The Same Old Lie

Some things never change—like the devil’s tactics.

And every Christian needs to guard their heart from his insidious and relentless attacks.

The temptation that brought on the fall of mankind is still being used to wreak havoc more than six millennia later.

The temptation that ruined Paradise was subtle.

Eden was a pristine garden in the midst of a beautiful world. Husband and wife lived in perfect communion, walking with their Lord in unbroken harmony.

God surveyed the surroundings and concluded, “it  was very good.”

But not for long…

Something horrible happened.

And the Great Catastrophe began with one simple, diabolical question:

Did God really say… ?

Seems harmless enough.

The angel who left his first estate was tempting Eve to mistrust God’s specific instructions to them, which is odd, since His word seemed pretty straight forward:

“You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it…

You. Will.  Certainly. Die.” (Genesis 2:16-17).

Enjoy the world I made.
Obey Me and flourish.
Disobey Me and die.

Not rocket science, really.

And certainly no logical reason to question the “true meaning” of what was so forthright and clear.

And notice the Lord’s adversary doesn’t contradict God, he simply wants Eve to question the veracity of His word. 

Once she does that, it’s pretty much game over. And not just for her, for anyone so foolish as to take the bait.

We’re not talking here about a struggle to believe; this kind of doubt has sinister overtones.

It’s a temptation to view God and His word with contempt. It’s entertaining suspicion that the Word of God…  isn’t.

“Eve, are you sure that’s what He said?” the serpent hissed.

“What if He didn’t want it to be understood literally?”  

“Maybe this verse doesn’t mean what you think it means.”

“After all, the verb to die in the Hebrew has several harmless nuances; for example: I could have died laughing…

You ss-see, Eve, there’s ss-so many waysss to understand the verssse, we can never really know for sure what it TRULY means! 

That was the spark that led to the BOOM.

Paradise lost with one fell swoop. 

What a vast multitude have slipped from their secure position because they were duped into doubting the Word of Life.

That doubt she embraced, gave her the boldness to disobey.

And sin entered the world, and death through sin, and it’s been chaos ever since. If anyone wants chaos, unhitch yourself from the moorings of Absolute Truth.

And, today, the very foundations of human civilization are being shaken with the same dumb line:

Did God really say “that in the beginning, He made them male and female”? 

Did God really say “sexual intimacy is exclusively meant for a husband and wife”?

Did God really say “without Jesus, all unbelievers will perish”?

Without the Creator’s owner’s manual for how things were designed to work, all the world is destined to come undone.

It’s like a hiker disregarding his compass in the middle of a dense forest because someone fed him the line:

What if your compass is malfunctioning? What if the needle pointing to the N, actually should be pointing to the S?

Or the pilot who disconnects from air traffic control because someone got him to distrust the Voice from the Tower.

“His word a lamp for our feet, a light to our path.” But when that Light goes out, untold disaster awaits.

And nothing delights the devil more than dimming the Light.

So the prince of the power of the air inspires books and blogs critical of evangelical Christianity. He fills the internet with pretty faces making fine sounding arguments meant to undermine the foundational truths of orthodox Christianity, truth that Jesus said has the power to save the soul.

And this anti-Gospel poison gets gobbled up by the weak, immature and the undiscerning.

Some get tired of being persecuted and holding unpopular points of view, so they’re open to a way out.

Did God really say…  all those things the world finds offensive, all those things that make your life so difficult?

Maybe there’s a new way of understanding what God really means that will make life easier, more comfortable and non-offensive.

And leave it to the tempter to help someone actually feel good about themselves as they turn their back on the Lord. They aren’t really abandoning the faith, they’re actually growing. They’re maturing, finding themselves, and becoming spiritually enlightened.  

Sadly, deceived by their own sinful heart, they have joined ranks with the End Times crowd who “will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths” (2 Timothy 4:3-4). 

And as they do, they are greeted with thunderous applause, scoring tons of digital “likes” from those who’ve left Jesus, too.

Safety in numbers, I guess.

But Jesus says to the “few” who enter that narrow gate, to keep on walking in Truth.

Listen to our Lord’s high-priestly prayer for you the night before He died: Father, sanctify them by the truth; Your word is truth (John 17:17).

Wow.

No wonder the enemy works so hard to malign the word—it’s everything.

The Bible says, “The Gospel is the power of God unto salvation.”

But if you change the Gospel, it becomes something else–and that something else, cannot save.

And although it can no longer save, heal, cleanse, sustain, protect, and guide, the counterfeit good news does have some temporal  benefits:

There’s nothing in it that offends human sensibilities.

So, everything’s cool with this creed.

God is love (as defined by the Coke commercial, not the Bible). 

No more messy family conflicts.
No more hard conversations.
No more need for repentance.

No more denying self.
No more cross bearing.
No more narrow, narrow way.

It’s time to breathe a little and live and let live.

COEXIST.  Take a chill pill, everyone.

Just be a nice person.

But herein lies the problem: That’s NOT what the Creator says about the life He’s given. 

My friends. 

The pressure is on!  It’s getting harder and harder to stand for truth. 

Don’t backdown. It might cost you something, or someone. But the Lord is worthy of your loss for His truth.

Stand.

For the sake of your soul, for the sake of those who depend on you, and for the sake of the One who gave Himself up for you.

Did God really say that?

Yeah. He did.