Note: We did not post a message yesterday due to a morning meeting and dealing with very cold weather which permeated our house in spite of working heat! When it's this frigid it just takes more energy out of you!

Message summary: We must continue to examine and discern the teachings and lives of those who declare truth as we base our standard on the genuine Word of God, which remains and always will be the firm foundation of truth!

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"For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds" (2 Corinthians 11:13-15).

Here in America many of our sports teams have mascots such as SWOOP, the mascot for the Philadelphia Eagles. Mascots are intended to liven things up with their colorful antics. In Boston it’s “Wally The Green Monster”, named for Fenway Park’s famous left field green wall. In Kansas City it's "K.C. Wolf" who rides around the field in an ATV. He replaced "Warpaint", a horse ridden by a man wearing a full Indian chief headdress used when I lived in that area. (I suppose that was politically incorrect!)

We enjoy meeting people and not surprisingly some have interesting backgrounds. Friday night at a company Christmas banquet I visited with a man who has a rather unusual employment history.

For over ten years Dan has worked as a “comfort consultant” for JK Mechanical, an HVAC company we have served for over fifteen years as chaplains. However, in another season of his life he had a different “job”. As a young man in the eighties and early nineties he was the official mascot for the Baltimore Orioles baseball team!

I suppose, prior to talking to him, I never really considered the Orioles mascot which is, as you might expect, an Oriole! I attended several baseball games in Baltimore but prior to talking to Dan I didn't recall the mascot.

He shared some interesting stories from his years as a mascot such as once falling off the dugout and injuring himself in front of a crowd of tens of thousands, ironically in a game with the Kansas City Royals, the team I followed while growing up in that area. But I was very moved by Dan's role as an Oriole mascot when he brought joy to pediatric cancer patients at area hospitals such as Johns Hopkins.

Mascots are a fun, imagination-filled part of life. They are essentially a disguise. We enjoy seeing children laugh when they're around a mascot, clown or other figure.  It’s good-natured fun and no one really believes the mascot is a real Oriole bird. Although I suppose if he used the woke term "identified" he really would be an oriole! And it would be politically correct in some circles to affirm his new identity.

But moving our message to spiritual content let us consider a dangerous disguise, the one who disguises as an angel of light but in reality is the “prince of darkness”, a term used in John Milton’s “Paradise Lost” referring to Satan as the embodiment of evil.

In the daily text Paul confronted and warned against men who are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. That’s one of the duties of a caring shepherd. In 2 Corinthians 11:1-15 Paul dealt with the topic of false apostles who preach a different Jesus than the one he preached. This portion of Scripture is a warning in general about counterfeit teaching.

Later in Scripture Paul specifically exposes the false teaching of two men whose names are forever a part of the Scriptural record, Hymenaeus and Philetus. These troublemakers, who at one time were teachers of the genuine gospel, had wandered from the truth, denying the resurrection, and were thereby destroying the faith of those who chose to embrace their false teaching (2 Timothy 2).

Paul describes the counterfeits he dealt with in 2 Corinthians as “false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ”. The relentless attack on the genuine faith that Paul encountered continues unabated today and is actually increasing in my view. We face it from the scientific, media, entertainment, political, educational and even portions of the religious establishment, just as Jesus did when He walked about clothed in humanity. On the personal level we daily face the flaming arrows of our enemy who seeks to move us off the right course. We must always be on our guard against spiritual disguises.

The chief disguiser is Satan himself. It’s his very nature as he “disguises himself as an angel of light”. In the Bible he initially came on the scene disguising himself as a cunning and clever snake. In his deceptive craft he convinced Eve that he was able to impart wisdom and that he was looking out for her best interest. What a lie!

Not only did Satan disguise his outward appearance but also his inward motivation. In our daily text the original Greek “disguise” is translated in the present tense indicating this is something Satan habitually does.

"So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness”.  We must continue to examine and discern the teachings and lives of those who declare truth as we base our standard on the genuine Word of God, which remains and always will be the firm foundation of truth!

B e encouraged today, Hebrews 3:13