The Oldest Lie in the World
You know the story. It starts with perfection in a garden - beauty, intimacy, peace, purpose, protection - and ends with brokenness, banishment, blame, and shame. How did the serpent appeal to Eve to entice her to disobey God, the source of everything good? He said, "Did God really say, ' You must not eat from any tree in the garden?'....You will not certainly die. For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."1
In other words, "Think for yourself. You can determine for yourself what is wise, just, and right. You don't need God to tell you what is good and what is evil. He isn't trustworthy anyway. Besides, did God really say what you think he said? That's crazy!"
Friends, this is not a new message. It is, in fact, the oldest lie in the world. From the very beginning, the enemy of our souls has been seeking to lead us astray through lies that tempt us to doubt God and His word, to live independently of God, to determine our own moral values, and to trust in our own judgment above that which God has revealed to us.
Today this lie comes in a variety of forms. It comes in the form of the health-and-wealth gospel that says God wants us to be financially wealthy, physically healthy, and vocationally successful above all else. It shows up in the form of "Progressive Christianity" that says the Scriptures aren't really trustworthy in all that they teach, people aren't really born with a sinful nature, hell doesn't really exist, and, in fact, Jesus didn't even really rise from the dead.
The lie takes the form of Oprah Winfrey and The Secret, arguably the largest cult in America, which appeals to our inherent self-centeredness when it tells us we can control our own destiny, for we are actually god and god is one with us. The lie appears in Mormonism, as we're told that Jesus was once a creature like us and we can become a god like him. Of course the lie shows up in atheism, which rejects God in any form, allowing us to live our lives however we please. And the lie is alive and well when the orthodox Christian says, "I just don't know if I can trust God with this."
These beliefs certainly have their differences, but they are all variations on the same theme: trust yourself, take care of yourself, for the Lord and His word are not trustworthy.
The true and narrow path is vastly different. It starts with surrender to God, followed by a lifetime of choosing to relinquish any natural desires, pleasures, and preferences that do not align with God's revealed will. We exchange our kingdom and our glory in order to serve in God's kingdom for God's glory. We choose to trust God even when everything in our selfish, arrogant mind says, "NO! I don't want to!" This path often takes us through the valley of the shadow of death, but ultimately it leads to the fulfillment of all our deepest longings, to all that is good and great and godly.
We can always find reasons to doubt God and His revelation to us in the Bible. We can convince ourselves that we know better than the men through whom God chose to reveal Himself, that nothing which passes through the hands of men can be reliable even if directed by God Himself, or that our own feelings and sensibilities are the true and trustworthy standard by which all else ought to be evaluated. We can hastily agree with those who claim there are no answers to the difficulties presented in the Bible, that what appears to be historical and didactic writing is actually metaphorical, or that what is written is so far-removed from our current context as to hold little relevance for our lives today. We can pull words and sentences out of their context to show how absurd the Bible appears to be, and we can take advantage of people's ignorance of basic, long-established hermeneutical principles for reading the text in order to justify our own immoral lifestyles. We can even claim that up is down and evil is good and truth is entirely relative, and we'll have plenty of applause in our culture today.
But let's remember this: when we are tempted to elevate our own opinions and feelings above those of God's specific revelation to humanity, may we never do so with the illusion that we are doing something new or insightful. For we are actually succumbing to the oldest lie in the world.
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[1] Genesis 3:1-7
