Four Lies That Ruined The World

I. INTRODUCTION

A. Satan’s whole system is built on a lie.

B. John 8:44

1. Every lie that has ever been told has been spawned by the father of all lies, the devil himself.

2. His motive is murder; his method is the lie.

a) Satan wants to bring death to life, joy, peace, happiness and fruitfulness.

b) Satan wants to bring physical death, spiritual death and eternal death.

(1) He does this through deception.

C. Genesis 3:1

1. Satan is “subtle.”

a) His lies are not obvious lies on the surface.

b) The “best” lies sound most like the truth.

(1) There is some truth in most lies.

2. Satan’s lies are very close to the truth, and yet so very far from the truth.

D. Satan, wanting to do his work which is murder through a lie, will tell a lie about the biggest subject.

1. The biggest subject is God.

2. Satan wants to twist our thinking about who God is, what He does and what He’s like.

3. A.W. Tozer said, “No religion can rise higher than its concept of God.”

E. In the book of Genesis, Satan tells four big lies.

1. All of these lies deal with the character of God.

a) Satan does not want us to understand who God is.

2. Satan is himself an evangelist.

a) He wants converts to his own ideas.

3. Satan comes as an evangelist to Eve to evangelize her for the devil’s religion.

a) There are four lies that he wants Eve to believe.

II. LIE NUMBER ONE: GOD IS NOT GOOD (Genesis 3:1)

Gen 3:1-2

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.

He said to the woman, "Did God actually say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden'?"

ESV

A. The devil is trying to get Eve to think negatively about God.

1. He wants Eve to think that God is withholding goodness from her and that God is not good.

a) Satan wants us to think that God is severe and cruel.

B. The devil told Eve that God had said she could not eat of every tree in the garden.

1. That was a lie.

2. Genesis 2:16

a) Genesis 3:1

C. Satan wanted to deny Eve, and he wants to deny us, any ultimate joy.

1. God had actually said “yes” to their joy and to their pleasure.

2. There are many today who think that God is cruel and vengeful and that He is trying to keep things from us.

a) This is not true.

b) God loves us.

(1) Psalm 84:11

11 For the Lord God is a sun and shield;

the Lord bestows favor and honor.

No good thing does he withhold

from those who walk uprightly.

1) 1 Timothy 6:17

17 As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy.

D. If the devil can get you to thinking negatively about God, he’s already got you.

E. God is good all the time.

III. LIE NUMBER TWO: GOD IS NOT TRUTHFUL (Genesis 3:1-4)

Gen 3:1-4

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.

He said to the woman, "Did God actually say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden'?" 2 And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3 but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'" 4 But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die.

A. Genesis 3:1

1. Satan planted a doubt.

2. The doubt leads to denial.

B. Genesis 3:2-4

1. Verse four shows the denial.

C. The first step was to get Eve to think negatively about God; the next step was easy, which was to get Eve to think skeptically about God.

D. What Satan did in Genesis 3:1 was to put a question mark after the word of God.

1. Anyone who causes skepticism concerning the authority, accuracy, infallibility and authenticity of God’s Word is doing the work of the devil.

2. The devil is out to destroy the truthfulness of God.

E. We have, in today’s society, substituted many things for God’s Word, and all of them are based on the devil’s lies.

1. Relativism

a) Relativism is the idea that there is no fixed truth.

b) Everything is relative.

c) There is no anchor, no standard.

2. Subjectivism

a) Based on feelings and experiences.

b) Instead of saying, “The Bible says,” we say, “It seems to me.”

3. Rationalism

a) Logic.

b) We worship the shrine of our intellect.

c) Rather than saying, “Thus saith the Word of God,” we say, “Thus saith the mind of man.”

d) We try to put God on our scales, in our test tube, and in our computers, but God will not fit there.

e) We should be reasonable; but where reason cannot wade, faith must swim.

(1) What we believe is not contrary to reason; it is beyond reason.

(2) God is not unreasonable, but we cannot by reason find out God.

F. We need to live our lives and raise our families on the inerrant, inspired and infallible Word of God.

1. We teach our children not to sin, not because sin is bad, but because God says so.

G. The devil does not want a society to have a fixed standard of truth.

IV. LIE NUMBER THREE: GOD IS NOT RIGHTEOUS (Genesis 3:4)

Gen 3:3

4 But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die.

A. The serpent claimed to Eve, “Ye shall not surely die.”

1. That is to say that God is not really going to punish sin.

a) That God is not a God of judgment, and we do not have to worry about facing a judgment.

B. God is good and loving, and He is also righteous.

1. If we preach the love of God to the exclusion of the holiness and righteousness of God, then we have only preached half of the truth.

2. When we try to make half of the truth all of the truth, then that half of the truth becomes an untruth.

C. Satan is moving Eve along in her thinking.

1. Since you don’t believe that God is good and loving, and since you don’t believe that God is truthful or that the Bible (God’s Word) is truth, then you don’t have to worry about judgment.

D. When God gave the Ten Commandments, He was giving law.

1. Law without penalty is only advice.

2. There is an eternal Hell.

a) To die without Jesus Christ is to spend an eternity in Hell.

b) God will not let sin go unpunished.

3. New Ageism comes from the idea that we will not surely die.

a) Satan knows that we fear death.

E. The devil wants us to believe that we can sin with impunity.

V. LIE NUMBER FOUR: GOD IS NOT GRACIOUS (Genesis 3:4-5)

Gen 3:4-5

4 But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

A. In this passage, the devil is saying in effect that God is not good, truthful or righteous, and that we need not fear Him; that we need to be our own god.

1. He is saying that we need to work our way up until we are as God.

2. He is saying that we need to be liberated and need not depend upon God.

B. But it is God who came to set us all free.

1. It is only God’s grace that can truly set us free.

C. Genesis 3:5

1. Satan wanted to be “as” God.

2. The Bible teaches that we’re to be “like” God, not “as” God.

3. Satan tells us that we need to be our own god and have our own way.

a) God’s grace wants us to be like Him.

(1) God created us in His image so that He could have fellowship with us.

(2) Revelation 22:4

(a) “His name shall be in their foreheads” refers to God-likeness.

D. Satan’s temptation to Eve to be as God is the basis for New Ageism.

1. New Ageism teaches that we are God and that everything is God.

2. They say that love is God.

a) In truth, God is love, but love is not God.

b) In truth, God is over all things and is in all things, but God is not all things and all things are not God.

3. New Ageism and humanism do not elevate man, but they animalize man.

a) New Ageism and humanism are based on these four big lies of Satan.

E. In reality, God wants us to be “like” Him and to enjoy eternal fellowship with Him.

VI. CONCLUSION

A. There are two books in the Bible that the devil hates:

1. Genesis

a) In Genesis, the devil’s doom is pronounced.

2. Revelation

a) In Revelation, the devil’s doom is carried out.

B. Revelation 12:9

9 And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world— he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.

C. God is good, God is loving, God is truthful, God is righteous, God is gracious, and He has a

D. Do you know Jesus personally? If not, you can pray to Him today by asking Him to come into your life.