It is easy, perhaps inevitable, that we will deny plain evidence of the truth, if we have previously rejected the truth of God’s Word. God designed us to trust him and his words implicitly. We were not given the natural ability to navigate in a world of deception, any more than a squirrel has an innate ability to safely cross a heavily trafficked road. When Satan introduced his initial lie in the Garden, which plainly contradicted God’s Word, and Eve believed the lie, followed by Adam’s transgression, all descendants of those two find themselves embroiled in deception upon deception, while having an inherited propensity to believe a lie.
God has given us two trustworthy guides through this maze of falsehood – the Bible and the Holy Spirit. If we reject either of them, we are in trouble unless God’s helps us to repent.
Jesus gave an account of a rich man and a poor beggar named Lazarus. After each of them died, they went to their respective rewards. Lazarus was taken to a place called “Abraham’s Bosom,” which many believe was a safe “holding place” where the godly dead resided until Christ’s resurrection. The rich man went to a place of torment from where he could see Lazarus enjoying God’s blessings. He had a conversation with Abraham, which the Lord relayed to us, in which Lazarus asked Abraham to go warn his brothers to repent so they would not likewise be condemned. Here is the salient part of that exchange.
“Then he said, ‘I beg you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father’s house, 28 for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment.’ 29 Abraham said to him, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.’ 30 And he said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ 31 But he said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead.’ ” Luke 16:27–31 (NKJV)
The principle is that once we deny and reject the truth of the Word of God, no amount of proof will suffice to pull us out of the quicksand of deception.
This is not true only of spiritual matters. It affects every area of life from cosmology to eschatology. Once we buy into a lie that contradicts God’s Word, we will remain trapped until we repent and turn again to the Word of God as the ultimate arbiter of truth. Only the Holy Spirit is able to accomplish this.
Consider this. Have I in any area accepted something as true that contradicts God’s Word? If so, you may wish to pray something as follows.
Prayer
Dear Lord Jesus, please forgive me for believing a lie. I ask you to help me judge all things by your Word. Holy Spirit, I depend on you to point out anywhere I am deceived and lead me into all truth. Amen.
13 However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth... John 16:13 (NKJV)
