Bud Hancock
Several months ago, I wrote the original article, “Deception, Delusion and Damnation”, posted here on Rapture Forums.
So many life-changing events have occurred in the intervening time period, both in our nation and around the world, that I felt the need to follow up that article with more detail.
2 Thessalonians 2:10-13, “And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; 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….”
Deception is the use of deceit, which by its very definition is a devilish practice. According to Dictionary.com, deceit means: “concealment or distortion of the truth for the purpose of misleading; duplicity; fraud; cheating”. Many people who are suffering from deception are unaware that they have been deceived. An expert at deception is able to convince people of one thing when the opposite is closer to the truth.
Deception, The Deadly Weapon
First, let me say there is nothing good about deception. It is an act that can only bring harm and produces nothing of moral value. We are warned many times in scripture to “Take heed that no man deceive you…” (Matthew 24:4 KJV). God knows how dangerous it is to even entertain a thought that could be considered deceptive.
From my own perspective, the worst thing about deception is its deliberateness; deception is never an accident, because if ‘accidental deception’ were possible, it would be ‘unintentional’, not deliberate, and could possibly be excused. Satan is the master of deception, always has been. The first recorded use of deception was a deliberate act intended to cause the fall of the entire human race (Genesis 3:1-19 KJV). It is intended to dupe trusting, unsuspecting persons into believing a lie, or lies, by presenting something as true when it’s as far from truth as it can be.
Delusion, The Next Step
As bad as deception is, there is a much worse state that usually follows: delusion. According to Dictionary.com, the definition of ‘delude’ is: “To cause to hold a false belief; deceive thoroughly”. Delusion is defined as: “the state of being deluded, a false belief or opinion; a fixed false belief that is resistant to reason or confrontation with actual fact: a paranoid delusion”. Based on these definitions, we could paraphrase and say that to be deluded is to be so completely deceived that a person’s belief system is altered for the worse, possibly permanently.
Some people suffer from self-deception, leading to self-delusion, defined by Merriam-Webster as: “the act of deluding oneself or the state of being deluded by oneself”. This state is a result of allowing thoughts contrary to God’s word to take up residence in a person’s mind and was covered by Paul: “ I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Romans 12:1-2 KJV).
However, the Bible clearly states that God Himself will not only allow people to become deluded as a result of their sinful ways, but will also send ‘strong’ delusion upon them. “And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; 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 Thessalonians 2:10-12 KJV). In this passage Paul is teaching the believers in Thessalonica that God will deal with all those who accept the lies presented by an antichrist system and those who are a part of that system.
Based on this passage, it seems that God has made His mind up about those on whom the ‘strong delusion’ will be sent. He says that as a result of that delusion, they will be damned. As ominous as this sounds, anyone who wants to avoid the deception and delusion that lead to damnation must be aware that they do have a choice. Even when Jesus was instructing His disciples, He said, “Take heed that no man deceive you.” (Matthew 24:4 KJV). It’s interesting that the word translated ‘heed’ is from the Greek word “blepo (blep-o), Strong’s 991, and it means to ‘look on, beware, perceive, regard, see’. The Lord is telling His disciples, and by extension, us, to always be aware of what you are seeing, hearing and allowing into your mind, and thereby into your spirit. So it is possible to avoid deception but it requires a constant awareness of everything you permit to have any effect on your established belief system.
The bottom line could be stated thus: If anything you are being told, or are reading, regardless of the source, does not line up with God’s word, you must reject it outright, and do nothing with it until a further examination can be done using God’s word as your guide
The warnings we have from Jesus, Paul and others in the word are obvious: deception is deadly, and because it offers lies as ‘truth, it plants a seed of doubt of everything a person previously held as ‘truth’. Unless it is dealt with immediately and with biblical guidance, it can, and usually will, lead to delusion, a state causing an altered belief system, usually substituting lies for truth, likely on a permanent basis. Damnation, the state after delusion, hardly needs further explanation; it is a permanent state, with eternal suffering in a place no human should ever see and from which there is no redemption, especially if God sends that delusion as a result of a person’s repeated dismissal of truth and right. All believers are subject to deception, that terrible state of accepting and believing a lie, but, by God’s grace, we can avoid it by using God’s word as the guide into all truth.
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