Four Lies That Ruined the World Part 1

What is Satan's motive?

Listen to Adrian Rogers. That may surprise you to learn that Satan is an evangelist. What Satan wants is not casualties. He wants converts over to his own ideas. Eve was his first convert. And rather than four spiritual laws, there are four spiritual flaws, four lies that he wants Eve to believe. And Eve takes the bait.

Welcome to Love Worth Finding, featuring the dynamic teaching, pastor and author Adrian Rogers. As we just heard, Satan wants to bring death to our happiness, joy and purity. And he accomplishes that through lies. Satan cleverly crafts subtle lies about the biggest truths. And we see this exemplified in his confrontation with Eve in the Garden of Eden. If you have your Bible, turn to Genesis chapter three. We'll begin in verse one. Listen as Adrian Rogers shares four lies that ruin the world. Find God's word. Genesis chapter three.

We're continuing our series on challenges to the cross, things that we meet in today's world that we need to have Bible answers for. The title of the message today, four lies that ruined the world. These are Satan's four biggest lies. Satan's whole system is built on a lie.

Jesus said in John chapter eight in verse 44 to the unsaved Pharisees, you are of your father the devil, and the lust of your father you will do. He was a liar from the beginning and abode not in the truth. And when he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own, for he is a liar and the father of it. That is, every lie that's ever been told has been spawned by the daddy liar, the liar of all liars, the father of all lies, who is the devil himself.

Satan is a liar. Jesus said he is a murderer from the beginning and abode not in the truth. Now listen, his motive is murder. His method is the lie. Never forget that, his motive and his method. There in John chapter eight and verse 44, Satan wants to bring death to life, to joy, to peace, to happiness, to fruitfulness. He wants to bring physical death. He wants to bring spiritual death.

He wants to bring eternal death. And he does it through deception. He is a dirty liar. And we're going to find four of Satan's biggest lies. These are foundational lies and they're lies out of which all other lies come. Now remember that Satan is the master liar. And because he's the master liar, his lies are very good. Satan knows how to tell lies. His lies are very clever.

Let's look here in Genesis chapter three verse one. Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field. Just underscore that word subtle. Now Satan's lies are not lies that are obvious lies on the surface. You have to look beneath the surface to see his lies because he's very clever. Now let me tell you something. The best lies sound the most like the truth. And so there is some truth in most lies. A clock that doesn't even run is right twice a day. Isn't that right?

But now wait a minute. If a clock is only right twice a day, you look at it and you say, that's wrong. It may be right twice a day, but it's still wrong.

What is more dangerous? A clock twelve hours wrong or a clock five minutes wrong? A clock five minutes wrong is far more dangerous than a clock twelve hours wrong. When you look at a clock that's twelve hours wrong, you say, that's wrong. Somebody tell me what time it is. A clock five minutes wrong, you miss your airplane.

Now there's a difference. Satan's lies are very close to the truth and yet so very far from the truth. Again, Satan had rather you think a wrong thing, believe a lie, than to do a wrong thing.

Why? Because the thought is the father of the deed. It is more dangerous to believe a wrong thing than to do a wrong thing. You can do a wrong thing by mistake and the next time do the right thing. But if you believe a wrong thing, you keep doing the wrong thing over and over again.

For the Bible says, as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. And so the devil is the original liar. The devil is the master liar. And the best lies sound the most like the truth. And those that are nearest to the truth and still alike are the most dangerous. Now, Satan, being a very clever liar, Satan being the master liar, Satan wanting to do his work through a lie, which is murder, will tell a lie about the biggest subject.

He's not interested in telling lies about little things. He wants you to believe lies about the biggest subject. What is the biggest subject? God. God is the biggest subject. Now, if Satan can get your mind twisted about who God is and what God does and what God is like, then he's got you. Because the thought is the father of the deed.

A.W. Tojan, a great leader in the Christian and Missionary Alliance Church, said, and I want you to listen to this quote, No religion can rise higher than its concept of God. That is so true. No religion can rise higher than its concept of God. Now, Satan, in the very first book in the Bible, the very first pages of history, is going to tell four big lies, and all of them are going to deal with the character of God. Satan does not want you to understand who God is. That may surprise you to learn that Satan is an evangelist. What Satan wants is not casualties.

He wants converts over to his own ideas. And so Satan comes as an evangelist to Eve to evangelize her for the devil's religion. Eve was his first convert. And rather than four spiritual laws, there are four spiritual flaws, four lies that he wants Eve to believe. And Eve takes the bait. And these lies are not just what Satan has done eons ago. These are the four lies that you'll meet today and tomorrow. They're very fresh.

They're very up to date. Now, Satan, really, he may be double-faced, but he's not double-minded. He wants to do the same thing today that he has done always. So are you ready for these four big lies? All right, lie number one, God is not loving.

That's the first lie. Now, notice again in chapter 3 and verse 1, Now, what's he trying to do? He's trying to get Eve to think negatively about God. To get the idea that God is withholding goodness from her. Therefore, God Himself is not good.

That God is severe. God is cruel. Here's the beautiful Garden of Eden, and God made it, and then God said, You can't touch it. You can't eat of it. Of course, God had not said they could not eat of the fruit of every tree of the garden.

That was a lie. What had God said? Look in Genesis 2, verse 16. You're in the Bible.

Just turn backward one chapter. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden, thou mayest freely eat. Do you see it? Of every tree. Thou mayest freely eat. Now, what did Satan say? Now, the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field, and he said unto the woman, Hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? God said, Help yourself. Satan said, God says, You can't have it. Now, what is Satan trying to do? He's trying to get Eve to think negatively about God. That God is cruel. God is harsh. God is unloving. He wants to deny you, Eve, of any ultimate joy.

Anything that brings pleasure is a no-no. Any time God sees anybody having a good time, God moves in to break up the game. The truth of the matter is that God had said a resounding yes, yes, to their joy and to their pleasure. When God created Eden, in all of its luxury, all of its beauty, all of its bounty, God said to Adam and Eve, There, children, that is for you.

Help yourself. Now, there are a lot of people today who have the idea that God is some sort of a cruel God, a vengeful deity, sitting up there on his big throne, hurling down laws to make us squirm like a worm in hot ashes trying to keep them. That God is a cosmic killjoy. That God is trying to keep things from us.

That is not true. God loves us. Let me give you some verses.

I've given you these before, but jot them down. Psalm 37 and verse 4, Delight thyself in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Isn't that great? What your heart yearns for, you'll find in him. Psalm 84 verse 11, The Lord thy God is a sun 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.

No good thing. If it will make you healthy, happy, holy, wholesome, God says, help yourself. Every time he says, thou shalt not, he say, don't hurt yourself. Every time he says, thou shalt, he's saying, help yourself to happiness. God loves you.

Listen to this one. First Timothy chapter 6 verse 17, Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not high minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God who giveth us, now listen to this phrase, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy. Isn't that great? Now, if the devil can get you thinking negatively about God, he's already got you. That's the very first thing he did when he crawled his slimy, corroding path into history, to get Eve to think negatively about God. Lie number one, God is not good. God is good all the time.

All right? Lie number two. Lie number two. First lie, God is not good. Lie number two, God is not truthful. God is not truthful. Now, notice he said in verse one, hath God said?

Now, that's a doubt. The doubt leads to a denial. Now, notice in verses two through four. And the woman said unto the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden.

She knew better. But of the fruit of the tree, which is in the midst of the garden, God has 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. Verse one, doubt. Now, in verse four, denial.

You'll not die. You don't have to worry about God. Now, you see, what Satan did, first of all, was to get Eve to think negatively about God. Then the next step is easy, to get Eve to think skeptically about God. Lie number one, God is not good.

Lie number two, God is not truthful. Now, what Satan had done in verse one is to put a question mark after the Word of God. I want to say clearly and plainly that anyone who causes skepticism concerning the authority, the accuracy, and the acceptability, the impeccability, the infallibility, the authenticity of the Word of God is doing the work of the devil. That's the work of the devil. I don't care what seminary he's in.

I don't care what degrees he has. If he puts, if he puts a doubt, a question mark, or a denial after the Word of God, he is of the devil. The devil. The devil is out to destroy the truthfulness of God. In today's society, we have substituted many things for God's Word, and all of them are based on the devil's lies.

Let me mention some of these. First of all, relativism. What is relativism? Relativism is the idea that there's no fixed truth. A professor in the university stood up and said, Students, I want to tell you, there is nothing that you can say is absolutely true. There's nothing that you can be absolutely sure of. A student lifted his hand and said, Professor, are you sure of that? He said, Absolutely. Relativism. Everything is relative. That was back to a philosopher whose name was Hegel.

H-E-G-E-L. He had sort of a dialectic. What Hegel said was over here is a thesis, a belief, and over here is an antithesis or an antithesis that says, I argue with that. And these two get in a big argument, and then they come together to a synthesis. Thesis, antithesis, synthesis. And so maybe the thesis over here is capitalism, the antithesis is communism, and then the synthesis is socialism. And then that synthesis in minds of many becomes the new thesis. Now this is true. And then over here you get another antithesis, and then after a while you get another synthesis.

Do you see what is happening? Everything is relative. There's nothing fixed. There's no anchor.

There's no standard. Plato and his republic talked about some sailors who, having lost a chart and compass, put a light on the bow of the ship and steered by that. That's what we're doing in today's society. Number one, relativism. Number two, subjectivism. What is subjectivism? Well, I feel this, or I feel that.

Let me tell you about my experience. There used to be a time when preachers would stand in the pulpit and say, the Bible says, and then they started saying, the church says, and now they just say, well, it seems to me, or I feel, as they kind of scratch the head. Subjectivism. Another substitute for the Word of God is rationalism. Rationalism. That is, we bring logic.

We bring our computers. We worship at the shrine of our intellect. And rather than saying, thus saith the Word of God, we say, thus saith the mind of man. We try to put God on our scales, put God in our test tube, put God in our cyclotrons, put God in our computers, but God will not fit there. We say, pastor, I think we ought to be reasonable.

Sure, you ought to be. But, friend, where reason cannot wade, faith must swim. What we believe is not contrary to reason. Listen, it is not contrary to reason. It is beyond reason. Beyond reason. God is not an unreasonable God, but can a man by reason find out God?

Absolutely not. And so we try relativism and subjectivism and rationalism, and if that doesn't work, what most Americans like is pragmatism. What is pragmatism? Pragmatism doesn't even bother to ask, is it true?

We just ask, does it work? We're very pragmatic about it. But the most dangerous of all, and this is the thing that is happening in the society we live in, is something called postmodernism. Postmodernism. Now, modernism would argue with conservatism about what is right or what is wrong.

The postmodernist doesn't even bother to argue. The postmodernist doesn't even believe there is anything called truth. Or he might believe that truth is everywhere, but no one truth is over against another truth.

So somebody might say, look, you're into Buddha, I'm into Jesus. What is true for you is fine. That's your truth. What is true for me is fine.

That's my truth. And this is called postmodernism, and it's a big word for a lot of silliness and foolishness, but the devil doesn't want you to believe that God is the God of truth. Now, if you have children and you're raising those children, your children have been infected by these other forms, substitutes for the truth of God, and the big daddy liar is behind it all. And you're going to have difficulty raising your children unless you get them to believe that the Bible is the inerrant, inspired, infallible Word of God. And when you talk to them and say you should not commit fornication, you should not commit adultery, you don't say because it's bad for you or because society... You say because God says so. You don't tell a lie. Why? Because God says so.

Is wrong to steal? Because God says so. You worship only one God? Because the Bible teaches that. The devil does not want a society to have a fixed standard of truth. God is good. Say amen. God is truth.

Say amen. Now, if you don't believe that, the devil's got you going his way. He wants you to think negatively about God, then he wants you to think skeptically about God. Lie number three.

Lie number three. God is not righteous. God is not righteous.

Look if you will now in Genesis 3 verse 4, and the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die. That is, God is not really going to punish sin. There is no God of judgment.

You don't have to worry about facing a judgment. I want to tell you, friend, God is good, but God is also righteous. God is loving. Yes, God is loving, but God is righteous. And if you preach the love of God to the exclusion of the holiness and the righteousness of God, you only preach half of the truth. And when you take half of the truth and try to make half of the truth all of the truth, that half of the truth becomes an untruth.

Now, Satan is moving them along. Now, since you don't believe that there is the God of the Bible who is good and loving, and since you don't believe that the God of the Bible is truthful, or the Bible, the Word, is true, then you don't have to worry anymore about judgment. Now, when God gave the Ten Commandments, God was not giving advice, He was giving law.

And law without penalty is only advice. Now, there are a lot of people today who take these things of pragmatism, rationalism, subjectivism, and they do away with the idea of eternal punishment. I would be unfair to you as a preacher if I did not tell you there is an eternal hell. If you die without Jesus Christ, you're going to die and go to hell. There is a fiery, burning hell, H-E-L-L, for those who reject Jesus Christ as their personal Savior and Lord. You say, well, that's un-American.

It may be. I have an idea that if the Supreme Court of the United States of America could vote on it, they would outlaw hell as cruel and unusual punishment. But God has no right. God has no authority to do that.

But God is a righteous God, and God will not let one half of one sin go unpunished. New Ageism comes out of the idea that you will not surely die. You know what the New Age is?

It's just a blend of Eastern religions that's come into America today. Satan knows that man fears death. That's the reason we have some believe in reincarnation. You'd be surprised how many people in evangelical churches say they believe in reincarnation.

They should just keep going around and around, and you get as many chances as you need. You see, these people believe that men and animals, we're all interrelated, and we're all transmigrating. And if your karma is good, you keep moving up high, and if your karma is bad, you move down. So in your next life, you might be a worm. That's right, or you might be a cow or a spider. That's the reason many of them are vegetarians.

They won't go to McDonald's, afraid they might be eating their grandmother. They believe this stuff, because finally one day, if your karma is good enough, you reach nirvana. But they reject the idea of a righteous God, a God of judgment. Their little imaginary God says that God is too good to punish sin. Friend, God is too good not to punish sin. God is righteous.

The devil would have you to have the idea that you can sin with impunity. Friend, God is good. God is truthful. God is righteous. But these truths are being taken away from our society.

These are big lies on which the other lies are built. May we never forget that God is righteous, He is good, and He is truthful. Rest in that today. Rest in Him today. Do you have a prayer request you'd like to share with us? You know, at Love Worth Finding, one of our greatest honors is to come alongside you and pray with you and for you. Go to our website homepage if you can at lwf.org slash radio and scroll down to find our prayer wall. There you'll find the option to either submit a prayer request or pray for others. This resource is one of our favorite ways to keep the ministry and the community praying continually for one another.

We can't wait to hear from you. Again, go to lwf.org slash radio. Now, if you'd like to order a copy of today's message in its entirety, call us at 1-877-LIVE-GOD. The title of the message is Four Lies That Ruin the World. This lesson is also part of a powerful series, Challenges to the Cross. Now, for the complete collection, all six insightful messages, call 877-LIVE-GOD or go to lwf.org slash radio to order.

Or you can write us at Love Worth Finding, Box 38600, Memphis, Tennessee 38183. Well, thanks for joining us for our study today in God's Word. Adrian Rogers said, the master lies sound the most like the truth.

Read God's Word and know the truth so you can be ready to reject the lies. And be sure to join us next time for the conclusion of this powerful message, Four Lies That Ruin the World, right here on Love Worth Finding. A listener sent us a heartfelt message recently.

I want to share it with you now. She said, I'll never be able to show how much this ministry means to me. God has answered my questions and prayers over and over through Dr. Rogers' messages. This is nothing short of a miracle experienced in my life when the sermon is exactly on what I'm praying about or through. God has given Love Worth Finding the wisdom and power to continue even after Adrian's passing. Your selections continue the miracles just as his sermons do. Thank you. Peace and love through Jesus Christ. We are so honored to share these timeless truths and the messages and resources with listeners like you. And when you give to this ministry this month, we want to send you our critical issues booklet collection. Request this five-booklet bundle when you call with a gift at 1-877-LOVEGOD or give online at lwf.org slash radio.