Insightful Musings on the Scriptures

by

Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67

Good morning, dear ones.

Yesterday morning I mentioned that I didn’t know how the day would take shape. I didn’t get much farther into it before being bumped onto a task I had neglected. The influence that brought the task to the forefront was hearing the weather report on the radio—announcing big winds with gusts up to 60mph. I had already agreed with a friend to drop a big fir tree that he judged was threatening his house. So I decided I had better get that done right away to avoid the threat to my conscience in the event that the tree did fall and mess up his house. It was a precarious deal since it had to accurately fall between buildings. At least the direction of the fall was in harmony with the direction of the wind. I confess there was some adrenaline released when the back cut opened up to begin the decent. I also confess there was some exuberant praising the Lord when it crashed to the ground exactly where I wanted it. Whew!

Another detour for the day was to deal with stuff being water damaged by a leak in the roof of our storage building. That’s most disappointing in view of the efforts I had vested to try to seal up any leaks on that roof. So it became another day of making no headway on the timber frame joinery that’s pushing on me to finish by the end of the month. Not sure I can pull that off with all the holiday stuff going on.

Oh my—I’m hearing the sound of another need. Becki is running the washing machine. It’s presently in spin mode—emitting the obvious sound of a bad bearing. The washer should be replaced.

Becki has her walk stuff on—and I have my jog stuff on—so I guess it’s time to get on with it. Blessings on your day.

Love, Dad/Ray.

Wow! That means that the quality of deception being foretold will be so impressive and compelling so as to successfully hoodwink the majority of people occupying the planet at that time. Well, why not? Let’s be reminded that the highly refined art and craft of the kingdom of Satan is, in fact, deception. In stark contrast, the foundational theme of the Kingdom of God is TRUTH. I think that these two comparative facts are of huge value in helping us sort out the stuff of life and guide us on courses of action and belief that best conforms to His righteousness.

Let’s remember Matthew 24 where the disciples asked Jesus how they would recognize the end of the age. And let’s remember Jesus’ first words of response to that question. He said, “Watch out that no one deceives you” (Matthew 24:4). Hmm. That can only mean that deception will be an elevated threat surrounding end times. Bear in mind that a person who is being deceived does not know he is being deceived. That’s what deception is! Duh! As in the well-known illustration, the gradually boiled frog simply did not know he was being boiled. That point serves to remind me 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 or popular opinions, appearances, feelings, attractive rhetoric, or even the observation of supernatural phenomena. And that’s where God’s revealed written Word and His Holy Spirit that author, inspire, and illuminate it rise to be of utmost 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). Viewing that kind of supernatural display through our best Biblical filter, I judge that an appropriate response would be to say something like, “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). And if there has ever been a legitimate place for dogma, I believe we have it here. It has to be TRUE that our best protection from the aggression of deception is to embrace these TRUTHS with dogmatic perseverance.