Genesis 3:4-5 “You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

In this first record of Satan’s direct interaction with mankind we see several typical things. In the first place, he contradicts what God has said. If we really grasped that God is GOD, that wouldn’t be effective at all. However, our grasp of God is so small and incomplete that we fall for the lie all too often. The second thing is that Satan mixes a little truth in with his lie. That’s like using Koolade as a medium for poison; it’s just something attractive to get us to swallow the poison. The third thing is that he maligns God’s character, attributing ignoble motives to Him. The devil not only wants us to disobey God, he wants us to mistrust Him as well. Sadly, he’s effective in that all too often. The best defense against a lie is very simply the truth. That’s why we need to soak ourselves in the Word of God. Bank tellers don’t spend time studying various counterfeit notes, they study the real thing. Only then do they have a high probability of detecting counterfeit bills when they see them. If we don’t know what God has said, we’ll be much less likely to recognize when the devil is telling us something different.

I keep coming back to what an immense privilege and advantage it was to grow up in a home that was steeped in faith and the Bible. However, that didn’t insulate me from temptation, and I have yielded more times than I like to think about. I like the hymn that says, “Yield not to temptation, for yielding is sin.” That points out that being tempted isn’t sin, it’s yielding to it that is sinful. After all, Jesus Himself was tempted. (Hebrews 2:18; 4:15) I find that if I dwell on the temptation it gets bigger and bigger, greatly increasing the likeli­hood that I will yield to it. To stand firm against temptation I need to focus on God’s truth, rather than on whatever lie the devil has just told me. As a pastor, that’s precisely the attitude I need to foster in the believers. I need to help them not feel guilty for being tempted, but rather rejoice that God has made them able to escape and/or overcome temptation. (1 Corinthians 10:13) As the foundation for all of that, I need to teach them that God is not only omnipotent and omniscient, He is also gracious and loving, and He will never be unfaithful or untrue.

Father, thank You indeed for Your absolute faithfulness. Thank You for embodying Truth in Your Son. (John 14:6) Help me be firmly planted in Him, and He in me by Your Spirit, so that I may be an effective channel of Your grace and love to all those I encounter, lifting them out of the lies of the devil and presenting them with Your truth, so that they may be set free, (John 8:32) for their salvation and Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!