My Dear Friend,

You have surely heard it said, "Don't try to play God!" But have you ever wondered when, where, and why this subliminal urge began surging in human hearts?

When? Before Adam. Where? In heaven. Why? That requires more explanation.

At some unknown point in eternity past, Lucifer (lit., “light-bearer”), already a specially favored archangel, decided he wanted more. He wanted to "play God" - do what God did and have what God had. Why? To take over! To assume God's prerogatives, place, and role in heaven. To get God out of the way! So, tragically, God was forced to get him out of the way. Suddenly, like lightning, the "light-bearer," internally darkened by his conceit, fell from grace, God, and the privileged place he had held. But he wasn't finished yet.

Lucifer, now Satan (lit., “Adversary”), disguised as a serpent, snuck into Eden, deceived Eve, and provoked Adam to rebel against God. When Adam yielded to Satan's temptation, he gave Satan the right, as his new subject, to inseminate Adam with Satan's "seed," or rebellious nature. Consequently, Adam's children, driven by this sin nature, have since manifested the evil tendencies and age-old desires of their infernal forefather. In Jesus' words, "You are the children of your father the devil, and you love to do the evil things he does" (John 8:44, NLT). To this day, fallen human beings love to imitate Satan by trying to play God. How?

How Adam's Children Play God

• Redesigning man. God is the great Designer of all - the cosmos, our planet, our bodies. He made us male and female, and this dual-gender design has worked quite well for thousands of years. Until now. Arrogant, faithless, self-appointed human re-designers have a better idea: gender is no longer determined by biology but by psychology - our state of mind, by whatever we want it to be, straight, binary, non-binary, or changing by the hour. Gender dysphoria has become our generation's euphoria and our Designer's constructive method has been replaced by our re-designers' destructive madness, as we surgically reconstruct genitals and change hormones to "affirm" confused adolescents and derail their lives. Out of the way, God, we are redesigning human sexuality.

• Giving life. God is the great Creator and life-giver. He breathed the breath of life into Adam's primordial dust and he and his race became animated, conscious, active. Until now. Assuming our new role as meddling pseudo-creators and life-givers, we take human eggs and sperm and, through IVF (in vitro fertilization), create new human beings in lab dishes and appoint surrogate mothers to carry and birth them. Human cloning is next on the human agenda. Thanks for your past help, God, but we'll take over your life-creation duties now.

• Ending life. Our Originator is also our Terminator, sovereignly deciding the day to pass. But we can do this better, too. In our self-appointed superiority, we now decide when it's time for an embryo or fetus to be violently dismembered and ruthlessly removed from the sacred protection of the womb . . . in the name of women's reproductive health care! Eliminating the chronically infirm, mentally troubled, and very aged will probably come next. So, we are the new terminator! God, you may stop numbering our days; we determine them now.

• Controlling lives. Having made us, God is the rightful controller of our lives. Yet He chose to give us brains, ears, and mouths with which to listen, think, and speak freely, and the Bible to regulate our lives and interactions. But, of course, we are better controllers, also. Our TV, print, and Internet media decide what we hear and don't hear, and thus what we think. Unapproved information, however vital, is simply removed. Our government decides when we wear masks and when we don't; when churches are considered "essential" and when they're not; when we may go to our jobs and when we must "stay at home, stay safe, and stay sane." Government also decides which political crimes are reported and which are covered. Our social media outlets decide which thoughts and speech are safe for public consumption and summarily cancels anyone who strays from their god-like judgment. Goodbye God, Orwell's "thought police" have taken over.

• Judging. Thoroughly righteous and just, God is the only truly unbiased and just Judge and He has delegated all judgment to Jesus (John 5:22). Jesus issued a standing judicial injunction against premature, misinformed, and unjust judging, and all condemnation of sinners against other sinners (Matthew 7:1-5; Luke 6:36-38). Yet daily we rush to misjudge others, not ourselves, often knowing little or no pertinent facts. And when the facts are clear and indisputable, we love that even better. Then we can condemn and mock all who fall or fail rather than kindly help them recover. Why? We love to sit in judgment on others, which, while making us feel superior only proves us inferior. Step down from your bench, Judge Jesus, we are usurping your jurisdiction!

• Counselling. God's Son, Jesus, is our "Wonderful Counselor" (Isaiah 9:6, ESV). The unfathomable, unerring wisdom of the ages is available to all who receive Christ and His Spirit, if we seek His counsel. But our culture casually assumes our secular counselors - well-degreed armies of psychiatrists and psychologists, and media shrinks - have all the answers to life's problems. Therapy, not theology, is all we need. Psychoanalysis, not prayer, will bring us peace. Hypnosis will get to the root of our troubles, not the patient probes and discerning advice of Christ-dependent, Spirit-led Christian counselors prescribing obsolete, unsophisticated biblical texts. Goodbye, Wonderful Counselor, our reason-limited analysts are sufficient. (Yet no past generation has ever been as psychologically and emotionally fragile as ours.)

• Providing. God is the great, all-sufficient Provider of "all your [our] needs" (Philippians 4:19). He gives the rain, blesses our agriculture, gives us inventive geniuses, prospers our economies, and creates financial surpluses to meet our needs and support our needy. But we have discovered a better provider: government! There's no need to live by God's Word, seek His favor, and ask for His provision. Whenever, wherever there are needy ones who can work but won't, we just borrow billions of dollars and create yet another massive government giveaway. Or we cancel debts that should be paid, or print more money to flood the economy. In ancient Rome, the Caesars used "bread and circuses" to keep the thoughtless masses satisfied - and oblivious to Rome's imploding condition and their real need of a Provider-God. Our government has often pursued the same appeasement agenda to keep us content and clueless.

• Intelligence. Our omniscient God is the highest Intelligence. He alone computed and fixed the movements of the cosmic bodies and the amazingly fine-tuned physical laws governing our planet's waters, lands, and atmosphere. He planned the infinite intricacies of the human body and its amazingly interdependent systems. He placed stunningly huge amounts of intelligence inside the tiniest element of life, the cell. And He has wisely described our origins, explained our fall, revealed our salvation, ordered our walk through this world, and foretold our eternal future in His consummately intelligent Word, the Bible. Yet in our hubris, we now consider ourselves sharper than Him. We are infatuated with our robots, website bots, spacecrafts, satellites, drones, smart bombs, smart phones, smart TVs, Alexa and Siri apps, and other "bricks" in our new tower of Babel, such as, hyper-sophisticated computer technologies, the Internet, and now, our greatest newest idol, AI (Artificial Intelligence). All this humanly conceived intelligence has left us spellbound with vain wonderment. It has convinced the materialistic, man-centered masses that God's ancient wisdom is, well, history! He created space, but look, we've created Cyberspace and the Metaverse. Out of the way, God.

Now let's make an application of this "Let's Play God" game that is much closer to home. God's children, yes, Christians, also love to play God.

How God's Children Play God

• Running others' lives. Without humble prayer or searching Bible texts, we love to tell others how we think they should run their lives, who they should marry (or divorce), what jobs they should take, and many other matters - forgetting that the Good Shepherd alone has the right and wisdom to guide us. Jesus asked us to "feed" His sheep, not mislead them. His counsel is delightful; ours is disastrous!

• Judging and condemning others. Until God knocks the pride out of us, we love to pass hard and fast judgments on our brothers and sisters, often based on nothing more than gossip. Then, in a condemning spirit, "cancel," or permanently dismiss, them from our circle of friends. Watch out: cancel not, that you be not cancelled! One very wise ex-judge wrote, "Do not go on passing judgment before the time, but wait until the Lord comes" (1 Corinthians 4:5, NAS), knowing His judgment is always fair and unbiased.

• Trusting theologians more than Scripture. We think certain of our academically distinguished theologians or popular Bible scholars are smart, so smart in fact that, when their positions conflict with clear Bible statements, we take their word over God's Word. Not smart! The best and wisest ministers may sometimes hold incorrect opinions. God's Word alone is inerrant and infallible.

• Imagining we save souls. When God graciously uses us fruitfully in personal or official evangelism, we sometimes confuse the seed-sower with the Life-Giver. It's dangerously easy to grow impressed with how many souls "we" have saved. But all we do is plant the seed of God's Word in the heart-soil of desperate, troubled-plowed, Spirit-convicted sinners. God’s Spirit alone does the rest. He hovers over the penitent, removes their sin burden, breathes new life into them, and, supernaturally, their souls come alive with a new nature, new life, new purpose, and new joy! Paul served God in his ministry, but never played God in his mind: "I have planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase" (1 Corinthians 3:7). That is the attitude of every humble evangelist!

• Planning churches and ministries. We sometimes love to design churches, ministries, and missions as we want them to be, forgetting the Great Designer doesn't need our plans, only our willing obedience to implement His plans. If by humble, persistent, Spirit-aided prayer we seek His initiatives and His plans, and then pursue them, our works will be God works and our plans His plans. And to our amazement, His favor and blessing will rest on them and they will thrive in His time and way. That is wise planning!

In these and many other ways we foolishly try to play God - and risk forcing Him out of our lives. Yes, our Christian lives! The proud "little Lucifer" in us, our fallen sin nature, wants to dismiss God so it can take over and lead us back to where we came from. If we persist in playing God, we may cause Christ, patient as He is, to force us out of His plans and proceed without us. We are still saved by grace, but outside His active will and thus unable to access His full presence, blessing, and joy. The point? When God deals with those who try to play God, He's not playing. Two more items.

First, Christians do not need to play God. We can come to our heavenly Father in the "secret place" of private (or group) prayer (Matthew 6:6, 8; Philippians 4:6-7), present our needs, and others', and let God be God. This is God's simple, easy, joyful plan. He will then do what we can't do, help those we can't help, solve problems we can't solve, turn people we can't turn, open doors we can't open, and give guidance when we don't know our way forward. Oh, what a joy to God and relief to us!

Second, we don't have to give up our love of play. Recreation is recreative and we often benefit immensely from it mentally and physically. Christ has made us "free indeed" (John 8:36) to not only work hard and minister perseveringly, but also to play: play sports, play music, play board games, play in water parks, play in the snow, play with our children and grandchildren, play in the woods, play by the sea, play on walks and hikes, and play at many other acceptable pastimes.

Except one: the "Let's Play God" game!

Not playing God any more,

Dr. Greg Hinnant

GREG HINNANT MINISTRIES