Listening To Lies Produces Bitterness In The Heart

When I was a young boy I dreamed and played “Army” with my friends. As young boys we played such games because we had heroes with character traits that we admired. John Wayne was one of the people that we looked up to as a “man’s man”. He portrayed courage in the face of fear and valor when the battle was raging.

As a young boy, I always wanted to be the hero that was daring and willing to risk it all in order to have the “Good Guys” win the day. One of my favorite books was a very large book with pictures of B-17 bombers. The book had to be 12×16 at least and had pictures of the crews and pilots that would fly over Germany to drop their payloads of bombs in order to disrupt the enemies supplies. They risked a great deal and most men never made the quota of 24 mission before their tour of duty was complete. Most of them were shot down within the first 5-10 missions. Life expectancy was very short yet they flew anyway. They even made a TV show called “12 0‘clock high” about these brave souls.

There was another world war tv series called “Combat” that starred Vick Moral. He was a rough character but everyone knew he was a man who would get the job done no matter how dangerous or costly.

These books and movies illustrated for many young guys of my era the notion that fighting for what’s right is a worthy cause. World War II gripped my mind and young soul to the point of being an obsession. I wanted to be a person of great courage who would fight for the “Right” of things even if it cost me everything. It captivated my life for a number of years, until I was about 11 or 12 years old. That’s when the reality of getting a job outside my home to make money took my focus. That became my pursuit and focus because money seemed to be the answer for everything. Courage and valor no longer became the idea but rather power through means. Now, mind you, my idea of courage and valor were also mixed with selfishness and greed, but these bad traits were held in check so long as the positive trait were there.  For me, entering high school pretty much wiped out the good traits and fueled the bad ones.

Slowly over the years I let the enemy whisper in my ear that life was unfair and I was a victim. I didn’t want to be a victim so the only thing I knew to do was fight back. Fight my parents……Fright my friends……Fight anyone I thought was a threat to my safety and well-being. The more I ate the bitter fruit of Satan’s words the more my soul got black and the only real thing I enjoyed was hurting others in some way or another. 

The insidious thing is that we start enjoying “taste” for inflicting pain in others because it makes us feel justified with our own miserable state. Hate and bitterness starts to become a drug that we can’t live without. Pretty soon we can’t tell when Satan lies to us even when it’s plain as day because we hurt so bad. The reason? We keep feeding on lies to the point were the lies look like truth and the truth looks like lies.

The apostle Paul explained it best when he taught the early believers that Satan is behind deception because he wants to keep us from the truth about God’s great love for us.

 2 Corinthians 4:4                                                                                                                      

In whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 

We even end up wounding the people who care for us because to treat them with kindness only opens the wounds in our own soul, which leads to vulnerability, which is the last thing we want. For me, vulnerability only meant more suffering.

Lies eaten make us sick. Sickness of the soul causes our world to be distorted and no amount of reason will convince us otherwise. Satan’s strategy is to isolate us so he can utterly distort us. After all, we are made in the image of God and every time Satan sees us he sees our Heavenly Father. He hates the Father because he cast him out of his position in Heaven and will eventually judge him for eternity – isolated with no authority.

So here’s the deal. Satan whispers lies to us to separate us from those who would love us and that includes our Creator. Once isolated, he takes us down that dark road of destruction through unforgiveness and bitterness. In this state we end up moving on autopilot towards self-destruction. Satan moves on to the next victim who will listen to his propaganda and lies in order to sow bitterness like a cancer in our souls. Unchecked and unconfronted lies will tear our souls apart.

Today, we have such an overload of twisted words and ideas that the average person doesn’t discover the real truth until it’s too late. The news channels are loaded with twisted facts and sound bits to produce their personal perspective and, mind you, Satan is right in the middle motivating it all.

Here is the scary part. We know from scripture that the unbeliever has their minds blinded towards the truth but what about believers? Look at what Paul says about such a possibility.

Proverbs 30:8                                                                                                                      

Keep deception and lies far from me, Give me neither poverty nor riches; Feed me with the food that is my portion,

Colossians 2:8                                                                                                                      

See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. 

Solomon, who was smart enough to pray to keep deception far from him, ended up doing just that because he violated what scripture told him not to do about having more than one wife.

Paul tells us it’s our job to keep deception from captivating our hearts by reading and studying God’s word.  Paul told the believers in Corinth that if they hang around bad characters their words and lifestyles with corrupt our good intentions and morals.

1 Corinthians 15:33                                                                                                                 

Do not be deceived: “Bad company corrupts good morals.” 

Simply put, if you don’t want to be deceived then you need to study God’s word so you know the difference between good and evil. Secondly, stop listening to stupid people who believe lies. You can’t stop people from lying but you can refuse to fellowship with them.

Question:

1) What “Ruler” do you use to gauge a lie from truth? The news or the Word?

If you’re listening to lost people tell you what to believe then you are already deceived. Repent and get into the Word.  Let the Word be your filter.

If anger and frustration rule your thoughts then you are deceived. Repent and ask the Holy Spirit to wash your soul and then get into the Word again …. consistently!

Pastor Dale