Doctrines of Demons  

     In 1 Timothy 4:1-5, the Word of God says: Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.  For every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.  God inspired Paul to write this discipleship letter to Timothy, much of it regarding deceptive teachers infiltrating the brethren – even more so in the end times.  God is very emphatic when He says that the Spirit “expressly” says that “in the latter times some will depart from the faith speaking lies.”  The “latter times” is the time in which we are now living!  We are truly living in the days of deception. 

     From the pulpit, so called pastors are teaching heresies such as: God now condones homosexual behavior, fornication (sex outside of marriage), transgenderism, and the list goes on.  These are literal lies from deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons.  We are told from the passage above that those who continually practice what God calls sin, their very consciences will become so seared that they will begin to actually believe that what they are doing is morally ok.   

     The conscience is a true gift from God.  It pricks us when we misbehave and even our thoughts are not beyond its reprimand.  However, it is very possible to damage it to the point of ineffectiveness.  The conscience seems to be intangible, yet is very tangible in its function, much like skin.  As your skin is very sensitive to a needle prick, once it has been seared with a hot iron and callused over, it becomes quite insensitive to the same offense.  When, through immoral behavior, you completely ignore the prodding of the conscience, it becomes as damaged as seared skin – no longer functioning as a check against the sin being committed.  This becomes a very dangerous situation to find yourself in as one no longer has the capacity to discern right from wrong.  The immoral behavior becomes moral in the mind of the sinner. 

     What can heal a seared conscience?  The Word of God.  Reading God’s Word and taking it literally is the only effective guard against believing the lies of Satan.  How can one discern truth from fiction if you don’t really know what truth is?  The Bible is very clear regarding all areas of life – of every aspect of daily living.  Many believe and teach that the Bible’s scriptures regarding sexual morality are not relevant in modern times. Therefore, they reinterpret them to be more relevant for today’s culture.  Yet, God and His Word cannot change to suit the lustful desires of mankind.  He is unchanging as time is inconsequential to Him.  He said that one day is like a thousand years to Him and a thousand years is as one day.  He and His Word cannot change over time.  It will never become irrelevant no matter how much man in all of his sinfulness would like it to. 

     1 Timothy 4:1 said that some would depart from the faith giving heed to false teaching.  Were they ever actually “in Christ” having backslidden into a sinful lifestyle or were they merely those who believed for a while having never truly come to a saving faith in Jesus as their Savior?  It would be hard to entirely depart once truly saved and indwelled by the Holy Spirit of God.  These departed were probably never saved in the first place as they desired teaching that more appealed to their fleshly desires than the morality that the pure Word of God demands.  Their sinful lusts drove them to seek guidance from those who would affirm their lustful lifestyles.   

     In these latter days, it is imperative that God’s Word is where you solely place your trust and that it is the ultimate source and guidance regarding moral behavior.  Seek a church where the leadership teaches God’s Word – literally – not adding their own interpretation.  God plainly inspired men of old to write the scriptures – Old Testament as well as the New.  When speaking about the soon coming of Jesus, God inspired Peter to write:

For we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty. For He received from God the Father honor and glory when such a voice came to Him from the Excellent Glory: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”  And we heard this voice which came from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain.  And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts; knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.

God is powerful enough to create the Heaven’s and Earth and all that inhabit it.  He knows the future.  He is very capable of inspiring men to write down exactly what He means.  His Word is timeless and completely infallible.  Yet certain religious entities have somehow had the nerve to claim themselves to be infallible as in Roman Catholicism.  If the scriptural interpretations of a Pope are truly infallible, how can he rescind the edicts of prior Popes on the basis of cultural relativism without having admitted that one or the other was in fact, fallible?    

     The problem is, God’s Word is not the basis for Catholicism’s moral teachings.  It is their own interpretation of scripture, if it is used at all, that is what guides their standards.  So much of scripture is reinterpreted and twisted as is their teaching on purgatory.  In their teaching: Purgatory is a place where people need to experience a purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven for those who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified.  The purification is necessary because, as scripture teaches, nothing unclean will enter the presence of God in heaven (Rev. 21:27) and, while we may die with our mortal sins forgiven, there can still be many impurities in us, specifically venial sins and the temporal punishment due to sins already forgiven.  The previous Pope said on many occasions that, paraphrasing, there are many paths to God, indicating that faith alone in Jesus, or Jesus at all, is not completely necessary.   

     Doctrines of demons.  The above is a works-based theology having completely ignored the finished work of Jesus on the Cross.  Through faith alone in Jesus, having repented of our sins, asking forgiveness and receiving Him as Savior, we are then covered by the righteousness of Jesus.  By His rightness alone, we are able to enter directly into Heaven.  He lived the life that we could not – without sin.  He died the death that we deserved as payment for our past, present and future sins so that we will never be punished for them.  His righteous blood has us covered from the moment of accepting Him as Savior until our deaths when our sin natures will be removed.  Upon death, we will experience the Bema Seat Judgment (Judgment Seat of Christ) regarding the receiving or loss of rewards based upon our conduct in this life and how we lived for Christ.  However, this has nothing to do with our Salvation.  Jesus said, “…I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6).  There is only one path to God and that is through faith in Jesus alone – not of works.  Good works themselves are merely the natural inclination of a life lived in Christ. 

     So why would so many gravitate toward such false teachings and false theologies?  Well, there is very little accountability to God and His moral standards.  When God says in 1 Corinthians 6 - Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. – it can be ignored because maybe the Pope or some other culturally relevant pastor says otherwise.  “Do what you want in this life and you can work it off in purgatory.” – as if any person actually has the ability to atone for their own sins.  The problem is, the Hell described in the Bible is real and there is no such place as purgatory.  It all comes down to how a person wants to live in this life as to whether or not they will accept God at His Word or gravitate toward teachers or false doctrines that allow them to act upon their own lustful desires without the fear of eternal consequences.   

     Satan definitely uses well-articulated, charismatic teachers, pastors, popes, and even politicians to insert just enough scripture into their false theologies as to deceive those with very little true Biblical knowledge.  Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth (2 Timothy 2:15).  How can you rightly discern right from wrong?  Study what is right and you will not be deceived by the lies of demons.  The Holy Spirit will bring to your remembrance the scriptures that apply to all the situations that you will encounter in your daily life.  Your God given conscience will not be seared but will be so sensitive that anything that you say, do or think that is contrary to His Will, pricks you to the point of bowing on your knees in repentance, asking forgiveness and newness of strength to follow His Word and Will. 

     For those listening to pastors or teachers condoning fornication (sex outside of marriage), homosexuality, transgenderism, lawlessness, etc., “What does God say about those things in His Word?”  Look to the only source of truth which can only be found in the literal Word of God.  For those who are backslidden into sexual immorality, for whatever reason, (such as living with a partner out of convenience), change the situation.  God says that, having been saved, you are the temple of the Holy Spirit who now lives within you.  God Himself lives in you as the Holy Spirit is God.  His Temple is a sacred place and needs to be pure from immorality.  If you are truly filled with the Holy Spirit, it needs to influence your sexual behavior.  If you commit sexual sin, you are polluting God’s temple.  Being one with God and then having immoral sex is somehow joining God in that act of depravity.  That should truly cause you to cringe in disgust and your conscience to weigh heavy on your mind.  If not, you must truly evaluate as to whether or not you are truly an indwelt child of the living God.

Now the body is not for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.  And God both raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by His power. 

Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?  Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? Certainly not!  Or do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her? For “the two,” He says, “shall become one flesh.” But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him. 

Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.  Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?  For you were bought at a price; therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s (1 Corinthians 6:13-20). 

     In this life, Christians still possess a sin nature.  Therefore, some will fall into sexual sin.  However, this behavior should never become the lifestyle of a Christian.  It must be immediately repented of and forsaken.  It is a sin against your very body and the temple of God.  God says to flee from sexual immorality.  Know your Bible and flee from false teachers who condone such behavior speaking lies from the pit of Hell.  Ultimately, trust in no other authority as neither pastor, pope, priest or politician can trump the infallible, inerrant, all-powerful Word of the Living God.  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.  In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.  And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it (John 1:1-5).  The Word of God was here from and before the beginning of all creation for the Word is synonymous with Jesus Himself.  So, treat it with the respect that it deserves, not daring to change it for the sake of cultural relativism which rejects the idea of a single, universal standard for morality or truth - God's eternally, unchanging Word.

     We are commanded by God in the Bible to not forsake the gathering together of the saints - …not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching (Hebrews 10:25).  With that in mind, make sure that whatever church you attend adheres to the literal interpretation of scripture, teaching the whole counsel of God from Genesis 1:1 through Revelation 22:21.

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