The Truth and Consequences of Lies Women Believe, Part 3

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Leslie Basham: Did you know that you're a target for Satan's deception? It's Wednesday, October 24, and you're listening to Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss.

Remember the shooting gallery at the State Fair? Remember how the little yellow ducks sailed by as contestants with rifles raced to shoot down as many as they could? Well, imagine that you're a little yellow duck; and Satan has just paid his quarter. But instead of shooting blanks at you, he's filled his weapon with lies meant to knock you down. Would you know how to withstand him? Today on Revive Our Hearts, we'll learn how to brace ourselves against the evil one when Nancy talks to a small group of women about the origins of deceit. Here's Nancy.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: I'll never forget the night that I sat in a restaurant across the table from a young mother of seven children who shared with me that she had met a man on the Internet. She had met with him several times, and had established a relationship with him. And (she) was now thinking seriously about leaving her husband for this man. For a period of a couple of hours, I looked into this woman's eyes, I plead with her, I begged her to consider what it was that she was really doing--to consider the implications this would have for her marriage, for her children, for her walk with God. She was a graduate of a Christian college, had been a church attender for many years; but she looked at me and she said, "But this man" (man she had met over the Internet) "he's so good to me and to my children".

Now, it seems obvious to us in this very extreme case that this woman had been deceived. And we think, I would never get deceived in that way. But you know what I'm discovering in my own life? Satan knows how he can get me deceived. He knows where I'm vulnerable to be misled. He knows where you're vulnerable to be deceived. He knows there is something that he can get you to believe that may seem unthinkable to someone else to believe. The most deceptive lie, wouldn't you agree, is really the one that's closest to the truth. It's so subtle that it's mostly truth, but it has a mixture of error that makes it deceptive.

We've been looking in Genesis 3 at the origins of deception, and how Satan came to the woman and deceived her--caused her to believe something that wasn't true. Genesis 3:6 tells us that the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food. It was pleasing to the eye. It was desirable for gaining wisdom; and therefore, she took some and ate it. She said, "It looks so good. It seems so good"--just as this woman said "this man is so good to me and to my children".

Do you think if Eve had looked at that fruit and it had been obviously rotten and crawling with worms that she would have had any desire to take a bite? Not at all! It looked good! It looked attractive! It looked pleasing! "There is a way that seems right unto a man," Proverbs 14:12 says, "but the ends thereof are the ways of death". She took a bite of what looked so appealing, and she found out that she had a mouth full of worms. Shame, guilt, fear, alienation from God and from her husband; she had been deceived, she had been lied to.

Thomas Brooks was a Puritan pastor of a past century. He said "Satan promises the best, but pays with the worst; he promises honor, and pays with disgrace; he promises pleasure, and pays with pain; he promises profit, and pays with loss; he promises life, and pays with death." But God pays as he promises; all his payments are made in pure gold.

He (Satan) says you can have life. This is the way to life--just enjoy this relationship that's illicit, this emotional attachment, this man who's meeting your needs.

I read a note last night from a woman who'd been married many years. But now a man that she'd known thirty-some years earlier had come back into her life. And she said, "He's fulfilling my needs in a way that my husband doesn't. I wonder if God wants us to be together." It seems so good. It feels so right, and yet you taste, you take a bite and you find out that you've been deceived, that you've got a mouthful of worms.

Deception is crucial to Satan's strategy. In fact, according to Jesus, it is Satan's very nature to deceive us. That's what he knows how to do. John 8:44 tells us that the devil was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth. "For", said Jesus, "there is no truth in him. When he lies he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies".

Now it's interesting to me that Satan chose to target the woman. We read in Genesis 3 that her husband was there with her. But you know when the serpent comes up to the couple, it appears that he just ignores the man. He doesn't pay any attention to the man who's standing there alongside his wife. Now we don't know why he chose to speak to the woman. We could speculate. But I wonder if Satan didn't know that the woman had an incredible power of influence, that when she was deceived she would take down with her her whole family, that her husband would be quick to follow that choice.

I was talking on the phone last night to a woman who has filed for divorce against her husband. She said to me, "I know in my heart that God does not want me to do this." Now, I will tell you her husband has some very major needs in his life. This is a very difficult situation. But she said, "In my heart, I know that God wants me to be faithful to my vow". But she said, "I'm so hurt, I'm just leaving the door open--letting this divorce dangle in front of him, thinking maybe it will wake him up". But she knew in her heart that this was not something God wanted her to do.

And I said to her, "Think about the consequences, if you do not do what God is telling you to do in His Word. Think about the influence on your children." Her children are now quite young. But I said, "Think about when they're struggling years from now in their marriage, and what they will look back and see, what they will remember. Will they remember that they had a mother who was a covenant-keeping mom? Or will they remember that when your marriage got difficult, you bailed out. You wouldn't wait on God, either to change your husband's heart or to meet your needs even if God never did change his heart."

Most of us as Christian women today have exposed ourselves to so much deception that we don't even realize we're being deceived. And that's the nature of deception, by the way, it blinds us to the fact that we've been deceived. That's what's deceptive about it. We think we're believing the truth. And one of my burdens for us as women is that we would open our eyes, that we would wake up to the deception that we have bought into, that we would begin to evaluate what's going on around us.

So many of us just go through life taking things in and not evaluating what it is that we are being exposed to. We do it through the music we listen to, the books and the magazines that we read, the television programs that we watch, the radio programs that we listen to. You can go in a Christian bookstore, you can turn on Christian television and radio today and find various forms of deception. Now, it's not all deceptive. There's a lot of truth out there. But we need to start being rigorous about evaluating, is this the truth--rather than just sitting and soaking and taking it all in, without asking "What is the message that's being communicated here? Is this true, or am I being hoodwinked? Am I believing something that's contrary to the truth?"

That food looks so good to eat. It looks so right. That man that this woman met over the Internet was so good to this woman and to her children. That's when we need to stop. Evaluate what we're listening to, what we're thinking, what others are telling us, and discern truth from error. If you don't know the Word of God, you won't be able to do this. We have to take every one of our life experiences, all the input that comes into our lives and pour it through the grid of the Scripture, and say, "Is this really true?" And then stop to contemplate the consequences, the cost.

I wonder if Eve had stopped to think about the consequences, to think about what this would do in her relationship with God--how she'd now be hiding behind the trees from God--to think what this would do in her marriage, where she would have shame and walls and barriers. What if she'd stopped to think about what this would do to her children, that she would become the mother of a murderer and the mother of the child who was murdered? What if she'd stopped to think about the next generation and the next and the next and the next? Do you think she would have thought it was worth it? Now, we don't know what she thought. We don't know if she thought about the consequences, but I think if she'd stopped to contemplate, that she perhaps would not have taken that fruit.

What looks so innocent, so right and so good, many times causes us as women to end up in frustration, to be trapped, overwhelmed. We end up in abusive relationships, head over heels in debt. And what frustrates me sometimes is how, when Humpty Dumpty has fallen off the wall, and all the pieces are so messed up, that's when we come to a counselor, that's when we come to a conference and we say, "Can you help me put my life back together?"

And I say, "Why do we wait until then? Why don't we back up when we're first starting to make these decisions and begin to evaluate our lives according to the truth of God's Word?" Jesus said "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32). Just the opposite is true as well. If we listen to the lies, if we believe them, ultimately we will end up in bondage.

Leslie Basham: That's Nancy Leigh DeMoss challenging us to repent of any hidden sins. Let me tell you about Nancy's book, Lies Women Believe. It will help you learn to live free in Christ. We have this book available in our resource center, and it can be yours for a suggested donation of $17. We also have a beautiful Quiet Rest Wall Calendar, we'd like to send you free just for calling our toll-free number at 1-800-569-5959. We know you'll enjoy that too. And when you call in, don't forget to ask how you can get a cassette copy of today's broadcast. We have those available as well for just $5. Or write us at Revive Our Hearts. And don't forget, these resources, along with many others can also be found on our Web site, ReviveOurHearts.com.

How, as Christians, do we end up in bondage? It starts as a gradual progression as we'll learn from Nancy tomorrow. Hope you can join us then. Now, to close our time together, here's Nancy Leigh DeMoss.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: Is there something you may be believing that's not true? Is there something that the enemy has tempted you to taste, to experience, to try for yourself; and it's not according to the Word of God? It's contrary to the truth. Would you just stop and think and evaluate the message that you're believing? Would you contemplate the consequences?

And then ask God for the courage and the faith to say, "No. I'm not going to believe that. I'm not going there. I'm not going to taste that, as good as it looks. I'm going to run from that emotional attachment in the workplace. I'm going to run from that e-mail communication or that Internet relationship. I'm going to run because I know that ultimately the thing that looks so good, that seems so right will lead me to devastation and conflict, destruction and death."

Leslie Basham:  

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss is a ministry partnership of Life Action Ministries.