Allen Jackson - Do Not Be Deceived - Part 1
It's good to be with you again. Our topic today is, "Do Not Be Deceived". Jesus warned us when he was preparing for the end of the age that it would be a time of rampant, widespread deception, that even the elect would be deceived, he said, if possible. So we need to be prepared. It's gonna be a part of the world we live in. Deception is when you believe something to be true when in reality it isn't. And deception doesn't just come from false prophets in the sense of religious figures, a false prophet is anyone who purports to be telling you the truth and in fact they're not. So you need to expand your definition a little bit. We live in an age of unprecedented deception. You know, we have all sorts of expressions, let the buyer beware. I would submit to you, in God's sight, you'd better let the seller beware. If you're deceptive when you're in the marketplace, God's judgment's coming for you, it's not good business, it's bad life. We want to understand how you and I can choose to be people with pure hearts before the Lord. We're not pointing our fingers at anybody else, we're saying to God, God, I want to live with integrity and truth and uprightness in a way so that your greatest blessings can fill my life and my future. I promise you, it's a doable assignment. Grab your Bible, get a notepad, most of all, open your heart. God has something for us today.
If you believe it's impossible for you to be deceived because of your intellect, your pedigree, your church affiliation, your tenure, you're already deceived. So the theme is deception, how we're gonna avoid it. And the reason I think it's so imperative right now is we're walking through a period of dramatic deception, really unprecedented. Deceptive statements are flooding over us on a daily basis. And they approach, as it seems to me, from every ideological or spiritual direction. The result is it's just completely disorienting, it leaves us feeling unstable, we're not sure what to believe or what to think or where to look for truth, and it leaves us feeling weary, emotionally weary, spiritually weary, physically weary.
Often our response is a desire just to get past this. Let's not quibble about what's true and what's false, let's just get past this, 'cause if we can get past it perhaps we'll land in a more stable place, a more clearly defined place. Well you can't negotiate with evil. The only thing evil will yield to is a power greater than itself. So the solution, the answer, to this dilemma is truth. But this avalanche of deception, if you're not aware, if you're not listening, if you're not watching, if you're not thinking, you'll miss it and you'll be swept along by the tide.
I just started a shortlist, it's by no means inclusive, but the deception around COVID. COVID is real, it's a real threat, it's a real virus, it's a real illness, it has caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and far more people have been sick. But the information we've been given around COVID has changed day to day and week to week and month to month and from state to state and city to city and nation to nation. China was not honest about the circumstances there and we just kinda shrugged our shoulders and said, whatever, great nation, they just lie about pandemics. Go home for two weeks and you'll be good to go, you can go back to normal.
Well, we need to stay four more weeks, but then you'll be okay, the curve will be flat and there's no problem. And then you can fill in the blanks, it's hard to trust. We know there's a problem, when we want to work together, we want to help one another. But there's been a lot of deception wrapped up in it as well. We just finished an election season. Election seasons in our nation right now on a national election and the campaigns that go with them, they are the substance of deception. How do we convince this group that I believe what they want me to believe, and this group, which is on the opposite end of the spectrum that I believe what they want to believe?
Candidates are experts at it. It's the nature of the beast, and we watch that and we think, how can they say that here and say that here and say that here? It's disorienting. Christian messages in this season or confusing, vote, do not vote, don't vote for this candidate, vote for that candidate. It's just as evil. The media, once a very trusted part of our culture and our society, we look to them for accurate information, to be a point of accountability for all of us. No longer. They're no longer a neutral source of information, they are propaganda producers. And it's disorienting. Science.
My father's a veterinarian, my college career began in the basic sciences, I'm an advocate for science. But when science is politicized It becomes a tool for deception, whether it's the politicization, it's making political the information around COVID. I'm from Tennessee, deal with it, okay? Or it's the information around climate. There's no doubt there's climate changes and climate activity, but it's been elevated to a point of a religion, that everything should be subordinated to it and subjected to it, and science has been made political to enforce the opinions that you prefer.
Sexual orientation. They're tryin' to find scientific evidence to suggest we should be gender fluid, this is not a new thing, folks. The manipulation of science for political agenda is not new. Don't be naive. If you weren't paying attention in school now you're gonna have to pay the stupid tax and go back and learn a little bit. But you can't afford to remain ignorant. And the church has had hands in this, our hands aren't clean either. Galileo, ever heard of him? He's not from middle Tennessee. You won't find him on Twitter. He had this notion that the earth revolved around the sun.
What a notion, that the sun was at the center of our little planetary system here. But that idea challenged, was in disagreement with, the prevailing idea of the day, because prior to that the imagination was that everything revolved around the earth. And the church, at that time pretty much the universal church in the West agreed with Copernicus' theory. So Galileo was tried as a heretic. Oh, he had the right answers, you could follow the science and get you to the right place, but the debate was so political. It had jobs attached to it and status attached to it. And when science becomes manipulated by political agendas and ideals you can't afford to follow the science or you'll be deceived.
I'm not asking you to tear your brain out and ignore your wisdom. Use it. Censorship, in ways we have never seen it. The hiding of the truth, the manipulation of the truth to keep large parts of our population from knowing what is real. And there's no apology for it, there's no embarrassment for it. Trampling on our First Amendment rights without any reluctance whatsoever. It's deception. It's crashing over us like waves at the beach. There are predictive voices around us.
Many of them, many voices from many spheres of influence, predicting the events that are gonna unfold before us. It comes from Christianity, the prophets, declaring upcoming events with absolute certainty and determination and repetitiveness. It comes from other arenas, economic arenas, political arenas, experts in these categories that have inside knowledge and they're predicting future outcomes. And the outcomes don't come to pass, whether they've been spiritually identified or economically identified, it leaves you disoriented. Churches, in a widespread way, whole denominations, are rejecting orthodoxy.
Fancy language, it means they won't accept a biblical worldview, the divinity of Jesus, his redemptive work, his crucifixion, his physical death on the cross, his resurrection, the fact that he's unique, the incarnate son of God. Whole denominations rejecting biblical worldviews around human sexuality. Well the label says church, but what's being espoused from those places is so widely divergent, and some of it's so deceptive, it's disorienting. Churches refusing to provide leadership for their believers in seasons of challenge.
Politicians and leaders who don't put our national interests first, but prefer personal gain, accumulation of power, and therefore they don't uphold the truth. The list could go on and on and on. On a daily basis, deception cascades over us. So what are we to do? How do we find our way? How do we navigate this? How do we regain our balance? Well, fortunately, Jesus has given us some really good advice. Isn't that good to know? I'll tell you, I'm not a beginner, not in the sense that I've accumulated all wisdom, I've had enough birthdays. There was a time I was reluctant to say, I believe in Jesus. I was wise enough to know it wasn't a fully-held view and I thought, I don't want to diminish my opportunities.
Folks, from the place I stand today, you will never regret identifying yourself with Jesus. And I've been an academic settings, and I love to learn and study and I'm grateful for all the opportunities I've had, I've been in settings where Jesus wasn't welcome, and I turned down the volume to do what I needed to do in those settings, and I regret it. So whatever your life calling, whatever your mission, whomever your circle of friends is, let it be known you're an advocate for Jesus.
If the awakening is going to grow, and we desperately need it to grow, it's going to be a grassroots initiative, where you and I as advocates for Jesus are unrelenting, we will not be silent, and we will tell the God story that we have to tell. In all of our brokenness and all of our weakness and all that we're not, we will advocate for Jesus. Don't you stop. And if you haven't been willing to do that, before the day is done get on your knees and tell the Lord you're sorry, 'cause there's a day ahead of us when you're gonna want him to call you friend.
Well, Jesus warned us. In fact, in the Scripture almost every passage which deals with the end of the age deals with being deceived. They go together. It is an overriding characteristic of the end of this age, and we're in that season. In Matthew 24, in verse 4, Jesus said, watch out that no one deceives you, for many will come in my name, claiming, I'm the Messiah, and they will deceive many. He's warning his closest friends, his best followers, the best of the best, the most trained, the ones with the most experience, watch out that no one deceives you. Now Jesus is a true prophet. Of all the Hebrew prophets, and there are many, he's the greatest.
In that same chapter, Matthew 24, in verse 22, it says, if those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened. Sounds to me like the elect are gonna have to go through some things. Hallelujah? I promise you, my Bible says, God will never ask you to walk through something that he hasn't given you everything you need to walk through it triumphantly. So wherever you find yourself, God's given you what you need. I read once where Mother Teresa said, sometimes I wish God didn't have so much confidence in me. You may share that feeling. Verse 23. At that time, if anyone says to you, look here is the Messiah! or, there he is! don't believe it.
For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect, if that were possible. See, I've told you ahead of time. At critical junctures in the unfolding story of God in the earth and dealing with the descendants of Adam, God gives us critical information to help us flourish in those seasons of transition. And Jesus is cautioning us that deception is real. There's a couple of very important lessons. One is that miraculous signs do not prove a message is true. And we're incredibly vulnerable as religious people to this.
If there's attestation, supernatural evidence, that something is happening, we tend to just blindly go, yes. And Jesus' counsel and the larger counsel of Scripture is very clear, the antichrist will be a supernatural character, it will be a religious figure, have as one of his most trusted assets, allies, a false prophet. Doesn't mean that miracles aren't important, we will need them. Avoiding miracles is not the right pathway. We won't finish this course well without the supernatural intervention of God. And if you've avoided the supernatural because it was a little messy to your intellectual neatness, tell the Lord you're sorry. You will need his help.
We may have lived in a place where through your strength and your logic and your reason and your effort you can navigate the challenges of life. We have left that place. We will need the supernatural help of God. And then Jesus said, even the elect would be deceived, if it were possible. The elect are God's chosen ones. It's an interesting proposition. Why can the elect avoid deception? 'Cause we sit in the right churches? We read the right translation? We know the dress code? No, because God chose us. It's as simple as that. Because God chose us. Our security is not in our education or our denominational affiliation or the congregation where we participate, it's God who secures us.
That's why the awareness that Jesus is Lord, that we serve at his pleasure, that he establishes our priorities, that we serve in whatever capacity he asks us to serve him, we don't ask him to serve us, because then we can trust him to secure us. There's a question asked, it was an interview between Jesus and the Roman governor, and some of you will remember his name was Pontius Pilate. And Pilate's trying to sort out what to do with Jesus. Jesus' enemies in the Jewish community are asking for his execution, and Pilate has the authority but he senses that he's innocent. And his wife has a dream and she comes and Intercedes on behalf of Jesus, and Pilate is in a very difficult political circumstance.
You'd better work out what your allegiances are before you get into difficult positions, 'cause if you wait until you're in the pressure of the moment before you decide in whom you believe, it's highly improbable you'll have the courage to make the right choice. You want to exercise that muscle on small matters before they become matters of life and determine your destiny. Think of the difference for Pilate if he had said, I agree, you're the king of the Jews. He'd be more than a historical footnote. He had an opportunity. He liked his position, he liked his power, he liked the wealth that brought to him, he liked the authority it gave him. He was afraid of those in authority over him.
So regardless of what he felt, regardless of what he knew to be true, he capitulated. Before we point fingers at him over the centuries, we need to look in the mirror and begin to say to the Lord, may I have the courage to tell the truth? To be a person of truth? May I identify for you and stand up on your behalf? Jesus answered. Pilate said, you're a king, then? And Jesus answered, you're right in saying I'm a king, in fact for this reason I was born and for this I came into the world. When Jesus said that, he signed his death warrant. He was aware of it, the one thing for which without question you could be crucified is if you put yourself up in opposition to Caesar.
And when Jesus said, I'm the king, he didn't deny it. Think of all the ways he could've answered. He could have answered in mystical language, he could have answered in so many ways that would have deflected the question, and we would have called him clever or witty. But he didn't step away from the truth. Denying the truth will not put you in a better place. It seems that the price for Jesus was high because he owned the truth, but because of that, in Philippians 2, it says, God gave him a name that's above every name, the name of Jesus. Every knee will bow in heaven and earth and under the earth.
And when you're willing to stand for the truth, for righteousness, for integrity, if in the moment you forfeit something the creator of heaven and earth will see to it that the scales tip in your favor. Amen? For this I came into the world to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of the truth listens to me. And Pilate asked the question that is echoed through all the ages of human history, what is truth? What is truth? We can't tell from the context if Pilate said it as a skeptic, mocking Jesus, or if he said it as an inquirer who was genuinely anxious to know. It's just not, we can't tell. Only in eternity will we know that.
But the question has never been adequately answered by philosophy. Well there have been many attempts, and many would submit that they have, but the Bible gives us an answer. And we're talking about deception. Understanding how to identify the truth is important. Now the Bible doesn't give us a simple answer. In fact, as I understand it, the Bible gives us three aspects or, if you prefer, three coordinates of the truth, and you need all three coordinates to be in place to identify something as true. The words aren't complicated.
John 14, in verse 6, Jesus said, I'm the way, the truth, and the life. So Jesus is the truth. There's no truth apart from Jesus. If someone says he isn't the son of God, you can know they don't hold the truth. They may be smart and well-educated, have letters after their name, be influential and powerful, but they're missing a key component. John 17:17 says, sanctify them by the truth, your Word is truth. So God's Word is the truth. Our Bible. You say, it was written by people. It was, but it was directed by the Spirit of the living God.
Now it's been written and translated and copied, you don't want to build your worldview off of one sentence in the Bible or where a comma is placed. But through the pages of your Scripture the character of God and the purposes of God are revealed. In 1 John 5:6 it says, this is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ. He didn't come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. That's the third coordinate, the Spirit is truth. The truth is Jesus, the truth is the Bible, the Word of God, and the truth is the Spirit.
In order to know the truth you have to have all three coordinates. Now that's important, 'cause you can hear someone preach a wonderful message, talk a great deal about Jesus, Jesus this and Jesus that, but you need to check your Bible to see if what was said is the truth, because saying nice things about Jesus doesn't always mean it's true. Or you may hear someone talk a great deal about the Spirit and the moving of the Spirit of God and how to know the Spirit of God, but you need to check your Bible.
If it can't be substantiated, it isn't the truth, even if it's what you want to hear. Or someone may preach a biblically accurate message, quoting chapter and verse, but if it lacks the presence of the Spirit that brings life to God's Word, it's burdensome and not freedom. To ensure you have the truth, you need those three things to be in place. Is it true to Jesus, is it true to the Bible, and does it have the witness of the Spirit? That's why more than a casual knowledge of your Bible is important, that's why daily exposure to the Word of God matters.
We're gonna pray before we go, but I want to take just a moment. Now I don't remember a time when there seems to have been more widespread discouragement, even despair, than in these past few weeks. There's been an enormous amount of energy and effort and focus and prayer and a lot of things focused on the election and the outcomes and the aftermath of that. I want to invite you, you know, we've got to turn loose of some things. Whether you like the outcome or you didn't, we've got to forgive, we gotta turn loose of our anger and our disappointment and our resentment. It doesn't mean that we endorse everything that happened or we endorse everything that is happening, but you and I don't have the luxury of holding on to that resentment and bitterness and anger, even hate. We have got to turn loose or we put ourselves in a place where we will forfeit God's blessings. I wanna pray for you as we go that the Spirit of God will help us to unpack those destructive voices so that God's best can continue to be ours. Let's pray:
Lord, I thank you today for your Word, for its truth, and its power. Only you can keep us from deception. Lord, we choose you. Today we choose to respond in obedience, to forgive, Lord, any anger, any resentment, any bitterness, Lord, we turn loose of it today. I thank you for the leaders you've given us, may they make godly choices so that your blessings can come to us. In Jesus's name, amen.