ARE YOU BEING
DUPED?
Preface
I
have been duped. I have been deceived, lied to, tricked, conned and swindled. The question is: Have you been duped, too?
The duping I am speaking of goes to the core of our existence — it is by not means trivial. This helps explain why I might be so bold as to use the word 'duped'.
I take my cue from Jesus. he directly confronted people and, without compromise, told them they had been duped. For instance, Jesus frequently use the phrase, 'Woe to you', and 'woe'
was a serious word back then. The 'woe' statements did not come from anger on Jesus' part, though he did get angry on several occasions. Instead, Jesus attempted to break down wall because eternal life or death was at stake.
In several chapters, I include stories I which Jesus directly and personally opposed error. I am hoping to do a little of the same. A few people helped me to se that I was blind, deaf, lost and rebellious. They helped me to see that I had been duped, and they were not often polite about it. Of course, I have nothing against politeness, but I was not the kind of man who would be moved by sentiment and sweet moralizations.
Jesus did not exactly break new ground. The Old Testament prophets had also been confrontational. Consider this statement from the prophet Jeremiah: 'The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately corrupt; who can understand it?' (Jer. 17:9). He said 'the heart' — which for a Jew meant the centre or core of their being — is deceitful and desperately corrupt. How strong can you get? Knowing that few, if any, would welcome his message, Jeremiah then asked, 'Who can understand it?' We also do not realize how our hearts can be deceived. In this book I hope to explain something of how and why this deceit works. To summarize, we are deceived and delusional because we are blind, dead, duped and headed down the wrong road. As the man of wisdom said, 'There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death' (Prov. 14:12).
In my younger years, I probably would not have been able to write a book like this. (This book began with a series of sermons I preached in the summer of 2001 at Miller Avenue Baptist Church in Mill Valley, California.) I would not have had the courage to be so forthright, worrying too much about people's reactions. Now, somewhat saltier in my sixty-first year, I worry less about being rejected by people and more about doing my job as a gospel preacher. Throughout most of my ministry, I wanted everyone to appreciate me, so I preached like the grandfatherly/therapist/fuzzy-warm comforter many people want in a minister — telling everyone they were okay, I was okay and everything would be all right.
This book has nothing to do with 'good' and 'bad' people. Its thrust has to do with being tricked and, good or bad, we are all vulnerable. The best, the wisest and the purest of us can be deceive and duped.
Perhaps some of you think I am being arrogant. Christians are sometimes accused of being arrogant, with their declarations that Jesus Christ, and only Jesus Christ, is 'the way, and the truth, and the life' (John 12:6). However arrogance is the making of unwarranted claims with a superior kind of attitude. Jesus did not do so. he merely spoke what is true and those who love and follow him hope to do the same, with love and humility.
As I said, I do not come to this as one who has not been duped — and I did the biggest con job on myself. I do not blame my parents, the government, the schools, the devil, or anyone or anything else. The fact is that I wanted to justify my self-centered ways and rebellion. I wanted to live a 'free' life without restraint, think my own thoughts, and all the rest. But here was someone out there who saw the dumb, hopeless little sheep I was and sought after me, found me and has been opening my eyes ever since to the incredible extent to which I had been duped.
As I look back, I realize I did not know what I was doing. I did not see that I was acting against my own best interests. I did not see that I was engaged in a struggle against my Creator. This is the way it is with all of us — we are engaged in a process of spiritual suicide. This one thing we all have in common as human beings — we can oppose ourselves and reject the witness of God. It may be said that this is what the 'unforgivable sin' is all about (see Luke 12:8-12). Therefore, I hope the tenor of this book reflects the gracious words of Jesus who, while nailed to the cross, said, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do' (Luke 23:34).
This book is a ministry project of Miller Avenue Baptist Church. Maggie Bates transcribed the taped sermons and did a marvelous job. Katie Coddaire and Christina Rose worked through each chapter twice, editing and rewriting. I owe these three wonderful Christian ladies a great deal.
David Clark of Evangelical Press took considerable interest in this book and offered a number of helpful suggestions, including the title. Pete Cooper of EP developed the cover and his work is much appreciated.
Janice Van Eck of Ontario, Canada, made the final edit and prepared the manuscript for printing — and how I appreciate her work! Thank you, Janice.
Throughout the book, I refer to San Quentin Prison. For the past twenty-one years, I have been a volunteer in various chapel programmes and for the last seven years I have coached the prison's baseball team.
The Bible version used is the Revised Standard version (RSV). over the years I have used many different translations, chiefly the New International Version (NIV), but in recent years I have been preaching with the RSV. Now I have begun using the English Standard Version (ESV) but I appreciate the RSV's classical style and excellence in translating the Greek manuscripts. I have discovered that no translation is perfect; the RSV has its problems, yet overall I find it a useful translation.
I welcome your comments and feedback. Feel free to contact me through the Miller Avenue Baptist Church. website at www.w3church.org or by email at kentphilpott@comcast.net.
Kent Philpott
December 2003
Mill Valley, California
Chapter 1
You Have Been Duped If You Think
You Are The ‘Master Of Your Fate And The Captain Of Your Soul’
N article in the San Francisco Chronicle (12 June 2001) about the Oklahoma City bomber,Timothy McVeigh, was the catalyst for the series of sermons upon which this book is based. McVeigh had quoted William Ernest Henley‘s poem, ‘Invictus’. He had singled out the last two lines of that famous poem, ‘I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul.’
A cherished possession of mine is a book of poetry my grandmother gave me on August 2, 1984. As a teenager I treasured this book and it was here that I first encountered ‘Invictus.’
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul.
Those last two lines were Henley’s main point — he imagined that he was in charge an in control.
Henley was apparently convinced there was nothing in all the creation that determined anything for him, even if circumstances were beyond his control. In the face of whatever might come, it was still he and he alone who mastered how he would respond to the world around him. That is perhaps the best light that could be put on it, but it is fanciful at best, and unrealistic. It is a false bravado — a whistling in the dark. Ultimately neither Henley, McVeigh, nor anyone else is in control of anything that has to do with fate and soul. And by this, I do not deny free will, which we have plenty of. But it is limited, it is securely bounded on all sides; we have only enough free will to get ourselves into trouble, not enough to save us.
What ‘Invictus’ meant to me
I read ‘Invictus’ three or four dozen times in my life. I thrilled to the idea of it and memorized those last two lines, just like McVeigh might have. I brought them to mind at key moments and I exulted when I thought of the words. ‘Yes, the human spirit, how incomparable we are, 'bloody, but unbowed.’ In my mind would be some event that happened at school, a challenge to a fight from some gang member, the fear I had of failing at sports or the dread of being in a new school with no friends. Then I would remember those words and take comfort from them
The poem's last two lines are what Timothy McVeigh quoted in the press release that he gave out and then read just moments before his execution. But he was strapped to a stretcher in the execution chamber. He was powerless while the leather straps held him firmly on his back. Then the lethal venom was injected into his vein. He turned out not to be the captain of his soul or the master of his fate. In reality, he was the victim of his ignorance. He was the victim of his fears. He was the victim of his lusts. He was the victim of his anger. The ignorance, fears, lusts and anger were his own, he is responsible before God and man.
The escorted convict
Once in awhile I refer to the Clint Eastwood as the ‘great prophet.’ Do you remember one of Eastwood’s famous lines in the first Dirty Harry movie: ‘A man must know his limitations’? Now, I am not putting Eastwood in the class of the biblical prophets, and maybe I ought to delete the adjective ‘great’, but there is truth to the statement. Most of us don’t know our limitations until we are like one convict I saw being escorted across the lower yard of San Quentin prison.
It was before a baseball practice. I was at the prison earlier than usual hoping to get the equipment cage out and the gear set up. I was with one of the guys on our team, a seasoned convict. He is white, shaved bald, with tattoos seemingly covering his body — some of them X-rated. We were trying to get a guard to open the equipment room when we heard the shout, ‘Escort.’ A convict was being escorted right by where we were standing. What this means is that anyone within earshot is to go to the nearest wall. I always go to the wall, turn around, and watch. My convict companion went to the wall but he faced it. He said, ‘The reason I face the wall is that I don’t want anybody to think I have a plan in my mind that I might carry out while a man is coming by.’
The escorted man had a chain around his mid-section. This was attached to a chain that bound his wrists, while another chain secured his ankles and left him just enough slack to shuffle along. The officers on each side of him wore clear plastic facemasks, metal helmets, and flack jackets, while an officer right behind him held a canister of pepper spray inches from the back of his head.
I asked my companion what was going on. He said, ‘This man just got here and he is going up to the adjustment center before being put on condemned row. Every convict who goes to the row is housed in the A.C. for two to four years so they learn how to live knowing they are going to die. It is not an easy adjustment. I know because I have had to listen to the screaming that comes out of there for fifteen years.’
I noticed that the escorted convict was glancing all around, and I commented on it. My player explained, ‘This is the last clear view of blue sky he’ll likely ever see, and he knows it.’
The convict was a white man of about twenty-five or twenty-six years of age. He had what I would call a computer-science, rocket-science look to him — an intelligent-looking man. He was rather short and stocky, with glasses, black hair and a clean-shaven face. He was dressed in an orange jumpsuit. It seemed to me he was looking furtively at the grass of the ball field — the last grass he might ever see. His eyes roved up and down, side to side. There were sea gulls flying around and he intently followed their flight. He was looking everywhere, desperately. You could just see that he was trying to capture as many glimpses as he could of the outside world before entering the adjustment center. He was certainly not the master of his fate; he was not the captain of his soul. But, neither am I.
In the twenty-first chapter of John is the record of a very unusual statement. It reminds me of the condemned man at San Quentin, McVeigh, myself, and, if you can be honest about it, will remind you of yourself too. Jesus said to Peter, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you girded yourself and walked where you would; but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish to go’ (John 21:18). Jesus was basically telling Peter how he would die and that when that moment came, he would be powerless to do anything about it.
Do we need other illustrations of the fact that we are not the master of our fate, nor the captain of our soul? We do, because there are powerful forces tempting us to think otherwise.
Jeremiah’s analysis of the human condition
Consider Jeremiah 17:19. The prophet wrote, ‘The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately corrupt.’ The King James Version has ‘wicked’ instead of ‘corrupt,’ but modern translations have the better rendering, ‘corrupt.’ Jeremiah meant we are deceived and corrupt from within. It is not external but internal. That is evident in most of us, especially those who, by God’s grace, have seen through their delusions. This powerful, mysterious and baffling spiritual and emotional condition is why we are so vulnerable to being duped. Can you prove otherwise?
Jeremiah understood how harsh his analysis would sound to his own listeners so he added, ‘Who can understand it?’ In other words, ‘Who will believe what I say? Who is ever going to acknowledge that this is true?’
‘Corrupt’ is not a word we readily apply to ourselves. Its meaning implies that there is something rotten at our core, something about us that is wicked and depraved. Certainly we humans are capable of truly loving acts, thoughts, and feelings — this I understand and appreciate. But there is another dimension to us, a dark side, and to ignore it is a mistake.
Do you read a daily newspaper or watch television news broadcasts? It does not take long to realize that there is something wrong in our society. Maybe it is time we give up on the theory that we are, in terms of evolutionary processes, continually improving. We may want to adjust that theory since it is obviously not the case. But who can understand it?
And, more than that, who can admit it personally? How does it come across when I say you are corrupt, that you have been deceived, that you have been duped? It is better to know it now than discover it later, because one day, you will know it
This is not to say you are a ‘bad person.’ But denying what is true does not enhance how we feel about ourselves. I know that those who struggle with issues of security or self-esteem will perhaps wince at this, yet it is the truth and we must face it.
Isaiah’s Analysis of the Human Condition
Now consider Isaiah, another of the Hebrew prophets. If I have not convinced you from the prophet Jeremiah, if I have not convinced you from knowledge of yourself, if you are still unconvinced though you look around at a chaotic and desperate world, if you still fail to see the corruption and the deception that is in the human race, perhaps the prophet Isaiah will convince you.
A voice says, ‘Cry!’
And I said, ‘What shall I cry?’
All flesh is grass,
and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.
The grass withers, the flower fades,
when the breath of the Lord blows upon it;
surely the people is grass.
The grass withers, the flower fades;
but the word of our God will stand forever. (Isai.40:6-8)
In typical biblical fashion, first there is the bad news, then the good. God reminded Isaiah that the grass withers and the flower fades, and so do we. How many birthdays do you have left? Perhaps you do not any.
Compare photos of yourself: one taken ten years ago with a recent snapshot. What do you see? You are withering and fading. Try as you might, you cannot do one thing about it. And one day you will stand before the one who made you and to him you must give an account. Yes, you will do this, and you are deceived if you think you will not. Though the grass withers and the flower fades, ‘the word of our God will stand for ever.’
‘But wait’
Someone will protest, ‘Wait a minute. We can freeze the body now.’ Cryonics is the term used for this process. You have your body frozen and then later on, when medical science has advanced further, a technician will thaw you out and administer the appropriate miraculous cure. Or, tissue will be taken from your frozen body and you will be cloned. Do we really think that all we are is in our DNA? Maybe duped people do.
I am not sure we can all count on cryonics. I am not sure there will be sufficient energy, space, and goodwill to accommodate everyone. I am not sure there will be technicians around caring enough to handle it all. A flimsy hope indeed!
What about stem-cell research? Medical science is advancing so very rapidly after all. And what about the news of cancer cures? We have good news coming and we also have advanced knowledge on how to care for ourselves through nutrition, exercise, and so on. I am not confident that there is going to be a cure for all the deadly diseases. I am not sure that you can count on medical science will make it possible for you to live forever. Failing all this, some suggest that aliens will arrive with knowledge that will put us beyond the grip of death. I doubt that is going to happen either. Do the words of Jeremiah apply to you? ‘The heart is deceitful above all things.’
Maybe you have not fallen for the fanciful solutions to death currently being paraded around the popular landscape like those mentioned above. But perhaps your heart is deceiving you with the hope that you are the master of your fate and the captain of your soul. If you still think so, maybe this last point will be of some value to you.
A third analysis of the human condition
Examine Hebrews 9:27. The writer of Hebrews, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, wrote that ‘it is appointed for men to die once, and after that comes judgment.’ The author means there is no second chances, no coming around again and no putting off death and judgment. How we dread the thought of death!
A woman in her mid-sixties, whose husband had died several years earlier, visited me on the advice of her daughter. She was struggling to get over her loss. One of the reasons she was in distress was that she had been gripped by the fear of her own dying. During the course of our conversation I said to her, ‘This fear is a very real one.’ I did not say, ‘Oh, its okay. You’re young. You’re healthy. You haven’t even reached the average age of mortality for women in America. You are about ten years from that.’ I was not going to give her some cheap comfort to make her feel all right for an hour or two. I wanted her to understand that her fear was a very real one.
She became uncomfortable. Beads of sweat gathered on her forehead. She had difficulty — emotional difficulty — handling the reality that she would die and she could not do anything about it. We are duped if we think we are somehow going to avoid our own death. In our youth and our strength, we feel we will never die. But we will.
The Creator appointed us to die ‘once.’ — once, and there is no coming back. Some say, ‘Well, there is reincarnation. I will come back.’ You have been duped if you think that you will. Reincarnation is a false hope. You will die and you will not come back. Here is what will happen after you die: ‘and after that comes judgment.’
Judgment! You will stand before the judgment seat of God, naked and alone, with nothing in your hands but your own sin and guilt. If this bothers you then you are not far from the kingdom of God. The worst thing that could happen is that this truth should have no impact on you at all. You are in great danger if you can easily shrug it off. Judgment is the bad news. However, the passage is not yet complete.
The twenty-eighth verse gives us the good news: ‘…so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him’ (Heb. 9:28). The corruptness that leads us into all manner of strange behavior and into the confused, twisted thinking that moves us to rebellion and lawbreaking, Jesus took upon himself at the cross. ‘Bear the sins of many’ means also that he took our death, that eternal death, upon himself. He took the punishment, the condemnation, even the hell we would have to endure upon himself so that we would not have to. Why? Not for anything we ever did or ever will do, but because he loves us. This is the greatest and most wonderful truth.
Hopelessness or Hope?
The Scripture does not give us the hopelessness that we will die then face judgment without revealing the hope that is provided in the gospel. Short of the gospel, there is no hope. Here is the true and solid hope of the Gospel—Jesus Christ has been offered once to bear the sins of many.’ All our sin was placed upon Jesus, every one. Every sin, mystically, spiritually, and actually placed upon Jesus and for ever buried with him — that means gone. And He also rose from the dead. He is the living Saviour who will return and take those who have been spiritually born again to be with him.
Hebrews says that Jesus will appear a second time. He is not coming to deal with sin a second time, but ‘to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.’ I love those words — ‘who are eagerly waiting for him.’
One of the ways you can spot a Christian is that he or she is eagerly waiting for the return of Jesus. There is no fear of it. Many people are rattled, even angered by the idea of the return of Jesus. It just makes them mad. Do you know why? They are afraid of judgment. That was also true of me at one time. I would hear talk of the return of Jesus and it did not thrill me at all. I tried to laugh it off as pious talk and ‘churchy’ language. I would then lie to myself and think that if it actually happened I would be okay.
If you are not looking forward to the return of Jesus, a most horrible dread will fill you when he does return — or you will die before that great event. Either way, you will know then that you have been deceived. You will know, entirely too late and beyond any question, that you are neither the master of your fate nor the captain of your soul.
What do we control?
There is one other major area we do not have control over and that is conversion itself. By the word ‘conversion’ I am referring to becoming a Christian. Conversion is popularly known by the term ‘born again.’ Here is perhaps the biggest issue of all. We cannot convert ourselves — God himself brings about conversion.
One of the central doctrines of the Bible is the sovereignty and grace of God. By this is meant that God freely initiates and completes conversion. It is his work alone and is not based on anything that we do to accomplish it. I do not mean that God controls each and every act, word, thought. But he must call us, choose us and elect us. We cannot simply decide that we will become Christians. This runs counter to what most people think. Many imagine that , ‘If I am baptized then I will become a Christian and go to heaven when I die.’ Or they think that ‘If I join the church, or if I do good deeds, or if I stop sinning, or if I pray the “sinner's prayer”, then this will do it.’ It will not, and you are duped if you think so.
Consider the term ‘born again.’ This metaphor indicates that conversion is not something we achieve on our own. We had nothing to do with our physical birth and the same is true for spiritual birth. It is the work of God. First, the Holy Spirit must show us we have sinned against God and give us the desire to turn away from our sin. Jesus said that the Holy Spirit would convict us of sin (John 16:8). Then God gives us the faith to trust in Jesus (Rom. 10:17; Eph. 2: 8-9). And no one can come to Jesus unless the Father draws him or her (John 6: 37, 44, 65).It is a mistake to think that conversion — the new birth — is within our control. Some Christians who are unclear on this point will often say (just as I did for twenty-nine years of ministry), ‘It is your decision. You choose. The responsibility is yours.’ This implies that we can control salvation, the forgiveness of sins, and conversion itself. We do not control it, and the deception on this point usually results in a spurious or false conversion. Many people have been deluded into thinking that something they do (baptism or praying some prayer) is enough to convert them. God alone brings spiritual life. God converts. This is why we present the good news of Jesus: that the Holy Spirit may bring people to Jesus. As Paul wrote to the Roman church, ‘So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes by the preaching of Christ’ (Rom. 10:17).
It is of supreme importance that you reject the concept that you are in control of your fate.
Join us in our fall edition for chapter two - 'You have been duped if you think the grave is the end.'