The Eve Syndrome

Posted on by korgrocker

“But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the snake’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the Spirit you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough.”
2 Corinthians 11:3-4 NIVUK

The human mind can be easily deceived by arguments and propositions that sound right but are not true. The situation with Eve is the classic example. God gave Adam a specific instruction: “And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die’” (Genesis 2:16-17). But along came the serpent, saying, “… Did God really say, “You must not eat from any tree in the garden””? (Genesis 3:1b). Eve initially made the right response, “The woman said to the snake, ‘We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, “You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die” ’” (Genesis 3:2-3), although she failed to identify the specific tree to be avoided. Then, in the next two verses, came the serpent’s lie, “‘You will not certainly die,’ the snake 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’”. Then came the very verse that sealed their’s, and mankind’s ever since, doom: “When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it”. Yes, neither Adam nor Eve physically died because of that act, but spiritually, mankind has been dead ever since. God’s design and order were destroyed through a single piece of fruit, but thankfully, He didn’t give up at that point and decide to let Adam and the human race get on with their sinful lives, instead creating another planet somewhere and starting again. As we read the Bible, we find a love story of God wooing back His rebellious and sin-ridden creation, even to the extent of sending His Son, Jesus, to be the ultimate Saviour. 

Paul was concerned that the Corinthians had let down their guard and had allowed any random person with a seemingly plausible message to occupy their pulpit. It didn’t matter what “Jesus” they preached as long as the message sounded plausible. The same with the Holy Spirit they claimed to know. Perhaps the Gospel message being preached by these men was also plausible, as they, with the serpent’s cunning, twisted it, even subtly, to appear and sound plausible to the Corinthian ears. Paul warned Timothy about such a thing as well, as we read in 2 Timothy 4:3-4, “For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather round them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths”. I heard of a funeral service that took place in a crematorium in Glasgow some years ago, where the officiating Presbyterian minister used as his text John 3:16. Somehow, he managed to distort this verse to become a platform for Universalism, by saying that Jesus said that everyone would get to Heaven, including, by extension, the people gathered for the service and the unbelieving lady who occupied the coffin before them. The phenomenon of men and women preaching a false Jesus and a false Gospel wasn’t just a problem in Paul’s day.

How do we pilgrims guard ourselves from such aberrations? As the wars in different parts of the world rumble on, and as different global events continue to disturb the world order, it is easy to find preachers who deliver a message that sounds right but is instead of the wrong spirit. Just open YouTube and all sorts of strange and fictitious messages will appear if searched for. The same with other social media platforms. And before we know it distortions will creep into society in the form of ideologies and theories that will lure away even people of faith, even reaching new forms of social policies. There is only one remedy for such lies, and that is to recognise them for what they are. We pilgrims know that when faced with the Eve syndrome, we turn to our Heavenly Father and His Word where we will find the truth. We turn to the Words of Jesus because we know that He is “the way the truth and the life” (John. 14:6). Through prayer and the armour that Paul taught about (Ephesians 6), we stand firm, recognising that someone preaching a different Jesus from the one in the bible, or promoting a different spirit to the Holy Spirit, or encouraging us to accept a different Gospel to the one we find in the Bible, are all ploys of the devil. And if we find a false preacher in our pulpits, we immediately find somewhere else where the purity of the Word is sacrosanct.

Heavenly Father. Please “lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil” we pray. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Truth Leads

Posted on by korgrocker

“Show me the right path, O Lord; point out the road for me to follow. Lead me by your truth and teach me, for you are the God who saves me. All day long I put my hope in you.”
Psalm 25:4-5 NLT

It’s logical really. In theory, if we knew the perfect truth then we would have the perfect teaching and we would walk the perfect road throughout our lives. The problem is that we are sinful and imperfect human beings and we hear what God says in imperfect ways, if at all There is a verse at the end of Judges – “ … all the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes” (Judges 21:25b). And that’s the root of the human ailment. We start with whatever seems best to us rather than what seems best to God. Proverbs 14:12 reminds us, “There is a path before each person that seems right, but it ends in death“. But thankfully there is Proverbs 3:5, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding“. There is much truth contained in the Book of Proverbs. 

So how do we find God’s truth, so that we can be led by it? There is a hint from David here, because these verses in Psalm 25 read like a prayer. So we pilgrims pray for God to reveal to us His truth, in faith, as David was, that he will answer our prayers. Jesus told His disciples, “But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come” (John 16:13). We pilgrims have the Spirit of Truth living within us, ready and waiting to be called upon in our prayers.

But we start from the premise that God is truth. That’s what He is. That’s what He has always been and will always be. It’s in His DNA. In John 18:37 we read about Jesus’ response to  Pilate. “Pilate said, “So you are a king?” Jesus responded, “You say I am a king. Actually, I was born and came into the world to testify to the truth. All who love the truth recognise that what I say is true””. Pilate followed with the cynical response “What is truth”, which is where our world has been ever since sin entered through Adam. In John 8:31-32 we read, “Jesus said to the people who believed in him, “You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings. And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free””.

We find God’s truth in His Word, and we need to live our lives in the light of His truth. But the way of the world is living in the darkness of lies. Lies are the opposite to truth, and they have permeated our societies at various levels. Some lies are blatantly obvious and they are exposed in the law courts or similar places, but others are more subtle and embedded in our society, even being taught in our schools. I can remember my daughter pointing out to her biology teacher that evolution was just a theory and was not the absolute truth about the origins of life, a brave thing to do in a secular environment. Our politicians are sadly prone to tell lies about what they would achieve if elected to government, only to forget the promises they made once elected. Lies can also be subtle, holding a hint of truth to give them traction, but they are still lies in the end. There is also a tendency to tell “white” lies, perhaps to a loved one who we think would be distressed if they knew the truth about, for example, their medical condition. But we pilgrims are obliged to tell the truth, and we ask God to help us choose the right words for the occasion.

Jesus was all about truth, because He was, and is, God and could not tell a lie. Sometimes He prefaced His teachings with the word, “Truly …”, or as the old KJV puts it, “Verily, verily …”. John 5:24. “Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life”. When we read Jesus’ confirmation that what He was about to say was true, then we need to sit up and take notice. Again, God doesn’t lie. So we pilgrims ask God to simply guide us in His ways of truth. There is no other path available to a believer in Jesus.

Dear Lord, Heavenly Father, we are grateful that you have blessed us with the bounty and richness of our lives. We pray you, God, look down upon us and see fit to share with us the truth of your ways. We wish to know your will, that we may follow it till the end of our days, ever praising you and glorifying your name. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Jesus is the Truth

Posted on by korgrocker

“Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.”
John 14:6 NLT

We can understand that Jesus is the only Way into God’s presence. Only He has the key that unlocks the door into Heaven. But why did He add that He is the Truth as well? In John 8:31-32, we read what Jesus said to the people who believed in him, “You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings. And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”” So what Jesus taught was truth. In John 17:17, we read in Jesus’ famous prayer, “Make them holy by your truth; teach them your word, which is truth.” So, we find that Jesus endorsed God’s Word, the Bible, as truth. Often, Jesus preceded what He was about to say by emphasising its truth, for example, as we read in Matthew 11:11, “I tell you the truth, of all who have ever lived, none is greater than John the Baptist. Yet even the least person in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than he is!” And then there was that time when Jesus was before Pilate. We can read the conversation in John 18:37-38, “Pilate said, “So you are a king?” Jesus responded, “You say I am a king. Actually, I was born and came into the world to testify to the truth. All who love the truth recognize that what I say is true.” “What is truth?” Pilate asked. Then he went out again to the people and told them, “He is not guilty of any crime.” 

Pilate, the pragmatist, a man probably well used to the challenges of governing the Jewish people, with their religious customs and beliefs, basically and cynically asked the question, “What is truth?” And that is a question that we can ask today as well. We find ideologies that demand recognition for their own particular “truths”. For example, there are those who believe in the self-determined “truth” that a man can become a woman and vice versa. There are also those who believe in the “truth” that the world is flat. On social media, many people take a particular situation and explain it away by posting “truths” based on misinformation. Often these fringe “truths” come head to head in conflict with Biblical truth, resulting in the persecution of Christians. Sadly, some branches of the established churches have abandoned Biblical truth so that they can accommodate the beliefs and actions of people who choose a life style blatantly opposed to God’s Word. 

Our world and societies are riddled with “truths” that are, for the great majority, only relative. Relative truth is conditional, subjective, varying and contradictory, so it’s capable of changing over time. But we pilgrims know that God is eternal and unchanging, and the truth that Jesus declared is absolute. He is the same, yesterday, today and forever. 

Just as Jesus is the only Way to Heaven, he is also the only Truth that matters. Those who oppose Jesus and His truth, the people who follow their own “truths” that they have concocted to satisfy their own feelings, will find out that He is the only Truth one day. Thankfully, our Holy-Spirit-inspired consciences will guide us into the truth Jesus taught about.

Dear Lord Jesus. In this topsy-turvy world full of conflicting “truths” we are so grateful that we can stand on the only Truth that matters. And so we search the pages of God’s Word to find Truth and build our faith as we follow You. Amen.