Dear Jesus,
I thank you that I am not like others. They may be deceived, but I thank you that I know the truth.
They get their news from _____________, but I watch ___________ (the only fact-based news outlet. News which almost comes from the Bible itself).
They rarely go to church, but I go twice a week.
They support all kinds of questionable people, but I don’t because I know that they deserve the suffering they are experiencing.
I know that Satan, the seven-headed Dragon, is the bad guy! And boy, does he have them under his spell. But, I thank you that he hasn’t deceived me!
Thank you, God.
Sincerely, me.
Satan masquerades as Good
The problem with the notion of deception among many Christians today is that it often comes with the conception that the lies are out there. In here, we believe the truth. In fact, we know that we are not deceived because we follow the One who is Himself the Truth (John 14:6).
Somehow, we seem to have forgotten the fact that Satan doesn’t actually look like the seven-headed dragon that the book of Revelation describes (Rev 12:3). In fact, he appears as good! Paul says, “for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light” (2 Cor 11:14).
If Satan appears to be good, then might he even look like a Christian? (This is a key feature of the book of Revelation’s description of the Dragon, the Beast, the False Prophet, and the Great Prostitute as I will explain below.)
NB: Subscribe to the Determinetruth YouTube page. In the upcoming weeks, we will be posting recorded videos on the Beast, the False Prophet, and the Great Prostitute and what is means for the Church today.
The Great Deceiver works inside the Church
We need to recognize that deception is the Devil’s primary weapon. And he uses it to deceive the Church! In other words, Satan enters our churches and deceives from the inside.
This is what Paul’s “Man of Lawlessness” is about in 2 Thess 2:3-10. Paul says, “he [the Man of Lawlessness] takes his seat in the temple of God” (2 Thess 2:4). The phrase “temple of God” is used throughout the New Testament to refer to either the body of Jesus or the Church (“For we are the temple of the living God”; 2 Cor 6:16).
This is why Jesus warns His disciples: “See to it that no one misleads you” (Mark 13:5). Then, He adds, “False Christs and false prophets will arise . . . in order to lead astray, if possible, the elect” (Mark 13:22). It was the apostles that were in danger of being deceived.
Similarly, Paul warns the Ephesian elders, “I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them” (Acts 20:29–30). Once again, we see the danger of deception from within the churches.
Even the famed “antichrist” passage notes that the Antichrist comes from within the church: “Just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have appeared; from this we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not really of us” (1 John 2:18b-19a). These “antichrists” left the Church.
This is not to say that the nations are not also deceived. It is merely to affirm that if we want to find deception, we should also be looking within our own fold and not simply “out there.”
What if deception looked like . . .
. . . a Pastor with a best-selling book?
. . . a Mega Church with hundreds of baptisms each month, but minimal transformation?;
. . . a Bible study focused on knowing the Word, but with little effort at doing what it says?
Now, I could go on with such a list, but herein lies the problem. The Devil is so good at deceiving us that none of us believes that these things are true of us.
Indeed, our pastor is transforming the church with his best-selling book (I’m thrilled to have a signed copy).
Our baptisms are proof that we are transforming lives.
Our Bible study group is diligent about doing what the Bible says.
What is your conception of the 2nd and 3rd century Churches?
A few weeks ago, I conducted an informal poll on my Facebook page to gauge people’s thoughts. I asked, “What is your conception of the 2-3c Church?”
As I expected, many had a somewhat romantic conception of the early Church. I was intentional in asking about the 2nd-3rd century Church because I suspected that if I asked about the 1st century Church, they might have an even more romantic view.
This raises a question:
Then, why did John write Revelation?
If we have a romantic conception of the early church, then it stands to reason that they were getting along fairly well.
One of the reasons behind the writing of the book of Revelation was to warn the Churches about the incompatibility of following Christ and conspiring with the empire. This is why John says, “Come out of her, my people” (Rev 18:4).
NB: On July 10 at 5:00 PST / 8:00 EST, Prof Jason Staples and I will discuss/debate the identity of the Great Prostitute and what it means today! This is a critical conversation. This link remains active even after the live event has ended.
This doesn’t square with our perception of the church, though. If they were getting along well, then they certainly hadn’t gone to bed with the Beast.
But John wrote the book of Revelation specifically because many of them had done so.
Deception is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, threats to the Church.
In Revelation, the letter to the church in Thyatira (they are “prophetic messages” and not letters) states, “But I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and leads My bond-servants astray” (Rev 2:20).
The false prophetess was in the Church. They had embraced her. They had been deceived by her!
But I dare say they thought she was good! They didn’t think she was a false prophetess. They believed she was true. In fact, many in the Church in Thyatira may well have denounced John as the false prophet.
Yet, today, many Christians, and virtually all of the end times pundits, point to things “out there” as “signs of the times.” They are desperately waiting for some “antichrist” figure to arise, never considering the notion that the Antichrist comes from within the Church. Many today are obsessed with wars in the Middle East, devastation, destruction, and famines across the globe, the rise of the UN or the EU (from which some alleged antichrist will appear), and they are masters of Russophobia, Islamophobia, and much more.
All the while remaining convinced that all of these “signs” indicate the imminent return of Jesus.
Others, who don’t assign any significance to such matters with respect to the end of the world, still maintain a considerable measure of ambivalence to them.
This, my friends, is part of the deception of the age. We have been seduced by the empire not merely to be comfortable in our lives, but also so that we will fail to carry forth the very mission to which Christ has called us.
The Devil’s brilliant. He’s winning. And we don’t seem to know it.
Why am I saying all of this?
Because unless we are willing to acknowledge that we may have been deceived, the debates related to the wars in Gaza, Ukraine, Iran, Yemen, and Sudan, as well as the settler violence in the West Bank, the attacks on immigration, the churches embrace of nationalism, the devastation of the environment and the roll backs on environmental concerns, and the many other issues that plague our world, will be futile.
The fact that many believe that Jesus doesn’t care about these matters reinforces my contention that we have been deceived.
What if we should not be looking “out there” for deception, but inwardly? Have we overlooked the possibility that we are the ones being deceived?
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