These quotes and verses on deception share what some people have said regarding deception and what God has declared regarding deception. Personally, I hate deception. I hate everything about it. I think of Jesus deceived (though He knew) by Judas Iscariot and I cringe. Jesus is the perfect High Priest who is faithful. He, truly, has faced more than we ever will. He is the One we turn to, and glean from in order to stand strong in the face of this adversity, not succumbing to deception, but overcoming it by living out the truth.
Fact. Jesus has given us everything we need in the armor of God – the belt of truth, breastplate of righteousness, gospel shoes of peace, shield of faith, helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit – to stand firm against all of the strategies of the devil, resisting him in the time of evil, standing our ground. We have nothing to fear. We, Christians, fear God alone.
Deception will increase in end times. It is one major strategy of Satan that helps him steal, kill and destroy – John 10:10. He is the Father of lies, who has always hated the truth – John 8:44. So, how do we prepare or guard ourselves? We know the Truth. We know Jesus Christ. And we live what we know.
Jesus is returning!
Jesus’ Warning Regarding Deception
And Jesus answered and said to them: “Take heed that no one deceives you.”
Matthew 24:4 NKJV
In the Olivet discourse in Matthew 24, Jesus speaks of end times and the evil in the world increasing. He prefaces his entire sermon on the Mount of Olives with “Take heed that no one deceives you.” He follows with the statement, “many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah.’ They will deceive many” – Matthew 24:5 NLT.
Jesus states people will be deceived in this time, and what He says will happen will happen; but He tells His people, “Take heed that no one deceives you.” Christ has given us everything we need to overcome deception. He has given us Himself – Truth. He has given us His Word, His voice; which will forever remain authority, unbreakable. For the word of God is stronger than the heavens and the earth – Luke 16:17. And before He died and went to heaven, Jesus even specifically asked God the Father to protect us by the power of His name, so that we would be a united church and to keep us safe from the evil one – John 17:11, 15. We are protected when we listen to God and obey Him.
Knowing God right now, growing in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ – not participating in any type of deception (which Wisdom detests) – we know we will not be deceived by false messiahs wanting glory, spiritual power, and obedience. We will not turn away from the truth. For we will see clearly – they are not God – they do not have God’s holy, righteous power. There is only One God and He remains the same – He never changes – Malachi 3:6, Hebrews 13:8.
When we know God as our best friend, we are not deceived or overcome by that which wants His power and authority in our lives.
Quotes and Verses on Deception
Now the Holy Spirit tells us clearly that in the last times some will turn away from the true faith; they will follow deceptive spirits and teachings that come from demons. These people are hypocrites and liars, and their consciences are dead.
1 Timothy 4:1-2 NLT
Satan is the Father of lies, he is the Father of deception – John 8:44; and his scheming ways motivate people to turn from God – Genesis 3:1.
Alysa VanderWeerd, from Revival of the Hearts
A tyranny based on … deception and maintained by terror must inevitably perish from the poison it generates within itself.
Albert Einstein
Those who deceive refuse to acknowledge God.
Alysa VanderWeerd
“They all fool and defraud each other; no one tells the truth. With practiced tongues they tell lies; they wear themselves out with all their sinning. They pile lie upon lie and utterly refuse to acknowledge me,” says the LORD. Therefore, this is what the LORD of Heaven’s Armies says: “See, I will melt them down in a crucible and test them like metal.”
Jeremiah 9:5-7 NLT
If any man thinks to swindle God, he is wrong.
Pindar, c518 BC – c438 BC, an ancient Greek lyric poet from Thebes
Those who deceive and manipulate do not trust God, and challenge His authority.
Alysa VanderWeerd
The highest compact we can make with our fellow is – “Let there be truth between us two forevermore.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The greatest deception, and the deepest source of unhappiness, is the illusion of finding life by excluding God, of finding freedom by excluding moral truths and personal responsibility.
Pope John Paul II
[Wisdom speaking] For I speak truth and detest every kind of deception.
Proverbs 8:7 NLT
Deceit is in the heart of those who devise evil, but counselors of peace have joy.
Proverbs 12:20 NKJV
Let no man go beyond or defraud his brother, for, though it be hidden from man, it will be found that God is the avenger of all such.
Matthew Henry
Deception is Satan’s way of gaining power. It is his method of destruction.
Alysa VanderWeerd
People may cover their hatred with pleasant words, but they’re deceiving you. They pretend to be kind, but don’t believe them. Their hearts are full of many evils. While their hatred may be concealed by trickery, their wrongdoings will be exposed in public.
Proverbs 26:24-26 NLT
Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools, that don’t have brains enough to be honest.
Benjamin Franklin
They visit me as if they were my friends, but all the while they gather gossip, and when they leave, they spread it everywhere.
Psalm 41:6 NLT
Neighbors lie to each other; speaking with flattering lips and deceitful hearts.
Psalm 12:2 NLT
The fundamental deception of Satan is the lie that obedience can never bring happiness.
R.C. Sproul
Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it.
Thomas Jefferson
For they intended evil against You; they devised a plot which they are not able to perform.
Psalm 21:11 NKJV
What sorrow awaits you who lie awake at night, thinking up evil plans. You rise at dawn and hurry to carry them out, simply because you have the power to do so.
Micah 2:1 NLT
Those who deceive their neighbors, do not love their neighbors – and God has commanded us to love.
Alysa VanderWeerd
Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.
Ephesians 6:11 ESV
What are worthless and wicked people like? They are constant liars, signaling their deceit with a wink of the eye, a nudge of the foot, or the wiggle of fingers. Their perverted hearts plot evil, and they constantly stir up trouble. But they will be destroyed suddenly, broken in an instant beyond all hope of healing.
Proverbs 6:12-15 NLT
A Wolf found great difficulty in getting at the sheep owing to the vigilance of the shepherd and his dogs. But one day it found the skin of a sheep that had been flayed and thrown aside, so it put it on over its own pelt and strolled down among the sheep. The Lamb that belonged to the sheep, whose skin the Wolf was wearing, began to follow the Wolf in the Sheep’s clothing; so, leading the Lamb a little apart, he soon made a meal off her, and for some time he succeeded in deceiving the sheep, and enjoying heart meals.
“APPEARANCES ARE DECEPTIVE.”
Aesop, c.620 BC – 564 BC, The Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing
Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.
Colossians 2:8 NKJV
He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it the second time.
Thomas Jefferson
O, what a tangled web we weave when we first practice to deceive!
Walter Scott
A lie cannot live.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
False face must hide what the false heart doth know.
William Shakespeare
A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.
Charles Spurgeon
If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.
Mark Twain
The spirit of deception attacks our thoughts, leading people away from a sincere pure devotion to Jesus Christ – 2 Corinthians 11:3.
Alysa VanderWeerd, from Revival of the Hearts
If you alter or obscure the Biblical portrait of God in order to attract converts, you don’t get converts to God, you get converts to an illusion. This is not evangelism, but deception.
John Piper
There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.
Henry David Thoreau
The person who cannot laugh is not only ready for treason, and deceptions, their whole life is already a treason and deception.
Thomas Carlyle
We must be very suspicious of the deceptions of the element of time. It takes a good deal of time to eat or to sleep, or to earn a hundred dollars, and a very little time to entertain a hope and an insight which becomes the light of our life.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Your national greatness, swelling vanity; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy – a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.
Frederick Douglass
Man can try to name love, showering upon it all the names at his command, and still he will involve himself in endless self deceptions. If he possesses a grain of wisdom he will lay down his arms and name the unknown by the more unknown – ignotum per ignotius – that is by the name of God.
Carl Jung
Deception desires information apart from relationship. Deception does not go to the source for knowledge, it goes behind a back. Ultimately, not wanting to submit to God who holds all knowledge.
Alysa VanderWeerd, from Revival of the Hearts
First, what does truth require? It requires us to face the facts as they are, not to involve ourselves in self-deception; to refuse to think merely in slogans. If we are to work for the future of the city, let us deal with the realities as they actually are, not as they might have been, and not as we wish they were.
John F. Kennedy
Among other common lies, we have the silent lie – the deception which one conveys by simply keeping still and concealing the truth. Many obstinate truth-mongers indulge in this dissipation, imagining that if they speak no lie, they lie not at all.
Mark Twain
Wisdom is looking at life from God’s point of view. You look at life’s difficulties and tests as God looks at them. You look at family life and child rearing as God looks at them. You interpret current events as God would interpret them. You see the truth even though all around you are deception and lies.
Charles R. Swindoll
Sometimes truth is costly but not nearly as costly as deception.
Beth Moore
Deception is the gateway to greater sin.
Alysa VanderWeerd
Disillusionment means having no more misconceptions, false impressions, and false judgments in life; it means being free from these deceptions. Refusing to be disillusioned is the cause of much of the suffering of human life.
Oswald Chambers
Surely, men love darkness rather than light.
Henry David Thoreau
We must not promise what we ought not, lest we be called on to perform what we cannot.
Abraham Lincoln
Do not be deceived; happiness and enjoyment do not lie in wicked ways.
Isaac Watts
As the salt flavors every drop in the Atlantic, so does sin affect every atom of our nature. It is so sadly there, so abundantly there that if you cannot detect it, you are deceived.
Charles Spurgeon
We know the spirit of deception is the movement of Satan; whereas, the Spirit of Truth is the movement of God.
Alysa VanderWeerd, from Revival of the Hearts
Saints not only desire to love and speak truth with their lips, but they seek to be true within; they will not lie even in the closet of their hearts, for God is there to listen; they scorn double meanings, evasions, equivocations, white lies, flatteries, and deceptions.
Charles Spurgeon, The Treasury of David, Psalm 15
Repentance involves moral reformation. The wrong practices are on man’s part, and only man can correct them. Lying, for instance, is an act of man, and one for which he must accept full responsibility. When he repents he will quit lying. God will not quit for him; he will quit for himself.
A.W. Tozer, Tozer on the Holy Spirit: A 365-Day Devotional
One verse can expose a deceptive spirit. It only takes one. Jesus Christ is the Word made flesh – He exposes the lies. We look to Him and walk confidently; there is no reason for us to be timid for God has given us the spirit of power, love and a sound mind to fulfill what He’s called us to – 2 Timothy 1:7. The power of God flowing through us overcomes deceptive spirits, love overcomes sin, and our sound mind overcomes the desired outcome of deception – deception will not control our actions, even though it seeks to.
Alysa VanderWeerd, from Revival of the Hearts