Insightful Musings on the Scriptures
by
Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67
Passage: Matthew 24:1-35
Focus: “Watch out that no one deceives you.” Matthew 24:4.
Let’s understand that the highly refined art and craft of Satan is DECEPTION. He is allowed by God to operate in savage opposition to the TRUTH. Yet in his strategy to own and control men’s hearts, he seldom inspires them to completely reject TRUTH, but rather to embrace almost all of it with just enough error mixed in to neutralize it from achieving its divine purposes in the lives of men. It’s a deceptive smoke screen. This work of Satan is made easier, and the challenge of men made more difficult in that humans are actually born with the built-in disease of deception as a hereditary heart condition (Jer. 17:9). TRUTH is not natural.
Success and victory over DECEPTION, therefore, is no accident. Jesus knows that. “Watch out that no one deceives you.” Notice that He’s talking to believers who have embraced the TRUTH. So it would seem that the ongoing struggle between TRUTH and DECEPTION requires clear and careful thinking, another quality not natural to humans. Observe again verses 11 to 13: “…many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved.” Jesus also points out in verse 24 that DECEPTION will become so intense so as to threaten to “deceive even the elect”…the “elect” meaning those who are firmly rooted in the TRUTH.
So what’s the answer? I would put it something like this: BE ROOTED IN THE TRUTH. Maybe I could amplify that practical solution by putting it this way: CONSTANT CAREFUL THINKING WITH DILIGENT ADHERENCE TO THE TRUTH (God’s revealed Word) IS THE KEY TO MAINTAINING THE REQUIRED LEVEL OF TRUTH (within one’s own heart) THAT IS GUARANTEED TO TRIUMPH OVER DECEPTION.
“The worst thief of all is the one that will rob you of TRUTH.”