Today there are rebels all over the place. There are lost rebels, Ephesians 2:2 Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. There are also saved rebels who have an evil man living on the inside of them. This evil man is your old adamic nature. Romans 7:15 For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. Your flesh nature wars against your born again nature, Galatians 5:17 For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. So the nature you feed the most will be the one you yield to. You need to feed the Spirit (Matt 4:4) and starve the flesh nature. The Bible says in 1 Samuel 15:23 For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee from being king. We can see from this verse what God thinks of rebellion. This verse says rebellious people are stubborn; so what causes this stubbornness and idolatry? Rejecting the word of the LORD. So an evil man, instead of seeking the Lord, seeks rebellion against His word and he will have a cruel messenger sent against him.

One of the best cases of this is found in 1 Kings 22. The king of Israel and the king of Judah came together to go to battle at Ramothgilead with the blessing of the false prophets of their day (vs 6). Notice their message in verse 12 was prosperity. This same message is popular today with the majority of t.v. preachers and televangelists. Notice that they wanted the real preacher to preach like them in verse 13 (the number for rebellion in the Bible). They said "let thy word, I pray thee, be like the word of one of them, and speak that which is good." Notice they only wanted the good part to be spoken. This is how the devil will deceive you. The devil will try to lead you to rebel against the word of God and you will only want the positive and not the negative, and a cruel messenger will come and you will be decieved. Romans 16:18 For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple. Theses kings wanted a lie so God allowed them to be decieved by a cruel messenger, see verses 19-23.

Now people are so deceived today because they don't want the truth and they believe a lie because that's what they want to believe. The devil will provide you with an excuse to do what you want and believe what you want if you will let him. Remember, he quoted scripture to the Lord Jesus (Matt 4, Lk 4) and he will give you a verse to justify your rebellion if your heart is trying to seek rebellion instead of what the Lord would have you to believe. The devil will have a preacher or a teacher quote you a verse out of context, or quote only part of the verse, or try to change the text by saying, " a better translation would be," or " this is and unfortunate rendering," etc. He will also have one of his ministers ( 2 Cor 11:15) take a passage that applies to Israel and apply it to the Church. He will use the scripture against you if your heart isn't right (Heb 4:12) so you can give a Bible verse to justify your rebellion. This explains why people give scripture to justify their belief that God predestinates souls to go to hell when the text plainly says, " he also did predestinate you "to be conformed to the image of his Son." Can you imagine a God who would put little innocent babies in hell? That's what many believe today. Predestination is in operation AFTER salvation. The lost man is destined for hell until he receives Christ. The Bible says, "that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man." How could God hold the lost accountable for something that He didn't make available to them? Predestination is based upon the foreknowledge of God ( 1Pt 1:2). God knows who will trust Him and who wont but He doesn't force you to trust Him. Forced love is not true love. Did you force your spouse to marry you? If you did, you are crazy. What kind of relationship would that be? One great preacher said, "TULIP is best spelled B-A-L-O-N-E-Y." Amen brother! Read ( 1 Sam 23:11-13) and see that God knows what would happen if what happend had not happend. So from (Rom 8:29) you see that once you have received Christ, you are predestinated "to be conformed to the image of his Son." That's worth praising the Lord about!

I said all that to say, that according to today's proverb we need to get our daily cleansing (Eph 5:26), and pray that we will yield to the Holy Spirit to keep our heart right so we don't deceive ourselves (James 1:22) and others.