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Recently my mind has been full of thoughts connected to feeling tired, worn out, and keeping on going despite all the trials, and not growing weary. Too late for physical weariness but it is never too late to ensure we are not weary spiritually. Endurance is so vital and it seems as though it has been underestimated in my view until now. Years ago people would talk about "it's not as important how we start but how we (Christians) finish". This phrase caught my attention so it gave me something to meditate upon. Of course I agreed, but not entirely as I do think it matters how one starts, and we should be consistent all throughout our journey doing everything to the best of our ability, due to vigilant and prudent diligence. But, by comparison, imagine being zealous with your First Love and then gradually drifting away, unaware through repeated compromise and justification, caught out by weaknesses in our carnal human nature. How horrific would this be as deception is tied in to spiritual death.
In the Bible there is a fascinating account about deception found in 1 Kings 13 relating to the man of God and the old prophet. These particular passages had always puzzled me for years until "the penny finally dropped" while listening to a sermon from Gary Petty who explained it well, thoroughly making sense. Here is the link for you to refer to his inspired teaching if you so choose:
https://www.ucg.org/sermons/the-man-of-god-and-the-old-prophet After hearing what was said I was satisfied as to why God was using this account to warn us about what had happened to the man of God, a prophet, and what could easily happen to us. Up until now my burning question was "Why would a prophet of God lie to another prophet?" It seemed quite strange and a dilemma but now the reasons behind this deception have been revealed. One reason it is obvious only now to me, could be that I was not ready before to understand or see these spiritual lessons. Another reason is that we are coming ever closer in these end times before Christ returns. We know we need to be prepared for the return of our Saviour and while the focus for me has been from external sources in the world, it now shifts focus to include from within. Anyone can be deceived and anyone can lie. As we read in the Bible God tells us not to trust in man or even in princes (Psalms 146:3 and 118:8-9).
It should have become apparent almost a year and a half ago when I discovered that somebody I highly esteemed and looked up to became dreadfully deceived and capitulated into making a choice out of fear, rather than hold fast and look to God for help (Proverbs 29:11). The world will continue to offer their solutions but these are nowhere near what God says. We would do well to remember Jeremiah 17:5 "Thus says the LORD: 'Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart departs from the LORD' ". At the time it caused me stress, grief and confusion as to why this person could not see the obvious deception. Praying, fasting, and doing everything I could think of to help them all seemed to prove fruitless at the time because God allowed their deception. Since then they now understand and see that they were deceived. Thankfully they could finally admit it and it is a powerful lesson for me to always keep in mind. It reminds me of some former Worldwide Church of God (WCG) members saying "out of all the people back in 1995 they would never have thought that 'so and so' would become deceived" because they were so zealous for God. Those concerned were incredulous and obviously very sad, grieving the loss of long-time spiritual family members. Lies were involved in both cases; lies from outside God's Church we expect, but lies from within can be so subtle and are very dangerous as not expected, therefore our guard needs to be up at all times, especially when we least expect it. As we know, our wicked and evil enemy revels in using God's people to cause one another to stumble and fall.
Lessons for the future involve the following:
- When
God tells you to do something, e.g. keep His Commandments then it does not
matter what anyone else says if they speak against them or say otherwise,
and therefore we give no heed or attention to what they say because it is
plainly obvious to a converted member that God's commandments have not
been done away with (Matthew 5:17). Furthermore, Psalm 119 in its gloriously inspired entirety from King David
offers his expansive thoughts on God's law. In the above account from 1 Kings 13 the man of God was
advised by the lying prophet to do the exact opposite to what God asked of
him. He most likely believed it because the message was supposedly from an
angel (sounds good) and the man was a prophet "just like
you". Also he was weary,
hungry and thirsty, and had to travel a distance which gave further temptation
to having his needs met based on our human weaknesses.
- Always
seek out God even if the request sounds reasonable or plausible from
others, because once we change course we have taken matters into our own
hands as it were without going to God and consulting Him. With the benefit of hindsight it is obvious
that God does not change and was testing the man of God on whether he
would remain faithful. At the time
though, so easy not to give it a second thought and we would want to
believe what we have been told. If
God tells us to do something completely contrary to His first request,
surely He would then intervene in a way we would definitely know about
like He did with Abraham and Isaac (Genesis
22:1-12). In the above account
we would not know if an angel spoke to the other prophet or not. We cannot take anything at face value
from others for to do so, opens us up to deception.
- Towards
the end of our journey in this life our enemy would crave and delight so
much in tripping us up, and is just waiting for an opportune time when we
are at our weakest such as in mental or physical sickness, grief,
weariness, sadness, battered about by numerous trials and/or longstanding
trials. Remember Luke 4:13 "Now when the devil
had ended every temptation, he departed from Him [Jesus Christ] until an
opportune time". Always ready,
always willing to pounce on his victim (us) and tear the weakest to
shreds. Satan does not exempt
anyone from his dirty tactics so we must all be prepared for what is to
come.
- This
biblical account is a strong and timely warning for each and every one of
us to pay close attention to in order to escape deception. Remember what Jesus Christ tells us in Matthew 24:3 "And Jesus
answered and said to them [His disciples]:
'Take heed that no one deceives you' ". This is the very first warning Christ
gave to them from within a list of warnings when the disciples asked what
conditions would be like just before He returns to earth, and for us also,
as false prophets will be rampant with their deceptive messages right
before Christ returns. They will
seem powerful, hard to detect at times with even the subtlest of messages,
looking the part in sheep's clothing, appear righteous but instead be
wolves dressed up and ravenous for the kill (Matthew 7:15). But God
informs us that we will know them by their fruit or what they do via their
actions (Matthew 7:16-20).
- If
we were in the man of God's shoes, how would we respond? Would we be so readily open and honest
explaining why we were doing what we were doing and that God had told us
"such and such"? I would
have as it is the truth, why not?
But now, after God's strong warning, it seems prudent to keep all
these details to myself for what good would it do — indeed it could harm
us as it did to the man of God.
Wisdom when to speak and when not to is something to consider (Psalm 141:3).
- Test
the spirits. God asks us to do this
in 1 John 4:1-6. We must know God's Word by reading His
Word, be closely connected daily in prayer, as well as in prayer without
ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18). We are to have God firmly ensconced in
our hearts and minds throughout each day of our life. It is such a tragedy that the man of God
was strong until he finally relented at the end by relying on his own
power/judgement as well as caving in to his desires (James 1:14) known as lust of the flesh (1 John 2:16), for which he paid a dreadful price in his moment
of weakness (1 Peter 5:8). Let this be a powerful warning to all of
us.
- Scripture
in Luke 22:31-32 reveals that
we will have our faith tested and be tried like the apostle Peter and all
those who have come before us. Will
we be adequately warned and ready?
We will be if we do our part and take God's warning seriously. We can only do that by having the best
book in the world in our hands while our eyes avidly and eagerly scan and
absorb God's Word from scripture daily.
Endurance is key and we must never ever become weary by putting our
spiritual life on hold, no matter how tempted we may become, for
temptations will surely come. Each
day counts and we will never have it back again, and so it is time to get
deadly serious for us to practice testing the spirits, enduring with
wisdom, and being circumspect in all matters.