Title: Deceived Deceivers/ Topic: Deception

Today’s Reading: Jeremiah 23; Jeremiah 24; Jeremiah 25; John 19

Scripture: Jeremiah 23:11, 17-18
11 "Both prophet and priest are godless; even in my temple I find their wickedness," declares the LORD.
17 They keep saying to those who despise me, 'The LORD says: You will have peace.' And to all who follow the stubbornness of their hearts they say, 'No harm will come to you.'
18 But which of them has stood in the council of the LORD to see or to hear his word? Who has listened and heard his word?

Observation: This passage deals almost exclusively with the spiritual leaders of Judah. The Lord says that they are deceived and prophesy lies to the people out of their own imaginations. The scary thing about this passage is that these leaders believe they are right. They have continued to worship God while following the stubborness of their own hearts, being unsubmissive to Him. They were arrogant and believed they knew what was okay with God. They deceived themselves by compromising the truth so that it was something that accommodated the sin in which they wanted to engage and then led others to believe the same. I have seen many examples in my life of clever, intelligent people who get into the habit of lying to "get away" with whatever they wanted to do. They still came to church and worshipped with everyone else and thought themselves superior to those that they "fooled". The interesting thing was to watch over time and see that the deceiver was the one who became the most deceived. People like this pride themselves in being able to discern truth from error but the more they lie and hide the truth about their private lives the more spiritually deceived they become. They begin to find "new meaning" in God's Word and interpret it so as to justify their sin. Pretty soon they are leaving the church to find another with more "enlightened" ideas.

Application: I must never allow myself to engage in any deception. It is a bitter poison that fools the perpetrator into believing he/she is the most clever at discerning truth from error, all the while wrapping the person in a spiritual blindness that he/she cannot see. Lies and deception must be rooted out immediately before they have a chance to grow in our garden and obstruct our vision of the truth.

Prayer: Father, I want to live as a person of truth. That includes not exaggerating to embellish a story or leaving out certain facts to knowingly create a false impression. Satan is the father of lies and therefore the father of liars. May I have nothing to do with his work. I want to be like You, full of truth and light.
This I pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.