Truth and Deception
 

I want to share something that happened during my time with the Lord just a few days ago. There are ongoing discussions here about truth, doctrine, and dogma... and it seemed a good time to share this.

So, I was thinking about the various beliefs, doctrines, ideas, and revelations that are presented to us on a daily basis as truth, both here on AFF and with just about every believer you meet. To mention a few – the rapture, pre-trib, post-trib, preterism, immortal soul, eternal security, Oneness, Trinitarian, Messianic, Calvinism, once saved always saved… I could go on and on. The list doesn’t really seem to end with ideas, doctrines, beliefs, revelations that serve to unite one group of people, and cause division and contention among the rest.

Who is right?

Who really possesses the truth?

What is the truth?

As these questions ran through my mind, my heart was heavy before the Lord. It is an incredible thing to recognize the immensity of the pendulum swing from which these revelations flow – and so how is one to know what to believe?

It seems there are pieces of truth in all of them…. yet also some glaring bit of deception present as well, and the deception is sometimes not readily evident or apparent at first glance, but nonetheless there.

My question to the Lord today was this – how am I supposed to know what to believe about YOU? Which revelation, teaching, doctrine, or idea is the one that truly reveals You to me? Is it even possible for me to be totally right in my doctrine or revelation, or will there always be some untruth in what I believe that will become known to me sometime after I’ve adopted the revelation or doctrine as a lifestyle and tenet of faith?

Is there such a thing as having complete truth or revelation in one’s life? This was the question I laid before the Lord.

And this is the answer that I heard…. The scripture came to mind “seeing through a glass darkly.” I Cor. 13:12

I understood the Lord to say to me: You are seeing through a glass darkly, there is a veil that covers your understanding in this life, but it is there for your protection. There is no way for humanity to completely understand and know Me – such knowledge is too great for you. Thus, deception is allowed to mix and exist among revelation about Me to keep you humble, and to keep you searching after Me. When you realize that something you’ve long held as truth and revelation now seems to have an element of deception or untruth to it, it is simply Me challenging you to dig further, to come closer to Me. The closer you get to Me, it will be like fire purging out the impurities in your life. The closer to Me you come, these deceptions, false ideas, and lies will make themselves known, and will fall away from you. But remember that no human being really understands or knows Me. They can’t. You can only know in part. (I Cor. 13:12) You would die from the knowledge. It is too great for you to bear.

Remember that I allow the tares and the wheat to grow together until the time appointed. The tares and the wheat are in each one of you. Truth and deception are mixed as a part of each believer. Truth and deception will continue to abide together until the time appointed. Those who truly want to know and understand Me must be willing to go through fires of persecution, difficulty, misunderstanding, heartbreak, loneliness, temptation and times of desperation… for this is the fire I am bringing you to – to weed out the deceptions, lies, and sin in your life. In order to keep you humble, deception and truth will continue to abide together as the tares and the wheat until the time appointed. This is to keep you humble, and always searching after me, so that you do not become proud in spirit.

Remember no human can know all there is to know about me, or else it would kill them. The only way to really know me as much as humanly possible, is through humility and admitting that you really don’t know much or anything at all.

Quit seeking after some new thing that someone says “works”. Quit seeking after some new doctrine, idea, understanding, teaching, miracle, sign or wonder. Those things always have deception mixed in with them. Instead, embrace your trials, embrace the difficult seasons in your life, for this is where you will really begin to know and understand Me. Don’t seek after the teaching, doctrine, revelation, sign or wonder. Seek after ME, and be willing to allow your flesh to pass through the furnace willingly, for this is when you will see me, know me, and find me.

Every religious Christian idea, or organization in the world has some truth.

But when you begin to follow that idea, truth or revelation, and forget to follow and seek Me, deception will come forth. Deception is allowed to mix with all truth so that those who hunger and thirst after Me will not be content with what they’ve received, but will continue to seek and search after Me. Only those who are not content to dwell where they are at, but who hunger and thirst after me, will be the ones that the fire of my presence will continue to purge and cleanse and they will see more of me in their suffering than any other way.

Truth is allowed to dwell with deception in order to bring forth humility in us – for us to constantly be aware that we will never be able to completely know or understand God – or else it would kill us – such knowledge we cannot bear. Psalms 139:6 “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it.” And, then Job said, after contending with his friends, and God for many days, “…therefore have I uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not.” Job 42:3

This is truly how we will feel when we come face to face with the awesomeness of God. Our flesh will not be able to bear it. We will fall at His feet, broken, repentant, and humbled.

... continued...

Re: Truth and Deception
 

.... continued...

This is why Jesus spoke so much about suffering. This is why the disciples suffered so greatly. It is because in our suffering, our reliance on our flesh, and its knowledge falls off, and we recognize just how weak we are, and it is in that place that God’s glory can come in and rest upon us. If we want to know Him, and walk in Him in truth and humility, we must be willing to suffer with Him. We must understand that the truth we think we have is indeed mixed with some deception, and GOD HAS ALLOWED THIS! It is only by allowing ourselves to go through the fire with Him, that we will be able to let the deceptions go, and His Truth will reign in us. The more we walk in the fire, the more we will understand just how little we know about Him, and the more we will desire to seek after Him, and to know Him.

Don’t be afraid to admit you have both truth and deception in your life. This is the avenue God has given us to seek after Him, to hunger and to thirst after Him, and for Him alone. He wants to reveal the deception to us, as we seek after Him, instead of us being content with one revelation, or truth about Him. He wants us to be willing to spit out the seeds of deception continually as we seek after the meat and truth of who He really is.

Another illustration of why truth and deception dwell together, much as good and evil at the same time coexist together in this world, is to look at the simple illustration of a battery. If a battery had two positive ends, and no negatives, there would be no power source produced. However, because there is both a positive and a negative, these work together to produce the necessary power. It is so in the world we live in. Without the forces of evil and good coexisting, there would be nothing productive accomplished. If all were positive, or good, what kind of a boring world would this be? If all were negative or evil, can you even imagine such a place? So then, in order to fulfill the need that God has in His heart desiring of fellowship, and communion with a being that chooses to love Him, He, in all his wisdom and knowledge, created both good and evil, positives and negatives, truth and deception, along with giving human beings a choice to choose. In this freedom, good and evil are allowed to coexist. It is only in the person of Jesus Christ that mankind can be freed to rise far above and beyond the negatives that are in this world, and from which life comes forth producing power that cannot be gained by any other means. Evil and good, the tares and the wheat, the positives and the negatives, truth, and deception will continue to remain an innate part of the world as we know it because that is how the power of Christ comes forth vibrantly in our lives.

Indeed, we will never “arrive” in this life at the complete essence of truth and knowledge of our Lord. Instead, the Bible tells us that we are pilgrims, and strangers, and our whole life will be spent in search of Him. We will continue to hunger and thirst after Him through all the days of our life. As humans, we cannot attain complete and total knowledge of Him, for it is too great for us! Yet, in His mercy, He will reveal Himself in dimensions, and facets to those who never cease to hunger and thirst after Him, and who are willing to pick up the cross and carry it daily, who continue daily in their unceasing hunger and thirst after Him.

This is indeed the truth… and anything else less than this will be deception.

Paul sums it up in this verse, one of the last epistles that he wrote before his death,

Philippians 3:10 “That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.”

And again,

Phil. 3:13-15 “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,

I press towards the mark for the prize of the high callings of God in Christ Jesus.

Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.”

Paul knew he hadn’t arrived, or apprehended, but what did he say we must do – forget the things that are behind us, and continue to reach forth unto Christ.

We must ever press towards Christ Jesus, being willing to suffer with Him, and in doing so, God will continue to reveal Himself to us, as we remember that we are pilgrims and strangers on this earth, and will never know or understand it all, but are content to live in humility, humbleness of mind with our focus on Christ Jesus and the prize that is set before us.

This is truth.

Re: Truth and Deception
 

I am suing you for reading my mind.

just kidding, great message precisely what I believe.

Re: Truth and Deception
 

Glad to hear it.

Re: Truth and Deception
 

KBW, Wow! Thank you! This what I feel and could not have ever explained in such a wonderful manner!

Re: Truth and Deception
 

yes, very nice.

Re: Truth and Deception
 

Sorry friends Im not on board.

Jesus said when the Spirit of truth comes he will guide you into all truth.

Also how can one contend for the faith if he doesn't know what it is?

Re: Truth and Deception
 

Yeah, mmkay... Not!

Re: Truth and Deception
 

I believe the Spirit of truth is trying to guide us into all truth, the problem is that not everyone is following along or at least not all the way.

The Old mainline churches are dying out, but the newer charismatic churches or Pentecostal churches are growing.

Pretty soon over half of the Christians will be Pentecostals, the balance is slowly shifting toward greater truth.

remember that Pentecostal churches were basically non existent about a century ago. It is just a matter of time.

It is a gradual process.

Re: Truth and Deception
 

:thumbsup @ KBTW

Re: Truth and Deception
 

:highfive

Re: Truth and Deception
 

:highfive

Re: Truth and Deception
 

If Jesus is truth, than if we are following Jesus, is not that TRUTH?

Re: Truth and Deception
 

Ok... and why not?

Re: Truth and Deception
 

Yes, we should continue to believe JESUS is the way, the truth,and the life... but the problem is many start out following Jesus, and end up following some piece of truth, and leave off seeking Jesus, and that is where the fork in the road is - trying to be more faithful to a man-centered doctrine/dogma/organization, than Jesus.

Re: Truth and Deception
 

:highfive

Re: Truth and Deception
 

I certainly don't expect everyone to agree with my post, and if there is something you don't agree with, I'd like to hear it. Being on a search and quest for truth, and following Jesus means that many times it is in the unexpected that you find Him.

Re: Truth and Deception
 

Thank you for sharing.

God said in Hosea, "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge," so the lack of knowledge, not knowledge, is why people perish. God never said knowledge of Him would kill someone; rather, He encourages us to know Him. The verse posted from Psalms doesn't mention anything about the peril of death for having knowledge. It only says he couldn't attain it. That's a big difference. God desires that we seek to know Him and attain knowledge of Him. There's no threat of death from having knowledge of God.

I disagree with this part, but agree with something you wrote about deception below this. Tares and wheat are two individual things. They are not together in an individual. Truth and deception are also not combined in a believer, IMO. It's either or, not both. You can believe the truth or be deceived. You can be gathered with other wheat, or be cast away like the tares.

I agree deception can and does seek to wrap itself in a bit of truth.

This I believe. A couple who are close friends lost their first daughter in a tragic accident. The father months later said that it was in their deepest loss that they were able to see and feel the source of their strength.

I agree that these are in the world, but they are not together in a believer. Righteousness OR Unrighteousness. Light OR Darkness. Christ OR Belial. Never both together.

Re: Truth and Deception
 

:thumbsup

Re: Truth and Deception
 

i think it can be easy to believe things like a child, even as an adult--or 'see through a mirror darkly--and i mostly have believed as you do here, but am struck by how kbtw's pov here reflects something that i now believe the Holy Spirit was trying to get me to consider. No one has the full truth in all things, right? Ergo, they are deceived--even a devout believer, who has picked up their cross--in some respect. I think believing that you have no tares in your walk might be self deception, born of a bad pressure from our religious model to "be perfect." Now, in this system, admitting guilt becomes more difficult, and seeing ones flaws more easily masked.

I say this because, if you just carry your pov to its conclusion, and then answer the following as honestly as you can, you might see how your answer could be self-deceptive: "Is there any area of your walk, right now, that is not perfect?"

Re: Truth and Deception
 

My friends, the wheat and the tares are PEOPLE.

36Then Jesus sent the multitude away, and went into the house: and his disciples came unto him, saying, Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field. 37He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man; 38The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one; Matt 13:36-38

The wheat are the children of God.
The tares are the children of the devil.

We are either wheat or a tare but we are not both at the same time.

Tares are sown by the devil. They are PEOPLE.

They are brought into the Church (building or gathering) by satan. They don't have the Holy Spirit so they cant live a life of holiness nor love the brotherhood, nor understand truth. The enemys purpose in bringing them into the company of saints is an attempt to confuse the real saints.

Re: Truth and Deception
 

Ive believed for a while that we tend to focus more on "what" than "who" when speaking of truth.Maybe thats why Pilate didn't get a answer from Jeaus...he asked the wrong question...he asked "What is truth?" When Truth was standing personified right in front of him.

Re: Truth and Deception
 

I agree with you here.


For the original poster, I believe that God often does speak to us, but then, in our eagerness to grasp Him, we throw our own thinking in to the mix.


For example:
Baptism should be performed in the Name of Jesus-- from God.

Baptism should be performed in the Name of Jesus because that is the only way to have your sins remitted, forgiven, [enter whatever word you want]-- probably from a well-meaning man.


The part about the wheat and the tares is not biblical, so it probably came from you, with your good intentions to grasp at what the Lord was speaking to you.

Re: Truth and Deception
 

If I am understanding the original post properly, it appears to be making the claim, with the Lord Himself being the claimant, that He is the one who puts both truth and deception into the human heart.

I post the following from that understanding:

1 John 2:21,

21. I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it, and that no lie is of the truth.

Titus 1:2,

2. In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;

Jesus Christ is the Son of the very God who cannot lie. He is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6), and since no lie (which engenders deception) is of the truth, i.e. of Jesus Christ, the Son of the God who cannot lie, Biblically speaking, it is not possible that the Lord would ever say that He Himself is the author of deception in the heart of someone who follows Him.

For Him to have said that, or worse, to actually do that, means that the Son of the God who cannot lie, is actively lying to people to cause them to be deceived. This is unacceptable.

Jesus said that He was and is the light of the world. And regarding God His Father, we are assured that in God there is no darkness at all because God Himself IS light (1 John 1:5). Lying or being a liar is to walk in darkness (1 John 1:6), i.e. such a person is not in God; rather they are in darkness.

Lies and deception come from somewhere else, namely:

1.) The Devil (John 8:44)

2.) The deceitfulness of sin, which causes a hardening of the soul that leads to unbelief until backsliding occurs (Hebrews 3:12-13)

The first is obvious; the second is where the problem is at. The second is why we need to pray in the Holy Spirit, building ourselves up in our most holy faith, so the flesh, and all the things within us that make us become people "that loveth and maketh a lie" (Revelation 22:15) can be crucified with the lusts and affections thereof.

Nothing but the Holy Spirit of God's truth can set a person free from deception. The Lord is not going to, on the one hand, cause a person to be deceived, then on the other, through the Holy Spirit, cause them to repent and reject the very deception He gave them.

So if a person is loving and making a lie, and is deceived, it's either because the Devil has whispered something into their ear, and they have believed it, or because the flesh of that person is alive and well and is ruling over them in all of its shame, allowing the law of sin and the deceitfulness thereof, to have its way.

Re: Truth and Deception
 

And if so, such a person is damned because such a person, if they do not ever repent, have lost the love of the truth (if they ever had received it to begin with), and so, prove that they, like the the Wicked, are of Satan. They are living in what is called "all deceivableness of unrighteousness" and so, will perish under strong delusion (2 Thessalonians 2:8-11).

And since all unrighteousness is sin (1 John 5:17), we can safely say that such a person, unfortunately, is not abiding in God (1 John 3:6), which leads to the ultimate self-deception:

Saying we have no sin (1 John 1:8).

Re: Truth and Deception
 

The truth is, all who have the hope that they will finally become exactly like Christ when He comes, purifies himself or herself, even as the Lord Jesus is pure (1 John 3:1-3).

As they purify themselves, darkness, deception, and the lies that create the darkness and deception disappear.

Did not the messenger of YHWH say that the Messiah would sit as a refiner tending His fire, purifying the silver until the dross is purged (Malachi 3:1-3)?

And what is the dross?

In Hebrew, it is the word cuwg, and it means the things which cause us to flinch or fall away. The Lord, through the Holy Spirit and fire, is purging us of the dross of our souls, purifying us, causing us to become that holy Bride without spot or blemish. Yes, we must sit in that fire until all that is not of God, like deception, is burned away. In this I will agree.

The issue remains, however: who is willing to sit at the Master's feet long enough for His eyes, which burn like flames of fire (Revelation 1:14), to pore into us and burn away all that is not of Him?

Are you? Am I? I hope we are, because in that fire is where the glory dwells.

Re: Truth and Deception
 

Kinda like Soylent Green?

Re: Truth and Deception
 

it's funny, i agree with MtD, yet disagree with him in that this view supposes that wheat and tares are two different people, when they can be one, imo. If you are not Jesus, you have tares in your life in some area. You might be sinless in every area of your life right this moment--but this ignores the dynamics of life. after you read this post, you are going to go do something; and that choice alone might indicate where your head is at, at that moment--but regardless, tares might 'spring up' even in the most pious of pursuits.

Re: Truth and Deception
 

Ok, so perhaps the tares and the wheat have got everybody riled up, because no one wants to believe that one is the "tare", myself included.

Not a problem. We can see that tares and wheat are people, but it is also possible to see the point of view that wheat and tares could be one individual, instead of two.

I do not claim to have some great new vision or revelation. Just trying to seek after and know Jesus, who is Truth, with all my heart, as I believe each one here that has responded is trying to also.

I think the most important thing to remember here is that while all of us want to believe we have ALL the truth there is... what if we don't? Not yet?

Re: Truth and Deception
 

Well none of us have all the truth. We never will.....

Re: Truth and Deception
 

Jesus said, I am the way the TRUTH and the life, no man cometh unto the Father by me. So, following Jesus, is following truth.

There are impurities, and things in each of our lives that are constantly needing to go through the purifying process, and that is why we carry a cross daily. If we believe this, then we must also understand that if there is something impure in our hearts, then purifying through the fire will bring it out to the light where it can be removed. This seems to be a continual process that a believer allows himself to go through.

So, following Jesus, who is Truth, will bring me to see any untruth in my life, of which I must be willing to cast off, to continue following Him.

Re: Truth and Deception
 

No, not in this life. I believe that as we continue to walk and follow Jesus, who is Truth, that if our hearts are looking to Him for truth, that we can have all that is available for us to have in this life.

Re: Truth and Deception
 

:thumbsup

Re: Truth and Deception
 

Jesus said the Holy Spirit guides one into all truth. If we don't have all truth we are resisting him in some way.

Re: Truth and Deception
 

No. Guides. Not has.

Re: Truth and Deception
 

I felt some distaste at your tares analogy at first but in the end it makes perfect sense. Nor does the additional understanding of wheat and tares invalidate Jesus' earlier message about them.

Re: Truth and Deception
 

John 16:12-13 "I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit, when he, the Spirit of Truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself: but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak, and he will shew you things to come."

Jesus said the Spirit of Truth was going to speak of things to come. This seems to imply that there are things that are unknown, that will have to be made known in time to come.

Re: Truth and Deception
 

Parables can have multiple meanings, just as prophecies. This doesn't mean that this is the only "right" interpretation of that passage, but it is good to discuss and see what valuable lesson could be also learned here.

Re: Truth and Deception
 

Better said, there is one interpretation, but many applications

Re: Truth and Deception
 

The wheat and tares idea as presented by the Lord in Scripture doesn't allow for the view that one individual person can be both at the same time.

The stalk of wheat is a child of God and His Kingdom. The tare is a child of Satan and is of his kingdom.

A person cannot be both at the same time.

1 John 3:4-10,

One must either be God's or not God's (i.e. they are of their father the devil). It is a mutually exclusive proposition.

What can be said, however, is that we have a law of sin in us which has corrupted our flesh. Our flesh and the Holy Spirit of God are at war with each other, what the Bible calls enmity (Romans 8:7)

Galatians 5:16-17,

So, instead of saying that all believers in Messiah Jesus have wheat and tares in them, it would be more accurate to say that all believers in Messiah Jesus have a battle raging between their flesh and the Spirit, only and insomuch as the individual believer is unwilling to crucify their flesh.

But and if the believer will allow the Holy Spirit to transform and renew their mind, then the power of sin in their flesh can be destroyed. And once destroyed, the believer is free to be led into all truth.

1 John 2:20-21,

We endanger faith in the Holy Scriptures if we insist that truth is not knowable or that being led into the truth, that is, into ALL TRUTH, is not possible.

The truth of God, sufficient for salvation and doctrinal accuracy in regards to the doctrine of Christ, is obtainable.

2 John 1:7-11,

It is only when we sow to the flesh and so, give heed to deceivers and antichrists, that we lose the things which God, through the Apostles, wrought in the earth as it relates to the True Church. On account of our flesh and our willingness to heed the false teachings of deceivers and antichrists, we fall away and stop abiding in the doctrines of Christ. When that occurs, we allow many things which are not of God, into our lives and hearts, even to the point of partaking in the evil deeds of others, insomuch as we bless them, i.e. those, who, as the verse above indicates, are undeserving of the blessing of God.