Deception means to trick, mislead, cheat, beguile or to provide a distorted image that leads to a false sense of reality and trust. The ancient Greeks employed the word “deceive” to describe the temporary relief that people received from watching theater performances before returning to their less-than-perfect lines.
Deception is alive and well. I recall reading an article about a 150-car parking lot outside of Bristol Zoo in England. For 25 years, the parking lot was managed, rain or shine, by the same male attendant. The fees were always reasonable and the attendant was consistently pleasant.
One day, after all those years of faithfulness, he didn’t show up. Management at the zoo called City Hall and asked them to send another parking lot attendant. The personnel department, after searching the records for information on the attendant, discovered that no such person had ever been on payroll. In fact, additional research revealed that the parking lot had no fee; it was designated as free parking!
Further investigation revealed that someone, apparently the pleasant attendant, had installed a ticket machine on his own and then simply showed up every day for 2 1/2 decades to pocket the parking fees. It was calculated that he had collected an average of $560 a day, which over the course of 25 years totaled more than $7,000,000. Suspicions are that he is currently sitting in a luxurious villa somewhere in the world enjoying his deceptively gained profits.
A more common and frequent form of deception emanates not from a phony parking lot attendant, but from ourselves.
Jeremiah 17:9 with reference to the nature of mankind says, (warning — this isn’t very complementary), “The heart of man is the most deceitful thing there is and desperately sick. No one can really know how bad it is!”
Self-deception is the worst of all deceptions and many people have sadly admitted to me that if they hadn’t deceived themselves, they might still have their joy, job, money, family, wife, business or friends etc.
The worst of all self-deceptions is the notion that we don’t need God. Revelation 3:17 relates that the church in Laodicea had deceived themselves into thinking that they were, rich, had acquired great wealth and needed nothing. However, Jesus describes them in the latter part of the verse as being, “...wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.”
While the foregoing is rather negative, Jesus extends a positive alternative a few verses later...an invitation to drop deception and enter into fellowship. He says, “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in ...” (Revelation 3:18).
My suggestion? Drop the deception and open the door!
Pastor Ross Helgeton is the senior pastor of Erskine Evangelical Free Church.
— Faith & Reflection