THE SCARY LIE
By Steve Bietz
Burke County
Are you expecting the devil to tell you the truth? That is a scary thought as we begin this New Year. Are you expecting truth from the devil? I would hope we know better. I believe that Adam and Eve were warned about temptation. I am certain that God and His angels explained to the newly created couple about the fallen angel and those angels that fell from Heaven with him. God told Adam and Eve that they should stay clear from one tree. Just one. Moses, in the Genesis account, indeed includes that the first two human beings had been given all the information they needed to know that the smartest way to live was to not eat from the forbidden tree.
“Psst…up here.” For the first time their eyes met, the first woman and the first serpent and in a ploy as old as Eden, he the devil in disguise, snared the soul of Eve in a conversation, and she was lost. She took the bait, jumped to the defense of her Creator, and got blindsided with the deception, disobeyed God, ate the fruit, persuaded her husband, and together they brought down an entire race.
You tell me, what is a heartbroken Creator to do? What every parent with a runaway child instinctively does; race out into the night to find him or her. In Genesis 3:9 we read that in the cool of the evening the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, where are you? And in the trembling the response of Adam and Eve, hiding among the trees and bushes, “we were scared” – we hear that tragic refrain of the serpent’s earliest lie: God is somebody to be afraid of.
At Buddhist Temples, Shinto Shrines, Hindu Courtyards, Muslim Mosques, Jewish Synagogues, and Christian Churches, the site does not seem to matter. The lie is always the same. God is somebody to be afraid of. He is a scary Deity. That my friends is the scariest lie ever believed. So by the millions, the faithful of earth perform their rituals, read their holy books, plead their prayers, and all with the hope of appeasing an angry, fearful God. Why? Because the enemy of good, blinded the minds of men so that they looked upon God with fear. They thought of Him as severe and unforgiving, as a being whose chief attribute is stern justice. That God is watching with a jealous eye to discern the errors and mistakes of men, that He may visit judgments upon them. Is there then no hope for us either? It was to remove this dark shadow, by revealing to the world the infinite love of God, that Jesus came to live among men. Do you want to know the Good News about the great lie that the devil tells us? We don’t have to believe it. Someone named Jesus came to tell us the truth about our God. Jesus let it be known, that if you have seen me, Jesus, then you have seen the Father.
I pray that we don’t expect the devil to tell us the truth. The scary lie is not scary at all when we know Jesus and the truth. I’ve read somewhere, I got a hunch so have you, that the truth shall set you free.
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Steve Bietz is the pastor at Morganton Seventh Day Adventist Church. You can read more good Christian news from Pastor Steve Bietz HERE.
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