The past year has given me much to think about in regards to how we accept the truth. I have observed the change in how people accept or reject the truth today. What bothers me is it seem easier for people to believe the lies that are being repeated by those who are the enemy of God. This week a talking head for CNN made the statement that many believe by their actions, "God is not about hindering people or even judging people." This is a lie from the very pits of hell. God is about hindering and judging.
Paul the Apostle spoke of hindering this way, God sends "strong delusion, that they should believe a lie." (II Thessalonians 2:11) But to whom is that strong delusion sent? Paul covers that quite succinctly. Those who "receive not the truth, that they may be saved." (II Thessalonians 2:10)
An interesting passage in the Old Testament bears out this thought. God said to the spirits around His throne, "Who shall persuade Ahab that he may go up and fall at Ramoth Gilead? Ahab was the King of Israel and had turned his back on God and worshiped idols. God was finished with Ahab and only needed him to go to the Ramoth Gilead to die.
And one came forth and said, 'I will go forth and be a lying spirit in the mouth of his prophets. And the Lord said, 'Go, you shall persuade him." (I Kings 22:20-22)
This is hard to accept for many people. But the Bible says that the Lord convened a multitude of spirits before His throne and that he sanctioned one who said he would go and be a lying spirit in the mouth of the prophets of the evil king Ahab. All of the prophets except for Micaiah told Ahab to go. Micaiah, a prophet of the LORD, told him if he went, he would die. He also told Ahab that the LORD sent a lying spirit to all the prophets. Ahab rejected the truth, believed the prophets' lie, and died just as Micaiah predicted he would. Had he believed the true prophet of the LORD, he would have lived.
The LORD is about hindering people to stop their evil ways. Someone said, "Those whom God wishes to destroy, he first deprives of reason." When people rejected His messengers, despised His words, and misused his prophets, he sends a lying spirit to deceive entirely and utterly those who have already gone so far in rejecting Him. This is where we are now in our times.
I am not so much concerned about people outside the Church who have rejected truth as I am about those who claim to be a Christian. Many are claiming to be a follower of Christ that reject His commandments, tolerate and condone sin. As a nation, we are being judged by God and feeling His judgment because many reject His truth. Among those who claim to be a follower of Christ but deny His commandment, there seems to be a failure to grasp the reality that God does hinder and judge. Historically this is what happens before destruction.
We are living in perilous times. If you have taken the time to read your Bible, you know before judgment came down upon nations with the full wrath of God, there was that lone voice, "one crying in the wilderness." More often than not, the masses followed the evil voice, "They mocked the messengers of God and despised his words and misused his people until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, and there was no remedy." (II Chronicles 36:16)
I know I am on my doom and gloom soapbox; it's depressing and discouraging. A solid case could be made that the verse could encapsulate the times we are in this moment, God sends "strong delusion, that they should believe a lie that they all might be damned." So many have bought into the lie that "God is not about hindering people or even judging people." This is not true; He will hinder people, and He will judge people.
It would do well for this generation to heed the words of Isaiah, For the Lord will execute judgment by fire and by His sword on all flesh, and those slain by the Lord will be many." Ish 66:16. Isaiah also said, "The Lord is ready to take up his cause against his people, and is about to come forward as their judge." Isaiah 3:13
Denying who God is and His sovereignty has made people delusional about what God will do. Hopefully, you are not sucked into these things. Hopefully, you are anchored in the LORD and His truth. The only hope we have is in Jesus Christ. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
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