Deconstructing the Lie
Most of us are very familiar with the account of the Fall of Man where Eve was deceived by the serpent into eating forbidden fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. It is tempting to judge her harshly for so easily believing the words of the serpent, but he was cunning in appealing to human senses and reasoning to present a convincing story. His lie in Genesis 3:4, “You will not certainly die,” played to Eve’s very limited knowledge and perspective. God had not given Adam and Eve detail they couldn’t understand, so the opportunistic serpent effectively twisted God’s words and painted the Almighty as the liar. True liars know from personal experience how to effectively accuse others of lying, while maintaining the look of innocence.
In arrogance and stubbornness, mankind rejected the Creator God in favor of creating his own gods. God’s command to Adam to have dominion over all He had made was upstaged by man’s desire to subjugate the world, specifically prescribed in the Quaran of Islam. The Hindus introduced reincarnation as the replacement of God’s plan for eternal life. Supernatural peace from receiving Jesus as Lord and Savior (Philippians 4:6-7) was substituted with Nirvana (inner peace) achieved through Buddhist meditation to become nothing. These examples are the tip of the iceberg. Each religion promotes its “truth” as absolute and gives convincing evidences. To Satan, it doesn’t matter what religion is practiced, as long as it diminishes God-Almighty and portrays Him as either non-existent, or an impotent, uncaring liar.
The damage done casting God as untrustworthy persists in the church today. Although the church honors God as Supreme alone, our trust level is dismal and can be seen by our lack of prayer and/or what we pray. We almost always make decisions without consulting the One Who knows the future. At the most, we compartmentalize what we allow of His influence and direction. We do not consider that our omnipresent God is with us in the smallest detail of our days and cares so much that He at times intervenes unsolicited for our protection. We dismiss the importance of scripture as God’s love-letter for a tangible, intimate relationship with Him that guides us into the best life possible. We continue to fall for the oldest deception that the God of Truth will not show us truth in current affairs, therefore we must use the media’s biased accounts and our own reasoning to determine right from wrong. As a result, we repeat the mistake for which Isaiah and Jesus called out the Jews. “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” (Matthew 15:8, Isaiah 29:13)
Regardless of the pervasiveness of lies in these end times, we can be consoled by the fact that God wants us to know truth and will not only speak it to us, but give us understanding in it. The parables Jesus shared about the Kingdom of God were designed to bring revelation to the sincere believer, but keep the posers and unbelievers in the dark. Jesus told His disciples, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables 12 so that, ‘they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!’” (Mark 4:11-12)
God Himself deconstructed the serpent’s lie with profound truth that Jesus shared in His parables describing the Kingdom of God. The very tiny mustard seed grows to be a tree-sized plant, and a very small amount of yeast is able to work through a large batch of dough (Matthew 13:31-33). In other words, the Kingdom of God not only prevails over evil and violence, but God has appointed Truth to overtake all lies. He is faithful. Wait for it. “Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, which cannot be shaken but endures forever.” (Psalm 125:1)