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When you are posessed by evil spirits, it is crafty manipulations that you follow; but when you are posessed by the Holy Spirit of God, it is wise discretions you pursue!
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Israelmore Ayivor
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many women do noble things, but you surpass them all. charm is deceptive, beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised
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Anonymous (Holy Bible: New International Version)
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Every one of the world's "great" religions utterly trivializes the immensity and beauty of the cosmos. Books like the Bible and the Koran get almost every significant fact about us and our world wrong. Every scientific domain -- from cosmology to psychology to economics -- has superseded and surpassed the wisdom of Scripture.
Everything of value that people get from religion can be had more honestly, without presuming anything on insufficient evidence. The rest is self-deception, set to music.
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Sam Harris
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Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
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Anonymous (The Holy Bible: King James Version)
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He does not want a girl who trifles with Christianity. He wants a woman who is radically given to Christ. He does not want a girl who prays tepid, lukewarm prayers. He wants a woman who lives in defiance of the powers of Hell. He does not want a girl who is self-adorning with the latest fashions and trends. He wants a woman who is adorned with the inner jewelry of Christ-given holiness. He does not want a girl who dishonors and belittles her parents. He wants a woman who honors the authorities God has placed in her life and serves them with charity and gladness. He does not want a girl whose Bible is an accessory to her wardrobe. He wants a woman whose hunger and thirst is to know the Lord, and who diligently feasts upon His Word. He does not want a girl whose tongue is a deceptive weapon of selfishness. He wants a woman whose words drip with the honey of the name of Jesus.
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Leslie Ludy
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There is something distinctly odd about the argument, however. Believing is not something you can decide to do as a matter of policy. At least, it is not something I can decide to do as an act of will. I can decide to go to church and I can decide to recite the Nicene Creed, and I can decide to swear on a stack of bibles that I believe every word inside them. But none of that can make me actually believe it if I don't. Pascal's Wager could only ever be an argument for feigning belief in God. And the God that you claim to believe in had better not be of the omniscient kind or he'd see through the deception.
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Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion)
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Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: "Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all." Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Give her the reward she has earned, and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.
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Anonymous (The Holy Bible: King James Version)
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Possibly the most debilitating deception of all is to create a god of my own making, fool myself into believing that this limp god of mine is the true God, and then construct the entirety of my life on this flamboyantly fictional character. Possibly the most devastating realization of all is when the real God shows up, and in the showing up all of this come crashing down.
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Craig D. Lounsbrough
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Those who engage in deception generally have nothing good to offer; Satan has nothing good to offer humanity. John 8:44
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Felix Wantang (God's Blueprint of the Holy Bible: Volume Two)
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Help, Lord, for no one is faithful anymore; those who are loyal have vanished from the human race. Everyone lies to their neighbor; they flatter with their lips but harbor deception in their hearts. (Psalms 12:1-2 NIV)
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Anonymous
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I had done something wrong. I shouldn't have shown him. But he had known, hadn't he? What had I done? I retreated quickly down the aisle, pushing my way through the double doors into the porch, where I swiped one of my eyes dry. For a long moment I stood in the dim room, looking blankly at the flyers for bake sales and Bible studies on the noticeboard.
Then I heard him shout, "Damn you! Why?"
I looked through the clear glass of the porch doors to see if he spoke to some barely seen faerie. But to my eyes, there was no one there but Luke and God.
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Maggie Stiefvater (Lament: The Faerie Queen's Deception (Books of Faerie, #1))
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Don’t be surprised by deception. Rather, anticipate it. Assume it. Stay realistic in your appraisal of these days. . . . Don’t be fooled by any of the externals you see: persuasive speech . . . attractive brochures . . . celebrity endorsements . . . big crowds . . . persuasive logic . . . appealing personalities . . . even open Bibles! I need to talk straight with you. Not everyone who wears a collar and uses a Bible is to be trusted.
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Costi W. Hinn (God, Greed, and the (Prosperity) Gospel: How Truth Overwhelms a Life Built on Lies)
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Bible prophecy is not given to us to scare us but to prepare us. It is not given to us to frighten us but to invite us.
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Jack Hibbs (Living in the Daze of Deception: How to Discern Truth from Culture's Lies)
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What is the archetypal Bible story? A story of betrayal. Of treachery. It’s just one deception after another.
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Philip Roth (Sabbath's Theater)
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The sword of the Spirit—the Bible—is the weapon God has provided for us to use in this battle between truth and deception. Make it a priority to wield that sword skillfully.
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Billy Graham (Billy graham in quotes)
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Satan’s chief tactic is deception” and he does it “by telling people lies about God
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C. Peter Wagner (Warfare Prayer: What the Bible Says about Spiritual Warfare)
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8See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forcesa of this world rather than on Christ.
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Anonymous (Holy Bible: NIV, New International Version)
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9The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan r with all power and false signs and wonders, 10and with all wicked deception for s those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. 11Therefore t God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe u what is false, 12in order that all may be condemned v who did not believe the truth but w had pleasure in unrighteousness.
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Anonymous (Holy Bible: English Standard Version (ESV))
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At Camp Don Bosco, there were Bibles all over the place, mostly 1970s hippie versions like Good News for Modern Man. They had groovy titles like The Word or The Way, and translated the Bible into “contemporary English,” which meant Saul yelling at Jonathan, “You son of a bitch!” (I Samuel 20:30). Awesome! The King James version gave this verse as “Thou son of the perverse rebellious woman,” which was bogus in comparison. Maybe these translations went a bit far. I recall one of the Bibles translating the inscription over the cross, “INRI” (Iesus Nazaremus Rex Iudaeorum), as “SSDD” (Same Shit Different Day), and another describing the Last Supper — the night before Jesus’ death, a death he freely accepted — where Jesus breaks the bread, gives it to his disciples, and says, “It’s better to burn out than fade away,” but these memories could be deceptive.
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Rob Sheffield (Love Is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time)
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A similar attitude causes some people to spurn the use of commentaries and similar resources in their Bible study, as if their own uninformed first impression is just as good as careful study using reference tools. It is becoming more and more common all the time to hear people say, 'I don't read commentaries and books about the Bible. I limit my study to the Bible itself.' That may sound very pious, but is it? Isn't it actually presumptuous? Are the written legacies of godly men of no value to us? Can someone who ignores study aids understand the Bible just as well as someone who is familiar with the scholarship of other godly teachers and pastors?
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John F. MacArthur Jr. (The Truth War: Fighting for Certainty in an Age of Deception)
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In the broader spiritual realities, no rites or rituals are necessary to know God. NONE. Any religion that insists you can come to intimate knowledge of the Divine by any means other than stillness, self-awareness, and unity with consciousness is deceptive. So-called holy texts are about religion, not necessarily about God. They are really owners manuals for faith traditions. I am not denouncing them altogether, as I love the Bible and have studied it reverently all my life. But I don't view the Bible as the inspired word OF God as much as the inspired word of men ABOUT God, as they perceive God through their often jaded, human perspectives. Again, I respect these so-called sacred writings. I would just like to see them read and placed in their proper, less idolatrous, place.
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Carlton D. Pearson (God Is Not a Christian, Nor a Jew, Muslim, Hindu...: God Dwells with Us, in Us, Around Us, as Us)
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Slavery is as old as civilization, and has been practiced all over the world. It was ubiquitous in antiquity, and is taken for granted in both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible (you may recall that Paul enjoined slaves to obey their masters “in fear and trembling” as they would Christ),
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David Livingstone Smith (Why We Lie: The Evolutionary Roots of Deception and the Unconscious Mind)
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...the generally accepted history of ancient times, such as is found on the shelves of our libraries and taught in our schools, is mostly fiction…Some wonderfully clever writers have been led astray by these deceptions of “history” – Conor MacDari (Irish Wisdom Preserved in the Bible and Pyramids)
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Michael Tsarion (Atlantis, Alien Visitation and Genetic Manipulation)
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8“Behold, you trust in deceptive words to no avail. 9 r Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, s swear falsely, t make offerings to Baal, o and go after other gods that you have not known, 10and then come and stand before me in this house, u which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’—only to go on doing all these abominations?
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Anonymous (Holy Bible: English Standard Version (ESV))
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The indissoluble link between prideful self-love, aversion to truth, self-deception and hypocrisy is one of the great themes of the Bible—for example, the drumbeat repetition that “the way of a fool is right in his own eyes” (Prov 12:15). Sinful minds therefore claim both self-rightness in terms of truth and self-righteousness in terms of goodness.
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Os Guinness (Fool's Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion)
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Within the Christian worldview, Scripture is the sole and ultimate test for truth. God has given us a system of truth through the Scripture. Since the Bible is God's revelation, it can never be wrong on any issue that it addresses. A thorough knowledge and understanding of the Scripture, then, is our ultimate safeguard against satanic deception of every kind.
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Vincent Cheung (On Good and Evil)
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I can decide to go to church and I can decide to recite the Nicene Creed, and I can decide to swear on a stack of bibles that I believe every word inside them. But none of that can make me actually believe it if I don’t. Pascal’s Wager could only ever be an argument for feigning belief in God. And the God that you claim to believe in had better not be of the omniscient kind or he’d see through the deception.
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Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion)
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And Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, Every son that is born ye shall {i} cast into the river, and every daughter ye shall save alive. When tyrants cannot prevail by deceit, they burst into open rage. The suggestion that it was lawful to disobey or deceive kings would hardly have pleased James I of England. Yet it fitted well into the growing trend within Calvinist circles to argue for the resistance to tyrants, whether by force or deception.
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Alister E. McGrath (In the Beginning: The Story of the King James Bible and How It Changed a Nation, a Language, and aCulture)
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This is the perfect time to discuss the common deception that, “Everything God does must be found in Scripture.” I understand the good intention behind this belief—trying to protect oneself from being deceived by making sure that everything must be found in Scripture. But by believing everything must be found in Scripture, you can actually find yourself falling into deception and limiting what God can do through your own life. It is absurd to think that the God of all the universe and creation can be limited in His performance and deeds to one small, carved-out section of eternity compiled into one book. The Bible, on the other hand, is by all means the complete and all-sufficient source for salvation and walking out a relationship with God. But if you’re going to actually fall under the limited, deceptive mindset that everything God has done and will ever do by supernatural performance must be already recorded in Scripture, you are sadly mistaken, my friend. The
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Brian Guerin (God of Wonders: Experiencing God's Voice Through Signs, Wonders, and Miracles)
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[S]in in popular Christianity is often understood individualistically, obscuring the reality of “social sin.” An emphasis upon sin most often leads to introspection about what I have done wrong. Of course, such introspection can be helpful, but it clouds the fact that much of human suffering and misery is not because of our individual sins, but because of collective sin. For example, when it is emphasized that Jesus “died for our sins” (and thus for your sins and my sins), our sins are seen as responsible for Jesus’ death.
But it wasn’t individual sins that caused Jesus’ death. He wasn’t killed because of the impure thoughts of adolescents or our everyday deceptions or our selfishness. The point is not that these don’t matter. The point, rather, is that these were not what caused Jesus’ death. Rather, Jesus was killed because of what might be called “social sin,” namely, the domination system of his day. The common individualistic understanding of sin typically domesticates the political passion of the Bible and Jesus.
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Marcus J. Borg (The Heart of Christianity: Rediscovering a Life of Faith)
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Millett was the author of Sexual Politics, her dissertation at the communist hotbed Columbia University. It became a cultural juggernaut when published in 1970. There, she decried the “patriarchy” of the monogamous nuclear family. The book landed Kate on the cover of Time magazine on August 31, 1970, which dubbed her the “high priestess” and “Mao Tse-tung of the Women’s Movement.” Her angry book served as the bible, the feminist-Marxist manifesto, of women’s lib.645 The New York Times referred to Sexual Politics as “the Bible of Women’s Liberation.”646
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Paul Kengor (The Devil and Karl Marx: Communism's Long March of Death, Deception, and Infiltration)
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Some time ago, the concept of the “carnal Christian” became popular among some evangelical groups. The basic idea was that someone could be saved, and yet living no differently than an unbeliever day after day. In their lives there would be no hunger and thirst for righteousness, no patterns of obedience, little or no prayer or Bible reading, spotty church attendance, coupled with a love for the world, and a worldly mindset hostile to the Christian faith. Yet, because these people had “prayed the sinner’s prayer” or gone forward at a Billy Graham rally, or “asked Jesus into their hearts” at a youth camp, they were supposedly Christians. This shallow idea of conversion was coupled with the biblical concept of “once saved, always saved,” and a poisonous concoction resulted. Once that concoction was downed, the person became seriously ill with spiritual self-deception. The end of that road is hell. If anything gives you complacent comfort in a sinful lifestyle, it is a devilish component of the problem.
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Andrew M. Davis (An Infinite Journey: Growing toward Christlikeness)
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The naïve person has accepted thoughts, teachings, and beliefs, predominantly in the name of religion of one’s birth, while subjecting such to little or no thought, questioning or validation. As a result, many carry, and pass on seeds of truth, half-truths, falsehoods, deceptions or outright lies! While it cannot be overly emphasized that the religion of one's birth may not necessarily be the true one, the onus lies on each individual to diligently dig, as it were, until finding, a narrow gate beyond which is a narrow path, and a cramped road, the true one that leads to life, characterized by truth, and walk there upon. Only then, shall one be considered to have acted wisely; as haven given thought to the words of the wisest son who ever lived. A son who was subjected to a rival contention and mockery, and whom unbelievers seduced by a godlike one deny and chose instead to fall for a lie, even lies, from the father of all lies."
Inspiration, Matthew 7:13, 14; Isaiah 14:14; John 3:16; John 8:44; Matthew 4:6, Mathew 27:40, “Mankind’s Search for God”.
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Mannas Eli
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Don’t forget to pray for yourself.
We are at war. We are up against lot of spirits these days.
Spirit or lies, deception, hypocrisy, seduction, lust, prostitution, anger, hate, fame, rape, depression, judgement, substance abuse, revenge, cheating, lashing, entitlement, resentment and spirit of disappointment.
Ephesians 6:12
2 Corinthians 10:3-4
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D.J. Kyos
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To be preoccupied with getting theological knowledge as an end in itself, to approach Bible study with no higher a motive than a desire to know all the answers, is the direct route to a state of self-satisfied self-deception. We need to guard our hearts against such an attitude, and pray to be kept from it.
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J.I. Packer (Knowing God)
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and with every unrighteous deception among those who are perishing. They perish because they did not accept the love of the truth in order to be saved
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Anonymous (HCSB Study Bible)
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Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who •fears the Lord will be praised.
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Anonymous (HCSB: Holman Christian Standard Bible)
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A Wife of Noble Character 10[*]Who can find a virtuous and capable wife? She is more precious than rubies. 11 Her husband can trust her, and she will greatly enrich his life. 12 She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life. 13 She finds wool and flax and busily spins it. 14 She is like a merchant’s ship, bringing her food from afar. 15 She gets up before dawn to prepare breakfast for her household and plan the day’s work for her servant girls. 16 She goes to inspect a field and buys it; with her earnings she plants a vineyard. 17 She is energetic and strong, a hard worker. 18 She makes sure her dealings are profitable; her lamp burns late into the night. 19 Her hands are busy spinning thread, her fingers twisting fiber. 20 She extends a helping hand to the poor and opens her arms to the needy. 21 She has no fear of winter for her household, for everyone has warm[*] clothes. 22 She makes her own bedspreads. She dresses in fine linen and purple gowns. 23 Her husband is well known at the city gates, where he sits with the other civic leaders. 24 She makes belted linen garments and sashes to sell to the merchants. 25 She is clothed with strength and dignity, and she laughs without fear of the future. 26 When she speaks, her words are wise, and she gives instructions with kindness. 27 She carefully watches everything in her household and suffers nothing from laziness. 28 Her children stand and bless her. Her husband praises her: 29 “There are many virtuous and capable women in the world, but you surpass them all!” 30 Charm is deceptive, and beauty does not last; but a woman who fears the LORD will be greatly praised. 31 Reward her for all she has done. Let her deeds publicly declare her praise. Ecclesiastes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
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Anonymous (Holy Bible Text Edition NLT: New Living Translation)
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Elections are around the corner and elections brings evil spirits in other people. Spirit of deception, spirit of sabotaging, spirit of killing each other. Spirit of vandalism. Spirit of fighting. Spirit of lying. Spirit of looting. Spirit of stealing. Spirit of not caring. Spirit of power mongering . Spirit of division. Spirit of misleading. Spirit of backstabbing. Spirit of fraud and corruption. May God grand us leaders who are sincere and leaders who will care about people. Leaders who will be serving the people not serving their stomach or singing for their meal. Leaders who will unite people.
1 John 4:1 | 1 Timothy 2:1-4
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D.J. Kyos
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Anyone who is ores the Bible is inviting deception and disaster to be his intimate companions in the journey of life.
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Jack Deere (Surprised by the Voice of God)
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But a few of the heirs rail against the humanistic historians who have told the story of the new American nation: a “grand experiment” in which the God of the Bible was first formally and publicly abandoned by any Western nation. They have argued that there was no deception, that America is still a Christian nation, that the Constitution “in principle” was and remains a Christian document, and it is only the nefarious work of the U.S. Supreme Court and the American Civil Liberties Union that has stripped the Constitution of its original Christian character. There is no greater deception than one which continues to deceive the victims, over two centuries after the deed was done.
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Gary North (Conspiracy in Philadelphia)
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Fasten your seatbelts; I’m going to be even more controversial here. I am deeply persuaded that for many people, it is their commitment to ministry that constantly gets in the way of doing what God has called them to do as parents. Perhaps this is the most deceptive treasure temptation of all. There are many, many ministry fathers and mothers who ease their guilty consciences about their inattention and absence by telling themselves that they are doing “the Lord’s work.” So they accept another speaking engagement, another short-term missions trip, another ministry move, or yet another evening meeting thinking that their values are solidly biblical, when they are consistently neglecting a significant part of what God has called them to. Sadly, their children grow up thinking of Jesus as the one who over and over again took their mom and dad from them. This is a conversation that parents in ministry need to have and to keep open. It is very interesting that if you listen to people who are preparing couples for a life of ministry, they will warn them about the normal and inescapable tensions between ministry demands and parental calling. But I propose that two observations need to be made here. First, the New Testament never assumes this tension. It never warns you that if you have family and you’re called to ministry that you will find yourself in a value catch-22 again and again—that it’s nearly impossible to do both well. There is not one warning like this in the Bible. The only thing that gets close to it is that one of the qualifications for an elder is that he must lead his family well. Perhaps this tension is not the result of poor planning on God’s part, but because we are seeking to get things out of ministry that we were never meant to get, and because we are, we make bad choices that are harmful to our families. If you get your identity, meaning and purpose, reason for getting up in the morning, and inner peace from your ministry, you are asking your ministry to be your own personal messiah, and because you are, it will be very hard for you to say no, and because it is hard for you to say no, you will tend to neglect important time-relationship commitments you should be making to your children.
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Paul David Tripp (Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family)
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Unbelief is Satan’s attempt to get people believing in anything other than the God of the Bible.
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Jack Hibbs (Living in the Daze of Deception: How to Discern Truth from Culture's Lies)
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Religious deception is worse than physical suffering
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Peter nii korley
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To be preoccupied with getting theological knowledge as an end in itself, to approach Bible study with no higher a motive than a desire to know all the answers, is the direct route to a state of self-satisfied self-deception.
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J.I. Packer (Knowing God (IVP Signature Collection))
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Believers hold that every word in the Bible has not only been inspired but also literally dictated by God. Thus we are to believe every verse and every story as spoken directly by God, and this creates some serious problems, including: Intellectual difficulty with overgeneralizations, conflicts with science, and contradictions. Moral difficulties where God is portrayed at times as partial, vengeful, and deceptive, while in other parts of the Bible universal love is taught; the history of the Hebrews in the Bible shows progress in moral concern rather than a static code; injustice in the Bible including the slaughter of innocent people and minor transgressors. Moral difficulty with concept of endless torture in hell. Problem with occasions of Jesus expressing vindictiveness, discourtesy, narrow-mindedness, and ethnic and religious intolerance. Intellectual difficulties with the human decision-making process for deciding the books of the Bible and questions of the value of other writings not included. Non-uniqueness of Judeo-Christian teachings and practices. Other religions have similar rituals and beliefs, including sacrifice and vicarious atonement through the death of a god, union of a god and a virgin, trinities, the mother Mary (Myrrha, Maya, Maia, and Maritala), a place for good people who die and a hell of fire, an apocalypse, the first man falling from the god’s favor by doing something forbidden or having been tempted by some evil animal, catastrophic floods in which the whole race is exterminated (with details analogous to the story of the flood), a man being swallowed by a fish and then spat out alive, miracles as proof of power and divine messengers. Moral difficulties with intolerance and oppression in today’s society, which are based on the Bible. Intellectual difficulties with New Testament authors’ interpretation of events as fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. There are a number of references to “scriptures” that simply don’t exist.
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Marlene Winell (Leaving the Fold: A Guide for Former Fundamentalists and Others Leaving Their Religion)
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Understanding how biblical prophecy is unfolding will increase your confidence in the Bible as a whole.
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Jack Hibbs (Living in the Daze of Deception: How to Discern Truth from Culture's Lies)
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Now I sit me down in school Where praying is against the rule For this great nation under God Finds mention of Him very odd. If Scripture now the class recites, It violates the Bill of Rights. And anytime my head I bow Becomes a federal matter now. Our hair can be purple, orange, or green, That’s no offense; it’s a freedom scene. The law is specific, the law is precise. Prayers spoken aloud are a serious vice. For praying in a public hall Might offend someone with no faith at all. In silence alone we must meditate, God’s name is prohibited by the state. We’re allowed to cuss and dress like freaks, And pierce our noses, tongues, and cheeks. They’ve outlawed guns, but FIRST the Bible. To quote the Good Book makes me liable. We can elect a pregnant Senior Queen, And the unwed daddy, our Senior King. It’s “inappropriate” to teach right from wrong, We’re taught that such “judgments” do not belong. We can get our condoms and birth controls, Study witchcraft, vampires, and totem poles. But the Ten Commandments are not allowed, No Word of God must reach this crowd. It’s scary here I must confess, When chaos reigns the school’s a mess. So, Lord, this silent plea I make: Should I be shot; my soul please take! Amen
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Jack Hibbs (Living in the Daze of Deception: How to Discern Truth from Culture's Lies)
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It is not only heretical Christians who interpret Jesus' crucifixion as divine deception.
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Austin Busch (Risen Indeed? Resurrection and Doubt in the Gospel of Mark (Early Christianity and Its Literature, 31))
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Self-deception is cured by the gospel...
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Dan O. Via (Self-Deception and Wholeness in Paul and Matthew)
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The deception might be more convincing if the Bible didn't tell us the real purpose of miracles. Mark 16:20 says that the apostles' miracles confirmed their preaching, and Acts 14:3 says that God "gave testimony to the word of his grace, and granted signs and wonders to be done" by the apostles. Hebrews 2:4 also says that salvation through the preached gospel was confirmed by God with signs, wonders, and various miracles. So, miracles are meant to be seals of the gospel, not tools to undermine it. We shouldn't use them to confirm lies.
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John Calvin (Institutes of the Christian Religion: Book 1: In Modern, Updated English)
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Almost every book in the NT has something to say about false beliefs and those who advocate them. We are warned, e.g., about false prophets (Matt. 7:15–16; 24:11), false christs (Matt. 24:5, 24; Mark 13:22), a different Jesus and a different spirit (2 Cor. 11:4), false apostles (2 Cor. 11:13–15), and “another gospel” (Gal. 1:8). With so many warnings, it is clear God knew that many false teachers would come, and that he did not want his people to be deceived (cf. Eph. 4:14; 2 John 7). In what follows, notable deceptions of prominent cults will be summarized, along with a brief biblical response. From the viewpoint of those who hold to historic, evangelical Christianity, a “cult” is any religious movement that claims to be derived from the Bible and/or the Christian faith, and that advocates beliefs that differ so significantly with major Christian doctrines that two consequences follow: (1) The movement cannot legitimately be considered a valid “Christian” denomination because of its serious deviation from historic Christian orthodoxy. (2) Believing the doctrines of the movement is incompatible with trusting in the Jesus Christ of the Bible for the salvation that comes by God’s grace alone (Eph. 2:8–9). By this traditional understanding of the word “cult,” the following groups described are “cults,” though this does not imply that they share the extremely oppressive, authoritarian, life-controlling, and often immoral practices that are found in what the secular world calls “cults,” using the term in a more extreme sense.
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Anonymous (ESV Study Bible)
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The Bible really is a story of kingdoms in conflict, and that battle rages on the field of your heart. It rages for control of your soul. The two kingdoms in conflict cannot live in peace with one another. There will never be a truce. There is no safe demilitarized zone where you can live. Each kingdom demands your loyalty and your worship. Each kingdom promises you life. One kingdom leads you to the King of kings and the other sets you up as king. The big kingdom works to dethrone you and decimate your little kingdom of one, while the little kingdom seduces you with promises it cannot deliver. The big kingdom of glory and grace is gorgeous from every perspective, but it doesn’t always look that way to you. The little kingdom is deceptive and dark, but at points it appears to you as beautiful and life giving. You either pray that God’s kingdom will come and that his will be done or you work to make sure that your will and your way win the day. So it makes sense that Jesus came to earth as a King to establish his kingdom. Like a hero Monarch, he died so his kingdom would last eternally. But he did not come as an earthly king to set up a physical, political kingdom. He came to set up a much better, much greater, much more expansive kingdom than one that locates itself in a certain place and time. He came to dethrone all other rule and set up his grace-infused, life-giving reign in your heart. He came to free you and me from our bondage to our own self-serving kingdom purposes. He came to help us understand that his grace is not given to make our little kingdom purposes work but to invite us to a much, much better kingdom.
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Paul David Tripp (New Morning Mercies: A Daily Gospel Devotional)
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What Happened to Our Hearts Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. (1 Peter 2 v 11) Inside every heart, there’s a war; and the heart is both the victim and the culprit. Why? Because every person’s heart is inhabited by sinful desires, and produces sinful desires. There is an ongoing battle within the heart in which unhelpful desires wage war with our conscience. Bitterness. Anger. Envy. Greed. We cannot trust our feelings or all the passions that reside within us simply because we feel them. Our hearts are not pure—far from it: The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? (Jeremiah 17 v 9) The nature of deception is to convince us that our hearts will not be satisfied unless we indulge what our hearts desire. But our hearts lead us astray in countless ways. Envy robs people of joy and contentment, sours friendships, and can lead to compromising morality in order to “get ahead.” Envy does not produce flourishing or joy in people. Indulging envy only results in misery for yourself and others. But none of us think this way as envy rages on. In the moment, the wrath and bitterness of envy assuages the sense of loss and jealousy residing within each of us. Not every impulse we experience should be indulged. We should be suspicious about “listening to our hearts.” Actually, everyone knows this is true. Prisons are full of people who acted in accord with their feelings—and who have been told by society that they shouldn’t. Every time a therapist tells a patient to view themselves more positively, they are accepting that there are feelings that are unhelpful to someone’s fulfillment. Our hearts’ desires can be at war with what is actually good for our hearts. The real question is: which desires should be fed, and which should be starved?
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Andrew T. Walker (God and the Transgender Debate: What does the Bible actually say about gender identity?)
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Following Vos, Van Til places epistemology where it truly belongs, within the eschatological status of history: either one is a member of the kingdom of God, with the knowledge of the truth (grounded in the triune God of the Bible), or one is a member of the kingdom of Satan, with the knowledge of a lie (grounded in the deception of Satan). In redemptive history, there is no other ground for human knowledge. One either stands with Christ as the source of all knowledge or against him.
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William D. Dennison (In Defense of the Eschaton: Essays in Reformed Apologetics)
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See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.
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Anonymous (Holy Bible, NASB 1995 (Without Chapter or Verse Numbers))
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To be preoccupied with getting theological knowledge as an end to itself, to approach Bible study with no higher motive than a desire to know all the answers, is the direct route to a state of self-satisfied deception.
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J.I. Packer (Knowing God)
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What signs will warn of the approaching Tribulation period? These ten events are the things we can expect in embryonic form in the days preceding the Rapture and the beginning of the Tribulation. These ten things will continue to multiply and progress as the first three and one-half years of the Great Tribulation unfold. • A Time of Deception—“Many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many” (Matthew 24:5). • A Time of Dissension—“You will hear of wars and rumors of wars . . . Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom” (Matthew 24:6–7). • A Time of Devastation—“There will be famines . . .” (Matthew 24:7). • A Time of Disease—“ . . . pestilences . . .” (Matthew 24:7). • A Time of Disasters—“ . . . and earthquakes in various places” (Matthew 24:7). • A Time of Death—“They will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake” (Matthew 24:9). • A Time of Disloyalty—“Many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another” (Matthew 24:10). • A Time of Delusion—“Many false prophets will rise up and deceive many” (Matthew 24:11). It should also be noted that part of the delusion will be an increase in drug use. One of the characteristics of the end times’ false religion will be what the book of Revelation calls “sorceries” (9:21). The word John uses is pharmakia, from which we get the word pharmacy. It is an ancient reference to the ingestion of drugs. The use of mind-altering substances such as narcotics and hallucinogens will be associated with false religions, doubtless with the approval of the government. • A Time of Defection—“Because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold” (Matthew 24:12). People will turn away from God and from one another. • A Time of Declaration—“This gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations” (Matthew 24:14). Life on earth will be relinquished to flourishing evil.
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David Jeremiah (The Prophecy Answer Book: Clear Answers to Over 100 Questions on the Mysteries of Bible Prophecies (Learn About the Rapture, Tribulation, Antichrist, Second ... Heaven, and more) (Answer Book Series))
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Jesus, the son of God, Christians believe. Or, if you believe as most of the world does, merely a good teacher. But, I must point out, if he is but a good teacher, in what sense is he good? He claimed to be God come in the flesh, and said he would save people from their sins, and claimed he would return to rule a kingdom on earth. If he is but a teacher, surely you cannot claim false teaching is good? If, as some suggest, he is a mad man, then surely the greatest deception ever was poured out on mankind. But the Bible record presents a Jesus free of madness, and that leaves but one choice. Jesus, the son of God. Hadn’t you better consider his claims? It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of an angry God, and foolish, especially when he makes a way of escape.
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Patrick Davis (Because You Asked)
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Perhaps nothing is as subtle and deceptive as the ease with which our forms of worshipping God (reading the Bible, singing, partaking in the Lord’s Supper, serving the poor, etc.) can be used for our own self-worship. This is so subtle and deceptive that we don’t even know it is there. We can become aware of this self-worship when we pay attention to our desires. Our desires hint at subconscious beliefs we hold about life, God, and ourselves. These beliefs often surface when we enter God’s presence. In His presence we come to realize how often we relate to him as a tool or resource in our quest for happiness, fulfillment, and meaning, rather than as the Lord who calls us to worship.
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Jamin Goggin (Beloved Dust: Drawing Close to God by Discovering the Truth About Yourself)
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10Who can find350 a woman of worth?a Far beyond jewels is her value. 11Her husband trusts her judgment; he does not lack income. 12She brings him profit, not loss,351 all the days of her life. 13She seeks out wool and flax and weaves with skillful hands. 14Like a merchant fleet,352 she secures her provisions from afar. 15She rises while it is still night, and distributes food to her household, a portion to her maidservants. 16She picks out a field and acquires it; from her earnings she plants a vineyard. 17She girds herself with strength; she exerts her arms with vigor.353 18She enjoys the profit from her dealings; her lamp is never extinguished at night.354 19She puts her hands to the distaff, and her fingers ply the spindle.355 20She reaches out her hands to the poor, and extends her arms to the needy. 21She is not concerned for her household when it snows— all her charges are doubly clothed. 22She makes her own coverlets; fine linen and purple are her clothing. 23Her husband is prominent at the city gates as he sits with the elders of the land.356 24She makes garments and sells them, and stocks the merchants with belts. 25She is clothed with strength and dignity, and laughs at the days to come.357 26She opens her mouth in wisdom; kindly instruction is on her tongue. 27She watches over358 the affairs of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness. 28Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband, too, praises her: 29“Many are the women of proven worth, but you have excelled them all.” 30Charm is deceptive and beauty fleeting; the woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.359 31Acclaim her for the work of her hands, and let her deeds praise her at the city gates.
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United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (New American Bible: Revised Edition)
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{32:6} For a foolish man speaks foolishness and his heart works iniquity in order to accomplish deception. And he speaks to the Lord deceitfully, so as to empty the soul of the hungry and to take away
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The Biblescript (Catholic Bible: Douay-Rheims English Translation)
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Many fear signs and wonders because of the possibility of deception. So, in order to prevent any opportunity of being deceived, they replace displays of power with religious traditions, Christian activities, or even Bible study. They often become satisfied with knowledge. But, when this happens, who is deceived?
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Bill Johnson (When Heaven Invades Earth: A Practical Guide to a Life of Miracles)
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relegated to a tireless search to find a church that preaches the Bible at all, as today's pulpits more commonly stream self-help infomercials which refuse to mention, let alone offer remedy for man's greatest issue: sin and man’s need for redemption.
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Jeff Kluttz (Apostasy! The Word-Faith Doctrinal Deception)
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That Christianity came from Judaism is acknowledged by churchmen, but it never has been truthfully divulged before where Judaism had its origins and home, or who were the Hebrews and the Jews. The term “Hebrew” and “Jew” for deceptive purposes has been conferred upon a people of Aramaic race, and it is a misnomer to call this people - the modern so-called Jews – Conor MacDari (The Bible: An Irish Book) The initiated who had
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Michael Tsarion (The Irish Origins of Civilization, Volume One: The Servants of Truth: Druidic Traditions & Influence Explored)
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(Revelation 19:20; emphasis supplied). Notice that those who get the mark of the beast are “deceived.” Therefore, this deadly “mark”—whatever it is—must involve some sort of tricky delusion. That is, it must not be so easily noticed. If it was blatant, how could almost the entire world be misled as Revelation clearly predicts? Just think for a moment. How many people do you know who would allow “big government” to implant something inside their heads? Besides, how deceptive would that be anyway? Believe me, the Devil is no dummy, and the mark of the beast is his greatest end-time delusion. It dupes the world; consequently, it must be something masterfully subtle and not obvious. Decoding Revelation’s “Forehead” Terminology The Bible predicts “the mark of the beast” will be enforced “in the right hand, or in their foreheads” (Revelation 13:16). Yet, when we examine the book of Revelation closely, we discover the highly significant detail that “the mark” isn’t the only thing to enter human heads. Three verses after the mark
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Steve Wohlberg (Decoding the Mark of the Beast)
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We live, as did Israel, in a cycle of creation and crisis. God creates through the power of His word, and we are presented with a choice to either obey or disobey. The word that God spoke at Creation is the same word as the word that God spoke through Jeremiah. When God physically created the heavens and the earth, He did so under hostile conditions of chaos and darkness. These hostile conditions have a moral and spiritual correlation in the life of ancient Israel. God uses His word, through Jeremiah, to “create” a new nation under hostile moral and spiritual conditions. God also takes us back to basics in a time of crisis, presenting us with a choice to serve Him that represents our opportunity to bring the crisis to an end. We can do so if we choose to serve Him rather than persist in the way of deception and disobedience.
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Timothy Joseph Golden (Jeremiah Bible Book Shelf 4Q2015)
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The Bible is not a witness to the best people making it up to God; it's a witness to God making it down to the worst people. Far from being a book full of moral heroes whom we are commanded to emulate, what we discover is that the so-called heroes in the Bible are not really heroes at all. They fall and fail; they make huge mistakes; they get afraid; they're selfish, deceptive, egotistical, and unreliable. The Bible is one long story of God meeting our rebellion with His rescue, our sin with His salvation, our guilt with His grace, our badness with His goodness.
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Tullian Tchividjian (One Way Love: Inexhaustible Grace for an Exhausted World)
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The Great Apostasy:
The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason, God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness (2 Thessalonians 9-12, NKJV).
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New King James Version (Nkjv Personal Size Giant Print Reference Bible)
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Let there be light. Gen. 1:3 Let there be enlightenment; let there be understanding. Darkness. Gen. 1:4 Ignorance; lack of enlightenment and understanding. Eden. Gen. 2:8 A delightful place; temporal life. Garden. Gen. 2:8 Metaphorically—a wife; a family. Tree of life in the midst of the garden. Gen. 2:9 Sex; posterity, progeny. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Gen. 2:9 Moral law; the knowledge of good and evil. The tree of life. Gen. 2:9 Eternal life. The tree of good and evil. Gen. 2:17 Metaphorically—sexual relationship. Good. Gen. 2:17 Anything perfect. Evil. Gen. 2:17 Anything imperfect; contrary to good; immature. Naked. Gen. 2:25 Exposed; ashamed. Serpent. Gen. 3:1 An enemy; deception. Thorns and thistles. Gen. 3:18 Grievances and difficulties. Sent forth from the garden. Gen. 3:23 A loss of harmony; a lost paradise. God took him away. Gen. 5:24 He died painlessly. He had a heart attack. Sons of God. Gen. 6:2 Good men; the descendants of Seth. My spirit shall not dwell in man forever. Gen. 6:3 I have become weary and impatient. (A scribal note.) The Lord was sorry that He made man. Gen. 6:6 (A scribal note. See Old Testament Light—Lamsa.) I set my bow in the clouds. Gen. 9:13 I set the rainbow in the sky. I have lifted up my hands. Gen. 14:22 I am taking a solemn oath. Thy seed. Gen. 17:7 Your offspring; your teaching. Angels. Gen. 19:1 God’s counsel; spirits; God’s thoughts. Looking behind. Gen. 19:17 Regretting; wasting time. A pillar of salt. Gen. 19:26 Lifeless; stricken dead. As the stars of heaven. Gen. 22:17 Many in number; a great multitude. Went in at the gate. Gen. 23:18 Mature men who sat at the counsel. Hand under thigh. Gen. 24:2 Hand under girdle; a solemn oath. Tender eyed. Gen. 29:17 Attractive eyes. He hath sold us. Gen. 31:15 He has devoured our dowry. Wrestling with an angel. Gen. 32:24 Being suspicious of a pious man. Coat of many colors. Gen. 37:23 A coat with long sleeves meaning learning, honor and a high position. Spilling seed on the ground. Gen. 38:9 Spilling semen on the ground. (An ancient practice of birth control.) No man shall lift up his hand or foot. Gen. 41:44 No man shall do anything without your approval. Put his hand upon thine eyes. Gen. 46:4 Shall close your eyes upon your death bed. Laying on of hands. Gen. 48:14 Blessing and approving a person. His right hand upon the head. Gen. 48:17 A sincere blessing. Unstable as water. Gen. 49:4 Undecided; in a dilemma. The sceptre shall not depart from Judah. Gen. 49:10 There shall always be a king from the lineage of Judah. Washed his garments in wine. Gen. 49:11 He will become an owner of many vineyards. His teeth white with milk. Gen. 49:12 He will have abundant flocks of sheep. His bow abode in strength. Gen. 49:24 He will become a valiant warrior. The stone of Israel. Gen. 49:24 The strong race of Israel. He gathered up his feet. Gen. 49:33 He stretched out his feet—He breathed his last breathe; he died.
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George M. Lamsa (Idioms in the Bible Explained and a Key to the Original Gospels)
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To the Church of Satan—echoing yet again Karl Marx’s buddy Michael Bakunin—Satan represents rebellion against the artificial constraints placed upon man by religion, specifically Christianity. The Satanic Bible preaches the complete rejection of any creed that invokes the “authority of a ‘divine’ nature.” There is also a rejection, then, not just of the Creator, but of any notion of the existence of a natural law let alone a biblical law—of a set system of moral codes and absolutes. Thus, Satanism offers its adherents a system of their own to rebel against these “constructs.
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Paul Kengor (The Devil and Karl Marx: Communism's Long March of Death, Deception, and Infiltration)
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Charm is deceptive, and beauty does not last; but a woman who fears the LORD will be greatly praised. 31 Reward her for all she has done. Let her deeds publicly declare her praise.
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Anonymous (Holy Bible Text Edition NLT: New Living Translation)
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The presence of absolute truth and objective good demands a moral response to deception and to evil. What kind of God could look at genocide, torture, rape, and sin of any kind without responding in righteousness and holiness? The wrath of God is His proper judicial response to evil as He seeks to direct people toward repentance or (if they fail to respond to Him) to judge them for their corruption.
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Robert J. Morgan (The 50 Final Events in World History: The Bible’s Last Words on Earth’s Final Days)
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With starry eyes we forget what is literally the oldest trick in The Book: that the very first 'liberal' was one of deception - a snake in the Garden - and he corrupted paradise.
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Criss Jami
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According to tradition, Europa is the Great Goddess, mother of the European continent. According to mythology, Zeus, also known in Rome as Jupiter, fell in love with Europa, the beautiful daughter of a Phoenician king. He seduced her attention by assuming the form of a white bull. When she sat on his back he whisked her away, returned to his normal form, and she bore him three sons. This supreme deity of mythology also bore other names including Pater (father) and Soter (Savior). All this may be fascinating history, but why should we be concerned about mythological figures even if they have been adopted for the identity of the resurrecting Roman Empire? The reason is simple. The Bible gives specific description and warning concerning a woman sitting upon such a beast which figuratively depicts the merging of religious power and political power ushering in the grand finale of Satan’s deceptive drama of the ages. Shockingly, the final ACT of this drama is now happening before our eyes, and most, whether rich or poor, and regardless of status, race, color or religion, are predisposed to embrace the coming counterfeit salvation offered by a false “Christ” bearing false promises of security and prosperity. What, then, has God said concerning this mystery
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Charles Crismier (ANTICHRIST: How To Identify The Coming IMPOSTER)
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So how did an entire generation of billions of people today come to universally accept planet Earth as being 4.6 billion years old? The answer is simple: It is because most people just believe what they are told, and errant scientists have crammed their guesswork down their throats. Today, we are inundated daily with newspapers, magazines, newscasters, and schoolteachers regurgitating scientist’s theories. But, friend, let us call a spade a spade; a theory is a guess! Therefore, the theory of macroevolution and the big bang theory are nothing more than speculation. And these two theories demand a very old Earth and universe to be true, so scientist — without definitive evidence — falsely assume they are! And, unfortunately, their guesses are being taught as truth to our children in schools. Thus, we have the perfect storm for festering evil: A generation of Biblically illiterate kids are growing up believing whatever their teachers teach them in school, which contradicts the Bible trueness! Friend, the great “end time” deception is in full force! Paul wrote about it: “evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived. But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of … And that from a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures” (II Timothy 3:13-15). As a 3 year Chemistry/Biochemistry majored collegiate student with a 3.84 GPA, let me assure you there is not a single test a scientist can perform to absolutely, positively verify the age of something! The tests all involve assumptions — including radiometric dating — and therein lay the error. Are you really going to throw away hard, cold, ancient, Biblical “end times” prophetic evidence, including the 7 day Creation story’s amazing prophetic verbiage, all of which support the truth of a 6,000 year old Earth, to believe in mankind’s scientific guesses? Allow me to tell you first HOW the world was created, for the answer is in Scripture! Then we will investigate how the great “end-time” deceptive theories like macroevolution & the big bang arrived, claiming a very old universe. Friend, the method God used to create the world is blatantly flaunted in a miracle Jesus performed twice. I want you to seriously consider the miracle, for it appears God wanted the miracle to be remembered above ALL other miracles, because it is the ONLY one contained in ALL 4 Gospels. And rightly so, for it should be contemplated by all: The
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Gabriel Ansley (Undeniable Biblical Proof Jesus Christ Will Return to Planet Earth Exactly 2,000 Years After the Year of His Death: What You Must Do To Be Ready!)
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Horizontal comparisons tend to stimulate self-righteousness. Think of the contrast between the words of the Pharisee and the tax collector in Jesus’s parable in Luke 18. He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” (Luke 18:9–14) In comparing himself to other people who are obviously more sinful than he is, the Pharisee essentially tells God that he doesn’t need him, and he surely doesn’t need his forgiveness. How ironic it is to tell the One to whom you are praying that you don’t need him. How strange is it to turn prayer into an argument for your independence rather than a humble confession of personal need. The argument of the Pharisee has two parts. First, he compares himself to others, and then he offers evidence that he is really quite righteous. Sadly, in this man’s prayer, he is participating in his own deception—a deception that will be his doom. The tax collector does just the opposite. Why is he so quick to cry out for God’s mercy? He’s quick to do so because he’s looked into the mirror of God’s Word. You cannot read God’s Word without becoming deeply aware that you are a person in desperate need. You cannot read God’s Word without being confronted with the sin that lives in your heart. You cannot read your Bible without facing the fact that you constantly fall beneath God’s wise and holy standard. You cannot properly celebrate the Christmas story without also being willing to receive its clear and loving rebuke.
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Paul David Tripp (Come, Let Us Adore Him: A Daily Advent Devotional)
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Through a time of devilish deception, the inner deviant monstrosity of the oppressors arises. Thus they lie, as wicked snakes, watching from the darkest place, hidden within. Lies are their bible that manipulates the devils, through their demonic hearts toying with us.
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~Michella Augusta
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...the OT never categorically prohibits deception, but only deception that brings unjust harm or disadvantage to another person.
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Matthew Newkirk (Just Deceivers: An Exploration of the Motif of Deception in the Books of Samuel)
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For trickster saves the world. The paradoxical trickster-creating order through chaos, the underdog that overcomes, the liminal role, and all the dangers associated with it, personified Israel. So in Exile when the canon is beginning to form, the Israelites tell of their ancestors as tricksters. For the trickster represents not only the threat of a marginalized existence, or the danger of the liminal status, but also the salvific role in which Israel still paradoxically believed it functioned.
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Dean Andrew Nicholas (The Trickster Revisited: Deception as a Motif in the Pentateuch)
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Despite biblical prohibitions against lying, the Bible rarely offers an evaluation of its characters or their conduct, thus leaving the moral ambiguity regarding the Bible’s attitude towards the ethical nature of deception open to interpretation by the reader.
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Shira Weiss (Ethical Ambiguity in the Hebrew Bible: Philosophical Analysis of Scriptural Narrative)
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In the first century, the mark of the beast was the willingness to worship Rome’s power. God’s mark was revealed in the refusal to worship Satan’s great deception. It still is today. Deception of any kind is straight from Hell, and it usually still stinks like smoke.
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David B. Currie (Rapture: The End-Times Error That Leaves the Bible Behind)
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In the Mediterranean world, deception is a legitimate strategy at the service of honor; it is a means value. Those who excel in deception are cheered by the crowd, even as those they have "taken in" smart from the shame and plot retaliation.
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John J. Pilch
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One can only imagine how Jesus must have felt when one of his chosen twelve betrayed him. Of course Jesus knew all along that Judas would succumb to kissing away not only a relationship of special trust, but the very life of the Son of God! It’s the paltry reasons behind “companion betrayals” that we have such difficulty understanding. (Thirty pieces of silver!) Yet, typically, a major incident of betrayal is but the final act in an ongoing series of deceptions about the true nature of the relationship. When, in the end, a supposed close friendship is exposed for the fraud it has been all along, we suddenly realize that we’ve foolishly invested years of misplaced trust. Imagine, then, how God must feel when we lay claim to a close relationship but, for plainly unworthy reasons, so willingly betray him.
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F. LaGard Smith (The Daily Bible Experience: 365 Life-Changing Readings to Make God's Word Personal)
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We must study the Word of God and know it so well that when a false teaching arises, we can easily recognize the deception. God is not the author of confusion but of peace. And when things seem confusing, it’s not of God (1 Corinthians 14:33).
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Larry Ollison (Hidden Mysteries and the Bible: Secrets Revealed: Aliens/UFOs, Giants, Time Travel, Multiverse, AI & Other Unexplained Phenomena)
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Inappropriate level of politeness – A verbal deceptive behavior in which a person interjects an overly polite or unexpectedly kind or complimentary comment directed at the questioner when responding to a question. Example: Uncharacteristic use of “sir” or “ma’am” when responding to a particular question. Inappropriate question – A verbal deceptive behavior in which a person responds with a question that doesn’t directly relate to the question that’s asked. Inconsistent statement – A verbal deceptive behavior in which a person makes a statement that is inconsistent with what he said previously, without explaining why the story has changed. Interrogation – See Elicitation. Interview – A means of establishing a dialogue with a person to collect information that he has no reason to want to withhold. Invoking religion – A verbal deceptive behavior in which a person makes a reference to God or religion as a means of “dressing up the lie” before presenting it. Example: “I swear on a stack of Bibles, I wouldn’t do anything like that.” Leading question – A question that contains the answer that the questioner is looking for. Legitimacy statement – A statement within a monologue that is designed to explain the purpose or reasoning behind what the interrogator is conveying.
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Philip Houston (Get the Truth: Former CIA Officers Teach You How to Persuade Anyone to Tell All)
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The two things that will hold us in deception are ignorance and pride. First, we must realize that God does not desire that we be ignorant. Our primary source of truth is the Word of God. You may be believing something about God, yourself or others that is contrary to the Bible. That is one reason we as Christians must know the Bible. The more we know what it really says, the less of an opening Satan has to lie to us. The belt of truth and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God (see Eph. 6:14,17) are, therefore, two very important elements of our spiritual armor as Christians. Pride also works to hold us in deception. This happens when we refuse to acknowledge that we have been deceived because, after all, we know better. Pride is an especially vulnerable area for those who may have grown up in church or have pursued higher Christian education. Satan can be holding us in bondage to sin that we refuse to see. But as my good friend Cindy Jacobs often says, “If you don’t think you can be deceived, you already are!
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Chuck D. Pierce (Possessing Your Inheritance: Take Hold of God's Destiny for Your Life)
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All the pieces of the end-time puzzle are in place for the first time ever. To the non-Christian, the world appears to be falling to pieces due to the exponential increase in immorality and violence. But to the Christian who knows Bible prophecy, the fragmented world scene is understandable, for all the prophesied pieces are falling into place.
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Terry James (Deceivers: Exposing Evil Seducers & Their Last Days Deception)
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He who speaks of his own accord seeks glory for himself; but he who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and there is no deception in his heart.
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George M. Lamsa (Holy Bible: From the Ancient Eastern Text)
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Vanishing cream for the mind, English writer Jeremiah Creedon calls it.
It's beholding the mote in your brother's eye, says the Bible, while disregarding the beam in your own.
Denial is refusing to listen to the voice that awakens you in the night and whispers, "You know, you really are an incredible jerk and you ought to do something about it!"
"Beware thoughts that come in the night," cautions William Least Heat Moon at the start of Blue Highways, his evocative journal of self-discovery on the back roads of America. "They aren't turned properly. They come in askew, free of sense or satisfaction, deriving from the most remote of sources."
Samuel Taylor Coleridge called those remote sources "an aching hollow in the bosom, a dark cold speck at the heart, an obscure and boding sense of something that must be kept out of sight of the conscience, some secret lodger, whom they can neither resolve to reject or retain."
Denial is keeping from ourselves secrets we already know.
It's choosing to forget what we can't bear to remember.
It's making people tell us what we want to hear so we can keep believing the lies we've told ourselves, keep punishing those who dare to make us listen to the truth.
Denial is the psychology of self-deception, the mind's deliberate failure to see things as they really are in order to protect ourselves from ourselves, says Donald Goldman, author of Vital Lies, Simple Truths: The Psychology of Self-Deception.
Familiar words of denial:
It's not about the money.
I am not a crook.
I was only obeying orders.
Business is business.
I can quit whenever I want.
I don't remember.
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Lionel Fisher (Celebrating Time Alone: Stories Of Splendid Solitude)
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This rider does not have God’s judgment. He is at war. This rider wants to look like Christ returning on a white horse in Rev. 19:11. This is a deception to those who see him.
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Shahe Nahler (Revelation - A Word by Word Bible Study)
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Satan will kill believers. But Satan is also a deceiver. He will also use other tools in his belt of tricks called deception and compromise. A believer needs to be strong in the Word of God and consistent to maintain intimacy with God. So that the deception can be uprooted, and the compromise can be stopped when it enters into the lives of believers.
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Shahe Nahler (Revelation - A Word by Word Bible Study)
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The Bible reveals that sin is not a matter of knowing better, if it were, we would not need grace through the atoning savior Jesus Christ. Sin is deceptive, it takes people captive. Sin is more then a bad idea over which you have complete control.
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Rosaria Champagne Butterfield (The Gospel Comes with a House Key)
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KNOWLEDGE APPLIED For this very reason we need, before we start to ascend our mountain, to stop and ask ourselves a very fundamental question—a question, indeed, that we always ought to put to ourselves whenever we embark on any line of study in God’s holy book. The question concerns our own motives and intentions as students. We need to ask ourselves: What is my ultimate aim and object in occupying my mind with these things? What do I intend to do with my knowledge about God, once I have it? For the fact that we have to face is this: If we pursue theological knowledge for its own sake, it is bound to go bad on us. It will make us proud and conceited. The very greatness of the subject matter will intoxicate us, and we shall come to think of ourselves as a cut above other Christians because of our interest in it and grasp of it; and we shall look down on those whose theological ideas seem to us crude and inadequate and dismiss them as very poor specimens. For, as Paul told the conceited Corinthians, “Knowledge puffs up. . . . The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know” (1 Cor 8:1-2). To be preoccupied with getting theological knowledge as an end in itself, to approach Bible study with no higher a motive than a desire to know all the answers, is the direct route to a state of self-satisfied self-deception. We need to guard our hearts against such an attitude, and pray to be kept from it. As we saw earlier, there can be no spiritual health without doctrinal knowledge; but it is equally true that there can be no spiritual health with it, if it is sought for the wrong purpose and valued by the wrong standard. In this way, doctrinal study really can become a danger to spiritual life, and we today, no less than the Corinthians of old, need to be on our guard here.
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J.I. Packer (Knowing God)
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Bible prophecy is a “pillar” of the outmoded way of doing things that should be removed. It just “holds things up” — i.e., Bible prophecy gets in the way of building the mega churches because the subject of Christ’s coming again is a downer.
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Terry James (Deceivers: Exposing Evil Seducers & Their Last Days Deception)
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ancient evil that is again in vogue: (1) there are many ways to God; and (2) today’s Israel is not the Israel of the Bible, it is an imposter and it is an occupier of land that belongs to the Palestinians. Besides, the Church has now been given the right to claim all promises given originally to the Jews. They forfeited their rights when they rejected Christ and crucified Him.
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Terry James (Deceivers: Exposing Evil Seducers & Their Last Days Deception)
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Social media has capitalized on this deception. It doesn’t leave you content and satiated. Often it leaves you feeling disconnected.
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Drew Dyck (Your Future Self Will Thank You: Secrets to Self-Control from the Bible and Brain Science (A Guide for Sinners, Quitters, and Procrastinators))
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False Prophets and Their Punishment 1But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive opinions. They will even deny the Master who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. 2Even so, many will follow their debaucheries, and because of these teachersh the way of truth will be maligned. 3And in their greed they will exploit you with deceptive words. Their condemnation, pronounced against them long ago, has not been idle, and their destruction is not asleep.
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Zondervan (NRSVue, Holy Bible with Apocrypha)
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And the top thing a young man should consider is this: “Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised” (Prov. 31:30). The Bible tells young men to search for a woman of character; while looks won’t last, godly character improves with age. It says absolutely nothing about “feelings” and warns against putting too much emphasis on physical attraction or
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Gary L. Thomas (The Sacred Search: What if It's Not about Who You Marry, but Why?)
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Bible is Word of God. Jesus is Word made flesh. Bible=Jesus. Another holy book=another Jesus=false gospel
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Kenny Wood (Connecting Dots to Decode the Deception of Satan and to Worship the True God)