Tag Archives: mammon

The glory of undeception

It struck me this afternoon as I returned from worshipping with the Lord’s people that there was a tremendous difference in the volume of traffic then with that earlier when I had been walking the short distance to where we meet. A couple of hours earlier the number of vehicles I saw was in single digits. The road was quiet, the local Presbyterians were already gathered for worship, and the local Anglicans had finished — Baptists get a lie in before worship!

Once I turned the corner onto the main road the roar of traffic greeted me. And the focus was the local petrol (gas) station and convenience store where evidently the lure of mammon was greater than the attraction of the Almighty. How different a Sunday the undeceived spend from the deceived — it put Revelation 20, which was the passage of this morning’s sermon, into a contemporary context. It is the business of Satan to deceive the whole world. But what blessing there is when the “light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Cor 4:4) shines in the heart. How grievously were our first parents deceived by the deceiver of the whole world — that single deception affected the whole world, for that “one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all men” (Rom 5:18). But, conversely, “one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.”

May we who are undeceived truly know “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor 4:6) this day, and every day, and be drawn closer to the Almighty and living God.