2 Corinthians 11, and let me just read it. Paul is, you know, as I read back in Acts, you don't know the heart of a man of God that he has for the people. And he asked you here in the first verse, if you'll bear with him, it may seem folly to you and silly that he would be so concerned and troubled. But when you know deep down in your heart, you're not just looking at the faces of people that you're familiar with, that you're looking, you may be looking at the very faces of people that you'll never see again. They may go out into eternity and not go to heaven. Paul kind of lets you take a peek of the heart of a preacher when he talks about it in verse two. I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy. It's not something that is wicked and envious and all these things. It's something that it's just his heartbeat, his cry for the people. He sees them and he knows that many of them, if they don't listen, they're going to be deceived. I guess it's the hardest thing for a preacher to deal with is to know that he's speaking to people is not paying attention or they don't believe what he's saying. They just don't believe what the Bible says. That's what I try. I do try to every kind of point that I'm trying to press. I try to back it up with the Bible so that you're not saying it, that brother Owen believes this. I don't want you to say to people, well, brother Owen believes this. I want you to say what the Bible says. It don't matter who I am or what I am. What matters is whether you really believe according to the Word of God. This is what the Bible teaches. And so Paul's stressing this and telling why he's got such a burden for their souls. He's concerned about their destiny and how he wants to see them when he said that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ, not somebody that soiled their garments and soiled their life and picked up false doctrines and got involved in things. But I want you clean. I want to see you pure. I want to know for sure you're going. One of the subjects that I Wanted to deal with in this thing is There's three different levels that deals with here of the deception and verse number four And I wanted to deal with some one of them. They're Different that I'm dealing with tonight One of the last ones that I want that I really really would love to open up and I might just take time to deal with it some night is when it talks about doctrines There's three things down here It's the difference in a Jesus, a difference in a spirit, and a difference in a doctrine. You'll see that in chapter, I mean, verse number four. And so I really would like to get into this thing and just show and give evidence of how powerful this deception is in easy believism. You know yourself. People that have, there's nothing about their life that says they love God, they respect His Word, they honor Him, they fear Him, they want to please Him. There's nothing about their life that says that. They don't know their Bible and they don't know God, but they're sure they're going to heaven. Paul's dealing with deception. the fear of deception. He begins in verse 3, but I fear lest by any means, no matter which way it is, no matter how he does it in his way of confusing and corrupting the minds, he says by any means the serpent beguiled as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety. Show your minds, show your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. So your minds. He's a mind or a brainwasher. Second Corinthians 4, for whom the God of this world blinds the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel shine into them. They should be saved. He blinds them. He has the power and persuasion. He's the Prince of Power of the Air. He works in all lost people. And he also deals with saved people. He doesn't just deal with lost people. He loves to try, look at the church in Galatia. Paul started the church in Galatia. If we turned over there, the first chapter, and Paul is shocked. He goes to the church and now they believe another gospel. He gave them the true gospel and now they believe another gospel already. Already they've turned aside. He'd only left them a while. I'm saying it shows you how subtle the devil is. Who was I listening to? I was listening to a preacher the other day. and said, don't ever believe that the devil isn't religious and he doesn't love religion. He uses religion as his most successful tool and destroy the minds of people. So Paul's telling us here that in this timeframe that we're in, in these last days that we're living in, in this hour of how strange and different it is than what it was for just a few years ago. People have changed. Churches have changed. Doctrines have changed. The spirit has changed. And Jesus has changed, at least the Jesus they worship. In order to really understand just what's going on, you have to develop a disciplined mind to fit in the right time period or the time frame or the dispensation that you're living in. We're not living in the antediluvian age. That's pretty evident. They got washed away, except for eight of them. We're not living in Abraham's day or Moses' day. We're not living in the days of the prophets. We're not living in the days of the prophets nor prophecies. In 1 Corinthians 13, it says, whether they be prophecies, they shall cease. We're not in the days when John the Beloved ended the book of Revelation. That was the end of any kind of word from God as far as the Bible is written, as far as God speaking to the people in a way, in a fashion in the Bible. You can't add to this Bible. It's complete. We're not got new ways and new measures that we don't have something different than what's in here now. There's no such a new level of Christianity. There's no such a new way of serving God. There's no new way of singing. I'm saying it's all what the Bible says and it hasn't changed in 2000 years. It hasn't changed. It's the same. Uh, we're. We're not living in the book of Acts days. I'm saying you got to somehow get your mind settled on where we're at. Just what timeframe, what is the norm for this day? The norm isn't revival. Acts is speaking of revival. It's speaking of the birth of the church. It's speaking of the Holy Spirit of God Setting an authority over the churches They'd ask him everything just like he was standing there Should we do this and the Holy Spirit of God says send him there Holy Spirit of God says do this and you read you through the book of Acts. You'll see the immediate Presence of the Holy Ghost of God. That's not today We're not living in those days We're not living in the days Certainly of Corinth or any of those places, we're not living. You know as well, and we're gonna look at a few just to give us a direction. You know well that we're living in the last days. Last days, not in the middle days, but the very last days. We're living at the very time of the imminent return of the Lord Jesus Christ. When you see these things, he says in Matthew, when you see this happen, you'll begin to know what others. Let's look in Matthew 25. I believe it's 25 or 24 what I got here. Matthew 24. In verse number three, look at verse number three. And as he said upon the Mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately saying, tell us, when shall these things be? And what should be the sign of thy coming and the end of the world? Now they ask a question and he didn't ignore them. He didn't just brush it off. He gave them an answer. They wanted to know when, why, and how, or what is going to happen, what shall be a sign, and the end of the world. What is it going to be? Jesus answered. He answered and said unto them. What's his first words? Take heed that no man deceive you. His first warning. This is what we're studying in 2 Corinthians 11 verse 3. We're studying the deception of the church, the apostasy of the church, the great falling away in Thessalonica. Everything is about the last days. We're living in these days that the signs are there about a mass deception. We ought not let our Somehow our perception of just what some people are and what I am and I'm not there and I haven't left God and I know some good people ain't left God. That's not the world perception. We're talking about worldwide what is going on. And you know yourself, in your age, you've seen churches of every type and every sort. begin to dwindle down. I think I read it here with Brother Williams of the Hephzibah House, and how he said just everywhere you look, he talked about how that there was a change in the churches. And he says it's just they're dwindling down, large churches that were running thousands aren't running but a few hundred, and they're changing their doctrines, he's saying. Now, that's exactly what's going to happen. or not what is what is happening. We don't, you know, you don't look around when it's here now. Easy believers is part of that massive deception. And you know that, I don't have to try to teach you that, you know that. You know people that you love and people that are close to you, maybe even kin, relatives, maybe close relatives, maybe sisters, brothers, mom, dad. that believe you really don't have to live right to go to heaven. You don't have to obey the Bible. You just have to say the right words in a profession. Well, the Bible don't say that. Bible don't teach that, but people believe that. In this last days, Jesus said, take heed that no man deceive you, for many shall come in my name saying, I am Christ. They're saying, I am of Christ. I represent Christ. And representing they belong to Christ. I am Christ. I'm Christ's servant. I'm Christ's preacher. I'm a believer in Christ and many will come in his name, in his name. He said, many will come in my name saying I am Christ. And so, and what are they going to do? What had they already done? Deceived many. I'm trying to say this, this is what this, this is what it's all about. The age you're living in, the timeframe you're living in. Let me read just a little bit farther. He said, you should hear of wars and rumors of wars. Have we heard that? Are we hearing it now? Are we hearing the possibility of some now? Do you not think that if the Arabs, if they can, if they can muster together and and get Iran with nuclear weapons, do you think they wouldn't try to come down on Israel? Have they said their goal is to destroy, wipe Israel off the map? Is that what they've said? That's not just a rumor. They've said that. In fact, that's really what they intend to do. And you've got one little country down there, Jewish State, And only God's promises have protected them. It's not because those people live ungodly. It's only because He's promised they're not going to be able to do it. But you hear these wars and rumors of wars. See that you be not troubled for all these things must come to pass. But the end is not yet for nations will rise up against nation and kingdom against kingdom. And there shall be famines and pestilence and earthquakes in diverse places. All these are the beginnings of sorrows, the beginning of them, the beginning of these things that's going to turn people away from God. They're going to be empty and hopeless and without Christ. The devil has this power in him to deceive. Look with me, and what I'm wanting you to do is see what happens in this age. Look with me to 1 Corinthians 4. I'm talking about 1 Timothy. I'm looking at 1 Corinthians 4. Verses 1 and 2 is all we'll use. Notice he says, Now the Spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter times, because in these last days, the latter times, he said, some shall depart from the faith. They actually do that. I'm just reading my Bible. I don't try to protect the doctrine because it differs with the Bible. The Bible says, some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits. Does your Bible read like that? Do you believe it actually happens? You believe the Bible's true? The Bible says these people, listen, Paul is speaking to the church of Corinth. Corinth has had all kinds of sin in that church. Had a boy commit adultery with his father's wife in chapter five, first Corinthians. And the people knew about it, it didn't trouble them. Morality was bad then. Imagine what it is now in the church. And he said, and doctrines of devils, devilish doctrines, doctrines that were designed by the devil to deceive people. This is what Paul's talking about, the subtlety of the devil and corrupting the minds of people. You do believe these people that believe in a false doctrine and trust in what the churches say, you do believe that they're going to miss heaven. You know, you can apply that to some people, but there's some people you know, some people you like, some people you see live right, some people that do certain things, some people that's related to you. Little difference in applying it then, ain't it? That's actually the way it's going to be. They're going to depart from the faith. They'll be given heed to seducing spirits and the doctrines of devil. Speaking lies and hypocrisy, having their conscience seared. A conscience that never bothers them in the lifestyle they're living. A conscience that has no power to convict. No power to cause them to repent. It's seared. It's sealed. It's corrupted. And to believe in what? Well, I know what I believe, don't tell me. He that be in awe of her brewed hard his neck. He seals it off. You can't get through. I don't care what you do. God says that's what's gonna happen to people in the last days and it is happening You wonder why they just have no fear. They don't have any concern about God Cuss God take his name in vain do everything purposely against the Word of God on purpose With no fear of God whatsoever Live in wicked lives in moral lives Live for themselves It's the last days. It's the way people are going to live in the last days. They're going to live this way. Look at Romans 1. I said you've got to get yourself, you've got to put this together, all these statements about what is the person going to be like in their character in the last days. Now, I'm trying to show you That because, because of what has taken place in their life, the corruption of their mind, it's going to corrupt their body. It's going to corrupt their reasoning. It's going to corrupt their values. It's going to corrupt their character. Their character is going to change. Look at Romans one in verse number 21. You've read it a hundred times. Let's read it slow. Because that when they knew God, y'all, every child, every person I'll be looking at this. Because when they knew God, they glorified him not as God. They wouldn't recognize him. They wouldn't give him the praise. They wouldn't give him the time of day. Neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations. And what happens next? And their foolish heart was darkened. No light of the light of the word of God professing themselves to be wise. They became fools and changed. The glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to a corruptible man. This is the way they view God. This is the design they have of God. These are the thoughts they have of God. This is the kind of God they're thinking about. This is the image they worship, a corrupted man and a bird to birds and four footed beast and creeping things. Are you reading your Bible? Is that what it says? Is this what they're going to thinking? Let's keep going. Wherefore God gave them over to uncleanness through the lust of their own bodies to dishonor their own bodies between themselves. Realize what they're doing to their own bodies. They don't even respect what they're doing to their own bodies. They don't realize how they're destroying their own bodies, how they're changing their own bodies, how they're ruining the body God gave them, the design God gave them. God made you a natural body and they're going to change that body. They're going to change the nature of that body. It's not going to be normal no more. They're no more gonna be normal, natural people, what you thought, what you were made by God. They're gonna change it. Notice, keep reading. Who gave themselves up to uncleanness through the lust of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves, who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshiped and served the creature more than the creator who is blessed forever. They dishonored their bodies between themselves. Are you reading the Bible? Dishonored their bodies between themselves, and this changed the truth of God, what God had designed him, how God had made him. They changed all that. They made changes in their bodies. what their body was meant for, what their body was designed for. They didn't accept what God made, they wanted something different, and so they've changed their bodies. Now watch. who changed the truth of God into lie and worshiped and served the creature self more than the creator who is blessed forever. They're obedient to this creature themselves that they have destroyed these bodies and made them an unnatural body. Keep reading. For this cause, God gave them up to vile affections. He, for their women, did change the natural use unto that which is against Nature change the natural use which is against nature. They're not even normal. They're not even natural They're corrupted. They're perverts They've ruined their body. They destroy their body. They change their body in the desire something It was never meant to desire or enjoy They corrupted their minds they corrupted their bodies they soiled their bodies and So does the Bible say here, did change the natural use into that which is against nature? I'm saying you can't do those things without going contrary to God's will. God made your body. And he wants you to present your body, a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable, not a changed body that isn't even normal. It used to be, it used to be such a curse. Can you imagine people thinking that you are not normal? You like things that ought not, I mean, there ought to be things that you ought to detest, that you enjoy. There ought to be things that you hate and you love. There ought to be things that you would have no part of, it would be so disgusting. But yet they enjoy them. They've changed. They've changed their character. They've changed their heart. They corrupted their minds into thinking and believing this is better than what the creator gave her. Our creation of our life, the way we run our life, the way we control our life is better than what God gave us. And so they've corrupted it. For this cause, God gave the bold of vile affections. For any of the woman did change the natural use unto that was against nature. And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burning their lusts one toward another, men with men, working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves the recompense in their error, which was meat. And even as that they did not like to retain God in their knowledge. Oh hum. So what? I don't have all the answers. I wouldn't even try to even guess a lot of them. You do it. You tell me. School me and tell me what you can do to this body that won't get you in real trouble with God. Tell me He don't mind if you make it look like some kind of a weirdo with all kinds of different looks and metal attached to you in weird looking ways. I mean, there's some of them so spooky you don't want to look at them. And they think they're beautiful. They think they're right. They think they're normal. This is the generation you're living in. That's not coming. It's here. It's here. They're wackos. I'm going down the road today and I stopped the red light in a car in front of me. He had two skeletons up on the roof. They look like they're waving at you. I'm not going to get this message. He says, and even as they did like to retain God in their knowledge, I don't want to hear what God says. I don't want to know. I don't want to know. I like what I like. I like what I'm doing. I like the ugliness, the wickedness, the foulness of it, the depravity of it. I like it just the way I'm living. Don't tell me. They don't want the knowledge of God. They're not going to listen to preaching. They don't care what you say. They're not interested. They've made up their minds they're gonna be a pervert. They've made up their minds they're gonna have all kinds of a different relationship. Unnatural. Nothing natural about them, nothing normal about them. Changing all that what God's made them for. I had a real burden. I started studying this in the middle of the night. And realizing what this has done, I'm not going to be able to preach my message, but realizing what it's done to women. Honestly, I'm not trying to put on some kind of a, I don't know, phony kind of a facade or something, but I got up to pray. And the more I thought how they've degraded women, how they've made her worthless with the philosophy of what they say is love. And all it is is sexual perversion. And they try to teach the younger generation, this is what love is all about. And it's not natural, and it's not normal. but they become something they'll wish they'd never become. Let me just give a touch of what I want. I got up to pray this morning and as I knelt down, I don't know, the thoughts came to my mind of what it's gonna do to a woman and what it is doing to a woman. It's already done. I knelt down and for I don't know how long, I just bawled and bawled and bawled. That's my soul. I know that I, in a way, never treated my wife with a love before we got saved. And had that love had to finally be honed and tamed and changed to where it was real love for my wife. But otherwise I didn't really respect her. My love was a true love. Do you notice nowadays that I have never figured why women fall for this. Why in the world would a woman want to live with a man to where he has no responsibility what he does to her? Why in the world would she have a relationship with a man and bear a child, his child, and he wants her to kill it, to become a murderer? Where's the minds of people? How crazy are they in our day? I'm saying to you, felt my soul. There's no such a thing as cherishing your wife till death do us part. They won't even, now they got contracts that's not binding in marriage. Now they live like, I don't want to say all this, But they don't have a love. I don't know. The girls, the young girls don't know what a real love is. They think it's some kind of a quick, emotional, sexual thing. And it doesn't have anything to do with love. This isn't love. They changed the word of love and it doesn't mean what it says. They don't know how to love because the love of today has been so corrupted and perverted with these people. that people don't even don't care. They just use one another to their own benefits. And the poor girl, she has no future. Would you listen to me? A future is that a man that you really don't have any connection, true connection to. I remember a woman living in Crozet, and her husband was a drunk, and he beat her. He come home and beat her. I'm going to beat the fire out of her. Wife and I was talking one day and said, why do you live with that man? Why do you take that beating? You don't understand this language until you enter into it. But she says, I don't want to live alone. I'm saying women are treated as if they're disposable. You should leave them. Go get another one. Go get another one. That's what they do with that homosexual stuff. They change partners over and over again. And then they say it's love. It's a lie. It isn't love. They don't know what love is. Love is to care and to love and cherish and watch over and provide for. As Christ so loved the church, so should we love one another. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for them. Love your wife just like I love the church. Would you answer the audience? Is that why people are in love now? Girls are in love and women are in love today. and they don't even realize it. They throw themselves into different relationships, unnatural relationships, ungodly relationships, and they think they know better. They think that's going to be life. What happens when they drop you and you've got an older age and you don't have the looks and you can't attract? You know what you'll be? Go over and look at that nursing home. Go over and look over there. Nobody visits them. Nobody cares. Once she was a real pretty girl. Why don't you visit over some of the other men drugged up so many times they don't have a sound mind? Just used, just used and abused. I had a lot of other. I wanted to show you over in Peter where they become this brute beast. I want to show you how men nowadays, without God, a lot of times, they're like brute beasts that have no heart, no concern, just to gratify themselves with all their lovers of their own selves. Would you agree with me that they've so soiled and corrupted the word love they don't even know what it means? They know what it means till death do us part. They know what it means to have somebody that you love so much, you want them with you all the time. All the time. You can't stand it when you're away from them. And you want it, you just, you learn, oh my, how close you can get and how precious it is. just to be set at the same table and enjoy the time talking together, take a walk together. Live a life together. Supporting one another, encouraging one another, loving one another, caring for one another. They don't know what that is. You won't find that in the unnatural. You won't find that in true love. Well, you love like it's a godly love. Paul says, I'm fearful you're going to get warped by another spirit. You're going to be corrupted. Your life's going to be wasted. Sad day. If you take what I'm just introducing and study and read, meditate, be honest with what's going on in this society. My wife wrote, I told you that last card she wrote was just six or seven days before she died. I was a rascal. I'm not proud, I hate it. I guess that's why I broke down. I just couldn't get a relief, but just wept and wept. I was a rascal. I wasn't good to my wife. Driving a truck, just wicked. After the Lord saved me, and God healed our marriage, we began to love one another and grow in love. You grow in grace and in love of the Lord Jesus Christ. And on that little note she wrote on our anniversary. Anniversary is on the 11th, she dies on the 18th. I didn't bring her till after she's gone. Just a little card, note. She said, I'm glad. I'm glad God kept us together. She said these hurt words. She said, we've had a good life together. I'm thankful. Will you hear that at the end of the line? I'm trying to. I've done a poor job. I had so many others versus things that I wanted to take you to to try to introduce you to the age you're living in. You're living in an age where people are not the way God made them, both mentally. They've undisciplined in mind and spirit. They're intemperate with life, and they're not really loving. I'm not saying that to you. I pray that's not. I pray it's not. I'm just saying, out there. They put on all these acts. You don't really, you don't really want to know the truth about all of how they're living. You don't want to really know all the relationships they have in businesses, in schools, how wicked they live. And they lie to themselves thinking they're getting by, they got a good day. They continue to have to tell themselves, I'm having a good time, but they're lying, deceiving their own selves. Missing, really missing what it means to have the love of God, the natural, normal love between them. and supporting the wife being the helpmate and the man living to really try to please his wife in many ways. Just enjoy life together. Have a home. Dependent on one another. Somebody you can lean on. Somebody that really, really, really loves you. I was telling somebody today, when I was in the hospital, they kept on switching me around to different wards. And one of them they didn't have, we was in a university, I was in intensive cares. They didn't have any chair or anything for Barbara to sleep on. There was a windowsill there. And she slept on the windowsill. Just to be with me. Beverly's done some of that. Love sufferth long, upbraideth not. It's kind. It's kind. It endures. It lasts. It don't fade away. Whether there be all these other things, they'll pass. But what does it say? Charity never faileth. Let's stand. Never faileth. What are you saying, preacher? I say, don't believe the world. Don't believe the philosophy. Don't believe those people out there that's lost. Don't believe those people that's living ungodly or enjoying life. They're lying. They're lying. Their life is miserable. I believe my Bible. God says they have no peace. God says for the wicked, their turmoil inside constantly filling them with hate. They hate themselves. They hate the decisions they make. They hate their life. Look in the mirror and say, oh, what a fool I am. I plead for these young people. I pray for them, call them by name. And I see the world trying to pull them and say, come with us. We'll give you a good life. It's a lie. We'll give you what love is. They don't know love. I don't understand the love that God talks about. Love that just embraces you, keeps you, gives you grace. Amen. Father, in Jesus' name, I missed. I didn't get to preach what I wanted to preach, and I failed you. I fail when I don't get it all, but I failed them. I hope there's something in there which speaks to these young people just beginning with life, trying to make decisions, figure out what they want to do, what they want to be. And the time is late. You said it's late. There's a falling away, and people are changing. I pray in Jesus name. I pray there was something this message would speak to their heart, cause them to consider their ways and turn their feet to your testimonies. I plead it in Jesus name. I love each one. I wish I could help him in some way to guard and protect him. A lot of times they're on their own, overpowered by the spirits of evil. I pray protect them, keep them, speak to them. In Jesus' name, amen, amen. You are dismissed. Amen. This is kind of a thrill process.