A study of the seven churches in Revelation 2 and 3 will show they all share one thing in common: the need to overcome. Jesus Christ, the Author of the letters, must criticize and chasten some more than others, yet He admonishes even the “best”—the least criticized—to overcome. This fact suggests that all the churches fall short of God’s standard of holiness. All lack faith, hope, love, obedience, dedication, and responsiveness, among other aspects of godly character. Comprised of human beings, each of the seven churches still produces the works of the flesh (Galatians 5:19-21) as a result of lingering carnality and selfishness, seeking to please the self before God.
Since our Savior directly instructs all the churches to overcome, Christians need to take His repeated admonition seriously. We need to understand the various impediments to overcoming—the sinful attitudes and conditions that hold us back. To begin, we will consider what part self-deception plays in concealing our true spiritual condition from us. If we hide our sinfulness even from ourselves, we will never work to overcome it!
1. How can baptized Christians be deceived about their true standing with God? Revelation 12:9-10; II John 7; Jeremiah 2:21-23; 17:9; James 1:22-24.
Comment: The answer begins with Satan’s—the great deceiver’s—influence, aided and abetted by his ministers, who appear as angels of light (II Corinthians 11:13-15). As the apostles warn, the Devil’s false ministers even infiltrate the church of God!
To this, we must add the utter deceitfulness of human nature—our perverted desire to see ourselves as we wish to be rather than as we really are. Fantasizing like this is a recipe for self-deceit. Even when we look into the mirror of God’s Word, we often deny the differences between His standard and our conduct.
2. Can we blame our failure to recognize our sins on the Devil or someone else? Or is our human nature to blame? Do we deceive ourselves? Mark 7:20-23; Jeremiah 9:5-6; I John 1:8; Proverbs 12:20; Galatians 6:3-7.
Comment: A hallmark of humanity cut off from God is rampant deceit, and people do not stop at deceiving others. Self-deceit is an inherent part of man’s emotional, mental, and spiritual makeup. We have difficulty seeing it in ourselves because we are experts at hiding reality from ourselves and from others. However, we fool ourselves if we think we can hide our true nature from God.
3. Is self-deceit tied to pride and ego? Isaiah 65:5; 66:2; Daniel 4:37; Matthew 23:12; Romans 12:3; Philippians 2:3.
Comment: Our nature seeks to exalt itself above others, to esteem itself “holier than thou.” This attitude comes out in those who esteem themselves as Philadelphians, while deeming others, or those not part of their group, as Laodiceans, and thus not as spiritual or favored by God. Many times in His Word, God says He will abase those who seek to exalt themselves, for He does not pay attention to the spiritually proud but to the contrite and humble.
4. Can self-deceit extend to large groups of people? Isaiah 3:16-26; Jeremiah 5:25-31.
Comment: Old Testament prophecies speak of broad groups of people living in self-deception. Isaiah and Jeremiah castigate the Israelites of their days for deceitfully conducting themselves in self-indulgent, disobedient ways while depending on their status as God’s people. Isaiah points out women doing so, while Jeremiah calls attention to doing the same. In the New Testament, Christ’s letters to the seven churches indict whole churches, particularly Sardis and Laodicea, for self-deceit (see Revelation 3:1, 17).
5. We cannot overcome sin that we cannot identify. How can we detect self-deceit in ourselves? James 1:22-27.
Comment: Only by careful study of God’s Word, the ultimate standard of thought, speech, and conduct, can we know what is right and wrong. We must follow our study with an honest and truthful comparison of those words with our own lives (II Corinthians 13:5). If we read the words of God and walk away, forgetting what we saw, we deceive ourselves. None of us compares favorably with the godly standards found in Scripture, so we must make changes: repent. James says our religion—our practice of God’s way of life—is vain if we omit either the positive instructions (serving others) or the negative ones (removing the spots from our characters).
6. Do we have a responsibility to help others overcome the deceitfulness of sin? Hebrews 3:12-13.
Comment: James 1:27 spells out our commission to care for the needs of others as a true test of our real—as opposed to our self-perceived—righteousness. Hebrews 3:13 teaches us to exhort one another frequently to avoid becoming hardened by sin’s deceitfulness and jeopardizing our salvation, just as so many Israelites failed to reach the Promised Land.
Deceiving ourselves about our own spirituality and running from the truth we see in God’s Word are serious impediments to overcoming. Yet if we remove our self-imposed blinders, we will have taken a necessary step toward overcoming our human nature and putting on the righteous character of Jesus Christ.
