Thurs.'s Devo - Not Deceived! 4-22-10
Read 2 Pe. 2:1-9
Talking about false prophets used to scare me because I didn't want to be one. I thought that if I proclaimed something I thought God told me and it didn't come to pass then I would be labeled by God a false prophet. But that is not true. A false prophet means a pretended foreteller; a religious impostor. So either they know full well what they are doing or they are so deceived they don't realize what they are doing. Either way they have strayed from the fundamental truths of the Bible and they now believe a lie. There is no way to do this if you stay grounded in the Word of God and surround yourself with fellow believers who hold you accountable to truth. False prophets deny that Jesus bought them with the price of his blood which opens them to the enemy who kills, steals, and destroys. It is always surprising to us that people follow these false leaders with their crazy doctrines but they do because they have rejected truth and this false prophet offers them things that feed their desires. They don't realize till it is too late that the cult they have joined is really a prison and not the freedom they were looking for. Their end is damnation just like the angels that rebelled with Satan. They were cast down to hell and locked up in chains waiting their final judgment. Also, the people of the days of Noah were destroyed because they chose not to believe in God. Only Noah and his family were saved. God totally burned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha because of their evil lives and spared only Lot and his two daughters. Verse 7 says that Lot was vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked. We could write a whole blog on that. "Vexed" means tortured; harassed; oppressed. God delivered Lot from this and can deliver us from temptation too, even if he has to remove it from us. We are promised that one day the ungodly will receive their punishment and judgment.
Lord, may we be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the gospel of Jesus Christ.