Are you falling for the end time deception?

Lecture 1 Welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick, a 30-minute walk through the Scriptures, teaching in-depth Bible truths that change people's lives. Now, here's your host, Les Feldick. Les Okay, ready to go, and once again we'll go back to where we left off in Ephesians chapter 6, and let's see, Jerry, you got it up there? Yeah, we'll jump in at verse 15. So, again, we'd like to welcome our television audience from wherever you are. Some of you watch us in the morning, some of you late at night, but wherever and whenever we just trust that the Lord will take His Word and bless your hearts. We just hear such tremendous responses that just thrill us, and we just continue to covet your prayers on our behalf and that the Word will be able to reach hungry hearts. And so we realize that there is a hunger out there that we know the Word alone can satisfy. 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So if you'd be interested in that, it's just something you can read in 10 minutes, and it just sort of tells you where we are, what we're doing, where we're going, and our television log and so forth. Okay, now I guess we're ready to go. We'll go back to Ephesians chapter 6, and unless I really get led astray, I think we're going to get a little start on the book of Philippians before we leave. But we're going to finish Ephesians first. Chapter 6, verse 15. We're still on that one. And have your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. Now let's go all the way back and pick it up in the Old Testament first, and that's in Isaiah 52, verse 7, a verse that most of you are aware of, but I always like to show that the Old and the New fit so beautifully in so many ways. And here's another one. Isaiah 52, verse 7. Isaiah 52. Now that's back there in the major part of the Old Testament. It's the longest book in the Old Testament, I think. Isaiah 52, verse 7. How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace, that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation. You know, I made the comment, I think in our seminar in Pennsylvania, that the primary purpose of this book from cover to cover is that one word, salvation. That's the whole real purpose of the Word of God, is to bring lost people to a knowledge of salvation. Because God's not willing that any should perish, and if they're not to perish, then they have to get the remedy from the Word of God. So whether it's Old Testament or New, salvation was the criteria of the Word of God to bring lost people to a knowledge of salvation and eternal life. So again, reading the last part of the verse, blessed is the man, or beautiful on the mountains are the feet of him who publisheth salvation, that saith unto Zion, thy God reigneth. That of course was explicitly written to the nation of Israel. But the overall is still the same. Now if you'll come back to Romans chapter 10, where the Apostle Paul uses much the same language with regard to the feet of the one that is taking good news. Now remember, this isn't limited to pastors and preachers and evangelists. This is for every believer, whoever we are, wherever we are, that we're ready to publish the Good Tidings of the Gospel of Salvation. Romans chapter 10, verse 15. How shall they preach, except they be sent, as it is written, and here of course is where Paul goes back to the verse we just read in Isaiah, how beautiful are the feet of them that preach the Gospel of Peace and bring glad tidings of good things. Beautiful feet, because the Gospel always lifts people out of their misery. Now we don't make the claim that when we become a Christian, everything suddenly becomes a path of roses or smooth going, but it is such a far cry from the misery of the world that words can't explain it. Always remember that where you and I as believers come head and shoulders above the rest of the world is that yes, we're going to have problems, we're going to have trials, we're going to have tribulations, but the Lord is with us, and He takes us through it, and that's what makes the difference. So be ready to take the good news of salvation wherever you are, and the moment you do, of course you are using your beautiful feet. Now if you'll come back to Ephesians chapter 6, and now verse 16. Above all, this is probably the most important thing we have. Now don't forget, what is all this used against? The powers of Satan. This is what we are to use in our spiritual warfare. Now I'm sure you've all heard it at one time before, but we're going to repeat it again. All the things that Paul is mentioning here are on the front of the soldier. What does that tell us? You're to never run. You're to never run, because the back side is left undefended. All the Roman's armor was to the front. He was never to retreat. And so here again, verse 16, "...taking the shield of faith," which of course he used to deflect the arrows and the swordsmen of the enemy, "...take the shield of faith wherewith you shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one." The shield is what? Our faith, and how I'm always emphasizing faith. And what's my definition of faith? Taking God at His word. See we have all these promises that God has given, and how do we appropriate them? By faith. We believe them. And everything that comes from the opposition, we deflect with something that the Word has promised. Because even the staunchest believer has to admit that Satan will come and hit us with doubt. Isn't that right? Every one of us. I don't think there's anybody that isn't hit at times with doubt. Well how are we going to deflect it? With our faith. How are we going to resist all of these attacks of evil with our faith? But God has said it, and I believe it. And if God has said it, what more do you want? And so our shield is faith, and oh what a word that Paul uses. In fact, just back up a page. I won't take you clear back to the Old Testament for now, but just back up to Ephesians chapter two, Ephesians chapter two, verse eight and nine. Ephesians two, eight and nine. For by grace are you saved through faith. And faith isn't something that you can lay out on the table. Faith isn't something that you feel. Faith is something that you just simply take the Word of God and say, I believe it. This is what God has said. In every aspect of our Christian experience, how do we know that the Holy Spirit dwells within? Well, He didn't make some big grandiose announcement and say, I'm coming in to live with you. There isn't any diploma that someone has signed that the Holy Spirit dwells within, so how do we know He does? The Bible says so, and we take it by faith. We can't feel it, but we know He's there because this is what the Word teaches. And so all the way through with all these things, well, I just had a phone call early this morning. I'm going to take you back to the verse that I gave them, back to Matthew 24. And the question was, what about all these different things that we're hearing and reading? And they're as different as daylight and dark. And they're as false as false can be. And what does all this tell us? Well, according to Matthew 24, it just tells me that we are at the end of the age. And one of the basic signs of the end time is a tremendous wave of deception. And we're seeing that. All right, look what the Lord says Himself in Matthew 24. And we always like to start at verse 3. We've used these verses before, and I'll probably use them again. And it's in the Lord's earthly ministry. And the twelve have now approached Him without the multitudes pressing around them. Nay, they are by themselves, just the thirteen of them, the Lord and His twelve. And they came unto Him privately, and they said, Tell us, when shall these things be? What shall be the sign of thy coming and the end of the age? And Jesus answered, see, the God of glory Himself answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you. So what is it? Deception is a sign of the end time. And we're seeing it like never before in all of church history. The various ideas and the various contraptions that are coming at people from every direction. And then verse 5 is an advance on all that. We're not seeing it to such a great degree, but it'll come. Where many shall come in my name saying, I am Christ. And again with that kind of an approach, what are they going to do? They're going to deceive many. And we're there. We are seeing this wave of deception, and the only way we can confront it is to have the truth and our faith in the Word of God. That's our only defense, because the masses are going to fall for it. And we're seeing it on every hand. So it's through our faith that we rest on what God has said, on what He has promised, and with it we deflect all these deceptive statements and teachings and doctrines. What does the Bible say? You know, I think I've said it before in this program. You can be coming back to Ephesians, Monday morning will usually create the most phone calls with questions because of what they've heard the day before, which of course is Sunday. And whenever they ask me these things, I usually answer with just one question, can you find it in your Bible? And most of the time the answer is no, that's why I'm calling. Well if you can't find it in your Bible, if you can't find especially Paul teaching it, run from it. It's a deception. And it's a part and parcel of the end time scenario, where people are believing men, they're believing what they read in books, instead of coming to the Book. Now I'm not going to condemn good authors and good books, but you know we're in a day now where, well, like one lady called from one of our major cities, and it's a city that happens to have one of the largest so-called Christian bookstores in the country. And she said, less until about five, six years ago, the whole front of that store was Bibles. She said, today they're all gone, they're at the back of the store, and nothing but New Age material is up in front, and people are buying it by the caseload. Well what is that? That's this wave of deception. It sounds so good, but they're putting the book at the back of the store, and they're putting the books, plural, up front. And that's exactly, that's exactly what we're told to beware of. Alright, so coming back to our Ephesians chapter 6 once again, with this shield of faith, all these false statements can come at us, and how are we going to deflect it? What does the Bible say? Does the book say it? If it doesn't, deflect it as a false teaching. And that's the only thing I can tell people. Does the Bible say it? Does your Bible say it? No, I can't find it. Well mine doesn't either, so you better run from it. Alright, now then let's go on one more step. Taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. Now there again, it's a defense. We don't attack Him, we defend against Him, and we do it with the Word of God. Alright, next statement. Verse 17, and take the helmet of salvation, and that I'm going to have to stop with first before we go to the sword. Take the helmet of salvation. Now what does the helmet protect? Well, the head. What's in the head? The brain. What's in the brain? The mind, see, the mind, and it's with the mind. Now turn ahead to Philippians chapter 2, and then we're going to go back to Romans chapter 12. But Philippians chapter 2, because that's just right handy, next page or so. Philippians chapter 2, verse 5, now there, let this, what's the word, mind, see, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, see. Then it goes on to say, "...who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant or a slave, was made in the likeness of men, and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death." Not just an ordinary death, not being put to death with a firing squad, not even by beheading or with a sword, but the death of the cross. I think I emphasized in one of the past programs, I know I did in one of my Oklahoma classes a few weeks ago, what made the death of the cross so unique so far as you and I are concerned. Not just the crucifixion, they crucified Him by the thousands in Paul's day. But the death of the cross was unique because on Him, on Christ, was all the sin of this world laid. That's the death of the cross, that my sin, your sin, was laid on Him. And that, of course, is why then Isaiah says that He was more disfigured than any man that ever lived, because of that curse of man's sin that was laid upon Him as He died that death of the cross. But the point we want to see here is that it all comes to us through the mind. The Spirit gives us understanding, and we, with our mental capacities, we accept these things by faith. I told you the other one is in Romans chapter 12, because we can't take the mind out of this. It's part and parcel of our makeup, and it's through the mind that we function spiritually as well as physically. We might as well start with verse 1 of Romans 12, where he writes, I beseech you, I beg you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies. That's the physical, a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. Nothing bizarre or unreasonable about that at all. And now verse 2, and be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed, in other words, made totally different from the world around us, by the renewing of your mind. This is where we have to start. We have to analyze it. We have to think of all these things that God has done on our behalf, and it has to be through the thought processes. You can't do it any other way. I shared with a pastor in North Carolina, and he agreed with me so wholeheartedly. And it's a verse that I like to use over and over, and I guess it's almost a daily prayer of mine. Turn with me again to Acts chapter 16, where we were a while back. And when Paul and Silas went to Philippi, the congregation to whom our next letter will be written, and up there in Philippi, they came down to a riverside. Chapter 16, verse 12, 13, but verse 14 is the one I would like to use. Acts 16, verse 14. Now remember, this is the first time that the Gospel has been on the European side of the Aegean Sea. They had just come across from Asia Minor, and they had crossed by ship over to Philippi, and now on the Sabbath day they come outside the city, and here are a group of women meeting, because there was no synagogue in Philippi. But verse 14 now of Acts 16, a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, probably an upstanding business lady, of the city of Thyatira, which of course was a city back east of Ephesus, and she worshiped God, heard us, and here's the part I always like to pray for. "'Lord, give me Lydia's, whose heart the Lord opened, so that she attended to the things which were spoken of Paul.'" That says it all, doesn't it? See even the Apostle Paul, had the Lord not opened Lydia's heart, how far would he have gotten? Well, as we'd say today, not even first base. But you see, as Paul was laying out the Gospel of the grace of God, how that Christ died for the sins of the world, how He rose from the dead in power and glory, and as he laid that out to her, the Lord opened her understanding. Now, do you ever stop to think that when the Apostle Paul began his ministry amongst these pagan Gentiles, they had no knowledge of any of this. They had no knowledge of the Old Testament Scriptures. They had no knowledge of the God of Israel. They had no knowledge of a promised Messiah and King to the nation. Oh, they knew those Jews were different, but they knew nothing of Judaism. They knew nothing of the Old Testament, and yet the Apostle can come into these pagan cities and preach a crucified Jewish Messiah who rose from the dead, and they believed it by the thousands, to such an extent that it literally penetrated and turned the Roman Empire upside down. Now, this is unbelievable. Now, at least you and I, when we share the Gospel with people, hopefully they have a certain amount of knowledge of these things. They at least know the story of Christmas and Easter, if nothing else. But these people had none of that, none of it. That was just like talking to a brick wall. And so the Lord opens their understanding, and immediately they could embrace it, they could believe it, and of course Lydia's house then, I think, became the very first congregation on the European continent. But it took the Lord supernaturally opening the mind and the thinking processes of this woman so that she could comprehend what Paul was talking about. And so always remember, whether it's myself, or you, or anybody else, we are just beaten in the air unless the Lord opens the heart and the mind of those to whom we are speaking. Alright, now let's come back to Ephesians a little bit again. So we're to take the helmet of salvation, our whole process of thinking, and analogies, and believing, taking it by faith, and now we come to the only part of all that's listed which is a weapon. And what is it? The sword which is the Word of God. Now I know you're all aware that when they came to arrest the Lord in the garden, what did Peter draw and strike out with? The sword. And I have never read this before, but I was reading last night on some of these things, and I don't know if it's still there or not, but at the time that this gentleman was writing, which was back in the middle 1800's if I'm not mistaken, but at that time there was a statue of the Apostle Paul somewhere in the Vatican in Rome, and he had on his side this little Roman sword, which was not the big long battle sword, but it was more like what we would call a dagger. And then I happened to think of Peter, so it must not have been unusual for these men to carry a defensive weapon on their person wherever they are. And I've often thought, how did Paul, now I know he was under the Lord's protection, but on the other hand the Lord sometimes leads us up to our own ability sometimes, but I've often wondered, how did Paul survive on those wilderness treks through Asia Minor where robbers and bandits lurked at every turn? Was he armed with something of self defense? Maybe he was, but whatever. He uses the analogy that as a believer we do have the weapon that we can use in our defense, and you all know what the weapon is, the Word of God. Now let's compare some Scriptures again, Hebrews chapter 4, verse 12. Hebrews 4, verse 12. For the Word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword. See that, how plain that is? And it pierces even to the right and center of soul and spirit, the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and the intents of the heart. Now we also know that from the book of Revelation you have the same analogy that God's Word is the sword with which he fights. Thank you for watching Through the Bible with Les Feldick. Through the Bible is a partner supported ministry. If this program has been a help to your study of the Scriptures and you'd like to see others enjoy the teaching, your support would be greatly appreciated. Write to us at Les Feldick Ministries, Route 1, Box 760, Kenta, Oklahoma 74552, or call 1-800-369-7856. Remember, all programs are available in printed form, audio cassette, and videotape. Be sure to tune in next time to Through the Bible with Les Feldick.