Lucifer began his rebellion in heaven. And His rebellion is now isolated, or  quarantined to Planet Earth. Today he wants everyone on Planet Earth to join his warfare against God--against His law and His government. He tricked our first parents into joining his rebellion. He performed his first miracle. He made it appear that a snake was talking to Eve. The Devil spoke to Eve and said,  "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?"   "The woman said to the serpent, 'We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die." You will not surely die, the serpent said to the woman. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God knowing good and evil." Genesis 3:1-5.

She chose to believe Lucifer and to disbelieve God. This lie from the Devil--"You shall not die"--is repeated from the pulpit today as though these were the words of Jesus and not of the Devil. This is the lie behind the immortality of the soul. We are not immortal--only God is immortal--never dying. "The King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal." 1 Timothy 6:15, 16.

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The miracle of the talking snake was the first miracle of deception used by the Devil. Today Satan stands behind many of the miracles performed in the name of the Lord in an attempt to trick us into joining his rebellion. Jesus says "Many will say to me on that day, Lord Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles? Then I will tell them plainly, I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!" Matthew 7:21-23.

Death

One of Babylon's intoxicating false doctrines is the first lie, "You will not surely die."--Immortality of the soul. The words from Lucifer, using the puppet serpent, to Eve in Eden--"You will not surely die"--became the first sermon ever preached upon the immortality of the soul.

Yet Christian ministers are echoing Satan's own seducing lie. Most people today accept this lie as quickly as our first parents accepted it, but what does God's Word say? "The soul who sins, is the one who will die" Ezekiel 18:20.   "As surely  as I live, declares the . . . Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die?" Ezekiel 33:11.

Hell

The theory of eternal torment is one of the false doctrines that is part of the wine of the abomination of Babylon.  Revelation 14:8; 17:2. 

Purgatory

Ministers have even twisted the Scriptures concerning David and his son Amnon. They put drunken Amnon in purgatory to prepare him for the eternal friendship of sinless angels. They take the verse from Samuel that says "King David longed to go to Absalom. For he had been comforted concerning Amnon because he was dead."   Those who pervert Scripture tell us that our salvation does not depend upon anything we do in this life. They say it does not depend on receiving a new heart and life change from Christ, or on what we believe. 2 Samuel 13:39, NKJV.

Misinformed ministers preach that when drunken Amnon died angels immediately took him away, purified him, and prepared him for the companionship of the sinless angels! This is a pleasing hoax, one of Satan's own doctrines. God's Word says that no "drunkard . . . shall inherit the kingdom of God."  "To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life." 1 Corinthians 6:10 KJV; Revelation 21:6.

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Watch a person who is really thirsty for water. What are they thinking about? What about their actions? A really thirsty person's priority is to get a drink of water. What is your priority? Are you thirsty for God's Word? Have you made it your priority? Revelation 21:6.   "He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God, and he will be My son."

Here, also, God specifies conditions. Those who inherit all things must resist and overcome sin. Revelation 21:7.   "Tell the righteous it will be well with them." "Woe to the wicked! Disaster is upon them! They will be paid back for what their hands have done." Isaiah 3:10, 11.   "Although a wicked man commits a hundred crimes and still lives a long time, I know that it will go better with God-fearing men, who are reverent before God. Yet because the wicked do not fear God, it will not go well with them." Though a sinner does evil a hundred times, says the wise man, "and still live a long time," yet "it will go better " with those who love God. Ecclesiastes 8:12, 13. God will "give to each person according to what he has done." Romans 2:6.

"No immoral, impure or greedy person--such a man is an idolater--has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God." "Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord."  "Blessed are those who do His commandments, that they  may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city. But outside are dogs and sorcerers and sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and whoever loves and practices a lie." Ephesians 5:5; Hebrews 12:14; Revelation 22:14, 15, NKJV.

God has given to men a knowledge of His character and of His method of dealing with sin. "The Lord  came down in the cloud. . . . And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, "The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished." God will destroy all the wicked. "The Lord watches over all who love him, but all the wicked he will destroy." "All sinners will be destroyed." Exodus 34:6,7; Psalms 145:20, 37:38.   Many sinners hate God because they know that He hates their sins. Will He then chain these rebels to His side? Will He force them to do His will? They have not trained the mind to love purity. A life of rebellion against God has left them unfit for Heaven.

The wicked decide their own destiny by their own choice. Their exclusion from heaven is voluntary "the wickedness of man was great in the earth" and "every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." "The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence." Genesis 6:5,11, KJV.

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In mercy to the world, God blotted out the wicked people in Noah's time.   "The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." Romans 6:23, KJV. While life is the inheritance of the righteous, death is the doom of the wicked. Moses declared to Israel: I give you the choice "today of life and good," or "death and evil." "There will be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked." "For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive." Deuteronomy 30:15, KJV;  Acts 24:15;  I Corinthians 15:22.

Are you aware that there are two resurrections? The first is the resurrection of life and the second resurrection--the one after the thousand-year reign with Christ--is the resurrection of the wicked. They will die the second death--eternal death. "All who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out--those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned." John 5:28, 29.

They, whom God has accounted "worthy" of the resurrection of life, are "blessed and holy." "The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years." Revelation 20:6.   "Yet a little while, and the wicked will not be: yes, you will diligently consider his place, and it will not be." Psalm 37:10. "They shall be as though they had never been." Obadiah 16.

Can the Dead Think?

"When his breath departs he returns to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish." Psalm 146:4, KJV. "For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing: they have no further reward, and even the memory of them is forgotten. Their love, their hate and their jealousy have long since vanished; never again will they have a part in anything that happens under the sun.   "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom." Ecclesiastes 9:5,6,10. "There is no work . . . or knowledge or wisdom in the grave, where you are going." Ecclesiastes 9:10, NKJV.

  "The grave cannot praise you. Death cannot sing your praise. . . . The living, the living--they praise you, as I am doing today."  Isaiah 38:18, 19.

Popular theology represents the righteous dead as in heaven, yet . . .

How Much Can a Dead Man Remember?

Nothing!   "In death there is no remembrance of You.   In the grave who will give You thanks?"   Psalms 6:5 NKJV.

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How Much Can a Dead Man Say?

Nothing!

"The dead  do not praise the Lord, Nor any who go down into silence."   Psalms 115:17, NKJV.

Where Did King David go When He Died?

King David did not go to heaven when he died. He went to the grave to wait for Jesus to come again the second time. "Brothers, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day. For David did not ascend to heaven." Acts 2:29, 34.

"David did not ascend to heaven."  Acts 2:29, 34, NKJV. David is in the grave. He did not go to heaven when he died! He will be in the grave until the resurrection.

"If the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost." I Corinthians 15:16-18.

Do We Go to Jesus When We Die?

When about to leave his disciples, Jesus did not tell them, "you will soon come to me" No! He said, "I go to prepare a place for you," "If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back  and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.  "John 14:2,3.  He did not say "you will come to me." He said "I will come  back" again. What would be the purpose of His coming for us if we had already gone to heaven and were with Him?   Many teach that those who die go to Jesus in Heaven  But Jesus says NO!  He says, "It is not you who come to Me at death--it is I who come for you all."  

Jesus is coming again. We do not meet the Lord in death. We wait in the graves until the resurrection and then we awaken. Angels then take us to "meet the Lord in the air."   "The Lord Himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the lord forever" And he adds: "Encourage each other with these words." I Thessalonians 4:16-18. Both those who are dead and those who are alive wait together on earth until Jesus comes. The dead are not in heaven alive and waiting for us. They are sleeping in their graves until Jesus comes.

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Will the righteous receive the approval, "Well done, good and faithful servant: . . . Come and share your master's happiness" when they have been living with the Lord for hundreds of years? Are the wicked called away from the fires of hell to receive the sentence from the Judge of all the earth: "Depart from Me, you who are  cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels?" Matthew 25:21, 41.

The Protestant churches of our day have been deceived They borrowed false doctrines from Rome and Rome borrowed them from Paganism and Paganism got them from Satan.    The immortality of the soul was one of those false doctrines that were borrowed from paganism.

The dead will sleep the sleep of death until "the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised . . . and we shall be changed."  "This body which dies must become a body which will never die. When this body which dies becomes one which will never die, what the holy writings say comes true. It says, `Death is overcome by victory. Death, you have lost the battle. Death, your power to hurt us is gone.'"  Death is swallowed up in victory." "O death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory?" I Corinthians 15:52-55, WE, KJV, NKJV.

Can Our Dead Relatives Speak to Us?

The belief that the "soul" is immortal--that it never dies--was borrowed from paganism. The church compromised with paganism and replaced the truth that "the dead know not anything," with this pagan belief. This, in turn, prepared the way for another one of the devil's deceptions--the belief that spirits of the dead return to guide the living, which is modern spiritualism.

Satan has power to make it appear that a person's  dead friends and relatives have returned from the dead to visit them and guide them. These dead loved ones and friends are, in reality, evil angels disguised as dead friends and loved ones watching over their families and friends. They teach the listener that God's law has been done away with and that there is no difference between those who honor God and those who dishonor Him. According to these so-called friends and relatives returning from the dead,  every one has eternal life.

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The Bible warns us of "the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders" and with all his powers of deception. Satan will deceive people, just as he did with Adam and Eve,  by doing miracles that appear to be from God. "He performs great signs so that he even makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men. And he deceives those who dwell on the earth by those signs which he was granted to do." 2 Thessalonians 2:9, KJV; Revelation 13:13, 14, NKJV.

Satan uses spiritualism to tell us, "you will be like God, knowing good and evil." Genesis 3:5. Spiritualism teaches that a person is constantly improving from the day he is born, getting closer and closer to God each day. Jesus Christ is essentially not needed, because spiritualism teaches we are all Christ-that "the throne is within you." and that "any just and perfect being is Christ."

Spiritualism is a Modern Form of Witchcraft!

Spiritualism is a modern and more subtle form of witchcraft! You have undoubtedly seen spiritualists on the television talk shows. Modern spiritualists of today claim to talk with the dead. The spirits of devils impersonating cherished relatives will appear to many. But the Bible calls these so-called, "returning loved ones"--these visitors from other worlds--"the spirits of devils." The Bible says the work of dealing with these spirits is forbidden by the Lord  under the penalty of death. This is a modern form of witchcraft. Compare Numbers 25:1-3; Psalm 106:28; I Corinthians 10:20; Revelation 16:14; Leviticus 19:31; 20:27.

Satan says to the world: "No matter how evil you are; no matter whether you believe or disbelieve God and the Bible or serve the devil, live the way you want, because everyone will have eternal life." But that is not what the Bible says. The Bible says. "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness." Isaiah 5:20.

Spiritualists have no interest in Jesus. They have power that the Devil gives them, and they are always promoting their own miracles, with the claim that they perform far greater miracles than Christ. Those who promote themselves and their miracles and who speak of how great they are  clearly are not following the self-denying Master, Jesus Christ.

Satan has many disguises. Satan's Christian disguise is that of love and miracles. Satan speaks through some in the Christian ministry, presenting the purely emotional aspect of God's love. Satan and those with his "Christian disguise" separate God's love from God's law.   However, God's law is a vital part of God's love. If you have been deceived on this point, God will forgive you  as soon as you ask Him and use you mightily as you learn the "rest of the story."

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God gives us all the freedom of choice. If people want to believe that the law is not part of love, God allows them to believe it. "They received not the love of the truth that they might be saved," therefore, "God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie." 2 Thessalonians 2:10, 11, KJV.

Satan's preparation to deceive the world began with His first miracle and his first lie to Eve in Eden when he said "You will not surely die. . . . When you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." Genesis 3:4, 5. Satan works miracles to deceive people. "I saw three evil spirits that looked like frogs;  . . . They are spirits of demons performing miraculous signs, and they go out to the kings of the whole world to gather them for the battle on the great day of God Almighty." Revelation 16:13, 14.

The Devil is smart and charming and uses real religious miracles and a type of lawless love to deceive religious people.