How do you handle suffering? What are the ideologies that you fight through as your emotions are peaked? It’s during the storms that doctrine and faith get put to the test. The challenge is that we allow our feelings and our culture to shape our theology. This is no doubt Satan’s plan; there’s a reason he showed up 40 days into Jesus’ time in the wilderness as He fasted and prayed. Satan wants to attack us when we are at our lowest to alter our understanding of God as the One we can trust, the One who is sovereign, and the one who is full of mercy and grace.
Because Satan is on the prowl seeking which suffering saint he can add to his list of deconstructionists, we must be vigilant to turn to God’s Word. We must entrench our minds and hearts in God’s Word and moment by moment embrace Christ-centered theology instead of a Satan-tainted view of God. Let’s be constantly aware of the false ideologies Satan is spawning about who God is.
Allow me to mention one of those lies Satan would want us to accept. He wants us to accept the soft-pedaled position that God is just a “moralistic therapeutic deist”. This is a term that was coined two decades ago to describe the western “Christians” concept of “God”. Let’s break this down so that we better understand what Satan wants us to accept.
Let’s pause and consider the first of those words and grasp how Satan conditions us to believe in a god, just not the God of the Bible. The first word, “moralistic”, presents the cultural perspective that God only deals with us according to our morality. More specifically, God chooses to bless us because we live morally. That’s the lie.
This is a total rejection of God demonstrating His grace despite our depravity instead of in response to some fabled ‘goodness’ we think we possess. It is anti-biblical to believe that we can do enough good moral things to attract God and get Him to deal with us kindly by saving us. The Apostle Paul was clear about this when he tells us we were dead in trespasses and sin. Paul goes further by helping us understand it is by grace we are saved through faith… not by works, lest we go around boasting about earning God’s smile.
Our culture wants to consistently argue for our own goodness and if this is true, then why shouldn’t we be able to save ourselves. Yet every attempt at utopia fades and fizzles. The ‘moralistic’ concept isn’t new. It’s as old as human history, it was introduced in the Garden of Eden. Satan’s idea was that if he could get us to buy into our moral goodness, we would be equal to God, and Satan would take the Kingdom down with him. Part of his first lie in the garden was, “You will be like God.” He hasn’t strayed very far from his old paths, now he’s wanting us to believe we’re good enough on our own merits to obtain God’s righteous standing. Let me be clear, God does not love because of the goodness of our morals, in fact, He gives grace because of the shortcomings of our morality.
Don’t buy Satan’s lie – you cannot earn God’s goodness, it’s all of grace and God gives it bountifully and free to those who believe. Don’t allow Satan’s bad theology to rob you of living in all the blessings of knowing and worshipping our Sovereign God.
You can listen to Pastor Tom address more of Satan’s lies in his sermon, “God’s Sovereignty: Exodus 1” by clicking:God's Sovereignty - Exodus 1