MID-WEEK MANNA FROM PASTOR NAT’S DESK:
December 27, 2023
DECEPTION: THE DEADLIEST FORM OF SATANIC WRATH Series
(“To be forewarned is to be forearmed.”)
“And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in My name, saying, I am Christ: and deceive many.” Matt. 24:4, K.J.V. Deception heads the list of Christ’s familiar ‘mini Apocalypse’ recorded in Matt. 24:1-51, given in answer to His disciples’ two-part question of time and circumstance: “WHEN shall these things be? And WHAT shall be the sign of Thy [second] coming, and of the END of the world?” vs 1-3. A parallel chapter to this is Luke 21: 1-36. Read it.
Beginning with Eve’s fall first, followed by Adam’s, rendering thereafter all “their seed” as sinners till the close of earth’s second and last probation, there are two general classes of sinners, where deception in all its forms and variations are concerned, namely: the honestly deceived and the willingly ignorant.
An example of the former is the Pharisee Saul, the over zealous persecutor of Christ’s earliest followers before his dramatic conversion and amazing transformation to Paul, Christ’s leading “apostle to the Gentiles” after His resurrection. Hear his confession and testimony: “And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that He counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry; who was before a blasphemer, and a PERSECUTOR, and injurious: but obtained mercy, because I DID IT IGNORANTLY in unbelief.” 1 Tim. 1: 12, 13, KJV (emphasis mine).
In verse 15 he reveals the spirit and attitude of all previously honestly-deceived but were convicted when they saw the light of truth, then were transformed by grace. “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to SAVE SINNERS, OF WHOM I AM CHIEF.”
The latter are revealed as countless by another apostle: “Knowing this first, there shall come in the LAST DAYS, SCOFFERS, walking in their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of His [second] coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation: for this they WILLINGLY ARE IGNORANT OF.” (Read verses 5-18 for fuller context).” 1 Pet. 3: 3-5, KJV.
Therefore, remember this: When the honestly deceived see the truth they will cease to be deceived, or else they cease to be honest and join the class of the willingly ignorant, thereby ending up willingly deceived!
Added to this is the fearful truth, first manifested and demonstrated in Eden—-that one who becomes deceived, soon becomes a deceiver himself. Mark this: After being deceived into yielding to the serpent’s cunning temptation, Instead of faithfully functioning as a “helpmate” to her husband, Eve, the woman became the first agent of the master deceiver and ‘father of lies.”
The difference makers here are clearly “the truth as it is in Jesus,” (“to the law and testimony,” in “it is written” only), and the rational individual’s exercise of willing and voluntary choice, as a free moral agent endowed with will power in response to the conviction of his conscience by the Holy Spirit.
As someone put it so succinctly: “If a man deceived me once, shame on him; if twice, shame on me.”
Self-deception resulting from
self-love, self-worship, self-promotion, self-confidence, and all forms of self-centeredness are all fatal to the soul.
Only in and through Christ Jesus, the self-denying, self-sacrificing incarnated Creator, Savior, and Example can any and all sinners receive His Life and Light of truth that will dispel the darkness of sinful and willful ignorance of sin through the tempter’s cunning and deadly deceptions!
More souls will lose both temporal and eternal life through Satan’s tender and subtle deceptions rather than his wrathful persecutions. We will show this next time.
To be continued next MWM, God willing. Bless all, NMF.