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.
He that is in you
63-1110E §33
And while the harvest is ripe and the laborers are few, let's dig right into it, by chance there might be a sinner setting by. There might be someone that tonight might change the whole course. And if it wasn't the time this morning, tonight might close the books. Remember, there will not be one more come in when them names are redeemed! Before ... Now, everybody listen real close, before I read the Scripture. All that ever would be redeemed, God put their name on the Lamb's book of life before the world ever come...
Does God ever change His mind about His Word?
65-0418E §93
So now the great harlot of Revelation 17, these Balaam teachers, with their false doctrine, is marrying the church into that kind of a mess. Watch when it comes to the showdown at the end time, look at the weakness of it now. Nine hundred-and-something different organizations, one pulling one way, and one the other. There's no unity among them, and they're trying to bring unity. Not backed by the Word of God, God's original plan; they're taking it in by politics and an organization. God don't change his mind, He st...
I have heard but now I see
65-1127E §83
That critic saying, "Why would a God of mercy, could open up the Red Sea, stand let them poor Christians be eat up with lions, and burnt, and everything? Sit up, just like he laughed about it." The poor ignoramus. Did he not know, "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground"? It had to die through those dark ages, like any other corn of wheat has to go beneath the earth and be buried, to bring forth in the first reformation them two blades of Luther, the stalk. It had to come forth in the Wesleyans, out yonder, to...
The anointed ones at the end time
65-0725M §132
The reason the elected, Jesus said, won't be deceived, because they are that Word. They can't be nothing else. They can't hear nothing else. They don't know nothing else. That's right. Remember, Moses wasn't carried away with all their impersonations. Was he? Moses... said, "Now, wait a minute Pharaoh, you know what, the Lord told me to do this. But glory to God, I see that your boys can do the same thing, so tell you what I'll do: I'll join up with you." Huh! That don't sound like a prophet of God. No indeed! He s...
Does God ever change His mind about His Word?
65-0418E §39
Now in this... And you people out on the telephones, I want to first say that I do not wish to be critical, and I hope I'm not; but the message that's been given to me, I must be faithful to that message or I'll be a hypocrite, see. I can't say no more than what I am sent to say. And I am thinking that the great enemy of the Christian society today is the organized churches. I do believe with all my heart that it'll finally form into the mark of the beast (Which, I think I can prove that by the Bible with God's hel...