Dealing with Deception

Hey, welcome to Self Talk. This is your host, Dr. Ray Self. This is going to be a very tough show, actually, but interesting show about deception… because there's so much out there and we definitely need to talk about deception. You know, when you're around it, how to handle it, what do you do with it, because it will drive you crazy if you don't have some tools in place. This is going to be fun… uh… I won't call it, you know, truly exciting, but a very important show. The show is sponsored by the International College of Ministry. We are enrolling right now at icmcollege.org, a Holy Spirit-filled online seminary where you work on your own schedule. We even have scholarships available if you can't afford the tuition which is already low. Anyway, God bless you, thank you for being a part of my show. Be sure and check out our websites, the links are in the show notes. And you know, tell somebody about this. Share, subscribe, you know, help us to get the word out. God bless you and thank you so much for listening to Self Talk with Dr. Ray Self.

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Well, welcome to Self Talk. Heavenly Father, I thank you for each person listening to this show, to this episode. I pray, Father, that my words can be helpful, can be a blessing to them. Holy Spirit, I ask you to speak through me and speak to me. Speak through me and open up our ears and our hearts to hear what you have to say. In Jesus’ name, amen. 

So I guess you notice that there's a lot of deception out and it's a very frustrating time for our country and a frustrating time uh, just to be alive. I don't think I've ever seen so much pure deception, so many good people absolutely deceived. And you know, sometimes it's family members and it's uh, it can be friends, church members, and it's just… it just goes on and on and on. And the trouble with deception is it can kind of drive you crazy because when a person is deceived, they're very confident in what they're saying and they can be a very good person, a very uh, intelligent person, a very well-read person and they're extremely confident and vocal in what they believe and it can be completely 100% incorrect. However, when a person is deceived, they do not know they’re deceived because they're deceived. And therefore lies the issue. 

The scripture tells us plainly that Satan has blinded the minds of the unbeliever. Of course, that was referring to the gospel but the principle I think I see playing out all over our nation. The Spirit of the Antichrist has caused people to be blind. The Bible is the truth, God's word is truth, it has proven for thousands of years it is the truth. It is verified by prophecies, it's verified by history, it's verified by many different apologetic proofs the Bible is the truth. However, so many people are deceived with their own version of truth. If there is no absolute truth, then truth becomes subjective and truth is whatever you make it to be and can change all the time. I call this the world system. The world system and values change repeatedly. I'm 72 years old as I'm making this recording and I have seen the values and the truths of the world change over periods of time in ways I could have never, ever, ever imagined. But what in a way frustrates me the most and maybe drives me crazy is when people are deceived to the very obvious and cannot see the truth when it's right in front of their eyes. 

I saw a uh, an article - a post on social media not too long ago - and a guy called the Bible a mythology book. You know, despite the scientific evidence, historical evidence, and the, and the archaeological evidence, he called it a mythology book. I'm going, “Really? Seriously?” Um, one guy even called Jesus a, a mythology figure. I go, “Seriously?” I mean, despite you know, the records, historical records, and eyewitnesses which we have written— written down records from eyewitnesses. But when there's that much deception they believe what they're, what they're saying. And what's hard and I want - I'm just talking from the heart right now - is when someone you love or care about is deceived. Now you know I don't pretend that I know all the truth and I'm always right about every issue, I mean, that would be prideful and nobody really is 100% correct all the time. Everybody, you know, has their own flaws and we all make mistakes. However, when a person is deceived, they cannot see truth when it is presented right in front of them. Even… a, a great example of that is creation. You look at creation, you look at the world around us, the evidence is overwhelming that this world was designed and created. Overwhelming evidence. And the, the principle that this all happened by happenstance and was uh, billions of years of luck is absolutely absurd. No scientific - real scientific - evidence for it - that everything came out of nothing and that something that had no conscious created conscious. In other words, you cannot create something from nothing. And you know the theory of evolution… it violates the law of physics, it violates the law of thermodynamics. There's no scientific proof for it. But because of deception, people believe it. And even… even the fossil evidence doesn't support it. So it's just incredible despite the truth being right in front of our eyes, how many people are completely deceived. I see this in the area of politics, I see this in the area of the news, and I guess what's frustrating to me is when someone you care about cannot see an obvious truth.

Um, we've had some atheists in our family - very intelligent people - and I begged them, just do an objective investigation of Christianity. And you know, especially the, the over 200 prophecies that Jesus fulfilled. That's, you know, statistically impossible. And the historical evidence for Christ and, and for the scriptures themselves. You know, the Dead Sea Scrolls for instance. The evidence is overwhelming for the validity of the Bible. But you see, because of deception, people cannot, cannot see this. Um, people who cannot see Jesus as the Messiah, as the Son of God, as God Himself - which the evidence for that is, is overwhelming - the evidence that He died and rose on the third day is overwhelming. But people are blind and deceived and cannot see the truth. But we are blessed, the fact that the Holy Spirit has opened up our eyes and we are able to see the truth. 

But there's so much deception and what deception does is it causes good people not to… to not have the ability to see the truth. And again, when you're talking to someone who is deceived, they will be very confident in what they believe, and they, and they're not bad people, they honestly believe what they believe. Even though, you know, this is insane, how could you possibly believe this? And there's a lot of things people are deceived about. And I mean, I mean, I think Muslims are deceived. I think uh… I mean, I don't think, I know they're deceived. And they're not bad people, they’re deceived people. The Buddhists are not bad people, deceived people. The Hindus, not bad people, deceived people. And I, I love them, I care about them, and I think they believe sincerely what they believe but it is a deception. So many times… you know, what's really cool is recently Jesus has been manifesting Himself to a lot of these people and they've been seeing the truth. 

You know, in order to see the truth, I guess, according to scripture, our eyes have to be open. You know, Paul prayed in Ephesians that the eyes of our understanding would be open. If your eyes are open and you can see the truth of Christ, you can see the truth of the Bible, you can see the truth of God, you are a blessed person. But at the same time, we have to have mercy and understanding that the people who cannot see it are not bad people. They– they're not evil people, most of them. I mean, a few of them may be evil but they're deceived people and this deception is so hard they literally are blind. The one great biblical example of deception will be the Apostle Paul who previously was called Saul. Now, this guy felt like with all his heart he loved the Lord and believed he was serving the Lord by persecuting Christians - that he was doing God's will by, by finding these Christians and putting them in jail. Um, you know, helping assisting with the stoning of Stephen. Was he a bad person? Now this is the guy that's going to end up writing two-thirds of the Bible. But think about it, he wasn't a bad person, he was a deceived person. And it's interesting that when he met the Lord Jesus on the road to Damascus, the first thing that happened was he became physically blind. He was already spiritually blind. He became physically blind for three days and on the third day, a man named Ananias laid hands on him, he received the Holy Spirit his eyes were open, and he could see. What could he see? He could see the truth. He was no longer deceived. 

Now, when the Apostle Paul was deceived, was he a bad person? Yeah. Was he evil? Yeah. But why was he evil? Why was he bad? I mean, I don't think in his heart he intended to be bad. In his heart, he thought he was serving God but he was bad and he was doing these evil things because of deception. And I see this principle playing out all over our nation today. I see it playing out in Washington, I see it playing out in our public schools, I see it playing out uh, with leaders, I see it playing out in, in some churches. Deception, deception, deception. And so what do we do? Because it's, it's frustrating. I get frustrated. Um, I had a conversation with a family member this morning who was very deceived and I started to get into a debate and I realized no, not a good idea to debate a deceived person. Generally, you're not going to open up eyes through debate. I mean, you want to argue with them because you can see, you understand and they don't see and they don't understand. One thing about the Holy Spirit. When you have the Holy Spirit, He opens up the eyes of your understanding. The Holy Spirit gives you eyes to see the truth, to know the truth of God. The truth of the word of God, the truth of who God is. It's an incredible and amazing blessing but without the Holy Spirit, people do not see and the Spirit of the Antichrist is moving across our nation making sure that millions of people are blind. 

So what– how do we handle this when you're faced with it? Because when I get around deceived people, honestly, I got to be real, I get frustrated. I do. But when I calm down and I think about it, I know I need to pray, “Holy Spirit, in the name of Jesus, Holy Spirit, touch this person. Open up their eyes to see the truth. Father, you, you, you opened up the eyes of the Apostle Paul. Open up their eyes, Father. Lord, remove the scales off their eyes. Open up their eyes so they can see the truth. Holy Spirit, come upon them now. Have mercy on them. Come upon them now. Convict them to repentance, Father, and open up their eyes so they can see the truth. I rebuke and renounce every assignment against this person that is keeping them from seeing and knowing the truth.” And just a simple prayer folks - amen - and a simple prayer like that can kind of release you. It can release you from the burden because if you're like me, and I imagine a lot of people are similar to me, is being around a deceived person is very frustrating. And our first thing we want to do is argue with them and it doesn't work. Arguing with a deceived person just does not work. I wish it did because, you know… and you know, even hitting them with obvious facts does not work because they're deceived. And this deception has caused great division in our country. 

Now listen, I'm not trying to tell you that… be political here, but I am saying there are things that are inherently evil. There are things that are morally corrupt and wrong according to God's word and not to see that and to support that and even celebrate that is pure deception. And you know, our nation has gone from tolerating sin to celebrating sin and that is deception. Only deceived people can celebrate something that is evil. Some of it, it's just common sense. It is just common sense. Even, you know, you got the issue of the uh, transsexual men playing women's sports in with an unfair advantage over women and getting undressed in women 's locker rooms. Now, not to see that that's wrong, not to see that that is wrong and that is abusive to women and violates their– the Title Nine and the rights that women fought so long for, for equality in sports, and now all of a sudden you put men in their locker rooms and men racing against them, um, playing volleyball against them, playing basketball against them, um, it's just– it's just crazy. It makes no sense and it's evil. Now you know, if a guy has a transsexual issue that's his issue but when he takes that issue and violates and abuses and causes stress and trauma to women, that's a problem… that, that anybody could possibly see. 

And this is not a, a show about, you know, the that problem. But you know, I think it's got to be deception to think that a man should be able to play in women's sports. I just– one small example. And you know, and I love people, and, but to call what is… with… what… common sense… what is this… common sense and the Holy Spirit and the Bible. To call what is wrong right and what is wrong to be celebrated is pure deception. The only thing that we can do logically is to pray. And not only pray but sometimes take authority over these dumb demon spirits that are deceiving so many people. You know, I often teach my students there's the prayer of petition and a p– and then there's proclamation. So petition is when you ask God to do something but proclamation is when you take the authority God has given you and you speak to the problem and you command it to cease. And so you have to use wisdom. It's this time for us to pray and ask God to intervene, which is a good thing to do, nothing wrong with that, we should be doing that. But also we need to take authority over these demons. The Bible says “These signs will follow those that believe; in my name they will cast out demons,” Well, there's demons that are blinding the eyes of good people and we need to cast these guys out and break this assignment and break this curse off of good people so they can see the truth, just like the Apostle Paul. He had, he had to have this thing broken off of him so he could see the truth. 

And right now I just believe that God can open up the eyes of our leaders, open up the eyes of these good people who are deceived and believe the lies with all their heart. You know the Father of Lies is the Devil. He is the Deceiver of the Brethren. That's what the Bible says. He'll deceive– “in the end times he'll deceive even the very elect.” But Father, in the name of Jesus Christ we renounce this assignment to keep our nation blind - to blind our leaders, to blind even some pastors, to blind family members, to blind the unbelievers. We rebuke this assignment. Lord, have mercy on them. Send your Holy Spirit who can let anybody see. We renounce the assignment against our nation, against our family, against our friends, the assignment to keep us blind, to keep people from seeing the truth, to– for people to be deceived. We thank you, Lord, for opening up the blind eyes. And so, folks - amen. And so, folks, if you're dealing with people who are deceived, and I, I would think that most of my listeners are, petition God and also proclaim using His authority. And the more you pray for a deceived person, the more mercy you're going to have on them. Also, another good thing is it's going to release the burden from you. The Bible says we should cast our burdens upon the Lord and I get burdened with all the deception I see uh, through the news, news, and social media… it's, it's sickening. But when I pray, and I pray, and I ask the Lord for help and I take authority that He has given me, this burden gets released. And you know, remember we're not of this world. We live in another kingdom and this world has got a lot of evil in it. But the kingdom of God that we've been adopted into, there is no evil and that's where we belong. Because we're not of this world, we’re of the kingdom of Jesus Christ, you know?

I appreciate you listening to this uh, podcast. I know this was kind of a heavy-duty type thing but the answer to deception is to pray and believe and proclaim for the blindness to be gone, for eyes to be open. You have to be– have your eyes open by the Holy Spirit to see the truth and that's what we need and that's what our nation needs and our families need and our communities need. And we pray that and we believe that in Jesus’ name. Amen. Thank you for listening. Hallelujah.

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Well, okay, you've done it. You've listened to another episode of Self Talk with me, Dr. Ray Self and I appreciate you listening to the show. It was kind of heavy but it's something we're all dealing with, we need to talk about it, amen? So please go to the websites. Um, you can go to icmcollege.org/selftalk, that's our podcast website. Uh, there's also another website for our podcast through Buzz Sprout. The link to that is in the show description that comes out with the podcast. Also, several links that if you want to enroll in our college, that is there. If you'd like to donate, that'd be really cool, that is there. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and give us a review and share. What that does is it helps us get this message out to more people and you can be a part of getting that message out to more people. God bless you. Be blessed in 2024. I appreciate you listening to Self Talk. This is Dr. Ray Self and you're the best and I love you much and God bless you.