5 Lies the Enemy Wants Every Christian to Believe

I admit I don’t like to talk about the enemy. I’d rather hit block and and go about my day.

While I’m busy wrangling children, meeting work deadlines and coordinating the week’s schedule, I forget there’s a battle raging against me – and for me.

There’s a 24/7 battle against you, too.

It often comes as thinly-disguised lies that Satan first debuted in Genesis 3.  See if you recognize any of the 5 lies the enemy wants every Christian to believe.  

1.The lie that God’s word isn’t true.

“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….’” Ge 3:1 (emphasis added)

Right off the bat, Satan took a swing at the authority of God’s word. He stirred up doubt where there had been none. Why?

Because God’s word is powerful. Because God is revealed in His word. Because God’s word is wisdom and a lamp to our feet. Salvation was prophesied through God’s word and is proclaimed through God’s word.

Satan knows God’s word has power to defeat him (Eph 6:17) and if he can wedge any sliver of doubt between us and God’s word, he can win.

Satan tempts us to distrust the Bible, to doubt its authority and authenticity. He tempts us to abandon difficult passages and explain away others as suggestions or obsolete.

Jesus himself tells us that God’s word is truth (John 17:17) and used it against Satan.

2. The lie that God isn’t good. 

“And he said to the woman, ‘Has God indeed said you shall not …?’” Ge 3:1 (emphasis added)

God’s goodness is part of His divine character. There’s never a time nor any situation when God isn’t good.

God’s creation was good. He’d made man in his image, given him woman as a helper and placed them in the most lushly planted, perfectly watered, easily tended garden ever. The fingerprints of God’s goodness surrounded them day and night.

But Satan planted the lie that a good God wouldn’t withhold a fruit so pleasing with such benefits.

Satan still plants this lie for us when we’re in a trial or in the waiting room — for a new job, a positive pregnancy test, a godly spouse.

When Satan tempts us to question God’s goodness, we need to ask God for eyes to see that we are surrounded by His goodness. “O give thanks to the LORD, for He is good; For His lovingkindness is everlasting.” (1 Chron 16:34)

3. The lie that God isn’t generous.

“And he said to the woman, ‘Has God indeed said you shall not eat of every tree in the garden?’” Ge 3:1 (emphasis added)

Satan moved from insinuation to out and out fabrication. Hogwash as my grandmom used to say.

The truth is that God had given Adam and Eve every single tree in the garden for food except one – the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It was abundance by any measure.

But Satan loves to paint  our God of generosity as a God of scarcity.

When we buy into that lie, we cling to money instead of stewarding it, hoard things rather than share and envy others instead of cheering them.

God’s abundance is beyond anything we can imagine. “And my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” (Phil 4:19)

4. The lie that sin has no consequences.

When Eve replied that God had told them not to eat of the tree in the garden’s midst or they would die, Satan responded, “You will not surely die…” Ge 3:3-4 (emphasis added)

Would Satan ever love to convince us we need not worry about any consequences for sin.

A little sin won’t matter; no one will find out; others are getting away with it; we’re under grace anyway — all excuses Satan whispers.

Adam and Eve would soon discover Satan’s fraud and we will too if we take his bait. Sin always leads to death and destruction (Eph 2:8). Sin has consequences even for believers under grace. “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.” (Gal 6:8.)

5. The lie that we’re our own God.

Satan promised if Eve and Adam ate of the forbidden fruit: “. . . your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Ge 3:5 (emphasis added)

Oh, they’d know good and evil alright but they would fall far from the likeness of God.

If Satan can’t convince us there’s no God, he’ll work to convince us we can be god.

He feeds the lies that we can make our own destiny or we get to decide what’s right and wrong. We’re told the divine is in all of us and we need only to become aware of it.

It’s idol worship of the worst kind without need for a Redeemer. The Bible says there’s only one true God. ”I am the Lord, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God.” (Isaiah 45:5)

Satan may be crafty, but he is not creative. The same five lies he lobbed at Eve are some of the same lies he uses today.

But we aren’t defenseless. Our weapon is found in 2 Corinthians 10:4-5:

“The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.  We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

First, we call out Satan’s lies for what they are. Next, we take those lies captive, making them obedient to the truth of Christ. Finally, we replace the lie with the truth of scripture.

Using scripture won’t block the enemy forever but it sure can mute his lies.