Episode 89: The Four Lies Satan Told Eve: Do We Still Believe Them Today?

Jacob Paul: Welcome to the Truth in Love podcast with your hosts Kimberly Faith and John Mac. The Truth in Love podcast seeks to present God’s timeless truth through the lens of his remarkable love.

Kimberly Faith: Are you fired up, dad?

John McLarty: Fired up, Kim.

Kimberly Faith: Right. So this podcast has been interesting. It’s been a part of the concept study that we’ve been teaching, and I kind of was pretty amazed at the slideshow that Tim and Eric and you put together. Mostly, I guess Tim was kind of the creator of it. 

John McLarty: Yeah. It’s been Tim and Eric and Chris Larscheid, Eric Whitaker, Tim Rogers. It’s for a couple’s ministry at Mission Boulevard Baptist Church, and they’ve taken kind of the standard concepts that pastor Brian Disney developed over fifty years ago.

Kimberly Faith: Right. 

John McLarty: But kind of just dressed them up with a more modern PowerPoint format and then a lot of imagery. But this idea we’re approaching today is under the heading of spiritual warfare. But it’s a strategy of Satan that I’ve never quite seen it presented this way.

Kimberly Faith: Well, I actually have it in the second concept under the, you know, the law of sin and death. But this podcast today is about

John McLarty: Fits both places.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. The Four Lies Satan Told Eve and Whether We Still Believe Them Today. That’s the title of this podcast. I just want to make it clear that the whole point of this particular podcast is to make us aware of the fact the enemy hasn’t changed. His lies are still the same old lies, and we need to be wise to the truth. Because Satan didn’t come into the Garden of Eden with horns and a pitchfork. He came in, he slithered in with questions about God’s character and trustworthiness.

John McLarty: You know, a major point there is that God tells us the truth. 

Kimberly Faith: Right. 

John McLarty: You know, the name of this series, the truth in love.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: Satan can’t tell us the truth and have us follow him. He has to lie. 

Kimberly Faith: That’s a really good point, dad.

John McLarty: And here he is, the father of liars in day one in the garden.

Kimberly Faith: He’s still the same cunning liar who, you know, and he’s still telling the same lies about God he told thousands of years ago today. And in Genesis 3:1, just to kind of kick this off, it says, Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, Has God indeed said, you shall not eat of every tree of the garden? You know

John McLarty: Good animation there, Kim. 

Kimberly Faith: This was the step off for him in getting his attention, to question God’s character, his nature, his trustworthiness. And, you know, he planted enough doubt in Eve’s mind about who God is that she fell. She’d made a choice to step away from God and to basically plunge herself and the entire human race into a disaster beyond words, really. And so we’re going to talk about, in the conversation between Satan and Eve, the four lies that he told. And the second part of this podcast, we’re going to talk about whether we’re still believing these lies today.

John McLarty: Yeah, and it’s interesting. Yeah, he said, Hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? Which number one, Satan knew good well, that God did say that.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: But that’s kind of implied there. God’s withholding something from you.

Kimberly Faith: Well, I think

John McLarty: Is it true that God’s telling you you can’t enjoy this?  Or is there something you’re missing out on?

Kimberly Faith: Right. Yes. So the first lie is basically the implication is God isn’t loving. And we’ve talked about that in a lot of our podcasts, God’s nature is he’s loving, he’s just, and he’s righteous. So, again, Satan is attacking the very root of who God is by saying, God is really a cruel and stingy character, and God’s holding out on you. He doesn’t really want what’s best for you. So, I’d like to kind of go back to the truth that God gave Adam and Eve that Satan was attacking in this statement when he says, Has God really said you shouldn’t eat of every fruit, every tree of the garden? And the truth is in Genesis 2:16 and 17. Do you want to read that?

John McLarty: Yeah, very interesting. Here’s what God said. Of every tree of the garden, you may freely eat. And I’ll just stop there because we’ve talked about the total abundance and variety of what God has provided. 

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: I mean, you know, I’m not sure what all the fruits were back then. Just today you think of peaches, oranges, bananas,

Kimberly Faith: Mangoes.

John McLarty: Nectarines, delicious strawberries, blueberries. God just poured out his love for us in all these culinary delights. And say that God today, it was like, but well, don’t eat this. Of course, it had spiritual implications. But, you know, I mean, just say God said, but you can’t eat blackberries. And we go like, well, why would

Kimberly Faith: Why would we even bother?

John McLarty: Yeah. So anyway, so what God did say, Of every tree of the garden, may freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat. That’s the quote. That’s what God said.

Kimberly Faith: And so God was being very generous, like you said.

John McLarty: Exactly.

Kimberly Faith: I mean, there was only one, and that restriction was for their own protection to keep them from sinning and from dying. And so Satan’s tactic was to plant doubt about God’s goodness.

John Mclarty:  About His goodness. 

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. And I love this quote by A. W. Tozer. He said, You’ll never be greater than how you view God. Just so profound. You think about the way we view God affects our identity, our purpose, our death. So many things about our life that are either going to tank or we’re going to be completely victorious.

John McLarty: So many that have a bad attitude toward God worldwide have the incorrect view of God.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right. 

John McLarty: They have some kind of humanly derived version of God.

Kimberly Faith: Absolutely. And we all go there. We all go there even if we worry, then we have, we’re resurrecting our bad view of God thinking we can’t trust him, that he’s not trustworthy. So let’s talk about the second lie. And the second lie was based out of Genesis 3:4 where he said, You will not surely die, right? And so he’s basically, the lie is God is not truthful.

John McLarty: God’s not truthful.

Kimberly Faith: And, you know, so

John McLarty: He just cast,yeah, direct doubt that what God told you is not true.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right. And so God doesn’t love you, and God’s a big fat liar. Okay? That’s where he started. Now, notice he never said God is a liar because that’s not the way Satan approaches anything. He really questions, okay, you won’t really die. And so, it’s so interesting how this pattern, he started with God’s love, How he’s holding out on you. Then it was like, And actually, you won’t die. Because once he had Eve’s attention, then he was able to move to the bigger lie.

John McLarty: Move to deeper. Yeah.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. And again, what did God say? God said, you will die in Genesis 2:17. You will surely die. And so, you know, I mean, again, like you said at the very beginning, God spoke very directly, very plainly. And all Satan’s got is lies. It’s all he’s got. And I really like that you made that point because that just clarifies so much. And we’ll get into this with the application later, but when we decide that our way is better than God’s way, we’re basically believing the lie, you know?

John McLarty: Yeah. We are casting doubt on God’s character.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: Because we think we have a better way. If we follow God, we’re missing out on something.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah.

John McLarty: And that really stops people from being saved in the first place, that they’re going to miss out on X, Y, or Z. And then once we’re saved, to truly surrender, one of the lies is that, well, boy, if I really surrendered to God, I might miss out on

Kimberly Faith: Right. I might not get to choose who I marry or I might not get to choose where I

 go to school or my profession or whatever our litany of things are. So then we come to lie number three, which is very much like lie number two, but it goes a step further. You know, Satan, he, like, gives us a little bit of a lie, then he progressively blows it up as we believe each stage. And this third lie is that God won’t actually judge you. You know? So in Genesis 3:4, he says, You will not surely die. So he kind of goes on, but the implication is God won’t actually enforce his word. In fact, there are no real consequences. You can really do what you want because God doesn’t have the authority to judge you.

John McLarty: It’s almost like God’s bluffing. 

Kimberly Faith: Yes. 

John McLarty: It’s like that’s just an empty threat. God won’t go through with it.

Kimberly Faith: Right. So this phrase, you will not surely die, kind of has two lies in it. Number one, God is not truthful. And number two, God won’t actually judge you. And it’s interesting because that not only attacks his righteousness, but it attacks his justice, which again, are the two, we’ve talked about his love now. Satan attacks his love. Now he attacks his righteousness. In other words, his word’s not good. He’s a liar. And then he attacks his nature of being just. And, you know, I think that if we truly believe that God is a righteous judge who keeps his word, you know, then and honestly, I think we’re born with that knowledge because Romans Chapter One says we’re born with the knowledge of God. And that from the beginning, not only have we seen God manifested in the world around us, but we also have innate knowledge and a sense of His

John Mclarty: Yeah. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness.

Kimberly Faith: But I just thought about this when we’re talking about these lies. So if we have a sense of who God is, we also have an innate sense that there is some loving. There’s love. Love exists. Justice exists.

John McLarty: Justice exists. Yeah.

Kimberly Faith: And right and wrong exists. And so when Satan is saying this, the reason I think this is such a bald faced lie is because I guarantee you, if Eve was where we are today and thought, Well, if somebody steals my chickens, I want justice for that. We know that without being told that that’s not right. I mean, we instinctively want justice. 

John McLarty:  Yes. Innately known.

Kimberly Faith: So this third lie was to get Adam and Eve to believe that God has no authority to judge them. And again, we talk about if we believe that God is who he says he is in his word, then justice is that third pillar of his nature. And, know, I mean, you hear so many so many people today talking about, oh, God is love or God is all judgment, right? So that brings us to, you know, the fourth lie. And I want you to read Genesis 3:5.

John McLarty: For God knoweth that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

Kimberly Faith: Wow. The final lie. God is selfish, reinforcing the first lie, and oh, by the way, you can be your own god. Quick pause in the podcast so dad can get his face out of the sun.

John McLarty: That’s better.

Kimberly Faith: I’m not smart enough to pause the podcast on my own.

John McLarty: Kim’s co-host had to move the chair to get out of the sunlight. 

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. So here we are, you know, in this fourth lie, And really, this final lie was probably just the most tempting. In other words, God is selfishly keeping you down. If you eat this, you’ll become like him, and you can call the shots. You can be wise. You can be independent. You can be free from needing him.

John McLarty: I’ll just jump forward, and then, you know, this is kind of from the New Testament, but it says, you know, the enemies we have, the same MO. The lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: This is you know, that was all present in the garden. 

Kimberly Faith: Right. 

John McLarty: But, of course, these are the four lies. But this is attacking the pride of life. 

Kimberly Faith: Interesting.

John McLarty: That God is selfishly keeping you down. If you eat this, you’ll become like God himself.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. So verse six in Genesis Three, I’ll just read that. It says, So when the woman saw the tree was good for food, it was pleasant to the eyes, a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of the fruit and ate it. And then she gave it to her husband. What you’re saying is absolutely right.

John McLarty: And it was based on these four lies. 

Kimberly Faith: Right. 

John McLarty: It’s funny that the fourth one, kind of you might say the one that brought it home, that pushed her over the edge, was that God is selfish and he’s keeping you from being as wise as he is.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: That would stimulate their pride. Like, Oh, I want to be wise.

Kimberly Faith: Right. It’s interesting how God had just finished, in the book of Genesis, he makes it clear that we are created in his image, right? And so Satan takes that truth and says, yeah. You know what? But really, you could be like him. When the whole idea was you could be him. But he’d, you know, I don’t know. He didn’t come out and say, you can be God,right?

Because that would be the obvious lie. But he says, you can know what he knows. You can do what he does.

John McLarty: You can become like God.

Kimberly Faith: Right. And the fact is we are supposed to be like God. We’re supposed to be holy and righteous, but that doesn’t come through our own effort. That’s like climbing over the walls and going through the gate.

John McLarty: That’s actually by yielding to God.

Kimberly Faith: Right, right.

John Mclarty: We have his wisdom. We have access to his wisdom.

Kimberly Faith: Exactly, exactly. And again, just going back to Satan and his MO, when Jesus said, you talked about God uses the truth, Satan uses the lie. In John 10:10, it says, The thief, talking about Satan, comes not but for to steal and to kill and to destroy. I am come that they may have life and that they may have it more abundantly.

John McLarty: I just think Satan came that they might have death because Satan said, you shall not surely die.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: And then they actually did die. 

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. 

John McLarty: They died spiritually.

Kimberly Faith: Right, right. Yeah, let’s kind of camp on that for a minute because I think when people ask me, well, how did, Well, Eve and Adam, they didn’t die.

John McLarty: Yeah, how was that true that they would die?

Kimberly Faith: Right. And we know from body, soul, and spirit, which is how all humans have a body, soul, and a spirit, that their soul and spirit was what died. But their body walked out of the garden on its own power. So important because understanding human design helps us understand the foundation for the mechanics of salvation, like what happens and the fact that your body really has nothing to do with your salvation, either the attaining it or the loss of it from what you do.

John McLarty: I’m glad we’re camping out on this because that’s really,  just somebody that may be not that familiar with the Bible, they go like, Well, wait a minute, they didn’t die. So maybe Satan was correct. Well, they did die. They died spiritually. They were separated in their relationship with God, kind of like they knew they were naked. And then God, they had to leave Eden. 

Kimberly Faith: Right. 

John McLarty: So that was symbolic that they were being separated, that paradise they were put in, that perfect presence of God. So they did die spiritually, then that sin nature passed on to the entire human race.

Kimberly Faith: Right. It’s interesting. You brought up the verse that they knew they were naked. God asked them later in that same chapter in Genesis, Who told you you were naked? Kind of, in my mind, bringing awareness to the fact that they knew something was wrong.Because before, evidently they’d been naked and never paid attention to it. But the guilt and shame of sin is the first hammer on us when we make that decision, that conscious decision to sin. It’s like then we become that tree of knowledge of good and evil. They knew good only, really, and then they knew evil. And they made what was good evil. Wasn’t anything wrong with being naked, but they made it evil because their conscience had been awakened to Satan’s

John McLarty: They knew that. Yeah. It was kind of the guilt of disobedience.

Kimberly Faith: Right. And I don’t want to belabor this too much, but there’s a lot of people who come into my office who have done something wrong, maybe committed some crime or been accused of it, and there’s a lot of guilt. And one of the statements I hear a lot is, I just have so much self guilt, I need to forgive myself. And I don’t want to ever mock somebody or demean them, but one of the things I ask people is, who do you think you’ve sinned against primarily? That kind of stops them, because primarily they’ve sinned against God. 

John McLarty: Right.

Kimberly Faith: And that’s the reason they have guilt. What they usually have for themselves is a sense of shame or sorrow because they can’t take it back.

John McLarty: Yeah, it’s really interesting, Kim, because that is kind of a huge lie today. You hear this over and over, even in theological circles, that the big thing is you need to forgive yourself.

Kimberly Faith: Right. I asked somebody, What does that even mean? What does that even mean?

John McLarty: And I can kind of understand it in the sense of, I mean, give yourself a

Kimberly Faith: Let it go.

John McLarty: Let it go.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah, that’s a different thing.

John McLarty: Yeah. But the solution is we need God’s forgiveness.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right.

John McLarty: We need God to forgive us. And then Satan is a great accuser. So yeah, Satan wants to use it so we need to let it go. That’s a better way of putting it.

Kimberly Faith: He wants us in perpetual guilt. 

John McLarty: Yeah. 

Kimberly Faith: So if the big job is I can’t seem to forgive myself, well, then we make ourselves even more of a victim and God wants to make us a victor, right? And when we use that term, I have to forgive myself. I’m always pretty cautious about like, wait a minute, the big reason for your anxiety is you’re separated from your relationship with God, not yourself. You’re always with yourself. That’s not the big problem. You have to reconcile with God who is the only, He’s the only relationship that will give you peace and take away your anxiety. It’s not more time with yourself. You’ve been with yourself and this is where you’re at. You’re in this mess because you’ve been hanging out with yourself.

John Mclarty: Yeah, yeah.

Kimberly Faith: And it is a lie. It’s a complete lie. Satan uses a little bit of truth

John McLarty: A little bit of truth.

Kimberly Faith: Which there is some truth, you do need to get over it or let it go or whatever that looks like, you need to just

John McLarty: Don’t let, I mean, we’ve done things that harmed others.

Kimberly Faith:  Right. You need to say you’re sorry.

John McLarty: Yeah, yeah, exactly. But not carry that with us and let it just haunt our entire lives.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right. There’s a difference. Letting it go is giving it to God, not taking it back, but you’re not giving it, you’re not forgiving yourself. You’re giving it to God. He’s the only one who can relieve you of your guilt. So anyway, that’s just a side note that was free. So let’s go on to part two, which is do we still believe these lies today? Do we find ourselves falling for the same lies today?

John McLarty:  I’m going to bet because Satan is the same Satan and uses the same MO, and we’re the same fallen human creatures that it’s 100% true. 

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. 

John McLarty: But it’d be interesting to delve into it.

Kimberly Faith: Delve into it. Yeah. You’re right. He hasn’t changed his game at all.

John McLarty: No.

Kimberly Faith: And you talked about the lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, the pride of life. Every advertisement that we see focuses on one of those three.

John McLarty: That’s true.

Kimberly Faith: We talk about our enemies being our culture, the world culture, Satan in our flesh. Those enemies are always fighting with the same thing, the pride of life. We want to be skinny, we want to be beautiful, we want to be popular, whatever it is, we want to be successful. Those are all the same lies. And I will just say that when I started studying this, I kept thinking, I was asking the Lord, show me if I’m still, am I believing the lie that you’re not loving? And so that was kind of how the study panned out for me. So let’s just kind of talk about how Satan The number one lie, God is not loving. Because the lie really boils down to God is stingy, he’s cruel, he doesn’t really want good things for me, he wants me to take the hard path, he wants to restrict my freedom, all the things.

John McLarty: He wants to deny me good things.

Kimberly Faith: Yes. Yes.

John McLarty: He’s not loving. 

Kimberly Faith: Yes.

John McLarty: He doesn’t have my best interest in heart.

Kimberly Faith: Right. And you think, I mean, I think of all these people, and myself included, questioning God when something bad happens. Like, will God let this happen to me? You know? This is a terrible plan. Why did I even follow him to begin with? He allowed this to happen. I mean, I remember when I was eight and a half months, eight months pregnant with Laura, and we found out she was dying. And we just had to wait for her to die. Maybe I was seven and a half months. I was pregnant with her for a month where she basically was dying. And then when she finally, because we had hope that she might live, right? And then when she died at full term, they had to induce labor because I wasn’t necessarily going to labor. And I remember giving birth to a baby who was already gone and just thinking, Where is the good in this? Why? And the thing about God is because he is so loving, he’s okay with legitimate questions. He’s okay with that. Has really big shoulders and a big lap.

John McLarty: He says, come and let us reason together.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right. And if you’re going through suffering like everybody does, everybody suffers, this is a hard world. We have to remember God’s nature is first and foremost loving. We read out of James, the last podcast about all good things coming down from the father above, right? And all good things come from him. The bad things didn’t come from him. They came because we chose to destroy this world with sin.

John McLarty: That’s an important point for people to realize

Kimberly Faith: Yes.

John McLarty: That this is a fallen world. This is not God’s perfect

Kimberly Faith: That we created.

John McLarty: Yeah. Through sin. And then everything changed. I mean, the weather changed. By the sweat of your brow, you shall now eat.

Kimberly Faith: You’re going to labor.

John McLarty: Yeah, you’re going to labor. And there’s weather and tornadoes and just sin is let loose in the world. And Satan’s let loose in the world.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right.

John McLarty: Satan became the god of this world. He’s referred to the god of this world as Satan. 

Kimberly Faith: He is. 

John McLarty: So it was a victory for Satan. And one of the messages of this world, bad things, is that we don’t want a world ruled by Satan. We want a world ruled by God.

Kimberly Faith: We do. 

John McLarty: And that’s where we’re headed to.

Kimberly Faith: That’s where we’re headed to. But we can have a life ruled by God right now.  But in order to

John McLarty: In this fallen world.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right. And in order to do that, we have to know him for who he says he is. And when Satan says, God’s not loving, we need to counter that with, Yes, he is, and here’s how I know, and get back. Get back, Satan. That’s not true. And I’m very literal when I have these thoughts in my head or when somebody approaches me, when I had something kind of bad happened about three years ago, somebody made some comment, Well, God sure did fail you. And this was an agnostic friend of mine. And it really felt like God had failed me. It really did. I mean, I’m not going to lie. But as soon as that thought was planted, I was like, okay, Lord, I’m not going down this hole. And I was able to look at that person and say, God didn’t bring sin into this world. Sure, he allowed us to have a choice to love him or not love him. And we chose not to love him. So this is all, every one of us has added to this burden on this beautiful creation that God made. Cannot blame God. He’s the one who’s going to love me through it.

John McLarty: That’s why we need to camp out on this idea that God is loving. In fact, as we’ve looked at in previous podcasts and studies, God is love. God is righteous and he is just. So that bedrock of who God is doesn’t change.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: But this world is full of sin. 

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. 

John McLarty: It’s a changed world.

Kimberly Faith: It is.

John McLarty: But it’s not God’s fault.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right.

John McLarty: It’s a result of sin.

Kimberly Faith: And if we have an accurate view of God, so if we have a small view, if I had a small view of your love, then I would have a much less satisfying life than if I had a big view of you and mom’s love. The smaller our view of God, the smaller our life.

John McLarty: That’s true.

Kimberly Faith: The bigger our view of God and the broader and the more accurate our view of God, the more victorious and satisfying our life is. And Satan does not want us to know that. He wants us to live in the lie every tragedy, every problem, everything that’s gone bad in our life is because God doesn’t love us.

John McLarty: So the question, is this still true today? This idea that God is not loving permeates world culture.

Kimberly Faith: Absolutely, yes.

John McLarty: I mean, when you go to universities and philosophy 101 the professor is saying, Let me challenge you all. How could a loving God, How can there be a God? How could a loving God allow that blank to happen. That’s one of the first things students are hit with.

Kimberly Faith:  Yes. I remember philosophy. I remember that and psychology. Both my teachers-

John McLarty: Philosophy, yeah. Psychology 101

Kimberly Faith: They were both kind of crazy. I mean, I remember thinking, I don’t understand anything this person’s saying, and I’m not sure they do either. Nobody else really did either. But anyway, that’s a side note. I think that 

John McLarty: That same attack.

Kimberly Faith: Yes. 

John McLarty: God is taught in our universities.

Kimberly Faith: Right. 

John McLarty: How could God be loving if this?

Kimberly Faith: I think that our culture also really couches God as like an abusive father, you know, or an abusive spouse. And he puts all these boundaries up and he has all these harsh consequences and twists basically his protection for us into some kind of cruel, unreasonable kind of, you know, hard love, tough love. And that’s just what Satan did in the garden. Satan, again, I cannot overemphasize. And this is look, this lie and all these lies are lies I struggle with them just as much as anybody. Because if I didn’t, I think I’d be doing stuff that was way above what I’m doing now for God, because I would have a bigger life, because I have a bigger view of God. But I want to get there, you know?

John McLarty: It’s the human condition. But God says, Come and let us reason together. This is a big question. This is a huge question. 

Kimberly Faith: It’s a huge question.

John McLarty: How can we have a loving God and evil is present in the world.

Kimberly Faith: Well, and to say God is not loving, one of the things I also like to talk about and think about is I remember my struggle with getting saved and surrendering to God centered on, I was a young woman and I was like, I want to do this, this and this in my life. I want to have this freedom, right? My view was that freedom was getting to do whatever I wanted instead of freedom being protected from the sin in the world enough to do what God wanted and have victory over the sin instead of engaging in the sin. Freedom is never free, obviously, and it’s never doing anything we want to do. Otherwise, we would all be miserable because we’d be pillaging each other’s houses and murdering and doing all kinds of terrible things to each other.

Whatever pops into our mind, I’m going to do it because that’s true freedom. That’s not true freedom. True freedom is living according to what God has set out for us in his word and letting him give us the victory and the fruit of the spirit like we’re talking about. Because our goal for wanting freedom is so that we will have love and joy and peace. Everybody wants those things, but to get them selfishly will never happen. That’s believing the lie.

John McLarty: Yeah, and the freedom of the sixties was just freedom to sin. 

Kimberly Faith: Right. 

John McLarty: It was our idea of freedom.

Kimberly Faith: Right, right.

John McLarty: You know, that’s such a big question. I want to just try to give the briefest answer to that question: how can there be evil in the world? How can we have a loving God and evils in the world? Because I wrote an essay on that in philosophy class. 

Kimberly Faith: Oh, did you really? At University of Arkansas?

John McLarty: At the University of Arkansas. And I think my professor wrote interesting in his reply. You know, it was like a two page thing. 

Kimberly Faith: Yeah.

John McLarty: But the idea was that we have an eternal soul. So just some reasoning. If life is, we have eternal souls and that the most important thing is the destiny of an eternal soul, and that’s hinged on knowing the truth of God and knowing spiritual truths. And one of the spiritual truths is that if you sin, you die, spiritually, what happens spiritually. So if the world, if we lived in a world where everything was insulated from the effects of sin or just the effects of a fallen world, then we wouldn’t realize God’s nature of righteous, just, and loving.

Kimberly Faith: Oh, that’s interesting.

John McLarty: So an example, say that you had a child and every time they started to touch a hot stove, that would be bad, right? If they burned their hand. 

Kimberly Faith: Right. 

John McLarty: So some mysterious, the hand of God came and prevented it. So that child never experienced that trauma that a stove is hot. So all of life was like that. Bad things are prevented from happening. And then you don’t get the message that this is real stuff. Like the laws of physics are real. 

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. 

John McLarty: If a child falls off a roof, the law of gravity still applies.

Kimberly Faith: Why have laws if God would prevent the consequences.

John McLarty: So the most important laws, the spiritual laws, are true. And so the physical laws reflect that. And it’s more important for us to understand spiritual truth than for God to be running around preventing the physical laws from being in effect. Like, why does a tornado kill people? Why does a child get run over by a car? Do you see what I’m saying? 

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. 

John McLarty: God would have to mitigate the physical laws continually. And so you wouldn’t understand spiritual truths.

Kimberly Faith: And I think, to kind of, so I’ve never thought about that in the context of his righteousness and his justice. The physical laws reflect those things. We know it’s wrong to do certain things, right? We have that innate. We know that we want justice when things are done wrong to us. We understand what love feels like. We also understand very clearly that love is a choice, that we can’t have love if you’re being forced to, if somebody’s being forced to do it, you’ll never receive it. And one of things we, I don’t think it’s taught as much in our culture like it used to be is that love is actually selflessness. It’s not some gooey feeling. The true love, the one that you want around for fifty years is selflessness because that’s what builds the relationship into something that is treasured. It’s priceless. But you can’t have selflessness unless you have a choice to be selfish. So, how could we have ever experienced love if God prevented us from sinning?

John McLarty: Right. Like preventing free will.

Kimberly Faith: Preventing free will. So, this idea of, I think it was Epaphroditus who kind of made that question, how can God be good if evil exists, right, has a false premise about what love is. What is goodness? What is love? Because if you understand that God is love and that love requires free will, then you understand. That question is just a no brainer. And I’m not, again, I am not at all minimizing the suffering of this world. We’ve all suffered horribly. And it’s not a game, it’s not. But I have also seen, and you’ve seen this too, and Jesus is a prime example of this, the greater the suffering, the greater the ability to glorify God. 

John McLarty: Right. 

Kimberly Faith: And if we were created for God’s glory, then we have an immense opportunity every time. Every time hardship comes and Paul thanked God for his hardship. He thanked God for it. And unless you understand that why, because of who God is, I think that just sounds sadistic.

John McLarty: So I think the bottom line here is that God is indeed loving.

Kimberly Faith Right, right, yes.

John McLarty: And the ultimate example of that is he is righteous and just. And we talked about this in a previous podcast. The ultimate unfairness was that God had to come in the flesh, the Son of God, and die, not for his own sins, but for our sins.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. 

John McLarty: See, sin is real. The effects are real. There really is eternal heaven or separation from God. And it’s so serious that God came and took care of the problem on the cross.

Kimberly Faith: Gave us the opportunity. It’s like you mentioned gravity. Gravity is a real thing. If I jump off the building, I’m not going to fly. I’m going to fall

John McLarty: Even if you regret it halfway down.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right. 

John McLarty: Wish you hadn’t done it.

Kimberly Faith: Wish I hadn’t done it. Or, you know God is

John McLarty: That physical truth is an example of 

Kimberly Faith: A spiritual truth. 

John McLarty: If someone dies physically, they’re not going to be able to change their mind.

Kimberly Faith: Right. That’s a good point. Yeah. That’s a really good point. Yeah. You can’t change your mind in mid air.

John McLarty: You can’t change your mind in mid air. 

Kimberly Faith: Right. 

John McLarty: And that’s like a sobering truth. 

Kimberly Faith: Yes.

John McLarty: I think you had someone ask that question. Well, can I just get right with God at the pearly gates? 

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. And it’s appointed unto man once to die and after that the judgment, Okay. So lie number two, God is not truthful. You know, God’s word can’t be fully trusted. He exaggerates, lies, and doesn’t mean what he says. I mean, how many times have you heard people say, well, I know the Bible says that, but my truth is

John McLarty: My truth. 

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. I believe, you know, we have this cherry picking that goes and the progressive theology, whatever that means, redefines sin so it’s no longer a sin. I mean, there’s a church in my town that, you know, they have, the whole denomination, at least the sect of the denomination, has endorsed what God said is sin in marriage is wrong, and in, you know, your sexual identity. And what happens, the reason this is so harmful, I look at this as being extremely harmful from the standpoint that all the blessings that God has for people are cast out into the fire, basically, or cast out into garbage because we’ve chosen to swallow the big lie that God’s word, he just doesn’t ,no. God’s changed his mind. No. God doesn’t change his mind because if God is a liar, if God is not just, if he’s not righteous, if he doesn’t make the rules, then he isn’t who he said he is and we’re in bigger trouble.

John McLarty: It’s all chaos.

Kimberly Faith: It’s all chaos. He’s not who he says he is, anything goes. Why are we even trying to do good, right?

John McLarty: And the Bible confirms, the Bible and our spirit, our born again spirit, it confirms God is true.

Kimberly Faith: Yes, that’s right.

John McLarty: And we could get into, I mean, we’re given faith and faith’s a real thing and it confirms God’s telling it straight,  you know, just to use a term. Jesus said, I’m the way, the truth, and the life. But the Bible, the Word of God, is the truth. So Satan’s, that’s a great example, all over the culture, Satan’s attacking that idea

Kimberly Faith: Everything.

John McLarty: That that’s not true. The word of God is not truthful.

Kimberly Faith: Like, the Bible can’t possibly mean this. That’s so outdated about all these things. You know, there’s no judgment for doing these things because they’re not really sins. Well, that’s exactly what Satan was telling Eve. And I think, you know, for born again believers who have started believing the lies and saying, well, the Bible’s outdated. You can’t take it literally. It’s full of, you know, it’s culturally biased. And that really echoes, did God really say? Did God really say that? And in moral issues and people reinterpret or dismiss really clear teachings from God’s Word, there’s some really clear teachings on sexuality in God’s Word. Very clear. I mean, you don’t have to interpret anything. Don’t do these things. And there’s no times have changed. That’s, no, God said don’t do these, and he really meant that. And, you know, for Christians who’ve been truly born again, and I’ve been in this place where and sometimes I still am, where I’m interpreting God’s word according to what I really want to do instead of what it really says, God, Jesus said, Jesus prayed. This is such a beautiful prayer in John Chapter 17, where Jesus prayed, Sanctify them by your truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have also sent them into the world, And for their sakes, I sanctify myself that they may also be sanctified in truth. Jesus was like, I’m the sacrifice, I’m the ultimate example of why it’s so important to be sanctified. And sanctified is kind of a, it’s been misused a lot, especially in the last fifty years. But there’s sanctification of our soul and spirit when we’re born again, and that’s irreversible. We are made righteous. That’s what sanctification means, righteousness,right? But in the body, our body is never going to be righteous, but we can discipline it to live the kind of life that helps us to also bring others to the truth. And this is what Jesus was saying. And so we can’t, I mean, 100% Satan is still telling the lie that Jesus is not or that God is not truthful.

John McLarty: Just think about it, even in this world, not to mention heaven and hell, but in this world, just to throw out God’s, let’s just use some of the moral issues, which have been thrown out in our culture.  Are people happier?

Kimberly Faith: No. 

John McLarty: Just look at our culture.  Are people happier?

Kimberly Faith: That is such a good point, dad.

John McLarty: Is it working out well for our culture?

Kimberly Faith: No. That’s so interesting that you say that because one of my really good friends had really believed that she was a lesbian. I mean, she believed that she would be happy. She said, I was only happy when I looked in the mirror when I looked like a dude. You know? She was telling me about how, and I don’t, again, I’m not picking on one particular sin. I’m just saying it’s what the Bible says. You know, if you don’t agree, that’s between you and God. But she was talking about how miserable she was. And she was no happier than when she had been before she chose that lifestyle. In fact, she was more unhappy. Because then you’re also, not only are you not finding the pleasure that lasts in the relationship the way God intended it, and so you’re taking the natural use of the body and using it in an unnatural way, you’re destroying yourself. And it doesn’t matter whether you abuse food, because you’re taking the natural use of food and you’re abusing your body, whether you abuse alcohol, whether you never exercise. I mean, there’s lots of things physically that we can use as examples that are sins. Gluttony is a sin, right?

John McLarty: And then think of someone that just let that loose, the gluttony. Are they happy? Is that bringing them happiness? 

Kimberly Faith: No. They’re miserable and they hate looking at

Kimberly Faith: And then they start having health problems and no food is good enough and they have to get the greatest culinary or stuff more. And that could just go on and on. Not to pick on, because people can relate to this. Think of a drug addict. I’ve known some drug addicts. I don’t know one that’s happy.

Kimberly Faith: No. 

John McLarty: That was happy about it. We’ve helped them stop, go clean, just to be happier, they’re miserable.

Kimberly Faith: Well, let’s just use one that everybody can relate to, addiction to money. Okay? I mean, nobody is happier when they have more money. They’re happy for what, five minutes? Until they spend it, until they’re trying to protect it from being stolen. I don’t, look, all these things I have mentioned

John McLary: Or get that boat that was going to make them happy?

Kimberly Faith: Exactly. And then they have just got to keep it clean and everything else. But our point is that this lie that God is not truthful, he can’t be trusted affects everybody. It affects everybody today because, you know, God, Jesus said, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind because that’s how he loves us. You know? He loves us. He loved us with everything. He laid down his life. And he just says, love me the way I loved you. And then love others the way I love you. It’s really pretty simple. But if we believe a lie that God doesn’t love us, it would destroy the opportunity.

John McLarty: So God actually is loving and he actually is telling us the truth.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right.

John McLarty: Satan has attacked both of those. I mean, that’s so relevant. It’s ongoing. 

Kimberly Faith: Yes. 

John McLarty: Kind of our premise was, are these four lies still active today?

Kimberly Faith: Yes, yes.

Kimberly Faith: Yes, so far as we’re determining, very much so.

Kimberly Faith: Yes, and that kind of leads us to God won’t actually judge us. There’s no real consequences for sin. I like to help myself with the sins I struggle with, because there are sins of omission, we have mentioned one of them like pray without ceasing. I struggle with that. That is a sin to not pray, to not be in touch with God all day, you know, throughout the day. I have sins of commission that I still struggle with. And, you know, they are real. But I like to think of sin this way. I think of sin like cancer. Why would I want to put cancer in my body? Why would I want to do that? I would be dumb to do that. And because what I’m doing is I’m cutting my life short. I’m cutting my health. I’m doing all the things that make me miserable. And sin is a disease. It is a disease. And if we tickle around with it, if we partake in just a little bit, it becomes an addiction. It grows, it spreads, and it separates us from the best thing we have, and that’s God. And there are consequences

John McLarty:  A couple of the Proverbs, you can’t play with fire and not be burned.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah, there you go. Perfect. Yes. And so, we don’t have to look too far to see this. For example, the universalists teach everyone goes to heaven eventually, right? And that’s actually becoming a trend in churches, churches that used to teach the Bible. That’s like taking out the sign that says bridge out ahead. So you’ll be fine. Just keep driving.

John McLarty: God is only loving and he’s not just or righteous.

Kimberly Faith: Right. I mean, of course, we had the big cancel culture thing where if you said anything that was even remotely against whatever progressive, you know, rebranding of what the Bible calls sin, you know, whatever that looks like, I’m not going to pick out a category, but you were, you know, you were just canceled. Well, I mean, that’s because if the culture supports that as a whole, that’s where we’re going to be. And I’ll tell you, there are  Christians in Eastern Africa, Christians in Nigeria, they’re experiencing a cancel culture from a religious sect that cancels out this idea that God, number one, is loving, but also that he will judge those who did not receive Jesus Christ, their Lord and savior. That’s such a Oh, it’s just an evil beyond evil. 

John McLarty: Yeah. Absolutely.

Kimberly Faith: It’s a blatant affront. So anyway, we gripe about our legal system not being just. We griped that, well, this person, you know, murdered and now he’s just sitting in jail for his whole life getting free meals, you know. We gripe about no justice being done for this person, that person, this kind of person, or even in my civil cases. The renter trashed my house and I got a judgment, but I couldn’t collect it. We long for God’s righteousness. 

John McLarty: We long for justice. 

Kimberly Faith: And justice, that’s right. But we don’t want to believe that God will do it to us.

John McLarty: And that really, we have to come back to that premise of God’s nature. 

Kimberly Faith: Yes. 

John McLarty: He’s righteous, he’s just, he’s loving, but he’s infinitely so. So God cannot be unjust.

Kimberly Faith:  Right, right.

John McLarty: It’s not even an option.

Kimberly Faith: It’s not an option. 

John McLarty: But he can’t be unrighteous. He can’t be unloving. And we like that, he can’t be unloving, but he can’t be unjust.

Kimberly Faith: Right. 

John McLarty: So there is justice.

Kimberly Faith: I remember when I was in undergraduate school, there was a phrase going around that morality is relative.

John McLarty: Right. Situational ethics.

Kimberly Faith: Situational ethics, yes. And it was really popular.

John McLarty: Your ethics depend on the situation.

Kimberly Faith: Right, right. You could just justify anything you wanted to. And that’s believing the lie that Satan told Eve in the garden. There are no real consequences because it’s not really sin. It’s not really sin. Did God really say, If you eat this, you’ll die. No, no, no, no. What he really means is you’re going to be like him and you won’t need him anymore. Again, we’ve kind of,      number two and three are very much alike, but I think we’ve talked about that. So, I kind of want to wrap up with number four, which is that God is selfish and you can be your own God.

Because I think this is the most popular lie,  I believe, today. You know, this new age spirituality, you know, all the self help empires, you are enough, you know, all these mantras, just be a good person. It doesn’t really matter what you believe. God’s going to accept you.

John McLarty: How about creating your own God in your image? 

Kimberly Faith: That’s actually 100% accurate. 

John McLarty:That’s what people, that’s a cultural thing.

Kimberly Faith: Right. Right. 

John McLarty: Then your God might be the environment, or your God might be social causes, or your God might be just your own pleasure. It’s just whatever you’re into, make that your god.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. It kind of reminds me of when Paul went to, was it Greece? Somewhere in Greece where he was like, they have a thousand gods, and they even have an altar to the unknown god. You know? Like, just to make sure we got them all covered.

John McLarty: And they’re all just stone and wood.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. And you think about the surveys that they take, and they’ll have how many people identify as spiritual but not religious. Well, what the heck does that even mean? Everybody’s religious. You know? Religious just means you worship something, even if it’s just you. What do you think about? What do you dream about? What motivates you? What gives you hope? That’s what you worship.

John McLarty: And that’s tied into the idea that the true God is going to hold something back from you. 

Kimberly Faith: Right, right.

John McLarty: And that’s the exact ploy on Adam and Eve, that God is selfish. He’s trying to hold something back from you. And oh, by the way, you can be as wise as him.

Kimberly Faith: Right, right. You can be as wise as him and you can do better without him. And I’ll tell you, I find it even, I mean, it’s not like any of us are immune from that. We are all susceptible to displacing God on the throne of our heart. Because even worry, like if I am worried about a situation, I’ve displaced God with whatever the problem is.  Talk about a horrible God, making your problem your God because that’s what’s eating you up. That’s what you are essentially. I like to say everybody’s religious and everybody worships because they’re very tied in. Whatever you think about, whatever you hope for, whatever you dream about, whatever you talk about the most, whatever you work for, that’s what you’re worshiping. Whatever you worry about reveals what that really is. You may say, well, I don’t worship money. But if you worry about money the most, then that’s what you’re worshiping. You know? So the good news is though, we don’t have to believe any of these lies. We don’t have to believe any of them. God hasn’t changed. He is loving. He is just. He is righteous. Jesus Christ exposed and defeated these lies through his life, his death, and his resurrection. And he offers us abundant life. We talk about the abundant life so much because it is unbelievable. If you had told me I would be living the life I’m living today twenty years ago, I wouldn’t have even been able to wrap my mind around it because it’s, I’m not saying I don’t have trouble, totally do. But man, I just know I can do all things through Christ. 

John McLarty: Amen. 

Kimberly Faith: And it’s just, God gives us a personal invitation, an invitation he paid for with his life. You know, Eve believed the lies that plunged us into this broken world, but God’s given us a way of escape. We don’t have to, you know John 3:16, it’s the basics. It’s the basics.

John McLarty: Most people know this verse, but let’s just read it and then analyze it or look at it in light of what we’ve just said. 

Kimberly Faith: Sure. 

John McLarty: For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. And Satan wants to tell the world that’s not true. God doesn’t love you. The son of God’s not really the son of God. Your truth can be, what’s your truth? Is that your truth? And this is the truth. Jesus said, I’m the way, the truth, and the life.

Kimberly Faith: Conversely, you don’t have to just believe you better do something to make sure you’re securing it. Do some good works because believing’s not enough. It can’t ever be enough. And, oh, by the way, you can’t know today that you in fact do have everlasting because you might lose it. Those are all the lies. Those are all the lies that attack God’s goodness, His love, His justice, His righteousness, that He is truthful. And man, we have so much more in Christ. I love what Second Peter 3:9 says, The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, but is long suffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Today, the same gracious God invites every one of us to reject all the lies of Satan and live in his truth. Live in his presence.

John McLarty: That’s the heart of God, is that not any should perish.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right. And if you’re listening to this and you’ve never received the gift of salvation, the Bible says today is the day of salvation. You do not want to take the chance that the misery that you’ve experienced on this earth will be for eternity, in eternal separation from God. Jesus died to set you free.

John McLarty: And as you ponder that, be aware of the lies of Satan. Because he attacks that truth. 

Kimberly Faith: That’s right.

John McLarty: But God wants that truth to shine through and people to find the true loving God that he is and have a personal relationship with him.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right. Because when we have a personal relationship with God, we discover the extraordinary greatness and purpose that God created for each one of us to have. And we know God. We get to know God. And we can’t help but glorify him.

John McLarty: He does love us and he has loving kindness and he wants what’s best for us.

Kimberly Faith: That’s a good way to end this, dad.

John McLarty: Amen. 

Kimberly Faith: And it’s a good way to end this. He sure is. 

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