The Great Delusion

2 Thess. 2:9-12

A little back ground on Thessalonians, the Church was founded in Thessalonica about A.D. 51 on Paul’s Second Missionary Journey (Acts 17:1-9). Since Paul’s first letter, the seeds of false doctrine had been sown among the Thessalonians, causing them to waver in their faith. Paul removes these destructive seeds and again plants the seeds of truth. He begins by commending believers on their faithfulness in the midst of persecution and encouraging them that present suffering would be repaid with future glory. So in the midst of persecution, and trials; stressful situations, just stay faithful. In this day and time, there are so many different forms of teaching, different Bibles, and different persuasive things to keep you from hearing, living, speaking the truth, from what you first heard when you got saved. Now, as time will have it, there are a lot of influences in our lives that may challenge our very faith in what we believe concerning our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

2 Thessalonians 2:9-12

Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. 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.

Question what is Delusion?

De·lu·sion: noun

An idiosyncratic belief or impression that is firmly maintained despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality or rational argument, typically a symptom of mental disorder.”The delusion of being watched”

synonyms: misapprehension, misconception, misunderstanding, mistake, error, misinterpretation, misconstruction, misbelief;

Pay attention to the fact that a delusion is the symptom of mental disorder. I hope your eyes have been opened by the meaning of the word delusion, and made things clearer of what this sermon will be talking about.

In this 21st century, this world is openly accepting the things of a demonic nature more than ever, which is totally against the Word of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. For example: accepting gay and lesbian lifestyles, in so much that our government is making laws for them to the point were they are getting a so called marriage license. Approving abortions, the rise of open devil worship, even opening satanic temples in major cities and countries around the world. The agenda for the elites of the world and their worship of Satan and the spread of the teaching of a one world government under Satan is the theme totally dominating the 21st century. Today even teenage promiscuity has run rampant through the world. Young teenagers running around like packs of dogs trying to impregnate any woman can, when they don’t know how to take care of themselves, let alone a child. Now the so called leaders of our society are keeping your mind preoccupied with TV, cell phones, tablets, gaming systems, sports, special interest news; For example, a people’s cat or dog or animals are make big headlines. Also the things that are plaguing our society and world. Also voting demagogue as in this country, arguing about whether you’re Democratic or republican when it doesn’t even matter because both are controlled by the same people. The World is attacking and Killing the true Christians who are remaining faithful to the Word of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Mean while what is the great delusion in the church? Well the first is this the Roman Catholic claiming to be the real Apostolic church which is a lie from the pits of hell. If you look at history they say the Roman Catholic Church was founded on Peter, that he visited and established the first Church in Rome. That is what the Vatican is siting on right now. Well that is a complete lie, because in actuality a lot of historians who have studied the Bible say there is not Scripture relating that Peter had ever been to Rome. The Roman Catholic Church has come up with their own histories to say that Peter came to Rome, he was run out of Rome, and before leaving he established the church. Now as far a I know Paul had established churches well before Peter did. The Church was first established in Antioch. Most people will not hear that statement or argument. They will say, “Well the Pope said,” but he has no ground to say anything. The Roman Catholic Church adopted by Pontius Maximus to take on the Babylonian Priesthood, which is the Pagan priesthood. Before they’d ever gotten to your area, you were already worshiping pagan gods. How is God going to allow His apostle to sit there and establish a church in a pagan structure? Not going to happen. The Catholic people like to take the statement “Well the Lord spoke to Peter and said upon this rock will I build my church.” But the Catholic Church was already established under the Roman government, a pagan government. It was never a church, it was established as a form of control for the people, and to bring money into the government. The Catholic Church was never a Christian Church. Constantine established the structure of the Roman Catholic Church to make sure it would flourish and bring in control of the populous. In the Babylonian Preiesthood, they had priests, popes, nuns, and these individuals were used to make sure that the people were bound to the government. You’d confess your faults to the priest, he kept record to hold against you when there was a matter of government approval that they wanted to pass down. They will hold what they had written in your confession, against you. It was never established to be a Christian Apostolic Church, based on the doctrine of the Apostles.

Another point of delusion is the Sabbath. The Sabbath is on Sunday, which is not true, it has never been on a Sunday. The Bible says 6 days shall you work and on the 7th you shall rest. As far as I know the 7th day is not Sunday, not to me as Pastor Catron. When you look at the truth of what happened, if you understand that if you change the day of the Lord and everyone goes with it to a Sunday, whomever changed it to that day says this: it gives me the power or divine authority to change God’s Word. That means you have all power of that day, God never said it, you did. So the Pope has established Sunday worship. How? Well the empire Constantine, to satisfy his pagan citizens who worshiped on Sunday or sun god worship, as he considered himself to be the spiritual leader of the nation, got with the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church and decided to make Sunday the national day of worship, not just for people who believe in Catholicism, but also pagans who could also worship with them, so that they could get more converts into the Catholic Church, that would help their financial pockets. The Pagans were still at home whether in their own place of worship or in the Catholic Church because it contains idol worship, deity worship and emperor worship. Catholicism means in general; they took different religious beliefs. Now, in this day and age, the Catholic Church is claiming to be the first Church established by Christ after He left. Did they forget about Paul and Timothy and go straight to Peter? There were bones found in Jerusalem in a sarcophagus with an inscription Simon Bar Jonah, stating that these were in fact Peter’s bones. The Roman Catholic Church later found a tomb with bones in it, under the Vatican, with no inscription, and tried to base their entire claim that these unknown bones were Peters, when they had been found in Jerusalem initially. Pope Benedict was embarrassed because they could not explain away that Peter’s tomb was found in Jerusalem. But the tomb under the Vatican which had no inscription was presumed to be Peters’. The purpose of it was to declare that they were God’s chosen Church, and its all one big lie. Knowing that the foundation of the Catholic Church is based on paganism, always has and always was. That is why they changed the day of Saturday worship to Sunday worship, because that gives the Pope divine authority over man to set himself up as the Vicar of Christ, here on Earth, giving him false authority over the church. Some have fallen for this belief that it’s right, when its all from the pits of hell. This is not to say that there are not believers who have been drawn in to that false faith because the Lord said in His word, I have sheep that are not of this fold. (John 10:16) We’re not to attack individuals of the Catholic Church, but we’re to expound to them clearly the true Word of God, but not to sit back and allow the Roman Catholic Church to dictate to the true people of God how they worship, where and who. We are to stand firm. The Bible tells us that we must be faithful, in spite of the circumstances we’re dealing with, just as the Thessalonials of Thessolnica had a seed that caused them to loose faith, believing in other things. Just like Paul, who had to go reignite the truth again, but he did not attack them, but commended them for being faithful. Commend the church who has been deceived greatly, commend them in believing, but expound on who God really is.

That great deception has spread worldwide in a lot of the Christian Churches, who are still worshiping on Sunday.

Ephesians 5:6-8

Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. Be not ye therefore partakers with them. For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light:

Jeremiah 6:16

Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls…

The Bible says a great delusion. There are some people whom you can tell the truth to and show the truth too, but they will still not believe. When we look at the word delusion, the Lord will send a strong delusion on them because their soul is bent for hell. Whether family members, saints or friends, you have to let them go. You can’t make them believe something they don’t want to see. The Bible says everyone is right in their own eyes, and there is a way that seems right to a man, but the end are the ways of death (Proverbs 14:12). So you can’t waste your time trying to witness to someone who doesn’t want to hear or receive the truth. That word is hid from those who are lost. You can’t fix them. If they don’t want to hear, shake off the very dust of your feet as a testimony against them, and move to the next. Finally my brothers and sisters, stand strong in the Lord and the power of his might. Remain faithful and obedient unto death. Amen.

What you See is not what You Get

The following is from an article entitled “The Catholic Church Admits They Made the Change,” from www.sabbathtruth.com.

Was the Sabbath changed from the seventh day of the week to the first day? Well, yes and no. Let’s deal with the “no” first.

God, “with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning” (James 1:17), does not change (Malachi 3:6). The Israelites received two laws from Moses: the law of Moses, that of ordinances and ceremonies; and the Law of God, embodied in the Ten Commandments, which is an expression of God’s character. If God does not change, neither will His Law. “My covenant I will not break, nor alter the word that has gone out of My lips” (Psalm 89:34). “I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it” (Ecclesiastes 3:14). “The works of his hands are faithful and just; all his precepts are trustworthy. They are steadfast for ever and ever, done in faithfulness and uprightness” (Psalm 111:7, 8).

God gave His Law to the Israelites at Mt. Sinai. Amid thunder and lightning, a thick cloud covered the mountain, and a trumpet blasted. Smoke billowed up as from a furnace and the whole mountain shook as the trumpet grew louder and louder. Moses led the Israelites out of their camp to meet with God, and every one of them trembled. Then God spoke (Exodus 19:16-19, 20:1). If this Law were to be changed, it would be reasonable to expect God Himself to announce it, and give reasons for its alteration, amid the same amount of ceremony. Yet there is no indication in Scripture of such an announcement.

What About the New Testament?

In the New Testament, the seventh day of the week is called the Sabbath; it is mentioned 58 times. The first day of the week is mentioned eight times. It is simply called the first day of the week, and it is always differentiated from the Sabbath. This in itself is evidence for the continued validity of the seventh-day Sabbath.

The gospel writers record Jesus and the apostles going to the synagogue on Sabbath as their “custom” (Luke 4:16 ). Jesus said, “I have kept My Father’s commandments” (John 15:10). The women who went to anoint His body after his death “rested on the Sabbath according to the commandment” (Luke 23:56). Nearly all of the incidents reported of the apostles’ preaching occurred on the seventh-day Sabbath. Of all the accusations the Jews made against the apostles, never once did they accuse the apostles of breaking the Sabbath.

Some teach that after Christ’s death and resurrection, the Old Testament law was done away with and a new covenant took its place. But Jesus Himself said, “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled” (Matthew 5:17, 18). The law of Moses, which foreshadowed Christ’s sacrifice, was indeed made irrelevant, but Paul maintains that the Law of God is to be kept, though we now be under grace. “Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid; yea, we establish the law” (Romans 3:31).

How It Happened…

Yet for nearly 2,000 years now, millions of Christians have worshiped on Sunday. So was the Sabbath changed from the seventh to the first day of the week? Let’s look at the “yes” now.

“The Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath” (Luke 6:5). Here Jesus staked His claim and forbade anyone to meddle with the Sabbath. Yet He knew there would be those who would claim the power to change God’s Law. Through Daniel he warned of just such a man. Describing a “little horn power” (Daniel 7:8), Daniel says, “He will speak against the Most High and oppress his saints and try to change the set times and the laws” (Daniel 7:25). Paul made a similar prediction: “Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God, or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God” (2 Thessalonians 2:3, 4, 7).

Paul warned that this blasphemy was already at work, and that it would come not from an outside influence, but from within the church (2 Thessalonians 2:7, Acts 20:28-30). Sure enough, not long after Paul’s day, apostasy appeared in the church.

About 100 years before Christianity, Egyptian Mithraists introduced the festival of Sunday, dedicated to worshiping the sun, into the Roman Empire. Later, as Christianity grew, church leaders wished to increase the numbers of the church. In order to make the gospel more attractive to non-Christians, pagan customs were incorporated into the church’s ceremonies. The custom of Sunday worship was welcomed by Christians who desired to differentiate themselves from the Jews, whom they hated because of the Jews’ rejection of the Savior. The first day of the week began to be recognized as both a religious and civil holiday. By the end of the second century, Christians considered it sinful to work on Sunday.

The Roman emperor Constantine, a former sun-worshiper, professed conversion to Christianity, though his subsequent actions suggest the “conversion” was more of a political move than a genuine heart change. Constantine named himself Bishop of the Catholic Church and enacted the first civil law regarding Sunday observance in A.D. 321.

On the venerable day of the sun let the magistrate and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed. In the country however, persons engaged in agricultural work may freely and lawfully continue their pursuits; because it often happens that another day is not so suitable for grain growing or for vine planting; lest by neglecting the proper moment for such operations the bounty of heaven should be lost. —Schaff’s History of the Christian Church, vol. III, chap. 75.

Note that Constantine’s law did not even mention Sabbath but referred to the mandated rest day as a “the venerable day of the sun.” And how kind he was to allow people to observe it as it was convenient. Contrast this with God’s command to observe the Sabbath “even during the plowing season and harvest” (Exodus 34:21)! Perhaps the church leaders noticed this laxity as well, for just four years later, in A.D. 325, Pope Sylvester officially named Sunday “the Lord’s Day,” and in A.D. 338, Eusebius, the court bishop of Constantine, wrote, “All things whatsoever that it was the duty to do on the Sabbath (the seventh day of the week) we (Constantine, Eusebius, and other bishops) have transferred to the Lord’s Day (the first day of the week) as more appropriately belonging to it.”

Instead of the humble lives of persecution and self-sacrifice led by the apostles, church leaders now exalted themselves to the place of God. “This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world” (1 John 4:3).

The Catechism

Recall the ceremony with which God made known His Law, containing the blessing of the seventh-day Sabbath, by which all humanity is to be judged. Contrast this with the unannounced, unnoticed anticlimax with which the church gradually adopted Sunday at the command of “Christian” emperors and Roman bishops. And these freely admit that they made the change from Sabbath to Sunday.

In the Convert’s Catechism of Catholic Doctrine, we read:

Q. Which is the Sabbath day?
A. Saturday is the Sabbath day.
Q. Why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday?
A. We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church, in the Council of Laodicea, (AD 336) transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday….
Q. Why did the Catholic Church substitute Sunday for Saturday?
A. The Church substituted Sunday for Saturday, because Christ rose from the dead on a Sunday, and the Holy Ghost descended upon the Apostles on a Sunday.
Q. By what authority did the Church substitute Sunday for Saturday?
A. The Church substituted Sunday for Saturday by the plenitude of that divine power which Jesus Christ bestowed upon her!
—Rev. Peter Geiermann, C.SS.R., (1946), p. 50.

In Catholic Christian Instructed,

Q. Has the [Catholic] church power to make any alterations in the commandments of God?
A. …Instead of the seventh day, and other festivals appointed by the old law, the church has prescribed the Sundays and holy days to be set apart for God’s worship; and these we are now obliged to keep in consequence of God’s commandment, instead of the ancient Sabbath.
—The Catholic Christian Instructed in the Sacraments, Sacrifices, Ceremonies, and Observances of the Church By Way of Question and Answer, RT Rev. Dr. Challoner, p. 204.

In An Abridgment of the Christian Doctrine,

Q. How prove you that the church hath power to command feasts and holy days?
A. By the very act of changing the Sabbath into Sunday, which Protestants allow of; and therefore they fondly contradict themselves, by keeping Sunday strictly, and breaking most other feasts commanded by the same church.
Q. How prove you that?
A. Because by keeping Sunday, they acknowledge the church’s power to ordain feasts, and to command them under sin; and by not keeping the rest [of the feasts] by her commanded, they again deny, in fact, the same power.
–Rev. Henry Tuberville, D.D. (R.C.), (1833), page 58.

In A Doctrinal Catechism,

Q. Have you any other way of proving that the Church has power to institute festivals of precept?
A. Had she not such power, she could not have done that in which all modern religionists agree with her. She could not have substituted the observance of Sunday the first day of the week, for the observance of Saturday the seventh day, a change for which there is no Scriptural authority.
–Rev. Stephen Keenan, (1851), p. 174.

In the Catechism of the Council of Trent,

The Church of God has thought it well to transfer the celebration and observance of the Sabbath to Sunday!
–p 402, second revised edition (English), 1937. (First published in 1566)

In the Augsburg Confession,

They [the Catholics] allege the Sabbath changed into Sunday, the Lord’s day, contrary to the decalogue, as it appears; neither is there any example more boasted of than the changing of the Sabbath day. Great, they say, is the power and authority of the church, since it dispensed with one of the ten commandments.
—Art. 28.

God warned that a blasphemous power would “seek to change times and laws,” and the Catholic Church openly admits doing it, even boasts about it. In a sermon at the Council of Trent in 1562, the Archbishop of Reggia, Caspar del Fossa, claimed that the Catholic Church’s whole authority is based upon the fact that they changed the Sabbath to Sunday. Does this not fulfill the prophecies of Daniel and Paul?

“For centuries millions of Christians have gathered to worship God on the first day of the week. Graciously He has accepted this worship. He has poured out His blessings upon Christian people as they have sought to serve Him. However, as one searches the Scriptures, he is forced to recognize that Sunday is not a day of God’s appointment… It has no foundation in Scripture, but has arisen entirely as a result of custom,” says Frank H. Yost, Ph.D. in The Early Christian Sabbath.

Let us ask the question again: Was the Sabbath changed from the seventh day of the week to the first? The Bible is clear: “And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy” (Genesis 2:3). “Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy” (Exodus 20:11). If God intended for another day to become the Sabbath, He must have removed the blessing from the seventh day and placed it on the day which was to replace it. But when God bestows a blessing, it is forever. “…You, O Lord, have blessed it, and it will be blessed forever” (1 Chronicles 17:27). “I have received a command to bless; He has blessed, and I cannot change it” (Numbers 23:20). Your birthday, a memorial of your birth, can’t be changed, though you may celebrate it on a different day. Neither can the Sabbath, a memorial of creation (Exodus 20:11), be changed, though some may celebrate it on a different day.

God instructed Moses to construct the earthly sanctuary, all its furniture, and the ark according to “the pattern” he was shown. (Exodus 25:9, 40) The ark was called the “ark of the covenant” (Numbers 10:33, Deuteronomy 10:8, Hebrews 9:4), and the “ark of the testimony” (Exodus 25:22), because in it Moses placed the tablets of stone on which God wrote His Law. (Exodus 25:16, 31:18) John, in Revelation 11:19, describes the scene before him when “the temple of God was opened in Heaven.” John saw the ark of the covenant in the heavenly sanctuary. David wrote, “Your word, O Lord, is eternal; it stands firm in the heavens” (Psalm 119:89). It is safe to assume that God’s Law remains, contained within the ark of the covenant in the heavenly sanctuary.

When God says, “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God” (Exodus 20:10), that ends all controversy. We cannot change God’s Word for our own convenience. “But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve” (Joshua 24:15).

– Emily Thomsen

Ark of Covenant Ministries