What Deception?

You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. John 8:44

The adversary wants you to believe a lie. Unfortunately, many subscribe to all of the lies. Lies abound and truth easily escapes us. What is truth anyway? Absolute truth can only be defined by the living word of Yahweh.

Psa 119:142 Your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and your law is truth.

Psa 119:151 You are near, O Yahweh, and all your commands are truth.

The first recorded lie was told to Eve. Scripture records the serpent deceived her. Genesis 3:13 : Then Yahweh God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

What was the deception? The deception was telling Eve to disobey Yahweh’s command. There was only one commandment at that point which was to not eat from a certain tree.

Gen 3:1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal which Yahweh God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God indeed say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

The deception was a simple question: “did God indeed say?”. This instance of deception was simply questioning God’s commandment, and it brought death into the world having consequences we are still dealing with today.

Fast forward to the times Jesus walked the Earth. Jesus called out the Pharisees for their deception and lies.

Joh 8:39 They answered him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would be doing the works Abraham did,
Joh 8:40 but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did.
Joh 8:41 You are doing the works your father did.” They said to him, “We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one Father—even God.”
Joh 8:42 Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me.
Joh 8:43 Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word.
Joh 8:44 You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
Joh 8:45 But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me.
Joh 8:46 Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me?
Joh 8:47 Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.”

Let’s look at deception, lies and the opposite of the Truth of Yahweh that has come through Philosophy. Here are some lines from Plato’s, The Republic, chapter 3:

“Then if any one at all is to have the privilege of lying, the rulers of the State should be the persons; and they, in their dealings either with enemies or with their own citizens, may be allowed to lie for the public good. But nobody else should meddle with anything of the kind; and although the rulers have this privilege, for a private man to lie to them in return is to be deemed a more heinous fault than for the patient or the pupil of a gymnasium not to speak the truth about his own bodily illnesses to the physician or to the trainer, or for a sailor not to tell the captain what is happening about the ship and the rest of the crew, and how things are going with himself or his fellow sailors.”

This philosophy, where the state is permitted to lie to its people, is all too familiar to us in the modern age. This philosophy has brought us to the delapitated, immoral society we now endure.

Col 2:1 For I want you to know how great a struggle I have on behalf of you, and those in Laodicea, and all those who have not seen my face in person,
Col 2:2 so that their hearts may be encouraged, united in love and into all the wealth of the full assurance of insight into the knowledge of the mystery of God, Christ,
Col 2:3 in whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden.
Col 2:4 I say this in order that no one will deceive you with persuasive speech,
Col 2:5 for even if I am absent in the flesh, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing and seeing your good order and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ.
Alive in Christ
Col 2:6 Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, live in him,
Col 2:7 firmly rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding with thankfulness.
Col 2:8 Beware lest anyone take you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world and not according to Christ,
Col 2:9 because in him all the fullness of deity dwells bodily,
Col 2:10 and you are filled in him, who is the head over every ruler and authority,
Col 2:11 in whom also you were circumcised with a circumcision not made by hands, by the removal of the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ,
Col 2:12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which also you were raised together with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.

Psalms 119:151 states: You are near, O Yahweh, and all your commands are truth. If Yahweh’s commands are defined as truth, then would it not make sense that anything contrary to His commands are lies? What is a lie except to tell someone to do something contrary to a commandment of Yahweh? Who would do such a thing as that? The government, social norms, the church, and the list goes on.

This is what Andy Stanley has to say about the Ten Commandments in an article in Christianity Today October 19, 2018:

“So, while I believe there is much we can learn from studying and preaching on the Old Testament, we must now take our cue from the promises fulfilled in Jesus—the new. The way we treat others is not based on 10 Commandments, but on one command given by Jesus—‘Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.’ (John 13:34; 15:12).”

“Did God indeed say” is the question the adversary is still asking today. Andy Stanley implies that we are not to use the Ten Commandments to base how we treat others. How does he intend to define love then? What is sin if not defined by “thou shalt not steal”, or “thou shall have no other gods before me”? It is a wishy washy, user defined, mess much like we are seeing play out in the apostate, contemporary churches. Satan, which is the Hebrew word for adversary, has been telling the same lie since Eve was deceived. It’s taken thousands of years to bring the deception to the place where a famous preacher can say we no longer need to consider the Ten Commandments, and many think that it’s great or don’t even know they are being deceived. This should not be a surprise because Rome abolished and made it a crime to follow one of the commandments some 1600 years ago.

Below is Canon XXIX from the Synod of Laodicea 343 AD:

“Canon XXIX.Christians must not judaize by resting on the Sabbath, but must work on that day, rather honouring the Lord’s Day; and, if they can, resting then as Christians. But if any shall be found to be judaizers, let them be anathema from Christ. Notes. Ancient Epitome of Canon XXIX.A Christian shall not stop work on the Sabbath, but on the Lord’s Day. Balsamon.Here the Fathers order that no one of the faithful shall stop work on the Sabbath as do the Jews, but that they should honour the Lord’s Day, on account of the Lord’s resurrection, and that on that day they should abstain from manual labour and go to church. But thus abstaining from work on Sunday they do not lay down as a necessity, but they add, ‘if they can.’ For if through need or any other necessity any one worked on the Lord’s day this was not reckoned against him.“

In 343 AD, the Roman church threw out one of the Ten Commandments , then in 2018 Andy Stanley kicked the rest to the curb? What is this, if not complete deception?

Eze 22:25 The conspiracy of its prophets in the midst of her is like a roaring lion that is tearing prey. They devour people, and they take wealth and treasure; they make its widows numerous in the midst of her.
Eze 22:26 Its priests treat my law violently, and they profane my holy objects; they do not distinguish between a holy object and what is unholy, or between the clean and the unclean. They do not teach the difference, and they hide their eyes from my Sabbaths, and so I am profaned in the midst of them.
Eze 22:27 Its officials are like wolves tearing prey in its midst, to pour out blood, to destroy people, to make dishonest gain.
Eze 22:28 And for them its prophets plaster whitewash; they are seeing falseness and are practicing divination for them by lying, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord Yahweh,’ and Yahweh has not spoken.
Eze 22:29 They severely oppress the people of the land, and they committed robbery, and they mistreated the needy and the poor, and they oppressed the alien without justice.
Eze 22:30 And so I sought for them somebody, one repairing the wall and standing in the breach before me on behalf of the land not to destroy it, but I did not find anyone,
Eze 22:31 and so I poured out my indignation on them. With the fire of my wrath I destroyed them; I returned their way upon their head,” declares the Lord Yahweh.

Some will say I am mixed up, these verses don’t apply to today. I say they apply more today than ever. We profane His Sabbaths, mistreat the needy and prophesy falsely. When will He pour out His indignation?

Rev 3:14 “And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: ‘The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God’s creation.
Rev 3:15 “‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot!
Rev 3:16 So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.
Rev 3:17 For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.
Rev 3:18 I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see.
Rev 3:19 Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.

These passages in Revelation are telling the people to buy gold refined by fire, white garments and salve to anoint the eyes. This is done by keeping His commandments, not a loosely defined love for everybody. Notice He says those whom He loves, He disciplines.

Rev 3:1 “And to the angel of the church in Sardis write: ‘The words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. “‘I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead.
Rev 3:2 Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God.
Rev 3:3 Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent. If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you.
Rev 3:4 Yet you have still a few names in Sardis, people who have not soiled their garments, and they will walk with me in white, for they are worthy.
Rev 3:5 The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels.
Rev 3:6 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’

What did the people receive and hear? It is something they can keep, and need to repent for not keeping it. Jesus tells them if they don’t wake up He is coming against them. Wake up from what? Deception.

Let’s look at the Greek word for “keep”. It is Strong’s G5083.

G5083
τηρέω
tēreō
Thayer Definition:
1) to attend to carefully, take care of
1a) to guard
1b) metaphorically to keep, one in the state in which he is
1c) to observe
1d) to reserve: to undergo something

Keep, guard and observe are all words that are being applied to what the people heard in verse three.

Deu 5:1 And then Moses summoned all of Israel and said to them, “Hear, Israel, the rules and the regulations that I am speaking in your ears today, and you shall learn them, and you must observe them diligently.
Deu 5:2 Yahweh our God made a covenant with us at Horeb.
Deu 5:3 It was not with our ancestors that Yahweh made this covenant, but with these of us who are here alive today.
Deu 5:4 Face to face Yahweh spoke with you at the mountain from the midst of the fire.

What a deception it is that we have fallen prey. We think we are following Jesus and doing many works in His name, yet at the same time doing the exact opposite of what He told us through his word.

Lately I have been reading parts of the Mishnah along with the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmud. I refer to these books as the doctrines of men that Jesus complained about often to the Pharisees in some of my blog posts. However, I found I was admittedly ignorant of the differences between the Mishnah and Talmud. There is valuable information in these books concerning the way the people in Jesus’ day applied the Torah, which can help a person understand some of the controversies that were happening in the New Testament scriptures. Since we are on the topic of deception, I found this written in the section on idolatry (ABODAH ZARAH) in the Mishnah:

“For three days before the festivals of the gentiles it is forbidden to have business with them—to lend to them or to borrow from them, to lend them money or to borrow money from them, to repay them or to be repaid by them.”

“And these are the festivals of the gentiles: the Calends,* the Saturnalia, the commemoration of empire,”* the anniversaries* of kings, and the day of [their] birth and the day of [their] death.”

“If there was an idolatrous festival in a city and some shops therein were adorned and others not adorned-such a case happened in Beth Shean, and the Sages said: Those that are adorned are forbidden and those that are not adorned are not forbidden.”

“These things it is forbidden to sell to the gentiles:’ fir-cones, white figs with their stalks, frankincense, or a white cock. R. Judah says: One may sell a gentile a white cock among other cocks, or, if it is by itself, cut off its spur and sell it to him, because they do not sacrifice to an idol what is defective.”

In the footnotes it indicates that Calends is eight days after the winter solstice and the Saturnalia starts eight days before the winter solstice. This is what we celebrate as Christmas and New Years. It amazes me that this is the time the Romans assigned to Jesus’ birth and it is celebrated as such, when Jesus would have learned as a young child not to participate in birthdays of kings, Calends, the Saturnalia, pine cones and Ashera trees. There is a section on the trees which are very important in idolatry. It is sometimes said that New Year’s Day would have been the day that Jesus was circumcised because it was eight days after His birth. It is such a miserable, tangled web of deception. We seem to have the right days, customs and symbols, just the wrong god. Here are some more passages from the Mishnah:

“Three kinds of Asherah are to be distinguished: if a tree was planted from the first for idolatry, it is forbidden; if it was chopped and trimmed for idolatry and it sprouted afresh, one only need take away what has sprouted afresh; but if a gentile did but set up an idol beneath it and then desecrate it, the tree is permitted. What is an Asherah ? Any tree under which is an idol. R. Simeon says: Any tree which is worshipped.”

Study the Holy scripture yourself and do not fall into the trap of deception that has been set. In the end, no one will be able to blame their pastors and teachers For being deceived. Everyone is responsible to learn these things for themselves.