One of the enemy’s most effective weapons is the weapon of deception. Through deception he sidetracks us from appropriating our identity and destiny. He gets us out of the flow of God’s Spirit and the provision for our lives. Jesus warned us very clearly of the dangers of deception arising in these days.
The first thing we have to realize is that we have all been deceived, and we are coming out of deception through personal encounter with the Lord. A person who is deceived does not know they are deceived. Now just think about that, a person who is deceived does not know that they are deceived. So how are you going to know if you are deceived? You are not going to know.
When we have a personal encounter with the Lord, He reveals Himself to us. This is called revelation knowledge. What happens? It is a sudden climactic experience that is so powerful that it erases what we use to believe, because we experience the truth through a personal encounter with a person. The truth is a person; unless you know that person intimately you are deceived. You might believe that person exists, but you have not met Him. Having a meeting with the Lord changes you.
I used to believe speaking in tongues was of the devil. Until the presence of God came into my room and I was more aware of Him than the room and started speaking in tongues. That belief system was erased; it is called the renewing of the mind. If the devil cannot get you to believe that speaking in tongues is of the devil, then he will get you to believe that it is for only some people, and you have to have an interpreter and you don’t have that gift.
Christianity is the only religion that will base their beliefs on a book, and a language that it was not originally written in. When I first started studying the bible, with my understanding of what those English words meant I thought everybody is going to hell (be tormented), unless they have been born again (what I experienced) and salvation (going to heaven) is conditional upon not sinning anymore, and because I struggled with sin I was scared of dying. I lived this way for 30 years and would not even teach the bible because I was scared of teaching false doctrine.
There is only one teacher, the Holy Spirit, do not just believe what I say, ask Him to teach you. I may say something that is wrong because He is always correcting me, or you will misinterpret what I am trying to say. If I can talk you into something, someone else can talk you out of it, but when the Holy Spirit reveals it to you through personal encounter it becomes a part of you, upon which He continues to build upon.
Jeremiah chapter 17 and verse nine tells us that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked and who can know it. The heart is deceitful, not just deceitful but is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked and who can know it.
The problem is that most of the areas of the heart are areas of our soul, and when we were born-again by the Spirit of God our soul is not touched. Our spirit is born-again, but we still have problems in the area of the soul which needs to be sanctified and separated unto God.
So there is a danger and our heart becomes a real problem in the area of deception. Deception cannot be separated from the heart, it is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, and God says who can know it? Only he can.
One of the enemy’s most effective weapons is the weapon of deception. Through deception he sidetracks us from appropriating our identity and destiny in the Lord. He gets us out of the flow of God’s Spirit and His provision for our lives. Jesus warned us very clearly of the dangers of deception arising in the last days.
The first thing we have to realize is that we have all been deceived, and we are coming out of deception through personal encounter with the Lord. A person who is deceived does not know they are deceived. So how are we going to know if we are deceived? We are not going to know, so we have to humble ourselves like a little child and not lean on our own understanding.
Through personal encounter with the Lord, we come out of deception. When we have a personal encounter with the Lord, he reveals himself to us. This is called revelation knowledge. Revelation knowledge is so powerful that it erases what we use to believe, because we experience the truth through a personal encounter with a person. The truth is a person; unless we know that person intimately we will be deceived.
Proverbs 3: 5Trust (to hide for refuge. To trust, to be confident, be bold. It expresses the feeling of safety and security that is felt when one can rely on someone) in (motion towards, into, to sit at) the LORD with all thine heart; and lean (to rely, to support oneself)not unto thine own understanding. 6In all(everything) thy ways( root to tread, walk)( a road, path, journey) acknowledge (yādaʿ-to know-see, intimacy in relationship (1) to know by observing and reflecting (thinking), and (2) to know by experiencing)him, and he shall direct(a verb with the primary sense of “please”, to make straight or even, to be smooth, to be pleasing, figurative- to be) thy paths(root- to travel-go)(path, way, highway, a well trodden road).
We have been on the wrong pathway the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the do it yourself pathway, trusting in self-sufficiency and all our human resources, leaning upon our own understanding and what we have been taught in church.
Verse 5-In order to come out of deception we have to trust in the lord. We have to enter into Him. We have to hide in the secret place of our spirit in communion with him, we have to ascend into the heavenly places in Christ where we are seated with him, where our heart is exposed to him. Where we have no self-conscious apart from him, or else we will be leaning upon our own understand of God, and the bible.
Verse 6- then in all our ways- this is speaking of our walk with God. All of our activities in him, being aware of his presence in everything, we think, say and do. In everything we are to know him. Then we will come into rest, that which is pleasing, his government in our lives and we will begin to be led by The Spirit, we will see the path we are to walk on.
We come out of deception by learning how to walk and talk with God, to know Him intimately. When we come into face to face relationship with the Lord, where we become his friend, then we begin to know his ways. How the kingdom of God functions.
Jeremiah 17: 5 Thus saith the LORD; Cursed (no divine enablement) be the man that trusteth (be confident in) in man, and maketh flesh his arm (strength), and whose heart departeth (to turn away, be far from) from the LORD. 6 For he shall be like the heath (a tree) in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited.
Cursed is the man that trusts in man and makes flesh his strength. To be cursed is the opposite of being blessed; to be blessed is to be empowered by God to prosper. To be cursed means we are on our own, we are on the do it yourself path that ends in death.
God has to reveal the truth to us through personal encounter with him, or else our believe system will be the result of what someone else believes and not personal encounter. We will not be able to see when good cometh, because our heart will not be filled with the life of God, but fear and deception.
7 Blessed is the man that trusteth (to hide for refuge. To trust, to be confident. It expresses the feeling of safety and security that is felt when one can rely on someone) in the LORD, and whose hope (security, trust, confidence) the LORD is. 8 For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought (form of death, rain and food scarce), neither shall cease from yielding fruit.9
When we learn how to enter into the secret place, the river of life flows into our spirit and God reveals the truth to us through a flow of revelation.
The heart is deceitful (root- to seize by the heel, trip) above all things, and desperately wicked (to be frail, feeble ,be sick, incurable, in poor health) : who can know it? 10 I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.
The enemy strikes at our heel-Gen3:15 and trips us up. Unless we learn how to abide in the heavenly places our heart will be in a place of deception.
Proverbs 4: 18But the path (well trodden path) of the just (root-to be right, innocent) is as the shining (root- to illuminate) (brilliancy, brightness) light (root to be luminous, illumination), that shineth (to be luminous, breaking of day) more and more (to walk) unto (until) the perfect (to establish) day .
We were co-crucified with Christ and now we are innocent. We are learning how to walk on the pathway of relationship. This requires practice so that it becomes a way of life. As we practice spiritual principles it becomes a pathway. As we walk on this pathway we are transformed into the image of Christ.
In order to come out of deception we have to walk on the pathway of intimacy. As we walk in the light, it shines brighter and brighter until we become a being of light that radiates the nature of Jesus Christ.
23Keep (to guard) thy heart (thinking, feeling, will) with all diligence (root- to hedge about) (a guard); for out of it (motion out of) are the issues (boarder, out-goings) of life.
Deception cannot be separated from the heart. We have to learn how to live from the inside out. The life of God flows into our spirit and then our soul. The inflowing of God’s life, contains his thoughts and feelings.
Unless we learn how to keep our heart full of God’s life through the inflowing of the Spirit, deception will enter in from the outside. Our heart speaks of our mind, will, emotions, conscience.
Mind- Matthew 9:4 “Jesus knowing their thoughts, said, wherefore think ye evil in your hearts.” Geneses 6:5 Hebrews 4:12 Mark 2:6-8
Will -Act 11:23 “……when He came ……exhorted them all, that with purpose of heart.”
Emotions– John 16:6 “sorrow has filled your heart.” John 16:22 Luke 24:32 Romans 9:2
Conscience Act 2:37 “Now when they heard this they were pricked in their heart.” Hebrews 10:22
Whatever comes in or out of our life does so through the gateway of the heart or our soul.
A Pure Heart Is the Key to Avoid Deception
Matthew 5:8 “Blessed are the pure in heart.”
Psalms 24:34 “Who shall go to Zion …. pure in heart.”
Titus 1:15 “Unto the pure all things are pure … But unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure … But even their mind and conscience is defiled.”
This Scripture is a key to understanding why we are deceived, an impure heart.
Part of walking with God is allowing His Spirit to search our heart but we cannot do that unless we have an intimate relationship with him.
When our spirit is alive to God it has certain senses within it. And one of these senses is the fear of the Lord. We can tune into it. The life of God or the Spirit of God flows into our spirit through different gateways and one of those gateways is the fear of the Lord.
We experience the presence of the Lord in the fear of the Lord, so we are not scared of him because we are feeling him, what causes the trembling is seeing through his eyes the condition of our soul, but unless we let him purify those areas he reveals we will remain in deception.
The more the Holy Spirit purifies and sanctifies our heart the clearer we can see in the spirit.