In Jer 9:6 the Lord said, Through deceit they refuse to know me. That is men are deceived and this deception not only keeps them from knowing God, but causes them to refuse to know God. They think they know him, but in reality they only know the god they have conjured up in their minds through deceit. Thus, they deny the God of the Bible. “By what means of deception do they refuse to know God?” They refuse to know God through:
The deceit of seduction — 2 Tim 3:13 evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. To seduce is to persuade to disobedience or to lead astray by persuasion or false promises. To see this seduction in today’s churches, we need to see a few verses. They reveal what you cannot discern by observation and experience.
You must have God’s perception from his word to see the deceit. As Jesus said, “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth”, Jn 4:24. You can’t just go for the spirit in the worship service. You must also worship in truth.
People who have been seduced and people who seduce you “profess that they know God”, Titus 1:16. So, you cannot judge based on their profession alone. “But in works they deny him”. What’s wrong with their works? They are abominable and “disobedient”. They disobey God. “And unto every good work reprobate”. That is, their works won’t stand the test of what God calls good. Look at Matt 7:21-23. God called the people doing the three things these people were doing “ye that work iniquity”. God said to these people, “I never knew you”. True good works are according to the will of God the Father.
For example, in nearly every Pentecostal church today, the rules for tongues in the Bible are violated, 1 Cor 14:26-34. The Holy Spirit never leads God’s people contrary to the truth of God. And in healing churches, they lack the evidence of genuine immediate supernatural healings as in the days of Jesus and the apostles. These are abominable to God because they profess that these “miracles” have come from God and they haven’t.
In these days, leading up to the coming of the antichrist, you need to be especially careful. 2 Thes 2:9 says about the antichrist, “whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders”. When what these seducers do doesn’t line up perfectly with the words of God, look out. They’re dealing with something ungodly.
Here’s the trouble. People who have been deceived by these guys refuse to know the Lord. They want to hang on to the god that they worship. The one who gives them the feeling they have and the power they want.
Another seduction is found in Jude 4. Ungodly men turn the grace of God into lasciviousness, and deny the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ. Their “grace” is not the “grace of God”. It is a grace that is not of the Lord. God’s grace doesn’t condone sin. “God sent his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh”, Rom 8:3. His grace doesn’t make sin okay now that you are saved. Gal 5:16 says, “Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh”.
Now, let’s look carefully at these verses in Jeremiah. They reveal the condition in Jerusalem right before the Babylonian captivity. The trouble in the temple back then looks just like the trouble going on in churches today.
Notice, the people were coming “to worship the Lord”, in Jer 7:2. Their profession seemed genuine. Yet, look what Jeremiah had to preach to them from the Lord.
Jer 7:3, “Amend your ways and your doings”. Little to no repentance is being preached in modern churches today.
Jer 7:11, “Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers”? Much of the attention among the leaders of modern churches is on the money. They covet it.
Jer 7:19, “do not they provoke themselves to the confusion of their own faces”. No sound doctrine is taught and preached in modern churches. Paul warned Timothy about this in 2 Tim 4:3-4. “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables”. The fables are the twisted truth they preach. It’s not real if it’s not the truth exactly as you find it in the Bible.
Jer 7:23-24, “Obey my voice, and I will be your God… But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward”. Disobedience to the word of God is apparent. Read your Bible for yourself and see what God says about what they say and do in church and what they tell you to do. They may tell you to obey what they say and teach about the Bible. But you need to obey what God said!
Jer 9:3, “They are not valiant for the truth upon the earth for they proceed from evil to evil, and they know not me, saith the Lord”. Just look at that. They had come to worship the Lord. And God said, “they know not me”.
Do you understand. When you have been deceived into believing that the god they preach is the God of the Bible, you will refuse the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ. You won’t recognize him to be the true God anymore than the Pharisees in Israel recognized Jesus Christ their Messiah, God manifest in the flesh. You will hang on to your god and refuse to know the true God.
Be very careful to check out what you’re experiencing in your worship in your church by exactly what the Bible says. And if you find that what they’re teaching and what they’re doing doesn’t line up perfectly, then don’t refuse the Lord God.
Come to know the only Lord God.