AVOID FOLLOWING “UNRIGHTEOUS DECEPTION”

There is a great danger impending over all who follow the clergy. The apostle said about this: “The lawless one’s presence is . . . with every unrighteous deception for those who are perishing, as a retribution because they did not accept the love of the truth that they might be saved.

There is ample evidence now to identify the “man of lawlessness” unmistakably. In our day the apostasy has come to a climax. Its bad fruitage has come to full ripeness and is revealed and exposed as rotten, so that all who desire the truth can find it. Persons having “the love of the truth” need to investigate thoroughly to avoid following an “unrighteous deception.” Finding and accepting truth is more important and more vital to anyone than clinging to a deception, even if we and our forefathers have been ensnared by it for generations. This can mean life or death, for God has let “an operation of error” go to those believing the lie, who look on the “man of lawlessness” as representing God, yes, even more, as being a “god,” accepting his words as above those of Almighty God as recorded in the Bible.

God does not directly send this “operation of error,” but lets it go to the deceived ones in order to prove that it is what they really want. (Compare Hebrews 4:12.) In this way all honest-hearted persons can see that God is just in his judgment. (Rev. 19:2; 2 Thess. 1:6-8) For not ‘accepting the love of the truth’ those who ‘believe the lie’ will find themselves among “those who are perishing” at the death of their “god,” the “man of lawlessness.”

For this reason a person is following a wise course if he now takes the time to look into the evidence that identifies and exposes the “man of lawlessness.”