Intermezzo Guest Blog by Alabastersky – Deceived

This guest blog has been edited somewhat with a paragraph deletion, links added and minor changes; if you wish to read Lisa’s original, you can find Alabastersky’s “Deceived: The New Religion” here.  People, we must learn to love Truth more than anything.  Our Father guarantees that if you love the truth you will not be deceived.  Galatians 6:7 commands, “Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.”  The Bible would not give us a command without the ability to fulfill it!  As for those who are deceived, this is because they did NOT love the truth: “The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.” (2 Thessalonians 2:9-10)

From Alabastersky:
It occurs to me that as we plummet headfirst more into darkness each day, that we compromise and allow deception to reign. There are those who become so far removed from truth along the way that they will begin to not only believe but to embrace the lie so much that they themselves are convinced by it. The deceivers actually begin deceiving themselves!

I’ll give you some examples. The New Testament of the Bible tells us much about the Pharisees. We always see them waiting to trip Jesus up, or catch Him in some blasphemy, or in an act violating their traditions. They truly seem to be a demonized and hateful bunch, and Jesus often appears saddened and annoyed by them. But I believe their zeal was not only born out of a perceived threat of loss of control over the people, but also out of an actual belief that Jesus was a crack-pot blasphemer who was leading God’s chosen people astray. It was a combination of these two (and probably other motivations not mentioned). But as we can clearly see now, and for anyone who wishes to study it, Jesus fulfills every Old Testament prophecy about the Messiah’s [first coming]* – every single one.
[*Editor’s Note, the only ones remaining are about End Times events.]

Jumping forward to today, I’ve often wondered how multitudes could be allured into buying wholeheartedly into the one world religion of the antichrist that the Bible describes in Revelation 13, but believe the sincere zeal of the Pharisees gives us a clue. From this chapter in Revelation, we learn that the antichrist (or beast* as he is called), together with the false prophet* (or second beast) perform miracles that are so great that they deceive even possibly the very elect (see Matthew 24:24 and 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12). So we know from this that there is great allure and attraction for people to become followers of the beast who sets himself up not only as the Messiah but also as the fulfillment of all other religions, but is in fact the very antithesis of truth.
[*Editor’s Note: these leaders will NOT be called “antichrist,” “the beast” nor “the false prophet” in the media.]

This allure of deception was confirmed when I saw New York’s Governor on a news broadcast recently stating that she needed “apostles” to evangelize people to get the vaccine because “Jesus taught us to love one another,” and that people who’ve gotten the shots are “the smart ones” while those who refuse to get it “aren’t listening to God and what God wants,” Whose god, I wondered, and why isn’t she taking individual circumstance into consideration? I also have to ask if she herself hears “God” when it comes to the murder of innocent unborn (and even just born) babies?

Now if you honestly believe that the vaccine is the best thing for you, then by all means, go for it. That is your choice, and I’m not here to stop you. But if for various reasons there are those of us who do not believe it is the best thing, why is the government working so forcibly to mandate that it is not our choice? One has to consider that if a government (any government) can force you to take the jab, then they can also force you to take the mark of the beast. Compromise is made in small steps, and the lines we cross in the midst of compromise can be dangerously deceitful.

I’m still trying to figure out why those who have been vaccinated need to be protected from those who have not been vaccinated. If the vaccine is as good as they claim, why would that be necessary? If the vaccine is as good as they claim, why, according to CDC data, did the virus almost flat line as far as new cases in the US prior to the vaccine, and then suddenly and aggressively spike after people began being vaccinated? I’m curious to know why there is a higher risk of catching covid after vaccination than there is before, by the very people who have been vaccinated? I’m curious to know why countries like Australia never took the extreme measures they are taking now for covid against such things as the flu, since the flu has higher death rates than covid?  I’m curious about a lot of things, and I know I don’t stand alone in my curiosity.

But I digress… The point I am hoping to make about the governor of New York’s appeal is that she, much like the Pharisees, has bought into this secular empire religion, and as a result not only perceives a threat of loss of control over the people, but also truly believes that those who act in an individual manner against the government-dictated social norms are crack-pots who are leading people astray.

Take that with another news article regarding a letter from a [national] teachers organization, that requested for parents who engaged in protests to be designated as domestic terrorists and treated as such, as if the government has final authority over our children. For anyone who is a Christ-follower, all of this appears to be the height of hypocrisy and lunacy, but to those who swallow the lies “hook, line, and sinker,” they are just as sincere in their belief in the deception as we are in the grounded and absolute truth of the Bible.

This goes along with a book my husband was reading recently, Hitler’s Cross by Erwin Lutzer, which analyzes what happens when a country forgets God, and declares the state in place of God in regards to what you are allowed to believe, and what happened to the church and Germany as a result. In the book he describes one of Hitler’s top enforcers, Heinrich Himmler, who believed in reincarnation. In his warped idea of spirituality based on a mix of Norse mythology, Hinduism, racism, and the occult, he believed that the Jewish people were “lower than the animals.” As a result he also sincerely believed he was actually doing the Jewish people a favor by annihilating them, so they could return on a higher rung of life than before. How absurd! Sin, hatred and the evil in which it is rooted has no bounds. Those who combine an almighty state with total control and a warped spirituality, and racism in whatever form, who deny Judeo-Christian values, advocate for loss of freedom, and the right to one’s life, and deny the right to decide what entails one’s own physical health, are crossing the line from welfare to tyranny.

THIS is why it is so important to know and understand our enemy is not flesh and blood but are the rulers and powers, principalities and forces of this present darkness (see Ephesians 6:12). This is also why it is important to stand and not compromise.

Letting go of our will in order to seek and fulfill His will instead has nothing to do with conformity. We need to understand that unity and conformity are not one and the same. We can all unite as one nation without conformity, keeping our individuality and God given rights. There is nothing more powerful [against tyranny] than being who God created us to be! That is why our founding fathers emphasized being created equal, with equal opportunity. Equal opportunity does not guarantee equal outcome, and the sooner we return to that understanding, the faster all this racist nonsense being propagated by those wishing to divide and conquer through fear will come to an end.

Know this, the truth and understanding of which I speak is only imparted through the Holy Spirit. Scripture tells us that when we hold to His teachings, then we will know the truth, the truth will set us free (see John 8:31-32). Jesus said He IS the truth (John 14:6). You can know Him too. He is found by everyone who sincerely seeks Him, and He will set you free!

 

Guest Blog – Alabastersky and Shades of Grey

A blogger presented this on July 15, 2021, and wrote in much clearer fashion than I probably write.  I have not been down all the rabbit-holes she went into, but investigated many of them including extensive reading of Vedic Literature, the Book of Mormon, prophecies of Zoroaster, the Quran, writings of Mary Baker Eddy, and others.

Altogether, the Bible is the only book (or library of books) that really tells the Truth about The God Who Is, how He has revealed Himself throughout history, and finally in Jesus, called The Christ.  Read on for valuable insights.
Thanx, Alabastersky.
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In the 1990’s, in spite of the good little church goer that I was, there was about a 4 or 5 year period where I used to be attracted to anything new-age, from music to books and everything in between. Back then, to me, everything was a shade of grey. There was no black and white, and although you would hear me say that God and scripture were true and that I believed in absolutes, I had no clear understanding of what that really meant.

I was fascinated by Nostradamus and end-of-the-world prophecies, but if you told me I should study the book of Revelation, I likely would have rolled my eyes in the belief that (at least at that time) I was not a theologian nor even a book worm, so none of that would likely make sense to me anyway. The sad truth was that angels clothed in light, things written through trans-channeling (or auto-writing), and anything that focused on a better me and learning to love myself through my own independence and “woman had more of an attraction to me than anything “holy”.

One of the books I actually do remember reading at the time was titled Conversations with God. I found it interesting that the author claimed there was no right or wrong, there was only functional and dysfunctional. Sounds somewhat logical, right? Especially when wrong and right appear so black and white, so unloving and hateful! But let me tell you why all of that is deception dressed in light – taking what is truth, twisting it, and then repackaged it in a way that is always palatable and yet never powerful.

First of all I want to say that God is so much more than just sentience (or feeling) as new-age spiritualism would have us believe. That He is “more of a feeling” and is “everywhere and in everyone and everything” is a twist on the truth that He is omniscient and omnipresent. He is, in fact, an actual living, breathing, person, and His Word is not only truth but really IS ABSOLUTE truth, and very powerful!

After both of my parents passed away, I learned that grief is love that has no where to go, and because love never dies, grief may subside but it always remains under the surface. So imagine when it dawned on me that I had been grieving the Holy Spirit, because at that time I was so absorbed into all of this, His love for me also had no place to go. I didn’t realize I was actively resisting Him. If you were to ask me back then, I was in such a confused state that I would have even debated that God approved of that form of spiritualism, because I didn’t understand the difference between an “angel clothed in light” and an “angel of the Light“.

Only in Jesus Christ can I find freedom to live the life I was created to live – my purpose in this life. That was a game changer for me, because all of the sudden I saw sin (which is ANYTHING that separates me from Him) as slavery (black), and righteousness in Him as freedom (white).

“Oh but Lisa”, you might say, “there IS grey! Take for example the grey lines between male and female”! Yes, the male/female thing can be a big debate and a lot to unpack for some, but I have to tell you that the black and white in me no longer sees it as a debate. Once I aligned myself with scripture, passages like Psalms 139 (He formed me in my mother’s womb, I am fearfully and wonderfully made, all the days ordained for me were written in His book…) and Jeremiah 1 (before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you…) came alive with meaning! I began to realize that if I choose to become anything outside of what He has created me to be (and this goes beyond just LBGTQ, it applies to anything and everyone) – if WE, any of us, choose any other path outside of the one He has created and ordained for us, then we set ourselves up for a life focused on temporary pleasures, and in the end are left not only unsatisfied and unfulfilled, but also in a deadly deception.

True science, in the end, always aligns with scripture (whether intended or not). Why? Because Jesus Christ, God Almighty, the Creator of this universe and everything in it, is immutable. We align with Him, He doesn’t align with us. He doesn’t sanction the sin, He sanctions the sinner. Once I recognize His authority in my life, I am the one who changes as I come under it. Anything less is expecting Him to change and bend to my will instead of me bending to His – and that in itself is saying that I do not believe He is God, because I do not value Him enough to bend my will to His. Truth: the fact that He sanctions the sinner and not the sin has nothing to do with Him not loving me, quite the opposite. It has everything to do with Him loving me so much that He takes delight in me as I discover what I was created for.

I’m just glad He caught my attention enough at the time for me to allow Him to stop the soul-sucking practices, habits, and bad theology I was mixed up in and allow Him to begin healing me instead. His Spirit was continuously wooing me back to Him. As I began to respond and desire conversations with the Living God Himself rather than with just His creation, I knew more and more that He really is immutable (the same yesterday, today, forever), and that scripture really is His holy word.

So that’s where I am with holiness on my end.  It is what I call the journey of shades of grey into a solid state of black and white, because that’s what holiness does. Only those who allow His holiness to be imparted to them realize what a beautiful thing it really is to be set apart in this way. It is incredibly comforting in the chaos of this world, and touches the human spirit in a way that is far more than anything sensual this world has to offer!

Link to original blog: https://alabastersky.wordpress.com/2021/07/15/shades-of-grey/