DECEIVERS AMONG US

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Then I said, “Alas, Sovereign Lord! How completely you have deceived this people and Jerusalem by saying, ‘You will have peace,’ when the sword is at our throats!”

Jeremiah 4:10

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

You know, we’re a people who typically only listen to what we really want to hear.

It’s true, isn’t it?

I think it starts when we are very young and in our teenage years, you know, those years when we loved to rebel against authority.

Our parents would tell us not to do something and, of course, that’s not what we really wanted to hear because we so wanted to do the opposite of what they were telling us. After all, we had friends who we believed were better advisors anyways because they would always counter what our parents said and that meant telling us exactly what we wanted to hear.

Too bad we chose to listen to deceivers who were among us, people who really didn’t know what was in our best interest, people who enabled us to travel the path of sinful disobedience instead of listening to the wise counsel of our parents.

Unfortunately, we never outgrow this tendency to be deceived by the words of others and continue to fail and fall in this way as we become adults. This world surrounds us with enticements and temptations, so many that we lose sight of the ways the God want us to walk. Instead of remaining loyal to His word and way, we give into our desires and the advice of others to give into our impulses and live life to the fullest. Deceivers today implore us to live for today and with abandon because we only live once. We’re encouraged to do whatever feels good, to do our own thing without worry of consequence. There’s nothing to worry about, especially since God isn’t real.

And so we do what we want, no better than the people of Israel in Old Testament days as we’re told in the very last verse of the Book of Judges that the people were doing whatever they saw fit. There was no limit to behavior, no matter how deplorable it was. No one was interested in listening to God anymore for those speaking deceitfully were was more desirable to lend an ear to.

This is the consequence that arises from turning away from God’s word and direction and listening to people of the world. We end up falling prey to the deceivers among us and as we see in our scripture verse from Jeremiah 4, the Israelites were about to experience the penalty that comes when we choose to ignore God and invest our trust in false counsel from the world. Look again at these words:

Then I said, “Alas, Sovereign Lord! How completely you have deceived this people and Jerusalem by saying, ‘You will have peace,’ when the sword is at our throats!”  Jeremiah 4:10

At first glance, this verse seems hard to understand but note that God can and will test us at any time, sending false messengers among us to see whether or not we will remain faithful and obedient to Him. This was the case in the verse for today because although the people were openly living in sin, knowing their behavior would only bring God’s judgment, instead they believed the deceivers who were promising them peace. It was easier to accept that than to think that God’s anger and wrath would be coming upon them. That is, until the first the Assyrians and then the Babylonians came to attack and wipe out the Northern and Southern Kingdoms. The people of God would wake up soon enough when knives were at their throats from their assailants that the promise of peace was nothing more than a lie, a kind of lie that happened even before that time in Israel’s history.

For if you go back to the very start of creation, when there was only one man and one woman, you may recall an encounter the first couple had with a deceiver who was among them, a serpent who convinced them that it was fine to disobey a direct command from God.

You remember the story, right?

In Genesis 2, God had this to say to Adam:

“You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” Genesis 2:16-17

Ok, that sounded simple enough. Eat the fruit on that tree and you will die. That should have been enough for Adam to eat from any other tree in the garden except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. After all, there were plenty of other trees to partake from in the garden. But note the words of the deceiving serpent in the opening verses of Genesis 3:

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.  Genesis 3:1-6

Just a little nudge was all it took for Adam and Eve to commit the first sin ever and, in doing so, afflict all of mankind from that point forth. That’s what was at stake when they refused to listen to God and follow His commands.

Friends, it’s time for us to wake up because every single moment in this world today, someone is choosing to listen to a deceiver instead of God with often devastating results. It’s time to get back to basics and get our mindsets recalibrated to where they need to be and that means we live every single minute God grants us with this attitude:

“I’m only going to follow what God tells me to do and I can do that by living completely like Jesus did.”

That’s it. It’s so simple and yet we are so reluctant and resistant to just let go and let God have His way in every facet of our lives, surrendering fully to His will and way and word while listening only to His voice. If we don’t, then we will find out what Adam and Eve and the Old Testament Israelites found out. For in every instance we decide to tune ourselves into a deceiver’s promise, we will find out that God and God alone dictates the ways of life and His will is always what will happen, that will coming in the form of judgment on anyone who rejected Him to follow the wicked ways of the world.

Why repeat the mistakes of the past?

Rebuff the deceivers around you and turn fully to God for all things. You’ll never stray off what is true if you do it.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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