Insightful Musings on the Scriptures
by
Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67
Greetings, dear ones.
I need to keep moving—I have a guy coming at 9am to spend several hours with me, cutting up his big oak logs. There’s a lot of preliminary stuff I want to get done before that job begins. So there will be no jog this morning.
There are several places in the reading for today where we could spin off on another trail. I don’t think the drama John describes is intended to impart perfect clarification as much as encouraging hope and anticipation—giving us a view beyond the outward appearance of things—an indirect warning against leaning to our own understanding (Prov. 3:5-6).
May the Lord effectively assist you to see through facades. These Christmas holidays are sure full of deceptive distractions for many…who fall for worshiping a form of the beast.
Love, Dad/Ray
Let’s reaffirm that the highly refined art and craft of the kingdom of Satan is, in fact, deception. In contrast, the foundational theme of the Kingdom of God is TRUTH. I believe these simple and basic facts are of huge value in helping me sort out the stuff of life and guide me in a course of action and belief that best conforms to His righteousness. And it only makes sense that my best protection from deception is to stay as close as I can to the TRUTH.
Remember Matthew 24 where the disciples asked Jesus how they would recognize the end of the age? Do you remember Jesus’ first words of response to that question? He said, “Watch out that no one deceives you” (Matthew 24:4). That can only mean that deception will be an elevated threat surrounding end times. I think it is important to bear in mind the general fact that a person who is being deceived does not know he is being deceived. Duh! And it affirms that I need to be as alert and careful as I can to avoid being duped by any such deception. To do so, I need to employ a filtering standard for determining truth and error that goes beyond personal bias, appearance, feelings, rhetoric, or even supernatural phenomena. And that is where God’s revealed Word and His Holy Spirit that inspires and illuminates it rise to be of highest importance.
The second beast in our reading “performed great and miraculous signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven to earth in full view of men” (13:13). In view of all this, it seems like an appropriate response to this kind of display would be to say, “So what?!”…or “Big deal!” Why would that response be appropriate? Because a miraculous display is not necessarily a guarantee of TRUTH. His Word is TRUTH (John 17:17). Jesus is TRUTH (John 14:6). Is that true?