Undeluding the Deluded

John wrote that “many deceivers are entered into the world” (2 John 7). This statement is as true today as it was in the first century. There are multitudes of people who are deceived by various deceivers. People are deceived about God, about Jesus, about biblical truth, and about their own sinful condition and their need for a Savior. Many of them are so deluded that they call evil good, and good evil.

When we think of people being spiritually deceived, we usually think of false prophets and false apostles like those whom Peter and Paul mentioned. “But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies,” Peter said (2 Pet. 2:1). “But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived,” Paul wrote (2 Tim. 3:13).

The false prophets who seduce and deceive people are themselves deceived, Paul says. But who deceived the deceivers, and why?

The answer to the first part of that question is in Ezekiel: “And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the LORD have deceived that prophet” (Ezk. 14:9). It is the LORD who deceives the deceivers.

The answer to the second part of that question (“why?”) is in 2 Thessalonians: “because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness” (2 Thes. 2:10-12). God sends strong delusion to deceive people because they do not love the truth.

Most Bible believers think of “the deceiver” as Satan. Satan is certainly a deceiver, but God is the Master Deceiver. God deceives false prophets and He sends strong delusion to deceive people who do not love the truth.

God sent a lying spirit into the mouths of Ahab’s prophets to persuade Ahab to go to war so he would be killed. (See 1 Kings 22:19-23.) God uses the devil and demons to deceive people, but ultimately it is the LORD who deceives people. The devils are just tools in His hand.

The deception of people who do not love the truth is not just some unfortunate accident. It is a deliberate act of God. God Himself sends the delusion. It is not a weak delusion that can easily be spotted as a delusion. It is “strong delusion.”

Even more scary is the fact that God does not just send strong delusion only to people who hate the truth. He sends strong delusion to people who do not love the truth. You do not need to hate the truth to be deceived. Mere indifference to truth is reason enough for God to send strong delusion to people.

Multitudes of Americans are deceived about so many things. It seems that a strong delusion has taken hold of our nation. Indisputable, obvious facts no longer matter to these people. Reason, logic, and common sense are ineffective against the unreasonable, illogical, nonsensical thinking of the deceived multitudes. Pointing out the obvious hypocrisy of self-righteous hypocrites does not convince them that they are self-righteous hypocrites. They are spiritually blind. They continue to call evil good, and good evil.

The deluded multitudes are apparently under the judgment of God. Because they do not love the truth, God has sent them strong delusion, so that they will believe a lie and be damned.

On the one hand, God is “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9). On the other hand, God sends them strong delusion so they will believe a lie and be damned. How do we undo delusion when God Himself is the One who sent that delusion as a judgment for their lack of love for the truth?

Recently at one of our prayer meetings, while praying for lost souls to be saved, I was thinking about this dilemma. Since a lack of love for the truth is what brought strong delusion upon the deceived people, the only way for them to be undeluded is for them to desire truth and love the truth when it is presented to them. But if their hearts are filled with indifference toward truth, how can they obtain a desire and a love for truth? Love and indifference cannot coexist; they are mutually exclusive.

We can pray for God to remove the apathy toward truth from people’s hearts, and replace it with a love and desire for truth. However, I have a hard time believing that God will just randomly, arbitrarily, supernaturally drop a desire for truth into a deceived sinner’s heart, especially when God has already decreed that He would drop delusion into their heart so they will believe a lie and be damned.

If God wants to free people from the strong delusion that He has sent them, He will not free them without using the means and the method He has always used: men.

“Men are God’s method,” wrote E.M. Bounds. “The church is looking for better methods; God is looking for better men... What the church needs today is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men whom the Holy Spirit can use - men of prayer, men mighty in prayer. The Holy Spirit does not flow through methods, but through men. He does not come on machinery, but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men - men of prayer” (The Complete Works of E.M. Bounds on Prayer, Baker Books 1990, p. 447).

God wants to use men as the means and the method to free these damned, deluded people from their God-sent delusion. He wants to use His people to undelude the deluded. The gospel is to be proclaimed by men, not by angels. On rare occasion God may send an angel to a seeking soul, as He did for Cornelius. However, the angel did not proclaim the gospel to Cornelius. He told Cornelius to send for Peter, a man. “He shall tell thee what thou oughtest to do,” the angel said (Acts 10:6). The angel did this because preaching the gospel is a job for men, not angels. If Mohammed and Joseph Smith had known this, they would not have received “another gospel” from an angel and brought deception upon themselves and their followers. (See Galatians 1:8f.)

The reason deluded people are deluded is because God sent them strong delusion as judgment for not loving truth. The only way to dislodge the delusion from their heart is by administering the antidote. The antidote is a love for truth. But deluded, apathetic people cannot love the truth unless they first desire to know the truth. And they will have no desire to know the truth unless they first see some manifestation of the truth.

How then can deluded people be undeluded from their God-sent strong delusion? By God-sent men of truth who not only speak the truth but live according to the truth. It will take more than proclaiming true words and true doctrines, though these things are very important. It will take more than outward conformity to biblical standards of modest dress, though these things are very important. It will take men and women of God who are living demonstrations of the truth that they profess to believe.

“Behold, Thou desirest truth in the inward parts,” David said (Ps. 51:6). Truth must first be welcomed into our hearts, not grudgingly but joyfully. Our acceptance of correct biblical doctrines and our conformity to external biblical behavior and standards should flow from the truth in the inward parts. Holiness starts on the inside and works its way out. The only hope for the deluded to be undeluded is a manifestation of truth that is too colossal to be ignored.

“What is truth?” Pilate asked Yeshua.

Yeshua gave no answer to Pilate’s question. He did not need to give a verbal answer, because the answer to Pilate’s question was standing right in front of him. Yeshua Himself was the truth embodied in flesh and blood.

The truth that Yeshua manifested in Pilate’s judgment hall was enough to convince Pilate that Yeshua was guiltless. Three times Pilate testified to the Jews, “I find no fault in him” (John 18:38; 19:4, 6). Pilate tried to exonerate himself by publicly washing his hands and saying, “I am innocent of the blood of this just person” (Matt. 27:24). Pilate did not love the truth enough to save Yeshua from crucifixion, but Pilate could not ignore the manifestation of truth in his judgment hall that day.

Just as Yeshua was a flesh and blood manifestation of truth in Pilate’s judgment hall, so we are called to be a flesh and blood manifestation of truth in this world’s judgment halls. We might not stand in an actual courtroom in a courthouse, but as disciples of Yeshua, we are constantly being judged by the world. When the world looks at us, what do they see?

For the deluded worldlings to be delivered from their apathy toward truth, they must see a manifestation of truth that will shake them and make them care about truth. They need to see a body of people who love the truth deeply enough to live their lives in a manner that corresponds to the truths they claim to believe.

“For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God” (Rom. 8:19). The NASB says it this way: “For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.”

All creation, especially mankind, is eagerly waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God.

“Daniel, what is this ‘manifestation of the sons of God’ business? I thought we were already sons of God right now.”

That’s true. John writes, “Beloved, now are we the sons of God” (1 John 3:2). But immediately before that statement, John says that “the world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not” (1 John 3:1).

Yes, we are now sons of God. However, the world does not yet recognize us as sons of God. The world needs to see a manifestation of the sons of God before they will acknowledge our sonship. When the Lord returns, our status as sons of God will be fully manifested to all the world in a way that cannot be refuted, because “when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is” (1 John 3:2).

That will be the manifestation of the sons of God in its fulness. But in the meantime, as we await His return, we are called to manifest our sonship in ever-increasing degrees as we are transformed by the renewing of our minds.

The world needs to see a body of people who have truth in the inward parts and live according to the truth. They need to see a people who truly set their “affection on things above, not on things of the earth” (Col. 3:2), a people who truly “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness” (Matt. 6:33), and trust their heavenly Father to take care of them, a people whose lives clearly demonstrate their belief that laying up treasures in heaven is far more important than laying up treasures on earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt.

The lost, deluded souls will be undeluded only when they see a manifestation of truth in the lives of the sons of God, a manifestation powerful enough to shake them from their complacency and cause them to turn toward the truth.

| DB

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Image: Psalm 127 by Daniel Botkin from his Psurrealistic Psalms Pseries. See this and all his art galleries on his art website, DanielBotkin.com.