Question: How do you know a politician is lying? Answer: Their lips are moving. This is meant to be a “joke”, but as we have seen over the past several elections in this country, there is more truth to this than we would like to believe.
Mankind, according to the Bible, is by nature, at the very core of our being, a liar, both in our self- deception and our deception of others (Jeremiah 17:9) (Psalm 58:3). We lie to obtain power, position, pleasure and possessions. We lie to gain esteem in the eyes of others, to discredit and manipulate others to our advantage, to avoid the penalty for our wrongdoing or to manipulate our circumstances. We lie to ourselves, esteeming ourselves more highly than we should to minimize or escape the guilt and shame we feel in the inadequacy of our fallen, sinful condition, in which we are alienated from the God who is the ultimate source of our dignity and esteem (1 John 1:8) (Romans 12:3) (Psalm 8:4-5) (Ecclesiastes 7:29).
However, the most destructive of our lies as individuals and as a society, the lie that is ultimately behind all other lies, is the prideful self-assertion that we have the innate wisdom and ability to achieve human flourishing and our own personal and private happiness independent of God and in opposition to God, and that we can do so with impunity (Ecclesiastes 8:11). This is essentially the lie that the serpent/devil persuaded Adam and Eve to believe in the Garden of Eden, the lie which all of mankind in our believing, perpetrating and acting upon have made ourselves the object of God’s hatred, wrath and judgment Genesis 3:1-3) (Proverbs 6:16-19) (Romans 1:18-25). This judgement will have its final expression in Hell, or what is referred to in Revelation 21:8 as “the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”
Now no one likes to be called a liar. In fact, we become quite indignant, even enraged when someone implies or outwardly accuses us of being so. However, according to Jesus, that is our very nature and character as fallen, sinful human beings, who have rejected God’s purpose for and rule over our lives, as did the devil (Romans 3:23) (Isaiah 14:13-14).
In John 8:44, Jesus describes the devil as a liar and the originator of all lies. In this verse Jesus refers to the devil as our spiritual father, as by our believing and acting on his lies, we have assumed his prideful, deceptive nature and character, deceiving and being deceived (2 Timothy 3:13) (1 John 3:10).
In addition, the Apostle Paul reveals in Romans 1:18-24, that in the eyes of God, we are a race of truth suppressors, who have exchanged the truth of the infinitely glorious God and His worthiness to be known, trusted, obeyed and worshipped as the object of our deepest love and source of our eternal joy, for the Lie, which is essentially that our greatest joy, our greatest pleasure, our greatest satisfaction is to be found in the creation, rather than in intimate relationship with the creator. We have thus deceived ourselves into believing that we have the freedom to do that which is right in our own eyes, and have it turn out well, despite the fact that throughout human history this has not proven to be true (Proverbs 21:2) (Proverbs 14:12) (Hebrews 3:12-13).
Satan is essentially a cosmic con man. He is the ultimate social influencer, presiding over a fallen, sin cursed world that offers us everything we think we want, yet nothing we will ever truly need to satisfy the deepest needs and desires of our heart and fulfill the most noble longings of our soul, which only God can do (Revelation 12:9) (Psalm 37:4) (Philippians 4:19) (Romans 8:31-32).
The freedom, joy and fulfillment that Satan promises in our rebellion against God is temporary at best, a deceitful delusion that has been and continues to be perpetuated through the governmental, educational and false religious institutions of this world, as well as the media and entertainment networks, which together are imaged/symbolized in the “Beast” in Revelation 13:1. All of these institutions are under the dragon/devil’s influence, wherein he and his hordes of fallen angels (demons) work around the clock to convince us that if we conform to this fallen world’s fashions, passions and values; if we agree with what the majority have determined is right and wrong – good and evil, we will find our greatest joy, our greatest pleasure and satisfaction, our true significance as human beings, apart from knowing, loving and being loved by God, and submitting to His will (Genesis 3:5-6) (Romans 12:1-2).
With mankind being alienated, cut off from the glorious life with God for which we were created (Ephesians 4:18), 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 seeking the knowledge of the truth of the glory of God, and our desperate need for Him (Romans 3:11), the devil offers us counterfeit joys, deceitful riches, 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 (1 Timothy 6:17) (Isaiah 55:2) (Ecclesiastes 2:1-11). Our pursuit of the fulfilment of these needs independent of and in opposition to God results in 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) (Isaiah 59:2).
And that is the devil’s end game in all of his lies, to discourage us from seeking and knowing the one true God (Romans 3:11), to join him in his rebellion against God and ultimately join him and his demon cohorts in their eternal abode which is referred to in Revelation 20:7-11, as the “lake of fire”. Jesus refers to this place in Matthew 25:41, as the everlasting fire, to emphasize the horrific and unending torment of living, if you can call it that, as objects of God’s divine wrath and indignation, cut off forever from the glorious life with God for which we were created (Revelation 14:9-11). In Matthew 10:28, Jesus refers to this place quite simply as “Hell”.
Our only hope of rescue from this horrific, but justly deserved destiny is found in the person and work of Jesus Christ. who we are told came into the world to destroy the works of the devil; restoring the sin cursed creation and believing men and women back to the glorious life with God for which we were created in the beginning (1 John 3:8) (1 Timothy 1:15) (Revelation 22:3).
God willing, I will begin to look at how Jesus performs this rescue mission, and how we become beneficiaries of His success in this mission in upcoming posts. However, in my next post, I would like to take a closer look at this horrific place that Jesus graciously saves/rescues us from.
Grace and Peace ×