|
|
|
Satan’s
Assault on the Family (Part 2) By
Bob Myhan When
we speak of Satan assaulting the family, we do not mean that, in doing so, he
does not attack individuals. We simply mean that he exploits family
relationships in order to manipulate the family members to sin. This is why
Jesus said, "Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not
come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to 'set a man against his
father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her
mother-in-law.' And 'a man's foes will be those of his own household.' He who
loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. And he who loves son or
daughter more than me is not worthy of me" (Matt. 10:34-37). Family ties
need to be strong, but they need not (in fact, should not) be stronger than our
ties to God. Let us ever be on our guard! Satan knows how to use these family
relationships against us. Sadly, we do not always recognize when such is taking
place. Satan
began his assault on the human race with the first pair. Not surprisingly, Satan
(in the form of a serpent) appealed to Eve’s basic desires, in tempting her to
sin. While there was no written word of God for Satan to quote and misapply (as
he later did with Jesus, and often does with us), he did call into question both
what God had said and His motive for saying it. First, Satan asked, "’Has
God indeed said, 'You shall not eat of every tree in the garden'?" In
asking this, he was implying that God's prohibition was much broader than it
actually was. Second, he told her she would "’not surely die,’"
which was not only a lie, but also an accusation that God was the one lying.
Third, he accused God of having an improper motive in forbidding them to eat of
the fruit of this one tree. In doing this, he was cleverly implying that the
knowledge of good and evil was a blessing, rather than a curse, and that God
simply did not want them to have it. Thus,
Satan fixed the woman's attention to the forbidden fruit. "So when the
woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and
a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave
to her husband with her, and he ate" (Gen. 3:6). Here we see that "the
lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life," which
constitutes "all that is in the world" (1 John 2:15-17), was all
involved in the first temptation and the first sin. While
this was a direct attack on the woman, it was also an indirect attack on the
man. He, rather than Eve, was Satan's primary target. Though Eve sinned first,
Paul explains "through one man sin entered the world, and death through
sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned" (Rom. 5:12).
That is, "all sinned" in Adam; as he was the first human created, he
contained the entire human race in his loins, “Even as Levi, who receives
tithes, paid tithes through Abraham, so to speak, for he was still in the loins
of his father when Melchisedek met him" (Heb. 7:9,10). No man dies
spiritually, of course, until he himself sins against God. Paul is not teaching
that man is born alienated from God but that man is born subject to physical
death, having been separated from the tree of life “in Adam.” Satan
knew that, if he could somehow manipulate Adam into sinning, the entire human
race would suffer the effects. He also knew that, if he could entice Eve into
sinning first, he had a better chance of getting Adam to sin through her
influence. As Eve's moral and spiritual leader, Adam ought to have rebuked her,
rather than sinning with her. As mentioned earlier, to have authority is to have
responsibility. Adam should have been watching for Eve's soul. Another
example of Satan's assault on the family front is his attempts to cause Job, an
extremely wealthy man with a wife and ten children, to curse God. After assuring
the reader that Job was, indeed, a righteous man, the inspired writer tells us
that Satan, as he presented himself to the Lord, among "the sons of
God" (1:6), charged that Job was serving God for material, rather than
spiritual gain. God said to Satan, "Behold, all that he has is in your
power; only lay not a hand on his person" (1:12), thus permitting Satan to
put Job to the test. Of course, God placed a limit on what Satan could do, for
He "will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able" (1 Cor.
10:12). Satan
then took away from Job all his earthly possessions, even killing Job's ten
children. But, "in all this Job did not sin nor charge God with wrong"
(1:22). Receiving further permission from God, yet commanded to "spare his
life" (2:1-6), Satan then "Struck Job with painful boils from the sole
of his foot to the crown of his head." Job was so miserable, even his wife
encouraged him to "curse God and die." But, "in all this Job did
not sin with his lips." (2:7-10) Satan
then used three "friends" of Job to accuse Job of atrocious sins, for
which he must repent if he wants to recover (2:11-31:40). While Job said some
things of which he later repented, he maintained both his integrity and his
fidelity through it all (42:1-6). "And the Lord restored Job's losses when
he prayed for his friends. Indeed the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had
before" (42:10). It is no wonder that James was later inspired to write,
"You have heard of the perseverance of Job and seen the end intended by the
Lord--that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful" (James 5:11).
&
Notions
of God By
C. C. Crawford Deism
is the notion which arose in the Newtonian era, according to which God as the
lofty One who inhabiteth eternity, came out of that eternity long enough to
establish the cosmos and to actualize all the “laws of nature,” and then
withdrew from all further intercourse with what He had created, much in the same
manner as a man would wind a clock and then expect it to keep on running on its
own power. Deism is the denial of any kind of special providence; the “light
of nature,” that is, reason, is held by deists to be man’s only reliance. In
a word, deism emphasizes the
transcendence of God exclusively, while denying His immanence. Pantheism,
on the other hand, which would identify God with the world, nature, the
universe, etc., emphasizes the immanence of God exclusively, while denying His
transcendence. Theism, however,
is the doctrine that God is both transcendent and immanent, transcendent in His
being (prior to, separate from, and sovereign over, His creation), but always
immanent (throughout His creation) in His will and power (Psa. 139:7-10). The
God of the Bible is uniquely theistic. The
theocracy of God
Is Love By
Bob Myhan Deists
cannot account for the fact that man has the capacity for love. Nor can they
account for the fact that love of others is both encouraged and admired even by
deists. If God takes no interest in man, it can hardly be said that God loves
him. But, if God does not love man—the crown of His creation—how came man to
love, at all, much less to love God? If God is not love, as the Bible says (1
John 4:8), how could He create a being who has the capacity to love? A
non-loving God would have nothing from which to draw. But a creature who loves
must have a Creator who loves. Deists cannot demonstrate that the Creator in
whom they claim to believe has any love for man, at all. But the Bible contains
the greatest possible demonstration of God’s love (John 3:16; 1 John 3:16), as
well as an explanation of why man loves God. (1 John 4:19)
& |