer to it all was Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? 1 Cor 1:13.
It all speaks for itself. When man is allowed to touch this instrument, that's what it becomes, what it will and has become. History is repeating itself in the modern Pentecostal church. A good personality, and a shrewd knowledge of human nature is all any man needs to be a success in religious circles today. That doesn't mean he's anything with God, but he gets rich off the Gospel. At the new birth by the miracle of the Holy Spirit, we believers are all baptized into Christ. Now by one Spirit, (1 Cor 12:13) we're all baptized into one body, Jew or Gentile, bond or free, we've been made to drink of that one Spirit. Now, having been placed in Christ by the Holy Spirit, we're commanded of God to abide there.
It took the power of God to put us there, but it also takes the power of God to keep us there. Now that that life is in us, it only works as we consent to the leadership of the Holy Spirit. God doesn't want robots, He wants men and women who will walk with Him willingly and purposely all along this line. 1 John 2:6 tells us what it is to abide in Christ.
1Jn 2:6 He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.
How did Jesus walk? We just saw that from the moment the Holy Spirit came upon Him, every step of the journey was led by the Spirit. That's the reason He gave us the Spirit of God. To walk as Jesus walked is to walk in total submission to that Spirit within us, making no provision for the flesh. For every attraction in one direction in the nature of things, there is a counter attraction in the other. If one is of the flesh, the other is of the Spirit and vice versa. There's a choice forced upon us. The choice is always the same: Am I going to walk in the Spirit or give place to this thing called flesh? That is the choice. Every temptation of life is exactly the same. That was with Adam-you don't eat of that tree, you eat of this one. He made a choice. All the blessings of God are contingent upon our abiding in Christ.
If you abide in Me and My Words abide in you, you shall ask what you will and it shall be done unto you.
Any willful attempt to produce spiritual results with carnal means will bring a curse. Look at the church that was born to represent Christ and you see what happened to it. It's become a man controlled, Laodecian, laity ruling, vote in, vote out scheme that God has no place in. Thus saith the Lord, cursed be the man who trusted in man and makes flesh his arm and whose heart departed from the Lord. (Jer 17:5) When we turn to the flesh, we departed from God and what we produce is our own making. The Bible and history are replete with the emphasis of the curse brought on by God's people willfully departing from the Lord and turning to that flesh.
Abraham, by attempting to help God, brought a curse we are still living with today. Moses tried to help Israel by his own strength, and it cost him 40 years in a desert. King Saul in his impatience, took matters into his own hands, and it cost him his kingdom. The prodigal wasted his substance, that's the life of God, with riotous living, that's wild, fleshly living. Instead of returning to the altar, he knocked on the world's door for help. He leaned on the arm of flesh. The young church ends up in the hog pen, totally void of conviction.
The path that leads to a strong delusion is intellectual acceptance of error. We have today all kinds of pseudo miracles. We have this Bentley guy in Florida who was bamming everybody, he winds up an alcoholic, immoral, everything else. But you see, people accepted intellectually what he was saying, and incorporated it into the message and methods of the mission of the church. Once these delusions are accepted intellectually, the emotions will confirm it.. oh it felt so good, I knew it was God. See, feelings will deceive you. Isaac felt of Jacob, but he fooled him anyway. The church has moved from the infallible Word of God to the feelings and desire of the flesh. Two things will now mark her progress. One, if it feels good and works good it must be right; two, the ends justify the means.
That's the most wicked thing that ever come to the church. This use of fleshly resource in our efforts to produce spiritual results will produce converts to religious enterprises but will not populate the kingdom of God. Since everything produces after its own kind, every son produced by such fleshly, religious systems, is an Ishmael, a child of the flesh. Such converts are marked by the obvious, there is no connection between believing and behavior. The user friendly church is not a product of the twentieth century, it's as old as civilization. When the church in its downward spiral reaches the point where it thinks more of the numbers of its converts than truth itself, at that point, it accommodates the doctrine to custom and taste of the people. In the corporate world, it's called expediency. The utterly fallacious principal of the end justifying the means. In such an environment the preacher disregarding his vows, makes the cause to which he's consecrated subservient to personal gain. What do you think of men wearing the title of ministers of Christ who devote their energies to money making, versed in ways of the world, ways that are dark, tricks that are vain, all for personal power and gain. The spirit of expediency is entertained and utilized by a worldly church in order to gain success. We are there today. You must, child of God, get back in that altar. Stand in this day of disease and error, in the name of Jesus.
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posted with permission
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Kathleen
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