Exposing Pathways to Deception in the Lives of Believers: Their Causes and Cure

By Ruth Helen Taylor-Meyers

The title mentions exposing pathways to Deception. Deception is a process, a road, a path. We need a map, a compass, and a way of knowing the difference between Deception and Truth. But what kind of Truth? Truth that helps us succeed only in this life, or truth that prepares us to live for eternity in a presently invisible System of Reality? Shouldn’t we listen and obey this God who, from the invisible realms, reveals Himself to us through an objective Truth Source called the Bible, & His Son, Jesus, and His Holy Spirit?

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Oct 13, 2021
• ISBN: 9781665536875

Ruth Helen Taylor-Meyers

Joseph Meyers is a retired businessman, College Professor, Pastor and Missionary to Ivory Coast, West Africa. And has additional ministry experience ministry in Thailand, India, Cambodia, and Vietnam. He is a graduate of Bethany University, Santa Cruz, California with an earned Bachelor of Science degree (B.S.) as well as graduating from the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary with an earned Master of Arts (M.A.) and double major in Biblical Literature and Cross-Cultural Communications (1978). The latter degree was useful as Mr. Meyers ministered to the 64 different tribes in Ivory Coast, as well as ministering to the Muslim population. In addition to his work training African pastors, Mr. Meyers was a member of the Board of Directors for the Assemblies of God Publishing House in Accra, Ghana and on the Board of Governors for the Advanced School of Theology in Lomé, Togo. Later, he would teach briefly at the undergraduate level at a college in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. According to sources, Phnom Penh is a small, dirty, and dangerous place to live. But missionaries do live there as they try to reach the Cambodian people with the Gospel. While there, Mr. Meyers was taken by the Director of the College to the “killing fields” and shown row after row of classroom size buildings full of skulls with bullet holes in them. This, of course was the work of the Khmer Rouge Communist Party who ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. In Saigon, Vietnam, Mr. Meyers was able to visit the “Hanoi Hilton” where John McCain was incarcerated. He saw the torture room and instruments of torture as well as the two guillotines conveniently positioned in the inner courtyard. When the Meyers returned to the USA to do seminar work among the churches, his lovely wife, Ruth was always at his side as they worked on writing projects. Ruth was highly sought after as a Bible teacher. She wrote 6 of the 18 seminars we produced. It was this topic of Exposing Pathways to Spiritual Deception that was the most popular among pastors and congregations. Most of the other seminars, in addition to marriage seminars, focused on forgiveness and the healing of broken relationships. After the death of their Son from AIDS, the Meyers spent several years speaking at school assemblies in the public school system from Alaska to California, as well as speaking in women’s prisons and youth detention centers. This was in addition to their continued work as seminar speakers. After 12 years of crisscrossing the USA and western Canada Ruth began to have health problems due to the stress of the constant travel, so Joseph took a job as an Account Executive for a mortgage company.

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© 2021 Ruth Helen Taylor-Meyers. All rights reserved.

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Published by AuthorHouse 10/07/2021

ISBN: 978-1-6655-3688-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-3687-5 (e)

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Scripture quotations marked AMP are from The Amplified Bible, Old Testament copyright © 1965, 1987 by the Zondervan Corporation. The Amplified Bible, New Testament copyright © 1954, 1958, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. [Biblica]

Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. Website

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the Holy Bible, King James Version (Authorized Version). First published in 1611. Quoted from the KJV Classic Reference Bible, Copyright © 1983 by The Zondervan Corporation.

Contents

Foreword

Introduction: Ruth’s Actual Lecture Notes

Introduction by Ruth’s Husband, Joseph Meyers

Understanding Spiritual Deception

Chapter 1What is Deception?

Chapter 2The Root and Process of Deception

Chapter 3The Danger of Self Deception

Chapter 4Warning Signs along the road of Self-Deception

Chapter 5How To Guard Against Following Our Heart into Self-Deception

Chapter 6Scripture Warns Against the Danger of Self-Deception because the person has followed their own Heart

Chapter 7Deception is a Result of Spiritual Blindness

Chapter 8The Deception of Addictive Behavior

Chapter 9Wisdom Cries Out in the Streets

Biblical Warnings Against Spiritual Deception Through Satanic Influences

Chapter 10Satanic Deception Will Characterize the Last Days (Part One)

Satanic Deception will Characterize the Last Days (Part Two)

Chapter 11The Expression of Truth & Unity within the Church, the Body of Christ

Chapter 12Scripture Warns Against Deception Through False Prophets & False Messiahs

Chapter 13The Apostle Paul Warns Against Deception through Cultural Influences

Conclusion

Foreword

This will serve as a Foreword to Book One on what the Bible says About Deception. It will also serve as a Foreword to the entire multiple volume set of several books on Truth and Error and the way the two concepts interact with each other. This series of books is being produced posthumously in honor of my wife of 49 years. Ruth Helen Meyers was an awesome Woman of God, Bible Teacher, Wife, Lover, Best Friend, personal Counselor, and great Mother to our two adopted children.

Why is this book, and the others to follow, being written about the subject of Spiritual Deception? And why was Ruth so intense about her teaching on this subject?

First, learning how to avoid spiritual deception is essential to our ability to live in peace within our own hearts (our emotional life, our thought life and our priorities: how we make choices)!

A person can be deceived in their thought life. Because of personality traits they can be habitually skeptical, lacking faith or the ability to hear from God as to His Will for their life. Or they can be given to a focus on bad memories and thus be angry or have certain emotional problems along with an ungodly thought life, etc., etc. Or a person can be arrogant with an unteachable spirit. Our memories of past problems in childhood or a failed marriage can keep us from being open to the teaching of Scripture.

A person can be deceived in their emotional life, given to fits of self-pity, depression, anger, impatient, quick to speak and slow to listen thus misunderstanding other people and constantly upset about something. It is Key to the maintenance of personal integrity: meaning that nothing in our thoughts, emotions and choices are present that are not compatible with the nature and character of the One we call Lord! And personal integrity will help us avoid making dumb choices like putting salt in our coffee, not at all unlike helping us know how to keep unrighteous anger out of our emotions or self-pity out of our thought life or unforgiveness out of our priorities!

Secondly, learning how to avoid spiritual deception is a key ingredient to understanding, in practical terms, how to keep the peace in our homes and churches, as well as all other interpersonal relationships.

Third, learning how to avoid spiritual deception is Key to our preparation for Spiritual Warfare! One cannot fight against darkness and error if that person is themselves fighting from a position of error. Only Truth destroys error and only Light and Love destroys Darkness and all the things that are the opposite of Love.¹

It has been said that stupid is as Stupid does! It is stupid to smoke cigarettes! A gentleman in a hospital who had spent many years doing MRI scans (magnetic resonance imaging; used in detecting structural abnormalities of the body) once said to me that he could always tell how much wine his patient had drunk since the last MRI by how many brain cells had been destroyed! Maybe it is time for a spiritual MRI of the Body of Christ. That would be what these books propose to do. What are the abnormalities (spiritual deception) of the modern Christian and what can be done to correct the situation? The only reliable resource for doing this would be the Bible, God’s Holy Word!

When Ruth and I returned from ten years of ministry in Ivory Coast, West Africa we each had a profound concern for the American Church. Our concern was for a Great Spiritual Awakening in this country. And then we sat down for an interview with Dave Wilkerson in downtown New York City at Times Square Church. I handed Brother Wilkerson a single spaced, four-page outline of a proposed book I hoped to write. His response was to comment that every revival in church history had ended in deeper apostasy and coldness of heart than before the Revival or so-called Spiritual Awakening had begun. Ruth and I had already crisscrossed the United States and Western Canada once preaching in the churches on Principles for Revival. But to say that, historically, every Revival ended as a failure and left the church in worse condition than before the Move of God began shocked me! And with all due respect to Brother Wilkerson of Teen Challenge fame who was an ardent student of church history, I found his comment hard to believe. Dave had said, "We don’t talk about Revival here at Times Square Church (downtown New York City) we talk about the Manifest Presence of Jesus! The concept of Manifest Presence of Jesus holds that until the felt Presence of Jesus is manifested in a church service the congregation is merely going through the motions of worship.

So, on our way back out West, Ruth and I returned to Illinois where I had been doing studies, at the Billy Graham Center in Wheaton on Revival, using the 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th centuries as my historical model to teach me about what Revival looks like. Wheaton College is home to the Billy Graham Graduate School of Theology and Church History. I had spent two weeks of day and evening study there in the rare books section. I eventually came away with 2,000 pages of Xeroxed notes on Great Spiritual Awakenings over a period of 200 years of church history but had failed to notice any undesirable results in church history coming out of revival movements.

Later I would learn that Wilkerson was correct. Furthermore, that great Puritan Preacher Jonathan Edwards, of Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God fame, led the First Great Spiritual Awakening in early Colonial America. But that Move of God ended about 1741 with more than 100 church events of division coming out of that one Revival Movement that spanned close to twenty years.

What I learned during my new round of studies is that Brother Wilkerson was right! Every Revival Movement has ended badly, deeper apostasy, skepticism and apathy towards God and spiritual matters. What is the reason? In every single case it has been God’s people not getting along with each other! Arguments over doctrine, over church government, conflict between the pastor and deacons or Elders, complaints about the pastor’s work ethic, gossip and slander between the saints, etc. all of these issues are used by Satan to sidetrack God’s people into apathy and unchildlike attitudes, essentially driving them away from the God whom they claim to be serving. Even Pentecostalism that claims to put priority on the Holy Spirit has been guilty of splintering into thousands of church denominations world-wide. Division has characterized even Pentecostal / Charismatic groups where the Holy Spirit was supposed to be the great unifier.

Opinions do not establish truth! One of the characteristics of Spiritual Deception is that we walk in error and have no idea about the wrong direction our lives are headed. Four times in Scripture God is called the God of Truth!² In other words, the farther away from truth we are in our thinking or in our daily lives, the farther away we are in our daily walk with our Heavenly Father! That is a scary thought! Truth is essential to a close, intimate relationship with God. Truth is essential to victorious Christian living and to the ability to pull people out of the clutches of Lucifer and into the Kingdom of Light, Love and Righteousness!

Spiritual Deception causes one to shoot with a warped bow at the bullseye of holiness and godly living. One of the illustrations in the Greek New Testament that defines sin is the idea of shooting with a bow and arrow at a particular target. If the bow is warped, even slightly, the arrow will not fly straight as intended, and the bullseye will be missed. This illustration defines sin! If one is guided by wrong thinking (error) in even the slightest way, successful and holy Christian living becomes impossible.

What Ruth and I discovered as we continued to travel and preach is that most men don’t know how to be Biblical husbands, treating their wives as Christ treats the church and most women don’t know how to be Biblical wives responding to husbands as the Church should respond to Jesus. ³

We also ministered to and consulted with an average of one troubled church per month. Church splits and church fights. And so, we began teaching on Forgiveness and the Healing of Broken Relationships, as well as on how to build healthy relationships. Finally, we began to teach on the Spiritual Deception of disobedience to God in each of these areas of life: love, forgiveness for those who injure us, marriage, parenting, finances, mercy, interaction with our culture as Children of Light, and submission to God’s ordained levels of authority in the family and society at large. There is no excuse for disobedience, and Jesus said, "If you love me, keep (guard from loss, protect & obey) my commandments.

Actually, the teaching on Spiritual Deception we did in those years from the early 1990s, and for the next 10 years, was not so much about Spiritual Deception but about how-to walk-in Truth – God’s Truth. These four volumes,⁴ with an open Bible by your side, will be foundational to protecting you from the onslaught of Satan. They will also prepare you to move on in your walk with God and grow in The Faith and Spiritual maturity.

The Reader is encouraged to look up the Bible References in the footnotes. If you have a Strong’s Concordance, learn to use it. This too will be an essential tool in confirming the Greek and Hebrew words referenced. Check me out! Don’t take my word for anything. ⁵ Verify what is written here, and if you find a mistake or don’t understand something I have said, contact me at [e-mail] to challenge and/or discuss the issue. That can be done now. Eventually, a special e-mail address will be created for these books! As soon as this first volume is published a blog site at [e-mail] will be developed and questions and discussion will be welcomed!

Finally, these studies will prepare the Believer for Spiritual Warfare. Ephesians 6:12 – Amplified Bible states … we are not wrestling with flesh and blood (contending with physical opponents), but against the despotisms, (evil rulers of the unseen world) against the (Mighty) Powers, against (the master spirits who are the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spirit forces of wickedness in the heavenly (supernatural) sphere.

The following will provide three examples of encounters with the unseen world that I have personally experienced. These actual encounters with the unseen world of righteous and unrighteous spirits will demonstrate the overwhelming power of these spirit beings, both for good and for evil. Hebrews 1:14 refers to these powerful representatives of God Almighty as, ministering spirits sent out in the service of God for the assistance of those who are to inherit salvation. There are many references to these powerful Beings throughout Scripture. ⁶

Powerful evil spirits are also mentioned in Scripture. ⁷

First, in 1987, after one year of fasting and prayer by missionaries and African church leadership, Ruth and I participated with these brothers and sisters in a three-day Crusade to reach The Ivory Coast of West Africa in a way that had never occurred.

The Houphouët-Boigny soccer stadium was rented in downtown Abidjan. The stadium seats 55,000 people and by the third night of the Crusade it was packed, with standing room only. I witnessed ten thousand people come to Christ during those three nights; signed decision cards. Ivory Coast was being turned upside down for Christ as a result of a year of fasting and praying and humbling ourselves before God. But not without a fight!

Six hundred witch doctors had turned up to disrupt the meetings. There were three thousand trained workers prepared to handle any disruptions to the meetings. So, when the witch doctors began throwing their incantations and trying to cast evil spells over the crowd, immediately four men were assigned to bodily remove each of them from the meeting. The witch doctors were taken underneath the stadium where my Bible School students cast the demons out of them. All within a 30-minute span of time. All six hundred were delivered from demon possession and many of them are today pastors of thriving churches of their own, powerful preachers of the Gospel where once they were witch doctors, casting spells and controlling people through the power of Satan. But God showed up in those meetings! You could feel His powerful Presence. One could also sense the conflict between powerful Angelic Beings, some from the Kingdom of God and others from the Kingdom of Lucifer.

On the last night of the meeting, and without warning the Presence of God came into the stadium. As if to show off His Presence, He began healing all the cripples in one section of the stadium after another. He did this section by section before moving on to the next section. I and the other missionaries and national church leaders (black West African pastors and church officials) were watching this happen from the platform in the middle of the soccer stadium. I began to weep because of what I was seeing. No one laid hands on the cripples (we could not because we were separated from the crowd by the soccer field). But God did not need our help. The cripples began to jump up and down from joy and to throw their crutches into the air. And then the Spirit of God would move to the next section of the stadium and do the same thing until all the cripples in that section of the stadium were healed. The Spirit of God worked its way around from section to section until every cripple in the crowd of 55,000 was healed. I stood and wept and praised God at the awesome display of supernatural power we had just witnessed and have never seen anything like it before or since. After the third night of meetings, the crowd of 55,000 people were snake-dancing through the streets of Abidjan, holding the hips of the person in front to them shouting, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus! After the meetings, I stayed in town to help with the training of the new Christians. Some churches grew from 200 to 2,000 new adherents in the course of one month. The task of teaching the new converts and turning them into Followers (Disciples) of Christ was daunting, to say the least! But that is what happens when God shows up and manifests His presence here on earth.

Secondly, we will jump back in time to the year 1965 or 66 when Ruth and I had only been married about four years. We were then living in San Jose, California and I was attending Bethany Bible College in Santa Cruz, 35 miles away. I worked as a bill collector, repo man and skip tracer for Pacific Finance Loans. I remember the occasion when I had found a man in Palo Alto, up close to San Francisco who had financed a Cadillac through our office but was no longer paying on the automobile. In fact, he was hiding from us. So, I had one of the guys in the office drive me from San Jose to Palo Alto where I proceeded to pick the lock on the garage door, then hotwire the car, back it out of the garage and prepare to leave with the car. The fellow worker who had driven me up there left me alone with the car. I proceeded to drive back south on the Nimitz Freeway toward the office in downtown San Jose.

I had become bitter in my soul toward God, and filled with self-pity, convinced as I was that God was not treating me right because by lack of His supernatural provision, He was forcing me to work at a secular job in San Jose while riding a motorcycle back and forth to Santa Cruz as I continued my theological studies. I knew of others who seemed to have everything provided (through grants and gifts) so that they did not need to work.

And so, as I drove the Cadillac I had just repossessed, I once more began my normal routine of complaining and accusing God, saying, Here I am working full time at a job I dislike and then driving every day to Santa Cruz to prepare for the Ministry so we could someday pastor churches and then go to West Africa as missionaries. Instead of providing financially for Ruth and I, He was forcing me to work hard, sometimes late into the evening, in order to do the providing that I thought God should be doing, and, in addition, keep up with my studies at the College. I wanted to be home with my new bride whenever I was not in Santa Cruz studying at the Bible College. Instead, I was either working or studying 14 or 16 hours out of every day. When was I supposed to sleep, or Ruth and I have time for each other?

Suddenly, as I drove south on the Nimitz Freeway, I felt a Presence in the car! The hair on the back of my neck stood up with fear. It dawned on me that the man whose car I had just stolen out of the garage had probably slipped into the back seat and that he was about to do me bodily harm. I looked in the rear-view mirror to see if someone was in the back seat. Seeing no one, I tried to turn to look in the back seat, all the while continuing to drive down the freeway at exactly 55 miles per hour. I saw no one! As my attention returned to the freeway in front of me, I was horrified to realize that all traffic in both lanes of traffic was stopped dead still, and I was seconds from plowing into the traffic ahead of me. The thought went through my mind, You are about to die! God has gotten tired of all your complaining and accusations against Him and is about to take you Home! I began pumping the brakes. I had no brakes. Then reached down to pull out the emergency brake and realized that the emergency brake did not work either! Then I thought, Well if I am about to die, there is no point of anyone else getting hurt or killed. As I moved the Cadillac into the meridian between southbound and northbound traffic, I suddenly realized that in front of me was an overpass with a concrete column coming down into the meridian. I kept the Cadillac headed straight down the meridian fulling believing that I would die in the next second or two as I crashed into the concrete column. I was still traveling at the rate of 55 miles per hour with no way to slow down the Caddy!

Suddenly, and with no brakes, the Cadillac came to a halt just inches away from the concrete column. I bowed my head over the steering wheel, shaken and not knowing how that all happened. At that moment, a voice spoke! Not audibly, but so forcefully that it might as well as been audible! The Voice said, Son, I did this! (Notice, God is still calling me Son, even after the abuse of my complaining.) God, I said, You did this? Yes, He said, I did this! Because down the road you are going to need to know that I know where you are! End of conversation and the supernatural Presence left the car. Since that day there have been many times, I thought I might be killed, or die for some reason. But God has always been faithful! Proving once again that He knows where I am!

A third and final antidote will suffice to show that we are more often dealing with the unseen world than we know about. My first term in Africa I lived ½ mile from a village of animists who once a year would kidnap babies (infants) from other villages, bring the baby to their village and cut the heart out of the baby to make black magic for the coming year. That same time of year was known as the time of the Sacred Dance. At that time, the women and children were forced by the men of the village to go live and sleep in the jungle for two weeks while the men stayed in the village to make black magic with body parts, especially heads of animals and humans. The sorcery often worked. A person could go to the witchdoctor, and, for a price, receive the power to spiritually assassinate their enemy. They would leave their body and eat the spirit of their enemy. Within 24 hours, if the potion were powerful enough, their enemy would die physically. So, we have spiritual assassination followed by physical death. Horrible but true! To the Western mind this seems like a fantasy tale, but it is not. Demonic activity in America is much subtler but just as real.

Once, at the time of the sacred dance, we received a courier telling of intense persecution that had broken out in a certain village. There had been a powerful move of God in the local jungle church and the new converts refused to cooperate with the customs of the pagan sacred dance. In other words, the women and children refused to leave the village to go sleep in the forest as was expected of them. Women and children were considered by the men to be weaker spirits and thus a hindrance to the sacred dance. Intense persecution broke out. The local church was destroyed and those who refused to go live in the forest during the time of the sacred dance were being beaten and mutilated by machetes. So, I took a carload of African pastors, and we went to the village to meet with the chief of the Krou tribe and try to negotiate the situation, bringing help to the Christians who were being persecuted.

As we sat down to have the negotiation with the chief, I noticed a semi-circle of young men behind us, each of them armed with an old musket, spear, or machete. By their actions they were signaling that the usual African hospitality would not be available. Indeed, our very lives were in danger and a simple nod from the Chief, and we would all be murdered where we sat. The pastors began to address the tribal chief in the Krou language, which I did not understand. They told the chief about our Heavenly Father who was Creator of all that exists. They also said that this God was not the God and Creator of just the white man, but of every human being. They described many of the miracles mentioned in the Bible, knowing full well that the chief and all the villagers did believe in the supernatural. But, of course, they all believed in evil spirits, not the angelic spirits of Scripture. After listening to us for a couple hours the chief’s response was that he did not believe a word we had said and that, furthermore, if the God we had described really existed, He should prove His existence by striking the Chief dead.

In the meantime, another messenger came to the village asking for help to rescue another pastor who had been framed for murder by a different village chief. Since I did not understand the Krou language with which the negotiations were being handled, I was selected to go with the courier and try to help this pastor who had been falsely accused and thrown into jail without formal charges against him. I was able to obtain the pastor’s freedom and then headed north again from Tabou toward Mahino #1 village where I had left my African colleagues. I had no idea whether they would still be alive or whether I would survive once I did return to Mahino #1.

To my surprise, upon arrival in Mahino the pastors all greeted me with the news that the tribal chief had reversed his previous decision and challenge against God. It seems that that very night a tall man with a light that surrounded him and came from inside of him had stood over the chief and said to him, using his native tongue of Krou, and declared that if the Chief drove out the Christians from the village that he (the Chief) WOULD BE a dead man, whereupon the Man of Light had disappeared. This so frightened the Chief that he reacted like a crazy man. When the villagers got him calmed down, the Chief recounted what had just happened and then declared that the villagers must rebuild the chapel for the Christians and refrain from insisting that they cooperate with the pagan rituals. The Chief said that he would return another time to make sure he orders had been followed!

What is the point of telling these three antidotes? The reason is that whenever we misunderstand our Heavenly Father or deny the reality of the invisible world, failing to rely on our Heavenly Father, we risk walking in deception and thus away from God who is the God of Truth in Whom there are no grey areas, no shadows or turning from one side to the other. ⁸ Spiritual Deception almost always denies or ignores the reality of the supernatural! This would include taking seriously the supernatural origin of Scripture. A man by the name of George Orwell once said, The more a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it! Deuteronomy 11:16 says, Take heed to yourselves so that your heart be not deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods, and worship them. So, what can one do to guard one’s heart against Self-Deception? ⁹

Finally, the title mentions exposing pathways to Deception. Deception is a process, a road, a path. We need a map, a compass, and a way of knowing the difference between Deception and Truth. But what kind of Truth? Truth that helps us succeed only in this life, or truth that prepares us to live for eternity in a presently invisible ¹⁰ System of Reality? Shouldn’t we listen and obey this God who, from the invisible realms, reveals Himself to us through an objective Truth Source called the Bible, & His Son, Jesus, and His Holy Spirit?

Introduction

RUTH’S ACTUAL LECTURE NOTES

Exposing Pathways to Deception

Book One

What The Bible Says About Deception

Original Teaching Notes

By Ruth Meyers

I. UNDERSTANDING SPIRITUAL DECEPTION.

A. What is spiritual deception?

1. Biblical definitions of the word deceive.

a. In Greek, (planao) (NT: 4105)- to roam (from safety, truth or virtue)

(1) KJV= to go astray, deceive, to err, seduce, to wander, to go out of the way, (off the road or beaten path.

b. In Hebrew, (kachash)-(kakh’-ash)-(OT:3585) = a failure of flesh i.e. emaciation; (a wasting away);

(1) Figuratively = hypocrisy; because of the wasting away of the inward character that accompanies hypocrisy and deception.

(2) Thus, deception is that which leads to a deterioration of spiritual, moral, & ethical health.

(a) KJV = Translates this Hebrew word as: spiritual leanness, lies or lying.

(3) This word comes from the more ancient word: KACHASH (kaw-khash) (Strong’s OT:3584).

(a) Which means: "To be untrue in word (to lie, feign, disown) or deed (to disappoint, fail, cringe (as one would do when afraid to tell the truth).

(b) KJV translates it: deceive, deny, dissemble (pretend), fail, deal falsely, be found liars, to submit oneself to a lying spirit or to the habit of lying.

(c) See: Job 16:8; Psalm 59:12; Hosea 10:13; 11:12; Nahum 3:1;

2. Deception is a process - (like a Staircase)

a. It is taking one step at a time away from the Truth of God’s Word. (through disobedience)

b. The very word deception indicates that we are unaware of our own deception.

(1) We may be religious and very sincere, yet we can be sincerely wrong.

c. It is unknowingly, accepting error as truth.

d. Deception always leads away from truth and thus away from God.

e. See: Deuteronomy 32:4; John 14:6; John 3:33; Isaiah 45:19; I Timothy 4:1.

B. The Root of Deception Begins in the Heart.

1. Scripture warns us against the deception of following our heart.

a. Deut 11:16 Take heed to yourselves, that your heart be not deceived, and you turn aside, and serve other gods, and worship them; (KJV)

b. Heart – What makes up the heart? (soul = our inner self) Body, soul, spirit.

*1Thess.5:23–May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you thru & through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. NIV

(1) The Will = desires, choices, goals, ambitions, plans, priorities and dreams.

(2) The Mind - thoughts, reasoning, opinions, attitudes, perceptions, convictions, beliefs.

(a) 2 Cor.11:3 I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere & pure devotion to God. (Gen.3:13; I Tim. 2:14. (led astray from the truth of God’s Word)

(3) The Emotions = passions, feelings, affections, impulses, anxieties and fears.

c. Jer 17:9 - The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

(1) Desperately wicked = Hebrew: beyond cure.

(2) Who can know it? = Hebrew: Who can understand it?

(3) Oswald Chambers said – we must get rid of the idea that we understand ourselves, that is the last bit of pride to go

(a) Only God knows what is in our heart (Ps.94:11). God knows the thoughts of man.

(b) Luke 16:15 – God knows your heart.

2. What’s in a man’s heart reveals his true character.

a. Prov.23:7 ="As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.

(1) We become, & act on, what we allow our minds to dwell on.

(2) Through one’s speech, choices, opinions, attitudes, beliefs, priorities, passions (motivations)

b. Prov.27:19 – As water reflects a face, so a man’s heart reflects (reveals) the man. Lk. 6:45

c. Matt.12:34b - …Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. (glass overflows)

d. Mark 7: 21 - For from within, out of man’s heart, comes evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.

3. Following one’s heart is the result of focusing on self (desires & opinions) rather than on truth.

a. We become deceived by making decisions based on our own desires, opinions, feelings, perceptions, anxieties, and beliefs, rather than on the truth of God’s Word.

(1) As a consequence, we end up accepting error and falsehood as truth.

(a) Rom.1:25 They (the Gentiles) exchanged the truth of God for a lie…

(2) Opinions, perceptions, beliefs, feelings or human wisdom do not establish Truth.

4. Getting your soul ready for Eternity

a. Spiritual truths are established only by the Word of God.

(1) Jn 17:17 - Sanctify them by the truth; your word (the Bible) is truth. (NIV)

b. Biblical Truth exposes sin, error and deception and sets us free. (John 8:32)

c. As we apply God’s truth in our lives, we continue the process of becoming more perfectly conformed to His image and Holiness.

(1) Only (God’s) truth can bring peace, joy and real freedom from bondage & deception.

(2) To whatever extent we are not walking in truth; we are walking in deception.

(3) To whatever extent we refuse to apply truth to our lives, we are living in deception and disobedience. (Which is sin)

5. Satan’s strategy: Satan wants us to follow our heart, therefore:

a. Satan does everything possible to tempt & deceive us into making decisions according to our heart, which is giving into our soulish (human) nature, feelings, opinions and desires.

b. For Satan knows that our heart (soulish nature) will always lead us away from truth and down the path to deception.

c. Following our heart is the greatest danger and common ingredient to becoming deceived.

d. Being deceived in any area causes us to blindly continue down that path of deception which leads us further and further away from truth and thus further away from God.

e. When we follow our heart, we are doing exactly what Satan wants. (Satan’s will!)

6. How to guard against following our heart:

a. Scripture admonishes us to search and examine our heart, and to allow God to examine it.

(1) Lamentations 3:40a – Let us examine our ways and test them, …

(2) I Cor.11:28 - A man ought to examine himself….

(3) II Cor.13:5 – Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; (compatible with)

(4) Psalm 26:2 – Test me, Oh God, and try me, examine my heart and my mind. Psalm139:23

(5) Proverbs 4:20 – Listen closely to my words…21 – keep them within your heart…22 – they are life (and health) to those who find them….23– above all else, guard (protect) your heart…(against sin, error and deception) attitudes and strongholds) and every pretention (high thing- pride) that sets itself up (exalts itself) against the knowledge (word) of God, and we take captive every (disobedient) thought to make it obedient to Christ. (bring our thoughts into agreement with God’s word)

(6) Psalm 19:14 May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing (acceptable) in your sight, O Lord, my Rock (strength) and my Redeemer.

C. Scripture Warns against the danger of Self-deception.

1. We deceive ourselves by relying on human knowledge, reason, and wisdom. (James 3:13-16)

a. 1 Cor 3:18 Do not deceive yourselves. If any one of you thinks he is wise by the standards of this age, he should become a fool so that he may become wise.

b. v.19 - For the wisdom of this