We live in a world of deception. The prince of this world thrives upon deception and our culture has done more than merely accept it, it is glorified and honored through media and pop culture. So how do we wade through the mire of lies and falsehood presented to us in a constant stream? Deceivers: Exposing Evil Seducers & Their Last Days Deception, a new title from New Leaf Publishing Group, is a collection edited by Terry James and written by a variety of authors. Each chapter focuses on a different aspect of religious and social deceptions around us offering unique perspectives and approaches.
Sometimes we have a hard time discerning truth in our culture. A good lie sounds appealing, it is something we want to accept. It usually contains an element of truth, but is wrapped up in packing of falsehood. It is especially difficult if you do not have years of experience walking out your faith. In these pages you will identify the deceit presented as “religion” and be better equipped to recognize it.
Prepare yourself: A lot of incredibly trendy names from the 1990s through today and named as falsely teaching the gospel in the first chapter. While I am in no way opposed to this naming I felt the it was perhaps too focused on this. I was not surprised by who was listed or what was stated because I already had come to those conclusions myself. If someone is coming out of the emergent church movement or prosperity gospel movements this could be extremely helpful, but I would have appreciated a bit more Scripture to help back up the statements.
Subsequent chapters contain a bit more practical information although I am cautious to accept all that is written here as absolute fact, especially the chapter concerning prophecies. It is very important to study biblical prophecy of the end times and it is equally important to recognize we are living in the “last days”, but I believe the authors of prophecy, especially in the New Testament, firmly believed they too were seeing signs of the end times and that Christ’s return was imminent. I’m cautious anytime a current teacher assigns particular current events to specific prophecies in Scripture. They may be correct, but they may not.
The chapters I liked best were ch 4-6: Cultural Craftiness, Tracking Truth in Deceptive Times, and The Schoolroom Seducers. These particular chapters contained the most practical information as well as what I felt was the most biblical backing without adding personal opinion as fact to the mix.
One chapter left me feeling rather uncomfortable and a bit confused. It focused heavily on UFO sightings and reports of animal mutilation. The final conclusions in this chapter were that all of these events are actually satanic occurrences carried out by the ancient false gods of the Old Testament and many ancient cultures that require blood sacrifice. I believe the author of this chapter contends that this is part of the spiritual warfare occurring in a realm just beyond our own we cannot fully behold. I absolutely believe in spiritual warfare as the Bible teaches, but this particular chapter left me with little conclusion to the UFO sightings and supposed abductions.
Overall there is some good information in this book, but I was not as pleased with it as I usually am with titles from New Leaf Publishing. Too many chapters dealt with author opinions, but stated as fact without much for biblical backing. I would be cautious to recommend this particular book in its entirety even though some chapters were useful and of great benefit.
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