May 21, 2007

• JMac makes a Case for the Bible

  Here's something to chew on...

  From my notes on JMac's "Case for the Bible" series: 

  Why is the Bible important?  It is God's complete, total revelation of truth, and tells us all that we need to know to be saved and sanctified.  It is the source of our instruction for life and our hope for eternal life to come.  It is because the Bible is so centrally vital to our faith that it is under constant attack from the enemy, Satan. 

  Satan's first attack on God's truth happened in Genesis 3 in the Garden of Eden.  Adam and Eve lived in a sin-free environment in perfect fellowship with God.  They were naked and unashamed.  Shame did not exist, because sin did not exist.  Satan begins his attack with a question, "Has God really said...?"  Up to this point there had been no questions, only answers.  Satan emphasized the negative element in God's command to Eve.  God had told Adam and his wife that they could eat of any tree of the garden except one, because if they did, they would die. 

  Satan's question started Eve walking down a path of questioning the truthfulness of what God said.  He planted in Eve's mind the deadly idea that she, a created being, had a right to sit in judgement of what God had said.  He causes her to question what God said by repeating God's words, but twists and perverts them by turning the positives to negatives.  He leaves out the fact that there are many other trees that are offered to Eve freely, but he ignores this and concentrates her attention on what she cannot have.  Satan presses the issue of what has been forbidden.  "Why would God want to restrain you, to limit your free will, to deny you pleasure, joy, satisfaction, freedom and fulfillment?  If God is really good, why would He do that?  He is tampering with your rights!  He is taking away your choices!"

  "Why would He do that?"  Satan implied that God was cruel, jealous and thus flawed.  God's forbidding of the one tree was actually meant to be an opportunity for Adam and Eve to show their love for God by their obedience, but Satan turned this chance upside down and said that there must be something wrong with God's character and that He was not loving at all.  Satan tells Eve that she has the right to judge God and to decide if God is right or wrong, good or evil. 

  Eve had experienced the perfect goodness of God, and knew (or should have known) that God speaks nothing but truth.  She should have been suspicious of anyone who would cause her to question God's character.  She should have defended God.  But instead, now feels that God is not to be trusted.  God is not the source of highest joy and maximum fulfillment, but an untrustworthy, unacceptable irritation.  She makes God appear mean and harsh by adding to His words, saying that she is not even allowed to touch the forbidden fruit.

  Perhaps the fall had already taken place in Eve's mind when she decided to distrust what God had said, and her actual eating of the fruit was only evidence of what had already taken place in her heart.  Satan knows that he had now gained a foothold and moves in to finish off the job by telling Eve, "You won't die!"  Satan tells Eve that God lied, and that it is God's nature to lie.  He tells her that God does not have Eve's best interest at heart and is not trustworthy.  Satan says that he is the one telling the truth, and urges Eve to free herself from this restrictive God; no limits, no judgment, no consequences.  Satan presses on, "I am freedom and love!  God wants to restrain you because if you know good and evil, you can be just like Him, and he is a jealous one who doesn't like rivals.  God doesn't have any restrictions on Him, so why should there be any restrictions on you?"

  This was the first attack on God's word as truth, and the attacks continue.  "Did God really say that, and is it the truth?"  Where do some of these attacks come from today?  From liberal critics who deny the parts of the Bible that call for repentance from sin, from cults who add to what the Bible says, and from today's culture that wants to redefine the Bible to make it less offensive. 

  to be continued...

  • 03:37
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