Insightful Musings on theScriptures

by

Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67

Good morning, dear ones.

I’m hearing rain on the roof—telling me that it’s not a good time to run to my little outdoor construction project. Instead, I’ll be knocking out the remainder of a small sawmill order—and maybe cutting some vinyl graphics to apply to the doors of a log truck.

I suppose the angle I take with the devotional is influenced by some exposure I had last evening to some speakers who do a credible job of aligning some current events with Bible prophecy. Let me recommend this link to a Youtube message by J.D. FARAG. One little statement that sticks in my little head is to this affect: “While the world is falling apart, Biblical prophecy is coming together.” I think that’s a valid overview.

Have a great day determining what you’re supposed to be doing—and why.

Love, Dad/Ray.

I resonate with David’s cry to the LORD for help. Is it not noteworthy that the very same ingredients messing up human society in ancient times are the same ingredients messing up human society in these modern times? We’ve sure come a long way, haven’t we? We are so advanced! Look at all the technology we now have available to aid with our modern versions of lying and deception! David was painfully aware that lying and deception was rampant back then. Have you observed any of the same surrounding you?—or are you deceived into thinking the media and our social engineers all tell the truth? I’m confident you are not, but I decided to put forth the question nonetheless.

My thoughts return to that well-known straight-forward diagnosis God makes concerning our human universal psycho-spiritual makeup as a result of THE FALL—Jeremiah 17:9: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (KJV) Have you noticed that children do not need to be taught how to lie or deceive? That stuff is already right there in their dirty DNA. It’s automated. And adults clearly don’t outgrow it—just because they grow up! That fact speaks volumes to me—confirming that my greatest enemy in life is not some big bad tragedy, not an animal or person who wants to do me harm, not even the devil who seeks my eternal destruction—but my own dirty DNA—my own propensity to deception. How so? Because if I’m “born of the Spirit” and walking “in the light as He is in the light”—if I’m loving God with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength—if I’m properly putting on “the whole armor of God” and wearing the “belt of truth,”—if I’m seeking first He Who is “the way, the truth, and the life”—then the dirty devil (and humans who unwittingly do his bidding), even with all his highly refined dirty deceptive devices, even appearing as “an angel of light,” will not be allowed access to me to the point of taking me down—based on Christ-following status, I’m invincible—“I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever”—“strong in the LORD and the power of his might”—“I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.”

We have good reason to be overwhelmed with the mass deception and stupidity on display before us in the current news—locally, nationally, and internationally. For example, we are told that unborn babies are not really forms of human life, that the nuclear family surrounding a husband/father and a wife/mother are outmoded social bondages, that the atrocities wielded by Islamic terrorists who are clearly bent on killing and conquering has nothing to do with the religion of Islam, etc., etc., etc. We want to scream, “What!? Are you kidding me?! That’s absolutely stupid!” Yes—it is! But why? Why are these lies so generally believed? Is it just because people have lost their God-given gift of objective intelligence? No. It’s because they are now bound by a God-given delusion that results from their persistent neglect or rejection of His truth! Here’s the deal—clear as a bell for those of us with our ears and hearts in the Word—“They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness” (2 Thessalonians 2:10-12).

Here’s how I am inclined to describe what “THE LIE” looks like in its most basic form: It looks like anything less than a passionate HEART AFTER GOD.