Do Not Become ENTANGLED

Strange title, isn’t it? We are going to find out that it is not so strange, but extremely important to be understood by the believer. I am referring to the serious believer who renews his or her mind to God’s Word every single day. This teaching is for those that are sold out on the Word. If you do not know God’s Word, you are putting yourself, by your own free will, in a very dangerous position in this present world. Let’s first take a look at a dictionary definition of the word ‘entangle’.

Entangle means “to twist, to complicate, and to confuse”. Now who do you think is the master of accomplishing what is mentioned in this definition? There should be no need to mention who involves people to the point where they become entangled. However, for the sake of someone new to this website, I am going to do just that.

In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. – II Corinthians 4: 4

He is the one who blinds people from the truth. He is the one who will twist the Word of God and he will complicate it to the point of confusion. By not understanding the rightly divided Word of God, you can be tricked by this spiritual power that we fight against every day of our lives. So I don’t scare people, remember, that the Christ in you is always greater than what is in the world. But we have to live by our blueprint for living which is the Word. And for some of you that still think that Jesus Christ is God, look at the end of the verse above. It says that Christ was the image of God. It does not say that he was God. Now you may wonder how we can be tricked by Satan when he is composed only of evil and hate. I want you to know how you can become entangled and not even realize it. A good indicator will be that you are just not happy with your life and all things seem to be going wrong. Here is why. Remember there are many false apostles and teachers of God’s Word WRONGLY DIVIDED.

For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. – II Corinthians 11: 13

Believe it or not, there are a great magnitude of false apostles who are trying to teach you the wrongly divided Word of God. A lot of people talk a lot about God, but very seldom do they get right into the heart of the Scriptures which is the true God. They will fool you many times by their attitude and things that they say and how loving they may appear. But they are counterfeits – they are working for Satan but to the person who doesn’t know the true God, these people appear to be the apostles of Christ. I found out lately that there is a person who is in control of all of the churches in a certain city in Minnesota. Guess what he does two days a week? He conducts séances. Séances are a major form of Spiritualism. They make an attempt to communicate with the dead. Well the dead are dead and will stay dead until God raises them from the dead with the second return of Jesus Christ. That’s what the Word says and that’s what it means. For those of you a little new to the subject - what is Spiritualism? It is séances, mediums, fortunetellers, meditators, believers in astrology, Ouija boards, and the list goes on and on. This is all from the devil and I will make a statement now that just might blow your mind. Spiritualism is the main reason that a country or a city and possibly the whole world, goes down. It gives place to the devil and the devil will either steal, kill, or destroy that country or city. For the sake of time here, I will not get into that subject right now.

These are major principles in your walk with God to be able to have His peace and composure and other endless blessings. It took me a very long time to understand this major principle regarding entanglements and to apply God’s Word in areas where I was becoming entangled in the devices and methods of the world. Let’s turn to a major Scripture to set the foundation for this teaching.

No man that warreth [serves] entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who had chosen him. – II Timothy 2: 4

Mainly, we are athletes of the spirit, so the last part of this verse does not really apply. We are not soldiers, so you can scratch that last part of the verse. These changes or additions that I make to Scripture are based on many, many long years of research not only by myself, but by the ministry who taught me God’s Word rightly divided. Now let’s get back to the verse itself.

God is saying that no believer that serves God allows himself to be entangled with the affairs of this life. Why? So that this believer may please God who had chosen him to be a son and representative for God Himself.

Now there are many entanglements in this world and we are going to talk about some of them and how they distract you and confuse you concerning God’s Word. First of all we should all know by now that we are to keep God first in our life. The devil who tricks people may make you think that you should be involved in the PTA and in some sports and in the work that needs to be done around your house. These are all good things unless you try to accomplish too much. Then you do not control what you do, but the things around you, control you. Now you should know that the true God never possesses or controls anybody. He always gives you free will to do whatever you please. It is the god of this world that controls and possesses people to the point where they don’t even realize that they are not making decisions on their own. This is a rather involved definition of entanglements. We are going to talk specifically about simple incidents or subjects in our life that can become an entanglement without our knowledge.

Getting back to II Corinthians 11: 13, we have to wonder how so many ministers and people who open up a Bible to teach you can be tricked in such a manner as to be working for Satan himself and not even knowing it. It is because they do not rightly divide the Word of God. Recently someone wrote me and told me that they were very blessed with this website. But the one thing that stood out to me in the letter was the fact that I had divided the Word of God. I wrote back something simple but I said in the body of the letter, that I appreciated the remarks that I had rightly divided the Word of God. Anyone can divide the Word. They can make it say almost whatever they want it to say. But a foundational principle that I once learned showed me that the Bible interprets itself in one of three ways. At times, we really have to work the Word with a Concordance and a lexicon and be careful of Bible dictionaries. Many times they will guess at the meaning of a term. Let me take this example right now concerning entanglements. I really have a fire in my heart to teach the Word of God to others. But I am teaching about entanglements. Now notice how many other subjects I have touched on. I have to take control right now because I may become entangled in my variety of subjects as to veer off from my main point. You see how easy it is to become entangled. One of the solutions I wanted to present to you I might as well do right now. Keep things that you do as simple as possible. Remember, you can never make something too simple in your life. When things in your life become rather complicated, watch the source.

We were talking about how people can become so far off from the true Word of God. We concluded that it is because they do not rightly divide the Word of God. Somewhere along the line, they have listened to a person that they admired and esteemed very highly. You have to be very careful of this and now I’m going to let God tell you why.

And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. -- II Corinthians 11: 14

Now here is another major principle that you must always remember. I know I may sound quite serious in this teaching because this is a serious matter and subject. Satan can fool you if you are not sharp enough. He is the one that is going to get you entangled unless you are spiritually sharp enough to know the true Word of God. Let us say that someone is trying to convince you to make a change in your life. You have an uneasy feeling inside yourself, which is your heart, about this person who is trying to convince you to make this change. Many times, this is how I can see that something is trying to get at me that is of satanic origin. Also, this person may be in great financial condition and have a fancy car and seem to have everything that you want. Well, who you think the god of this world is going to prosper? He is surely not going to make an effort to prosper a believer. My prosperity comes from the true God. But he does prosper his people and he may give them all the money that they want. These people flaunt this prosperity to try and trick you.

Some of you may know that I taught guitar lessons at one time. One of my students was into transcendental meditation. I know where this is coming from, but yet I made a major mistake. The student was extremely attractive and she was from California and I was kind of impressed. That’s all Satan needed. She recommended a type of diet for me where I just wanted to lose about 5 or10 pounds. I took her advice and eventually the diet entangled my mind where that was all that I was thinking about. The main point is that this type of diet was extremely dangerous. I woke up one morning and I could not think. I will not get into details, but my life was almost destroyed from that point on. God help me to put it back together. It was my own fault. But do you see how Satan approached me? Oh, I was always one for the pretty girls and she was quite outstanding. Satan blinded me pertaining to what she was telling me to do. I had one other situation similar to this and I’m going to share it with you quickly.

I dated another girl from a different area that was deeply involved in astrology. This is an occult involvement. She recommended I see a certain person for a physical reason. This Doctor, I had eventually seen, only cared about money. I sat for the last time in this dentist’s chair for a little over one hour and he charged me $1000. Some of that work fell apart within one month. I never went back. But you see it was my fault and I’m sharing this with you so that you learn by my experiences. Never take advice from someone who is involved in any field that even hints towards being occult. A great leader once said that whatever advice anyone in the world gives you, just do the opposite and you’ll be fine. Now let’s get back to II Corinthians – the next verse.

Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works. -- II Corinthians 11: 15

Let me put those three Scriptures together for you so you can have a clearer understanding of what God is saying in this section of II Corinthians, chapter 11. Try reading the three Scriptures below and skipping over the Scripture references.

For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. – II Corinthians 11: 13

And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. -- II Corinthians 11: 14

Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works. -- II Corinthians 11: 15

I only want this to be as clear to you as is possible. Now, I am finally going to get into some specific references concerning entanglements.

I know a person who was extremely successful in the area of nutrition and weight loss. This person was asked to make many public appearances and fly from one city to another. This person was getting involved in too many entanglements at one time. It’s sad to say that this person was quite young and he was so successful that he could not fall asleep at night. He wound up going to doctors to give him something to fall asleep. He was always socializing and began to drink alcohol on top of the medicine that the doctor gave him. Well, you know the story. One night he fell asleep and he never woke up. This person was Mark Hughes who founded Herbalife. This company is still around and is run by somebody else. Herbalife was a pyramid company as I found out later on after I was quite involved. I liked to help people lose weight and I found the work was very interesting and rewarding. I met and had 200 customers in one small town. When I found out that Mark Hughes had died, I felt very sad. Here was a person that was extremely good-looking, very intelligent, and very successful. He took on more than he could handle - entanglement after entanglement - and it killed him.

Now this is a great example of what happens to some believers once they are seriously involved in God’s Word and then for some reason, they are tricked out and they leave the ministry that God has called them to. Again, I have some personal experience in what is said in this next verse of Scripture. Believe me, you never want to turn your back on God once you have studied His Word. This is real.

For it after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning. – II Peter 2: 20

Read between the lines here. The word ‘pollutions’ in this verse means ‘to be stained’ ‘dyed’ or ‘defiled’. Take a look back for a few moments and remember what your life was like before you turned to God and got born again. It was like you walked around and your skin was dyed a different color and you are involved in nothing but things that defiled you. Life was like hell, wasn’t it? God says that you escaped the pollutions that entangled you. If you, by our own free will, are lured back into the world, you will again become entangled, but this time it will be worse than before you got born again. Again, I don’t mean to scare people, but I must speak the truth. I did not write the book. What happens is this. If you did a lot for God and you decide to walk away, who do you think is going to be waiting for you? That’s what happens to believers who cop out on God and His Word. This is a marvelous verse and God is simply giving us a warning because He loves us. He doesn’t want to see any harm come to us. He only asks that we do His Will because it is the best way for us to live. I think I got my point across and every sane person knows what it means to be entangled. Here are a few more examples.

Gambling – My earthly father liked to gamble. He once told me that he lost his house in 20 minutes in Las Vegas. He was fortunate to win it back. He never went back to this deadly entanglement. [See the teaching “Gambling – You Lose”.]

Alcohol in excess – I watched a beautiful woman with a heart of gold become entangled with alcoholism. She sipped on beer during the day until the habit entangled her and she drank more and more. The entanglement killed her.

Drugs – How about this pain killer epidemic? How many people became addicted and died? They became entangled with something they could no longer control.

Spiritualism – I told you about this. You might as well buy your cemetery plot. This is the deadliest form of entanglements that I know of.

Too many Credit Cards – I pay for about 97% of what I purchase with cash. I never once paid interest on any credit card. Not once. People are blinded to know that they have to pay the credit card company eventually! So they keep flashing that plastic until they are buried in debt. Then they are entangled in excessive debt and start to get their car repossessed, maybe lose their house and don’t even have enough money to buy food. A believer can’t understand how a person can be so irrational. But to the person caught in that trap, Satan just blinds him so that he cannot think clearly. God is not first and that person reaps the results of his unbelief.

Workaholic (love of money) – I know a woman who goes to work at about 8:30 AM and comes home at about 7:30 PM. It’s the love of money, people. She constantly has contractors at her house tearing her house apart. Rip out one sink and put in a different color. Tear down a perfectly good deck and put up a black one. She buys a Lexus and then trades it in for a Mercedes. HERE’S THE CLINCHER. I hardly ever see her come out of her house. She won’t lift a finger to work in her yard. I never saw her wash her car. Why? She has no time for herself because she is entangled in her jobs (she has two of them) and all the money she makes. You have to see it to understand and believe it. She’s on her 3^rd husband. This is only meant to be used as a teaching tool. This is not criticism. It is what can happen with too many entanglements. No peace and no longer can you enjoy the simple things in life. I feel bad for this woman.

Overeating – I’ve been watching what I eat since 1977. I use a juicer – a special hrydrogenized water picture and I never stop exercising. Why do I stay with such a regimen? Rarely, do I go to a restaurant and never to a fast food restaurant. If you ever worked in a restaurant, then you might understand why. People overeat because of the way food is grown today. Twenty or thirty years ago, one apple had the nutritional value of 3 apples today. That’s right. People eat and then they are still hungry. So they eat more and more to feel full. The habit to eat overcomes them and entangles them to the point where it gets out of control. They try to lose weight and they fail. Why? There are so many gimmicks in this area, it’s a crime. There is only one way to lose weight and that is to burn off more calories than you consume. It’s simple but it takes constant discipline. Eat 3000 calories and burn off 2000 and you gain weight. And the opposite is true. People are after your money – don’t fall for it. This advice is based on 40+ years of experience. I am 1&7/8 pounds overweight right now. I weigh myself every Saturday morning. Don’t give up or you will become entangled in this trap by Satan and it will destroy your health.

You have an idea of only a few ways in which you can become entangled in Satan’s web. Remember that you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you. You have to believe and act upon it and you will see results.

Try to do everything in moderation. Keep God FIRST and everything will fall into place. Every time you are tempted, it is from the wrong God. Temptations can entangle you – walk away. You have free will. There’s great freedom in discipline.

If God Almighty created life, don’t you think that He knows how to live it?

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