235 The Father of Lies and the Great Deception

Why only the foolish lean on their own understanding.

May 01, 2026

Good morning and hello friends,

I write this for those who feel the ground shifting beneath their feet. If these words find a home in your spirit, please pass them on.

“You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” (John 8:44, ESV)

Let that name sink in. Not a liar. The father of lies. The source. The origin point of every falsehood, every twisted half-truth, every beautiful, deadly deception. He speaks from his character because his character is the lie. This is the architect we are dealing with.

Now, hold that truth in one hand. With the other, turn the page back. To a moment that should feel familiar, because we are living its echo.

The elders of Israel gather. They come to the prophet Samuel, God’s appointed judge. Their grievance has a kernel of legitimacy: Samuel’s sons are corrupt. They “turn aside after gain. They take bribes and pervert justice.” (1 Samuel 8:3, ESV).

But their proposed solution is a category error of cosmic proportions.

They do not seek the Lord’s justice. They do not cry out for renewal under His rule. They say: “Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations.” (1 Samuel 8:5, ESV).

Samuel is grieved. He prays. And the Lord’s answer slices to the bone of history: “They have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.” (1 Samuel 8:7, ESV).

God then instructs Samuel to warn them. To paint a vivid picture of the king they crave: He will take your sons for his armies. He will take your daughters for his service. He will seize the best of your fields, your vineyards, your flocks. He will take a tenth of everything. “You shall be his slaves.” And when you cry out in that day, “the Lord will not answer you.” (1 Samuel 8:11-18, ESV).

The people’s response is a masterpiece of self-deception: “No! But there shall be a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.” (1 Samuel 8:19-20, ESV).

Do you see the tragic, terrifying symmetry?

They rejected the direct, sovereign rule of the living God, the source of all truth, for the visible, political rule of a fallible man. They traded the Kingdom for an empire. They exchanged the whisper of the Spirit for the shout of the crowd. They chose to be “like all the nations.”

And God said, “Obey their voice. Make them a king.” (1 Samuel 8:22, ESV).

He gave them what they asked for.

We read this and think, How foolish. How could they? We sit in our modern chairs, looking backward through the lens of scripture and history, and we judge them.

But look around. 2026.

He will take your sons and daughters. Not for chariots, but for ideologies. For systems that teach them they are cosmic accidents, that their identity is self-created, that their purpose is consumption.

He will take the best of your fields. Not for vineyards, but for data. Your attention, your allegiance, your very thoughts are the new currency, harvested by empires you never elected.

He will take the tenth of your flocks. It’s called taxes, inflation, debt, a sophisticated seizure that leaves you perpetually indebted, a slave to the machinery.

You shall be his slaves. The chains are digital, psychological, and spiritual. We call it convenience. We call it progress. We call it being “like all the nations.”

We have done it again. We saw the corruption in the house of God, the hypocrisy, the scandal, the failings of human leaders and instead of crying out for the pure reign of Christ, we demanded a king. A system. A political savior. A cultural identity. Anything but the terrifying, liberating, direct rule of God.

And He is giving us what we asked for.

Why can’t we see it? Jesus explains the mechanism in Matthew 13, quoting Isaiah: “For this people’s heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them.” (Matthew 13:15, ESV).

We become blind and deaf because we choose to be. The distractions, the pride, the love of the world’s approval, the refusal to surrender, these are the roadblocks we erect. We close our own eyes. We plug our own ears. We reject the healing because we prefer the sickness we know.

This is where the father of lies operates. In that chosen dullness. In that preferred blindness.

Paul warns the Thessalonians of the ultimate consequence of this choice: “Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” (2 Thessalonians 2:11-12, ESV).

Do you see the progression?

1. Refuse to love the truth.

2. Take pleasure in unrighteousness.

3. Be handed over to a “strong delusion.”

4. Believe the lie.

It is a spiritual law. Reject the King, and you get the king you deserve a tyrant dressed as a savior, a prison you call freedom. Reject the Truth, and you get the father of lies.

So what is our defense? Jesus gave us the posture for living as sheep among wolves: “Be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” (Matthew 10:16, ESV).

Serpentine wisdom: See the systems for what they are. Understand the playbook of the deceiver. Recognize the “king” who promises to fight your battles while he enslaves your children.

Dove-like innocence: Cultivate a heart that remains pure, guileless, and faithful to the true King. Do not let the wisdom needed to navigate the world corrupt the simplicity of your devotion to Christ.

“I didn’t know” will not be an excuse. “I was tricked” did not work for Adam and Eve, and it will not work for us. We have been warned. The pattern is laid bare in scripture.

Our only refuge, our only navigation through the strong delusion, is not a better theory, a more fortified bunker, or a purer political tribe. It is intimacy.

I am banking everything on a personal, intimate surrender to the Shepherd. I want to know the cadence of His voice so intimately that the shout of ten thousand deceivers sounds like meaningless noise. I want my eyes so fixed on His face that I cannot be hypnotized by the glittering illusions of the age.

The Father of Lies is counting on your distraction, your dullness, your desire to be “like all the nations.”

The question is this: Will you let your heart be so captivated by the true King that you lose all taste for the counterfeits?

Hold fast to the Truth. He is the only antidote to the lie.

That is all, and thank you for reading.

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