Beware! The Subtle Trap of Sychophancy!

“God please deliver me from sycophants and sycophancy”. This is a prayer that I believe we all must pray from time to time as God takes us from one level of glory to another especially in this season when the heavens are opened over our lives. Sycophancy is a killer. It destroys even the best of men. You may think you can handle it but you really can’t. It is an appearance of evil so every wise person must run from it.

A sycophant is a self seeking flatterer and as such is a terrible person to have around us. They have very selfish ambition and take advantage of the victim notwithstanding the impact on the victim. The person they flatter is more or less a victim but the truth is you and I have primary responsibility for our lives. We can refuse to be victims of sycophancy. We must determine who is around us often and who we want to listen to. The Bible says we must take heed what we hear and guard our hearts with all diligence.

The story is told, in Acts of Apostles, of a king who was smitten by an angel as a result of which he was consumed by worms and he died. What a terrible death. The angel smote him because he accepted the worship of some sycophants. The sycophants wanted to make him happy because they had heard he was unhappy with them and were dependent on him for food. So they came to him on this day with an agenda. As soon as he completed his speech to them the bible says in Acts 12: 22 NLT-“The people gave him a great ovation, shouting, “It’s the voice of a god, not of a man!”

He was so pleased. He accepted the worship and did not give glory to God. Please note that they did not die for lying and/or worshipping man, because they knew it was the voice of a man that they heard, but he died for accepting the worship. Though he was happy with what they said, he did not ask for it and somewhere in his subconscious, I believe he must have known that he has was not a god but it just felt good to accept the worship.

Satan also tried it with Jesus when he said to him in Mathew 4: 6 after taking him to the highest point of the temple in Jerusalem and said to him to jump off the hill. He said since Jesus is the son of God, God would send angels to protect him. Thank God Jesus knew better than to fall for it. He rejected and countered that word from satan immediately with the word of God.

Please permit me to quote my pastor here “it is enlightened self-preservation” to keep from listening to sycophants. Unfortunately, they are many in the church today. Believe me; every time we listen to them, we are in spiritual warfare – a serious battle for our souls that we must win. Nobody needs that.

Please let us also search our hearts, “to thy self be true” – if perchance, you find that there is a trait of sycophancy in you, ask God to kill it because ultimately it would destroy you.