Can One of God's Elect Be Deceived?
1) Direct Answer
No. The very elect cannot be deceived from the Word. God keeps His own.
2) Scriptural Explanation
- Matthew 24:24: “False Christs and false prophets… shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.” That “if it were possible” shows it isn’t possible.
- John 10:4-5, 27-28: “My sheep hear my voice… a stranger will they not follow… I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.”
- 1 John 2:20, 27: “You have an unction from the Holy One, and you know all things… the anointing… is truth, and is no lie.” The Spirit in them guards them from error.
- Romans 11:7: “The election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded.” The elect obtain the truth; the rest are the ones blinded.
- Ephesians 1:13; 4:30: They are “sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise… unto the day of redemption.”
- 1 Peter 1:5: They are “kept by the power of God.”
3) Simple Clarifying Logic
- If the elect could be deceived, then Christ’s promise would fail and the sealing of the Holy Spirit would not hold. But the Bible says they are kept.
- The elect may be tested, momentarily puzzled, or pulled at by error, but the Seed in them won’t swallow a lie. The Shepherd’s Voice draws them back to the Word.
- Many are called, but few are chosen; deception catches the called-but-not-chosen. The chosen stand with the revealed Word.
- The Bride—seen overcoming and faithful—cannot be deceived from her Husband-Word.
Short Reinforcement
You see, it’s not that deception won’t be strong; it’s that God’s keeping is stronger. The elect hear the Voice of the Word and will not follow a stranger.
Ask a Follow-up Question
What did the Laodicean Church Age (our age) Angel (- messenger) Say about this?
Ranked passages from the local William Branham sermon and Church Age Book database. Relevance is relative, not a statement of doctrinal certainty.
The Seal of God and the Mark of the Beast, part 1
61-0216 §16
Now. Now, Jesus said that in the last days, according to St. Matthew, the 24th chapter and the 24th verse, that these two spirits---the ones that was sealed with God, and the ones that would be marked by the beast, the antichrist---would be so close together till it would deceive the very elected if it was possible, see. Now, they're going to be so much alike. Now some people says, "Well, communism is the mark of the beast." You're wrong. Communism is not the mark of the beast. Yet it is---but it isn't heading up.....
An Exposition Of The Seven Church Ages
CAB 3:E-75
Now to get the real meaning of what we are about to go into, I must caution you to ever keep in mind that religion (spiritual matters if you like), is composed of two parts that intertwine but are as opposite as black and white. Religion and the spiritual world are made of those two trees which had their roots in Eden. Both the Tree Of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil stood in the midst of the garden and no doubt their very branches intertwined each other. Thus in the Ephesian Church is that same...
The god of this evil age
65-0801M §19
Notice. Not what someone has said, what someone called, but what God chose before the foundation of the world, and is calling these people in the last days. Not an organization, a people for His name. And this evil age is when He's a-doing it, this very age of deception. Last week, in Matthew 24 it was the most deceiving age of all ages. All the ages of deceit from the garden of Eden all the way down, there's never been an age so deceptive as this age. False prophets will rise and show signs and wonders, if possibl...
God keeps His Word, part 2
57-0307 §24
Notice. Well, these men wasn't just overnight men. They were a selected, hand-picked group. But it was man's hands that picked them. God had picked one little old holy-roller. Notice him. And then you know what? When that little Micaiah stood there and said, "God has sent a lying spirit among you. And everyone of you too, have a blessing. And you're prophets, and you're prophesying. I don't mean to say you're not good men, but there is a lying spirit sent among you." And if the Bible said in the last days that the...
A thinking man's filter
65-0822E §67
Oh church of Laodicea, don't be deceived in this age by their deceptions. O Pentecost, you who've gone into Laodicea, you who are a part of Laodicea, the church dead, through Methodist, Baptist, and Presbyterian, just a ritualistic form... But you Pentecostals who could still once in a while say, "Amen!", who can pull a lot of music up on a platform and have bobbed-haired women dancing all over the place, and still do believe in divine healing, how oft God would've took you, but you took another filter, a denominat...