In the semi-arid country of West Texas, on a typical summer afternoon when the sun bathes the plains with sunshine, one can see for miles. The prairies stretch out like a huge carpet toward the distant horizon. To even the most unimaginative mind, the lake-like mirage is often clearly visible in the distance, shimmering like a rare jewel which has been carefully placed so as to ingratiate the scene. The mirage is so brilliantly clear that it has often been called “fool’s gold for the thirsty.” It was often the motive for one to take just one more step toward, “cool, clear water,” as the song says. 

 

A mirage is an optical illusion. Atmospheric conditions become such as will reflect the sun’s rays against the land so that a pool of water appears–a pool of water which is not really there. Mirages have fooled many people. Some who are lost in the desert are said to have been driven to insanity because of these visionary illusions. 

 

The devil is an expert at the art of optical illusions. He creates beautiful, attractive mirages for people. He can even make people put their complete confidence in what is no more than a mirage, something not really there. In doing so, he causes men and women to spend a lifetime running after what is merely a semblance of the real. There can be no doubt that these people see something; but most times it is merely an illusion, and when the person arrives at what he thought he saw, he finds it merely a figment, a cleverly placed deception. 

 

For instance, the thought that peace can come from the accumulations of this world’s goods is a mirage. Riches hold out the promise of security, but when a person puts his trust in them, he’s seeing something that’s not there. The riches may look like the means for the tranquility, peace, and happiness we all seek, but that promise is just an illusion, a trick devised by the devil to keep us from putting our confidence in the promises of God for the joy, the peace and a quietude we’re seeking. Trust in uncertain riches is like putting our confidence in a distant mirage– in things that will never satisfy (Ecclesiastes 2:1-11). 

 

Revenge is a mirage. People who feel they have been wronged by someone oftentimes become bent on retaliation. They have the notion that if they can just avenge their injury somehow, they will be happy again. But there is no satisfaction in revenge, no true joy in a “pay-back” mentality. One who believes such is deluded; he follows after a mirage. “Render to no man evil for evil” (Romans 12:17). “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord” (verse 19). Many is the person who ends up frustrated, even embittered by thinking that happiness can be found by “getting even.” It’s a mirage. It won’t work.

 

The modern, fun-loving “jet set” society would have us subscribe to a kind of life which, according to their thinking, is the “good life.” They have fomented the philosophy that “you only go around once, so live life with all the gusto you can,” as one commercial used to say. Consequently morality is thrown into the wind and restraint into the river. That’s a mirage. No person can find  lasting pleasure in merely surrendering himself to his own lusts and passions. First of all, there is no end to such efforts. One excitement must be continually replaced by a new, even greater one in order to gain a new satisfaction. And so the process goes on and on and on. There is no lasting pleasure in living life without restraints. The fact that “you only go around once”should actually be good reason to make sure your future is secure as you go around (Hebrews 9:27). To think otherwise is to be seduced by a delusion, a mirage. 

 

Why, please tell me, would we dare place our hopes, our desires, our aspirations on the world when it’s plain to see that “the world passeth away, with the lusts thereof “? (I John 2:17). How do we expect to find any substance in a life that is regulated by a mirage of what we think about things? Don’t be deluded by what seems to be. All that glitters is not gold. We must not be defrauded by what life seems to offer, but be impressed with what is real, what is permanent, that which has everlasting value.