Seeing
Truth Amidst Deception
I came across a simple riddle on social media yesterday,
and thinking myself a fairly smart guy, I decided to take the bait and see if I
could solve it. After a bit of review, I
was confident I had discerned the correct answer, but was surprised when I
found I was mistaken and had been deceived.
Here is the simple riddle for you to see:
Someone’s
mother has four sons. North, South and
East. What is the name of the fourth
son. Private message me the name of the
fourth son. If you lose, you have to
repost.
When I discovered I was mistaken, I decided to go
ahead and share the riddle for others to see if they could see through what I
had failed to see. It was kind of an
experiment to see how many would actually be able to get the correct
answer. There were many who responded,
but NONE of them saw through the deception to recognize the plain truth. And that is because the truth was so subtly
hidden amidst the deception.
And there is a great lesson to be learned from this
simple exercise in how the adversary attempts to deceive us in our daily walk
of life.
As we look at the simple three sentence riddle,
there is an obvious first choice. With
the other 3 sons named North, South and East, we would first assume the 4th
son would be named West. But we seem to
recognize this is an obvious deception, so nearly right off we don’t accept it.
Our pride kicks in and we put our logical,
mortal thinking caps on. The third sentence
appears to be the question of who the son is, so we go back to the first sentence
for information and come to the conclusion that the 4th son’s name
must be “Someone”. Get it… “Someone’s”
mother has four sons. And that is the
answer which I pridefully accepted and became confident in… and so did every
single person who responded to the riddle when I shared it.
But the very clever deception and actual truth is
hidden in plain sight within the 3rd sentence: What is the name of
the fourth son. It is not a question at
all, but a statement, with a period at the end, not a question mark. The fourth son is named “What”.
This simple and clever deception, with the truth so
plainly evident and hidden within such a short three sentences got me to
thinking about how easily we can be deceived through cunning misdirection if we
are not careful to recognize plain truth.
And that is often how the adversary works in our
lives. He knows we will recognize a
clear deception and misdirection and will reject it and not play along. So instead, he hides the truth amidst some
subtle and clever deceptions so that we will feel the flavor of truth, but not
recognize it because it is mixed in with what appears to be truth, but is
actually the misdirection itself.
And having been deceived by the riddle, I then shared the deception with others who also fell victim to its snare... every single one of them who took the bait, got it wrong as well. And thus the lie and deception was perpetuated.
There are many scriptures which warn us about the
cunning deceptions of the adversary:
“O
that cunning plan of the evil one! O the vainness, and the frailties, and the
foolishness of men! When they are
learned they think they are wise, and they hearken not unto the counsel of
God, for they set it aside, supposing
they know of themselves, wherefore, their wisdom is foolishness and it
profiteth them not. And they shall perish.”
(2 Nephi 9:28)
This was one of the prideful deceptions I fell prey
to in the riddle. I wanted to show I was
smart and had figured it out, so in that small stroke of pride I declared my
knowledge, only to find out later that I was mistaken.
“And
thus we see how great the inequality of man is because of sin and
transgression, and the power of the devil, which comes by the cunning plans
which he hath devised to ensnare the hearts of men.”
(Alma 28:13)
Recently
Pres. Russel M. Nelson stated:
“My
dear brothers and sisters, the assaults
of the adversary are increasing exponentially, in intensity and in variety.”
(October 2018)
“The long-standing objective of the Church
is to assist all members to increase their faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and
in His Atonement, to assist them in making and keeping their covenants with
God, and to strengthen and seal their families. In this complex world today,
this is not easy. The adversary is
increasing his attacks on faith and upon us and our families at an exponential
rate. To survive spiritually, we need counterstrategies and proactive plans.”
(October 2018)
Sometimes the adversary works through others, who
have succumbed to his follies, as we witness the political strife and
deceptions and sleight of hand in the media in our world today:
“Yea,
we see that Amalickiah, because he was a man of cunning device and a man of
many flattering words, that he led away the hearts of many people to do
wickedly; yea, and to seek to destroy the church of God, and to destroy the
foundation of liberty which God had granted unto them…”
(Alma 46:10)
James
E. Faust so eloquently stated the following (which are only excerpts
of his talk “Voice of the Spirit”, Sept 5, 1993):
“The
Spirit’s voice is ever present, but it is calm. The adversary tries to smother
this voice with a multitude of loud, persistent, persuasive, and appealing
voices:
Murmuring voices that conjure up
perceived injustices.
Whining voices that abhor challenge
and work.
Seductive voices offering sensual
enticements.
Soothing voices that lull us into
carnal security.
Intellectual voices that profess
sophistication and superiority.
Proud voices that rely on the arm
of flesh.
Flattering voices that puff us up
with pride.
Cynical voices that destroy hope.
Entertaining voices that promote
pleasure seeking.
Commercial voices that tempt us to
“spend money for that which is of no worth” and/or “labor for that which cannot
satisfy”.
In
your generation you will be barraged by multitudes of voices telling you how to
live, how to gratify your passions, how to have it all. You will have up to
five hundred television channels at your fingertips. There will be all sorts of
software, interactive computer modems, databases, and bulletin boards; there
will be desktop publishing, satellite receivers, and communications networks
that will suffocate you with information.
How are you possibly going to select what
voices you will listen to and believe? The implications for you as individuals
are staggering. To survive, you must:
First,
exercise your moral agency wisely. …Every moment demands that we choose, over
and over again, between that which comes from the Lord and that which comes
from the devil. As tiny drops of water shape a landscape, so our
minute-by-minute choices shape our character.
Seeing
that ye know the light by which ye may judge, which light is the light of
Christ, see that ye do not judge wrongfully; . . .
Wherefore,
I beseech of you, brethren, that ye should search diligently in the light of
Christ that ye may know good from evil; and if ye will lay hold upon every good
thing, and condemn it not, ye certainly will be a child of Christ. [Moroni
7:18–19]
You
will not be able to travel through life on borrowed light. The light of life
must be part of your very being. The voice you must learn to heed is the voice
of the Spirit.
I
have suggested a simple solution for selecting the channel to which you will
attune yourselves: Listen to and follow the voice of the Spirit. This is an
ancient solution, even eternal, and may not be popular in a society that is
always looking for something new.
This
solution requires patience in a world that demands instant gratification.
This
solution is quiet, peaceful, and subtle in a world enamored by that which is
loud, incessant, fast paced, garish, and crude.
This
solution requires you to be contemplative while your peers seek physical
titillation.
This
solution requires the prophets to “put you always in remembrance of these
things, though ye know them, and be established in the present truth” (2 Peter
1:12). This may seem foolish in a time when it is not worth remembering much of
the trivial tripe to which we are exposed.
This
solution requires you to walk by faith in a world governed by sight (see 2
Corinthians 4:18, 5:7). You must see with the eye of faith eternal, unseen,
spiritual verities, whereas the masses of mankind depend solely on temporal
things, which can be known only through the physical senses.”
So
how are we to see through the myriads of voices and subtle deception which
swirl in confusion and misdirection around us?
Simply
stated, we must learn, often through trial and error, to attune ourselves to
truth. And we do this best by immersing
ourselves in the source of truth. We must become accustomed to its feel and
flavor and recognize its sweet resonance.
We
must go to the source of all truth rather than seeking through the internet or
other corruptible and fallible sources.
We must come to KNOW Truth for ourselves, personally and individually.
“And
ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” (John
8:32)
Truth has a name – and His name is
Jesus Christ!
We
must come to recognize His voice, His guiding influence, His flavor and
resonance above all the other myriad of voices and deceptions.
“My
sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:
And
I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any
man pluck them out of my hand.” (John 10:27-28)
This
is the great quest and entire purpose of this mortal life. To learn, by personal experience, how to
recognize and respond to the call of Truth, the call of Jesus Christ which is
lovingly leading us back to our heavenly home with his invitation to “Come Unto
Me”. And that through having learned to
recognize and follow that voice, we will have become changed to become more
like Him, so that we will feel welcome and comfortable in His presence.
May
we take more heed to hearken to the voice of Truth, and become accustomed to
its reliable resonance and reality, so that we can safely navigate through the
cunning deceptions and misdirections which are laid like landmines all around
us, and instead, walk the straight and narrow path which leads to truth, life
and salvation.
“Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we
know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the
Father, but by me.” (John 14:5-6)
