Thursday, 1 March 2018

Disguise

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disguise - this word is quite topical this month with Purim almost upon us, but generally disguise is not a practice that the Bible endorses.

The L-rd does not disguise Himself; even in the book of Esther, He is not disguised - He is simply not present in the foreground. Saul, the first king of Israel disguised himself when he went to see the witch of Endor in an effort to consult the (deceased) prophet Samuel before his last battle. The wife of Jereboam, the first king of the northern kingdom, disguised herself when consulting Ahijah the prophet on behalf of her husband, but the L-rd spoke bad news to her anyway; another king of Israel disguised himself when going into battle alongside king Jehoshaphat of Judah, but was killed anyway. Satan disguises himself as an angel of light and his servants disguise themselves as servants of righteousness (2 Corinthians 11:14-15).

Disguise is pretending to be be someone or something that you are not, a practice that the L-rd abhors for He wants us to be true witnesses and faithful messengers, accurately representing Him in this world Yeshua said, "Let your 'yes' be 'yes' and your 'no' be 'no'" (Matthew 5:37, echoed in James 5:12) saying that anything more than that is evil. We should be people of our word, open and without guile, deceiving no-one and being transparent so that G-d's glory may be seen.