Deeper Reflection
THERE ARE TWO BATTLEFRONTS IN SPIRITUAL WARFARE: affliction and deception. Satan can be the source of affliction, “prowling around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” by inflicting “suffering” (1 Pet 5:8-9). The target of attack in affliction is our faith. And so, we are to “resist” Satan in suffering by being “firm in your faith” (1 Pet 5:9). Satan is for sure the source of deception, “disguising himself as an angel of light” through his servants, false teachers and deceitful workers who “disguise themselves as servants of righteousness” (2 Cor 11:13-15). The target of attack in deception is truth. But faith and truth are interrelated. The basis of our faith is truth, and we build our faith on truth. When we are attacked through affliction, we can know it, because we can feel it. But when we are attacked through deception, we may not know it, because we do not see it. Deception is: We are deceived and we do not know that we are deceived.The Thessalonians were afflicted by persecutions (2 Thess 1:4) and attacked by false teachers, teaching that “the day of the Lord has come”, and they were “quickly shaken/easily unsettled in mind” and “alarmed” (vv.1-2). And Paul urgently warns: “Do not be deceived” (v.3). It was the Thessalonians’ “mind” that was disturbed and destabilised. Deception is more potent than persecution. “In fact, the intellectual assault on Christianity is often fiercer than the physical.”³⁷ Do we know how to detect deception? We can discern deception only by knowing the truth and having a right heart.

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³⁷ John R. W. Stott, The Message of Thessalonians, The Bible Speaks Today (IVP, 1991), 156