One of the most humiliating, frustrating and distressing experiences a person could have in this world is to realize that they have been deceived – scammed – the victim of a con game or a swindle, wherein they are fraudulently persuaded to give up something of value to obtain something of greater value, or to prevent something undesirable from taking place, and after doing so learn they have been misled.
One local TV news program regularly issues “scam alerts”, wherein they describe the scam, interview victims of the scam, and then provide advice on how to avoid that particular scam. What is typically behind the success of the scam is the victim’s ignorance of the motives of the one deceiving them, and the level of pride and greed or fear and anxiety that the deceiver is able to elicit in their victim. Admittedly, some scams do prey on people’s compassion or sense of duty to their fellow man, but these do not appear to be the norm.
Whatever the motivation behind believing the lies put forth in a scam or con, the outcome is always significant loss for the one who believes and acts on the lies.
This is nowhere more true than what the Bible presents as the outcome of mankind’s universal belief in the lies, the deceptions of the one referred to as the devil or Satan, who we are told in Revelation 12:9 “deceives the whole world”. The devil is described by Jesus in John 8:44 as a liar and the originator of all lies. In this same passage, Jesus calls the devil our father as in our believing and acting on his lies, we have assumed his nature and character (Jeremiah 17:9) (Psalm 116:11).
Our willful rejection of the truth of the infinite glory of God and His wonderous purpose in creating us (Isaiah 43:7) has resulted in all mankind being judged guilty of sin (Romans 3:23); sin consisting of our rejection of God’s purpose for and rule over our lives, and our suppressing the truth of God’s glory, of the infinite perfections of His being, through our sinful and unrighteous lifestyles. This has resulted in our coming under His wrath and judgement (Romans 1:18-21), wherein we have lost, been cut off from, the glorious life with God for which we were created (Ezekiel 18:4).
Satan, a fallen angel, is the cosmic con man, and we are his mark. Being motivated by the twin evils of pride and envy (Isaiah 14:13-14), as well as a wrathful hatred of both God and mankind (Revelation 12:12), the devil was/is able to evoke in man the same pride and envy that motivated his rebellion against God.
We first encounter the devil in the Garden of Eden, described as a serpent in Genesis 3:1-2, wherein he is strategically used by God to test mankind, represented by Adam and Eve, as to our willing allegiance to God who created us for His glory; that we would experience our greatest joy and pleasure and satisfaction in knowing and loving and being loved by Him. Man’s trust in God’s love and willing obedience to His wise and gracious authority would be tested by their willingness to obey His one command to not eat from the fruit of one tree, one tree out of the hundreds if not thousands of fruit trees and myriads of other pleasures found in the garden paradise God created for them to freely enjoy (1 Timothy 6:17) (James 1:17). Here the devil uses lies, innuendo and deceit to create in their minds distrust regarding God’s love for them and doubt regarding His commitment and capacity to make them exceedingly and abundantly happy in Himself. The devil evokes in them dissatisfaction with what God has given them, which is everything but the fruit of this one stupid tree in the garden called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:10-17).
Through these lies and dispersions against God’s character and purpose, Satan presents God as a stingy God, a withholding and overly restrictive God, a God who is not to be trusted with their needs and desires. He goes on to convince them that their greatest joy, pleasure and satisfaction is to be found not in the Creator, but in the creation, represented by the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and what he falsely alleges it offers them, which is the freedom and ability to pursue their joy, their pleasure, their satisfaction on their own terms and in their own way, accountable to no one, just like God. And as such, God’s threat of death was nothing more than a hollow attempt to keep them under His control and servitude (Genesis 3:4-5).
Now Adam and Eve’s response to these lies should have been a no brainer. Everything around them in the glorious creation – everything about them that imaged the beauty and perfection of God would have cried out “God loves you Adam, God delights in you Eve, and He is fully able to make you exceedingly and abundantly happy in Himself and in all that He has given you, as well as in all that He will give you throughout eternity– joys and pleasures and delights that have yet to enter your young minds”.
Yet filled with pride and envy like their tempter, they would not hear the joyful cry of God’s good and glorious creation (Genesis 1:31) (Psalm 19:1-6), and thus, believing the devil’s con, partake of the forbidden fruit (Genesis 3:6). And the consequence God promised, death, their being cut off from the glorious life with Him for which they were created, is swiftly executed (Genesis 3:7-24). Immediately, the destructive power of sin begins to impact their bodies and souls so that the glorious image of God in them is marred and corrupted. Their now mortal bodies will at some point return to the dust from which it was created. They are cast from the glorious presence of God into a world that is now cursed by God, a world in which they, and all who will proceed from them, will now be manipulated and ruled by the devil whose word they believed over God’s. As the now god of this world (2 Corinthians 4:4), the devil and his demons would now have influence over every aspect of life in this world including government, education, entertainment and even religion (1 John 5:19), through which he will continue to promote man’s selfishness and willful disobedience to God (Ephesians 2:1-3), to keep us in our sin and thus separated from God (Isaiah 59:1-2).
In this fallen, condemned world, in which we are now cut off from the glorious life with God for which we were created, the devil is able to exploit and manipulate our neediness, the very real sense of insignificance, emptiness, loneliness, privation and boredom we experience in what the Bible refers to as this present evil world (Galatians 1:4). To keep us from the knowledge of the truth of the glory of God, and our desperate need for Him, the devil offers us counterfeit joys, deceitful riches, (Mark 4:19) muted and dangerous pleasures, exploitive relationships, fleeting fame, illusions of power and control, and even distorted versions of love for the satisfaction of our God given needs. Our pursuit of these needs independent of and in opposition to God results in loss, the greatest of all losses, namely the loss of our soul’s communion with God and the glorious life with God for which we were created (Mark 8:36).
That is Satan’s ultimate goal. He and his demons work night and day to keep our time, attention and affections focused on this world and the things of this world (1 John 2:15), so that we never come to know that we have been scammed regarding the truth of the glory of God and the glorious life with Him for which we were created and thus give our hearts to the pursuit of knowing, loving and being loved by God, rather than being satisfied with Satan’s cheap imitations. Satan’s schemes and lies are purposed to establish us in our self-centered rebellion against or indifference to God while in this world, and thus ultimately join him and his demons in their eternal confinement in Hell in the world to come (Matthew 25:41).
In my next post I will look at how the devil executes these “schemes” or “devices” (2 Corinthians 2:11) in achieving his malevolent purposes in this world, and begin to look at how, through Jesus Christ, we escape them (2 Timothy 2:26).
Grace and Peace ×