Hi Deborah.
If you dont mind, I went ahead and posted the rest of the paper on God deceiving people that your caption leads into... Some good stuff.
DOES A SOVEREIGN GOD EVER CHANGE? . Biblestudy May 2008 http://forums.bible-truths.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=mf4cif8ik1b8ib0al9n62fth55&topic=7714.0DOES GOD HIMSELF DECEIVE? One other thought in relation to this, doesn’t God sometimes use trickery or deceit? Doesn’t He sometimes blind people so that they can’t see the truth? All the time. But that has nothing to do with the fact that He doesn’t change and that He doesn’t repent or admit that He made mistakes or tried to do it a better way. It has nothing to do with any of that.
Yes He does that. Now that’s something again that is absolutely a Biblical truth. Things that aren’t true, it seems that the church wants to believe. But the things that are absolutely true, they don’t want to believe. They say, ‘God would never deceive people on purpose.’ Of course He does.
Matt 13:10 And the disciples came and said to Him, "Why do You speak to them in parables?"
Mat 13:14 And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive:
Mat 13:15 For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.
[Question: why does He do that?] Because He has a purpose and that would take another whole Bible study to cover that.
God Himself never lies, but let’s go a little further than that. Does He use those that do lie? Absolutely. Satan is a liar and the father of it. He uses Satan. I think on four occasions in the Old Testament we have lying spirits. On one occasion a lying spirit said;
2 Ch 18:21 And he said, I will go out, and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets…
He said I’ll go and lie to them and pretend to be a prophet.
v. 21 …And the LORD said… go out, and do so.
He said do it, lie to them. But God doesn’t lie. Does He use lying spirits? Yes. Does God Himself deceive?
2 Thess 2:10 …because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
They couldn’t receive the love of the truth. How could anybody receive the love of the truth unless God gives it to you? How can any come to Christ except God drags them? How can any choose Christ, He says you don’t choose Me, I choose you. All of these Scriptures are true. You can’t just say, ‘well I don’t believe that.’ Well then you don’t believe the Scriptures, I understand.
v. 11 And for this cause…
Why? Because they didn’t have a love for the truth, but they couldn’t have a love for the truth. And God says, I know that. Christ says they will hear these parables, but they won’t know what I’m talking about, because if they did, they would see their sins they would repent and I would heal them. Well isn’t that what you want them to do Jesus? No! Here is another example of the answer.
v. 11 …God shall send them strong delusion (That Greek word means falsehood, deceit), that they should believe a lie:
There it is. You say, ‘God doesn’t do that.’ Yes He does. But He doesn’t change and He doesn’t lie. We have to get these things straight. But why would He use deceit? There is a great purpose for it. He doesn’t make people be deceived, He sends a strong delusion and they delude themselves.
God never made a man lust after a woman, never. He just made their psyche and their makeup, so that they really like the curves of a female body. Then when men go to the sea shore… all by themselves, they don’t need any help from God at all or anybody saying, ‘do it, do it, lust after that girl in a bikini over there, do it.’ It’s like falling off a log, it’s easy. Unless God trains you not to do that and it’s hard, because it’s a spiritual warfare.
In case somebody says, ‘I don’t like that God of the Old Testament. I like the Jesus of the New Testament.’
John 10:30 I and My Father are one.
If you don’t like the God of the Old Testament, you don’t like Christ either. It is amazing what you learn when you look at all the words.
Let’s turn to Luke. I like this one in Luke, people don’t catch this one. They just don’t catch it, they read it and they never catch it. I’m not saying I’m the only one that caught this, but I’m the only one I ever knew that caught this. I’m sure someone else must have.
Okay this in Luke is where after the resurrection and these two men that were disciples of Christ were going to Emmaus. Because they thought the jig was up and somebody had stole His body or something.
So Christ comes along and says ‘why are you so downcast?’ They said ‘haven’t you heard?’ He said, ‘heard what?’ They said, ‘we believe that this guy was the Messiah and they killed Him and besides all that today is the third day and the jig is up, it all over.’ So then He says to them;
Luke 24:27 And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.
v. 28 And they drew nigh unto the village, whither they went: and He (Jesus) made as though He would have gone further.
v. 29 But they constrained Him, saying, Abide with us: for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. And He went in to tarry with them.
Of course they wanted to learn more about the Scriptures too and they thought this guy is amazing. But did you catch that? “He made as though He would have gone further.” Did Jesus Christ intend on going further that night? No. Did He pretend that He was going to keep going on down the road? Yes. Is that a little deceitful? Yes. Was it a good thing? Yes.
They said, ‘Where are you going?’ He said, ‘On down the road here.’ And they, ‘no no it’s late, come on in with us and we will get something to eat and chew the rag for a while,’ and so on. And He said, ‘Oh, okay.’ He knew that they would say that. He had got them so excided about the Scriptures, He knew they weren’t just going to say, ‘Oh okay good bye, see ya, that was interesting.’ They wanted more and He knew that. But He wanted them to desire and say, ‘no no we want to hear more come on in.’ So He pretended, He made like He was going further.
Peace...Mark
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Topic: Not tempted by God (Read 13937 times)