I have been hearing about deceiving and being deceived, not really understanding what it meant. Those verses are speaking of leaders being deceived and deceiving others. People say when you are deceived you don’t know you are being deceived; I beg to differ. I am not saying people cannot be deceived, what I’m saying is there’s a way to see if you are, but you must be able to admit that you may be wrong. If a person can admit that they are wrong, then you my friend will see through the deception.
There are many different views on the truth today, and this is where the confusion begins in us all. The world has move away from all truth (which is God) to everyone can have their own truth. I can tell you with great certainty that there is only one truth and that is in Jesus Christ our Savior.
I will provide you with some verses that will clearly explain this to you all, but I just want to continue with my thought process on this matter. I know some of this you probably have read in one of my blogs but I will mention it here as well. The issue is that we do not want to sir come to the authority of our lord and savior and this is from the very beginning. It began after God took them out of Egypt the Jews went through a lot to get to their destination. After they got settled God started to lay out the plan, He had for them and how it would be executed, but the people wanted something different. I am going to add my two cent here because what they did God could have just had easily have said he is done and just wipe us all off the face of the earth. See these are things that people do not look at carefully enough. When I see acts like this from us and see the reaction from God not being of condemnation, I see a long suffering great and loving God that cannot be compared too. People say why does he let so much wrongs to go on, but I say why is He so loving to a world that does not even want Him. We are looking at this through the wrong set of lenses and that is why we are being miss led. Ok I will get off my soap box now.
So, here is what they decided, they decide that they wanted a King like all the other kingdoms to rule over them, then to have God rule over them. Now, let’s be real looking at what they did to our Lord and Savior and tell me how you would have reacted if you were Him in this situation. Be honest come on we all know instead of what God did we would have done thing differently. Just in case you have not heard of the story in 1Samuel about this, here’s the story from the bible.
1 Samuel 8:5-8
5 and said to him, “Behold, you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations.” 6 But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to judge us.” And Samuel prayed to the Lord. 7 And the Lord said to Samuel, “Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. 8 According to all the deeds that they have done, from the day I brought them up out of Egypt even to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are also doing to you.
1 Samuel 12:17 ESV
Is it not wheat harvest today? I will call upon the Lord, that he may send thunder and rain. And you shall know and see that your wickedness is great, which you have done in the sight of the Lord, in asking for yourselves a king.”
I added this because in many ways this is one of the key components of why we are easily deceived. Let’s continue;
1 Timothy 4:1 ESV
Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, 2 through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, 3 who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. 4 For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving,
I want to unpack these set of verses because someone asked me about tofu type food and how the world wanted to go vegan. This verse to me explains why I feel that this is a plot from the enemy to make us go against the order that God has created. See in the beginning of the chapter God says that some will depart from the faith and devote themselves to the teachings of demons and right after that God give us a list of things to look for; (just wanted to add my two cents on this)
1. They will speak against marriage.
2. Being thought by the spirits of demons
3. He speaks about liars
4. God spoke about their consciences being seared.
5. And here it is, abstinence from food Gods says is good.
See if you look at what is happening here, this is also part of the deception, where the world makes it looks like they care for you while drawing you away from God order.
Matthew 24:4-8,10-12
4 Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. 5 For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many. 6 You will hear of wars and rumors of wars but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. 7 Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. 8 All these are the beginning of birth pains.
10 At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, 11 and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. 12 Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold,
Romans 16:18 ESV
For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive.
Colossians 2:8 ESV
See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.
Now here are the two chapters that speaks of how we can truly know that we are not deceived. Don’t know about you guys, but this was truly a blessing to me because I believe that there was no way of knowing but here in these verses you will see that you can know.
2 Timothy 3:12-17
12 Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, 13 while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. 14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom[a] you learned it 15 and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God[b] may be complete, equipped for every good work.
Matthew 24:24 ESV
For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.
This here speaks of the same thing that fake people will not be able to confuse us because of our Lord and savior and the true desire to be with him.
Comments