A Deceived World

Thank you very much, Mrs. McKinney. I really appreciate that. I was enjoying it so much, I was sitting here rewriting my sermon, and I was hoping it would go on a little longer. And that's not to me any detraction on the music. As I said, it was just beautiful.

I thought I could go on like this for a long time. But if you will, let's turn in our Bibles to begin to Revelation 12. We didn't spend a lot of time in Revelation 12 a couple of days ago, which is good because I've read much of the rest of the book. We'll begin in verse 7. I'll show a climactic event that we believe has happened and will happen again or the greatest fulfillment will happen, but the timing is not as important as an important phrase here we'll see.

Revelation 12 verse 7. And war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought with the dragon. The dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail. Nor was there a place found for them in heaven any longer. So the great dragon was cast out. That old serpent called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world. He was cast to the earth and his angels were cast out with him. Just think, the entire world deceived. That's quite a concept, isn't it?

We believe it's true. It says it right here in the Bible. But it's still staggering to think. The whole world is deceived. If you were to go out and ask any leaders today, if you were to find the city councilmen and Portsmouth county leaders, go to Washington, D.C.

and interview congressmen and senators or President Obama and say, do you think you're deceived about any important matters? They would say, certainly no. And yet, God's inspired word says that Satan deceives the whole world. So let's talk about that. A good title for this sermon, if you like titles, might be, A World Deceived. Satan has always been able to deceive the world. And as long as he's allowed to do so, he'll continue this evil practice.

You might say it's in his very nature to deceive. Matter of fact, let's turn towards the back of Revelation to chapter 20. See another example. Revelation 20 beginning in verse 3. And I'll save the first couple of chapters because obviously they're very important for a week from today, but they refer to an angel binding Satan. And in verse 3 he says, and he cast him into the bottomless pit and shut him up and set a seal on him so that he should deceive the nations no more.

Now, that means, of course, that he had been deceiving the nations, he wouldn't know more until the thousand years were finished. And after those things, he must be released for a little while. So let's see what happens after a thousand years being bound to think about what he's done. In verse 7, we see, Now when the thousand years have expired, Satan will be released from his prison, and will go out to deceive the nations, which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, and gather them together to battle, whose number is as the sand of the sea.

And they went up from the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, and then fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them. The devil who deceived them, once again, that deception of the whole world, was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are. If you notice that R is in italics in most translations, it should actually say where the beast and false prophet were.

But Satan is like a hardened criminal. I believe that the proper word is recidivist, although I'm never sure if I'm pronouncing it properly, but he's more cunning and subtle than any man or woman who's ever lived. And he's able to deceive men. Just think, an adult can usually fairly easily deceive a child if he wants. I think if I wanted to fool Connor about something, I probably could pull it off, partly because he's trusting and also because I know so much more about the world than he does. But think, the gap between my mind and Satan's is so much—is nothing compared to the gap—I might have said that backwards.

The gap between my mind and Connor's is as nothing compared to the gap between mine and Satan. Satan is so much more powerful and intelligent than we are, and I don't mean that to praise him in any way.

It's just that he's a spirit being who's been around for a very long time. He's subtle and diabolically clever, and he can deceive anyone that doesn't have God's help to not be deceived. Satan has that kind of power. He's able to make people think that things that are wrong are actually right, and think things that are right are wrong. Let's go to Acts chapter 26. Acts 26, and we'll begin in verse 17.

Here's an example of where Paul is quoting what Jesus had told him after the resurrection when Paul was first being called, but we're breaking in partway to a thought, because I want to get at a certain point here. So Acts 26, verse 17, in the words to Paul, he said, I'll deliver you from the Jewish people as well as from the Gentiles, to whom I now send you, to open their eyes in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of their sins and inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in me.

But we see that Satan has the power of darkness, and he's exercised that over the nations. Satan has that power to deceive the whole world, and it seems that he always has. As I said, it's in his nature to do it. But have you ever wondered, how does he do that? How does Satan deceive the whole world? We as Christians are not to be ignorant of his devices, so perhaps we can look at some of those. Let's examine some of the methods he uses, and then we'll look at some of the things that he perpetrates on the nations that we don't want to be deceived by and what we can do about it.

I'll point out, actually I think I mentioned to a couple people, a week ago when Mr. Eret was giving a sermon at the start of it, I started saying, uh oh, because I'd already prepared most of this message, and I thought, he's going to give the same sermon I'm giving, and I can't claim that I wasn't here to hear it.

But I have a different focus. He focused on avoiding deception in the church. I want to primarily look at how Satan has deceived the whole world around us, because we do need to be aware of these things. Now, among Satan's tools of deception, the first one is fairly simple. Just as truth is a fundamental characteristic of God. God is truth, his word is truth, and that should be one of our characteristics. Likewise, lies are fundamental to Satan. He builds his deception often on plain old lies. Also, half truths, mixtures of truth and error.

But it always comes down to just plain lying. Let's turn to John 8, verse 44. Jesus in this passage made it as clear as we could ask for it. John 8, verse 44, once again, this is one of many encounters Jesus had with the Pharisees and disputes with them, because of course they were deceived themselves about the truth. And Jesus made that clear to them. John 8, verse 44, he said, You are of your father, the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do.

He was a murderer from the beginning. He doesn't stand in the truth, does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own, or in the New King James, his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. He's the father of lying. But he can package a lie so well, so cunningly, that it looks like the truth. We all know Satan uttered the first recorded lie. And I say recorded, because before the Scriptures or the pages of the Bible, we know that he was working among the angels and apparently lied to many of them.

But the first one written down is when he approached Eve, asked her about the trees of the garden, and she said, Oh, we can't eat, you know, we can eat, but not eat that one or we'll die. And Satan said, You will not surely die. No, no, he told her, you'll be like God, knowing good from evil. And she believed him. According to her own senses, it looked like what he was saying should be true, that fruit looked like it was good for food.

And Satan has succeeded in counterfeiting the truth and the teachings of God so cleverly that the real intent and meaning of the Bible is now completely lost on most human minds. Without God's Spirit to direct us, we don't see it. So beyond lies, let's look at another particular tool Satan uses, and that's one of saucerie. Or you could say supernatural events, what looks like magic or miracles. Satan is a spirit being. He's not bound by all the same laws of physics that we are. And people are greatly influenced by what they personally see or experience.

If they perceive something to be miraculous, they're very likely to believe it. Let's go back to Revelation 18. Revelation 18, verse 23, because one of the many places where I'm breaking in partway into a thought to get at a certain part of what's being said, Revelation 18, verse 23 says, The light of a lamp shall not shine in you any more, and the voice of a bridegroom and a bride shall not be heard in you any more, for your merchants were the great men of the earth.

For by your saucerie all the nations were deceived. Now this was speaking specifically about Babylon, the city of Babylon, which is some ways a symbolic of Rome and moreover of the great Roman Catholic system that's dominated throughout much of the world. But of course, all false religions are guided by Satan, and it talks about how sauceries have deceived the nations.

Now we've seen and heard accounts of such things. There have been accounts in various churches of what are called weeping Madonna's statues supposedly of Mary and people seeing real tears come down. I remember, I didn't watch all of it, but a great bit of a story, and I can't remember now if it was 60 Minutes or Dateline, one of these news shows, and a reporter who followed a man who was, I believe, had cancer, and he went to visit this fellow down in South America who he'd heard reports that he was healing people.

And the cameraman went and they said, you know, he has this compound and people have to wait in line, they get to see him and he does things, and apparently, from all intents and purposes, he's working miracles. These things can be done, and all of them play part in deceiving human minds. Satan is very deceptive in that way, and he has powers that we can barely comprehend.

Let's look at another tool he uses, that of false religion. Sorcery sometimes seems religious and sometimes not, so I don't want to confuse the two, but no doubt, one of the most powerful tools Satan has used to deceive people has been false religious systems. And this includes pagan beliefs, Buddhism, Hinduism, Shintoism.

There are a lot of different religions out there that deceive people as to what to worship and how and what they are. One of the most deceptive has been the religious system pictured in the 17th chapter of Revelation, called Mystery Babylon the Great. We just read part of that. And it stands in contrast to God's truth.

And there, it's often pictured as a woman. And interestingly, it's a counterfeit. In Revelation 12, there's another church that's pictured as a woman, but that's the true church. If you want to go to Revelation 17, I think we're just a page or so away from there. We'll begin in verse 1. Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and talked with me, saying to me, Come, I'll show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth were made drunk with the wine of her fornication.

So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness. And I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast, which was full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup. Looks beautiful. But that cup was filled with abominations and the filthiness of her fornication.

On her forehead a name was written, Mystery Babylon the Great, Mother of Harlots and of the abominations of the earth. And I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. And when I saw her, I marveled with great amazement. Even the Apostle John, who'd been taught by Jesus personally when he saw this vision, he was taken back.

He marveled. He saw the beauty, the fine clothing and the jewels and such. And isn't it so with many false churches? And if you tour Europe especially, you can see these fabulous buildings that are wonderful to look at. And inside are great artworks and altars and such coated with gold leaf. It's just beautiful. And it's leading people astray because the truth is not there.

Let's go down to verse 15. Then he said to me, The waters which you saw, where the harlot sits, are peoples, multitudes, nations, and tongues. This church has gained sway over many people in different cultures speaking different languages. Down in verse 18, And the woman whom you saw is the great city which reigns over the kings of the earth. We know from our understanding of history that, of course, Christ founded a church and at first it grew very quickly, but soon afterwards it was infiltrated by false teachers.

And we can read many warnings of the Apostle Paul and John and Peter that false teachers would work their way in. And soon they started subverting that truth, leading people astray, mixing truth with error so that those who wanted to live by the teachings of Jesus Christ were forced to leave and eventually to go hide. For hundreds of years and eventually thousands of years, those who wanted to live by the truth were forced to go to secluded areas living in mountainous villages, and sometimes hunted down by that very church which claimed to be the church of Jesus.

So Satan has used that false religious system to work great harm. And of course, that system made things look very appealing. It took pagan holidays and put Christian names on them, and took various pagan rituals and said that they were worshiping Jesus Christ and honoring God the Father, when of course the Bible says that's not how God wants to be worshiped. The Apostle Paul mentioned this in 2 Corinthians 11. 2 Corinthians 11 will begin verse 13.

For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And when he says transforming, he means transforming their appearance, not their substance. And no wonder for Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore, it's no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works. So these false teachers can appear to be the apostles of Jesus Christ. We must never underestimate the power that religion has on people's minds. It can lead people to make great sacrifices, to do incredible things.

Now, when that's the true religion, that's wonderful. We hope that our religion leads us to make great sacrifices and do incredible things. But when it's false religion, it leads people towards destruction. Let's consider one more way that Satan is able to deceive people.

And that is a very powerful tool that he has, and it's simply that he is a spiritual being, and he has a spiritual power to directly influence human minds. If we turn to Ephesians 2, we'll see that Paul described that briefly. Ephesians 2 and verse 2, this is a well-known scripture. Actually, we'll begin in verse 1.

I'm sure, probably, if we knew the full extent, it would be shocking. We wouldn't want to know it.

But since Satan is invisible, few people recognize the real source of these negative feelings and these attitudes and impulses that have bombarded their brains. Even the best and the brightest in the world don't realize that there's this unseen influence on their thinking. They're completely deceived about this matter, and Satan wants it to be that way. One of his great deceptions is that he's fooled most people into believing that he doesn't exist. You know, they portray this image of somebody wearing red long johns with a pointy tail and a pitchfork. That's not what Satan is like, but he'd rather they focus on that and be totally ignorant of what he really is.

So we've seen in scripture, now you might think, boy, he's going to be done really early.

Several tools that Satan uses to deceive the world, but let's consider some of what he's accomplished using these tools. What are the ways in which he's deceived the world? We can look around us and see many of these things, so let's look at several areas in which Satan has deceived mankind. The first one, and then all of these are fairly basic, but Satan has deceived people about what they are. What is a human being? If we turn to Genesis chapter 3, we'll see where this began.

I'm doing a little better this morning in Pressensburg. I glanced down and I said, Galatians, and I went to Galatians 3 and didn't find at all what I was looking for. Genesis chapter 3, back of the very creation. Genesis 3, we'll begin in verse 1.

The serpent said to the woman, You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be open. You'll be like God, knowing good from evil. He said, You won't die.

From the beginning, Satan began foisting off on mankind this idea that we have something within us, an immortal soul, that's the real person, that we're a duality, that we're a physical body, and the immortal soul is inside and the body might die, but the immortal soul doesn't. All ancient civilizations had this belief from what we've been able to read of the writing and from what we see in archaeology. That's what the pyramids are about. The wealthy and ancient Egypt, and also in China and Babylon, they had themselves buried with great substance because they were preparing for this afterlife. And some of them even had servants buried with them, so they wouldn't have to work hard in the afterlife. But the Egyptians passed on this belief to the Greeks, and of course much of our current culture, Western culture and civilization, is based on Greek thought. Their philosophers taught that idea of what I said duality, an immortal soul within a physical body, and the Catholic Church, whose early leaders were trained heavily in Greek philosophy, they incorporated that belief into their dogma, into their religion. And it's been taught to every generation since then. This deception began with Satan in the Garden of Eden, but now it's carried on through various religions all around the world and been carried on for thousands of years.

But we know the truth. One of the scriptures, I'll bet even if I just say it, most of you would know what Romans 6.23 says. The wages of sin is death, not torture for an immortal soul, but death. And it says, the gift of God is eternal life. You know, you have it only as a gift if God gives it to you. You don't have it already as an immortal soul. But Satan has deceived human beings about what they are, and that blinds them to the great potential of what we could be. I loved it when, well, I loved it. Maybe I learned to appreciate it as I grew up, but Mr. Armstrong published a book called The Incredible Human Potential, and that phrase I love, our human potential is incredible. Because we don't stop at being some type of an immortal soul. We have the potential to be born as children of God into his family. That's something Satan doesn't want people to know about. And that goes on to the next great deception. Satan has not only deceived man about what he is, but also about where he came from. How did we get here? Let's turn to Romans chapter 1. Romans 1 will begin in verse 18.

Paul citing this, showing that people should be able to have some clear idea of where they came from by looking around them at the physical creation. He points out that people who claim they're educated think or try to think past that and delude themselves. Romans 1.18.

Educators have suppressed the truth about the wonder of God's creation and instead substituted an unprovable theory of evolution.

And I think, to me, it's an incredible irony that they prohibit teaching creationism in schools in any science class because they say, well, you can't prove creation by experimentation.

But you can't prove evolution by experimentation, but they don't seem to look at that. Let's turn to Psalm 119, verse 160. Psalm 119, that one's easier to find because it's so long.

And we'll look at just verse 160 to show us, not only can we look at creation, but we have another source of information to show us where we came from and what we are.

Psalm 119, verse 160 says, The entirety of your word is truth, and every one of your righteous judgments endures forever. But the first part I want to focus on that. The entirety of your word. He's talking about the written Scripture. That's from Genesis to Revelation. Jesus Christ quoted from Genesis many times. He believed this was true, that God created all plants and animals. And yet, many even professing Christians disregard those beliefs. The theory of evolution is so dominated modern society that not only our educators and leaders believe it, but many so-called Christian churches are now accepting evolution. The Catholic Church is saying, well, perhaps God brought me in about through evolution and disregarding the Genesis account. But as we just read, all of the word is true from the very beginning. Let's turn back to 1 Timothy, chapter 6. 1 Timothy 6. We'll look at a warning that the Apostle Paul gave to Timothy. At this point, the Apostle Paul was getting on in years, and he knew that he wasn't going to live well into old age. And so he was writing to a younger minister and giving him some wise advice of what to look out for.

And this is one of the things he told him. 1 Timothy 6 and verse 20. O Timothy, guard what was committed to your trust. What was committed was that teaching, that understanding of the truth, avoiding profane and idle babblings, and the contradiction of what is falsely called knowledge. If you've got the old King James, I like that better because it says science, falsely so called. To me, that's an exact description of the theory of evolution.

It's falsely called science, but really it's some type of fable. It's this theory, this crazy way of accounting for mankind existing without having been created. And vast multitudes have been deceived by this tool. And as I said, including many Christian beliefs. If you turn to 2 Timothy chapter 4, verse 4, 2 Timothy 4 and verse 4, it says, they will turn their ears away from the truth and be turned aside to fables. That's why I like to, I want to determine evolution as a fable because fairly much is that, but it's permeated our thinking. And those of you who are young people, you've seen it either recently or see it every day in school. It's underlying almost every class. It's worked into our society and our teaching so much. It's almost inescapable.

I mentioned Mr. Armstrong earlier. I well remember reading in his autobiography about how he studied evolution because he didn't want to take someone's word for it. He'd just done that with the Sabbath. He first started coming to God's truth because his wife challenged him about which day really was the Sabbath. He said, I'll prove you wrong. And he studied the Bible and found out that she was right. The seventh day is the Sabbath. And not long after that, he had a sister-in-law tell him, Herbert, you're just plain ignorant. Anybody who has any education knows that man came about by evolution and he didn't like being called ignorant. So he said, I'm going to study this. And he studied the scientists, he studied the philosophers, but the more he studied it, the more he found evidence in the scientific writing that evolution isn't true. Let's look to Colossians chapter 2.

Colossians 2 and verse 8.

This should be one of our attitudes about this.

Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit.

According to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the word and not according to Christ. We don't want to be deceived by these philosophies of men. We can't let ourselves be deluded about the very basics about who we are, what we are, and where we came from. Because Satan has deceived most of the world on these principles. They're built on his lies and on men's imaginations, not the truth of the Bible. And that's the way it works with this, the idea of evolution and what man is, that idea of an immortal soul and that we evolved from some amoeba somewhere. That becomes this underlying abstract that affects so many other ideas and so many ways of thinking. And as I said, it's built in to many different things. This concept of an immortal soul going to heaven and hell. These ideas become controlling. They affect many other ideas.

And the world has just swallowed it whole. It's been woven into the fabric.

And speaking of this, the idea of an immortal soul going to heaven or hell, a third great deception that Satan has foisted off on mankind is where we're going. He's fooled us about what we are, where we came from, but also where are we going. And we mentioned, most professing Christians think that man's ultimate destination is either to go to a supremely boring heaven or an excruciatingly torturous hell. And many other religions have a similar belief.

They believe that there's some type of paradise for good people and punishment for bad. And we should know, God never uses punishment, never uses torture to force people to conform to his way of life. He says you can either accept it with an open willing mind or you can choose to cease to exist. Now, we should keep in mind, most people now, because they're deceived, they don't have this choice yet to make. And as we go through the Holy Day plan or the Holy Days and understand the God, the plan of God, not the God of plan, as we understand this, we'll come to the last great day and be reminded that all who have ever lived will be raised and have that deception wiped away. Satan will no longer be allowed to deceive people and then they'll have this free choice and an informed understanding choice. Do I want to accept God's way or cease to exist?

Now, ceasing to exist does not sound pleasant to me, but it's not a choice that involves torture or pain. And we think about even that, though, this goal of heaven is a great deception. Jesus said that the meek would inherit the earth. All the scriptures of Revelation, many of which we went through a couple of days ago, talk about Jesus Christ coming back to this earth and the saints living and reigning with him. But it's interesting to think Satan wanted to go to heaven. And we're not going to turn there, but if you read Isaiah chapter 14, Ezekiel chapter 28, we see that Satan's great goal was to go up to heaven and take God's place. And then his ultimate destiny is going to be to be cast into the lake of fire, which is what many people think of when they think of hell.

So Satan has incorporated into his deception of the world his own aspirations and his own punishment. He's putting into our minds the things that are happening to him.

Of course, there is the one other group. There are atheists out there who believe that there's nothing after this. And some of them are really brilliant, educated people. Stephen Hawking is one of those. I don't know if you're familiar. He's the great theoretical physicist who had, I'm not sure what the name of the disease he has, but it's crippling his body so he can't even speak anymore.

But he's done great work and written some books. A few years ago, I read one that he has called The Brief History of Time. And I think it's his Understanding the Universe for Dummies type book. And even so, I had to think really hard to figure get what he was saying. But as intelligent as he is, he says that our human life and our bodies are just like a computer. They run for a while, but eventually they're going to break down and it'll just shut off and there's nothing.

Just you see still exist and there's nothing more. And that's sad. They don't know what they have in store. The world doesn't know what happened to the billions of people who have died or what's going to happen. You know, they think that it's just total extinction or suffering in hell or luxuriating in heaven. There's all sorts of ideas out there. And most of them circulate very far. The one that doesn't go very far is the actual truth. And that truth includes the opportunity that will be available in the resurrection, a time of an opportunity to know the truth and to accept God's way of life and to share in those rewards. Which brings us to the next great point I want to talk about. Was Satan is deceived mankind about man's purpose? You know, if you went out and asked people just out in the neighborhood here and said, why are we here? What's the purpose of life?

You know, the old question, why were you born? The most common answer I think we'd get is, I don't know. You know, we don't know. We can't figure it out on our own. Some might say, well, we're here to enjoy the pleasures of life while we can. Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.

Or religious people would say, our purpose is to be good and please God and hope that it'll let us into heaven. You know, and if not, maybe it'll send us to hell. But they don't go much further in their thinking. It's because people don't think big enough. Hmm, just thought there's a commercial on TV for that small car and has all these people saying big, big, big. So it sounds wrong for me to say that, but people don't think big enough because they're not able to. Without God's Spirit, they can't comprehend how great our destiny is, what we really were created for.

Now, I heard an account from an elder in the church who said he heard a preacher on the radio once who he said maybe he had an inkling of this idea. So I wrote down the account as he gave it to me. He said this preacher said, I don't want to go off to heaven and pluck some harp for eternity, not me. After all I've gone through on this earth, I'm being prepared for something a lot more, something. Rather than go to heaven, I'd rather go to hell and try to escape. You know, he had a touch of knowing there was something bigger, but he still was deceived. He didn't know what that something was. You know, he and billions of other people have been deceived about God's plan, even though the plan is laid out in the pages of our Bible. This is what Paul is saying in 2 Corinthians chapter 4 about that deception. 2 Corinthians 4 and verse 4.

This isn't focusing on the deception as much as how it is. Why don't these people see what lies ahead for us? It's because of this. It says, The God of this world, Satan, has blinded them because he doesn't want them to understand the meaning of the gospel. And as we went over on the kingdom of God lectures, the meaning of the gospel is that we're created to be born into God's family. The gospel is of the kingdom of God.

And that kingdom, of course, now consists of God the Father and Jesus Christ, but also of many begotten children who are not yet born, but will be, not just, you know, immortal souls floating on clouds, but born as children of God with a very interesting life and challenges and things to do, being like God in his family. That sounds a lot more exciting. That's what we have in store for us. But Satan hates that idea. He doesn't like the idea of a universe filled with peace and joy populated by literal children of God. You know, most churches, they don't understand that, of course, because God hasn't given them the ability to, that we are to become part of the first resurrection as actual members of the God family. Let's look. This ties into another area where Satan has deceived people. Satan has deceived mankind about what to believe in the realm of religion. We've been talking around this subject, and I realize these intermingle, but I separated them out into several points for the sake of being able to give a sermon.

But this one's a little circular, because remember I said Satan uses religion as a means to deceive people, but much of what he deceives them about is religion. He uses religion to lead them astray, but he also deceives them about what to worship and how to worship and why they worship.

Just think, two-thirds of the people on this planet aren't Christians. They've worshiped under the false teachings of Buddha or Confucius or Muhammad. They never had a chance to know the true God, because they're not even beginning to go that direction. Muhammad, and we hear a lot about Islam these days, and I haven't studied in tremendous detail, but somewhat, but he taught his followers that this religion was the true religion of Abraham. And he said that this Jesus who came along later taught a corrupted version of that, but the Muslims were going back to the true faith. And people that believe that say, oh, Muslims and Jews and Christians all worship the same God, they just have different names, and that Allah is actually the God of the Old Testament.

But that's not true. Now, many writers who studied Islam, including Muslim writers who've looked at it, they said, you know, the Muslim religion began about, what, about 1400 years ago, around the year 600. I'm rounding it off because I don't actually remember the exact year, but around between 500 and 600 AD, a camel trader who was down on his luck came up with this religion. He was very sincere about it. But people have looked and studied what elements he combined into this new religion, and a great many of them were adopted from the ancient Egypt moon cult of Isis.

Isis was this goddess whose symbol was a crescent moon, and they worshipped her in certain ways, and adopted many of those practices into Islam. And of course, many of those practices have gone into other areas. One I'll note is the Norse goddess Frida, or is it Frida? But she was this goddess for whom Friday is named, and Friday was the day of worship for her. And you'll note the Muslims keep Friday as their special day, and Frida's symbol was the crescent moon.

So Satan has deceived Muslims into thinking they're worshiping the god of Abraham, when really they've been deceived back into an ancient pagan religion. God says Satan has deceived the whole world, and he means the whole world, not just those who call themselves Christian. But if we consider those who do consider themselves Christian, a lot of them are not any more aware of the real truth than non-Christians. About one-third of people on this planet call themselves Christian, but many of them have little knowledge about the way of life described in the Bible. Most people in western society don't make much time for religion anyways. Our whole society has become secular. Secular meaning non-religious. We don't want religion as part of our lifestyle anymore, and that's changed a great deal in the last hundred years. And many of you have studied a little bit of history. You know the founding fathers incorporated the teachings of the Bible as they understood them into their everyday lives.

But it's not that way anymore. And really, it hasn't been for a long... well, not that way, I said our founding fathers did what they could, but as far as really knowing the true religion, consider what happened in Jesus' time. He personally walked around Jerusalem and ancient Israel or Palestine and taught thousands of people in person. He spoke to literally thousands of people.

But when that first Pentecost came around, when the Holy Spirit would be poured out, only 120 received the Spirit. They believed the truth and stuck with it.

And then soon after, even though the Church grew quite a bit at first, soon afterwards false teachers came in and began to infiltrate. And as I said before, began to change the truth or began to adopt pagan customs and put Christian names on them, leading people astray.

Speaking of leading people astray, let's look at another area where Satan has deceived people very badly, and that's about how they should live. Speaking of our day to day, it is very secular, and he's led people way off.

Think about marriage and family. The institution of marriage has been under attack for decades now, and our current era only about 48% of American adults are now married, compared to 78% a few years ago. Marriage has been under attack. Nowadays, people just live together, and homosexuality has gone from being something that was hidden to barely accepted to now promoted, and it's forced on you. Of course, as a society, we view sex in a way we never had before. Everything is out there in the open. What used to be considered material for dirty movies now is on our television sets, on prime time in the evenings. Political scandals used to be mostly about someone accepting bribes. Bribes. Somehow, that's hard to say up here. It used to be dealing with money and doing improper favors, but now political scandals almost always involve prostitution and propositioning homosexual acts in the bathroom and things like that. You know, it's too bad sex was made as a wonderful part of a family, but it's becoming this addiction that ruins people's lives, because Satan has deceived us about what it is and what it's for. Financial security. We used to save for the future, but now we've become a society that spends like there is no tomorrow.

And that's partly because young people have come to think, well, there probably won't be. You know, they expect some disease plague to wipe us out, or atomic war, or they figured, well, no reason to save. There's going to be bad inflation, and social security won't be there. So, it's all gone out the window, so to speak. Satan has deceived us about just day-to-day living. Think about food.

Now, long ago, he deceived people into thinking it's okay for you to eat anything that doesn't eat you first. You know, they think that if you look at Leviticus 11 and take it literally, you must be crazy. But we've gone far beyond that recently. Scientists first developed hybrid crops, which are good in some ways and not as good in others, and then went on to genetically modified foods.

Which, once again, can have some good, but more often they focus on quantity over quality.

And farmers practice what's called monoculture, planting only one type of crop specifically, and one type of corn, and it's one hybrid for acres and acres, miles and miles. So, unfortunately, if a fungus or some type of rust develops in it, it wipes out the food supply. I mean, we set ourselves up for great harm. And not to mention these scientists playing God with the genes could ease... well, I shouldn't say could easily, but it's easy to envision them creating some type of new disease that could wipe out a large part of the part of the population. It's a shame that the principles that people use to govern their lives have been undermined so that people consider God's way to be some type of slavery. I don't want all those rules telling me what to do, and they want this freedom. I want to do whatever I want. And they don't realize that the sinful practice, you know, that way of life is what really bogs them down and makes them miserable. Whereas God's way of life that has regulations and limits is what brings real happiness and that real freedom to live with security and knowing what's going on. Let's look at one last area where Satan has deceived people a great deal. Satan has deceived many people about the existence of life in the universe. Now think of this one, and this one might seem like it's out of the blue, but it's leading up to a climax. But man has long asked questions like, you know, are we alone in the universe? What's out there? What is man? Are we unique? And it's natural to ask those questions. Without revealed knowledge, we can't properly answer these questions. Now we know the answers are in the Bible. We know that we are unique. We know that God created the angelic realm, but then He created Adam and Eve. And there's no mention of anyone else out there. And when Christ came and gave His life for us, it implies that we're the only ones worthy of such sacrifice.

But most people don't understand that. So even though for most of human history there would be occasionally occasions of people seeing something in the sky that they're not sure what that is, since World War II, the records of unexplained phenomena, of UFOs, have gone up incredibly.

Why have there been so many more sightings in recent years? Is it because we can see better now?

Now we have invented contact lenses and improved glasses and lasek surgery, but I don't think it's that. Perhaps it's part of Satan's schedule for his great deception to set people up for some of his greatest lies for the end of the age. Now I'm speculating a little bit here, but it's not a new speculation. Just think, in the past decades there's been streams of books and movies and television shows based on belief in alien life. And pondering, is that alien life going to be friendly or not so friendly? And I'm not saying that those are bad. I was a Star Trek fan from the time I was seven or eight years old. You know, like Star Trek, like I remember when Star Wars came out the first time. I think I went to see that in the theater 12 times. And it's funny, I still brag about that, but part of my bragging is that I didn't have a job yet. I convinced my mom to give me the money to see it 12 times. But that's back when it only costs like three dollars to go see a movie. Okay, I'm pausing because I remember what was I telling you about that for.

Okay, it's not that the stories are bad, but it's setting up a part of our culture. It's gotten to where it's commonplace. Nobody says, oh, that's just a movie. Of course, it's not real. We have many people believing this. Radio telescopes are scanning the heavens waiting for a message.

Science has made these dramatic discoveries, and they've learned a lot, but it's only the belief in evolution combined with science fiction that's led us to where a large number of people are now waiting for aliens to arrive, and they're afraid that when those aliens come, they're going to be out to get us. You know, it's a real fear. How many of you saw the movie Independence Day? Not as many. I love that movie. Fun movie. Of course, the good guys win in the end, but it's all predicated on the idea they're out there, and when they come to get us, we're in trouble. Stoking up this fear that that's, you know, that there's a hostile force out there.

And doesn't that make it easier to understand, though, why when Christ does come, armies are going to gather to the valley of Megiddo to fight against Him? You know, and I didn't make this up. I even think that Mr. Armstrong might have speculated that perhaps they'll believe it's an alien life form coming to take over the planet. Whether it's that or not, we know they're going to be deceived. I think most of those armies fighting against Jesus won't have it in their mind, well, this is the Son of God, our Creator, so I want to fight Him. They're going to be deceived as to who and what He is, and we're all being set up for that. What a great irony! Satan has deceived us mankind about the existence of life in the universe, and that's served all the further to fool us about who and what we are. It led us completely astray. Now, as we've discussed all of this, Satan has deceived the world in almost every possible way. That leads us to the question, and you've probably been asking it, well, has he deceived me? You might think, well, I'm not going to... I won't be deceived. That can't happen, but we're in 2 Corinthians. Let's look at chapter 11, verse 3. Paul didn't seem to have that as an attitude.

2 Corinthians 11, verse 3 says, But I fear, lest somehow as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. Your minds could be corrupted.

That's why, warning after warning, I'm not going to turn to these scriptures because I was up here reading them to you a couple of days ago, but in Matthew 24, consider how many times Christ gave this warning. In Matthew 24, verse 4, he said, Take heed that no one deceives you.

And verse 5, he said, Many will come in my name, saying, I am Christ, and will deceive many.

Down in verse 11, many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. And then in verse 34, false Christ, false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the very elect. Just think, signs and wonders. They're going to work miracles.

But that's one of the tools Satan uses to deceive people. Satan has power, and we know that over at certain times, God can give him more leeway. If you read the book of Job early on, you see that at one point, well, we know for most of human history, Satan has been restrained, not able to do that much against God's called people. But God wanted Job to learn a special lesson, and so he said, okay, Satan, you can do so much to Job, but no further. So perhaps in the end of the age, God will lose Satan's restrictions even more, and he'll begin working miracles and doing great things. And it says, you know, false Christ and false prophets showing signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, the very elect. That's us. We want to make sure it's not possible. And we want to remember, you know, there are other churches out there that have part of the truth. And I'm not referring to, well, we've had so many splits in the church, and I use that term freely, but some people call them flavors of the Church of God or the family of the Church of God. I'm not necessarily referring to that, but there are other churches that have a great part of the truth, including the Sabbath. That's one of the biggest ones. The Seventh-Day Baptist is a large organization, as are the Seventh-Day Adventist. And it's good that they have some of the truth, but they believe some things that are not at all true. And there are many more groups that keep going that way. I mentioned, I think, a couple weeks ago, I read a book by a person. He was a part of a group that they call themselves Mesianic Jews. They're Jewish by culture and religion, but they believe that Jesus was the Messiah. And his book rightly pointed out many traditions and practices from the Old Testament that do inform Christianity. But the fellow several times talked about the Trinity and how that was the true God. And I thought, boy, he's got so much right, but he's off on that. And it's interesting, I read that book very soon after our new book on the Trinity came out showing how far wrong that is. So what I'm getting at is some of these churches have a lot of the truth, and they have some prophetic insight, and there are going to be churches working miracles. But what we have to look for is do they have the whole truth? Does everything they teach line up with the Bible? Let's turn to the book of Isaiah chapter 20. Isaiah 20 and I'm sorry, Isaiah 8 verse 20.

I was saying every now and then, usually I like to hand write my notes so I can make some things bigger and use different colors. I type these out, and I've made more mistakes looking at my notes today than I usually do. It shows good old handwriting, might still be best. But it is Isaiah 8 verse 20. This is a common scripture, and I think it's worth looking at. Matter of fact, let's begin in verse 19. Because it says, when they say, do you seek those who are mediums and wizards, who whisper and mutter? He says, should a people, should not a people seek their God? Should they seek the dead on behalf of the living? When it refers to the dead, it's talking about people doing seances or mediums thinking they should contact the dead. But it says, to the law on the testimony, the law on the testimony, or it could be saying the law on the prophets, which is part of what the Old Testament is described as. If they don't speak according to this word, it's because there's no light in them. So even if someone's working miracles or seems to be able to bring up the dead, if what they're telling you doesn't match scripture, there's no light in them. You know, you can't be part right and still be with God. As a matter of fact, let's turn to 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. I think Mr. Arat did refer to this a week ago, and it bears looking at, again, it's very important to us. 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 will begin in verse 9. As we want to think about, can we be deceived? I think that the answer is we could be, but we don't have to be. There are ways to avoid it, looking at this word and making sure that we're sticking to it, not being fooled by Satan's devices, because we're not ignorant of them. And I know that's in scripture, and I forgot to look it up. So someone can remind me later where exactly Paul wrote that, but we're not ignorant of Satan's devices. 2 Corinthians 2, beginning in verse 9. The coming of the lawlessness, let's say that again, the coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs and wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth that they might be deceived. They didn't receive a love of the truth, and for this reason, God will send them strong delusion that they should believe the lie, that they all might be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure and unrighteousness.

That's an important thing. Love of the truth. That means studying the truth, making sure you know it. That's a way to not be deceived. Satan has devices to deceive the world, but with God's Spirit and God's Word available to us, that doesn't have to be us. You don't have to be deceived if you love the truth. And once again, if you want to turn to John 17, verse 17, let's remind ourselves, if you love the truth, what is that? Jesus Christ answered it very clearly, and we know Him famously Pilate asked Him during His interview before He condemned Him to crucifixion. What is truth? Well, Jesus had answered earlier that night in His prayer to the Father. John 17, verse 17 says, Sanctify them by your truth, the truth of God, your Word is truth. God's Word is truth. We have to love that. That's our protection.

God has opened our minds to great and awesome truths. But for now, we live in a world of deception and darkness. We live among a people who are deceived about what they are. They're deceived about where they came from, deceived about where they're going, deceived about the purpose of life, about religion, about how to live, also deceived about the existence of life in the universe, including God and spirit beings. That's a lot to be deceived about.

But that's because it's Satan's world for now, but only for a short time until Christ returns to claim that throne. But this world is the deceptions that people are under are a direct reflection of his thinking. So to close today, let's turn to Revelation 20. Revelation 20 will begin in verse 1.

I didn't read this earlier, but I'm going to now and then move further ahead in the story. Revelation 20 in verse 1. This is after Christ's return and the resurrection of the saints. It says, Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit, and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. Down to verse 10 now. This is after Satan is released for a short time after the thousand years, and then he'll be restrained again.

The devil who deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet were. And after that, let's go to Revelation 22. Because we'll see an image of the world without Satan to deceive, without people who are deceived, the world where the truth is abundant. Revelation 22 in verse 1. And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the land. And in the middle of its street and on either side of the river was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits each year, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

Verse 14.

Blessed are those who do his commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city. But those who aren't here, those who will be excluded from this beautiful future, it says outside are dogs and saucers and sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters. And last listed is very important. Whoever loves and practices a lie, whoever loves and practices a lie, that's excluded from God's kingdom, from eternity.

Truth will be the only thing that remains. It's interesting, mankind's deception, that law, that first lie, you shall not surely die, happened right there next to the tree of life.

And it shows here the end of that deception will also happen right near the tree of life.

Perhaps that's God's way of bringing a circle, or it's a good literary closure. I don't know, but I like it. And the fulfillment of God's plan all will dwell in truth and harmony. Man will never again experience the enslavement of lies and deception. Only the truth of God will keep us free.

And because we're free, we'll be free to enter the gates of that city, the holy city of God, and live with him forever.