(Matthew 24:4 Jesus replied to them: “Watch out that no one deceives you.”

When Jesus said this, he was in his final few days before his crucifixion. Knowing what was going to happen to him must have caused much deep thought; it must have brought his whole mission into clear focus. This was a time not only for reflection, for counting the cost, and for deep and holy communion with his Father; this was also a time for imparting his innermost values and urgent priorities to his apprentices. The Master would certainly have wanted to highlight essential truths for them, as they launched their apostolic ministries—for which he had been training them.

In the verse above, we see that our Lord warned his apprentices about deception; and he exhorted them to be vigilant and on guard against it. He also clearly predicted that “many” would fall for the enemy’s deception in the time in which we live:

Mat 24:5 “For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many.”

Deception is malicious, powerful, and very—dare I say it—deceptive. Deception means to be misled into believing that something wrong is right. It is the Greek word used in the New Testament to describe what happens when a sheep goes “astray” from the flock (See: Mat. 18:12). So we can see that deception is a work of the enemy that causes members of Jesus’s flock to be led astray so that they wander off.

Satan is the “father” of lies—untruths that are uttered in an attempt to deceive:

Jh 8:44 “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.

(Reve 20:2–3 NKJV) He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; (3) and he cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal on him, so that he should deceive the nations no more …

We see the origin of Satan’s deceptive ways described here:

(Ezekiel 28:17–18 NIV) Your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor. So I threw you to the earth; I made a spectacle of you before kings. (18) By your many sins and dishonest trade you have desecrated your sanctuaries. …

After his own proud, rebellious fall and expulsion from heaven, Satan—in the form of the “serpent”—began his deception of humans in the Garden of Eden; his deceptive lie to Eve focused on God’s prohibition of their partaking of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil:

(Genesis 3:4–5 NKJV) Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. (5) For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Without a doubt, pride led to the fall, rebellion, and corruption of Lucifer. The pride that originated in him caused him to deceive Eve, which led in turn to her disobedient fall and the ensuing depravity of the whole human race:

(2 Corinthians 11:3 NKJV) But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.

So, pride leads to deception, which leads to rebellion, which in turn leads to sin and all of its consequences (See: Rom. 3:10–18).

Interestingly, Jesus explained the right path—the opposite of the one leading to depravity and destruction. It happened at the feast of Tabernacles. Jesus had gone to Jerusalem “in secret,” but then suddenly arrived and began to teach:

(John 7:12, 14–15 NKJV) And there was much complaining among the people concerning Him. Some said, “He is good”; others said, “No, on the contrary, He deceives the people.” ... (14) Now about the middle of the feast Jesus went up into the temple and taught. (15) And the Jews marveled, saying, “How does this Man know letters, having never studied?”