Are you being deceived?

Photos courtesy than Unsplash 

None of us likes to be deceived, yet we may be subject to some kind of deception almost every day. Perhaps you have been deceived in the purchase of some commodity; for example, if the car you bought was ‘clocked’. That means the milometer (the device recording the number of miles the vehicle has travelled) had been turned back to give the impression that the distance travelled was a lot smaller than the true mileage. Along with this, the price was increased because supposedly you were buying ‘a very nice low mileage car’. Sometimes a soccer player is tackled and the tackler hardly touches him but he rolls around the turf so that the referee is deceived into awarding a ‘free kick’. Many people have been deceived by politicians who promised lots but delivered little.

We remember, when we were at school, the excuses we made because we did not have our homework done. We deceived the teacher. One of the worst deceptions was when we deceived our parents by lying to them about places we had been and the company we were with. As we look back over the past our cheeks blush and we feel most uncomfortable.

A lot of times we were never found out. However, in the Bible we are introduced to the God Who is Truth, and He can expose every sin. Numbers 32.23 solemnly reminds us, "Behold, ye have sinned against the Lord: and be sure your sin will find you out." The first deceiver on earth was the devil himself. We recall how, in the guise of a serpent, he deceived Eve into disobeying God, Genesis 3.1-7, then Adam chose to follow his wife, and the moment he did so, sin entered the human race: "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned" Romans 5.12. My dear reader, you and I and everybody else have been contaminated by sin, and with sins unforgiven we can never be in Heaven, and the only alternative is Hell. You may think that you are different and you will escape the judgment of God. Again we turn to the infallible Word of God: "... for there is no difference: for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God" Romans 3.22,23.

Is it certain that God knows all about us? In chapters 2 and 3 of the Book of Revelation the Lord Jesus speaks to seven churches and to each He says, "I know"; there is nothing overlooked and if we remain unforgiven we will be held to account for every sin we have committed. However, God offers us the forgiveness of sins, but only through His Son and His death upon the cross. Is this true? The Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Who cannot sin, and therefore cannot lie, said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me" John 14.6. We do not come to the Father through philosophy, religion and its ordinances, good works, or anything else that is manufactured by man. Eliza E. Hewitt grasped the truth in her beautiful hymn:

A trembling soul, I sought the Lord,

My sin confessed, my guilt deplored;

How soft and sweet His word to me,

"I took thy place, and died for thee."

 

No other hope, no other plea;

He took my place, and died for me;

O precious Lamb of Calvary!

He took my place, and died for me.

This material has been used with the permission of Assembly Testimony Publications.