Jesus said in Matthew 7:13-14, "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. (14) But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
Apostle Paul wrote to the church at Corinth saying, "(18) Do not deceive yourselves. If any one of you thinks he is wise by the standards of this age, he should become a "fool" so that he may become wise. (19) For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God's sight. As it is written: "He catches the wise in their craftiness:, (20) and again, "The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile." 1 Corinthians 3:18-20
As human beings, we must face the fact that we are susceptible to deception. It seems that we are most vulnerable to deception when we think that we know all the answers. In other words, when our hearts are full of pride, we are in an ideal state to be deceived. In a prophecy against the King of Tyre, the Lord says in Ezekiel 28:2, "In the pride of your heart you say, "I am a god; I sit on the throne of a god in the heart of the seas." But you are a man and not a god , though you think you are as wise as a god." As you read further in the chapter, God allows destruction to come upon them in the form of foreign enemies to wake them up to the reality of their deceptive thinking.
Not only are we susceptible to deception, but we have an enemy who tries to deceive us. In one of the most famous stories in history, the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis, we are told how the serpent deceived Eve. Genesis 3:13 says, "Then the Lord God said to the woman, "What have you done?" The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate." The devil's ultimate goal is to deceive us and lead us into disobedience of God's laws and commands. Not only do we offend God when we disobey, but we ultimately hurt ourselves.
Our pain and destruction is just what the enemy wants. God created us in His image and likeness, and in doing so, he literally gave us what the devil always wanted. The devil always wanted to be like God. That is one of the main reasons the devil wants to destroy us. We have what he wants, the image and likeness of God.
In his pride, the devil thought he could become God and rebelled against Him. Later in chapter 27 of Ezekiel, which many theologians believe is prophetic insight about the devil, we get a greater understanding of what he looked like and what he was thinking before God threw him out of heaven. Ezekiel 28:17 specifically says, "Your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor. So I threw you to the earth; I made a spectacle of you before kings."
The devil tempts us today in the same way. Through deceptive thinking, humans begin to deify themselves and as a result always end up devaluing God. In Genesis 3:4 the serpent tells Eve, "You will not surely die," "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." The greatest deception for humanity is to try and become like God in our own wisdom and strength.
Solomon, one of the wisest men to ever live, understood how even he needed divine help to overcome deception. He wrote in Proverbs 29:7-8, "Two things I ask of you, O Lord; do not refuse me before I die: (8) Keep falsehood and lies far from me." One of the two things Solomon asked God for was to keep him from deception.
Stay tuned for part 2.
1 comment:
I can't remember if it was Mark Twain who said this, but when asked what the world's biggest problem was, the reply was: "The problem with the world is not that so many people know so little, but that they know so much that is wrong."
Adam Goldman
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