The Lie about the Truth, Pt. 2 – You will Not die?
The Lie about the Truth, Pt. 2 – You will Not die? [TRANSCRIPT]
Gen. 2:16-17 says,
Rom. 6:23 says,
In 1 John 1:10 it says,
Speaking of false prophets the Bible says in Jer. 14:14,
Again in Ezekiel 13:6-7
And in Galatians 1:8-9 it says,
And then in Hebrews 10:23 we read,
Truth and the Lie, that’s what we’re continuing to look at. I looked up the definition for what it means to lie. The dictionary says, to lie is to make an untrue statements with the intent to deceive. You see, it’s one thing to say something or make false statements out of ignorance or misinformation. But to knowingly and intentionally state what is not true is a Lie. What is involved in willfully saying what is not true? And why does it matter?
***
This is the second episode of what I’d call an introduction to the new series in Truth Matters on Deception. As I stated last week, deception involves speaking or spreading lies. I also mentioned last week how it’s my firm conviction that lies or what I call the Lie has its origin in our enemy Satan. Jesus called him a Liar and the father of lies.
We also began looking at how and when his lying activity began here on earth among mankind. It happened in the Garden as he deceived both Adam and Eve with his lies. It was these lies that became the foundation for his continued activity to deceive mankind and his battle against the Lord God.
What I want to provide in this introduction is to lay out a groundwork for the entire series on Deception. What I hope that you will observe is that the endeavor of the enemy has a detectible pattern. In the weeks ahead as we delve into the various aspects of deception that have occurred and are now taking place, I want you to see that. I want you to see that it’s all related. The attack of the enemy in his war with God and against mankind has a repeating scheme. This pattern underlies the various expressions that he uses. And yet, the lies seem to always remain the same. His war is with God. The visible arena of that war for us is this world. And whether it’s from a lack of imagination or sheer ignorance or even the gullibility of mankind, the lies of Satan seem to be following a repeating pattern.
Now, last week we looked at the first aspect of his lying activity. The enemy began by questioning the fact that God had clearly spoken. His question also manipulated what it was that God had in fact said. He cunningly asked, “Did God say?” Adam and Eve knew exactly what God had told them and yet the enemy calls it into question. This form of questioning is something he continues to use and hen does it in order to create doubt and distrust in the Words of God. You see, the enemy desires to create distance between God and mankind. He does this by first questioning that God has spoken while at the same time twisting the words of God.
Today, I want us to look at the second approach that Satan uses. You see, once he’s created his initial doubt about God’s Word, he then challenges God’s Word by declaring an alternate to God’s Word. We see this in Gen. 3:4 where it says, “The serpent said to the woman, “You certainly will not die!”
Now here the enemy alters what God said. But actually, it’s more than simply altering. What the serpent does is to cunningly call God a liar. You see, he states an alternate reality. He states that things are not like God says they are.
In three short Hebrew words the Bible lays out the enemy emphatically states that God is not telling the truth. That’s what the enemy is saying. So, he provides an alternate truth. God told Adam and Eve that if they ate of the prohibited fruit, they would unequivocally DIE!
Satan then, then perhaps mockingly, says the exact opposite. If I could say it this way. Satan counters what God has said by saying, “NO! Die you will not die!” By stating it like that, Satan is saying that one of them is lying. And the forceful way that he says it leaves no doubt what he’s implying. Satan is offering an alternate, a replacement statement of how things are. But know this, HE IS LYING!
This lie, this attack, is first and foremost about God and what He says. As I stated before, God is the bottom line, the final absolute in all matters of truth and what truth is. Jesus when He came declared that He was in fact, “the Way, the Truth, and the Life…” The question is this, “Do you believe Him!” You see, any and every relationship with God is based on us believing Him, trusting what He says, faith in God. Heb. 11:6 states it very clearly “Without faith, it is impossible to please God.”
In the Garden and throughout the Bible, God declares and demonstrates that there is consequence to disregarding and disobeying what He says. The Bible calls it sin.
God stated it clearly to Adam and Eve, “for on the day that you eat from it you will certainly die.” The lie that the Satan used is the exact opposite of what God said. You see, the wording is God used is undeniably clear, exacting and emphatic, “Die, you will die!”
God made it very clear that disobedience carries the sentence of death. That sentence of becomes the basis for the drama of salvation.
Rom. 5:19 says, “For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous.” The Gospel itself is God’s response based to the reality of sin and its consequences. If the death sentence is not real, then Christ came for no reason.
But the death sentence is real. Rom. 6:23 says, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gracious gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Jesus came because what happened in the Garden was real. The death that occurred in man’s disobedience sent shock waves across creation and we’re still living with those consequences.
I say all of this so that you can see this aspect of the Lie clearly. The cunning serpent lies about God by implanting an alternate truth, which in fact is not true. He shapes it, he tweaks it, he culturizes it, he psycho-babbles it, but it remains the same lie. God states the Truth about the consequences of not hearing, of disregarding or disobeying His words.
And then comes the enemy and provides an alternative message that lies to us and basically calls God a liar. God declares the reality and the result of sin. And the enemy provides a substitute that says, “Nah, It’s not that way at all. It not even sinning.”
1 John 1:10 says, “If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him (God) a liar and His word is not in us.” To declare or believe the opposite of what God says about sin is to believe a lie. This lie is dangerous. It will literally put a person outside of the reach of the redemption that Jesus Christ came to provide. If we’re not sinners, we don’t need a Savior.
In the coming weeks we will look at specific expressions of this lie. We will see how it manifests itself through the deceptions of those who proclaim alternatives to what God has said. Persons who proclaim these alternatives are called false prophets.
The Bible says in Jer. 14:14
What the enemy began in the Garden, he continues to use. The enemy uses individuals who for vain and personal reasons put on a mantle of speaking in God’s behalf. They proclaim what God has not said. Alternate truth comes from individuals who are proclaiming false visions, experiences which are spiritual in nature but are demonic (divination), that are futile (empty), and that are products of self-deception. All of them are substitutes for what God has clearly said.
They are being lied to by the enemy and they repeat as if God had said it. God’s prophet makes it very clear in Ezek. 13:6,7
The false prophets themselves are being deceived. They wait and anticipate in vain for the lies they declare to occur as if they were God’s truth. But they are not God’s Word and they will not come true. In the weeks ahead we will see that the false prophets are still among us. They are still substituting falsehood under the guise that they speak for God.
We live in a time where personal experiences seem to be leading people in the directing of their lives. But it is not anyone’s personal experience or that of false prophets that provide us the truth. Instead, it is God’s Word. We must beware of the lie when it comes in substituting anything which changes what God has clearly stated. Jesus cautioned us for instance, not to be misled by false Christs. He does this in Matt. 24:4ff.
The Apostle Paul warned us about believing anyone regardless of their self-proclaimed credentials if they proclaim a substitute gospel. Gal. 1:8-9 says,
The lying Liar will continue all the way to end to attempt to deceive by substituting an alternative to what God says. We must never let our guard down. The deceiver is a present danger and his lying does not stop. He is still substituting alternatives to what God has said.
The Truth found in God’s Word alone remains the best defense against deception and the deceiver.
God’s Word provides us stability in a world shifting and being tossed about by all the lies manufactured by the enemy.
We must be in God’s Word and know what He has says. Where the enemy wishes to sow doubt and dismay, God’s Word provides a firm foundation upon which we can stand and grow.
Remember, the Liar is seeking to undermine our confidence in our Loving Lord. It is in His Word that we know and understand what it is we confess and believe.
Heb. 10:23 says, “Let’s hold firmly to the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful;”
Our God is faithful. That means He can be trusted. His Word can be trusted.
I love the words of the Hymn which declare that message.
We know who the Liar is. But more importantly, we know who our Redeemer is.
We should believe Him. Trust Him, and you will stand.
This is the unchanging Truth of God. And this Truth is a truth that Matters.
“The LORD God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may freely eat; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for on the day that you eat from it you will certainly die.”
And then in Gen. 3:4 it says, “The serpent said to the woman, “You certainly will not die!”
Rom. 5:19 says,
“For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous.”
Rom. 6:23 says,
“For the wages of sin is death, but the gracious gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
In 1 John 1:10 it says,
“If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.”
Speaking of false prophets the Bible says in Jer. 14:14,
“Then the LORD said to me, “The prophets are prophesying falsehood in My name. I have neither sent them nor commanded them, nor spoken to them; they are prophesying to you a false vision, divination, futility, and the deception of their own minds.”
Again in Ezekiel 13:6-7
“They see deceit and lying divination, those who are saying, ‘The LORD declares,’ when the LORD has not sent them; yet they wait for the fulfillment of their word! Did you not see a false vision and tell a lying divination when you said, ‘The LORD declares,’ but it is not I who have spoken?”
And in Galatians 1:8-9 it says,
“But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! As we have said before, even now I say again: if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed!”
And then in Hebrews 10:23 we read,
“Let’s hold firmly to the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful;”
Truth and the Lie, that’s what we’re continuing to look at. I looked up the definition for what it means to lie. The dictionary says, to lie is to make an untrue statements with the intent to deceive. You see, it’s one thing to say something or make false statements out of ignorance or misinformation. But to knowingly and intentionally state what is not true is a Lie. What is involved in willfully saying what is not true? And why does it matter?
***
This is the second episode of what I’d call an introduction to the new series in Truth Matters on Deception. As I stated last week, deception involves speaking or spreading lies. I also mentioned last week how it’s my firm conviction that lies or what I call the Lie has its origin in our enemy Satan. Jesus called him a Liar and the father of lies.
We also began looking at how and when his lying activity began here on earth among mankind. It happened in the Garden as he deceived both Adam and Eve with his lies. It was these lies that became the foundation for his continued activity to deceive mankind and his battle against the Lord God.
What I want to provide in this introduction is to lay out a groundwork for the entire series on Deception. What I hope that you will observe is that the endeavor of the enemy has a detectible pattern. In the weeks ahead as we delve into the various aspects of deception that have occurred and are now taking place, I want you to see that. I want you to see that it’s all related. The attack of the enemy in his war with God and against mankind has a repeating scheme. This pattern underlies the various expressions that he uses. And yet, the lies seem to always remain the same. His war is with God. The visible arena of that war for us is this world. And whether it’s from a lack of imagination or sheer ignorance or even the gullibility of mankind, the lies of Satan seem to be following a repeating pattern.
Now, last week we looked at the first aspect of his lying activity. The enemy began by questioning the fact that God had clearly spoken. His question also manipulated what it was that God had in fact said. He cunningly asked, “Did God say?” Adam and Eve knew exactly what God had told them and yet the enemy calls it into question. This form of questioning is something he continues to use and hen does it in order to create doubt and distrust in the Words of God. You see, the enemy desires to create distance between God and mankind. He does this by first questioning that God has spoken while at the same time twisting the words of God.
Today, I want us to look at the second approach that Satan uses. You see, once he’s created his initial doubt about God’s Word, he then challenges God’s Word by declaring an alternate to God’s Word. We see this in Gen. 3:4 where it says, “The serpent said to the woman, “You certainly will not die!”
Now here the enemy alters what God said. But actually, it’s more than simply altering. What the serpent does is to cunningly call God a liar. You see, he states an alternate reality. He states that things are not like God says they are.
In three short Hebrew words the Bible lays out the enemy emphatically states that God is not telling the truth. That’s what the enemy is saying. So, he provides an alternate truth. God told Adam and Eve that if they ate of the prohibited fruit, they would unequivocally DIE!
Satan then, then perhaps mockingly, says the exact opposite. If I could say it this way. Satan counters what God has said by saying, “NO! Die you will not die!” By stating it like that, Satan is saying that one of them is lying. And the forceful way that he says it leaves no doubt what he’s implying. Satan is offering an alternate, a replacement statement of how things are. But know this, HE IS LYING!
This lie, this attack, is first and foremost about God and what He says. As I stated before, God is the bottom line, the final absolute in all matters of truth and what truth is. Jesus when He came declared that He was in fact, “the Way, the Truth, and the Life…” The question is this, “Do you believe Him!” You see, any and every relationship with God is based on us believing Him, trusting what He says, faith in God. Heb. 11:6 states it very clearly “Without faith, it is impossible to please God.”
In the Garden and throughout the Bible, God declares and demonstrates that there is consequence to disregarding and disobeying what He says. The Bible calls it sin.
God stated it clearly to Adam and Eve, “for on the day that you eat from it you will certainly die.” The lie that the Satan used is the exact opposite of what God said. You see, the wording is God used is undeniably clear, exacting and emphatic, “Die, you will die!”
God made it very clear that disobedience carries the sentence of death. That sentence of becomes the basis for the drama of salvation.
Rom. 5:19 says, “For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous.” The Gospel itself is God’s response based to the reality of sin and its consequences. If the death sentence is not real, then Christ came for no reason.
But the death sentence is real. Rom. 6:23 says, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gracious gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Jesus came because what happened in the Garden was real. The death that occurred in man’s disobedience sent shock waves across creation and we’re still living with those consequences.
I say all of this so that you can see this aspect of the Lie clearly. The cunning serpent lies about God by implanting an alternate truth, which in fact is not true. He shapes it, he tweaks it, he culturizes it, he psycho-babbles it, but it remains the same lie. God states the Truth about the consequences of not hearing, of disregarding or disobeying His words.
And then comes the enemy and provides an alternative message that lies to us and basically calls God a liar. God declares the reality and the result of sin. And the enemy provides a substitute that says, “Nah, It’s not that way at all. It not even sinning.”
1 John 1:10 says, “If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him (God) a liar and His word is not in us.” To declare or believe the opposite of what God says about sin is to believe a lie. This lie is dangerous. It will literally put a person outside of the reach of the redemption that Jesus Christ came to provide. If we’re not sinners, we don’t need a Savior.
In the coming weeks we will look at specific expressions of this lie. We will see how it manifests itself through the deceptions of those who proclaim alternatives to what God has said. Persons who proclaim these alternatives are called false prophets.
The Bible says in Jer. 14:14
“Then the LORD said to me, “The prophets are prophesying falsehood in My name. I have neither sent them nor commanded them, nor spoken to them; they are prophesying to you a false vision, divination, futility, and the deception of their own minds.”
What the enemy began in the Garden, he continues to use. The enemy uses individuals who for vain and personal reasons put on a mantle of speaking in God’s behalf. They proclaim what God has not said. Alternate truth comes from individuals who are proclaiming false visions, experiences which are spiritual in nature but are demonic (divination), that are futile (empty), and that are products of self-deception. All of them are substitutes for what God has clearly said.
They are being lied to by the enemy and they repeat as if God had said it. God’s prophet makes it very clear in Ezek. 13:6,7
“They see deceit and lying divination, those who are saying, ‘The LORD declares,’ when the LORD has not sent them; yet they wait for the fulfillment of their word! Did you not see a false vision and tell a lying divination when you said, ‘The LORD declares,’ but it is not I who have spoken?”
The false prophets themselves are being deceived. They wait and anticipate in vain for the lies they declare to occur as if they were God’s truth. But they are not God’s Word and they will not come true. In the weeks ahead we will see that the false prophets are still among us. They are still substituting falsehood under the guise that they speak for God.
We live in a time where personal experiences seem to be leading people in the directing of their lives. But it is not anyone’s personal experience or that of false prophets that provide us the truth. Instead, it is God’s Word. We must beware of the lie when it comes in substituting anything which changes what God has clearly stated. Jesus cautioned us for instance, not to be misled by false Christs. He does this in Matt. 24:4ff.
The Apostle Paul warned us about believing anyone regardless of their self-proclaimed credentials if they proclaim a substitute gospel. Gal. 1:8-9 says,
“But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! As we have said before, even now I say again: if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed!”
The lying Liar will continue all the way to end to attempt to deceive by substituting an alternative to what God says. We must never let our guard down. The deceiver is a present danger and his lying does not stop. He is still substituting alternatives to what God has said.
The Truth found in God’s Word alone remains the best defense against deception and the deceiver.
God’s Word provides us stability in a world shifting and being tossed about by all the lies manufactured by the enemy.
We must be in God’s Word and know what He has says. Where the enemy wishes to sow doubt and dismay, God’s Word provides a firm foundation upon which we can stand and grow.
Remember, the Liar is seeking to undermine our confidence in our Loving Lord. It is in His Word that we know and understand what it is we confess and believe.
Heb. 10:23 says, “Let’s hold firmly to the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful;”
Our God is faithful. That means He can be trusted. His Word can be trusted.
I love the words of the Hymn which declare that message.
How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent word!
What more can He say than to you He hath said-
To you who for refuge to Jesus have fled?
The soul that on Jesus doth lean for repose,
I will not, I will not, desert to his foes;
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I'll never, no never, no never forsake.
We know who the Liar is. But more importantly, we know who our Redeemer is.
We should believe Him. Trust Him, and you will stand.
This is the unchanging Truth of God. And this Truth is a truth that Matters.
Posted in Truth Matters - with Emilio Lartigue
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