Examine Yourself for Self-Deceit

After Herbert W. Armstrong died in 1986, the Worldwide Church of God (wcg) quickly began to turn away from the truth God had taught through him.

Revelation 3:9 shows something shocking: Within the Church in the Philadelphia era, under Mr. Armstrong, a “synagogue of Satan” existed. The devil set up his own church right inside God’s Church—while Mr. Armstrong was alive! This satanic plot almost succeeded in the 1970s when Mr. Armstrong was close to death. He recovered and regained control of the Church, but that “synagogue” remained. Then when he died, the Church transitioned into the Laodicean era, and Satan’s “synagogue” took over (verses 14-22).

Realize how Satan can work through people. He even got some top ministers to bring in what the Apostle Peter called “damnable heresies” (2 Peter 2:1). The word damnable is really strong. Thayer’s Lexicon says it means “utter destruction,” or “the destruction which consists in the loss of eternal life”! That is what Satan seeks most of all!

It took Satan about five years to destroy 95 percent of God’s Church. Five years! It is astonishing how successful those satanically inspired men were at destroying God’s Church! How could such a shocking, grotesque thing happen?

Think seriously about that history. It shows you not only how skilled Satan is at deception, but also how susceptible human beings are to being deceived. In fact, without God’s protection, all of us are dangerously vulnerable! God warns us repeatedly about the threat of deception—especially self-deception, under Satan’s influence.

Read again Jesus Christ’s description of the Church of the Laodiceans: “Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked” (Revelation 3:17). This is the way Christ describes His own Church during this era we now live in! Most of God’s people are convinced of their spiritual richness and self-sufficiency—and are unaware of their actual wretched, impoverished spiritual state!

You have to ask yourself: Have I been deceived? Am I deceiving myself?

Yet Christ has not given up on them. He tells them to “anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see” (verse 18). He wants all of us to rid ourselves of deception, to remove the scales from our eyes and see reality, to see ourselves as we really are.

Christ is standing at their door and knocking, hoping they will answer and let Him in (verse 20). They still have a chance to turn their lives around!

Since Christ is so blunt about His own people deceiving themselves, surely we should examine ourselves deeply for where we are falling into this trap.

Our Deceitful Heart

Think carefully on Jeremiah 17:9: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”

Most people do not believe what God says here. They think the human heart is basically good. They could not be more wrong!

The truth is, there is nothing more deceitful than the human heart!

That is why people think they are good. We like to think of ourselves as good even when we are doing things we know are wrong! We justify and flatter ourselves; we explain away our sins; we downplay our guilt. Mr. Armstrong often said that the most difficult thing for the natural, vain human mind to do is to confess it is wrong.

This self-sufficient, self-reliant mindset is part of the acquired nature of Satan.

The phrase “desperately wicked” should read “dangerously sick,” “incurably sick” or “sick unto death.” Can you see this in your own heart? We cannot trust our own thinking. That is eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil—the tree of death.

Understanding this profound verse is more important than any education in this world.

This verse is describing all human hearts. But God is speaking primarily here to His own people—especially the end-time Laodiceans. So many have followed their incurably sick minds into unparalleled deceit!

The Laodiceans do not believe this verse! If they did, they would not have been deceived so easily. They look to themselves and other men to understand their own minds—not God! Trusting in the human heart destroyed God’s own Church.

Deceitful and sick hearts cannot be trusted. Yet astoundingly, the human heart is the foundation of this world’s education and government. Our educators and leaders believe man is fundamentally good and trustworthy. They trust in evil human reasoning.

Everywhere in this sick world, we see evidence of men trusting in sick human minds. Terrifying problems are mounting all around us—and still men trust in their own minds. It seems nothing can convince them we are off track! Deceitful, desperately wicked human hearts are leading this world to the point where, if Christ didn’t intervene, we would annihilate ourselves! (Matthew 24:21-22).

Humanity’s number one problem today is that people don’t see their own terminal sickness. That is profound self-deceit.

This is what happens when people will not listen to God!

So God is forcing mankind, including His own people, to face the truth. Soon this world will be engulfed in a nuclear holocaust created by sick human minds. Only the worst time of suffering in history will get them to admit the real problem! They will no longer be able to deny the horrific fruits of deceitful human reasoning. Only then can God begin to teach them.

If you really understand the fundamental truth of Jeremiah 17:9, you will cry out to God every day to save you! You will not let a day pass without intensely praying and studying for the help to overcome your fatally sick heart!

Are you praying and studying this intensely each day? Mr. Armstrong recommended at least 30 minutes each of prayer and study every day just to survive spiritually—an hour of each to thrive! That gives you an idea of the intense effort it takes to build and sustain a truly robust relationship with God. If you are not doing that, it is very easy to deceive yourself about how much you love God.

God ends verse 9 with the question, “[W]ho can know it?” Only God knows the human heart. Only God can explain the mind and emotions of man. Our greatest need is to let God reveal our sickness to us and heal it.

Until we learn this lesson, we are living under a curse (verse 5). We will remain deceived as long as we continue to look to men—and that includes trusting in our own reasoning.

“I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings” (verse 10). Look at the terrible, devastating fruits of our ways and our doings! Following our hearts is causing all the world’s problems and leading to nuclear war!

There is no hope in man. There is endless hope in God.

Vanity of Vanities

Human nature is naturally vain. “Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity” (Ecclesiastes 1:2; 12:8). It is easy to have an inflated view of ourselves. We are all prone to self-righteousness, thinking too highly of our works, relying on our own deeds, our own righteousness.

That is a powerful form of self-deceit. “For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself” (Galatians 6:3). Pride, vanity, self-righteousness, overestimating ourselves—all spring from self-deception that we need to examine ourselves for and rid ourselves of.

Such self-deceit and self-righteousness push God right out of the picture. They blind us to God. We can’t even see Him! Our thoughts become focused on self, leaving little room for God. We break the First Commandment by placing self ahead of God! God passionately hates that because He is a jealous God who loves us.

Look at the example of Job. He was quite a righteous man, but when he did good deeds, he would take the credit for himself. He liked to be seen as good by other people (e.g. Job 29:14). His charity was to show what an impressive man he was—instead of what an impressive God we serve! His motive was to exalt himself, not God (Job 32:1-2).

God helped Job overcome this problem by putting him through some excruciating trials. That brought the sin right to the surface: self-justification, self-exaltation, self-righteousness. God then gave Job an awe-inspiring glimpse into His own immense and fearsome power, the vast scale of His creation, His command of the elements, His provision for all creatures, His majesty and rulership (Job 38-41).

Once Job realized his own insignificance next to God’s all-encompassing greatness, he could see God! “I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:5-6).

The clearer we see God—in all His power, judgment, love, mercy and excellence—the less impressed with ourselves we will be and the more open we will be to listening to God and accepting His correction.

See Your Sin

Romans 3:23 says that “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” The sharper your picture of God in all His glory, the better you will see how far short of the glory of God you fall!

Sin is the transgression of God’s law (1 John 3:4). God’s law is holy, just and good (Romans 7:12). It is “perfect, converting the soul,” more desirable than fine gold, sweeter than honey (Psalm 19:7-10). God gave us His commandments, statutes and judgments to help us see where we are not thinking like Him, where we need to change. “Moreover by them is thy servant warned: and in keeping of them there is great reward” (verse 11).

Sin is the nature acquired from Satan. It is thinking the way Satan thinks. His attitude of self-love—at its root and core, vanity—transgresses the spirit of God’s law.

Do you really see the sin in your life? “Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults” (verse 12). Yes, because of our deceitful heart, it is very difficult to truly see our sins. In fact, it takes a miracle from God. We need God to show us our errors, and to cleanse us from our hidden faults and those sins we can’t even recognize. God must open our eyes, because “[e]very way of a man is right in his own eyes: but the Lord pondereth the hearts” (Proverbs 21:2).

Naturally we convince ourselves that our faults aren’t that serious. This is pure self-deception. “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). There it is again! Don’t fall into the trap of such blindness. God commands us to continually repent in prayer for our sins so He can cleanse us (verse 9).

“Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me: then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression” (Psalm 19:13). Yes, when we break God’s law, sin has dominion over us—it rules us! Jesus Christ said, “Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin” (John 8:34). Sin enslaves us in bondage (Romans 6:16; 2 Peter 2:19). Only God can free us from that bondage—and we must draw close to Him to break that yoke (Isaiah 58:6).

God’s law is a “perfect law of liberty” that leads to freedom! (James 1:25). Most religions are in bondage because they reject God’s law and call it freedom! Men routinely think bondage is freedom—intellectually and spiritually.

Just a few years after Mr. Armstrong died, the Worldwide Church of God stopped keeping the Sabbath, which is one of the Ten Commandments. They thought it was freedom to work or play on the Sabbath. In truth they put themselves into bondage to sin and the devil!

Only the truth will set us free (John 8:32). And God’s Word is truth (John 17:17).

One of the easiest ways to deceive ourselves is simply to hear God’s Word and fail to apply it. “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves” (James 1:22). Many people believe they are accepting what God tells them simply because they listen and agree. But if you are not acting on it and changing your life, then you are kidding yourself!

Read Ezekiel 33:30-33: There are people who love to hear God’s truth; they admire God’s messenger the way they would a skilled musician. God tells his prophet, “[T]hey hear thy words, but they will not do them … but their heart goeth after their covetousness.” That is dangerous self-deception—and it is prophesied to afflict many people in our day! You can read about this in Chapter 2 of my booklet How to Be an Overcomer, “Are You Deceiving Yourself?”

“If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain” (James 1:26). A lot of religion is worthless because people aren’t controlling their tongues or their lives. They are deceiving their own heart.

What are your thoughts and conversation like on God’s holy Sabbath? Are they focused on God—or on the things of this world? This is a true test of our conversion.

We may fool ourselves for a while, but in the end, the truth will come out. God will judge us according to our works. All pretense and hypocrisy will be exposed. “Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is” (1 Corinthians 3:13). How much better for us to learn now where we are off track than to wait until our sins are revealed by fire—in the Great Tribulation, or worse, the lake of fire!

We must do all we can to avoid the common, deadly sin of self-deception. “Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. … The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain. Therefore let no man glory in men. …” (verses 18-21).

How different our human perspective is from God’s! And how crucial it is that we humble ourselves and seek God’s view.

If you have gotten spiritually lazy, if your daily contact with God through prayer and study is skimpy or weak, if you have allowed material interests to crowd God out of your life, look at those problems through the eyes of your heavenly Father! Malachi 1:6-8 will help you do that.

God’s Perspective

In this book, we will spend a lot of time studying chapters 2 through 7 in the prophecy of Jeremiah. These chapters are a crucial message from God to His lukewarm people today. They have a message as bold and direct as anything you will read in the Bible.

This message applies to most of God’s people in this age. If only they would listen and heed! Sadly, most will not. But please consider God’s words honestly and humbly. I urge you to study these chapters with your eyes open to anything God has to say to you. I believe every one of us can take to heart what God is saying here.

Notice first how often in these chapters God confronts self-delusion in His people. He is pointing out the sins of His own begotten children—yet they claim innocence, deny their wickedness, refuse to be ashamed, trust in false assurances, and presume that God’s anger has turned away.

The way God describes His people’s actions in these chapters is truly devastating. Jeremiah 2:33-34, for example, show them going out and looking for spiritual lovers and causing terrible damage. But they are so deluded, they don’t see their sin: “You say, ‘I am innocent; surely his anger has turned from me.’ Behold, I will bring you to judgment for saying, ‘I have not sinned’” (Jeremiah 2:35; Revised Standard Version).

How could God ever direct those who have such a rebellious spirit? In every way possible, they want to govern their own lives and do their own thing.

These chapters in Jeremiah’s prophecy repeatedly expose their hypocrisy and spiritual blindness.

‘I Am Not Polluted’

In Jeremiah 2:21-22, God describes how His people have polluted themselves with sin. But they respond, “I am not polluted, I have not gone after Baalim” (verse 23). God, in answering them, is incredulous: How can you say this, after all you have done? You’re like a restless young camel running here and there, a wild donkey in heat! (verses 23-24). God says His people are delusional, shamelessly denying their idolatry and spiritual adultery.

After Mr. Armstrong died, many of God’s people went back into pagan ways, keeping Christmas, birthdays and other practices rooted in paganism. Or they compromised with those things, reasoning that it was nothing to worry about. Have you done that?

In Jeremiah 3:3 God says, “You refuse to be ashamed,” or “you refuse to blush with shame” (New King James Version). They lack self-awareness of their guilt and feel no remorse (see also Jeremiah 6:15). Verses 4-5 of Jeremiah 3 show that they continue to call God “my father” and presume that His anger is passed even while they carry on in their evil.

In Jeremiah 5:11, God condemns His people for their treachery against Him. How do they respond? Verse 12 says, “They have spoken falsely of the Lord, and have said, ‘He will do nothing; no evil will come upon us, nor shall we see sword or famine’” (rsv).

The Bible has many prophecies about the coming sword and famine and other tragedies. God gives these warnings to help us avoid these nightmares! The world ignores them, despite the fact that prophecy makes up about one third of the Bible. Even a large majority of God’s own people have developed a casual attitude about these prophecies. They deny God’s judgment, or they “put far away the evil day” (Amos 6:3), having no urgency. Or they deceive themselves that if great tribulation does come, they don’t need to worry about facing any consequences themselves. Do you view world events casually—even though Christ commands us to watch and pray always, so we are accounted worthy to escape? (Luke 21:36).

These lukewarm Christians don’t realize it yet, but soon they will see: They are not going to be protected by God—because they denied God’s law and government! Some of them think they will be in the place of safety during the Great Tribulation—but they won’t be!

Many Laodiceans and people in the world are interested in hearing God’s prophecies, but they reject God’s law. What will their knowledge of prophecy mean when they are in the Great Tribulation? If seeing prophecy fulfilled does not cause you to purify your life now, then the prophesied Great Tribulation will force you to become pure—or die in your sin!

In Jeremiah 7:4 and 8, God warns the people against trusting in deceptive words and assuming their religious practices will protect them from judgment.

The theme in all these verses is clear: God is trying to wake His people up from their delusions! They are taking their sins lightly and provoking His judgment. He repeatedly calls on them to recognize their guilt and repent.

How crucial for all of us to humbly ask God to show us where we are deceiving ourselves and to help us see reality!

Whom God Loves He Chastens

In Hebrews 12, the Apostle Paul writes that God is a Father who corrects His children. “And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth” (verses 5-6).

Correction is a gift from God. If we receive correction, God is preparing us for sonship in His Family! That is a major way God fulfills His part of the covenant He made with us at baptism.

It takes real work to open ourselves up to God’s correction. But we must do so if we are to become part of His eternal Family.

The Father loves His sons deeply. He does correct us—even harshly when we need it—because He loves us. We all have to keep growing to achieve our potential and fulfill our calling. His correction is aimed at helping us see where we are off track and helping us grow in righteousness.

Considering how sinful mankind is, doesn’t it make sense that God would need to correct us at times to prepare us to be born into His Family? We all must receive correction.

“But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons” (verse 8). Are you receiving correction from God? If we are not, we are not even considered His children!

Our greatest curse is when our Father no longer corrects us. Then we are no longer part of His Family! God ceases to be our Father.

Our greatest blessing is receiving correction from our Father! He is doing everything He can to help us make it into His eternal Family. That means He must correct us.

What is your natural response to correction?

Most people immediately get defensive. We begin to justify ourselves. We think the critic doesn’t have the whole story. We reason why what we did was not that bad or was actually right. We defend our actions. We answer back.

The Bible repeatedly warns against that response. Yet it also shows that most of God’s people in this end time have the wrong impression of correction. They reject it or reason around it.

If that describes you, then you are in danger of losing your salvation!

God tells us we need correction and reproof. We must learn to listen and heed. In fact, we should seek and want correction.

God gives us a lot of reproof and correction through His Word. But to benefit from it as God intends, we have to accept it. “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works” (2 Timothy 3:16-17).

The question is, will you take that personally and put it to use in your life? It is not easy. Very few people are willing.

‘Most of You Don’t Get It’

Herbert W. Armstrong was willing to correct the members of God’s Church when it was necessary. He often thundered strong correction in the Worldwide Church of God, especially during the last few years of his life. This reflected God’s love. It was really God reaching out, reminding us of His love and the covenant He made with us. But most refused the correction.

The last Pentecost Mr. Armstrong kept was on May 26, 1985. In his sermon he spoke on the subject of “Why the Firstfruits?” He said, “Why the Feast of Firstfruits? … I think that most of you don’t understand that at all. … I perceive that even our ministers, when they preach, take it for granted that the whole goal is to get us into the Kingdom of God; and that’s all we are called for now. … I fear that most of you just don’t get it. … I am going to try to make it plain this afternoon, and still I think you won’t get it.”

That was a mournful plea from God’s end-time Elijah! He was teaching us the most inspiring message in the Bible—yet many people didn’t care or they refused to comprehend it.

Dealing with spiritual foolishness has been routine for so many of God’s prophets and apostles through the ages.

Mr. Armstrong said, “Most of you just don’t get it.” Many people thought, and some even said, Oh no, Mr. Armstrong, that can’t be! Surely most of us get it. But the reality was even worse than he thought! Look what happened in God’s Church after he died, only seven months after that warning. Within a short time, most of God’s people turned away from the truth he taught them from their own Bible!

How is it that most of God’s people refused this correction? How did they fail to go to their knees in repentance? Why do so many of those members today, if they attend church at all, lack ministers who preach God’s corrective words?

If you attend church services, does your minister give you this kind of correction directly from God’s Word? Far too many people listen to preachers for their smooth-sounding words. Those preachers are leading people to ruin!

A Broken Spirit

If we have godly wisdom, James 3:17 says we are “easy to be intreated.” Think of King David. He committed adultery, caused a man’s murder, and lied about it! Major sins. Yet when the Prophet Nathan confronted him, what were his first words? “I have sinned against the Lord” (see 2 Samuel 12:7-13). He didn’t fight God. He didn’t have to be physically corrected and “come to himself” only after he became destitute and famished. He heard God’s words, accepted the correction, and repented immediately.

What a beautiful attitude! Nathan responded, “The Lord also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die” (verse 13). David still faced hard consequences, but his repentance saved his life.

David gives us the most powerful example of repentance in the Bible. Read Psalm 51, his psalm of repentance. He had “a broken and a contrite heart” (verse 17). We must be teachable and have a broken and contrite spirit for God to be able to lead us and use us. God wants to guide you as His son or daughter, but He cannot do so if you lack a broken spirit. You must allow God to convict you of your sins and teach you. This attitude was fundamental to David’s repentance, and it is a big reason why God considered him “a man after mine own heart” (Acts 13:22).

David committed some terrible sins. That didn’t prevent God from loving him! Because He loved him, God corrected David severely.

Hebrews 4:12 says that “the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” God’s Word reveals our true thoughts and intents. It exposes what is going on in our mind. It helps us face the truth about our own heart and see how we are ruled by human nature. It reveals where we are evil so we can change!

That is uncomfortable—but so necessary and beautiful. It leads to life!

“Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby” (Hebrews 12:11). When we accept correction, it produces wonderful fruit in our lives.

I have been corrected many times in my life. It wasn’t always done exactly right, but I always tried very hard to accept the truth—and sometimes had to pray very hard to do so! Every time I have received correction, even if it wasn’t handled the best, it turned out to be what I needed.

This is an area where we need to go to God and, like David, say, Search me, God. Reveal my secret sins to me. I want to be childlike. We each must pray for God to show us our faults. We must pray for God’s correction (Jeremiah 10:24). We must use God’s Word to pierce us even to the thoughts and intents of our heart. And then we must be doers of what we know to do, lest we deceive ourselves (James 1:22).

If we let a problem fester, eventually it will explode to where everyone will know about it. When the Tribulation comes, all game-playing will be over. The whole world will know who responded to and obeyed God, and who refused to do so.

‘In What Way Have You Loved Me?’

The book of Malachi is directed at God’s end-time Church. God revealed the meaning of this book to start off the Philadelphia Church of God in 1989, exposing what was happening in the Laodicean Church. (Request a free copy of the first book I wrote, Malachi’s Message to God’s Church Today.) Through the Prophet Malachi, God is rebuking His people strongly, pointing out and correcting their sins.

But throughout the book, you see that God’s people will not accept God’s rebuke! They continually answer back, deceptively rationalizing and trying to justify themselves.

It begins in Malachi 1:2: “‘I have loved you,’ says the Lord. ‘Yet you say, “In what way have You loved us?”‘” (nkjv). They don’t see God’s love! He has shown His love and blessed them abundantly in so many ways. Even His rebuke is love! But they disagree.

“I have loved you,” God says—but they respond, How have you loved us? They reject God’s message of love. They want to be left alone. Dad, just leave me alone! a rebellious teenager might say. Dads who don’t love their sons will leave them alone. But if you really love your son, you will not leave him alone.

God says, I have loved you! This is a “saith the Lord.” Do you hear God saying this today? Can you clearly see all the ways God shows His love for you—even in the correction He gives and the trials He allows? When He says, “I have loved you,” our response should be, Oh, Father—thank you! I see how you have loved me beyond anything I could ask for!

What a shameful lack of perspective to say instead, In what way have you loved me? Sadly, that is what many of God’s own sons are doing today!

Talking Back to God

“A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master: if then I be a father, where is mine honour? and if I be a master, where is my fear? saith the Lord of hosts unto you, O priests, that despise my name. And ye say, Wherein [or in what way] have we despised thy name? Ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar; and ye say, Wherein have we polluted thee? … Ye have wearied the Lord with your words. Yet ye say, Wherein have we wearied him? …” (Malachi 1:6-7; 2:17).

It is hard to imagine God’s people talking back to God so brazenly, but this is God’s view!

Realize: Though this appalling attitude is expressed dramatically in these verses, we can be a lot more subtle in how we talk back to God. We communicate the same attitude by just not listening to His correction or by refusing to repent and change.

Do you really want to know what God thinks of you? Do you want His evaluation of your spiritual state? Do you want the truth?

We should always be actively seeking God’s view. Don’t make excuses.

“Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of hosts. But ye said, Wherein shall we return?” (Malachi 3:7).

That is a very merciful and loving promise from God to His rebellious sons: Return to me, and I will return to you! Anyone who has gotten away from obeying God and His commands needs to return to the way they once knew. We should let nothing stand in the way of running back to God! He is pleading for His people to return to Him!

Isn’t it heartbreaking and shameful that people answer back, What do you mean, God? How can I return? I never went away! Yet many people whom our ministers meet display this kind of thinking. They simply cannot see how far they have strayed from their calling!

“Your words have been stout against me, saith the Lord. Yet ye say, What have we spoken so much against thee?” (verse 13). Their words are “stout,” or presumptuous, impudent and defiant. How could anyone be so deceived as to reject His plain rebuke?

This shows you that self-deceit is much easier and much more common than most people realize. We are all prone to it. We all need to examine ourselves for it and be vigilant against it. We all need to ask God to help us overcome it. Accepting correction from God is the only way we stand a chance of avoiding self-deceit.

Accept Correction

Are you willing to be corrected?

“The ear that heareth the reproof of life abideth among the wise. He that refuseth instruction despiseth his own soul: but he that heareth reproof getteth understanding” (Proverbs 15:31-32; see also Proverbs 13:18; 10:17). Proverbs 12:1 says if we refuse reproof, we are stupid (New International Version).

How can Christ save us if we do not accept His correction? How can you start as a terrible, evil, ugly human being and expect to become a God being, perfect in character, without receiving correction?

We will never qualify to enter God’s eternal Family, let alone be Jesus Christ’s Bride, without correction from our Father!

What happens if God shows us where we are wrong and we don’t accept it? That is a deadly serious problem!

Proverbs 15:10 says, “Correction is grievous unto him that forsaketh the way: and he that hateth reproof shall die.” If you have received the Holy Spirit of God, as we discussed in the last chapter, your eternal life depends on loving and accepting God’s reproof!

“He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy” (Proverbs 29:1). That is referring to eternal death. Nothing is more serious!

Yet so many of God’s people are making this mistake: They are truly off track, rebelling against God, and will not accept His correction.

When the Laodiceans are in the nuclear holocaust, they can no longer play games of self-deceit! God is going to allow the Great Tribulation so as to crush all hope man has in himself and turn him to hope in God.

You need to learn this lesson today—before that calamity.

History shows us that most eras of God’s Church eventually turned away from Him. That is why we must learn from God and His Word. We must measure every doctrine and every word of God. Then we cannot be deceived.

I implore you to study this book along with God’s Word, proving every statement with a searching heart.

Heed God’s warnings. Realize that self-deception is our natural inclination due to our deceitful heart, our pride and our failure to apply God’s truth. Avoid that snare. Ask God to search your heart (Psalm 139:23-24). Accept the loving rebuke and correction of your heavenly Father. Confess your sins honestly. And act on God’s Word.