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The Deception Of Empty Words

by J. W. Jepson, D.Min.

All rights reserved, including the right to grant the following permission and to prohibit the misuse thereof:

The Author hereby grants permission to reproduce the text of this article, without changes or alterations*, as a ministry, but not for commercial or non-ministry purposes.

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 (First published in The Pentecostal Evangel, January 20, 1991)

This version is a revision and an expansion of  the original article

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(NIV) Scripture quotations from the Holy Bible, New International Version are copyright © 1973, 1978, International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers.

(NASB) Scripture quotations from the New American Standard Bible are copyright © 1972, The Lockman Foundation.

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The war is on. Battles are being fought everywhere--in the media, in classrooms, in personal conversations.  It is a life-and-death struggle for the human mind and soul.

The weapons?

Words.

Words are powerful weapons. They can conquer nations and change societies.

Words are precision tools.   They can shape thinking and behavior for either good or evil.

These weapons--these tools--are being skillfully employed both in the promotion of truth and in the spread of error.

From the beginning Satan has used words to deceive. "He is a liar, and the father of it" (John 8:44).  He lied to himself (Isaiah 14:13,14), to the angels, and to Eve.  He is the instigator of all error.  He is the chief promoter of rationalizations, the master architect of every structure of falsehood--every "high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God" (2 Corinthians 10:5).

He deceives in order to destroy, and he has enlisted the skills of his gifted but deluded followers to carry out his purpose.  He has an effective force of skilled word-crafters.  These mind-molders have bought his ideas because they appeal to their own pride and passions.   They are committed to promoting his ideology because they want to build a society structured after their own desires.

It is a known fact that whoever controls the language controls the culture.  "Secularists"--unbelievers--have coopted our language and are using it vigorously to erase biblical principles from the minds of the young and to demolish the Judeo-Christian foundations of our society.  They begin with a false premise and follow it "logically" to its false, empty, and dehumanizing conclusions.  They "trade reality for words, and then talk about the words."  They engage in the "deconstruction of language, with disregard for facts and accurate definitions."

Yes, people are "deceiving and being deceived" (2 Timothy 3:13), and words are the instruments being used to promote the deceptions.

Usually the process is not high-pressure brain-washing but subtle mind-bending.  Words and phrases are "spun" and "massaged," then repeated persistently until the terminology is accepted as the proper embodiment and expression of the "correct" idea.

Young people who commit fornication are said to be "sexually active" and "sexually experienced."  These are considered to be morally neutral terms.  But what teenager under peer pressure wants to be considered "inactive" and "inexperienced"?  No, such language is not neutral.  By design its slant is morally negative.  Its purpose is to obscure the immorality of such behavior in order to make it acceptable.

Notorious examples of word-twisting are found in the adamant defense of abortion.  An unborn human being is persistently termed a fetus in the effort to rob it of its personhood in the public mind.  Positive words such as "choice" and "rights" are drained of any real content so their empty semantic shell can be used as a respectable container for brutal barbarism.

Instead of "pro-abortion," we hear "pro-abortion rights," as though abortion existed as a right in itself apart from its mere legalization.  People who oppose abortion are called "anti-choice" and "anti-women's rights."  The words are carefully chosen for their propaganda effect.  It is the language of violence.

The same words can and probably will be used to defend bigamy, polygamy, incest, and other perversions.  They could be used to defend even cannibalism.  If enough people were to develop a taste for human flesh, we would hear it all over again: "Keep your laws off my body.  If people decide to donate their bodies to the food supply, that is their right.  After all, whose body is it, anyway?   I defend dietary rights.  My diet is pro-choice.  I prefer homo-food, and I have a right to eat it.  I'm not going to let some religious fundamentalists tell me what I can and can't eat in the privacy of my own home."

Bizarre? Yes, in both cases.

The latter case sounds like something the cannibals could have said to the missionaries!

Remember, "the unthinkable first becomes controversial; then it becomes unquestionable."  To paraphrase Richard John Neuhaus, our society is going from the unthinkable, to the debatable, to the justifiable, to the usual. 

On it goes.  Darwinists favor the word "primitive" because it reinforces the chosen conclusion, apart from the scientific process itself.  The value of human life becomes relative through the use of the phrase, "quality of life."  The fact that human life is its own God-given intrinsic quality is thus avoided.

Everyone who has AIDS is a "victim" (and, yes, there are true AIDS victims).  But we do not hear of AIDS spreaders.  The word is censored out of the sterilized public vocabulary.  "Lifestyle" is the euphemism used to defend the popular evils.

"Discrimination" is the universal word used to condemn any opposition to perverted behavior, and "hate" is automatically assumed to be the criminal motive in spite of the fact that Christian opposition to the behavior is motivated by a concern for the well-being of the person.

"Woe to them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter" (Isaiah 5:20).

For the unconverted to be deceived by empty words is tragic enough.  When deception invades the Church, it attacks the very "pillar and foundation of the truth" (1 Timothy 3;15 NIV).

Peter warns us of false teachers who through covetousness shall "with feigned words make merchandise of you" (2 Peter 2:1-3.  See also verse 18).  "For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple" (Romans 16:18).  "Simple" means naive and unsuspecting. 

The Church has suffered from those who teach that, because believers are under grace, how a "believer" lives does not affect his or her eternal destiny.  Against this pernicious error Ephesians 5:6 sternly warns, "Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience" (NASB).  See also Colossians 2:4. 

Empty words are "the skin of a reason stuffed with a lie."

At the other extreme is the equally deadly error that we can be saved by our own works.  This widely assumed notion is destroying millions in spite of the clear statement, "For by grace you have been saved through faith . . . not as a result of works, that no one should boast" (Ephesians 2:8 NASB).

One of the most destructive influences within Christianity has been the rise of liberal theology. This, too, has been advanced by the crafty use of words.  In this case they are called "connotation words," words that have a solid biblical meaning in the minds of the listeners but are deliberately used in a non-biblical sense by the speaker.  The speaker deceptively insinuates something into the words that is not part of their true meaning.  This is done to instil the speaker's ideas into the minds of the hearers by expressing them in words familiar and acceptable to the people.  Thus the speaker dishonestly takes advantage of the people's trust and betrays it.

An example of this is to claim to believe in the "literal" resurrection of Jesus Christ, and at the same time to deny that this has anything to do with His body coming out of the tomb.

What should we do when we encounter verbal mind-bending?  For one thing, we must be careful that we ourselves do not unwittingly adopt the terminology of deception.  When we hear it, we should ask ourselves, Is that true?  Challenge it.  If it is contrary to the word of God, expose it.  Use the terminology of reality.  Use Bible words with Bible meanings.  Call things what God calls them.  It is adultery, not "an affair."  It is a practice against nature, not "an alternate lifestyle." 

When someone who is not evangelical uses biblical words such as "salvation" and "redemption," or says that Jesus is "the Christ," ask what the speaker means by those words.  Insist that the person be specific.  We must not let anyone deceive us by the mere mouthing of Bible words.

Truth is the only effective defense against deception--real truth, truth in the form of God's words. God uses real words to combat empty words.

In the life-and-death struggle for our minds and souls, it is absolutely essential that we be "nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine" (1 Timothy 4:6).  We must speak "not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit" (1 Corinthians 2:13 NIV).  We must agree to "wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Timothy 6:3).  Paul wrote, "Retain the standard of sound words which you have heard from me, in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus" (2 Timothy 1:13 NASB).

Study your Bible as though your very life depended on it.

It does.

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