Duck Decoys
IllustrationAnalogy★★★★DUCK hunters use decoys. Today, these decoys have gotten pretty fancy. The decoys quack like ducks, move like ducks, look like ducks, and act like ducks. In fact, the ducks think that they are ducks and the real ducks end up being dead ducks because they can’t tell what’s real. For the Christian, there are many roving decoys out there and their job is to extricate us from the intimate experience of our faith. We must look beyond what a person says or how they perform to determine their authenticity. We must evaluate and test the spirits. We must be on guard for decoys moving all around us, acting like the real thing, in order to deceive.
The point
Convincing deceptions surround Christians; we must discern authenticity beyond appearance, testing the spirits rather than accepting what seems genuine.