My Dear Friend,

Satan's most powerful weapon is not a guided missile, million-man army, nuclear attack submarine, neutron bomb, electromagnetic pulse device, or another weapon of mass destruction. He uses something far more powerful - yet, to us, seemingly much less powerful. What is it?

A lie! A simple, maliciously twisted, false statement planted in the minds of unsuspecting sinners - or unwise Christians! What is the effect of a lie?

It deceives! It causes its victims to believe something that is not true, accurate or, sometimes, not even real, all to further the liar's nefarious purpose. Once deceived, the liar's victims are easily led to actions that harm themselves or others, causing loss, grief, regret, and the defeat of God's wise, good plan. And Satan celebrates! How does he use his weapon?

Sometimes through intentional liars, who conceive untruths and half-truths and deliberately sow them, often subtly in quiet conversations, to harm the innocent. Or lies may come through the news media. Or the Internet. At other times Satan uses bold public speakers as his mouthpieces to spew craftily worded falsehoods that deceive and mislead the world's easily impressionable billions - and the church's gullible millions!

The Psalms issue clear, strong warnings about liars and their lies, at least 20 by my tally. "Deliver my soul, O Lord, from lying lips, and from a deceitful tongue" is their recurring theme-prayer (Psalm 120:2). Could it be that God intentionally designed this inspired book of comfort to impart inspiring comfort to us when Satan's slew of slanders have left us low and uninspired?

Jesus also warned us about Satan's worst weapon: "The devil . . . there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own ["character," ESV]: for he is a liar, and the father of it" (John 8:44). So, every lie Satan inspires arises from his own twisted nature and depraved heart. As the "father" of lying, he births, trains, and raises up little liars bearing his hateful image. And he has "no truth" in him . . . which offers us a hint.

God's biggest weapon is truth. Truth takes three broad forms: biblical truth, which speaks to all spiritual, moral, and doctrinal matters; factual truth, which speaks to all natural, worldly, or judicial matters; and the truth of honesty, or our personal integrity, truthfulness, or reliability, and openness to all genuine truth.

Wherever, whenever, and through whomever Satan shoots his arrows of falsehood at the target of human hearts, God in time raises advocates who respond by shooting truth arrows - spoken in love, but without any deviation from the full, frank truth. Ultimately, every devilish arrow will be split down the middle by a divine arrow of truth that thoroughly dispels the deception, vilifies the deceivers, and liberates the deceived. But often grave damage, loss, and grief have already taken a terrible, sometimes irreparable, toll.

So, we must quickly recognize lies and expose them before people are harmed! For this, we must know the signs of falsehood. Lies produce unrest, confusion, agitation, and strife. Truth produces insight, clarification, reconciliation, peace, unity, and progress. We also know the origin of lying.

Before time, Satan (Lucifer) "fathered" lies by slandering God in heaven. As a result, one-third of God's angels believed Satan, rebelled, and were condemned with him to ultimately suffer eternal punishment in the lake of fire. But for the moment, the liar was still on the loose.

In Eden, Satan (the serpent) lied to Eve by misrepresenting God's intentions behind His command for Adam and Eve to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Consequently, first Eve, then Adam - the federal head of the human race - believed the lie, acted on it, and immediately "died," losing vital touch with God, becoming mortal, and begetting a humanity possessing a tragic, innate preference for falsehood over truth and a predisposition to doubt and disobey God. So, the lying continued.

Before the deluge, Satan convinced Noah's peers that Noah was deceived and his warnings of an unprecedented worldwide flood were ridiculously false. As a result, the world population disbelieved Noah and was utterly destroyed, except for eight souls, forcing humanity to begin again through Noah after the flood.

In ancient times, Satan lied to pagan peoples by convincing them that the idols they made had made them. And millions lived in darkness and died without redemption.

In Israel, Satan prompted King Saul to slander David by claiming David was conspiring to kill him, when precisely the opposite was true. This forced David to flee to the wilderness and live a long, dark decade filled with danger, loss, and grief - until Saul's lies were exposed.

In Jesus' day, Satan inspired the envious Jewish religious leaders to claim Jesus was a dangerous deceiver filled with not divine but diabolical powers. Poisoned by this lie, thousands of Jews turned from Jesus who would otherwise have turned to Him.

Throughout church history lying has continued. Pope Leo slandered Luther, whose illuminating biblical studies had exposed many dark Papal sins and Catholic errors. Consequently, thousands of Medieval Christians, deceived, rejected the Reformation - and all the life-giving spiritual light and truths it offered - and lived the rest of their lives in darkness, spiritually dead, and lost.

Today, politics abundantly exemplifies the father of lies' nefarious works. Satan inspires one criminally guilty politician to brand his political rival as a lawbreaker. And the public quietly swallow the liar's slander-tainted pills and, deceived, subsequently wonder why our culture and nation are so sick.

Current social issues are also fertile fields for Satan's seeds. Only a generation after Martin Luther King, Jr., led us to conclude a man's character, not his skin, is what counts, Satan has birthed a pseudo-intellectual lie (Critical Race Theory) asserting the opposite: our skin, not our character, makes us villains or victims, oppressors or oppressed. Deceived, CRT's devotees are busily sowing injustice in the name of "social justice" - and creating a harvest of havoc.

The news media has a new manager: the liar! Tragically, the American press, long dedicated to unbiased, factual, dispassionate reporting, is now dedicated to biased, unfactual, passionate distortions. Journalists used to make their names exposing lies to establish the truth; now they attack the truth, promote lies, and support liars, while posing as journalists. And the people love to have it so.

Education is another battlefield between truth and falsehood. Lucifer has shed new "light" on our poor, ignorant minds: gender is determined by, not our sexual anatomy but by how we "identify." And thousands of innocent children, indoctrinated by guilty adults pushing these false claims, are changing their names, mutilating their bodies and, unless God's grace intervenes, ruining their lives.

Doctrinal positions are even more vital, since religious doctrine affects not just the present but eternity. Satan has an entire staff of demons dedicated to contriving and promoting lies claiming: man needs no divine redeemer; there is no afterlife; good works and / or traditional rituals will save our souls; there are other gods besides Yahweh and saviors besides Jesus; God's love will save everyone in the end; and other damning lies. These religious falsehoods have deceived and taken to perdition millions whom God passionately desired to take to paradise. And the lying goes on.

It will climax in the Tribulation. Based on his satanically empowered resuscitation from a deadly wound, Antichrist will claim he is God incarnate - and the world, deluded by this false miracle, will wonder after the beast, take his mark, worship his image, and follow him to Armageddon. And eternal judgment.

But here's the more immediate point: recognizing which lies Satan is using to mislead others won't help us. We must discern the lies he is trying to use against us!

Cleverly, he often prompts these lies in the first person, hoping to disguise them as merely our own thoughts. For instance: "David said in his heart, I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul" (1 Samuel 27:1). This satanic lie prompted David to move to Philistia - enemy ground - for sixteen months of confusion and, ultimately, the Ziklag disaster!

Satan plants lies in our minds, too, to move us to sin, disobey God’s Word, or depart from His guidance or calling: "Others are sinning, and prospering, so a little sin won't bother me." Or, "The Bible isn't entirely true, is it?" Or, "God will never fulfill His promise to me." Or, "I can't overcome this test of faith or patience or endurance." Or, "My past sins are so great, God would never use me in ministry." Or, "I married the wrong spouse." Or, "My children (or parents) are too worldly for prayer to make any difference." Or, "I'll never find a soul mate." Or, "I'm too young (or old) to help build God's kingdom." Or, “I believe he (or she) doesn’t like me.”

Satan also suggests lies through friends, family members, neighbors, or even heretical preachers. If you have fallen into discouragement, confusion, and unrest, prayerfully examine yourself to discover the lie(s) that you've bought into and then recall, believe, speak, and obey God's biblical truth in the matter. That's how you faithfully fight your fight against falsehood, and win - with truth!

This relentless war between lies and truth continues unabated. Down the ages, when wars have come, humans have armed themselves. Today many Christians are arming themselves with pistols, rifles, and ammunition. Yet God is still trying to arm us another, higher way. His way! He said His people are "destroyed" because they lack not arms but "knowledge" (Hosea 4:6). That is, truth! So, arm yourself!

Seek the truth - biblical and factual truths - with an open mind, and don't stop until you are sure you have got it! Ask the Holy Spirit to help you discern the truth and judge  issues correctly. With His omniscient help, you will see through every lie, whether personal, political, social, ideological, or religious, and bind it before it binds you. God will confirm you have discovered His truth by giving you strong, sustained peace.

Hold the truth tightly! The father of lies will use half-truths and twisted truths to try to dissuade and shift you from the full truth. Or, he will try to destroy you with slander. But this will just prompt Christ to pour in more of His sweet, strong, inner blessing: "Blessed are ye, when men shall . . .say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake . . . [and know] great is your reward in heaven" (Matthew 5:12).

Then share the truth! Tell any deceived-but-open-minded person the biblical truth, or natural facts, pertaining to the issue at hand, knowing the truth will release them from falsehood's deceptive control and harm.

Knowing the liar would flood our lives with falsehoods, the living Truth spoke this truth in the Word of truth to instruct the people of truth: "Ye will know the truth and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32, ESV). There's our instruction.

And our weapon against every lie. Seek, hold, and share the truth!

Seeking, holding, sharing,

Dr. Greg Hinnant

GREG HINNANT MINISTRIES