A Strong Delusion (Video)

Well, we're going to read from 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, verse 11 and 12. And for this cause God gave them up to a strong delusion, that they should believe a lie, that they all might be damned, who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. Now the true church, which is Christ, has one mission on this planet. Hear me well, that is to express Christ. We're not here to keep religion alive, we're here to let God's Son be revealed to a generation. Now to express Christ, who is the truth, the true church must become the truth she is to express. Therefore from her birth to the rapture, there must be this continuing change into the image of Christ. Now 2 Corinthians 3.18 gives us implicitly the answer to how that happens. It said, as we behold Christ in the Spirit, then we're changed into that same image, from glory to glory, only, only, as we keep Him in our vision by the Spirit of God. Now 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 blood. Remember Pilate's hall where they put Him, put on Him, rather, the purple robe and smote Him. Remember His experience with His closest disciples as every one of them forsook Him and fled. Remember how they nailed Him to a cross. Those six awful hours, the hiding of the Father's face. Remember the darkness and remember the surrender of His Spirit in death. That was a path that Jesus took to immortal triumph and everlasting glory. And as He is, so are we in this world. Any willful intrusion of the flesh will not only stop this movement toward His image, but will reverse the order and produce in that church the very opposite of what God intended, and 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 Spirit 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. Our evidence is that, one evidence of this rather, is that 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 deluded as to be impossible to clear definition. Truth is a person. Jesus said, I am the truth. I am the way and the life. No man can come to the Father but by me. That's the words of Christ God Himself. Jesus not only declared Himself to be the truth, but also declared that He was the only way to that truth. Verse Peter 221 opens up 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 ought 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 is the first step, you understand, on the way back to that image of God and the purpose of God, born of the Spirit. Now for Jesus Christ to become the firstborn of God's new race, which race we are, He had to be born of the Spirit of God. Now the angel answered and 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 which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. That's Luke 135. Now the new race was to become the vessel through which God would manifest Himself to the universe. Therefore it was imperative that the firstborn, who is Christ, as the example to the whole, be filled with the Holy Ghost. Now look at it. We're saying that the pathway to that place, that overcoming and being, all that 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 that Spirit. That's what we saw when the angel talked to Mary. But for that firstborn, as an example to the whole, must be filled with the Spirit. And Jesus, listen to it in Matthew 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. Matthew 3.16 From that moment, Jesus was under the absolute control of the Holy Spirit. That's the second footprint of Christ's sureness, the way. Now the third was, He was led of that Spirit. Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. Matthew 4.1 It was the Holy Spirit that led Him to Calvary, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God. That's Hebrews 9 and 14. Now 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 from our own time. Look at the Pentecostal church. She'd become a creature-oriented society. Now since the Word of God emphatically declares that Christ is our example, it naturally follows that His message, His mission, and His mission must be that of the church of the living God. God asked no man, nowhere, no time to draw Him a blueprint. There's no place for the natural man. There is the embargo on flesh and blood. Flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom of God. No flesh shall glory in my sight. That's the eternal verdict of the Word of God. I know there's those that'll hear. They'll say this is old-fashioned. No, it's no more old-fashioned than 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 that man is, apart from regeneration and the new creation. It is more fully outlined and explained in 1 Corinthians 2-3. It is a man in the old creation, sometimes referred to as natural or carnal. Now, wherever these 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 the flesh and blood cannot. Amen. Now, the fact and force of this embargo is seen more fully in the case of the Corinthians.