The Solution to Self-deception. 1 Kings
1 Kings 18:40 NASB
“Then Elijah said to them, ‘Seize the prophets of Baal; do not let one of them
escape.’ So they seized them; and Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon,
and slew them there.”
Just as the Word of God
through divine viewpoint touches on every area of human life and thought, so
human viewpoint addresses every area of human life and thought. And if the
foundation is wrong then ultimately that is going to work itself out in many
wrong directions in its permutations as it touches on everything from law,
politics, economics, etc.; these will be affected but if the starting point is
off center then to some degree the conclusion will also be off center. If an
individual builds his life on shifting sands what he has done is he has
rejected the solid rock of biblical truth and he has manufactured a fantasy in his own soul. E.G. “I think the
sand is going to provide just as good a foundation as the rock.” He is in
self-delusion, self-deception, and he continues to live in that self-deception
and builds a magnificent house on that shifting sand foundation. What will
eventually happen is that that house will come tumbling down like a house of
cards, because the foundation is false. No matter how intricate the
rationalizations may be to justify building the house on those sounds it will
nevertheless collapse. On the other hand, those individuals who build their
life, their thinking, their viewpoint on the solid rock of eternal truth as
found in the Scriptures, then no matter what happens they will have perfect
stability in their thinking because it is based on truth: what conforms to
reality as God has defined it.
If we take those two
individuals and extrapolate that to groups of individuals then what we end up
with is two different cultures. There is one culture made up of hundreds of
thousands, if not millions, of people who are totally committed to the fact
that this house that they have constructed on the shifting sands is solid and
nothing can shake it, nothing can upset it, it is absolutely unshakeable. They
are living in a fantasy world, they have built a castle in the sky and they
have moved in. They have gone through a psychotic break so that they have
defined reality which is not reality because it is separate from God’s Word. On
the other hand, if we take a group hundreds and thousands of people who build
their lives, their thinking and their values, politics, economics and
relationships on the unshakeable truth of God’s Word then there is inevitably
going to be a tension and a conflict and hostility between these two groups of
people. Until Jesus Christ returns and establishes His kingdom there will
always be this conflict between those who are completely sold out to the
fantasy myth of human viewpoint and those who are sold out to the absolute
unshakeable truths of God’s Word.
In the Bible we see this
incredible confrontation between these two viewpoints take place at Mount
Carmel between the one man, Elijah, who represents the truth of God’s Word and
the eight hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and the Asherah who have led the
northern kingdom of Israel into this fantasy myth of the false religion,
paganism and polytheism of the fertility religions that came out of Phoenicia
and brought into the northern kingdom of Israel by Queen Jezebel who is married
to Ahab. At the very foundation of this religion is basically a worship of the
creature rather than the creator.
Summary:
1.
Since the entrance
of sin into the human race the default position of the sin nature is to worship
the creation, the creature, rather than the creator. That is foundational. When
we talk about the foundation of the rock versus the foundation of the sand
ultimately we have to look at how a person views ultimate reality in the
universe. Is it a personal infinite God who stands totally distinct from this
creation or is it some lower case god, or is it impersonal finite matter that
somehow generates out of itself living, organic life? Romans
2.
This rebellion
has taken many forms in history from the worship of the nature gods and
fertility religions in the ancient world to modern deep environmentalism that
we see influencing legislation, business policy, exploration for oil and
energy. All of these things are influenced because legislatures and policy
makers are living consistently with the nature worshipping philosophies that
they have accepted. We have seen that human viewpoint religion sees “God,” man
and nature as part of the same continuum. In other words, God is just man blown
up big; He is not a separate, distinct entity from creation like the God of the
Bible is. So they are able to cover things up with a pseudo God-talk, a talk
that makes people comfortable because they mention the Bible, they mention
Jesus and they mention God. They have bought into a bland sort of civil
religion and can follow its leadership. In contrast, divine viewpoint sees
nature as God’s distinct creation and man is set over nature. Man is distinct
from the rest of creation, and this really angers the human viewpoint
environmentalists.
3.
Biblically, any
study of nature that has a starting point other than special ex nihilo creation [the view that God
who stands completely distinct from creation created everything in the universe
out of nothing] will have major problems when it starts extrapolating
macro-universal observations—about ethics, values and the environment. When
they do that then what happens is that their worldview, their view of ultimate
reality begins to shape and direct their conclusions; and when they come to
certain conclusions those conclusions get foisted upon policy makers, upon
business leaders, upon legislators. When those are then enacted into law or
into business policy then it is forcing everybody else in that culture to live
on the basis of a totally false view of reality, and it is basically forcing
the rest of the culture to build and live in a house built on sand whether they
want to live there or not. That is a direct attack and destruction of freedom
and an assault on religious freedom.
4.
What happens is,
if we are not starting with the truth of what God’s Word says and we are
starting on the false foundation then when we start extrapolating to making
universal statement related climate control, related to going to last only for
a few more decades, etc. Then very core of human viewpoint thought is a denial
of the sovereignty of God, a denial that He still controls and rules over His
creation, and it also denies that God has actively predicted how history will
end; it is a complete rejection of the fact that God has outlines how the human
race will end and it won’t end any other way.
5.
When man operates
from these false constructs of fantasy origin myths, such as evolution, this
begins to penetrate every area of thinking. The result of fantasy and living on
the basis of fantasy is self-destruction.
6.
Since the
consequence of introducing this kind of error is so destructive to so many
people God had a special penalty for this in the nation
7.
The foundation
for this is in the law of Moses. God didn’t put this on other nations. There is
a model there for us but he did not give the law to anyone other than
8.
Later on in the
Mosaic law when Moses reiterated it and summarized it for the Israelites just
before they went into the land he laid out two particular laws related to what
to do with those who commit false religion and false philosophy. The first
passage is given in Deuteronomy chapter thirteen. Deuteronomy 13:1 NASB
“If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a
wonder…” This is somebody who actually does something that from all observance
is a genuine miracle. This doesn’t mean it has come from God; the Antichrist is
going to have real miracles, but the source isn’t God. So this is somebody who
comes along and say they have had a vision from God and substantiate that with
some kind of miracle. [2] “and the sign or the wonder comes true, concerning
which he spoke to you, saying, ‘Let us go after other gods (whom you have not
known) and let us serve them.’” There is the message. What did God say? Don’t
have any other gods before Me! So when a prophet comes along and says, we are
going to go after these gods, he is contradicting what God says. It is the
message that is important, not the miracle that substantiates it. Just because
somebody comes along and brings down fire from heaven it doesn’t mean that
their message is validated by God. What validates the message from God is the
Word of God that is in the sixty-six books of the Bible; that defines truth.
What happens to this person who leads them into a false religion? [3] “you
shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams; for
the LORD your God is testing you to find out if you love the LORD your God
with all your heart and with all your soul.” Are you going to obey Exodus 20,
or are you going to run off after this feel-good preacher who has deceived you?
Do you really love God so that the Word of God is more important to you than
any experience, any event, any charismatic human being that comes along with a
promise? [4] “You shall follow the LORD your God and fear Him; and you shall keep His
commandments, listen to His voice, serve Him, and cling to Him. [5] But that
prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has
counseled rebellion against the LORD your God who brought you from the
9.
In Deuteronomy 18:9-14 the discussion is about
what happens when they come into the land that the Lord their God is going to
give them, the land of Canaan. God is taking it from the Canaanites because
their idolatry has reached such an extremity and they are such a perverse
people that this threatens the rest of the human race. They have to be
surgically removed from the human race in order to protect the rest of the
human race from the cancer of their carnality. NASB “When you enter
the land which the LORD your God gives
you, you shall not learn to imitate the detestable things of those nations.
10.
Then in verse 20:
“But the prophet who speaks a word presumptuously in My name which I have not
commanded him to speak, or which he speaks in the name of other gods, that
prophet shall die. [21] “You may say in your heart, ‘How will we know the word
which the LORD has not spoken?’” What is our criterion for
evaluating this. [22] “When a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the
thing does not come about or come true, that is the thing which the LORD has not
spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of
him.” There is a one hundred per cent verifiability.
What happened on
What was the result of this?
1 Kings 18:39 NASB “When all the people saw it, they fell on their
faces; and they said, ‘The LORD, He is God; the LORD, He is God’.” Then there was the response of Elijah.
[40] “Then Elijah said to them, ‘Seize the prophets of Baal; do not let one of
them escape.’ So they seized them; and Elijah brought them down to the brook
Kishon, and slew them there.” Why did he do that? Was Elijah out of line? Not
at all. Elijah as a prophet, as the legal representative of God calling the
people to obedience to God, is forcing them to obey the Mosaic law and to execute
these prophets, because without their execution the cancer is allowed to
continue in the nation of
How does that apply to us? In a very significant way, and
this is outlined in Romans
What happens next is that
after Elijah executes the false prophets he turns to Ahab and says, “Go up, eat
and drink; for there is the sound of the roar of a {heavy} shower.” Rain is
coming. God was not going to be able to bless them through the rain until they
first dealt with the sin that was destroying the spiritual life in the nation.
That is why we have confession of sin. As long as we continue in carnality
there can be no real blessing from God in our lives. Only when we are growing
spiritually and putting to death the deeds of the flesh in our own souls can we
advance and really experience all of the spiritual blessings that God has for
us.