Do Not Listen To Liars
A call for spiritual discernment:
In one fiery encounter with the religious leaders, Jesus said this: “Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me” (John 8:43-45).
This is but one of many portions of Scripture which make it clear that there are such things as lies, and there are such things as liars. The Christian knows that truth is so very important, and the Christian also knows that there are plenty of folks working overtime to subvert the truth, to suppress the truth, and to distort the truth.
As Jesus made clear, there are liars out there, and they are doing what their father, the devil, always does. And as Jesus also made clear, deceit and deception are all around us, and we need discernment to know when we are confronting such things. As he said in Matthew 24:4, “Watch out that no one deceives you.”
The Bible constantly warns against deception, falsehood, lies and deceit. See this earlier piece for example for more on this: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2016/11/07/beware-deception-deceivers/
As such, we must always be on guard, and we must be careful and discerning as to everything we encounter, hear, see and read. In the internet age this is especially the case. Whether it is on the social media or on interactive blogsites, there are always plenty of debates and arguments, and truth is not always a hallmark of them.
Lies and falsehoods abound, and we cannot be clueless as to the spiritual origin of all this. Sure, many people can just be confused, or not well-read, or lacking in crucial information, and so on. Not everyone who says something different from what you are saying is deceived or lying. But many folks are.
It should come as no surprise to the Christian that as we seek to share truth – especially gospel truth – on the internet and elsewhere, there will be a huge pushback, and much of that involves satanic deception and deliberate lies. We must be prepared for this reality if we are to faithfully and effectively get involved in the truth wars.
This is where discernment comes in. Who is asking an honest question, and really wanting to learn, and who is just a troll, and wants to argue and get you offtrack? One is humble and open to truth; the other is proud and closed to truth. We need to pray for discernment as we deal with others, especially when it comes to controversial issues and hot potato topics.
With a website such as CultureWatch, it goes without saying that I get trolls and those who hate me and what I do all the time. Again, the trick is to discern who is who. We should be willing to spend all day dealing with those who have honest questions, or may need to be patiently dealt with, as they have spent most of their life getting information from the unreliable – and often false – mainstream media.
They need to hear alternative points of view, and hopefully over time the scales will fall from their eyes as they begin to see that not everything they have learned is in fact true. They may begin to realise that they have been drinking the Kool-Aid for too long, and it may be time to do some careful research into some of these divisive topics of the day.
These sorts of people we should spend time with. As Paul said in 2 Timothy 2, we are to “have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies [that] breed quarrels” (v. 23). Instead, we are to correct our opponents. Why? “God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will” (vv. 25-26).
Practical application
As I say, the work of deception and lies is to be found so often in things like an online truth-telling ministry. And we must be aware of this fact: if you are having any sort of impact at all, there will be those who will maliciously come to your site spewing forth all sorts of lies and disinformation.
They not only want to sow lies and deception to counter the truth you are sharing, but they will do this to wear you out and discourage you. They will deliberately try to get you to doubt yourself so that you will want to give up the work you have been called to do.
Over the years I have seen this happening so very often on my website. These serial trolls will keep on nagging you, hounding you, attacking you, and telling lies about you – all in the hopes of getting you to doubt what you are doing and to stop what you are doing.
I can give plenty of examples of this but let me mention just one. Often these folks will come along and play the censorship card on me: ‘Oh, you NEVER allow anyone with a different point of view onto your site. You are just a bigoted censor.’
Um, this is a straight-out lie. The truth is I have posted many thousands of comments by my enemies, my critics, and my opponents. But of course at the end of the day it is my site and I will determine who comes on. My commenting rules make this perfectly clear. Indeed, here are a few of my rules:
-This site is meant to express my point of view. If you are looking for a soapbox to promote your own views, create your own website or blog site.
-Comments which are simply attacks on myself, or are done in bad taste, or use rude language, or are possibly defamatory will not be posted.
-You must state your full name to have your comments posted.
I have had many thousands of comments come into my site violating all these rules, so of course these folks will not get a run. There is no reason in the world why I should even consider letting these people on to my website to spread their hate and deception and mischief. They are up to no good so I will not give them a free pass.
We need to know that this WILL happen, and we must guard against it. Satan IS at work. But we must not give place to the devil (Ephesians 4:27). We must be strong in the Lord and put on the whole armour of God so that we may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil (Ephesians 6:10-11). We need to be sober and vigilant because the devil is on the prowl, and we must resist him (1 Peter 5:8-9).
After all these years I can pretty easily see when Satan is clearly at work. I can spot these folks a mile away, and I will not give them a moment of my time. Their vexatious and false comments will just go straight into the bin. Just as we are to give no place to the devil, we are to give no place to those the devil sends our way.
We recognise who they are and what their evil intentions are, and we deal with them accordingly. We must not let them drag us down as they keep dishing out lies and deception. We are to spiritually rebuke the devil and his instruments. There is no reason to give these folks the time of day.
Again, we need wisdom and discernment here. As mentioned, honest questions deserve honest answers, and we should be happy to spend a lot of time with those who really want to learn and grow in the knowledge of the truth. But not everyone who comes our way is in that camp: many are deceiving trolls, fully doing the bidding of Satan himself, whether or not they even know of or believe in his existence.
They are not just “useful idiots” to use Lenin’s phrase, but they are Satan’s pawns. The devil has them just where he wants them to be, and he is sending them after God’s choice servants. So if you are involved in any way in getting truth out into the public arena (and all Christians should be doing this to some extent at least), you must be aware and discerning as to who is coming your way.
Not everyone is who they are letting on to be. Just as God has his workers in the world, doing his bidding, so too Satan has his workers in the world, doing his bidding. We must learn to discern who is who, or we will easily get waylaid and incapacitated from doing the work God has called us to do.
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So very timely reminder Bill, maybe it is time for your readers to read or reread a short book by C S Lewis called The Screwtape Letters
Showing us how this culture of lying happens, and who is behind it all.
Keep up the truth telling…
Thanks Henri.
I agree with Henri Rosbender. May I suggest my novel, BATTLE for TRUTH – Resisting the Future One World Government, Fairly recently published and available through Koorong.
This is a detailed description of the ‘wiles of the devil’ since CS Lewis wrote his famous Screwtape Letters, you could call it a sequel.
Many readers’ comments have confirmed that, “it should be read by all”.
Spiritual discernment, like church discipline, is a rare practise in most churches today. More so in Australia. We are in need of biblical elders to preach, teach and apply such truths, for those in local churches have sadly been desensitised, mislead, or are unaware of these demonic activities and ministries. Encouraged to read there are likeminded brethren out there!
Thanks Benjamin.
Bill…I so agree with everything you’ve said here. God-given discernment is crucial in determining who is promoting the truth. And we need it even more so to dismiss the lies. I carry this on to big media as well…and refuse to watch it now altogether. Reading your commentaries over the years has truly helped me cultivate discernment in many areas and I am eternally grateful to you for that.
I keep reminding myself of Philipians 4:8 “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” and it also keeps me from entertaining falsehoods.
Many thanks Bonnie.
“We must be strong in the Lord and put on the whole armour of God so that we may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil (Ephesians 6:10-11). We need to be sober and vigilant because the devil is on the prowl, and we must resist him (1 Peter 5:8-9)”
I wish more Christians knew these verses especially 1 Peter. To many are deceived about satan and sadly don’t fight against him lies and all. How can we fight a spiritual war against an enemy we don’t know?? Too often we think of satan as a goat legged fellow with a pitchfork and triangle pointed tail, a rather comical looking being, and we don’t see the power to deceive to power to harm. We act as if demons and fallen angels can do nothing. “We’re enlightened now and understand how disease and mental illness works”. We used to understand the power of the prince of the air now we think we have ‘outgrown’ such things we are wiser now. I think knowledge tends to puff up people and why most at the higher end of the IQ scale tend to run atheist. (gifted starts at about 130 and genius at about 145) This wiser an man is it seems the bigger a fool he is! Not all at the higher end of the IQ scale but most. Also it seems the higher a degree in education you have the less likely you are to believe in God. (High school diploma/GED is highest PhD or other doctorate is lowest). Again it seems modern man has simply decided he is too smart to believe in God. For all of our post 19th century achievements have we really gained much or have we lost far more???
Curious do you have an article about satan a kind of profile or one with bible verses and even quotes from books like commentaries, or by great Christians, etc about satan’s abilities??? If we hope to win we have to understand WHO AND WHAT we are up against. Jesus knew the apostles knew the early church knew the modern church is however another story.
Thanks Paul. While I would have a number of articles discussing at least indirectly Satan, demons, spiritual warfare etc, I may not have done specific pieces on this. So I may need to do one soonish!
Thanks for another insightful article Bill!
We expect to hear ‘lies’ and ‘deceit’ from the world, but it saddens me when *Christians* spread the same, especially during this Covid Plandemic.
Its a pity very few Church leaders are speaking out, rather they are just blindly submitting to Caesar, without critically examining the facts.
Blessings to you & yours.
As I have previously stated: The great deceiver is with us now and we are celebrating it. Its name is LGBTIQA (ligibitiqa). For evidence of deception, ask – what has the letter ‘G’ in LGBTIQA got to do with homosexuality and why, if they are so proud to be homosexuals and queers do they call themselves gay?
John Abbott