Join Pastor Rachel for the second crucial installment of the "Deception Trilogy," where we move from understanding deception as believing a lie (as discussed last week concerning 1 Timothy 4:1) to uncovering how deception operates through subtle substitutes. Pastor Rachel emphasizes that humans are born with a "God-shaped hole" or an emptiness they often attempt to fill with things like fame, money, or relationships, leading believers and non-believers alike down paths of falsehood. This message exposes five major areas where these substitutes manifest: Occultism (including practices like angel numbers, astrology, and the law of attraction), Religious Deception (such as penance or the worship of angels), Intellectual Deception (guarding against "empty philosophy" and "high sounding nonsense" as warned in Colossians 2:8), Cultural Deception (where normalized sin, like lying or AI relationships, compromises conviction), and finally, the pervasive danger of Self-Deception (James). We are called to "keep yourself from idols," meaning anything that occupies the first place in the heart due to God (1 John 5:21), and to trust the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, who promises to guide us into all truth (John 16:13), so that by continuing in the Word, we may find the truth that makes us free (John 8:32).