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The Great Deception 2

The Great Deception 2

By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith. (Hebrews 11:7)

I mean, the idea we are saved by keeping in our mind that we are being saved and brought to heaven by forgiveness (grace) is a mythology.

When I started on the Internet I felt God had commissioned me to warn the Christians in America that we must begin to keep the commandments issued by Christ and His Apostles, and that if we do not do so our nation will be judged severely. Although I was aware of the "grace" teaching it was not nearly as clear in my mind as that which came over the Internet this morning.

Boy, this is a mess!

Let's take the first error the Lord mentioned—it is a belief system and not true biblical faith. Was it Wesley who decried the substitution of mental assent for faith?

Gnosticism was a heresy of the first century and from what I have read caused confusion among the early Christian churches. The basic concept of Gnosticism seems to be that salvation has to do with what you believe in your head and is not related to your behavior. Thus what was written to me this morning is clearly related to Gnosticism.

Many of us refer to the eleventh chapter of the Book of Hebrews as the "faith chapter." The eleventh chapter is an explanation of the saying "the righteous live by faith."

If you will read the eleventh chapter of Hebrews carefully you will discover there is no flavor of Gnosticism in it whatever. It is a record of the actions of people, actions they took in obedience to the revealed will of God.

Noah built an ark. He didn't just sit there and believe God was going to save him. By faith Abraham left Ur of the Chaldees and took his journey according to the will of God. Abraham didn't stay in Ur and believe that God had given him the land of promise. Where did we get this idea of mental faith? Certainly not from the Bible!

The eleventh chapter of Hebrews defines faith and gives illustrations of faith in action. At no time is faith or salvation presented as an act of forgiveness that survives as long as we believe in the act of forgiveness.

Yet the writer of Hebrews presents these illustrations as the kind of faith the Jewish Christians should emulate.

I know that some are saying now that the Book of Hebrews is not written to Gentiles, only to Jews. Once we take this tack we might as well throw out the whole Bible for who among us can say what verses are written to what group? As for me, the whole Bible is the unchanging, entirely accurate Word of the Living God and any doctrine or spirit that denies the immutability and inerrancy of the Bible is not of God but is of the deceiver.

Salvation based on a belief system is not Bible faith but the ancient heresy of Gnosticism.

Continued. The Great Deception 3