Deception (Part 05) - Satan the Great Deceiver (Part B)

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2. Satan will sometimes use those closest to us to entice us into false religion (Deut 13:6-7). A. If that happens in the church, we must exclude them and have no pity even if they are immediate family members (Deut 13:8-11). i. Showing favoritism or partiality is an open door to deception. ii. Blood cannot run thicker than water in the church. B. Beware of being secretly enticed into idolatry (Job 31:26-28). i. Job was declaring to God that he was not an idolater, neither in public nor in private. a. He had not worshipped the sun or the moon (Job 31:26). b. It was a common practice to worship idols by kissing them (1Ki 19:18; Hos 13:2). (i) Idolaters still do this today. (ii) Catholics have kissed the toes off of the statue of "Saint Peter" in the Vatican. c. When the idol was out of reach, such as the sun and moon, the idolater would kiss his hand in homage to it. d. "...such deities especially that were out of the reach of their worshippers, as the sun, moon, and stars were, they used to put their hands to their mouths, and kiss them, in token of their worship; just as persons now, at a distance from each other, pay their civil respects to one another..." (John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible, Job 31:27). e. "let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves: let those that bring their sacrifices, or those that offer them, pay religious worship and adoration to the calves; which they signified by kissing the idols they sacrificed to, either their mouths, or their hands; or, if out of their reach, they kissed their own hands in token of honour to them; which rites were commonly used among the Heathens. Cicero (s) says at Agrigentum, where was a temple or Hercules, where the people not only used to show a veneration to his image by prayers and thanksgivings, but they used to kiss it. So Apuleius (t) speaks of a beautiful virgin, the report of whose beauty brought together a vast number of citizens and strangers; who, amazed at the sight of her, put their right hand to then (sic) mouths, the first finger resting upon the thumb erect, and gave her reverence with religious adoration, as if she had been the goddess Venus herself; and Minutius Felix (u) says of Caecilius, that, observing the image of Serapis (probably much like one of these calves), putting his hand to his mouth, according to the superstitious custom of the common people, with his lips smacked a kiss..." (John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible, Hos 13:2) ii. It is in the nature of man to worship something. a. Man can easily be driven to worship the sun, moon, and stars (Deut 4:19). b. Driven ppl. - 1. Urged onward, impelled, etc.: see the verb. c. Given our nature, it is easy for Satan to entice us into idolatry using our own natural lusts (Jam 1:14). d. We must worship the LORD our God alone and only serve Him (Mat 4:10). 3. Satan deceives his children into thinking they are children of God. A. Satan is the god of this world (2Co 4:4). i. Satan desires more than anything be like God (Isa 14:14). ii. Satan desires to be worshipped (Mat 4:9). iii. If he can deceive his children into thinking they are God's children, then he can receive worship from them as if he were God. B. The Pharisees were children of the devil (Joh 8:44). i. But they thought they were children of God (Joh 8:41). ii. By having them think they were children of God, Satan used them to creep into churches and to deceive others to lead them away from the truth (Act 15:1, 5; Gal 2:4; Jud 1:4). C. The heathen have always worshipped Satan and his devils (1Co 10:20). i. Having most of the world worship him is an accomplishment. ii. But a greater accomplishment than that is for the devil to have people who claim to be Christians thinking they are worshipping God in churches that claim to be God's churches who are in fact worshipping Satan in his churches. iii. There are many children of the devil who do just that (Mat 7:21-23). iv. Sometimes the wheat and the tares are hard to tell apart (Mat 13:24-30, 37-43).