The Overcomers by Matt Chandler

Author:Matt Chandler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2024-02-23T00:00:00+00:00

DECEIT

If accusation is the melody of the satanic lullaby, then deceit is the harmony. We read in Revelation 12 that the Dragon not only accuses but he also deceives. Verse 9 lets us know, “The great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.” The deceiver of the whole world. Satan is good at deceiving, and it goes right along with his accusations.

When Satan deceives, it isn’t just bad information. He wants you to feel a kind of way. It’s not just knowing what’s wrong; it’s feeling something false. This isn’t just “I believe this wrongly,” although that is certainly a part. The Dragon is trying to get you to feel that God is holding out on you. He wants you to feel that God won’t be enough. He wants you to question whether God is good and true to His word. He adds to, takes away from, twists, calls good bad and bad good, and has thousands of years of practice in deceiving, distorting, and taking what’s rightfully ours.

The Dragon deceives in two primary ways. The first is false doctrine. It’s believing about God things that aren’t true. If you ever get the chance to go to the Museum of the Bible in Washington, DC, I highly recommend it. Among all the handwritten scrolls, ancient copies of texts, and other exhibits and experiences, you can see with your own eyes two “Bibles” that illustrate the way the Dragon deceives through false doctrine.

The first is the Jefferson Bible, created by Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson was a deist and didn’t believe in the supernatural, but he deeply valued the philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth. He went line by line with a razor blade and glue through the four Gospels and other sections of the New Testament, removing all the miracles of Jesus, any claims of the deity of Jesus, and almost all mentions of the supernatural. Jefferson wanted a Jesus in his own image, not the Jesus of the Bible. The Jesus of the Bible is the incarnation of the second person of the Trinity. He’s eternal and all-powerful. He demands a response.

To claim that Jesus was simply a teacher or philosopher requires you to ignore what He said about Himself. How can Jesus be a good teacher if what He taught has to be edited out? Jesus of Nazareth’s being both fully God and fully man is how God has spoken to His creation once and for all.

You and I are not following the teaching of a moral philosopher. We’re in a relationship with the God of the universe that was made possible by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ the Messiah, the King of the universe and Creator of all things.

The second “Bible” you could see at the Museum of the Bible is called the Slave Bible. The Slave Bible was produced

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