SA Ep65 - Dialogue with the Devil (Part 4)

SA Ep65 - Dialogue with the Devil (Part 4)

 Genesis 3:5 reveals the ultimate temptation presented by Satan when he tells Eve, “Ye shall be as gods.” This promise appeals to humanity’s desire for independence and self authority. Instead of trusting God to define truth and morality, the devil encourages people to determine right and wrong for themselves. This philosophy lies at the heart of modern humanism and cultural rebellion against God. Yet Scripture reminds us that there is only one true God and that humanity was created to reflect His image, not replace His authority. When societies reject the rule of God, the result is not enlightenment but moral decline. This episode exposes the lie of self deification and points back to the rightful greatness of God. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to the Seeking Approval Podcast. I'm Dr. Chris Smelser from Iliad Baptist Church. You know life moves fast, and faith is not meant to be rushed. I want to take some time and slow down with you and have some honest conversations from the Word of God about daily living. So join me here today on Seeking Approval. History is filled with people who thought themselves to be a god. The pharaohs of Egypt believed that they were living gods and treated as such. Nebuchadnezzar never openly claimed to be a god, but he did build a massive idol of himself and ask people to worship it. Alexander the Great eventually accepted the idea that he was divine and was actually declared the son of Zeus. Roman emperors were uh were commanded to people to uh uh to call them a god. Once a year they had to claim uh that they were the Lord, uh the uh Almighty. Others throughout uh history, Japanese emperors were considered to be divine. Uh some more modern uh men like Adolf Hitler, they never claimed to be a god, but they they their actions acted as if they won. The Nazis salute as part of that. Uh some of the propaganda actually considered him to be Germany's Messiah. Joseph Stalin probably created one of the strongest personality cults in history. He was called the father of nations and the great leader, which is uh taken straight from from Abraham Mayo Zedong had the little red book uh that citizens required uh to carry uh that was in the communist China uh era, the Kim dynasty today, still of North Korea. Uh that that is a very strong divine figure. There's some very interesting uh things that uh they uh require they are required to have uh in their um I guess in their palace or in their uh at their beck and call. They are treated like uh gods. The Edi Amin uh from uh Uganda uh he gave himself so many names, uh the president of life. Uh I mean it just there was so much that he gave from gave to himself to treat himself like a god. There's others uh sports figures who have created themselves or called themselves, you know, the the god of this or uh you know the god of this other uh area. But all throughout history, people have declared or decided themselves to be a god. But the most famous uh, I guess, cult leader can be found in Genesis chapter number three. And we've got some great ones, some some that I that I've I have listed down that you know, with modern days with the the the uh the drinking of the Kool-Aid and the and the Wacos, and I mean there's so many even in today, but the most famous one came in Genesis chapter number three, and in verse number five, after Satan had lied to the woman, saying, 'You shall not surely die,' he said, For God doth know that the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods. The first time that someone declared that uh humanity can be as God, and here we are. This follows Satan's path from Ezekiel and Isaiah that he wanted to be God. And this is really the final step in what Satan will tempt us with in our minds. And how do we know that if it's Satan talking to us or it's God, if we are raising ourselves to a godlike level, to where we give the thumbs up and thumbs down on other people, we feel that we are above uh any rules or regulations, that we are above the law or the love or the grace of God. That's that's we're merely going from beyond temptation. We're going into heresy, we're going and debasing the greatness of God. And that's the promise that Satan will lie to us and say that we somehow are larger than, as some people say, larger than life. And the lie behind this is the belief that humanity can become its own authority. That's what atheism, that's that's their claim, is that we are our own gods, which then you're not atheist because you do believe in a God. It's just you're the God. You're the one who decides. You're the one who decides what's morally right and acceptable. So in that case, you you're not atheist, you're not anti-God, you're just saying that you are the God. Then the certain implies this with Adam and Eve, that they were being held back by God, and they were being held back from true enlightenment because he knew that they would become gods themselves. And this the same philosophy lies at the heart of today. Humanism, secular humanism teaches that man is capable of defining truth, morality, and purpose without reference to God. It elevates our human reasoning and human experience to the highest authority. But the Bible says something very different. Isaiah 45, 5 says, I am the Lord, and there is none else. Psalm tells us that God uh sits in the chamber of the little gods ruling over them. Who are all those little gods? All those other little things. Are there other gods out there? Absolutely there are. Anybody would say that there's no other gods out there? That's not the case. But there's no other gods before God. That he is the Lord and there is none else above him. He reigns above all those. Uh humans, humanity was never designed to replace or to rival God. We were created in the image of God to reflect his character, live under his wisdom, the the uh to live in fellowship with him, uh, and and because of the the sin in the garden, we stepped outside of that purpose and tried to become God ourselves. And today, still yet, people are trying to become God. History repeatedly shows what happens when people reject the authority of God rather than it causing them to rise to greater heights of wisdom, it causes humanity to decline. When God is removed from the rightful place, confusion spread and darkness takes over. Look at the most simple of all things. Let me just take education, for example. For many years we had uh prayer and Bible reading in our schools. We had corporal punishment, which is uh a way of immediately teaching right from wrong, which is what the Bible does. It gives immediate answers, it gives it there's no gray area when it comes right to wrong. So we take all of these things and we remove them from the school. We take them out. And what happens to our schools? They start falling apart. Are people becoming smarter as far as in technology and and the ways of the world? Absolutely. Wouldn't disagree with that one second. However, I think that we can all agree if you're in involved in in education at all or have children education, I think we can all agree that our kids have become more disrespectful, they become more unruly, problems become greater. You know, back in the 19 uh I'm gonna get this number wrong, and it's not out of spite, it's just out of uh ignorance that I can't remember right now. But I was reading a study that I think it was in the 1950s, maybe the 1960s, somewhere in that area, that the number one problem that teachers had, maybe actually later than that, about in the 70s or 80s, but the number one problem that the teachers had in the classroom was tardiness and gum jewing. Tardiness and gum jewing. How many teachers out there would like to raise your hand and say, I'll sign up for that class? I will teach that class all day long. Because the problems that we're having in the classroom today, gum jewing and tardiness pales in comparison to the problems in the classroom today. We have teen pregnancy is at an all-time high. Drugs, violence, weapons. We're now doing security searches in elementary schools. What changed? Maybe it's because we took God out of the schoolhouse, took God out of our homes. When you remove God from those things and try to elevate ourselves to God and replace him with the morality of humans, of course there's going to be a downward spiral. Paul wrote about it in Romans 1 and uh 21 through 23. He explained that when people knew God but refused to honor him, their thinking became vain in their hearts. Romans chapter 1 is a is a very uh if you ever have somebody who's wondering about sin and and you know whether it was right or wrong, take them over to Romans chapter number one. Let me read you these these three verses, 21 uh through 23. It says, Because that when they knew God, they and uh but they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations and their foolishness, and their foolish heart was darkened. So because they knew God, but they refused to glorify God, and weren't thankful for it, they became vain in their imaginations and foolish uh and their and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into the image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and to four footed beasts and creeping things. Wherefore, let me go on and read the next verse, wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lust of their own hearts and to dishonor their own bodies between themselves, who changed the truth of God into a lie and worshipped and served the creature more than the creator who is blessed forever, amen. I went ahead and read those five verses there. Well, let me go ahead and read the next one. For this cause, because of this, because they took God out of his rightful place and replaced him with his self, for this cause God gave them up to the vile affections. And he goes on and lists the things that um he gave them over to. I think we're seeing that in our in our world today. I think we're seeing that God has been replaced by human morality and and uh human thinking, and we've been turned over to the to the vain thinking of ourself. Going back to the days of judges when people did right was according to their own heart and their own eyes, and the Bible tells us their heart is deceitfully wicked. The last thing we need to be listening to is our heart and our mind on what we should be doing. We should focus on the word of God and living according to what it tells us to live like. We claim to be wise and we become fools. We exchange the glory of God's incorruptible uh uh wisdom and knowledge, and we have devolved into this society of uh men sleeping with men and women with women and and uh uh all other sorts of debaucherous activities that we have. We have uh in probably 10 to 15 years ago now was one of the one of the worst epidemics that swept across this country was babies being born addicted to meth. And now those kids are in the you know second, third, fourth grade of school. And you can ask teachers in those areas, do you see a difference in your you know, second, third, fourth graders today than the ones you had, you know, five, ten years ago? And I think their answer is going to be a resounding yes. Yes. Why? Because we gave ourselves over to this debaucherous lifestyle and we're now paying the price for it as a society because we remove God from where he's supposed to be, all the same lie as Satan said. Ye shall you can be as a God. You can be a God if you want to be. That's secular humanism. You can be a God if you want to be. And that's what that's what the scripture tells us that God's probably withholding something from you, he's probably not allowing you to do this because he knows that you can become a God. And we listen to that lie and we elevate ourselves. And when we're in a discussion with Satan, if if our desire is lifted up, if our want or need or our pride is bolstered in any way, you know that you're talking with Satan. When Satan begins to debase the greatness of God and his glory and convinces humanity that we can become our own authority, this is the final step. He begins, it was just a simple, just simply just can't just really think about this for a moment. And that's what he told Eve. Just think about this. Has God really said that? Did he really say this? Any questions? We shall not surely die. And finally, he works our way over to where he thinks that makes us think that we can now make our own decisions. We don't need God. Why should you pray about getting a new car? I mean, just go get a new car. Why should you pray about having a kid? Just have a just have a kid. Why should you pray about your marriage? You like that person, they like you, marry them. Why did you pray about what church you're going to attend or what job you're gonna have in a church? If you're gonna do this, just do it. Don't pray about what career path you need, just go bid. You can make your own decisions. God don't need to be involved in all these things. That's the lie of Satan. And he begins to make us think that we can make our own decisions and be our own gods, and that we don't need God in our life in every step of the way. And folks, let me tell you, we need God. Our our Bible that we've been given by God exposes the lies of Satan in the first three chapters. Within the first three chapters, we're given the explicit lies of Satan. And it would do us well to rehearse those lies over and over and over. So that if you know what the lie is, you'll know when you hear it. And if we know what the truth is, we'll know when we hear a lie. I encourage you today to stop dialoguing with Satan and start praying to God. Thank you for joining us today on Seeking Approval. You know our faith oftentimes grows in quiet places. I hope today's conversation gave you something worth carrying throughout the rest of this day. And join me, Dr. Chris Smelser, again next time as we continue thinking, learning, and walking together. Until then, grace and peace to you from Seeking Approval at Gilead Baptist Church.