God has Said!
Meditation for the week of November 13, 2011
Genesis 3:1 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’?"
God speaks in at least three ways today. He speaks through creation, through our consciences and through His written Word. He has also spoken through His Son. When God speaks, the serpent makes sure he raises the question, “Has God indeed said?”
The devil is called a serpent. As the serpent, he deceives. He is a destroyer and a murderer. Sometimes he is seen as a dragon. As a dragon, he heads up a cruel, oppressive political system. He is real. Although he was created by God, he was lifted up in pride and sinned against God. Apparently he didn’t want to serve the Lord, he wanted to be equal to him (Isaiah 14:14, Ezekiel 28:12-19).
Satan is called the god of this age (2 Corinthians 4:4). He not only wants to be worshiped, he doesn’t want humans who were made by God for His pleasure, to worship God. It appears to me that Satan is trying to prove to God that anything He has made can be made to turn against Him and can be destroyed. He tried to prove this with Job who was put through terrible trials so that satan could see that some people worship God and are loyal to Him no matter what.
Sometimes satan goes about like a roaring lion (1 Peter 5:8). He is dangerous when he roars but not nearly as dangerous as when he appears to be speaking through prophets who claim to be speaking by divine inspiration. This happened to King Ahab in 1 Kings 22:22. God put a lying spirit in the mouth of Ahab’s prophets. Baalam also was able to defeat the children of Israel by hearing God speak to him personally and then using that information against the Lord and His people. In addition, sometimes satan is able to use the natural reasoning of man to keep people from truly worshiping the Lord (1 Corinthians 2:14, Colossians2:8).
Can we avoid being deceived by Satan? We can! But we must believe God when He speaks in His Word. I realize that there are problems with knowing what is written FOR us and what is written TO us in our Bibles. I realize that there are problems with translations. But what bothers me is that on very fundamental issues Christians are divided today. Most people that that say they are Christians do not see the plan of salvation the same. They do not see baptism the same. They do not see the prophetic plan the same. They do not see holiness or separation from the world the same. Why is that? Basically because most of us are taking our theology from popular writers whose point of view is much different from the point of view of those who are traditionalists when it comes to interpreting the Bible. However, God has only One Truth so we can all be wrong but we cannot all be right when we have differing points of view.
There is one thing I have noticed about those who have a clear testimony as to their “new birth” experience. Because they have their confidence in what God has said about salvation, they have a desire to understand and believe what God has said about the life of a true worshiper. They are not raising the question, “Has God indeed said?” Instead they are doing like King Zedekiah when he needed to know what God was saying. In Jeremiah 37:17 we read, “The king asked him secretly in his house, and said, ‘Is there any word from the LORD?’ And Jeremiah said, ‘There is.’”
We need to be taught by the ungrieved unhindered Holy Spirit so that we know immediately when Satan is whispering, “Hath God indeed said?” We need to be simple enough to believe God when He says that He said something.
Bruce Collin