Plague
Strangely (or perhaps not), we’re in the middle of a plague. Some people think this plague was manufactured; most people don’t care. It doesn’t really matter because in scripture plagues aren’t manufactured – they go hand in hand with famine. I’ll return to that point a bit later.
One of the odd things about this plague is the proportion of people who are asymptomatic. That is, there is a huge number of people carrying this virus who demonstrate symptoms similar to other illnesses, or sometimes no symptoms at all. They are infected with a sickness they can easily pass to others, yet neither they nor those around them know that they have it.
A study in Nature Medicine in June of 2020 showed that being asymptomatic was no guarantee that the body hadn’t been damaged by the virus. And a professor of Cardiovascular and Respiratory Medicine stated that “the symptoms underestimate the severity of the disease.”[3]
Deception is at work in the Church in a similar way.
The body of Christ is at war with a plague. Many people in that body are unaware they even have a plague, or that they’re passing it to others. The symptoms they exhibit (or perhaps, do not exhibit) underestimate the severity of the illness that now grips them. They seem fine to themselves (and often to others), but for some of them, the damage taking place internally may be irreversible.
And just as individuals have underestimated the severity of deception in their lives or the lives of their friends, so the body as a whole has failed to see how widespread and how deeply this plague has taken root in the lives of its members.
New Testament scriptures that speak of deception do so either in the context of sin or of Christ’s return. That is, the Bible warns Christians not to be deceived about both. Unsurprisingly, these are the two topics that Christians today are most complacent about. But these aren’t the only places where symptoms of deceptions can be observed.
When I was a kid, I used to wonder how it would be possible that Christians would be deceived. I just couldn’t see it. Now I’m surrounded by them. Most of them decent, church-going people, trying to make the world a better place. But deceived. Deceived by organizations that claim to want racial harmony but have a clenched fist for a logo. Deceived by politicians who have mastered the art of hypocrisy, whose façade is gleaming white but whose hearts are filled with hidden sins. Deceived by a media that no longer even makes a pretence of truth-telling. Deceived by preachers who say that God’s grace requires no change in our lives, that holiness is unattainable, and all God wants from our transformed hearts is better recycling and kindness to immigrants.
How did we get here? Jeremiah asks the same question. And then he answers it:
Their ears are uncircumcised,
they cannot listen;
behold, the word of the LORD is to them
an object of scorn;
they take no pleasure in it.
-Jer 6:10
How did perfectly decent Christians end up totally blind to their own deception. And not just totally blind, but utterly convinced that they are the ones who see; that everyone else is blind.
They ended up deceived because their ears have not been circumcised.
At some place in their lives, God has spoken, and they’ve either dismissed it, or ignored it, or failed to do what he asked of them. And so the next time he speaks, it’s a little harder to hear and a little easier to discount. And the next time, more so. And so on, until they truly cannot hear God speaking to them. Instead, what they hear are the voices of their own minds, the voices of the zeitgeist, and eventually even the voices of other spirits. All the while, they are convinced they are hearing the voice of the Lord.
They haven’t taken pleasure in God’s word; the kind of longing for God’s word the Psalmist writes about (Ps 119) is totally foreign to them; and in some cases his word has even become something to scorn. So they don’t act on what God says.
That explains how they no longer hear the voice of God. But it doesn’t explain how they end up beguiled. It’s easy to see how they don’t believe truth, but how, exactly, do they believe lies? How do they become impervious to evidence, rational argument, or the truth of God’s word, while embracing positions, philosophies, and theology that is a distortion of true Christianity?
I don’t know if this is the only way, but it’s certainly a way I have observed:
Everyone is tempted by his own desires as they lure him away and trap him. Then desire becomes pregnant and gives birth to sin. When sin grows up, it gives birth to death. My dear brothers and sisters, don’t be fooled.
(James 1:14-16, GW)
You might be thinking, “But it wasn’t their fault they were deceived. After all, they were deceived.”
Actually, James says that it is. Something inside them, some desire of theirs is drawn to something that is not quite true, and they become attached to it. I believe this is because there is something about them that is not quite true. Something that they have not allowed the Spirit of God to deal with in them is drawn to deception, captivated by it, and utterly beguiled. At that point they become incapable of seeing the truth because they are convinced that what they believe is truth. It doesn’t matter their political persuasion – left or right, up or down – the effect is the same. They are deceived.
The Church is now fully immersed in a plague of deception.
It’s in the pew and it’s in the pulpit.
And it’s not going away.
Although this is deeply saddening for me to watch, the saddest part is that these Christians are setting themselves up to believe The Lie (2 Thes 2:11).
In 2 Thessalonians Paul writes that the coming of the Lord will not take place until the rebellion occurs. That word rebellion (apostasia in the Greek) means
- defiance of established system or authority
- abandonment or breach of faith
- falling away, rejection, or rebellion; apostasy.
What is the Church now witnessing?
- a defiance of the authority of scripture,
- an abandonment of orthodoxy, a rebellion against Truth,
- a falling away from the faith.
The Church is in the midst of an apostasy, and it’s not slowing down. Some are openly leaving the Church. Others remain, but leave theologically or in their hearts.
The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with how Satan works. He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie, and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved…. [T]hey will believe the lie.
2 Thes 2:9-10
The perplexing thing to older Christians is that many of the people who are now apostates continue to call themselves Christians and actually consider themselves to be the orthodox ones, though they spend more time on their morning yoga routine than they do in communion with God. They say all the right phrases and sing all the right songs, so they have an appearance of godliness. They also seem unbelievably humble – never daring to be certain, ever learning, always “on a journey.” (2 Tim 3:7). And that’s the interesting part because it takes us back to the Garden and the first example of human deception.
The one thing I’ve observed in all the people I’ve met like this is the common denominator of spiritual arrogance cloaked in the language and posture of humility. They feel sorry for us poor believers who still think those old-fashioned biblical thoughts. They know what the scripture really means because Jen Hatmaker, Rob Bell, and Pope Francis told them. They are wise; you unlearned. They the knowledgeable; you the ignorant. They are like the ancient Gnostics – holders of secret knowledge. With their enlarged understanding of God, they alone know what is true. They know there are many ways to the Father/Mother/Universal Consciousness. And they know God doesn’t punish sin, because sin doesn’t exist; they magicked it away by revealing it to be a post-apostolic construct inconsistent with a loving God.
And here, I think is a clue to what it is inside them that is drawn to deception: Pride. That original of all original sins. I’ve observed it in those I’ve encountered, and it is certainly true of the most influential members of this group. They are wonderfully affable, personable, charming, and possess a certain endearing quality that just begs you to like them. They’re good communicators, concerned for the poor, often talking about Jesus (his graciousness rather than his demands), and they’re usually pretty knowledgeable, particularly about their biblical beliefs. But in each of them I have observed pride. And its most common expression is the pride of feigned uncertainty. And they want you to feel uncertain too. (Maybe God didn’t say). When you speak with them you almost feel guilty for being certain about anything.
The Plague and the famine go hand in hand. As the dead bodies pile up in the streets, disease is inevitable. This is where we are. Dead Christians with their dead faith piled up in the Church now spreading the disease of deception.
This is our plague. Perhaps there will be others. But God knows this one is bad enough.
Famine and plague are tragic. Tragic because they are totally preventable. What is happening in the Western Church today could have been prevented if we had realised how bereft we were; how little of God we carried; how hollow our services, preaching, and worship. But we didn’t realize. (Or perhaps we realized, but lied to ourselves??) So now we are paying the price.
If famine and plague are tragic, what comes next is true terror.
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