Who is leading them astray?

 I firmly believe the Lord planned my life before I was born.

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you… Jeremiah 1:5

He knew the paths I would take, the places He wanted me to be.

The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps. Proverbs 16:9

Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the LORD that will stand. Proverbs 19:21

I know, O Lord, that the way of man is not in himself, that it is not in man who walks to direct his steps. Jeremiah 10:23

 

I know that the lord planned my path before I was born. I also know he planned every person’s path through all eternity and yet sometimes, when I think of the things being taught in the ‘churches’ today…I can’t help wonder how many people are being lost, how many are following a false Jesus, because of what they’ve learned in ‘church?’ How many have learned to freely choose to follow Jesus or not? How many think they can say a prayer and be assured of their salvation no matter how they live their life?

            How many preachers are leading hundreds, thousands, astray, one sermon at a time? How many preachers and teachers ‘know’ the Bible and blindly lead their flock day after day, year after year?

            My faith grew the most when I was out of ‘church.’ I began to see Scripture the way it’s written when I wasn’t being led by a preacher or teacher.

These things I have written to you concerning those who are trying to deceive you. As for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you; but as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you abide in Him. 1 John 2:26-27

I know the Lord is calling His elect, that He’s saving them where they are…in ‘church’, out of ‘church’, but still…sometimes I wonder how many preachers are the reason some people will not see the Truth? It is God’s plan. There will be none lost that He doesn’t choose not to save. I know this…but how many of those that won’t be saved will be left unsaved because the method the Lord used to blind them is the ‘church?’

There is no answer to that question because the Lord works His plan out the way He wants to. These people are lost; they were lost before they were born.

What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory, Romans 9:22-23

If it is the ‘church’ that is keeping them lost it is only because it is the method the Lord is using to make it happen. But sometimes I still think about these things, still wonder…how many will never see because they’re being led down the wrong path by someone promising them salvation?

With that question still floating in my mind, I take us all to 2 Peter 2…

But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. 2 And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. 3 And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.

4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; 5 if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; 6 if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; 7 and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked 8 (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard); 9 then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials,4 and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, 10 and especially those who indulge5 in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority.

Bold and willful, they do not tremble as they blaspheme the glorious ones, 11 whereas angels, though greater in might and power, do not pronounce a blasphemous judgment against them before the Lord. 12 But these, like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed, blaspheming about matters of which they are ignorant, will also be destroyed in their destruction, 13 suffering wrong as the wage for their wrongdoing. They count it pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, while they feast with you. 14 They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed. Accursed children! 15 Forsaking the right way, they have gone astray. They have followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved gain from wrongdoing, 16 but was rebuked for his own transgression; a speechless donkey spoke with human voice and restrained the prophet's madness.

17 These are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm. For them the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved. 18 For, speaking loud boasts of folly, they entice by sensual passions of the flesh those who are barely escaping from those who live in error. 19 They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved. 20 For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. 21 For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. 22 What the true proverb says has happened to them: “The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire.”