Voice of the Kingfisher speaks out …from a different perspective
by Elinor Montgomery
The Great Deception
June 15, 2012
Sin began with religious deception, the lure of the forbidden, a statement of truth from God along with a denial of God’s Word by Satan and the promise of being like God as a result of knowing not just good, but both good and evil. It will all lead to the compromised life, which allows the ways of the world to be added to the ways of God.
For the deception to take root, it required a weak head of the household and a strong feminine activist leading the way as the controlling spirit of Jezebel. It took nothing more than the brief period of time required for Adam and Eve to listen to a voice other than that of the voice of God. They acted upon their own understanding and, in the sin of doing so, they destroyed God’s plans for man in a marriage bed that made them partners in ruler-ship over His creation. God was to be the Supreme Ruler of the entire universe with man called to rule over and tend the Garden on earth.
There was no shame in Adam for all things were created good. Once he rebelled and allowed evil to have access to the world, he felt the shame of having lost the blessing of love upon the marriage bed, which could never be fruitful again. The fruit was forever contaminated by evil; there would be no family of sons and daughters for God. It would be back to dust for mankind, leaving no one to tend the Garden. Satan was now free to destroy it and man.
This brought a curse of God upon man, the woman, and the ground for their sake. At the same time, God drove man from the Garden, sealed up access to it on the east side with the East becoming as the left and the West as the right.
Two pathways were established that day – the way back to the Garden, through the redemption of mankind, and the broad road of Satan, which would be widely traveled by man, leading to his destruction. Truth would put man on the way back into the Garden or kingdom living, and the lies of deception would keep him from finding his way back, the same way of which Jesus would later speak when He said that He was the way, the truth and the life.
Jesus would absolutely guarantee to man that there is life after death with His own death and resurrection. However, it would be required of man that he be an overcomer when he comes in contact with Satan. He would have to stand on truth to break the curse of the lies of deception. He would have to trust in the truth of Jesus and the power of redemption from death. He would have to believe on only Jesus for his salvation from the death sentence for man’s sin.
Now, Satan must come forth with a great deception, if he is to prevent God from carrying out the redemption of man. What better deception than a declaration that Satan himself does not exist? Without him, there can be no such thing as sin, and the entire idea of the fall of man from life to death, dies with him.
To make the deception even juicier, he would plant the idea into the thinking of man that there never can be life after death. He would have to come to believe that all there is, is to be found in the here and now. In keeping with this line of futile thinking, he will be unable to see that he is a man of sin, with no possible escape from the death sentence. In order to take the deception to the limits Satan would plant in the hearts of God-created-man that there is no God at all; man simply evolved from a lower state of the animal species, though there is no indication as to how the animal began to breathe in the first place.
Such warped thinking led to God declaring Himself to be the great “I AM”. It is a statement of His existence, which will greatly come into play again as redeemed man claws his way back into the Garden or kingdom ruled by the Lord who said, “I AM the light; I AM the bread of life; I AM the living water and I AM the way, the truth and the life.” The great I AM is very much alive and well in a world totally screwed up by deception and gone wild like a garden without the tending of a gardener.
The spiritual waters of evil deception would consume the world with another flood of the empires, the economic systems and the religious systems, were Jesus (the rainbow of light broken for you and me) not to remember those who have trusted in His brokenness of the light on the cross. It was there that He defeated Satan to give life back to any repentant man who will repent of his sin of rebellion, then overcome the lure of Satan to trust in Jesus for life after death. He is the only sinless Man, able to pay the price for the sins of all mankind.
When we look at this evil world around us, it is hard to believe that we, as evil men and women, are the desire of the heart of the Lord. How could we not passionately love such a man of goodness more than we love a destroyer of that which is good? How could we possibly compromise truth with any religious system, which can only offer us death instead of life? How could we not be like that woman at the well who, when she met Jesus there, dropped her bucket of the worldly water to take a lifetime’s portion of the living water from which she would never thirst again?
Take a look closely at the deceiver. He sits on the economic and religious spiritual waters of empires, as full of deadly salt as those of the sea, whence he comes. He will rise up from the seawater like the beast he has become, only to be returned to it for the fire judgment, which will keep burning so that he can never trouble God’s creation ever again. But not until the Lord calls His own from out of the grave to come up hither and be with Him forever more.
It is difficult for those who have loved the lie to comprehend the truth, for they have become accustomed to the darkness and cannot comprehend the light. But the good news is that it is all true, while the bad news is that only a few are going to find their way back to life in the kingdom where they can once again eat of the tree of life.
This is the call of the Spirit and the bride, inviting mankind to reject the lures of Satan offered in the deception of a compromised life with evil. It is a call to come onto the Way, so incredibly beautiful without any evil there, and back to the kingdom in a marriage bed of love and fruitfulness instead of one of lust, which can produce no good fruit at all. You are as the ground from which the curse has been lifted and, instead of experiencing the pain and suffering, which only thorns and thistles can inflict, you can have peace and joy everlasting, in the presence of the Lord forever.
Think upon these words and choose wisely; for the pleasures of this world are fleeting as youth gives way to old age. In contrast, the kingdom of God is lasting, and knows none of the pain of aging. The dark is like a bottomless pit in which one falls endlessly, but the light brings us into the understanding of all that has been created good so that we can walk with God forever and forever more. Amen.