One of the most tragic questions in the Bible is the one God posed to Adam after his disobedience.
Then the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” 10 He said, “I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.” 11 And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” Genesis 3:9–11 (NASB95)
The Lord knew that Adam never would have known the shame of nakedness unless sin had destroyed his glorious relationship with God. Adam’s condition pointed a finger at the devil. Someone had to have influenced Adam do what was forbidden, and no one fit the bill better than the one the Bible calls the “Accuser of the Brethren.” (Revelation 12:10) I can almost hear the serpent taunting Adam and Eve after they ate from the forbidden fruit.
Any time we believe something contrary to God’s Word, we can be sure to find Satan somewhere near. The greatest lie ever told was that God does not always tell the truth.
When Satan told Eve, “You surely will not die” (Genesis 3:4), he cast doubt on God’s character and the truthfulness of his words. Lying to us about the truthfulness of God’s Word remains a chief means of alienating us from God.
Master propagandists know that when a lie is repeated often enough, it eventually is believed by most people to be the truth. The longer such a belief is held, the more likely it will become a self-evident truth in the minds of the deceived. Once a lie become embedded in the consciousness of a culture, anything that contradicts that lie will be attacked as utter foolishness. Heliocentrism, which led to modern astrophysics, evolutionary thinking, and atheism, was once regarded as an anti-biblical heresy by the church.
Heliocentrism is so embedded in the collective mind of the culture, otherwise honest students of the Bible think it is necessary to adjust how we interpret the Bible to conform to the dictates of modern science.
The reasoning goes like this.
- We know that heliocentrism is true.
- The Bible contradicts heliocentrism.
- Therefore, we must either reject the Bible or change how we interpret the Bible.
The world has concluded that we must reject the Bible as a primitive fairy tale. The church cannot do that; so, it has changed how it interprets such scriptures. The usual way is to say Genesis One and cosmologically-oriented scriptures throughout the Bible should be interpreted as a poetic presentation of truth that primitive pre-scientific people were not prepared to comprehend. In other words, God told “white lies” to spare his ignorant people from confusion, perhaps not anticipating how much confusion it would cause his more “scientific” disciples centuries later!
Another “head scratcher” is how modern “scientific” disciples feel free to interpret the creation of living beings literally but cannot allow for a biblical cosmos, which presents a stationary earth with the sun, moon, and stars being in motion. The only explanation is that we believe we can hold to a literal account of the creation of Adam, Eve, the plants, and the animals without appearing to be quite so foolish to the the world as we would seem should we claim that the rest of Genesis Chapter One is also literally true.
This reveals two things.
- We regard man’s opinion as more important than God’s.
- We have decided that we can only believe the Bible is literally true when science permits us.
I wonder if God might ask us a question similar to the one he posed to Adam and Eve? “Who told you Genesis is not literally true?” Where in Scripture does God allow for such an approach to his Word? In fact, it is just the opposite. We are warned not to tamper with God’s Word (Deuteronomy 12:32). Jesus said that scripture “cannot be broken [annulled, dissolved, loosed].” (John 10:35)
If, however, we decide that we can tamper with how we interpret God’s holy words, have we not placed a tradition of men higher that the Bible? And if we decide that Genesis One is not literally true regarding the creation of the earth, the firmament, the sun, moon, and stars, how do we decide what parts of the Bible are literally true? And who gets to decide? Church leaders? Biblical scholars? Average people? Scientists?
Was the garden of Eden a myth? Was the fall of man a legend? Were Cain and Abel mythological figures? Was Noah a real person? How about the flood, did it happen? Was Abraham an historical figure? Did he really have a son in his old age named Isaac, whom he almost sacrificed? Was Jacob a real person? Was Joseph? Was the exodus from Egypt an historical event? Were Moses and Joshua real people?
Modern astrophysics demands that we ignore God’s Word, common sense, and the testimony of our senses and accept as truth theoretical so-called science in its place. It expects us to believe that people who were heavily influence by the occult discovered previously hidden secrets of the “universe” that contradict scripture. Is that not the very definition of forbidden occult knowledge?
We have been deceived into thinking that we are smarter than God.
Just as he did to Eve and Adam, Satan introduced the lies of modern astrophysics to deny the truthfulness of the God’s Word and keep people from discovering God by thoughtfully considering his creation.
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19 because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. 20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. Romans 1:18–20 (NASB95)
We humans generally perceive ourselves as being very intelligent beings, but we are no match for God, or even Satan for that matter.
The truth is that we are quite easily deceived by arguments that oppose God’s Word (2 Corinthians 10:4-5), just as Adam and Eve were. That is why we so desperately need to rely on the Bible and the Holy Spirit.
Without the “map” of God’s Word and the Holy Spirit for our guide, we are lost in a sea of surmise, conjecture, and deception. This is why it is so tragic when we who call ourselves Bible believing Christians choose to put our faith in godless astrophysicists, who lead us away from Bible truth.
We would never arrive at the conclusion that we live on a revolving, rotating, wobbling spheroid without outside input from an exceedingly cunning liar, such as NASA. We have never perceived any such motion. It goes against all common sense that the earth’s surface is moving at around 840 mph at the latitude where I live, and over 1000 mph at the equator. When we observe the stars keeping their same positions over the centuries, how could we possibly be hurtling through “space” in multiple directions at unbelievable speeds? When one starts with false presuppositions, one is bound to arrive at false conclusions. How rebellious and foolish it for us to lay aside God’s testimony in his Word in order to accept a theory of the cosmos that contradicts God’s truth! Oh, that God would open our eyes and hearts to once again choose to be people of the Book who choose to believe God instead of men! We need more people to make a stand, even if it makes us look foolish to the world. At least they would take notice.
