This week we study Lie #3 of “The Gospel According to Satan” by Jared C. Wilson which is You must live your truth. In our last post, we ended the discussion with the truth bomb that “Your truth is relative. The truth is not.” (Jared C. Wilson) But what is The Truth?
Jared Wilson reminds us that God’s truth is always true (Numbers 23:19) and we are not permitted to alter, remove or add to his truth. No matter how much you dislike the truth in his Word, it remains true. This is the reason some people regard the Bible as a difficult book: not because the words are hard to understand but because we do not always like what the words say. Our hard hearts and inverted minds find God’s instruction in his word difficult to obey.
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
James 1:17-18
Our relationship with God’s word is a reflection of our relationship with God himself. Humans are fickle but God is constant. If we feel the temptation to fiddle with his truth we declare that our own feelings and appetites are of more value than God’s unchangeable standards. If we truly trust God we will trust in the truth wrapped up in his word and we will trust that what is true is ultimately best for us, even if we cannot understand it.
If God is as good as He says He is, then every single command is good for you even if it doesn’t feel good for you.
Jackie Hill Perry
We often try to knit pick the Old vs New Testament to prove that not all God’s instructions are still true for us today. With arguments such as these, we conveniently ignore all the parallels in the New Testament where the ritual laws are abolished and the moral laws confirmed. Such debates arise when we don’t dispute what God said but we don’t like that he said it to us. Examples of such issues include sexual sin where what was sinful in the old covenant was still sinful all the way through scriptures to the epistles written by Apostle Paul. When we look for loopholes like these we fall into Satan’s trap of disobedience.
Scientists and Bible scholars have been able to prove the number of cross-references in the Bible. I found it very interesting and share it with you for your own amazement.
Photograph: Christoph Römhild and Chris Harrison.
Source: The Guardian
Photograph: OpenBible.info
Source: The Guardian
Did God really say?
Why does it matter what God said and what he didn’t? Jared Wilson draws a very clear comparison between the devil’s temptation of Eve in the garden (Genesis 3:2-3) and his temptation of Jesus in the desert (Matthew 4:3-10). Eve did not even attempt to come up with an argument against Satan’s claims of what God said. She was eager to believe the lies. Jesus, however, had truth out of scripture at hand with every lie the devil presented to him. When we know the word of God and understand his character through studying his word, we can counter the attack of the evil one with all his schemes and not fall into temptation.
Furthermore, when God’s true word comes alive to us through the help of the Holy Spirit we get to know God’s character and can spot false prophets and sermons from a distance. Prince Charlie used to be a teller in the bank many moons ago. He uses the example of being able to spot a fraudulent banknote. If you know all the characteristics of the real thing because you see it all the time and touch it consistently, you can spot the fake one very quickly. The same is true for the word of God – if we spend time in his truth and get to know him through his word we will be able to spot the prosperity prophets and false teachings easily because we have the weapon of truth written in our hearts.
Let’s get to know the truth through God’s word.
Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to any of the books studied by Nettie’s Book Club. I am not profiting from the sale of these books. I will carefully select books that have had a significant impact on my faith. My goal is simply to share the wisdom in these books with others so we can assess and apply the wisdom of these authors to grow in understanding of our faith together.