THE SENDER OF STRONG DELUSION
by Daniel Botkin
(Daniel Bokin has a bi-monthly publication, Gates
of Eden. For a sample issue, send $3 to PO Box 2257, E Peoria IL
61611-0257)
The American Supreme
Court’s recent decision to legalize same-sex “marriage” did not surprise
me. I was grieved and disappointed, but not surprised. I expected
it to happen. I would have been pleasantly surprised if they had not
done it.
Though I am not surprised, I am deeply disappointed and grieved. But the
thing that grieves and disappoints me even more deeply than the Supreme Court
decision is the apathetic attitude that so many professing Christians have, and
the great number of so-called “Christians” who now insist that homosexual acts
are not sinful. Even Tony Campolo, for crying
out loud!
According to the news, Tony Campolo’s son is a
practicing homosexual, and Mr. Campolo refuses to
call his son’s behavior a sin. Apparently Tony Campolo
loves his son more than he loves the Lord, and he therefore disqualifies
himself from being a disciple of Jesus, as it is written, “he that loveth son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me”
(Matt. 10:37).
If I
could talk to Tony Campolo in person, I would like to
ask him: “Mr. Campolo,
are you not disturbed by the thought of your son voluntarily stripping off all
his clothes and eagerly engaging in homosexual acts with another naked man, and
deriving pleasure from performing those acts?”
Actually,
I would ask the question in much more graphic details if I were speaking to
Tony Campolo, but I cannot print it that way here.
What
happened? Did the Devil deceive Tony Campolo?
No. God is the one who deceived Tony Campolo,
and all the countless other clueless “Christians” who now condone
homosexuality. Let me explain.
In
Deuteronomy 28, Moses lists the curses which will come upon a nation that
disobeys Yahweh. (I know, this chapter is primarily about the nation of
Israel, not America. But it is not exclusively about Israel only, because
the general principle of obeying and being blessed or disobeying and being
cursed is a universal Bible truth.) Moses lists various forms that the
curses will take. After listing around twenty ways that Yahweh will curse
the disobedient nation, he writes: “Yahweh shall
smite thee with madness, and blindness, and astonishment of heart” (Deut.
28:28).
In
Deuteronomy 28, Yahweh promises to smite the disobedient nation with madness
and blindness. In Romans 1, Paul tells us what form this
God-sent insanity and spiritual blindness finally takes. It takes the
form of homosexuality. If a nation continues to defy and disobey the
Creator and His laws long enough, eventually God lets their foolish hearts be
darkened, and He lets their morals descend to depravity, as it is written:
“Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of
their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies
between themselves, who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and
served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever.
Amen. For this cause God gave them up unto
vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that
which is against nature. And likewise also the men, leaving the natural
use of the woman, burned in their lust one towards another; men working with
men that which is unseemly [indecent], and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet
[appropriate]. And even as they did not like to retain God in their
knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things
which are not convenient [proper]” (Rom. 1:24-28).
Notice in the above passage that the full fruition of rejecting God and His law
is homosexuality, which the Bible calls uncleanness, vile affections,
and an idea that is spawned from reprobate minds. There is nothing
more unclean, vile, and reprobate than homosexual behavior. It is the
apex of perversion, the grand climax of a nation’s descent into immorality.
“But
Daniel, isn’t beastiality more perverse than
homosexual acts?” Maybe, but I’d say no, for two reasons. One,
because Romans 1 portrays homosexuality as the epitome of perversion.
Secondly, because beastiality involves only one person
made in the image of God defiling himself. Homosexuality involves two
people made in the image of God defiling themselves with each other, so it is
twice as depraved.
Also
notice in Romans 1 that it is God, not the Devil, who gives these people over
to this depravity.
I am
convinced that the widespread acceptance and celebration of homosexuality in
this nation is a madness and spiritual blindness sent by God because of this
nation’s continued disobedience. If you do not believe this, consider the
following:
The
percentage of Americans who are homosexuals is actually quite low, somewhere
between 1% and 2% according to polls I have read. And many, perhaps most,
of that small percentage are not political activists pushing for the acceptance
and celebration of homosexuality; they are just people who want to do their
depraved deeds, and they have no desire to harass the heterosexuals. So
the actual number of homosexuals who are political activists pushing for the
acceptance and celebration of their perversion is a very small number,
percentage-wise.
Some
people wonder how such a tiny minority is able to impose its will on the
majority so easily. Yes, the homos have Hollywood and the mainstream
media behind them, but even that does not explain how such a small number of
people can impose their will on the majority. The only explanation that
makes sense is a spiritual one. And that spiritual explanation can be
found in the Scriptures.
In 2
Thessalonians 2, Paul tells us that if people do not love the knowledge of the
truth, then God Himself will send them strong delusion so that they will
believe a lie and be damned, as it is written:
“And
for this cause God shall send them strong delusion,
that they should believe a lie, that they all might be damned who believed not
the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness” (2 Thes.
2:11f).
The
cause of this God-sent delusion is stated in the previous verse: “because they
received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.”
If
someone resists the truth and refuses the truth long enough, at some point God
gives them over to a reprobate mind. God Himself sends them a delusion
strong enough to convince them that a lie is true, so that they will be damned.
We
see examples of this happening in the Bible. In the story of the Prophet
Micaiah, the Bible says that Yahweh sent a lying spirit into the mouths of
Ahab’s prophets, so that Ahab would be deceived into going to war and then fall
in battle and die. (See 1 Kings 22 and 2 Chronicles 18.)
Yahweh also sent an evil spirit to trouble King Saul after his
disobedience. (See 1 Samuel 16.)
In
Ezekiel we learn that if a false prophet is deceived, it is Yahweh, not the
Devil, who has deceived that prophet:
“And
if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I Yahweh have
deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out My hand upon him, and will
destroy him from the midst of My people Israel” (Ezk.
14:9).
Think about the implications of these truths about God-ordained
deception. If God Himself is the one who has deceived the people by
sending them strong delusion, and if God’s purpose in sending them this strong
delusion is so that they will believe a lie and be damned for their refusal of
the truth, what can be done for such people?
Yahweh warned that disobedience will eventually bring the curse of madness and
blindness upon a nation. “Yahweh shall smite thee with madness, and
blindness, and astonishment of heart” (Deut. 28:28).
Our
nation has been smitten with a God-sent insanity. This madness is driving
even heterosexuals to celebrate homosexuality. If someone is insane, you
cannot use logic and common sense to try to reason with the insane person.
You cannot reason with a madman in the same way that you can reason with a sane
man. This explains why the homosexual debate cannot be won by reasoning
from the Scriptures.
Even
some clueless “Christians” who claim to believe the Scriptures have been smitten
with this madness and spiritual blindness. Someone recently made me aware
of a series of YouTube videos of various heterosexual people who claim to be
Bible-believing Christians explaining why the Bible does not really condemn
homosexual acts. These counterfeit Christians say that Christians who
condemn homosexuality “are being very hypocritical.” Why? Because
the anti-gay Christians eat pork, and get tattoos, and the women don’t wear
head coverings, the pro-gay “Christians” say.
“Paul wrote that women should always keep their heads covered in church,” the
pro-gay counterfeit Christians correctly point out. “Yet Christian women
don’t feel morally obligated to follow that edict.”
And
Jesus broke the law when he healed the man at the pool of Bethesda, they
claim. “He broke the law,” they say. “And He didn’t break just any
obscure ordinance. He broke one of the hallowed Ten Commandments,
‘Remember the Sabbath day. On it you shall do no work.’ Jesus broke
one of the biggest laws in the whole Bible.”
(Of
course Jesus did not break the Sabbath; He only broke the Pharisees’
man-made rules, their flawed interpretation of the Sabbath.)
These counterfeit Christians say that the Old Testament laws that prohibit
same-sex relations do not matter now.
“Christians aren’t supposed to follow Levitical laws,” they say. “In the
New Testament, Paul repeatedly and explicitly says that following Christ means
no longer following the Hebrew laws of the Old Testament. Christians are
under no obligation - none - to follow the laws of the Jewish Bible.”
As
someone who believes that Christians are supposed to obey the
commandments of God in both the Old Testament and New Testament (including
keeping the Sabbath and dietary laws, not getting tattoos, and women wearing
head coverings), I find it very ironic that these counterfeit Christians use
the typical Christian’s twisted view of the Torah to justify homosexual acts.
God
warned that He would send strong delusion to people who do not love the
knowledge of the truth. The seed for this God-sent deception is the
antinomianism that was embraced by the Church after the death of the
Apostles. Antinomianism has saturated the Church since the second
century. Now the seed of antinomianism is finally bearing its bitter
fruit of strong delusion.
So,
what can be done for those people whom God Himself has deceived? To my
knowledge, not very much.
That
might sound cold and cruel and pessimistic. But if God Himself “gave them
up to uncleanness” and “gave them up unto vile affections” and “gave them over
to a reprobate mind” (Romans 1), what can I possibly do for them? If God
Himself sent them strong delusion as a judgment for refusing the truth, so that
they will be damned, then what can I possibly do to un-deceive these God-damned
people?
As
long as deceived people remain in an unrepentant state with their hearts
hardened and their consciences seared, they will remain deceived. God
obviously wants these truth-rejecters to be deceived, because He sent them
strong delusion so that they would believe a lie and be damned.
The
only hope for these damned, deceived people is to repent, to turn to God with a
sincere desire for the knowledge of the truth. Yahweh is the one who sent
them the strong delusion as judgment for their rejection of truth, and He is
the the only one who can remove the strong delusion
from their darkened hearts and un-deceive them. And He will only remove
the strong delusion if they repent and express a sincere desire to know the
truth and are willing to walk in that truth with God’s help.
I
cannot un-deceive those whom God has deceived. The only thing I know that
can be done for people whom God has deceived is to warn them of the wrath to
come, and to then leave the results in Yahweh’s hands, as it is written:
“When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die,
and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save
his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I
require at thine hand. Yet if thou warn the wicked, and he turn not from
his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou
hast delivered thy soul” (Ezk. 3:18f).
I
don’t want any blood on my hands. If you do not want any blood on your
hands, you must condemn homosexuality, not condone it. You must abominate
it, not celebrate it.
No,
I do not hate homosexuals, just as I do not hate heterosexual adulterers.
God sent His Son to suffer and die to pay the penalty for their sins and
mine. I do not want Yeshua’s suffering on their
behalf to be for nought, so I want to see them repent
and be reconciled to their Maker. Some of them have done that, and they
are now my brothers. Every sodomite is a potential saint. But
without repentance, without turning away from sin, there is no
reconciliation. The sacrifice of the Son of God takes away a sinner’s
sins only if the sinner repents and believes the good news. Without
repentance and faith, there is only God’s wrath to look forward to, as it is
written:
“For
if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth,
there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a
certain fearful looking for judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour
the adversaries” (Heb. 10:26f).