Jesus answered:”Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many. ~ Matthew 24: 4-5
Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. ~ 1 Corinthians 6: 9-10
But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. ~ 1 Corinthians 11: 3
The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. ~ 1 Timothy 4: 1
Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. ~ James 1: 16
Over and over, we are told in the Bible not to be deceived, and yet, people are still deceived daily. I get email nearly every day telling me about a long-lost relative from Nigeria who has left me millions. I also have to say that the number of iPads I have won on the internet and the number of iPads I own are very different numbers. We’ve heard of the people who go door to door after some tragedy or natural disaster, collecting money for the victims, only to find out later that they were not in fact collecting money for the victims, but instead have created victims by stealing their money. People are deceived all the time. As a general rule, it appears that the human population is overwhelmingly gullible, believing what we are told because we want to believe the best of people. We don’t want to believe that there are people who would use the suffering of others to steal money from us. We do want to believe in the generosity of a long-lost relative with a different last name from a fork in the family tree that we never knew existed before.
I also think that part of the problem is with deception itself. By definition, deception is using trickery or fraud to make people believe that they are doing the right thing. No one responds to the email about receiving an inheritance from a long-lost Nigerian relative because they think that it isn’t true. They have been tricked into believing that they actually have a relative from whom they have inherited a large sum of money. They believe that it’s true. The victims of the Madoff Ponzi scam believed that they were doing the right thing. From a biblical standpoint, Eve was deceived. She was tricked into believing that she was doing the right thing. She thought that she was furthering her knowledge. And in that she wasn’t wrong. She just didn’t understand the consequences of doing so.
So, if you’re following me here, the Bible tells us not to be deceived about several things – sin, false teachers and even people who claim to be Jesus. The problem is, when we become deceived, we don’t know it until it’s too late. We have been tricked into believing that a lie is the truth. We think that we’re doing the right thing. So how do we not become deceived in the first place? Obviously it’s possible, or God would not have told us in his Word that we should not be deceived. I think the key is that we have to know The Truth in the first place. I don’t mean that we have to be aware that a truth exists. We have to know what The Truth is. Let me put it this way: if someone were to come to me and say that my wife, Mary, just called and wanted me to loan them $20 for gas, I would not be deceived. Why? Because my wife’s name is Penny. How do I know that? Because I have been married to her for nearly 35 years. We have a relationship. I know The Truth concerning my wife’s name. I’m not saying that it’s not possible to deceive me. I too have been the victim of deceptive people. But the Bible makes it clear that people will attempt to deceive us about some very important things. It also makes it clear that we are not to be fooled into believing the lies that these people will tell us in order to deceive us. If you look at the verses above, each warning is followed by The Truth. It will take a little work on our parts not to fall into the trap of deception, but I believe that we can avoid the typical pitfalls that the enemy uses to deceive us if we will just learn The Truth for ourselves.
In Matthew 24, Jesus is talking to his disciples about his return to earth. He warns them not to be deceived because many people will come claiming to be Jesus. How will we recognize that these people are not actually Jesus? He shows us The Truth in verses 26 and 27. “So if anyone tells you, ‘There he is, out in the wilderness,’ do not go out; or, ‘Here he is, in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it. For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.” The Truth in this instance is not to believe that Jesus is in a particular place. He says that just as lightning that strikes is visible many miles away, his return will be visible to everyone on the earth at the same time (verse 30). This is how we do not get deceived.
In 1 Corinthians, Paul is giving this church general guidelines for how to behave as Christians: Don’t act like you did before you came to know The Truth concerning Jesus. Apparently, many in this church (like many in today’s churches) were part of the congregation, but were still acting like they used to act. They were no different from unbelievers. They thought they were doing the right thing. So Paul gives them instructions that start with “Do not be deceived…” And then he gives them The Truth. “Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” Paul was aware that this is what was going on in the church. These people thought that they were OK. Paul is telling them that they have been deceived. Tricked into believing a lie. The Truth is that people who do “these things” will not inherit the kingdom of God. How do they know they have been deceived? Because Paul gives them The Truth concerning their behavior.
Proverbs 8: 17 says that those who seek God diligently will find him. We often seek God through the words or experiences of others, and not through our own efforts. The key word in this verse is diligently. If you knew for certain that there was a large sum of money buried in your backyard, would you dig one hole and give up if that effort didn’t produce the money? Of course you wouldn’t. You would keep digging holes until you found the money. You would work diligently to find that money. That’s the sense of seeking that God is talking about here. If you attended church this past weekend and listened to a message without discovering The Truth about something in your life, then you are not seeking diligently. Don’t expect your pastor to seek God diligently for you. You need to do your own seeking. It reminds me of Jeff Foxworthy’s routine “You might be a redneck.” Only in this version it is called “You might be deceived”. If you listened to a preacher this weekend and didn’t question anything he said….. you might be deceived. If you read a book recently and didn’t check to see if the Bible verses were used in context….. you might be deceived.
In Matthew 13, Jesus tells a parable about wheat and weeds. A man had a field where he planted wheat. But his enemy came while he was asleep and planted weeds in his wheat. As the wheat grew, so did the weeds. The mans servant came to him and told him about the weeds that were growing in his wheat field. The servant asked if they should go through the field and start pulling up the weeds. The owner of field replied “No…because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’” ~ Matthew 13: 29 – 30. There are weeds out there. There are Christians who do not live as Christians. There are pastors who do not preach the gospel. There are preachers on TV who are self-serving businessmen. Certainly not every pastor is a deceiver any more than every preacher on TV is a charlatan. But some of them are. They are weeds in the wheat field. They are there to deceive us. All of us have the propensity to be deceived. As Christians, many of us think we’re doing the right thing when we tune into that guy on TV that we love to hear preach. We think we’re doing the right thing when we attend church and listen to our pastor preach a message. We think we’re doing the right thing when we read a blog like this. The problem is that none of those things are The Truth. My hope is to point you toward The Truth in this blog, but if you just believe everything I say without searching for The Truth yourself, then I have failed. Jesus said that he was The Truth. Unless we know that Truth as well as I know the name of my wife, it’s possible for us to be deceived.
Deception is powerful. That’s why God warns us about it in the Bible. We want to do the right thing, and we think we are doing the right thing, but if we’re walking in unfamiliar territory, we may be deceived. The Bible says that there is a way that seems right… but its end is death. I urge you to seek God diligently. Set aside time in your busy schedule for seeking. Pray. Read. Seek. Diligently seek. Above all, become so familiar with God and his Word that it would be difficult to deceive you. Seek diligently. And watch that no one deceives you.