January 26, 2025 - How to be Delivered from Deception & Evil - Pastor Paul Vallee

J. Gresham Machen once wrote: “False ideas are the greatest obstacles to the reception of the gospel.” Many people deny the existence of the devil. Jesus, certainly, was not one of them. In teaching us as disciples how we ought to pray, Jesus concludes the prayer with this petition. “And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one.” (Matthew 6:13). Here, we see that evil is revealed in a person. Peter also warns us in his first letter that Satan, or the devil, is seeking to destroy our lives. “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy, the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” (1 Peter 5:8) One of his greatest tools in doing this is to deceive people. In warning the Corinthians about the nature of being deceived by Satan, Paul writes: “But I am afraid that just as the serpent’s cunning deceived Eve, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the Spirit you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough.” (2 Corinthians 11:3-4) The battlefield in the Christian life is being waged in our minds. That is why Paul explains the nature of spiritual warfare. “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does.”  (2 Corinthians 10:3-4) The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have the divine power to demolish strongholds. So, what are those strongholds, and what weapons do we fight with? “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” (2 Corinthians 10:5) The ability to control our thoughts is an expression of spiritual maturity. The displacement principle helps with this: We focus on what is true, pure, and right rather than sinful thoughts, which are the ‘fiery arrows of the evil one’ (Eph. 616). Jeremiah 41 is a material example of this profound spiritual reality. We see how evil embodied in a person can deceive and then bring about great destruction and disaster that will have terrible and tragic consequences for unsuspecting people. So, what can we do, or as Peter states, how can we be alert and sober-minded so that we are not caught unaware and thereby duped and experience tremendous losses in our lives?