Pure Religion (1-2)
This kind of deception is often evident when you are trying to give someone doctrinal instructions. You may give them a step-by-step exposition. You can patiently present your case, and provide meticulous answers to all their questions and objections. At the end, they might even say that they understand the biblical teaching, and that they agree with what you have said. But then the next time you see them, the next time you talk to them, they would speak and behave as if nothing has happened. They would talk to you as if they have not changed their position on the matter, and it would be as if the previous conversation never occurred at all.
Once I was speaking to a woman about a particular doctrine. It does not matter what the doctrine was because our focus right now is spiritual deception, spiritual blindness. The woman was having difficulty because she could not reconcile the biblical doctrine with something false that she believed in. But rather than showing that the doctrine was not really taught in the Bible, and rather than to renounce the falsehood that she affirmed, she sighed and said, "Well, I suppose that it is just a mystery."
But it was not a mystery, as if we lacked the necessary information, or as if it was something impossible to understand. If she had only assented to the biblical doctrine and renounced the false belief, then there would have been no longer any difficulty, and there would have been no longer any need to reconcile two incompatible things. So I insisted to her, "No, it is not a mystery. I just got through explaining everything to you, and answered all your objections."
She appeared shocked by this. You see, she had made up her mind that if she believed one thing and the Bible taught the opposite, then the matter must have been a mystery. It never occurred to her that her belief could be false. But she was teachable, and so she asked me to explain everything again, and I did. By the end of our conversation, she seemed to have finally understood and assented to the doctrine.
However, the next time we spoke, we were right back at where we started, and it was as if the previous conversation never happened. As far as I could tell, she was not deliberately rebelling against what I taught her from the Bible, but this happened without her realizing it. And so when I mentioned the doctrine this time, she again said, "Well, I suppose that all of this is just a mystery." I had to remind her of our previous conversation and how it concluded, and then I explained everything again. You would think that this was the last time, but the next time we spoke, there was the same problem. I had to repeatedly explain the doctrine to her over a period of several months. After that, it seemed that she finally got it.
The same thing can happen when you are giving someone ethical instructions, or when you are attempting to awaken someone out of a backslidden state. You can expound the Scripture to him, and point out his sins. At times he may even come under deep conviction and promise you that he is going to be a different man from that moment forward, and that he is going to change. But the next time you see him, he would cheerfully come up to you and greet you, and speak to you as if the previous conversation had never taken place. And then you find out that he never made the appropriate changes to his life after you talked to him the last time.
If you are in the ministry, you will encounter people like these over and over again, and this is why spiritual strength and inner endurance are essential. You might say that they are necessary for a minister's effectiveness, if not his very sanity. Sometimes these people will push you to the limits of your patience, and you might feel exasperated, and say with Jesus, "O unbelieving and perverse generation, how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you?" (Matthew 17:17), and "Are you so dull?" (Matthew 15:16). And you will identify with the writer of Hebrews: "We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God's word all over again. You need milk, not solid food!" (Hebrews 5:11-12).
Spiritual dullness and deception are especially difficult to unravel when you are trying to bring someone out of a cult, that is, when you are trying to "deprogram" a person who has been subjected to prolonged brainwashing. Similar difficulties are often present in varying degrees when you try to bring about a thoroughgoing paradigm shift in the person's theology and intellectual perspective, as when you would try to "convert" someone from Arminianism, Catholicism, dispensationalism, empiricism, among others, to the biblical way of thinking.
These projects require intense and excruciating labor on your part, and may take months, and in some cases, years to complete. Even then, no permanent changes will result, unless they have been brought about by the power of the Holy Spirit, according to his sovereign will. An appropriate way to illustrate this procedure is to liken it to surgery. Just as physical surgery cannot succeed without Providence sustaining the surgeon's work and the body's functions, spiritual surgery is complicated, and involves intense labor and concentration, but the desired results will not come about without the power of God directly working on the person's heart through your efforts.
(to be continued)
December 20 2005 | Expositions, Spirituality