Self-Willed or God’s Will - Part 2

By Tom Rose

In Part 1 we learned that God has always demanded strict adherence to His word, but mankind has, from the beginning, rebelled against God’s word, placing self above God.  The first woman, Eve, threw out honor and obedience as though she owed nothing to the One who had created and lovingly placed her in this beautiful garden.  She trampled loyalty and love and trust in her selfish stampede toward what today we would call self-realization or self-actualization.  Motivated by self-interest and self-satisfaction, she succumbed to another tactic of Satan: persuade men to disobey God on the promise that they shall obtain good by it.

When Eve (and Adam) sinned, God was not pleased.  By expelling the guilty pair from the Garden, God was acting both justly and in love.  He kept man from the tree of life because it would not have been an act of love but a capitulation to man’s self-indulgence to perpetuate him in his fallen condition.  Sin put the flaming sword of God’s Judgment between man and the tree of life (Gen 3:24).  Further, God was not vindictive in barring man’s access to eternal life, because the entire story of the Bible shows how one Man, Christ, took the judgment we deserved, redeemed us from our sins, and offered us a way back to everlasting life.  The lesson for Adam and Eve, for you and me, and for all mankind simply points to one indisputable fact: if we want a relationship with God, it will be on His terms, abiding by His Word.

As we close, let us distinguish between a humanistic self-denial and a Biblical denial of self.  The first is self still on the throne, denying itself certain pleasures; the second is the death of self through our identification with Christ in His death for our sins (Gal. 2:20).  What the Bible seems to mean by self is man cut off from God, acting and processing independently.  That is why Christ made the denial of self a condition to becoming His disciple (Mt. 16:24), and why there is a fatal flaw in the theology of self-esteem.

When we read and believe God’s Word, we see God for who He really is, bow to His majesty, surrender to His purpose, and turn our life into an instrument of His holy will.  One writer has attempted to describe the self that now lives exclusively for Christ as follows: If we believe in Jesus, it is not what we gain but what He pours through us that counts.  It is not that God makes us beautifully rounded grapes, but that He squeezes the sweetness out of us.  Spiritually, we cannot measure our life by success, but only by what God pours through us, and we cannot measure that at all.

Therefore, if we choose to become God’s useful servants, we must turn away from the popular messages of our day and be more convinced than ever that life’s major purpose is not pleasing self. . .but pleasing God.

Self-Willed or God’s Will - Part 1

By Tom Rose

The prohibition against taking from or adding to God’s Word is consistently implied throughout scripture, and at times it is stated explicitly.  Solomon admonished, “Every word of God is pure. . .Do not add to His Words, lest He rebuke you, and you be found a liar” (Pr. 30:5-6).  Also, the statement in Rev. 22:18-19 is a compelling and sober warning not to tamper with or alter “the things which are written in this book.”

Unfortunately, the tendency to disregard God’s clearly stated commands lurks in every heart and lies at the root of most human problems.  It began in the Garden of Eden.  Adam and Eve were the first to take liberties with God’s Word.  They had no written scriptures, but God had spoken to them personally and apparently audibly: “They heard the voice of the Lord God. . .I heard Your voice in the Garden” (Gen. 3:8, 10).  We know nothing of the marvelous insights which God must have shared with this pair, but we do know that He commanded them not to eat of one particular tree in the Garden.  God considered this of such great importance that the penalty for disobedience was death. (See Gen. 2:16-17)

“That serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world” (Rev. 12:9), was immediately at work in the Garden of Eden. With his cunning skill, he provided a most effective rationale for legitimizing disobedience: the reinterpretation of what God has said to bring it into line with human desire.  "And the woman said to the serpent, 'We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, 'You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.''  Then the serpent said to the woman, 'You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like  God, knowing good and evil.'" (Gen. 3:2-5)

Questioning God’s command, Satan perverted its meaning, turned the death penalty into a promise of godhood, and persuaded Eve to accept his innovative and appealing interpretation.  Eve had found a “prophet” whose twisted but appealing perversion of Truth was irresistible.  "So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate." (Gen. 3:6)

Satan’s seduction of Eve was the original appeal to ''self"– her “self.”  “You can be like God,” was the tantalizing promise.  Something inside Eve responded to that.  It was then that self had its awful birth and established its throne in her life.  Sadly, her submission to her new master of self soon affected her husband, and her example even appeals to us today.  Totally absorbed in what she would get out of eating this wonderful fruit, Eve stifled any concern for what she ought to do.  Indeed, there was no ought at all; no regard for duty, moral commitment, or restraint upon her desires – no real concern for anyone but herself.

(Part 2 next week)

How Would You Like Your Obituary to Read?

By Larry Coffey

In Revelation 14:13, we read as follows: And I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” “Blessed indeed,” says the Spirit, “that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them!”

As we know, obituaries are generally always very positive with a list of accomplishments and great character traits in addition to family connections. Rarely is anything negative included regardless of a person’s real character. For example, I read these in a recent Louisville Courier Journal Sunday edition.

--Mike was a brilliant man that lived with conviction, led with wisdom and always left room for humor. He had unparalleled wit.

--David was a graduate of the University of KY and achieved his most valued personal accomplishment when he earned an M.B.A. from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He was an avid reader, an intellectual conversationalist and a supporter of the arts.

--Sandra dedicated her life to being a fantastic and wonderful mother and was the foundation of the family. She was an excellent gift giver, always knew the right thing to say, never missed a special date, and was a constant cheerleader and supporter.

In contrast and quite unusual, I read the following obituary in the September 9, 2023 edition of the Grayson County News.

--Butch died on August 28. One could say it was an unsuspected passing, but this sort of ugly, unceremonious death can always be expected when you choose drugs over anything else, including your own children. These children (names listed) aren’t left to “honor his memory”, they are left to wonder why they were never enough for him to get clean, and to deal with the pain of never having a real, present father. If you are reading this and thinking it is terrible, you’re right, it’s terrible, the terrible ugly truth of the consequences of living a life of drugs. Butch will be cremated with no public service.

Like me, you probably never read an obituary that told the ugly truth about someone. It reminds me of a story I heard a long time ago (probably not true, but humorous). I was told a man was attending a funeral and the preacher was going on and on about how great the deceased was, and the man spoke up and said, “Who is that man up there in the casket? It sure isn’t the man I knew.”

The point of this article is that if you knew that your obituary was going to reflect the real person you were in life, the one the Lord knew, how would it read? We need to be sure we live a life that could have an obituary that is full of deeds which follow us that please our Lord.  

How to Tempt a Good Man

By Paul Earnhart

When Satan undertook the temptation of Jesus, he faced the greatest challenge of his whole career as a tempter.  All other men and women since Adam and Eve had been relatively easy victims.  But Jesus was different.

Jesus knew God’s will even better than the theologians.  And He was firmly committed to doing God’s will.  For these reasons, He could not be tempted as many mortals are tempted.  Such temptations as adultery, lying, stealing, drunkenness would have been useless.  Jesus had doubtless been exposed to those sins in His earlier life, but He knew that scripture plainly condemned such things, and He would not even consider them.

Satan had to tempt Jesus to do something which was not immoral in itself, something which would even seem to offer some spiritual benefit.  Now most people would suppose that if a thing seemed to offer some spiritual benefit and was not immoral, then it could not be sin.  But Satan knew better and, thankfully, Jesus knew better.

An act is not a sin because men consider it to be immoral.  An act is not a sin simply because it hurts someone.  Neither is an act a sin just because it violates civil law.  An act that violates civil law is a crime, but sin is a violation of Divine law.  Any violation of God’s law is sin whether anyone is hurt or not; whether it appears immoral or not; whether the results appear harmful or beneficial.

Many people look at Matthew’s account of the temptations of Jesus (Mt. 4:1-11), such as the temptation to turn stones into bread and to jump from the pinnacle of the temple, and say, “I don’t see anything wrong with doing those things.”  But if Jesus had done either one of them, He would have sinned.  He did not do them because He knew scripture well enough to know that they were not God’s will for Him.  That’s what made them sin, and that’s why Jesus did not do them.

Satan's Story

By Paul Earnhart

C.S. Lewis, in the preface to his little book, The Screwtape Letters, observed that there were two opposite errors about “devils” into which men could fall. One was to disbelieve in their existence and the other was to have an excessive interest in them. We believe that the wholesome desire to understand what the Bible says about Satan is not to stumble into either of these pitfalls. The following questions will helpfully guide our investigation: Who is Satan? Where did he originate? Why and when did he fall? We begin with the first.

Who or what is Satan? Is he a personal being or merely an idea? The Bible clearly indicates that Satan is a person with an identity, mind, and will of his own. Jesus and the devil confronted and spoke with each other in the wilderness of Judea (Matthew 4:1-11). To question the personal nature of the devil is no more possible than to doubt the personal nature of God’s Son.

Yet, if the devil is personal, he is a spiritual rather than a physical being. In Ephesians 6:11-12, Paul urges Christians to “Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but… against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Mythical “Satans” abound, but there is no biblical evidence that the devil ever manifested himself as a bat-winged, cloven hoofed creature dressed in a red suit and armed with a pitchfork. Like Jesus, his personal appearance is never described, but his spirit and ideas are discussed at length. It is only in the symbolic visions of Revelation that Satan is seen as “a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns” (Revelations 12:3, 9). In the same visions, Jesus is portrayed as a lamb with seven horns and seven eyes (Revelation 5:6).

We turn now to the origin of the devil, when and how he came to be. That God created Satan seems clear since He created all things, whether visible or invisible, i.e., whether physical or spiritual (Colossians 1:16). But did He create him as he now is— the rebellious purveyor of all evil? The same question might be asked about men. Solomon says that there is not a righteous man upon the earth that does good and sins not (Ecclesiastes 7:20). Is this how God has made us— to live in hatred, selfishness, and rebellion? The testimony of Genesis is that when God had created the universe and man, He “saw everything that he had made and, behold, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). That it is not so now is evident and it is Solomon again who tells us why: “God made man upright but they have sought out many inventions…” (Ecclesiastes 7:29). God created man in His own image (Genesis 1:27), a moral creature with a will free to choose, and urged us to choose the good, the high, the holy. But all since Adam have opted instead for the evil and the impure. God could have created us as biological robots and there would have been no sin in the world, but there would have been no true people either, no love, no goodness, no compassion, no faithfulness— for all things are as surely the product of free will as sin is.

There are beings other than men in the universe who are creatures of free will. They are of a higher order (Hebrews 2:7), entirely spiritual (Ephesians 6:12) and entirely free. Of them Peter writes: “For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment…” (2nd Peter 2:4; see also Jude 6). Some angels, then, like the whole of the human race, have become rebels against God. Could Satan be a fallen angel? Yes, it is possible, even probable, though it is nowhere explicitly stated in the Scripture. His original fall is never described for us. The reference to the fall of “Lucifer” in Isaiah 14:12 is speaking fo the king of Babylon (Isaiah 14:4), not the devil. Jesus’ statement in Luke 10:18 has reference to the defeat of Satan’s agents by the power of the Holy Spirit, and Revelation 12:9-11 is speaking of the downfall of Satan brought about by the redemptive blood of God’s Son.

Still, it is evident that at some point (before creation or after) Satan fell by rebellious pride into sin. In Job he not only accuses man of faithlessness, but charges God with stupidity (Job 1:7-11). He has nothing but contempt for both God and man and is our adversary (satan) and accuser (devil) at the very point where we may be reconciled to each other— in Christ and the cross. To prove man unworthy and and God foolish he tempts us to corrupt ourselves (1st Corinthians 7:5; 1st Thessalonians 3:5). In the pursuit of his purposes he has no scruples. Lies and deceit are his long suit (Genesis 3:4; John 8:44). He is consummately selfish. Unlike God, who wishes to bless and enlarge us, Satan desires only to devour us (1st Peter 5:8).

What is the lesson here? Do not take Satan lightly (Jude 9) for he is stronger than we are, but do not be intimidated by him either. He can be decisively routed by any heart which trusts absolutely in God’s power, wisdom, and grace (James 4:6-7; Romans 8:33-34; Revelation 12:10-11; Ephesians 6:10-17).