Illusions are false perceptions, and delusions are when we believe those perceptions. A delusion is when we are under the spell of an illusion, under the spell of a lie that is perceived as truth.
Everything the enemy does is an illusion. He is the father of lies, the father of every filthy imagination. God is the Spirit of Truth. All truth comes from Him. He is the source of all truth in the world and in the Spirit.
What we see happening in the world right now is just an example of the strong delusions people are being given over to. People are easily giving into false narratives and perceptions. We have to know how to escape these things. The Bible says many will be given over to delusions because they love not the Truth. Yet the enemy will try to get us to love lies and give into lies so that the delusions would come upon us.
God gave me 5 different illusions that are in the Bible that Jesus faced and that we are facing and will have to face in our walk. Temptations are illusions, and the promise is that the grass is greener on the other side. Do this and this will happen. Do this and you will be happy. Yet at the end of it all, it will result in death of some form. The truth leads to life, and everything else leads to death.
Not just physical death, but spiritual death, the death of your livelihood and the birth of falsehood. When Adam and Eve gave over to the illusion in the garden that they could be like God if they gave into the tree of lies, it resulted in death. Adam and Eve still lived but spiritually died, their glorious life in the garden and their intimacy with God died. Their connection to life and godliness died.
The grass isn’t greener on the other side. It’s artificial. It’s fake. It’s false. It’s an illusion.
1.Make these stones bread.
Read Matthew 4:1-11.
It says in verse 2 of Matthew chapter 4, “and afterward He hungered.” This is where the devil fits in through a breach to come and tempt us and bring us illusions. When we’re hungry, when we lack, when we seek, when we need, when we want and don’t have, the enemy will look to provide. The enemy will bring an illusion and get us to eat other bread and take part in other tables to satisfy our needs and wants. “Oh, you need money?” Don’t look to God. Make this quick drug deal over here. “Oh, you want this or that?”
Then here comes the enemy giving you what you want but it’s all an illusion. He makes you feel like you get what you want but it’s just death in disguise. He will give you bread when you’re hungry but they will really be stones. You will ask for a fish and he will give you a stone. That’s what the enemy was trying to trick Jesus into, self-sustainment. He wants us to learn how to provide for ourselves. Learn how to fend for ourselves. Learn how to live for ourselves, and in the end, we are our own God, our own provider, and our own way maker.
Then what does Jesus say? “Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that comes out of the mouth of God. By His word, by His provision, by His way, shall I escape the illusions. You need self-fulfillment? I’ll be that. You need provision? I’ll rain the manna down. You want something? The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want because I know that the Shepherd always leads the sheep to what they need and want and where they need to go.
This is how I escape the temptation of self-sustainment: I let Him sustain me. I let Him provide, I let Him show up. I let Him speak. When I don’t have a word, He says take no thought for what you should say because the Spirit in you will speak! Take no thought for what you should eat because I will provide. I shall not live by bread. I shall not live by my own hands, but I shall live by every word that the creator speaks and creates for me to sustain myself. If He can speak the Earth in existence, He can speak what I need into existence. He can speak into existence any area of my life where I am hungry, where I suffer need.
2.Cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up.
Jesus said, “It is written again, thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” The enemy is always giving this illusion that we can step outside of God’s will or outside of His leading and that God will back us up. Go here and God will show up. Do this and God will do that. Say this and God will move on it. Everything the religious spirit does is tempting God.
Trying to get God to move and back us up on our own merit or agenda, we are tempting God to do things our way rather than His own. Not that God can be tempted to fall to it, but this is what is happening when we are moving in a religious spirit. We get this illusion that if we do certain things, we can get God to move.
Newsflash: God is not moved by flesh! God moves based on His own will, and the only way we can get Him to move is if we move on His will. Yet we try to use our will to try and bend God’s will to serve ours. Even when people go on sinning and say, “God will forgive me,” they are tempting God. They are giving into illusions, thinking that they can manipulate the grace of God to do what they want, turning the grace of God into lasciviousness.
3.The devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.
The 7 kingdoms: Arts/Entertainment, Religion, Government, Family, Business, Education, Media. This is one of the biggest temptations for anybody. Anyone of these kingdoms can be a stumbling block for us. And the enemy brings illusions trying to get us to see that there is a better life if we give our lives to any one of these kingdoms.
His promise is success, but in the end, it’s proven to be an illusion because, in the end, he takes your souls. “If thou wilt fall down and worship me.” The devil controls these 7 kingdoms and can empower anyone he wants to be successful in these areas. The success is the bait, but the worship of the enemy is the kill.
You may not be worshipping the enemy directly when you serve these kingdoms, but when you live a lifestyle of unrighteousness, you are bowing down to him. That’s how he gets his glory, through lawlessness. That’s his will, ungodliness because he knows that everyone who lives a life of ungodliness is going to live without God and with him in eternal fire forever.
How can I serve the devil with family? Well, when my family is not in the kingdom and I am yoked with them, it’s just as unequal as being yoked with unbelievers. Even Jesus separated Himself from His family even though they weren’t of the world. He said who is my father, mother, brother, or sister? Only those that do the will of the father.
My loyalty is not to my family. It is to God’s will and His Kingdom. When I place my family loyalty ahead of God, I start to serve another master. The same principles apply to the other kingdoms as well. Whatever I’m focused on, whatever I love more than anything else is my master, and if something else besides God is my master, it means that the devil is my master.
And then what did Jesus say? Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
It doesn’t mean God won’t give you family and things. The Bible says that those that forsake all I will give them in this life homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, and fields along with persecutions and in the age to come eternal life. So, God’s not saying be a monk and live in the woods but He is saying don’t let those kingdoms be your God.
The devil will bring illusions that life is better living for those things when, in actuality, it’s hell on earth because only torment abounds for those that live apart from God and a place of never being content is found. There are millionaires all over the world that have everything but they are not happy. Why, because the one that created them created them in a way that they can only find joy, peace, and righteousness in Him.
4.Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee
“From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee. But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” Matthew 16:21-24
The enemy wants to keep us from dying to self. The enemy used Peter to give an illusion to Jesus that He could complete His mission without dying on the cross. The enemy will give you the illusion that you're crazy for dying to self. Religious people will say you are throwing away common sense. They will say be it far from thee, Brother. Don’t you know many will come against you, your family and all religious leaders will look down on you.
Satan would have it for us that we would give ourselves an illusion and dilute ourselves to believe that we can do this Christian walk without dying to self, without picking up this cross and denying self. The devil is going to try to hit on that territory for any Christian because dying to self in some aspects is not pleasant.
Killing the mindsets and ways that you have depended on for years can be hard for some to humble themselves and come under a new way and adapt to new mindsets. There’s a fear of dying, that if I die will I live again? If I die to these mindsets and ways, will these new ways give me what is promised? When I die, will I be in heaven? There is a delusional fear of dying that it might not work out.
We have to be just like Jesus and say get behind me satan. We have to quickly cast down these imaginations and fears. It’s only fear that can trump our faith if we let it. The devil tried to hit Jesus at an opportune time, the time where He may have been thinking about the fact that He would have to be separated from His father and dwell at the belly of the earth. The devil tried to give Him a blow in that area of thought.
The devil will do the same to you. We must die to live. If there’s no death, there’s no resurrection. The devil will bring us illusions of a Christianity that looks easier, that sounds sweeter and more loving, but it’s all lies because, in the end, it brings forth spiritual death because religion never has the power to bring forth spiritual life.
Then Jesus says right after all that, if any man come after me, let him deny himself! We must die if we want to climb high in Him.
5.Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.
Read Luke 22:40-43.
This is the final and biggest illusion Jesus had to battle, the illusion of His own will. And this is the biggest one because, at the end of the day, our own will is what satan is trying to get us to accomplish. The devil will say “do what thou wilt”, but we must say “nevertheless!” Despite my will! Despite what I want! Your will be done, Father. I will do what you want no matter what I want.
Our will is trying to put us in a delusion that there is a better way, that there is an easier way than God’s will. He will try to flip the script and show you that God’s way is more burdening and our own way is the right way. There’s a way that seems right to a man but brings forth death.
It’s the way we make things seem that gets us in trouble. How we see, how we think, is what gets us away from God’s will. We have to let the will of God dominate our minds and hearts. If not, our “will” may take us in a good way but still in a way that brings forth death.
Our will is always going to be an illusion to us and will bring us into delusions, believing things that we think are true and will prosper us but lead us in the way of lies and death. The only way to escape these things is God’s will, God’s voice, God’s way. We have to hear Him and we have to know Him.
This is our path of deliverance from illusions and delusions. The Spirit of Truth is the source of all truth and if something I hear or something shown is not from the Spirit of Truth, it’s an illusion that is ready to lead me into delusions. There were two trees to eat from in the garden and there are two trees now. God’s words of life or the world’s knowledge of good and evil. We are all eating something. The thoughts we entertain are what we are eating, and I pray that the thoughts we entertain are from the mouth of God.
Delusions dilute us. If you ever put soda in a cup and then put water in it, it dilutes it. It takes the zing from it, the taste that makes it good. This is how the enemy will steal our oil and power, by showing us illusions that if we would give in, we would come under strong delusions and lose sight of God.
Are you feeling weak? Are you without strength? Reject these illusions because they are not real and things that are not real have no substance. They leave us dry and dead. They are not sufficient for our spirit. They are the illusion of water we see in the desert when we thirst. The only thing that has life and substance is God and anything that comes out of Him gives me strength. The Lord is my strength.
We will no longer be watered down and diluted. I vow today to close my ear and vision to the things the enemy wants to show me. Anything that doesn’t come directly from God, I don’t want to hear it, know it, or think about it.
By every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God is how I shall live. What comes out of His mouth is truth. 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12 says “because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.” Therefore, God sends them a strong delusion. This scripture was in the context of the son of perdition and the great falling away. This is how I endure to the end and escape the last days' delusion - I love the truth and God will keep me from the delusions. The ones that end up giving in to the delusions are only receiving their judgment for being lovers of lawlessness. Lovers of illusion.
I cling only to the words that come out of the mouth of God. And no other voice, no other thought shall I receive.
By. Joe Pinto
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