"Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron." (1 Timothy 4:1,2)

"Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." (James 4:7)

"Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you." (Luke 10:19)

What is the chief plan of satan? It's to keep us ignorant about God, himself, and ourselves if he can. His main way is to deceive. It was revealed to the apostle Paul in 1 Timothy 4:1 that "in the latter times" there will be doctrines of demons and seducing spirits. This will not only be in the latter times, but has occurred through out time as well 2 Peter 2:1. The Scriptures and Prayer can help us gain knowledge of the powers of darkness and how to combat them.

The eight ways a believer is deceived:

1. James 1:23

2. 1 John 1:8

3. Galatians 6:3

4. 1 Corinthians 3:18

5. James 1:26

6. Galatians 6:7

7. 1 Corinthians 6:9

8. 1 Corinthians 15:33

People are deceived about the Lord's second coming, the nature of salvation, the Scriptures, and doctrinal truth. The grave danger to the body of Christ is from teachers who pretend to be what they're not. Teaching spirits are as Ephesians calls them "principalities, rulers, powers, and wicked spirits." These evil spirits have planning (Matthew 12:44-45) strategy (Ephesians 6:11) the deception comes to those who give heed (1 Timothy 4:1).

Seducing spirits mix their teachings with a person's own reasoning. The way to deceive a person is through the mind. The seducing spirits deceive by reasoning without sufficient data or using a wrong premise. The seducing spirit has achieved its goal by putting a lie in the mind by false reasoning.

Human teachers can be used to deceive many. The error is to believe a teacher, not on the truth of the Scripture, but by a statement like "he is a good pastor or a good man" this is wrong. In this way seducing spirits will make a special effort to use those that transmit doctrine to deceive. All believers must test all teaching and all teachers, pastors etc. good men can be deceived and seducing spirits use good men to transmit lies under the guise of truth. Scripture in this way is taken out of context, twisted, sentences are taken from their correlative sentences, and texts are picked out to make it appear to be the mind of God. There are many false teachings taken to be truth in our day. Beware!

All truth comes from God and all lies come from satan. Truth dispels error. All thoughts and beliefs belong in one of two realms--the realm of truth or the realm of falsehood. Teachings of seducing spirits can be identified by 1) the weakening of the authority of Scripture. 2) Distort the teaching of Scripture. 3) Add man's thoughts to the Scriptures. 4) Put the Scriptures aside entirely. Countless false teachings are injected into the minds of believers. All thoughts, beliefs, and teachings must be tested by the truth of God's word. We must clearly understand that there's an army of active seducing spirits working to deceive many. We must be knowledgeable of seducing spirits and not be deceived by them.

"Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you." (Luke 10:19)

Understand seducing spirits are at work outside and inside the body of Christ. Their ceaseless aim is to deceive and ruin people. They're given to wickedness day and night and are consistently pouring a stream of wickedness and perversion into the world and will not stop but get worse and worse.

"But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived." (2 Timothy 3:13)

There are some that will be deceived more than others. Preconceived ideas with people leads one into a false sense of security. Deception has to do with the mind—a wrong thought or idea admitted under the deception of being true. Again, deception has to do with the mind!

Our Lord warned us "Take heed that ye be not deceived" (Luke 21:8). We must examine current theories, conclusions, teachings and expressions of the things of God to see if they are true or not. We must be careful what we accept as true doctrine. We must eagerly seek truth. Understand God is able to teach His people. A question will arise why would God allow some of His people to be deceived? We answered that "Take heed that ye be not deceived" (Luke 21:8). It is possible.

We cannot be passive. We cannot open ourselves to deception. We cannot cultivate a field ripe for the spirits of deception. It can start by laziness of the believer to study and opening oneself to be taught, with that lazy mind, by others who deceive. Then it graduates to wrong thoughts or beliefs, then to wrong interpretation of Scripture, and finally open deception.

Again, deception can come by. 1) Ignorance of the laws of God. 2) Wrong mental conclusions. 3) Drawing upon the soulish life or the flesh and not the spirit. "But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil." (Hebrews 5:14)

Mixing lies with truth that is what the deceiver does. Just as it takes two to make a mixture so it takes lies and truth to be accepted. Believers must discern and judge all things. The seducing spirits are always ready to deliver a stream of poison into a stream of truth. There are three sources that are to be taken into account. The divine, satanic, and the human. In teaching, guidance, obedience, visions, and writings. It will come from either one of these. Seducing spirits love to make you religious.

"For false Christs and false prophets shall rise, and shall shew signs and wonders, to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect." (Mark 13:22)

Leaders can do this to sidetracked believers. Beware of impressions you think is from God that says things like "you are special instrument for God" or you are more advanced than others "you are different from others" or "you must take a separate path." These are made to give one a false sense of ones spiritual state.

The seducing spirits like to make one believe satan, hell, punishment or judgment does not exist. And at times likes to make people believe there is a demon under every rock. Many believers are caught up in this recent worldwide spread of sweeping in souls, seducing spirits will use superficial means to deceive. The safe path of believers is the Word of God and prayer.

Again, the chief avenue of the seducing spirits is the mind. We must do as 2 Corinthians 10:5 says, "…bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." Seducing spirits can put thoughts into the mind directly or indirectly. When they attack they speak lies into the minds and thoughts. One way to tell a false teacher is if his life becomes full of contradictions and erroneous teachings.

But we have hope "and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." (John 8:32) Light and truth can bring freedom. Half-truths, twisting of words, and wrenching scriptures out of context is a sure way to know seducing spirits. We must refuse ground to the enemy. We must fight against all deception. We must act and think intelligently. Many actions are the results of wrong thoughts and beliefs.

We must not brood over the past, or brood over the future, and we must face the present. We must understand the power of the work of Christ, we must pray for understanding. We must walk according to the spirit, flee the devil, and put on whole armor of God. Ephesians 6:10-20.

There is a difference between temptation and attacks. Temptations are a scheme or plot or compulsion to get one to do evil. An attack is an onslaught on a person. There are two principles that govern warfare offense and defense. We must be able to defend ourselves (using the word of God) and we must be able to attack the enemy. We must war against false teaching. We must see the apathy in the body of Christ.

We must pray, study, fast if necessary, and be willing to learn and we must face the truth. Our enemy hopes to delay his judgment for a season but the purposes of God will come to pass. "Even so, come Lord Jesus" (Revelation 22:20)

Amen?

Comments or Questions? E-mail us