What image comes to your mind when you hear the name “Satan”? The popular idea depicts Satan as some hideous, sinister looking being. The image is usually frightening. If you go to http://www.google.ccom, and select Images, then search the word “satan”, most of the images that appear depict Satan as a red-skinned, horned being that has an almost goat-like appearance. Sometimes he has wings, and a pointy tail, he has evil looking eyes and often a goatee. Oddly enough, he is also usually very muscular.
There is much debate about where this image of Satan originated. Probably the pagan god most resembling our image of Satan is the goat-horned and cloven hoofed Greek god of nature, Pan. Pan also had pointed ears and a goatee, like our popular idea of Satan.
It would be very convenient if Satan actually looked like that, because he would be very easily recognized. Captain Obvious would have no difficulty pointing him out to us, and he could be easily avoided. I wish things were that simple. The Scripture says Satan “masquerades as an angel of light.”
What image or idea comes to your mind when you hear the word “evil”? Do you think of someone going into a school building with an automatic weapon and killing their classmates? Do you think of a ruthless dictator committing genocide? Do you think of someone breaking into an elderly couple’s house and killing them in their sleep before he robs the home?
As with the popular idea of Satan, if all evil was as obviously recognizable as the previous examples, it would be easily avoided. Don’t do blatantly evil things, and you will not be an evil person, right? WRONG! There is a subtlety to evil that makes it hard to recognize, and it creeps so easily into what, to us, often seems like innocent actions.
Evil, at its core, is simply lies. It is not purposefully walking in the light of truth. It can manifest itself in many ways, some obvious to recognize, others, not so much so. The Lie is the root of all evil, and our world is awash is a sea of lies. The premise to much of what we base our lives on is grounded in lies. The biggest, and most dangerous lie, is the lie that we can control our own lives without interference from God. This is, in fact, the original lie. It is the basis for all other lies. All of this is explained to us in the very beginning of the Bible. Once you get this, everything else we witness in this brief life we live on this earth makes a lot more sense. It explains why everything in this current world is such a mess.
Another popular, but inaccurate idea about Satan is that he has lots of sinister, supernatural power. This idea is depicted in satanic movies, such as “The Exorcist”. While is cannot be denied that Satan does have a degree of supernatural power, (a corruption, or distortion of the power of God,) his greatest power is simply the power of the lie. Scripture calls him “the father of lies”.
People seem to be fascinated with horror. Horror movies make billions of dollars. Television shows, such as “The Walking Dead” are popular. In all honestly, I have only watched a few bits and pieces of this show, probably a grand total of less than 45 minutes. Frankly, I think it is stupid. Halloween, the yearly celebration of horror and evil, is for many people, the favorite holiday, preceding even Christmas. The people in the neighborhood we live in make much of outlandishly decorating for holidays. Every year at Christmas I begrudgingly throw up a couple of strings of lights on the front porch just to keep the rest of the neighborhood from thinking I am a total Scrooge. Some of the neighbors really go crazy with the Halloween decorations, fake graveyards, witches and ghosts hung from the trees, etc. We do not celebrate or acknowledge Halloween in my family. Our poor, depraved children were never allowed to go trick or treating. I never understood the church practice of “trunk or treat”. Why make a Christianized version of something we should not even be celebrating in the first place? Halloween is the glorification of evil and death. I choose not to participate in such nonsense.
I have often wondered to myself why people are so attracted to the depictions of horror, evil and death. I believe one reason is because we can look at it, and think to ourselves, “I am not like that”. The conclusion that follows from that thought process is “Because I am not like that, I am good.” Simply put, it is a means of self-justification. Again, there is the subtlety of the lie.
Let’s look at the first lie that set the whole course of human history on the trajectory of sin and death. Before we get into an examination of Genesis 3, there are a few things established in the first two chapters of Genesis that need to be set in place in order for us to have a right understanding of reality:
1. God, the only eternal, all powerful, and all knowing being, is the Creator of everything. The world in which we live was intentionally and purposefully created. The reason for it originated in the mind of God. It did not simply come into being through blind, random chance. To come to that conclusion, beholding all the beauty and complexity of life that we observe, is utter foolishness.
2. God is Good. He is perfect goodness, and everything He created is Good. There is nothing that God created that is not inherently good and perfect. The corruption of mankind and the rest of the created order came about as the result of the entrance of sin into the world, because man voluntarily chose to believe a lie, rather than remaining in the truth. Man chose to make Satan, the Father of Lies, his lord, rather than remaining true to his Creator. This set the whole course of human existence on the path to evil and death.
3. Man had no logical reason to disbelieve God. God had never shown Himself as anything other than perfect goodness to man, and the source of all true life. Man had to be given the choice to either believe the truth or believe a lie. God’s desire is for man to love Him, because He Himself is Love, He is the originator of Love. Love must be a choice. There is no such thing as coerced love. If the option to not love, and not believe the originator of truth did not exist, the love of choice would not mean anything. There is no such thing as true love, unless the option to not love also exists, and love is a free-will choice.
“Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” (Genesis 3:1)
Notice that the devil is described as “crafty”. (Clever at achieving one’s aims by indirect or deceitful methods.) In our vernacular, we might use the word “manipulative”. Sadly, the characteristic of being manipulative is valued in our culture, rather than shunned.
The devil misquoted God. God did not say, “You must not eat from any tree in the garden.” He only prohibited them from eating from one specific tree, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The danger to most lies is that they can be close to the truth, or partially true. A blatant lie is easy to detect. But a lie that has partial truth mingled in is more subtle. It can be more easily justified.
Notice that in the perverting of God’s words, the devil made God seem unreasonable. This is one of his greatest tricks in leading mankind astray. Much of what is taught in legalistic forms of religion makes God seem unreasonable, and harshly demanding of us that which is impossible for us to perform. Jesus condemned the religious leaders of His day with these words: “They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.” (Matthew 23:4 NIV).
Taking the devil’s lead, then the woman misquoted God: She added, “and you must not touch it…”. While it was probably a good idea for them not to touch the fruit from this tree, God only prohibited them from eating it. Maybe she assumed that is what He meant, but it is not what He said. When we make assumptions about things that go beyond the knowledge that we have, we are providing the breeding ground for the birth of lies.
““You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:4-5 NIV)
Next, the devil makes it seem as if God is withholding something from them that will benefit them. He basically calls God a liar. “You will not certainly die.” Think about this, Adam and Eve did not know what death entailed, since they had not witnessed or experienced it. They did not immediately experience physical death, as we think of death. But they experienced spiritual death, because the spiritual life of God ceased to function within them, and this set in place the process of physical death. Man began to die physically. The lie states that we benefit from setting ourselves in defiance of God, when, in effect, we commit spiritual and physical suicide by so doing.
Sin sets in motion a process that puts our lives on a trajectory away from God, the source of life, and all good. This is death. The end of this road is hell, however you define it.
What is the face of evil? It is not the hideous, red faced, goat horned, goateed devil. It is the face of the man who’s heart is in rebellion against God, starring back at him when he looks in the mirror to comb his hair, or brush his teeth. It is the face of the heart corrupted by lies.
Danny's Stump 