Saturday 21 Oct 2017

October 21: Matthew 24:22-25

Key Verse: Matthew 24:24
For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect.

Devotion:
You would think after a few thousand years of pretenders standing forward and saying they are Christ, people would have learned not to accept the lies and to depend on God's own Word to filter out the truth. But not. New generations come and go, and as they do, they want to be the ones to find a Messiah for themselves; to this extent they start to believe anything until it is too late.  With so much in the way of modern media and journalists flying round the globe all the time, you would think the lies would be hard to cover up – but many still do filter through society. Many are perpetuated by the media themselves without them knowing or meaning to.

Each year as man gets more and more wicked, we hope a little bit more and sometimes we want Jesus to come sooner rather than later so we may be spared the horrors we see ahead. We hope for peace but know it not possible. We hope for our Messiah yet think it not probable. We search for any sign and start to believe many. Because of our weaknesses, we give in to the subtle lies around us and hope they are true; being dashed against the rocks when we find out they are lies. Just like Adam and Eve found out that giving in to a simple lie brings home a harsh reality – so we will find the harsh realities which lie ahead when we give in to those Satanic lies too.

We think of the good times we can have, we think of the pleasures we are missing out on, we think of what could be... if only we could depend on what those people are saying! So we give in a little and they continue to spoon feed us the small lies until we too are in bed with their deceptions. We have fallen into the age old trap of yet another lie from the evil one. History is strewn with such cases from the fall of a single person to the fall of a whole country – all because of a simple lie. We have to stand upon God's Word to be able to tell those lies apart from everything else. We need to be by God's side so that we are not deceived too.

Points to Ponder:
Who is the single person you are most likely to believe?

How do they stand up to God's Word?