The most powerful force at work on earth other than the Holy Spirit is deception. What made me think of this was hearing of yet another evangelist falling for gold, girls and glory. He traded his ministry, marriage and all that was important for some temporary pleasures. Deception is powerful and its nature destructive.
The Bible contains many examples of deception and its consequences. The story of Samson in Judges 16 is a notable one. Delilah deceived him, cut his hair, and his supernatural strength left. Verse 20 reads, ‘Then she called, “Samson, the Philistines are upon you!” He awoke from his sleep and thought, “I’ll go out as before and shake myself free. ” But he did not know that the LORD had left him. Then the Philistines seized him, gouged out his eyes and took him down to Gaza. Binding him with bronze shackles, they set him to grinding in the prison.’ The worst thing about being deceived is you are unaware it has happened until it’s too late. Samson didn’t know the Lord had departed. He thought he still had his supernatural strength. Deception blinded him to the truth and subtly led him away. It gouged out Samson’s spiritual eyes long before his physical ones.
Adam and Eve’s fall in Genesis 3 demonstrates some deception facts. And we should take notice of them. The first step in being deceived is listening to and believing a lie. The fruit was as good as eaten once the lie was believed. Once the lie had been accepted it was followed by sound reasoning as we see with Eve in verse 6: ‘When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.’ Deception has astonishing reasoning power (ask anyone who has been in an affair). When you find yourself reasoning a lot over something, beware; you may have believed a lie.
Deception only ever follows a lie; this is what gives it away. This is our chance to identify it. Once we move past this point we are no longer in control. Identify the lie and you’ve caught deception; walk on, and it’s caught you.
God’s word is truth (John 17:17) and the Holy Spirit is the spirit of truth. Jesus said in John 16:13, ‘But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth’. The Holy Spirit reveals truth, and deception can’t operate around truth; truth blows its cover. Without the Holy Spirit we haven’t a hope. Because of ‘the fall’ we are all born into sin and deception. The Holy Spirit must reveal the truth and take the blindfold off or we cannot be saved.
Deception is such a sinister foe because of its undercover ability. It secretly adjusts our guidance and value system. It mixes black and white and turns it into grey. Have you ever known people who are fully convinced something is now right that, earlier, they knew was absolutely wrong? Unfortunately for these people with a new value system, God’s hasn’t changed His. They are still accountable to His absolutes.
It all seems quite daunting, doesn’t it? Miss the lie, lose round one, and deception has nailed you. We must be confident about this fact - identifying the lie isn’t difficult because we have the Holy Spirit and God’s word. The combination of these two is more protection than we will ever need. There is no need to be concerned about being tricked by lies and deception when we are in regular contact with these all-powerful forces of truth. Lies and deception stick out a mile away.
I don’t think our problem is identifying the lie; our problem is we don’t want to believe and act on what we know is the truth. Our trouble is we are selfish and have an appetite for pleasure. We don’t want to deny ourselves. To some, short-term pleasure is all that matters. I think some of us want to be deceived so we can feel good and comfortable about our actions and lack of self-control. I wonder if the Ten Commandments mean anything to God any more, because they certainly don’t seem to mean a lot to the modern, politically correct church. My goodness, let us not offend anyone with the truth! God doesn’t really mean what He says about envy, immorality, lust, greed, homosexuality, sin, does He? If our heart attitude is not to rid ourselves of these things for our own good, and desire to become like Jesus, then God might just mean what He says about those who practise such things - you have no inheritance in the Kingdom of God/heaven.