Reread my post. I didn’t blow you off. I cut to the heart of the matter. Not even any deceiving spirit is able to violate the will of the Father and overpower Him or the work of the Holy Spirit.
As a defender of Mormonism, you have already manifest your heart. The fundamental problem is based upon the identity of Jesus Christ, the Messiah, Yahushua, Emmanuel, God Himself who provides salvation, God who has come in the flesh. When that is not understood or accepted, the Holy Spirit is not free to grace the person who rejects Him with sanctification. This includes initial positional sanctification in salvation, as well as postsalvation continuing sanctification in renewing the mind and soul of the believer. This is something deceiving spirits recognize, so with all guile and deception will attempt to preoccupy humans from accepting faith through Christ.
As soon as one denies either the humanity of Christ, or His deity, but still seeks spiritual guidance, a door is open to deceiving spirits.
Any number of distractions or interruptions may then be used by deceiving spirits, either upon yourself or those around you to prevent, hinder, or distract you from addressing the core issue on your own volition.
The issue is one of simple faith.
That faith is only provided by God, not by any other spirit or human. When the Gospel is understood, the person hearing it may either accept it through faith or reject faith. Faith is not rationalism. Understanding a rational argument might relax past reservations and distractions from hearing the Gospel, but rationalism is not a substitute for faith.
There are only two categories of humans involved in hearing the Gospel: those who lack salvation (unbelievers), and those who at some time in their lives have accepted faith through Christ (believers).
Amongst believers, there are two subsets, believers in fellowship with God through faith in Christ and those who are out of fellowship. The former group simply remain in fellowship by avoiding temptation and remaining faithful through Him. The later group simply return to God through faith in Christ and must confess known and unknown areas where they have missed the mark (sinned), resulting in a situation where our righteous and just God no longer remembers the our post salvation sin and is free to continue in His process of further sanctifying the believer.
In all cases, God the Holy Spirit is the active person of the Godhead through which His blessings fall upon the believer/unbeliever. Salvation resulting in the immediate regeneration of the human spirit in the believer is the work of the Holy Spirit. Repentance of the degenerate believer is first recognized by the Holy Spirit who has sealed the believer and conveys the sinners’ prayer of confession to the Holiness of the Father by unknowable groanings. God is then free to continue the sanctification of the believer through faith in Christ.
If the object of that faith is specifically void of divinity by the volition of the thinker, then God is not free to recognize that thinking as a true belief, but instead in His perfect justice identifies that thinking as corrupt. Again, this is something deceiving spirits relish.
The very name of Yahweh conveys His Deity. In Hebrew, the first person singular of the verb, ‘to be’, is used to express His identity, ‘I Am that I Am’. The 3rd person masculine singular of the same verb is used in the word, “Yahweh”. We are confirming His existence when we use His name.
The name of our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus, Yahushua, means “Yahweh saves”.
No man has seen the Father, yet Moses spoke to Him face to face. (Ex 33:20, John 1:18, 5:37) These are Christophanies, wherein the Son appears or is manifest to believers prior to His coming in the flesh in the Incarnation.
The only person who can provide both physical and spiritual deliverance in the second person of the Godhead, the Son, who is one with the Father and provides for our salvation.
Deceiving spirits love to confuse on this issue, seeking to distract and delay a human from exercising volition to have faith through Christ. During this Church Age, we are indwelt by God the Holy Spirit, who provides a temple for the indwelling of the Father and the Son. The Shekinah Glory is real.
There are many believers who may drift out of fellowship by latching onto false doctrine. They will then be tempted to counterfeit His Plan with making order out of disorder by other substitutions. Making order out of disorder is the definitiaon of KOSMOS, or translated frequently as the World. Worldly systems include religious institutions which latch onto false doctrine as one of the Adversary’s major attacks upon God’s followers. Another attack is to substitute soulish perspectives of faith by rationalism, again independent of faith through Christ.
It boils down to faith in God through faith in Christ, because God has provided Christ, the Son as the propitiation for the sin of man, so He is free to have a relationship with us. When we accept what He has provided and by faith, which was what was found to be righteous in the Son by the Father, even after all of humanity’s sins had been placed upon Him, we then are in a place where God the Father is free to further sanctify us.
All authority has been given to the Son and through no other may we approach the Father. Until He returns, He has also provided for the Holy Spirit to indwell us and further sanctify us. So no matter how arrogant and confident a deceiving spirit might become, they still are incompetently foolish to ever think they have more power than God or that any substitution for His Plan might succeed as is evidenced by the simple free volition of humans who are free to come to God through faith in Christ when they are simply allowed to continue in such free thought.
Understanding the persons of the Godhead only comes through faith in Christ, allowing the Holy Spirit the opportunity in our thinking to supernaturally sanctify us by His Plan.
If we deny Him, other deceiving spirits exist might seize the opportunity to attack and or deceive as counterfeit substitutes of what God has already so graciously provided. For the unbeliever who has never accepted God’s salvation through faith in Christ, rejection of His salvation by His Plan and no other interpretation means the unbelieving soul may be susceptible to demonic possession. For the degenerate believer, who slips into post salvation sin, but never returns to Him through faith in Christ by what God has provided, but lingers in false doctrine, the degenerate believer is still sealed, but is susceptible to demonic influence.
Demonic influence includes a litany of deceiving, seemingly innocuous, friendly, alluring temptations. It might appeal to body, worldly, soulish, or even spiritual domains, as long as there is a twist so as to deceive from faith through Christ.
But here’s the catch. From eternity past, God has predetermined who will come to Him and no power is able to overturn that predetermination. By faith through Christ, nothing is impossible, no matter what the opposition.
The return to Him is simply a matter of thinking, through faith in Christ.
Excellent post, btw. :-D
Your feelings on the Holy Ghost & his workings are dead on for the better part. Much of what you say re: deceiving spirits is also very pinpoint & correct. Our differences are not as far apart as you may think. Aside for our differences & views on John 10 vs. John 17 & predetermination, I think we have a lot in common in your post.
My question to you was in re: to the Godhead & how you viewed the scriptures I mentioned in relation to the Scriptures you cited & your beliefs. That view of the Godhead is essential & important. I understand your beliefs & respect them. However, they just don’t match up for me. Especially given the description of “one” in John 17. Augment that w/ the difficulty of explaining why the Lord was often talking in terms of distinct separation & that the trinity really has it’s genesis at about 325 AD w/ men that claimed no direct revelation re: the matter & believed that the Lord no longer talked directly to his living oracles the prophets, & it can be a confusing matter to many.
Ultimately though, as you very well put it, it comes down to putting your faith in Christ & asking Him about the truth. Through the power of the Holy Ghost, those answers will come to the sincere in heart. Thanks for your thoughts.