The third in the triad: accusation, temptation and deception. This one is perhaps the most subtle one. Vey subtle when one of the doors in is the door of truth.
I discover that I have been deceived does not come at the moment that I might be deceived, rather it comes much later. I drive in my car, I am driving from A to B and I think I know the road fairly well. Location ‘C’ is not on the way… My radio is playing away, I enjoy the ride; I jump off at a service station, get back in and carry on my way… Two hours later I should be getting close now to ‘B’, so I check the next signpost to see if it will give me a distance marker. Shock, horror it states ‘C: 10 kilometers’. I am not deceived when I see the signpost – that is my moment of reality to let me know that some time back I took a wrong turn. The sign told me I was already deceived.
OUCH.
Back in 2005 I was in a particular country and somehow I saw the future about the political realm. ‘The candidate who enters your presidency in ’08 will not be the person you are hoping for, praying for, prophesying will be successful… but you need to embrace him (yes I used masculine language)… if you do not embrace him you will get a double blow in ’12’.
Lo and behold the ‘non-popular person to the Christian (charismatic) population’ got elected in ’08 and ’12. (Followed I consider by the ‘one God would really choose if we were God’ in 16… either then seen as we are back on track, or raising the question of where did we go wrong?)
Asking the question of where did we go wrong takes bravery because, as per my driving illustration above, we will probably find we are just a few kilometers from location ‘C’. Yes we were heading for ‘B’, but getting back to that path will take so long, and hey ‘C’ might just be a great place to get to.
When we discover we are deceived we need to go back to the wrong turn. Takes time, and the recent part of the journey seems such a waste. As far as the journey goes it was a waste; as far as God at work in us there is no such thing as wasted time. Go back is the best piece of advice.
And the ’08, ’12 scenario? I added at the end of what I brought that ‘this will happen to show that you are already deceived’. That is sobering. In the situation there is a truth, a door that was gone through, that the church is there with a responsibility to transform society… a door that is not a problem, but maybe the excitement of that understanding or undealt with issues of control, desire for power just messed it all up.
The devil deceives. Not normally with ‘jump off this cliff now…’ No. The door of appeal is something that is ‘of God’ and then our excesses, undealt with inner issues, naivety or whatever just takes us beyond where we should tread. It is said that all ‘error contains half-truths’.
Scepticism is healthy. If I hear, for example (big picture), of unreserved approval for a certain leader who has said some pretty damaging things about women, has a ‘gift’ to insult everyone who is different to themselves, I think the minimum response should be ‘I am not so sure’. (Such a disguised paragraph with no names added.)
We got to go deeper than naivety, enthusiasm.
Big picture, but at the smaller picture of my life, I want to get through the door that God opens, go through it with faith, and take along with me a measure of scepticism, and certainly healthy questioning. I might end up being deceived, if so I back up and just get on course again on my journey to ‘B’.
Yes I agree.Sometime a go my granddaughter’s friend started to send his mail to our address I didn’t mind at first but then he changed his address to ours and his bills and registered at our address to vote and so on his bank and was looking for a Dr. to.I had certainly been deceived gradually at first. Anyway last January I was praying about th3 new year and what to change and give to the Lord and th3 Lord crealy said weigh your scales with honesty make sure your scales r balanced with the right weights I knew immediately this was talking about my granddaughter’s boyfriend if we want to be right and please God we can’t please man.Anyway the long and the short of it I told him and I said why to as he is a muslim now he has started again so suttle the enemy is.