How the Antichrist will deceive Christians (2)

How can we avoid the deception of our imaginations and know what God is truly like?  The answer is in this scripture:

The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. Colossians 1:16 NIV

Jesus alone shows us who God is and what God is like.  The real Jesus, mind you.  Not the American republican right wing conservative Jesus, or the democratic liberal Jesus, or the socialist Jesus, the hippie Jesus, the militant Jesus, or any other Jesus of our imagination. 

The real Jesus, born of a virgin named Mary, a Hebrew, of the tribe of Judah and the line of King David, is the only one who can and does give us a picture of what the one true God is like.  He is the "exact representation of God's being," according to the book of Hebrews. 

The Antichrist will deceive us when we imagine the Lord Jesus in any way other than what He is.

The way we can resist this deception is to accept the absolute truth about God and ourselves.  The Lord Jesus, and His Spirit, reveals both.  Listen to Jesus' words:

All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. 
Matthew 11:27, NIV

The truth about God is the same as the truth about any other person we want to really know:  we can't know God, or anyone else, unless they reveal themselves to us, as it is also written:

For who knows a person's thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 1 Corinthians 2:11 NIV

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.

“As the heavens are higher than the earth,so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." Isaiah 55:7-8 NIV

"When you did these things and I kept silent, you thought I was exactly like you. But I now arraign you and set my accusations before you."  Psalms 50:21 NIV

In all of these scriptures we see one common theme:  we can't know God unless He reveals Himself to us.  (And He has revealed Himself to us through Christ, and Christ alone.)  He is not like us, nor is He one of us.  We are infinitely below Him.  Unless we humble ourselves, we will inevitably deceive ourselves.  We'll make God like us, which is what the Antichrist will offer us in the end.  He will give us a god in our own image and likeness, a god focused on us, instead of us focused on Him. 

The Antichrist will give us an American god, an American jesus, a government of the people, by the people, and FOR the people, and NOT kingdom of God, in which God's will ALONE is done, on earth, and in heaven. 

This is the core of the deception:  our will being done instead of God's will being done. 

Heaven is not a democracy. 
It is a kingdom.
God is a King.

The rejection of God as an absolute King is the acceptance of the Antichrist.

Look into your own heart, or at your church.  Who is really ruling and reigning?

• If it is Christ, then you and your church will be at odds with this world, with America, with all who refuse to bow to God the King. 
• If it is not Christ, then you and your church will be seeking the same thing people in this world seek: your will being done instead of God's will being done.

"If it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD."
Joshua 24:15 NASB