Exactly How Do People Become
Deceived?
Eric Snow, sermonette, 3-7-09, UCG
Ann Arbor, Michigan
In recent years, the money manager
Bernard Madoff committed the greatest of all financial frauds ever. He apparently cheated people out of an
astonishing $50 billion who invested with him.
But what could be worse than tricking people out of their life savings
and millions of dollars? Could
spiritual deceptions rob us of eternal life?
Could we be tricked out of God’s kingdom, just as Madoff’s investors
were tricked out of their savings? Most
importantly, we need to be alert to how we can be spiritually deceived by other
people in ways like how Madoff deceived people out of their money.
S.P.S. So today let’s consider how false authority figures can deceive us spiritually.
I’m basing today’s sermonette on a
recent article in the Wall Street Journal about how Bernard Madoff built the
credibility that allowed him to successfully defraud even intelligent,
well-informed investors. Stephen
Greenspan, a professor of educational psychology at the University of
Connecticut wrote the article, “Why We Keep Falling for Financial Scams” (Jan.
3-4, 2009). He also has written a
history book on the same general subject, “Annals of Gullibility.” But ironically, Madoff conned him out of 30%
of his retirement savings. So he
carefully analyzes himself psychologically about how this happened. Although his principles are about how people
get cheated out of their money, what he says also can be applied to the
processes leading to spiritual deception.
Revelation 12:9
Satan has deceived the whole
world. But how does he get the job
done? Sure, he has his evil angels to
help him. And he’s the prince of the
power of the air. That means he can
negatively influence our minds and emotions directly. But now, let’s narrow this down:
How can Satan use people to deceive other people? But more specifically, how has and how can
Satan use people with authority to deceive others?
A lot of false belief is based on
authority, such as believing people with education, intelligence,
power, beauty, and wealth. So then, do
we think that because this or that smart or powerful person believes
such-and-so, we should believe the same as he or she does? For example, how many people believe in the
theory of evolution just because their teachers and college professors told
them so? This is separate from an
a dditional potential problem, of
believing in people who have power over us and can threaten our jobs, property,
and/or family. Let’s go back to the
Madoff case as an example of this kind of deception. Since other intelligent, well-informed
money managers advocated this investment with Madoff, it had to
be a safe investment. As Greenspan
reasoned, his personal investment was made through 1 of 15 “feeder” funds. He didn’t directly invest into Madoff’s
fund. He invested in the $3 billion
“Rye Prime Bond Fund,” part of the respected Tremont family of funds, which are
in turn a subsidiary of the giant insurance company Mass Mutual. “I was dealing with some very reputable
financial firms, a fact that created the strong impression that this investment
had been well-researched and posed acceptable risks.”
So then, do we believe in
spiritual truths merely based on someone else’s authority? Understandably, young children will believe
what their parents tell them. But as we
get older, we have to become spiritually responsible and do our own research to
prove or disprove what we were taught as children. Do we ever independently research what the Bible itself
says about various doctrines, separate from any literature any religious
organization publishes? How I got
tricked concerning the Holy Spirit being a person before 1995 in our parent
organization. Consider how many people
just followed whatever their local pastor did in 1995: So then, did we reprove what we originally
believed in our parent organization? Or
did we just follow without much research what family, friends, and our local
pastors did?
Greenspan candidly admitted why he
looked to the authority of others when he wanted to invest his retirement
savings: “In my own case, the decision
to invest in the Rye fund reflected both my profound ignorance of finance, and
my somewhat lazy unwillingness to remedy that ignorance.” Therefore, he looked to identify other
people who were more financially knowledgeable than him. Then he decided to trust in their judgment
and recommendations.
Wouldn’t this be like someone who
says, “I don’t have the time or the desire to read and study the Bible for
myself. After all, a lot of it is
boring and confusing. Therefore, I’ll
just believe what my parish priest or church’s pastor tells me about its
teachings.” Don’t we recall Mr. Herbert
Armstrong’s different approach when he was evangelizing the public: “Don’t believe me, but believe the
Bible.” Didn’t he routinely challenge
people then to check out what he was saying in their own Bibles?
I Kings 12:25-33
Jeroboam feared the people of the
northern kingdom would go back to Rehoboam as their king if they went to
Jerusalem to worship the Eternal. So
for reasons of state, he manufactured a false, idolatrous religion. Then most of the people, besides the tribe
of Levi, fell in line. They obeyed
false human authority instead of God’s commands.
Let’s take another historical
example of a partially “manufactured” religion: Why did Henry VIII create the Church of England? Was he a sincerely convicted Protestant? Did he think the teachings of Martin Luther
more accurately reflected the Bible and thus God’s will than the Pope and
Catholic tradition? Of course not. He was just trying to divorce his wife,
Catherine of Aragon, and marry another woman in order to have a son and heir to
the throne. The Pope, Clement VII,
refused to grant him a divorce, thus standing on principle. Of course, minor detail, she was also the
nephew of the very Catholic Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor and ruler over
roughly half of non-Muslim Continental Europe.
How many people at the time just followed along, and broke with Rome
only because of royal authority, not sincere religious conviction?
II Thess. 2:9-10
Will people during the great
tribulation believe that only God can do miracles, not Satan? Will they believe that the false prophet, a
future pope, will do his miracles by the power of God since he’s the leader of
the largest “Christian” church? Simon
Magus example.