Overcoming Satanic Deception

known for his unique ability to simplify profound truth so that it can be applied to everyday life, Adrian Rogers was one of the most effective preachers, respected Bible teachers, and Christian leaders of our time. Thanks for joining us for this message.

Here's Adrian Rogers. Turn in the book of Genesis. That ought to be easy to find. The third chapter, when you find Genesis, the third chapter, I want you to look up here. The Bible calls Satan the great deceiver, the biggest liar in this city, your city, and cities around the world is Satan himself. And Jesus Christ told us about the nature of Satan in John chapter 8 and verse 44. Now, you keep your Bibles open to Genesis chapter 3, but let me just set the stage with John chapter 8 and verse 44. Jesus, speaking to the liars of his day said, you are of your father, the devil and the lusts, that is the desires of your father, ye will do. That is like father, like son. And then Jesus described Satan.

And I want you to listen to him. Jesus said of Satan, he was a murderer from the beginning and abode not in the truth because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own for he is a liar and the father of it. Now, in that incredible verse in John chapter 8 and verse 44, Jesus Christ told us two things about Satan.

Well, other things, but two primarily. First of all, he said he is a murderer and then he said he is a liar. His motive is murder.

His method is lying. Now, learn that about your enemy, the devil. Satan is a murderer. He wants to bring death to purity, love, you, joy, happiness. He wants to bring physical death, spiritual death, eternal death. He is a murderer, but what is his chief tool for murder?

How does Satan destroy? He destroys by deceiving. Now, he is, Jesus said, the father of all lies. That is, he is the master liar and I want to say also that he is, because he is the master liar, he's very clever. The Bible speaks of the wiles of the devil. Now, the cleverest lies sound the most like the truth and all lies have some truth in them, all good lies.

A clock that won't even run is right twice a day, isn't it? All lies have some truth in them. You see, the devil is very, very subtle. Paul said in 2 Corinthians chapter 11 and verse 3, and I fear less by any means as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety. So, your mind should be corrupted from the simplicity that's in Christ. The devil beguiled Eve with his subtlety. His lies are so very subtle.

They sound so much like the truth. Question, what is more dangerous, a clock five minutes wrong or a clock five hours wrong? Carelessly, you may say, well, a clock five hours wrong is more dangerous than a clock five minutes wrong, but wait a minute. When you look at a clock that's five hours wrong, you say that's wrong.

Everybody tell me what time it is. But a clock five minutes wrong can cause you to miss your airplane. You see, dear friend, the lie that is closest to the truth is much more dangerous. And so, the devil, when he wants to destroy you, he begins by deceiving you because he works first on your mind and then he works on the rest of you. Because you see, the thought is the father of the deed. The devil had rather get you to believe a wrong thing than to do a wrong thing.

Because if he's got you believing the wrong thing, it follows as night follows day, you'll be doing the wrong thing as well as believing the wrong thing. The thought is the father of the deed. You sow a thought, you reap a deed, you sow a deed, you reap a habit, you sow a habit, you reap a character.

It all begins with the thought life. Now, follow me. Satan is a liar. He lies in order to get his work done because he's a murderer. He is a master liar. He is a clever liar. His lies sound the most like the truth. He wants to lie to you because he wants to change your thought processes in order to deceive you and destroy you. Now, he is not only the father of lies, he's not only the cleverest liar, but he lies about the biggest subject.

What is the biggest subject? God. God. Satan, being the deceiver he is, wants to deceive you primarily about God. Now, if Satan can get your thinking wrong about God, if he can put lies in your heart, deceptions in your heart and your mind about God beyond the shadow of any doubt of peradventure, he has you in everything else.

If he can distort your idea of God, Satan has distorted the idea of God in three basic ways. Now, we find this right in the threshold of human history, all the way back in the Garden of Eden. So, Satan is often deceptive. Satan is often duplicitous, but his methods are as old as Eden.

Look, if you will, in Genesis chapter three, verse one. Now, the serpent, that refers to Satan, now the serpent was more subtle, that is more crafty, more wily than any beast of the fear which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, yea, hath God said ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? Now, just underscore that phrase, every tree of the garden. And the woman said unto the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, that is in the middle of the garden. God hath said, ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, ye shall not surely die, underscore that. For God doth know that in the day that ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods. Oh, dear friend, that's new ageism, right?

The new age is not new, underscore it. Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And I'm going to stop there for just a moment, and we're going to go look at these three lies from the master liar concerning the very nature and the character of God. There are three ways that Satan wants you to think about God.

And if he can get you to think about God in these three ways, he has you. First of all, Satan wants you to think severely about God. Now, Satan does not primarily deny the existence of God or the fact of God, that's too self-evident. Satan is too clever for that.

Satan admits that God is there. But what he wants to do is to get you to think of God as being cruel and harsh and severe. What Satan wants to do is when you think of God, he wants your minds to be filled with negative thoughts. He doesn't want you to think positively about God. He wants you to think negatively about God. He doesn't want you to think kindly about God. He wants you to think severely about God.

You say, pastor, how do you know that? All right, look in verse one, Genesis chapter three, verse one. Now, the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made, and he said unto the woman, Yea, hath not God said ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

Well, of course, that was a lie. God had not said ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden. There was only one tree that they were forbidden to eat of. Isn't that right?

Just one. That was the tree in the midst of the garden. But now Satan says, God said, don't eat of anything. Now, what was Satan doing? Satan was trying to get Eve to think negatively about God. Severely about God, to think of God as some kind of a cosmic killjoy, that God is so straight laced, God is so severe, God is so cruel, that he has forbidden his creatures any legitimate joy and any legitimate pleasure. And there are many people, when they think of salvation, they think of belonging to the Lord as like taking bad medicine in order to get well. The idea of serving God to them is painful. The idea of being a Christian is negative. It's something you endure, they think, in order somehow to please God, but that everything that God has made is either illegal and moral or fattening, that God is just one great big cosmic killjoy. Well, that's not the idea of God. My dear friend, you better get that negative idea of God out of your heart and out of your mind. God is not some sort of a severe, cruel, vengeful deity sitting up on a throne somewhere hurling down thunderbolts of wrath, up there thinking up laws to make you squirm like a worm in hot ashes, trying to keep his laws.

If Satan can get you to thinking negatively about God, he already has you. Can you imagine the glories of the Garden of Eden? Can you imagine how beautiful Eden must have been? And God made this Garden of Eden and God put Adam and Eve there and God with a smile on his face said, Adam, I made that for you. Eve, I made that for you.

Help yourself. Ah, but you say, pastor, didn't God put one tree in the middle of the garden and tell them not to eat it? Of course he did. That was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now they needed to know good and evil from what God said about it, not what they experienced. And of course, in order for mankind to have a choice, God had to make a choice possible. No man can be loyal unless he can be disloyal.

No man can love unless he has an opportunity to dislove. And so the tree was there as a test. And God said, don't eat of it.

That wasn't a threat, that was a warning. And every time God says, thou shalt not, he's just saying, don't hurt yourself. And every time God says, thou shalt, he's saying, help yourself to happiness. God loves you. God is a good God. God is good.

The devil doesn't want you to know that. I want to give you some verses. Psalm 37 in verse four, listen to it. Delight thyself in the Lord and he shall give thee what?

The desires of thine heart. Does that sound like a severe God? Does that sound like a negative God?

Does that sound like a cruel God, a vengeful God? Delight thyself in the Lord and he shall give thee the desire of thy heart. Or listen to this, Psalm 84 and verse 11. The Lord thy God is a son and a shield. The Lord will give grace and glory. Now listen to this, no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.

If it'll make you healthy, happy, holy, wholesome, God says, help yourself, my child, I love you. The Lord thy God is a son and a shield. The Lord will give grace and glory. No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly. Or listen to this, 1 Timothy chapter six and verse 17. God giveth us richly all things to enjoy. God has given more sky than man can see, more seas than man can sail, more sun than he can bear to watch, more stars than he can scale, more breath than he can breathe, more yield than he can sow, more grace than he can comprehend, more love than he can know. He giveth us richly all things to enjoy. First of all, Satan wants you to think severely about God.

Do you have it? Here's the second deception. Not only does he want you to think severely about God, but he wants you to think skeptically about God. Now look in verse two. And the woman said unto the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, ye shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, ye shall not surely die. Now what he's doing now is putting skepticism in her heart and in her mind.

First of all, he makes her think that God is cruel, that God is withholding things, that God is a negativist, that he put all of those things there in the garden and said, now you can't touch it. And now he's saying, you can't trust this God. If this God is not good, surely he can't be trusted. That is the work of Satan to get people to think skeptically about God's spoken word. Now God spoke and what God said was absolutely totally reliable and authoritative. Modern man today has all kinds of substitutes for the word of God. Let me give you five of them.

Six of them really. Relativism. We live in a day to day where we're filled with relativism. That is that truth is always changing. They say, well, you know, we live in a new and a modern day, so what was true yesterday is not true today. Friend, I want to tell you what is true is always true and if it's new is not true, but relativism really roots back in Hegelian philosophy.

Another standard for knowledge is what we want to call subjectivism. Well, I just feel it's true. It just seems to me. Well, friend, you're not God.

Your feelings are not God. I hear people say something like this. Well, what's true for you may not be true for me. You ever hear that? What's true?

Well, a friend of his true is true no matter who it's for. Empiricism. Now, what is that? That just simply means that we decide what is truth by measurements, by testing, by what we call obvious evidence, empirical evidence. The scientist bows down to this standard for truth, empiricism or existentialism. This is a big one the liberal theologians like. They don't like to call the Bible the Word of God.

I don't know, that offends them. They say it becomes the Word of God when you read it and you have a relationship with it. Exextentialism. Then, of course, there's just rationalism. You take the Word of God or anything else and you just parade it past the judgment bar of your mind and your logic and so you substitute thus saith the mind of man for thus saith the Word of God and then I suppose the one that more Americans are into than anything else is pragmatism. We don't even really ask, is it true?

We ask, does it work? All of these, all six of these philosophies, the air is full of them and they've all come from the master liar himself who said, hath God said and then said, ye shall not surely die. And all of this kind of thinking leaves modern Americans with no fixed standard of truth.

The devil wants you to think, my dear friends, skeptically, skeptically about God. Americans today used to live by the Word of God and run the government by the constitution that came out of the Word of God. Today, we're just kind of making up the rules as we go along.

Like the sailors described in Plato's Republic, they had no compass so they set their lantern on the bow of the ship and steered by that. That's the way we're going in America today. My dear friend, Satan, the master liar, has brought us away from a fixed standard of truth. Now, why is it wrong to steal? Because the Word of God says, thou shall not steal. Why is it wrong to commit adultery? Because the Word of God says, thou shall not commit adultery. Why is sodomy a sin? Because the Word of God says, it is an abomination. That's why, not because of what you think or what I think, but you see, when we get away from the fixed standard of right and wrong, then what do we do? We get away from the idea of any judgment. My dear friend, law without penalty is only advice and God was not giving advice when He told Adam and Eve, in the day that you eat thereof, you will surely die.

Now you see, God is a good God, but God is a holy God. Now I told you that all of this just is the new age. The new age is as old as the garden of Eden. You know what the new agers have done? They have tried to take away the fear of death from individuals.

You know how they've done it? How have the new agers taken away the fear of death? Reincarnation.

You just keep on going around and around till you get it right. There's no judgment. There's no death.

Ultimately, there's no hell and there's no personal God to whom you must give an account. Shirley MacLaine, the high priestess of the new age said, and I quote, we can eliminate all fear of death. And she says, why, you know, I've had a number of lives. One time she says that she was a princess in Atlantis. That's the lost continent of Atlantis. One time she was an Inca in Peru. One time, dear Shirley was a child raised by elephants.

Yeah, that's right. She just keeps going around. The idea is in new ageism that man and plants and animals, we're all related. And we just keep transmigrating until finally we get it right. Shirley MacLaine said it's like show business. You just keep doing it till you get it right. It's sort of musical chairs and you have a karma, K-A-R-M-A, which is an embodiment of who you are and what you do. And if your karma is good, when you die, you reincarnate to something higher. But if your karma is bad, you may regress. And that's the way, according to them, we go through life. So you may rise to some higher form, or you may come back as a cockroach. You may come back as a spider. The idea is that by your karma, you get what you deserve. But if you continue to do right, and in each life, you continue to live right, to do right, after a while, you will end up in nirvana. That is, you will be absorbed into everything and into nothing.

Now, you shall not surely die. All the new age baloney that you're hearing today goes all the way back to the third chapter of Genesis. And my dear friend, it is just, well, that's right, the Greek word baloney. That's all it is.

That's all it is. Satan is so clever. Go into any modern bookstore and find, look at the books on Bible religion, you'll find about that many.

Look at the books on new age philosophy and reincarnation and all of this, and you'll find shelf after shelf after shelf in this 20th century. Now, here's the third thing Satan wants you to do. Not only does Satan want you to think severely about God, that God is cruel. Not only does he want you to think skeptically about God, you don't have to worry about what God says. You don't have to take God's word at face value. The third thing that Satan wants you to do, my dear friend, is to think suspiciously about God. Continue to read here and listen to the master liar.

And this is the lie that sounds so much like the truth. Listen to it, verse five. Satan explains it all by saying, for God doth know that in the day that you eat thereof, then your eyes will be opened and ye shall be as gods, literally as Elohim as God, knowing good and evil. Now, here's what Satan is implying by that statement, that God is unfair. Eve, God doesn't want you to reach your full potential. Why, Eve, you can be like a God. And how can you be like a God?

Well, God is someone who knows what it's all about. And you can know what it's all about, Eve. You can be self-authenticating. You can be autonomous. You can be independent.

You can reach your own potential. Eve, come here, baby. I'm going to liberate you.

Adam's rib, Satan's fib, women's lip, bang, bang, bang. I am going to liberate you. Now, God said, don't do it. But all you've got is His Word. You just have to trust what someone else says. Why, Eve, how do you know it is bad if you haven't tried it?

I mean, how do you know it's wrong? All you've got is what God says up there. And after all, you know, He's God.

He doesn't want you to know what He knows. You see, what God has done, He's cornered the market on being God. Now, Eve, if you make up your own mind what is right and what is wrong, then who's God?

You're God. Why, you'll be just like God. What He's trying to do is to keep you from personal knowledge, where you just simply have to trust Him. You just simply have to trust His Word.

Why, you'll never understand this unless you do it. God does know that in the day that you eat, then your eyes will be open and you'll be like God, knowing good and evil, again. This is the dawning of the New Age movement in Genesis chapter three. Do you know what New Ageism is?

New Ageism is Eastern religion, Eastern mysticism, come to the West. It's ancient Hinduism that teaches that all is God and God is all and we ourselves become gods. It's pantheism.

It's rooted in Hinduism. Pan meaning all, theism meaning God. God is in all and all is in God and God is all and all is God and we're God and there is no personal God like Yahweh, Jehovah, Elohim, the God of the Bible. God to the new ager is impersonal force. That's God. Energy, I am God, you're God, so is nature God. Everything is God. That's pantheism. And that's what Satan is telling Eve.

Why Eve, you can be God. And it's so subtle because the Bible wants us to be godly. You see, we are to be godlike, not as God, but like God.

But it's so subtle, isn't it? Well, you know what a Christian would say? God is love, is that correct? Of course it's correct. But now listen to this, love is God. Is that correct? Of course it's not.

It sounds almost the same, doesn't it? God is love, that's right. Love is God. No, that's wrong. God is wisdom, that's right.

Wisdom is God. No, that's wrong. Do you know why these animal rights today are so all up in arms about animal rights?

Do you know why? That's Hinduism. Sacred cows. There's no basic difference between man and animals. That's right. Friend, you haven't elevated the animals by doing that.

What you've done is devalued man. They call themselves humanists. They're really animalists. And if everything is God, then that's God. That's God. They're God. That's God. The sky is God. The dirt is God. Now, if God is dirt, then dirt is God.

And if you're God, you're dirt. Understand what this has done. Understand the phony baloney of all of this. We have a whole generation has bought into this.

You'd say, nobody believes this. My dear friend, Satan has deceived the whole world. It's so clear and it is so plain. What the devil has done. First of all, he wants you to think severely about God, then skeptically about God, then suspiciously about God. And once he's done that, then he puts in his own lies and a man's religion will rise no higher than his concept of God.

The devil's lies sounds so much like the truth. You see what he was trying to say to Eve. What he was saying to Eve, Eve, God has headed you off at the pass. What God has done, Eve, he has blocked your fulfillment. He has kept you from reaching your potential. Friend, does God have a potential for you?

You better believe he does. First Corinthians chapter two and verse nine. But as it is written, I have not seen nor ear heard nor neither have entered into the heart of man, but things which God has prepared for them that love him. Revelation 22 verses one through five speaks of heaven. And he showed me a pure river of water, of life, clear as crystal proceeding out of the throne of God and of the lamb in the midst of the street of it.

And on either side of the river was there the tree of life, which bear 12 manner of fruits and yielded her fruit every month and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. And there should be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the lamb shall be in it. And his servants shall serve him and they shall see his face and his name shall be in their foreheads.

And there should be no night there. And they need no candle, neither light of the sun for the Lord God giveth them light and they shall reign forever and ever. Oh, if you only knew what plan God has for you, but I'll tell you what it is. It is to be one with him and to be like him, but not to be your own little cheap tin God. Isn't the devil clever?

More subtle than any beast of the field. So, friend, why take Satan's substitute? Well, you have God's truth.

I want to put these things in your heart and in your mind today. Don't you let that dirty devil deceive you. Satan wants to deceive you that he might debauch you, that he might destroy you, that he might damn you. Jesus said he is a liar.

Listen, young man, he's a murderer and he's a liar. God helped people today to understand this. Don't think about God severely. God is a God of love and goodness and grace. And don't think of God skeptically.

There is a God and God's law stands. The soul that sinneth it shall surely die. And don't think of God suspiciously. Don't think that somehow if you give your heart to God, that somehow that's going to mean loss to you. My dear friend, the cross upon which Jesus died is a plus sign, not a negative sign. If I had a thousand lives to live, I'd give every one of them to Jesus Christ.

Don't you feel sorry for me because I'm a Christian. And don't you let that devil deceive you and destroy you. The Amazon River is the greatest river in the world. More water flows through the Amazon than the Mississippi and the Nile and the Yantis River put together.

It flows with such force that there's current felt 200 miles out in the ocean, the South Atlantic, as that river flows and it's fresh water. One time there was a boat sailing past the mouth of that Amazon River. And they had run out of water on board that boat. And the sailors were dying of thirst. And they signaled to another ship that they saw. And they said, please, can you share some water with us? Can you give us some water? Our sailors are dying. And they sent back a message across the water and said, let down your buckets where you are. And they said, no, you don't understand. We need water to drink. They sent back the message again, let down your buckets where you are. And finally, the third time they understood they were sailing in a sea of fresh water and perishing for thirst. And I'm afraid that's where some of you are right here today.

Sailing in a sea of fresh water. Oh, how God loves you. Don't perish.

Just let down your buckets where you are. Friend, He's here today. He is here today.

And He loves you so very much. If you would like to learn more about how you can know Jesus or deepen your relationship with Him, simply click the Discover Jesus link on our website, lwf.org. For a copy of this message or additional resources, visit our online store at lwf.org. Or call 1-800-274-5683. Thank you.