Commentaries:
If our trust, faith, or confidence is in any person—and this would certainly include ourselves—God says that we are cursed! Such a wretched belief system cannot help but bear diseased and poisonous fruit. If we depend on human abilities—ours or someone else's—to overcome Satan and recognize and resist his devices, he will sooner or later pull one over on us.
If our trust is misplaced, the verse says our heart departs from the LORD, meaning we are surrendering our best and only true defense against the deceiver. Sometimes, he goes for our weaknesses, yet at other times, for our strengths. Sometimes, his ploy is in plain view, but at other times, he plays an indefinite waiting game. Who can anticipate all his methods of deception? We simply cannot foresee where he will come from—or when or how. Clearly, on our own, we are outmatched and outgunned. We need what no mortal can provide.
A couple of verses later, God gives the flipside, the only means we really have against deception: "Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, and whose hope is the LORD" (Jeremiah 17:7). Recall what God has done and is doing for us. While the world lies under the sway of the wicked one, God has freed a little flock and is actively protecting His sheep. We should not live in terror—we have not been given a spirit of fear (II Timothy 1:6). Alone, we cannot stand against Satan, but our source of strength is Jesus Christ.
Walking in that relationship causes us to adopt the character image of the Father and the Son. The more we think as They do and act as They do, the less likely we are to be taken in by Satan's subtlety, cunning, or one of his long cons. Just as we are no match for Satan, so the Devil is no match for the Father and the Son. In fact, They have already defeated him and desire to make Their home with us—which They will do if we love Them and keep Their words. This protects us from deception—our growing relationship with God and submitting to the truth at every turn.
The people who will survive the deceptions of this end time are those who have the Father and the Son as their focus—in their very being—so much that the false messiahs and prophets cannot get in the door. The ones who are kept from deception have a love of the truth (see II Thessalonians 2:9-12). Their security comes not because of personal strength but as a result of the protection that God gives because they have consistently demonstrated that their heartfelt desire is to live with the Father and the Son for eternity, no matter the cost in the present. So, they will engage in frequent prayer, focused study of the Word of God, and occasional fasting to humble themselves and work on dislodging the hooks.
Those who will survive Satan's deceptions have their hope in God because they already know they can trust Him with their lives, regardless of what happens. Because their hope and trust are in the right place, they are blessed—and part of that blessing is the spiritual strength to resist and overcome the father of lies.
David C. Grabbe
The Truth About Deception (Part Three)
We are blessed when our trust and confidence are in God. On the flip side, we are cursed when we trust in man, his abilities, his work, or when our heart becomes set on anything other than God. The contrast is between trusting in the eternal God and trusting in any man—living or dead. In comparison to God, man will always fall short.
This does not mean that men can never be trusted or that God does not work through men. The physical Temple served an honorable purpose, and it was a fine thing as long as people did not ascribe more to it than was warranted. The same can be said of any man or organization.
In the New Testament, God's church is not the only spiritual temple of God. The individual Christian is also called the "temple of God" in I Corinthians 3:16: "Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?" In type, we are each a temple—an instrument for worshipping and glorifying God.
Because of this, the accounts of worshipping the Temple in Ezekiel 24:21 and Jeremiah 7:4-12 take on additional gravity. The "man" in whom one can trust in Jeremiah 17:5 does not have to be somebody else—it can just as easily be oneself! Put another way, if our trust or confidence is in ourselves as the temple of God, we are following the same destructive path as Israel and Judah.
In this light, God's testimony against His people in Ezekiel 24:21 applies with even greater weight. We have the potential to boast—arrogantly or subtly—about ourselves rather than God. We could be the "desire of our own eyes," considering ourselves pleasant to look upon—perhaps not physically but spiritually. We are supposed to be pointing people to God, not to ourselves. Perhaps we delight in ourselves, just as Ezekiel castigates Israel for delighting in the Temple at the expense of delighting in God. The prophet also refers to the Temple as Israel's "stronghold" (verse 25), and we can likewise make our strengths and abilities our source of confidence. Ezekiel says the Temple was "that on which they set their minds." Applying this to the New Covenant temple, it would indicate self-centeredness and self-absorption, in which all attention and consideration are focused on the self rather than God and fellow man.
Jeremiah's admonition adds even more (Jeremiah 7:4-12). The people of Judah put their trust in the Temple as their source of security and confidence, but they ended up sacrificing their relationships with their neighbors. Similarly, if our trust and confidence are in ourselves—or with a group that constitutes the empirical self—rather than God, the pattern shown in Jeremiah 7 predicts that we will be unable to evaluate and discern properly, with disastrous effect on our relationships. Putting our trust and confidence in ourselves will result in various forms of oppression, personal injury, stealing, killing, unfaithfulness, and dishonesty.
None of this is to say that a church organization, or the individual Christian, is superfluous or inherently bad, any more than the physical Temple was. What the individual does determines whether an organization—or an individual—becomes an idol. However, if we regard the church or ourselves as ancient Israel regarded the Temple, it is not surprising that God would respond similarly in both instances. If God sees a church organization or an individual competing with Himself in the members' hearts, it should go without saying who will win that contest.
The physical Temple of God, like the Tabernacle before it, served an honorable and necessary role for God's people. The spiritual temple—whether the individual or the whole body of believers—is likewise fundamental to what God is working out. But God's testimony and deeds, both anciently and presently, show that proper regard for the Temple of God, keeping it in the right perspective, is essential to having a right relationship with Him.
David C. Grabbe
Worshipping the Temple (Part Three)
The subject in which Jeremiah 17:9 appears is faith. God is pointing out why we allow our deceitful heart to get away with evading truth. It is a matter of faith—trust. Verse 6 shows that the person who does not live by faith will not grow. He will be like a shrub in the desert that only receives water every so often, not near often enough to grow.
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Sin of Self-Deception
