THE WILES OF THE DEVIL cont.

Manipulating the word of God to accomplish his own purposes is another of the “wiles” of the devil. It hearkens back to the ploy he used with Eve—Did God really say? Don’t you think He really means this? Surely He couldn’t mean this!

The many versions of the scripture available today are a blessing and a curse. Though they can be used quite profitably in the study of scripture as led by the Holy Spirit, they also provide a wide open door through which heresy can sneak in or even very publicly splash right in to gain acceptance in the church.

It is amazing to me how so many who claim to be teachers of God’s word, boldly refute the truth of the word of God. They use human reasoning to explain away the plain sense of the scripture to suit their own purposes. Others focus only on presenting the truths that they deem to be encouraging and comforting and never present the truth from scripture that identifies sin and declares man in need of a Savior. The Apostle Paul warned that this would happen in his letter to Timothy.

2 Timothy 4:2–4 “Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.”

Note that Paul was clear in declaring the importance of using scripture to “reprove, rebuke and exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.” This is a clear instruction to identify sin and speak out against practicing sin. The clear implication is that this type of instruction will require patience and must continually be presented according to the truth of scripture.

Man has a strong propensity to accept as true that which least restricts him and provides him the freedom to fulfill the “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life.” Scripture is clear in identifying these appetites with the love of the world and the influence of the enemy.

1 John 2:15–16 “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.”

Ephesians 2:2–3 “Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.”

The manipulation of scripture is one of the main ways that the enemy causes division in the “church” so that the effectiveness of its testimony to the world is diminished. The Lord was clear in declaring that the effectiveness of our witness is directly related to the love that we show one to another.

John 13:34–35 “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”

We have already addressed the truth that not everyone that professes Jesus as Lord actually possesses Jesus as Lord and Savior. These false professions are a result of the work of the enemy in getting them to embrace his lies.

John 8:44 “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. 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.”

More often than not these lies are presented hand-in-hand with the scripture. They always “add to” or “take away” from the truth of the scripture as revealed through His Holy Spirit. It is this formula that has resulted in the establishment of so many religious cults. The Lord Jesus was clear in identifying the objective of these lies of the enemy, whom he referred to as a thief.

John 10:10 “The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy….”

This is from the section of scripture in which the Lord Jesus refers to Himself as the Good Shepherd who is focused on taking care of His sheep vs. the thief, whose only purpose is to destroy the sheep.

My hope is that this series of posts will serve to remind the believer of the importance of discernment based on the unadulterated truth of God’s word and to place him/her on guard against the constant attack of the enemy. My heart connects with the words of Paul in his letter to the Corinthians.

2 Corinthians 11:2–4 “For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him.”