FALSE PROMISES

 False Promises

2 Peter 2: 18-19
These are wells without water (boasting of a false gift)…For when they speak great swelling words of emptiness, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through lewdness…While they promise liberty, they themselves are the slaves of corruption.

Idolatry (whether it be any philosophy or various forms of New Age influence, any idol of stone and wood or those hidden in the hearts of man, or even apostate Christianity that denies the testimony of Jesus Christ and the word of God) will lead to emptiness disillusionment, fear, confusion, bondage, darkness, oppression, and death.

The writer of Ecclesiastes sought pleasures and delights, and pursued whatever his eyes desired. He did not withhold his heart from any pleasure. In the end and during the pursuits he found emptiness and vanity. His answer was, “I hated life.” How many well-known celebrities who had all the fame, wealth, and pleasures this life can offer ended up in an early grave through suicide, drug overdose, or profligate lifestyles. The writer of Proverbs warns us that the man who is enticed by the prostitute or adulteress goes like an ox to slaughter or as a bird to the snare. He does not know it will cost him his life and lead to death. This principle applies to any enticement that would lure us away from the God of the Bible.

Idols appeal to our lusts and promise the “warm fuzzies,” but lead to despair and pain. They promise love but lead to loneliness and disillusionment. They promise freedom and sin without guilt, but produce slavery, bondage, and condemnation. They give pleasure and satisfaction for a season. Idolatry deceives a person into thinking “self” is on the throne and in control, but he wakes up to realize he is a slave to Satan, a harsh and cruel taskmaster. He initially thinks he is finding peace, but later discovers mental confusion, anxiety, and darkness. He is promised pleasure, but ends with emptiness, poverty, and death.

Idols promise relief and an easy out, but steal your birthright and blessing. They promise wisdom but make you  foolish. “Professing themselves to be wise they became fools.” Jeremiah said, “For it is the land of carved images, and they are insane with their idols.” Jeremiah 50:38.

The demonic powers behind idolatry promise power, control, and prestige, but give poison, bitterness, bondage, and iniquity. Acts 8: 9-11, 20-24). They promise spiritual light and hidden knowledge, but bring poverty, hunger, hardship, gloom, and darkness.  They promise a party but bring pain.

Satan is a liar and his emissaries deceive us. Our own lusts are deceitful and they also lie to us. We must remember that idolatry is spiritual adultery. False gods will betray you. They will seek your life. They are like the deceitful young man who is on his best behavior during courtship, but whose evil nature is revealed after the wedding.

We should heed Isaiah’s words of warning.

And when they say to you, “Seek those who are mediums and wizards, who whisper and mutter,” should not a people seek their God? Should they seek the dead on behalf of he living? To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word (God’s word), it is because there is no light in them. They will pass through it hard-pressed and hungry; and it shall happen when they are hungry, that they will be enraged and curse their king and their God, and look upward. Then they will look to the earth, and see trouble, and darkness, gloom of anguish; and they will be driven into darkness. Isaiah 8:19-22

By contrast, the Kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and joy in Christ Jesus.

God, our heavenly Father has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.   Colossians 1: 13-17.