Sermon    Title: Watch Out For Deception,   Text: Mark 13:5-6,  
November 9, 1997 
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus 
Christ.  Amen.  We focus today on Mark 13:5-6, "Jesus said to 
them: 'Watch out that no one deceives you.  Many will come in my 
name, claiming, I am He, and will deceive many."  This is the 
Word of the Lord.  You may be seated. 
Just two years and 51 days and we will enter the new millenium.  
There is much excitement in the religious world as some people 
predict that Christ will return at that time.  There are many who 
claim to have determined when Christ will return.  They belive, 
sincerely, that they know the day.  And many are being deceived. 
What we do know is today we move into the end of the Church Year.  
The three Sundays just prior to Advent are called the Third Last 
Sunday, the Second Last Sunday, and the Last Sunday of the Church 
Year.  The focus of these three Sundays is the End of the World 
and the resurrection into Heaven for Christians. 
The Gospel reading from Mark has Jesus talking about the signs 
that the end is coming.  The disciples lead Jesus into this 
discussion by asking about the Temple in Jerusalem.  Jesus had 
just left the temple for the last time.  He would not return to 
the temple again during His earthly ministry.  The disciples 
point out the magnificence of the structure.  Jesus simply says 
it is going to be destroyed. 
Perhaps the disciples were giving too much honor to this man-made 
structure.  It may be that, rather than worshiping the Lord, they 
were worshipping the Temple of the Lord.  The answer of Jesus may 
be helpful to us too.  It can turn us away from honoring man-made 
structures and other human developments.  Just remember, it is 
all going to be destroyed.   
Jesus' reply leaves the disciples ever more curious.  When will 
this happen?  What will be the sign that its coming?  They knew 
Jesus had something big in mind.  They wanted to be sure they 
were ready for it when it came.   
The "When" question Jesus answers later.  It comes up in the 
Gospel reading in two weeks.  However, the signs of the end of 
the age Jesus does begin to discuss in our reading from Mark.  
Signs of the end of the temple are discussed.  These signs were 
fulfilled when the temple was destroyed by the Romans in 60 AD, 
about 30 years after Jesus gave this prophecy. 
Jesus also discusses the signs of the end of the world.  Before 
He gets into any specifics on these signs, He gives the disciples 
a strong warning.  "Watch out that no one deceives you."  He 
urges them to keep their eyes open and be aware of what is 
happening.  It is implied that others would be trying to deceive 
them and they must resist being deceived.   
What does it mean to deceive?  My dictionary defines it as this: 
"to cause a person to believe what is not true or to mislead."  
So Jesus' warning to the disciples, and to us, is to not allow 
someone to lead us away from the truth.   
There is an interesting thing about deception, and that is you 
don't know when you are being deceived.  It is not as if a person 
decides to believe something which is false.  To be deceived 
means you don't know that what you are being led to believe is 
false.  You are deceived, after all.  You have been tricked into 
thinking something which is false is really true.  This is the 
danger.  You don't know when you have been deceived, because, 
you've been deceived.  This is why Christ's warning is to avoid 
being deceived in the first place.  Don't let someone mislead 
you.  Don't let them convince you that something is true when it 
is really false.   
What about the deceiver?  Do you think the deceiver knows what 
they are doing?  Are they deliberately pushing what they know is 
a lie off as truth?  It turns out that the deceiver may be 
deceived themselves.  In fact, it would be very likely that they 
would be deceived.  See if the lie can deceive other people, then 
it is very likely the lie has already deceived the one who is 
passing it on.  The deceiver does not need to have wicked 
intentions to lead others into falsehood.   They can simply have 
a sincere desire to lead others to what they believe is the 
truth.  What they believe is true is actually false. 
This is an important point to keep in mind when it is necessary 
for us to be critical of other church bodies, organizations, 
congregations, or individuals.  Criticism of others is often 
frowned upon, because the ones being criticized may seem sincere.  
They can be sincere, but that doesn't mean that what they are 
teaching is true.  A person can be sincerely wrong.  They can be 
themselves deceived and think that what they teach or confess is 
the truth.  Just because we might criticize others does not mean 
that we necessarily consider them to be wickedly teaching 
falsehood while knowing the truth. 
The deception which Jesus warns about will be very common.  He 
says, "Many will come in my name, claiming, 'I AM He," and will 
deceive many."  Many deceivers will come.  Many will be deceived.  
This will not be a rare occurrence, but something that will seem 
normal or typical.  It will not just be the tiny cults that are 
deceived.  It won't be a minority that are deceived, but many.  
The deceivers will come in Jesus' name.  They will claim to be 
associated with Christ.  They will call themselves Christians. 
Many deceivers will claim "I AM He."  More exactly, this is the 
phrase in the original Greek "ego eimee."  This phrase is the 
name of God as translated from the Old Testament.  This means 
that some who come to deceive will claim to be God themselves.   
In recent years we have Rev. Sun Moon of the Unification Church, 
and David Koresh of Waco fame who claim or claimed to be God and 
Jesus.  No degree of falsehood will fail to convince some.  No 
matter how extreme the lie, some will believe it.  Many will be 
deceived. 
We should not be surprised that many will be deceived.  The 
deceptions will be convincing.  The falsehoods will be 
attractive.  Just as the gospel seems to be foolishness to the 
world, the deception will seem wise to the world.  We must also 
keep in mind that the wolf will come in sheep's clothing. 
The deception of many is so much easier today than it was in the 
past.  See we have many forms of communcation which are readily 
available today.  There are many channels through which the 
deceivers can work.  Consider where people get there religious 
information today.  It used to be that they only got it from 
their pastor.  Now we have Christian radio and TV.  We have books 
and magazines.  We even have secular news magazines trying to 
write about religious topics.  Then there are movies and TV shows 
that end up teaching something about religious matters.  These 
forms of communication are prominent and attractive. 
For example, I just went into a small drugstore the other day and 
noticed a display of the book "Chicken Soup for the Soul."  This 
book contains some Christian writings in it and so is attractive.  
Yet it also has "New Age" writings and ones from other religions.  
It has a strong anti-Christian angle to it.  I don't know how 
many millions of copies each of the books in this "Chicken Soup 
For the Soul" series have sold, but I do know many are being 
deceived by these books. 
Part of our problem today is that we feel we can separate the 
good from the bad.  Pastor Don Matzat calls this "bone spitting."  
The idea is that we believe we can eat something, bones and all, 
and then spit out the bones.  It the past, we used to be rather 
fussy about our religious information.  What we brought into our 
homes was more controlled.  Today, trying to separate the good 
from the bad today in books like Chicken Soup for the Soul leaves 
us open to deception. 
Another part of our problem today is that we don't devote the 
time to study of the truth that we should.  The President of the 
Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, Al Barry, suggests that people 
often spend only one hour a week in studying and hearing the 
truth from God's Word.  Then, the rest of the week may be 
composed of many activities which teach us things which are 
opposed to Christianity.  Think about the terrible imbalance: one 
hour on truth, and the rest of the time on things that are not 
necessarily true.  In a way, it is not surprising that so many 
are deceived today, for they spend so much time being exposed to 
false teachings.   
We would be better off with more time devoted to the Lord.  By 
not spending time with God's Word, we open ourselves up to 
deception.  The best guard against false teaching is to know the 
truth.  Levels of Christian understanding and education are at 
all time lows, however.  When we don't know and study the truth, 
we fail to heed the Lord's warning to "Watch out!" 
Listen how the Psalmist devotes himself to the Lord, in Psalm 16:  
"I will praise the Lord, who counsels me; even at night, my heart 
instructs me.  I have set the Lord always before me.  Because He 
is at my right hand, I will not be shaken." 
The Lord ought to be our refuge from deception.  Rather than 
seeking our refuge in our Lord, we let down our guard against 
deceivers.  The Psalm today also said, "Keep me safe, O God, for 
in you I take refuge."  Instead of following what our Psalm said, 
we take refuge in other things.  Our refuge comes in the things 
of this world, in the deceptive teachings which will be shaken 
out in the end.  These deceptive teachings lead us into following 
other gods.  Even by paying attention to the deceivers and 
ignoring God's Word, we are following other gods.  Psalm 16 also 
says, "The sorrows of those will increase who run after other 
gods."  For the sin of failing to heed our Lord's warning, we 
deserve condemnation. 
God knew we would fail to heed His warning.  He knew we would 
sinfully open ourselves to deception.  For this reason He send 
one to us who could not be deceived.  He sent one who IS the 
truth.  He send His Son, Jesus Christ, to take away our sins by 
His sacrificial death.  In the Lord's mercy, He forgives our sins 
of failing to watch out for deceivers.  Our God takes away those 
as well as all other sins.     
Knowing this mercy—builds us up.  We come to know the truth that 
the Psalmist expresses in these words: "You are my Lord; apart 
from you I have no good thing."  We learn the truth once again 
that all good things come from God.  All mercy and forgiveness 
comes from Him.  Salvation comes from Him, alone.  Because of the 
redemption we have by Christ, our salvation is secure.  It is 
based on Christ's work, and that makes it certain.  The deceivers 
will try to tell you that your salvation is based upon something 
which you do.  Jesus offers you eternal life entirely by grace. 
This certain salvation then comforts us as we endure the 
suffering of a world which is coming to an end.  As we face wars, 
famines, earthquakes, we know that the end is coming.  As we are 
called to be witnesses among a world that is being deceived, we 
know the time is getting closer.  As we endure betrayal and 
rebellion in our families, we look forward to our coming 
salvation.  We know these signs of the end are simply birth 
pains.  And for us, the birth will be joyful, for it will be a 
birth into heavenly paradise.  We will spend eternity in the 
presence of our Lord, and, nothing could be better. 
The end of the reading from Mark said, "...he who stands firm to 
the end will be saved."  There is only one way to stand firm to 
the end.  That is to hold to the one who gives us His grace.   
The one who firmly resisted deception and gave His life on the 
cross for us.  Yes, apart from the Lord we have no good thing, 
and so we can only stand to the end based on the grace of our 
Lord.  Only by the Lord holding us firmly, will we stand and be 
saved.  Only through the mercy of Jesus Christ. 
 
 
 
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