Meeting: Bible Study
Date: 20th March, 2026
Message: Overcoming the Manifold Levels of Deception
Minister: Pastor Laide Olaniyan
There are things that we do subconsciously that are against truth and life; every one of us is guilty of it. Sin makes us ashamed of the gospel, of the Bible. We have to be deliberate and intentional, not to be ashamed of Jesus. We have to have the guts to not be ashamed of the gospel. The world is loud about sin; likewise, we must be unapologetic about the gospel.
There is a spirit that intimidates and instigates persecution, and to hold our faith, we have to confront that spirit (Matt. 5:1-12). It is strange to find believers reading their Bible in public these days. The reason is that for some of us it is a witness against the kind of life we like or the persons we admire. Some people are courageous enough to twist the word of God to have their way.
It is one thing to be deceived, and it’s another thing to deceive ourselves. Most times, we have deceived ourselves before people come to deceive us. Change happens when we can become sincere with ourselves. When we are sincere, the navigation system of our hearts will start directing us to people who will be truthful with us.
(Jam. 1:21) — “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.” – One of the classic ways to live in self-delusion is to hear the word, know the judgments of God, and deliberately not do it. (Rom. 1:18) Our disobedience to scripture works something inside of us.
(1 Cor. 3:18)—” Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise.” Another act of self-delusion is for a man to believe himself to be wise in this world, glorying in it and not trying to change from it. It gives one a conviction of being/feeling right, but such a person has lost something vital in the communication of God. A person who hears and does not do seems to have something but would lack substance. He might even be a preacher of the things he has heard.
(Rom. 2) This chapter is not talking about knowledge but deeds. Paul is always misunderstood in that he taught justification by faith alone, but this scripture is always read out of context. Many don’t read the whole context. Whilst he wrote to the Gentiles & Jews to deflate an argument about justification being by faith, he did not in any way suggest that there is nothing to be done once we are born again. How we seek for glory is that we keep doing (Rom. 2:7).
The way Christianity is being received right now in the world is because our lives have not witnessed what the word that we profess stands for and we have given occasion for those who do not know God to ridicule and make mockery of our faith on our account, not because the God of the scriptures is weak but because the people who profess him are weak in obedience; they find us doing one thing today and another tomorrow. We hold the truth of scriptures in unrighteousness. This is a classic art of self-deceit.
The covenant we hold, the profit in it is in our obedience. A higher deception is for a preacher to put forth a standard but not conform their lives to it. Some wouldn’t even uphold or bring forth the standard because they don’t want to conform to it once spoken.
(Gal. 6:3-5) What makes someone something or nothing? Our work/obedience is what makes us something. A man becomes something when his work is abiding. (1 Cor. 13) This scripture defines who is a nothing. It is safe to call yourself nothing, seemingly undervaluing yourself, and people esteem you higher rather than applauding yourself when you are nothing in the spirit. Gal. 6 shows the responsibility of a Christ man; to test his work and prove himself bearing his own burden. At the end of the day, every man will stand in his work that has been wrought in him. We won’t be able to glory in the work done by others but only in our own work. The work done in us determines what we are.
A nothing is a man who has no work done in him by reason of obedience. (1 Cor. 3:13-15) A work can be done, but fire can still try it to see if it abides or endures. External deception will prosper only to the degree that internal delusion has prospered. Our sincerity towards life determines our migration. If we deceive a person, it shows we were the first person to be deceived. If we live a double life, a different life in church and another way of life elsewhere, we deceive ourselves. If God shows us mercy to break away from self-delusion, we will be saved from errors of the heart. We cannot deceive God (Gal. 6:7-8).
(1 Cor. 4:3, 1 John 3:21) Even when our heart/conscience does not condemn us, we still need to be careful to allow for God to make bare and manifest the secret counsels of the heart. If our conscience condemns us or points us towards something, realize there’s work to do, but some have hushed and seared their own conscience. Some do not listen to the voice of their conscience, saying it does not have enough light to justify them, that only God justifies. To agree to this is to nullify Romans 14, which instructs to mind or be sensitive to another man’s conscience, which is one of the demands of charity.
(1 Cor. 8:1-4) To arrive at knowledge is a work of faith, but that work is not complete until we get to charity/love. The work of faith is love. Knowledge puffs up, but without the light of love, faith is dead. Love commandment is the balancing of Faith. Faith works by love. If a man loves God, the same is known of him. This man has moved from just knowledge to love of God. One is not known until one comes into the knowledge of God. If a man loves God, He will be known by God. Many of us, God doesn’t know yet.
(Luke 10:27) Before we can grow to love God, we must have loved our neighbor. Abraham had loved Lot before he came into the love of God. (Matt. 7:21-23) Workers of iniquity are those who didn’t come into His love or loving God.
Tongues and Interpretation (1)
I, Jesus, I am a love being.
I know love when I see it.
I evidenced love towards my Father so I know love when I see it
I know that the soul was made to love.
You can’t love two at a go,
You love one and hate the other.
It is impossible to multitask your love
It is impossible to divide the love.
It is impossible.
I want to deliver you from the delusion that you can love both God and mammon.
For when I walked in the days of my flesh, I knew I could not love any other save my Father and for there in is salvation.
I want to school you out of this deception that made you think you can hold on to one and love the other.
It is a deception
For if the love of the world is found in you, the love of the Father cannot be in you.
You can have a form of love but it is not love.
Love is a reality that is valid in the spirit.
Love can’t be mistaken when it is found in the spirit.
Love is not knowledge, it is not feelings.
Love is tangible
Love is real
Love is sacrifice
Love is death
I only know lovers and it is evidenced by your departing from iniquity
For he that nameth me ought to also love and how you love is by departing from iniquity
I want to school you out of this deception
God is jealous
I, Jesus, I am jealous. I want to own you.
I want you to belong to me and I will school you out of that deception.
Message continues..
(1 Cor. 8:7) Our conscience is informed by the light of Truth or knowledge it has and it is empowered to judge things when truth is accurate. A weak conscience can look spiritual, but it is deficient in knowledge. (Acts 24:16) What God wants us to have is a pure conscience devoid of offense towards God and man. An exercise we must all do is to remove anything that stands as a stumbling block to God and man. God giving man a conscience is deliberate.
(1 Pet. 3:21) Our conscience isn’t something to play with. Our conscience is a tool in our salvation but that our conscience doesn’t judge us doesn’t mean that we are justified. A meek man knows his conscience does not have all of the light of Truth, and therefore is careful even when it doesn’t judge or condemn him on a matter. It means there are things that are beyond it.
(1 John 1:8)—”If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” — Another way a man deceives himself is to say he is without sin. That we can’t find any sin in us doesn’t mean God can’t see sin. What the Lord makes manifest are things that are in darkness through His light (Eph. 5:13). The work of light is to search our darkness, and one thing God does as we read scriptures is to point out what is still wrong with us. If we read scriptures and do not see this, then something has gone wrong with our eyes; it has become faulty. When Truth is in you, you will know that you are a sinner. This is not in a condemnatory way.
(1 Tim. 1:15) Paul called himself a sinner not when he was persecuting the Christians but further down his Christian journey when he was in prison almost concluding his course. This is what truth does to you. It brings you to realize you have infirmities, as it did with Paul (Acts 23:1-5), however in verse 5, we see He was quick to repent at the witness of light. Many of us fight to hold our position when light is revealed on a matter, this is not a good exercise on our conscience. We need truth to be inside of us. Our attitude towards the word helps us know if we are in self deceit or self delusion. (Jam. 1:22) We should approach the word with intentionality and not haphazardly thereby exposing ourselves to deceiving our own selves.
One thing the word does is that it changes and alters our way into His way.
(Jam. 1:26-27) The first thing true religion/faith does is to bridle one’s tongue. To bridle one’s mouth will lead to bridling the body. One of the ways to instruct our hearts is to bridle our tongues. It is a good exercise to bridle our tongues with the word. Our tongue makes our faith manifest. To bridle your tongue is to allow the word to work on it. Some are joyfully careless with their words; that should not be so. Even when Satan gives wrong thoughts, we do not need to voice them out. When evil spirits want to deceive a man, they give him thoughts, but until he voices them out they do not become our reality. How we buy into Satan’s deception is to voice out the thoughts he gives.
There is a need to guard one’s tongue with the word of God. Every thought and word must pass a quality check through the Word of God. (Matt. 15:11, Prov. 4:23) What we say matters. Evil thoughts from the heart proceed through the mouth, and this is how they are established, because by our mouth we are condemned or justified. This principle being spoken of here is not of new age teachings or the power of positive thinking. It is alignment with the will and purposes of Jesus. Yes, there is creative power in our mouths, but not in the way the New Age teaches,, asking people to confess what they like.
The things that come out of the mouth are the things that defile us. (Jam. 1:26) We should not deceive ourselves or want our religion to be vain.
(Jam. 3:6)—”And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members that it defileth the whole body and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell.” — What informs the tongue is hell. It is fueled by hell. Hell lies inside all of us. We must first capture the mouth or tongue to capture the heart; then we can bridle the whole body. The only thing that can tame the tongue is the word of God (Jam. 3:9-13). Every breakthrough in our Christian journey is tied to a breakthrough in taming our tongue. The degree to which we have power over our body is the degree to which the word has power over our mouth.
(Josh. 1:8, 1 Pet. 3:10) We need to bridle our tongues by the word. Let the word rule your tongue.
Tongue and Interpretation (2)
Practice! Practice! Practice!
Even the first expectation of what you are a practitioner of is to bridle your lips.
For many, the advantage you have given the adversary is in the things you have declared, in the things you have said.
Ye, you say it jokingly, but it is a reality in the spirit; you say it jokingly, but it becomes a solid accusation against you by the adversary.
You say it mindlessly but he takes record of it
You should not speak mindlessly; you should not speak unconsciously.
You should not speak as one of the foolish ones
Let the word retrain your lips
Be a practitioner of the faith by your words for some of the hindrances angel experiences are by the words you speak
For you have spoken yourselves into the trap of the adversary many times so I counsel you again
Practice, practice, practice, for you retrain your lips by practice
You can retrain your lips by the exercising of your lips even by the word
For the things you hear are powerful if you can speak it
Faith that has not moved your mouth will not move your mountain
You need to speak it first.
The confidence of the adversary is that you have said it with your own mouth, this is his confidence, this is what he presents as an accusation before the throne.
Practice again to speak what you hear even from my word; this is how you can order your conversation aright
Faith will not move your mountain if it has not yet moved your mouth
Speak Life
Speak Faith
Speak Truth
Speak Righteousness
Do not speak yourself anymore into the trap of the adversary: this is a counsel, this is a high counsel
No word is taken as a joke in the spirit; it is valid
Speak the validity of the word; this is a counsel of the spirit
Saith the Lord.
THE END.