Start Your Week in the Word - Know Your Enemy: father of lies

Do you know that you have an enemy?

You don't have to believe me, but it is the truth. Since before you took your first breath you had an enemy. He will be there beyond your last breath.

The accuser. The liar ... father of lies in fact. The prince of darkness. Deceiver. Destroyer. Devourer. Lion. Serpent. Dragon. Disguised. Tempter. Thief. Murderer.

The tempter is the same one who will accuse you ...

Let me introduce you to your enemy. While I don't like paying attention to him or giving any of my time and effort to him ... I think we need to. This is not an evangelical attempt to scare you straight. I'm speaking to anyone who wants to face this enemy, or at least explore the idea that one exists. I challenge you not to dismiss the idea that all the evil in the world points to a lack of God ... perhaps, rather, the evil in the world points to a dark source who stands to benefit from your incredulity.

"... He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies."
- John 8:44

Perhaps the first lie the father of lies wants us to buy is that he doesn't exist. As the father of lies, he is crafty with his deceit. Like a magician he weaves distraction and doubt before planting the lie. He doesn't necessarily commence with a bold-faced lie; he sets us up to be ready to accept it.

Before he told Eve that she wouldn't die if she ate from the tree of the knowledge (the lie) he set her up. The tone ... the question ... the subtle disrespect ... "Has God really told you not to eat from one of the trees?" (Genesis 3:1)

In the end your enemy's goal is death ... death of faith, death of hope, death of belief, eternal death

Such a liar is he that even the truth becomes a lie from his mouth ... "you will be like God" (Genesis 3:5). His statement implies Eve isn't like God ... yet merely two chapters prior we are told that God made man in His own image (Genesis 1:26). We were already more like God than the liar, but somewhere along the way Eve forgot this.

In our weakness it seems to be part of our nature to forget God's truth and buy the lie. The lie often seems more plausible ... more probable ... more palatable than the truth. The tangible world around us instead of being a testament of God's creativity, His care, His character becomes reason to doubt He, or even a spiritual realm of good and evil, exist.

"For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie,"- Romans 1:25

The worst lie of all is that Jesus is not the Son of God. Our twisted enemy doesn't go so far as to deny He existed. Oh no, that would be too outrageous, too easily refuted. Instead he explains Him away as a prophet, a good man, a zealot with a few followers.

"Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son."- 1 John 2:22

You do have an enemy. He has been lying to the human race since before you were born; examine what you are told, what you accept and dismiss, very carefully. To deny his existence is to throw off reason, alertness, and to walk into battle you don't realize exists absolutely naked and defenseless.