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When Satan set out to deceive Eve in the Garden of Eden, the very first thing he did was cast doubt upon what God had told Adam concerning the fruit bearing trees there.  Of course, there was nothing ambiguous about what God said:

“And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:  But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it:  for in the day that thou eastest thereof thou shalt surely die.” (KJV, Gen. 2:16-17)

 

Compare this to what Satan said to Eve:

“And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree in the garden?” (Gen. 3:1)

 

Notice how cleverly Satan worded his question.  He didn’t start off by directly contradicting God.  He used ambiguity and subtle implication to arouse doubt about what God had clearly said.  He was trying to muddy the waters.  To her credit, Eve answered pretty well:

“We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:  But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, “Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.”” (Genesis 3:2-3)

 

Only then did Satan come right out and directly contradict God:

“And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:” (emphasis added, Gen. 3:4)

 

Satan kept on lying and before long, Eve disobeyed God by eating from the forbidden tree.  Step by step, Satan chipped away at Eve’s defenses.  The first step, the most crucial one, was to cast doubt upon what God had said.  Had Eve not doubted God, the whole course of history might have been different.  As soon as Eve began to doubt, however, Satan had the upper hand.  From this we may conclude that the first and most important step on the road to destruction is doubting God.

What Satan started in the Garden of Eden did not end there.  He is still sowing doubt about God today through all the major institutions of society.  We like to think of ourselves as sophisticated, but we keep falling for the same old trick, over and over again.  A few examples may help to make this clear.

CREATION

Not all scientists are atheists or agnostics, but many if not most of them are.  Naturally, their worldview is incompatible with the first verse in the Bible, the one where God declares Himself to be the Creator of the heaven and the earth (Gen. 1:1).  But modern scientists frequently doubt what God has said.  Consequently, they have constructed a complex set of theories to explain origins without God.  One of these is the so-called “Big Bang” theory.  Two more are abiogenesis (life emerging unaided from inorganic matter) and the theory of evolution.  Together, these widely accepted theories propose that everything came to be spontaneously.  Nothing was created.  Everything just happened all by itself.  Of course, this is a direct contradiction of what God said in the Bible (see Gen. 1:20-28).  It is as if Satan were saying, “God did not surely create the heaven and the earth.”

This is not to say that science is evil or that scientists are especially bad people.  It is to say that, like all people, scientists can be deceived and blinded to the truth.  They can also be used by Satan to spread untruths.  While it is likely that a majority of conventional scientists today reject the Bible, a growing number of highly qualified scientists are Christians and believe that 0the biblical account of creation is a completely reliable framework for understanding the world around us.  For more discussion on that topic and information on creation science, see these posts:

  • Evolution Versus Creation Science
  • Creation By Chance
  • The Big Bang Theory
  • The Theory of Evolution

ABORTION

Satan has deluded many people into thinking that abortion really isn’t murder.  “It’s not such a big deal,” they say.  “Fetuses are not babies.  Abortion is only a pill or a routine medical procedure.  Abortion isn’t infanticide because fetus’ are not babies.”  That’s more or less how the story goes.  Satan may as well be standing there saying, “Abortion is not surely murder.”  By means of this deception, the devil urges people to try to reconcile abortion with the sixth commandment (Ex. 20:13; Rom. 13:9), twisting and casting doubt on what God has clearly said about killing.  It is hard to think of anything more despicable than murdering a child, especially your own child.

GENDERS

If men would only heed God’s word, there would be no talk of more than two genders (see Gen. 1:27).  Only a few years ago, anyone suggesting such a thing would have been called a lunatic and laughed out of the room.  They certainly would have flunked biology!  Today, with strait faces, people declare as true a growing list of genders and biologically impossible feats, such as men getting pregnant.  What nonsense!  One need not know much about the Bible or life in general to realize how goofy these ideas are, yet some people continue to doubt what God said about men and women.  So where did all these ideas come from?  Only a master of deception could be behind such an absurd and destructive, yet widely accepted fraud.  If you listen carefully, you can almost hear the serpent whispering, “God did not surely create them male and female.”

ASSURANCE

Perhaps the devil’s most destructive activity is creating doubt about what God has said concerning salvation.  Most of us are familiar with Satan’s roles as liar, deceiver, and tempter, but we sometimes forget that he is also known as the great accuser (Rev. 12:9-10).  This aspect of his nefarious activities is particularly corrosive as he tries in vain to separate genuine believers from God.

We who have faith in Christ have God’s promise that salvation gained cannot be lost (Rom. 8:33-39).  We take comfort in the assurance of our salvation and stand on God’s promises, yet Satan takes advantage of our weakness, reminding us that we are not worthy and pointing out our innate inability to overcome sin.  What we should say to Satan is, “Yes, it’s true!  I am guilty, but I am also forgiven!  You cannot take God’s gift of salvation away from me, nor can I be separated from my God, who has promised me eternal life.”

Unfortunately, we are sometimes frustrated at the slow pace of our sanctification.  We become discouraged and Satan takes advantage of that discouragement.  This is when the devil rolls out that old trick again, which is doubt.  He may say we have lost our salvation or that we might never have been saved at all.  He may tell us we are not good enough, that we have fallen short and do not deserve the love of God.  We begin to wonder if we truly are saved or if we are just kidding ourselves.  We become weak when we should be strong.  Satan knows that doubt is our Achilles heel and he takes advantage of that fact.  He knows that even though he may be unable to separate God’s children from their heavenly Father, he may be able to rob them, for a time at least, of the assurance that should be theirs.

If we have any love for God at all, if we strive to do His bidding, if we are truly sorry for our sins and if we do our best to stop sinning, these are signs we are children of God.  Even though we fall short, if we do these things out of love and a desire to please Him and not merely out of a sense of duty or thinking that we can work our way into heaven, that is a good sign.  Progress on the road to righteousness, no matter how slow that progress may seem, is also a good sign.   Remember, those who are not saved have no love for God at all.  They are enemies of God.  If you have a hunger for His Word and a real desire to know and to do His will, those are all very good signs that you belong to Him.

Don’t be discouraged if, despite your best efforts, you still sometimes sin.  The very fact that you are concerned about your sin and ashamed of it should be a source of encouragement to you.  God doesn’t love you because of your good works.  Remember that you were a sinner before you were saved and you were still a sinner when you first believed.  God certainly didn’t love you then because you were a sinner and He doesn’t love you now because of your good deeds.  He loves you simply because He loves you.  That’s all there is to it!  Take comfort in that fact and ignore the devil’s accusations.

When Satan criticizes you and accuses you saying, “Ye are not surely saved,” remember God’s promise through the words of the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans:

“For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  (Rom. 8:38-39).

 

ENDLESS EXAMPLES

There is no end to the list of biblical truths Satan seeks to undermine by planting seeds of doubt about God.  Let us quickly go through a small sampling of them.  As we do, keep in mind that doubters and deniers make critical assumptions that Christians say are invalid.  Invalid assumptions, of course, lead to invalid conclusions.

Among the invalid assumptions made by mainstream scientists and other critics of the Bible are that natural processes account for everything we see around us and that things continue today as they always have been.  This is called uniformitarianism, which is fundamental to mainstream scientific thought.  Perhaps even more importantly, they deny the existence of the supernatural realm.  That rules out the omnipotent God and all miraculous (supernatural) events.  Ironically, it also rules out Satan, who is the source of their error!  That is not a coincidence.

As you consider each of the following challenges to the truth claims of the Bible, keep in mind that there are rational, logical answers countering each and every one of them.  In many cases, these answers include very compelling scientific evidence.  For more discussion and sources on this latter point, please see the three-part essay in this blog titled, “Evolution Versus Creation Science.”  Some of the scientific evidence supporting biblical accounts is truly fascinating.

NOAH’S ARK:  Doubters say it is mythical, just a fairy tale.  They correctly point out that it would be a feat for men to build such a vessel today.  They cite the fact that Noah didn’t have the benefit of modern power tools such as chainsaws, wood-shaping, cutting and joining equipment and modern fasteners, among many other modern inventions.  They incorrectly assume, however, that things in Noah’s time, such as life expectancy and climate among other things, were as they are today.

THE FLOOD:  Doubting scientists deny that it could have happened.  One of their many arguments is that there could not have been that much water on earth.  They correctly point out that forty days and nights of rain would not have been enough to cover the earth.  Rainfall, however, is not the only source of water, and the mountains and ocean basins that existed then were not necessarily as they are today.

MIRACLES:  Doubters and critics say miracles are impossible.  According to many of them, there is no unseen, supernatural world.  Everything that happens or has ever happened has explanations rooted in the normal laws of physics we see in operation today.  These are sweeping assumptions that, if wrong, undermine much of modern science.

THE VIRGIN BIRTH:  Everyone who doubts God is certain that this could not have occurred.  Virgins don’t have babies, they say.  Miracles, after all, are impossible.  [Aside:  Some of the same people who deny miracles and the virgin birth of Christ also claim that biological men can become pregnant.]

THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST:  According to doubters and unbelievers, to rise from the dead would be a miracle. Since they have already ruled out miracles, the resurrection of Christ is, by definition, an impossibility.

THE DEITY OF CHRIST:  Some doubters concede that Christ existed, but that He was nothing more than a great teacher.  He could not have been born of a virgin, could not have performed miracles and could not have risen from the dead.  According to them, Jesus was just a man, nothing more.

It is worth mentioning here that many denials of biblical truth go hand-in-hand, augmenting and building upon one another.  For example, the assertion that Christ was only a man is supported by the denial of miracles, which precludes the possibility of His virgin birth and His resurrection from the grave.  We should also remember that Jesus used miracles during His ministry to prove His deity.  No miracles, no deity!

This illustrates how denying one biblical truth makes it easier to deny another, and then another.  This is why rejecting one part of the Bible casts doubt upon the whole.  If you reject Genesis, for example, why should you accept anything else in Scripture?

The common thread through all of these objections to the Bible is doubt, doubt and more doubt.  The doubters doubt that God exists, or they doubt what God has said or they doubt that God is truthful.  Throughout history, the greatest, most skillful purveyor of this doubt has been Satan.    

DISTRACTION AND DOUBT

When other methods of sowing doubt fail, the devil may try to steer people off course with distractions, some of which can be very enticing.  These diversions are typically based upon speculations, delusions and outright lie.  There are a few, however, like some accounts of ghost encounters and alien abductions, which are very convincing and may actually be genuine demonic manifestations.  It is chilling to think that the experiences alleged in some of these reports may actually be real, that they may be satanic encounters and not fabrications or figments of the imagination.

There are many examples of things that can lead to doubt and distraction.  Even worse, some of them, if pursued deeply, may lead away from God and toward a fascination with the occult.  Accordingly, it is not profitable for a Christian to dwell on such things. Here are some examples of topics of which should be avoided altogether or approached only with great caution.  These are not presented in any particular order:

  • UFOs                          
  • Divination                   
  • Satanism
  • Voodoo                        
  • Ritual Magic                 
  • Ceremonial Magic
  • Ghosts                        
  • New Age                     
  • Bigfoot                                                             
  • Channeling                  
  • Wica                            
  • Extra-Sensory Perception         
  • Tarot Cards                 
  • Palm Reading              
  • Crystal Healing
  • Astrology                     
  • Ouija Boards                
  • Séances
  • Clairvoyance                
  • Sorcery                        
  • Witchcraft
  • Talismans                    
  • Extra-Terrestrial Life

 

It is very dangerous to invite such things into your life.  They may end up displacing God in your thinking.  The Bible, which is our primary source of truth and guidance, strongly warns us to avoid them.  Note that while things such as séances and Voodoo, among other dark practices, may not be mentioned by name in the Bible, they are still strictly forbidden.  They fall into the same category as those things that are specifically mentioned in the Bible.  Here are some Bible references that you should read and ponder carefully before looking into anything even remotely related to the occult:

  • Deuteronomy 18: 9-12              
  • Leviticus 19:31                         
  • Leviticus 20:6, 27
  • Acts 16:16-18                          
  • 2 Kings 21:6                            
  • Galatians 5:19-21
  • Ephesians 6:11-13                   
  • 1 Timothy 4:1

 

The sheer number of these warnings tells us that it is not wise to dwell on such things.  When we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we pray that we will not be led into temptation.  Why would we then deliberately expose ourselves to the occult?  Being aware of such things for the purpose of avoidance is a good idea, but a deep study of them is unwise.

SUMMARY

To borrow some words from the Apostle Paul (Rom. 6:1), what shall we say then?  We can say that doubt is an effective weapon in the devil’s toolbox and that he uses it to exploit a serious flaw we all have.  We need to learn when to doubt and when to have faith.  This is an exercise in discernment, which is an acquired skill.

While we have spent much time on the dangers of doubting God’s Word, being skeptical of the ideas of men can help us avoid deception in a world full of lies and deceit.  We should be skeptical, for example, when people cast doubt on the clear meaning of Scripture.  We should reject the notions of those who claim there are multiple genders, that men can get pregnant, that abortion is okay and that God did not create the heaven and the earth.  But for doubt to be something positive, we must train ourselves to use it wisely, to control it instead of allowing it to control us.  This is something Eve clearly had not mastered in the Garden of Eden, for if she had, she would have doubted the serpent instead of God.

Another thing we can say is that the Bible is a unified whole and must be accepted or rejected as a unit.  The Bible is an all-or-nothing proposition.  God’s Word is not a buffet lunch, where you get to pick the dishes you like and pass over the rest.  This is why people cannot reject Genesis without casting doubt upon the entire Bible.  Properly understood, the whole Bible is true and trustworthy.  It cannot be compromised or cherry-picked and it cannot be reconciled with scientific theories that clearly contradict it.

Finally, we can say that we should be very cautious about anything having to do with the occult.  The sheer number of God’s warnings about the occult is sobering.  We may also say that occult practices have been around for a very long time.  Satan has always worked tirelessly to separate us from our God, and casting doubt upon His Word by any means possible is one of the devil’s most effective weapons.