‘Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. ‘ Matthew 24:4 NIV
‘Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. See, I have told you ahead of time. ‘ Matthew 24:4, 24-25 NIV
Jesus warned us. Jesus told us not to let anyone deceive us. Jesus told the disciples, before his death, what would happen to signal the end of this age. Jesus said the deception would be so great that if it were possible even God’s elect could be deceived. Jesus warned us ahead of time so we would know.
Deception is Satan’s greatest weapon. Satan deceived Eve in the garden. Satan is the father of lies. Satan seeks to distort the truth of God. Today there is a lot of deception and we have to be able to recognize it.
To identify deception we must study the truth (the authentic). Truth only comes from God. Unfortunately, in today’s society we have promoted the idea that truth depends on the individual. You have your truth and I have my truth. It is the core belief of humanism; and the denial that we serve and absolute true God and what He deems to be true is true.
Satan deceives the world in so many ways but his ultimate goal is to deceive the Children of God. By deceiving us he can quench our power and authority given to us by Jesus. Satan will distort the authenticity of Christians through apostasy. He will get some who have known the truth to deliberately deny the truth and abandon the faith. This is what Jesus warned us against.
None of us are immune from deception. We must guard our hearts and minds against being deceived. Paul tells us exactly what we must do to avoid such deception – become lovers of the truth and get saved.
‘And all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. ‘ 2 Thessalonians 2:10 NIV
Let us explore God’s truth together through the reading of His word.
Reflections 